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Nov 5, 2012|
w/ Schopp + Bulldog
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Automatically Generated Transcript (may not be 100% accurate)
-- might JD power & Associates. Buffalo Bills football Monday here every week on WGR. Week nine in the books bills all the Texans. Stevie Johnson joins us now for his weekly conversation -- hi -- It. -- you feel first thing. Fires are the Oscars record. You know old. Gordon ordered -- Like we we could that we could be. Where -- repeat the street. And well what we want our news. It was. Well you said during the week you thought you could beat their defense Abaxis probably what you're. At least partly referring to now. On -- says this is get to enemy do you feel like there were chances to do that that weren't taken advantage of for one reason or another. Yeah definitely I think early -- early -- we. We we did we do -- -- -- a dollar and we didn't do your air are we sure are. You know minor things like her movies. You know. -- -- -- play here or there we got a cure we got -- curator and entered their daughter in doubt the difference with the carry anybody's face court that there. Electric bill goes in there about the cost. Did you feel all like. I mean either one of the situations that you've got the pupils at the end of the second quarter there. One was a fourth in one or maybe fourth and two at the four yard line and then the other one there was time left. I'm a second -- play the YouTube maybe could have tried some kind of a fade route or something that. That -- -- -- you -- low wrist to have the clock run out idea but still get a chance to get in the end zone. With their frustration from the players. All over the way that all people that. Yeah definitely we had we got a place -- a aware of it would be your your linebackers in the I would work -- seven are a lot of whatever. Yeah if we jump off sides noted that past Sudbury appear to be here so our backer. Well you know we have got an outsider's -- back to elect as well we're fortunate you know whatever. They have now now they come out they saved their lives and got the rest of fallout. There you go to our effort to build although it fell out or that -- -- the difference there if their order is wondering whether -- not so. We go to adequate. Open -- to a couple locally. You know you probably don't need me to tell you this but as someone like bulldogs that talks to the fans all the time really what the fans wanna see is the attempt. Right like you're down inside the -- on the second field goal for a halftime you're at the seven yard line. The fans want at least -- to walk away thinking that you've. He took a shot in you know you're that number one receiver on the team a lot of people would probably say -- to Stevie Johnson no matter what. You know there I I don't like the thought of putting words in your mouth here but there's just got to be some frustration with wide receivers if that anybody on a team where. You know you're you're an underdog and game. And my goodness you have to go for it here. Here we do we are we off but got frustrated don't doubt about it you know still we still frustrations -- the says you know. -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- into what don't want whatever it is scary that -- or what do I do what do. -- way Florida -- without disputed behavior where of course record by a certain little careless. And go what about you -- -- epic they go that somebody do. Of course you have got all the while -- fortunately nobody bit. About computer where it looked big on the field. Just routes -- we got Lucy and PPP led start -- I'm not don't have the power but our doctors say subject a -- -- a lot about Eric if they made it to go like that -- -- both as well. And they if there are. Or much below or the other bit of that it be a little bit better so we will see what your lap chart of the week. How much have you been in. Consciously you looked really -- walk in the line with regard to that Stevie I mean you had the run ins with their coach last year. Over the penalties. And a mortar and if you -- dole. Like you should and shouldn't be EU do we in this year's as a as someone trying to lead or affect any kind of change. -- a little bit but I think if -- work. Coach will be -- big. It's maybe see you you big Serb side they allow water and all the old out of the picture there are. It may hurt you know. We don't we don't read. Put your route to other Bob we'd be here is -- you're at your other well no no authority as well. If that played or India or you're just there. Okay it doesn't work you know about the big topic -- boot order at your whatever but most of our puppet of the workforce so. You know it why not why not try though. What you were on my advice call me because I'll give you a strong opinion what I think you should go to items don't really wanna do it right now bottom look. Just got to ask you this too with regard all that you know you're into November. That your -- eight games in nine weeks and you guys started in July go to think maybe that the time has passed for. Ironing out communication issues like these. I'm at that they are the that we you know ultimately. There's got to commuters got builder that we hear people say. And alum you know must there are cases they you got -- ultimately -- And everyone got involved. We have to do. Are also you know we got -- Ochoa has as one a week. Throughout the week barely -- would be playing well and we employer. Also or or off real well and he is also got to put everything together you know and he's cocky market where buy dot org dark -- -- that. And it's got to make make -- quite a bit because. -- a lot of good criticism. Pointed at yesterday's game particularly is with regard to. Not getting the ball to the Fred Jackson CJ Spiller much at all in the running game in the second half. And I'm wonderment -- everyone who's involved on the office from daily through that Patrick has been asked about. You know what Houston was doing office a little panel books you were giving -- just how surprising. What they were doing was if at all and -- I guess we'd like to hear your comment. -- -- -- -- -- it -- do what we read all around -- the first. It was it worked out the very remote bomb and we got we got some dark about -- -- -- -- -- -- -- great -- -- -- And I am an -- we have the board barrel on what you are because. If like OK now out there. You know far far away you're put up points went oh -- there you know there are so. You know what they've read I figured you know quick credit -- -- -- -- Where these days. And they go that route you know whether it. You know or little deal -- could -- -- -- -- Based dvd -- do you think the team is still together. And I'm not coming apart at all. I hear nothing a lot of doubt a lot although it. The pardon right now they're still asserted that there -- also I would offer start you know vote curse goes. -- the word and then it is no one. That you can use your computer got a lot of flawed and did not happen this the bailout could look like tablets where you -- that would have got no doubt about that. You know and we we have got -- -- -- -- -- -- and heroin until we got to -- a -- if you -- -- there's no. Well well bill we still live very well on the -- got that nobody got prepared. Should be what -- -- Kamal argue that especially when you do that. Stevie Johnson with -- us here. Today and every Monday after the games on WGR. You know it's it's I ask you about the fifteen minutes togetherness at this point. We'll get baby back to yesterday but what what can you tell us from the inside about. About what's going on lately and really all season with Mario Williams. There's been a lot of talk about him obviously. We've got this. -- this mysterious wrist injury injury even today Chan Gailey is saying I don't know about any torn ligament you know let's. Dramatic sidebar to this season here but do you feel that ultimately gets -- one ask you do you feel that. Williams is the extent that he needs to be one of the guys yeah. I mean is that a lot of the a lot of pressure on him and -- -- you can -- first -- -- the first few -- before and -- -- -- called and they -- both. Target for that -- He I think I think you'd do you mull over the parliament in -- he'll be backed up trouble or. I don't know about but the risk injury to the got the surgery. What you know say he says his poem is so low water -- Let me show these shows are -- -- you'll be is the real world -- -- player -- You know there's a patient -- Is he. A like is he one of them is -- a good teammate is he a guy that. You know a lot of teammates enough teammates are close to do you feel like you know him very well at this point. Yes vote for the most part you are actually our case but he is like like Freddy your fairway out -- -- vertical our -- Belcher especially what are your. Vote would be your first year here are you never Lugar -- To a locker room though you'd be open -- -- -- lovely -- you need to get -- if not update you know we do better as the year of the year ago lot. I would guess every guys differently Powell bomb from your experience is guys do change of him your reference spread in fits of course you guys have been together. You know since you -- got here but every year there's different guys like is -- gives -- some guys just immediately you gel with -- as soon as they get here. Do do you gel with some guys right away or does it always takes some time for a guy like. Are you happier I -- an -- there's not situation you know. Here and everybody will click ordered by the luckily we all go to the buses. Rome is yields. -- all lives you know they'll say it also thought that they are. You know he's been doing Google you're better off. Stevie how about your leg yesterday how -- -- heard it and what did it mean to you were the rest of the game. -- They knew it was either. Can turn yellow and also I wouldn't. Among them are not -- slipped and then the guy I'm about that is when you need and a very much. In you know there always ma 00 energy -- -- -- down there you know you lose. -- -- Drop in our game and you are in they are really could easily could you can go back out there run on the but you're not a war -- so if -- I'll be I'll be back I'll be ready yet. What's your plan for this week what are called was -- not said ideally may -- Stevie doesn't practice Wednesday right what you should be OK for the weekend as your coach says you know all of us here a couple of yeah are you aware of the fact that you're going to be -- this weekend are correct me at all. You figure I'll let you rather of play you Lipitor or -- well. You live with structure and outlook where they come back a little bit Thursday Friday. Important. You know we get we had to begin a lot of. You you are not one who it seems to be really from just talking to you this couple years now -- just watching you play. Who wants to come out of the game so for you to come out of the game yesterday and probably took some doing -- I think. You're did that it's definitely very. As far in the locker room one down rebelled passionate -- Are elevated what I needed to he is stressing me out that low draw it to me that all of our allies in the Kosovo we wouldn't do wasn't wasn't working so. -- -- -- You know I'm thinking back to -- earlier I was joking -- -- saying call me if you want advice about how to like. Handle getting a message across your quarterback your coach but it's gonna say it is gonna say it and see if you react to it. That there's a part of me I'm always likely that sort of defend a coach who seized the boss and in our. Our worlds as employees like we never make more money -- the boss and that's discount of that. The pecking order I'm used to but. Meant Stevie isn't a party that just gonna want to go off. And thanks you know do you really think to yourself you could -- missing you do ever but you can think yourself I don't break these people. I'm. Here for longer maybe you know I'm I'm a star thing like that you them. Of the other on on -- -- up to about the person or player groups could you vote would go to the globe -- I tell you lob over. I literally you're not marked as Marcos in the daily. Whatever what are reshape yourself on the cooler recall move runners on the matter no matter what you pay more in that particular if you be here next year note. Does not not a award -- I'll -- out like all of off from in the locker room and all of -- The amid a got a lovely you know and I'll I'll talk -- -- many players you'll fare -- book. I'm it would not at all auto deliberately moving -- pictures could you know brokered fed up with the army you have reviewed by blockade to -- will vote. A bottle bill where you won't -- You know what what I hear what their real. He could but I'm on the other. Not the person to go -- my blood my -- you -- to a virtual. -- I know we talked a couple of weeks ago and you just kind of reminded me of it by Zain you know the -- at somebody or or whatever. How to -- choice after the 49ers game stood up and and and addressed the team. In the room. Has there been after a game like yesterday I mean our our guys among -- much you can reveal here. Is there anger in there are there guys yelled at one another or is it just sort of you know kind of an acceptance. This truck that wrote this frustrate you know we want to blow our own -- you know -- and everything. Board you know nobody. Directly. You know provide direct -- -- like you're going to Europe that you dude you know until recently nobody ever done that yet. But as far as getting the message out there and put in the air let me the most been out there. What but just emotional period. Are there are clearly they are everything right now -- -- home. I hope that the -- -- for political and then there would we're. Without you know there are valued in -- live law you -- -- -- because well. You know where that -- we've still got up -- the season ago and it is because they won't believe what we did it all Logan who goes will be will be fun of that oil couldn't shoot. -- -- -- Before you go here's -- time you you were in London last week like during the -- I -- that'll go down. -- little -- you know is that they would would come -- -- -- so there's. -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- Whereas now we know each other -- a mirror and bring them in the NFL and other civilian and bill affirmative. You go to. The game of the patient game and influential result there. Triggered -- -- you want producing news and just the bigger the vehicle market -- there's sort of well -- and if so you're. Stevie last thing on New England mean you've read. Some results against them and the end of last year the offenses had you know three at least respectable gains. In a role against New England albeit -- were losses. What what's your attitude about. Going in there the me I think for fans we -- -- -- the bills win there since twelve years ago today. -- it's obviously been a long time but I'm guessing -- not like intimidated by them. No wind we've -- got there we are similar about -- but they bought this does lead group will dissipate as it was a live up finishing. We've been able to -- a total war. He's got a terrific yeah we we get that purple quarter then it is operated -- had come about with. Eight income those those of who we got a little bit yeah. There will be okay what do we know bill ought to be low blood or work. No advocate that we got an estimate how it is and you know well we go to. All right Stevie thanks for your time any questions for us today look -- -- you're done all right talk to next week or -- Stevie Johnson. I'm looking up a bunch of old games.


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the fat lady has sung
the deadline has passed
Curt has counted the votes for the Last Stand and totted up everyone's final points
this year's Challenge is finally over*
*apart from the various votes for favourite entries
I'll be doing a full review of my Challenge this year on Sunday, but tonight ans tomorrow I am posting my final entry and my final final entry for your pleasure
My final entry** was a bunch of 24 Mongol light horsemen and a Mongol command stand of 3 figures. These were 15mm figures from Donnington Miniatures and netted me 108 points. These will be the start of a useful addition to my Korean army as they can be fielded as either an allied contingent or as mercenaries/auxiliaries as part of the main list. I'll also be painting up some light foot bowmen and some heavy cavalry.
So, here are the pics
** as in "these are probably my final entry" but which turned out not to be
Light Horse
Command Group

subset: commoncrawl


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On Tuesday I provided some eye-popping comparisons on one Iraq survey fielded by D3/KA against another Iraq survey fielded by another company at exactly the same time. In light of this evidence any reasonable person has to agree that the D3/KA data are fabricated. Nevertheless, today I give you a different window into the same D3/KA survey.
Recall that one of the main markers of fabrication in these surveys is that the respondents to what I'm calling the "focal supervisors" have too many "empty categories". A response category is "empty" for a group of supervisors if it is offered as a possible choice but zero respondents actually chose it. For example, in Part I to this series we saw that for all public services zero respondents for the focal supervisors said that the service was "unavailable" or that availability was "very good". These are, therefore, both empty categories for the focal supervisors.
Langer Research Associates tried to rationalize all the empties for the focal supervisors by arguing that other supervisors also have empties. Langer Associates also argued that Steve Koczela and I were unfair to compare the group of focal supervisors with the group of all the other supervisors. This is because the number of empties should be decreasing in the total number of interviews and the all-others group did more interviews than the focal group did. Langer does have a point on this which I addressed in this post. Here I follow up with a couple of pictures based on the same D3/KA survey discussed on Tuesday.
Each picture takes a bunch of different combinations of supervisors and for each combination plots the number of empties against the number of interviews. The first plot graphs the data on 100 combinations of three supervisors plus the focals. The second plot graphs the data on 100 combinations of four supervisors plus the focals.
You can see that:
1, The number of empties is, indeed, decreasing in the number of interviews.
2. Even after adjusting for this fact the focal supervisors still have overwhelmingly more empties than they should have, given the number of interviews they have conducted.


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I promise no one is going to try to stop you wearing trousers or chic knee length dresses but the early adopters are already in their longer length skirts and culottes. So, its time to give this new proportion a go. A flared, full and A line cut works wonders for suggesting a wasp waist. The combination of a tucked in sweater or shirt looks just right.
I am usually not that keen on retro but I have just seen the 70s film Klute with the delicious Jane Fonda wearing the greatest mid calf skirts and skinny rib tops and this made me pine for a long skirt.
I suggest wearing them with flat boots now and later with flat pumps or high heels. Winser London has a soft wide pair of culottes arriving in March and a cotton poplin longer length full skirt.
Style Agenda by Vanessa de Lisle - www.thefashioncupboard.com


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Echinacea purpurea is the butterflies' favorite plant in the garden this week
The echinaceas are one of the biggest butterfly draws right now, though I just stepped outside to turn off some water I had running and saw a silver-spotted skipper visiting the early heathers and lime thyme. The one photographed below was very intent on the echinacea, though.
The most cooperative pollinator was this one. I believe it's a female Leto fritillary. The first picture is actually from another day, but shows the upper wings better than any I took this week.
Leto fritillary and the anonymous brown skipper, drinking contentedly from the coneflowers.
I didn't see the bumblebee when I took this photo, but it turned out to be a great shot of a bumblebee in flight with the Leto fritillary continuing to sip from the echinacea. Even if I moved in close and scared it away, it came right back. No one was going to keep this butterfly from enjoying its meal, except maybe a hungry bird. Was that a shadow overhead just now?... Just kidding!
This might sound strange, but I'm actually not a huge fan of echinacea myself. They're pink and they're daisies, two strikes against them in my view (which I'll admit to being completely arbitrary and abnormal). But in the old days (which ended about a month ago), when voracious deer made me desperate to try anything, I got these echinacea for cheap from my college horticulture club. I have three varieties: 'Magnus', Primadonna Deep Rose, and Powwow Wildberry. At least the first one has a real, sensible cultivar name. The second and third are trademark names, Primadonna and Powwow, followed by an individual marketing name, Deep Rose and Wildberry. The true cultivar name of Powwow Wildberry is the alluring 'Pas702917', but who would buy Echinacea purpurea 'Pas702917'? And who wants to make the effort to think up a cultivar name that is an actual word when you can slap a number on it and hire marketing specialists to come up with a trade name that you can recycle with another plant once the patent on the first plant expires? (Don't mind the crazy person ranting about trade names. He rents some space in my head and gets a bit ornery and unhinged when he hears words like "registered trademark" in the context of plant names. You'll hear him from time to time knocking about upstairs. He's mostly harmless.)
While I'm not a huge fan, I don't hate them either, and the bees and butterflies love them so much that I just don't think I can ever justify getting rid of them. Well, except maybe Primadonna Deep Rose. It really doesn't perform as well as the other two.
Powwow Wildberry is a fraction of the size! Again, take note of the grey label, which is the same size as the one in the previous picture. This echinacea is suitable for the front of the border or any small area with full sun where you don't want big old Magnus blocking the view.
Here's a flower of 'Magnus' on the right with Powwow Wildberry on the left for comparison. The flowers of the latter are only about two thirds the size of the former, and the petals are more reflexed making them point down. The color of Powwow is also a little bit deeper than 'Magnus'.
The specs on Echinacea purpurea:
- Hardy in USDA zones 3-8
- Height 2-3 feet (Powwow Wildberry is only a little over 1 foot tall)
- Blooms June to August (end of June in my garden this year, usually not until July though)
- Full sun to part shade


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After more work than I'd've liked, the site is running on the latest and greatest version of Joomla, having been upgraded from a shamefully old version of Mambo. So we're good for another few years, at least. There are still problems - the forums are lost, and will need recovering, but there are also pockets of good news. I believe (some verification could be done here) that it will now be possible for registered members to post articles, and to maintain their own picture galleries. I also think it will be possible to have several people involved in administration, so that things don't necessarily need to pile up like they have been. So hopefully things are good!
Let me know (Through the contact link, or by email if we've already been in touch) what you think, and if you'd like me to change anything. I'm intending to give each of you access to maintain your own picture galleries over the next couple of days, but if I fail to do so and you'd like access, let me know.
I'll be working on the forums over the next few days - but to be honest it may take me more than this week, after which I'll be on vacation - so it may be sometime in September before they're back online. I could put up a new one easily - but I don't want to lose what we've already built up, so I hope you don't mind being patient while I convert the old ones over.
Thanks, and enjoy,
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The 'P' in NPROctober 24th, 2015Miscellaneous
The podcast Radio Diaries recently featured an insightful interview with Bill Siemering, one of the founders of National Public Radio. In it, they discuss the original NPR mission statement written in 1969; the document outlined their vision for non-commercial radio that would bring context, culture and humanity to the news.
Mr. Siemering read a short excerpt from the mission statement on the podcast, and I was moved by how sincere and optimistic it was. I have always enjoyed NPR, and knowing the lofty ideals behind its founding only deepens my appreciation. As a media creator, their statement articulates the kind of values that I aspire to express in my own work. In fact, I was so impressed and inspired that I wanted to share some brief quotes from it here (courtesy of the transcription by Transom.org).
National Public Radio will serve the individual, it will promote personal growth, it will regard the individual differences with respect and joy, rather than derision and hate. It will celebrate the human experience as infinitely varied, rather than vacuous and banal. It will encourage a sense of active, constructive participation, rather than apathetic helplessness.
The total service should be trustworthy, enhance intellectual development, expand knowledge, deepen aural aesthetic enjoyment, increase the pleasure of living in a pluralistic society, and result in a service to listeners which makes them more responsive, informed human beings and intelligent, responsible citizens of their communities and the world.
It would speak with many voices and many dialects. The editorial attitude would be that of inquiry, curiosity, concern for the quality of life, critical problem solving, and life loving. The listener should come to rely upon it as a source of information of consequence, of having listened as having made a difference in his attitude toward his environment and himself.
National Public Radio will not regard its audience as a market, or in terms of its disposable income, but as curious, complex individuals who are looking for some understanding, meaning, and joy in the human experience.
I've highlighted a few sections that I thought were particularly eloquent. You can read NPR's entire original mission statement here.
To relate this to my own work, I wonder how a video game could "celebrate the human experience as infinitely varied". How can we engage our players as "curious, complex individuals" with "a sense of active, constructive participation"? I don't have any clear answers, but I'll aspire to keep such objectives at the heart of my creative work.


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'The Cameras We Bring': Every Camera We Use, We Use As An Extension Of Who We Are
Part documentary, part story, Fidelity Format's 'The Cameras We Bring,' is 3 minutes of photography romance, with a dose of sentimentality. For every one of us who have had a camera passed down to us, or have formed some other real attachment to a piece of equipment, Valeriie Lin, and this video, speaks to us. We tend to purchase and carry particular cameras not arbitrarily, but with keen specificity.
The choice can be based in prejudice and be very personal, but usually not capricious. However, the cameras we keep with us most, tend to be there for the capricious moments in our lives and we can love them all the more for it. The description of the video, perhaps is one of the most brilliant expressions of what a camera is, and does.
The photos we take are an expression of what we're looking for, not necessarily what we're looking at. Every camera we use, we use as an extension of who we are.
This Fidelity Format does a really fine job of capturing the introspective, personal side of photography. Lin, addressed well, some of the reasons we choose the gear we choose, and how we choose to use them. The camera itself, for all the talk we like to make about how the gear is not important, does have an element of importance as without it we couldn't do what we do. It can be incredibly personal. It's partially I think, why we tend to just keep our old cameras and not get rid of them, and why a loss or destruction of one is particularly painful
[REWIND: The Pain & Rewards Of Large Format Photography Shown In This Elegant Video]
Normally, with objects of utility, if something goes wrong with it we generally care from the perspective of the human element. For example, when a plane goes down, we mourn for the souls on board and not the airframe itself. There are occasions though when these objects become a bit more than just machines.
To follow along with the theme here, we can look at Concorde as one such example. When Concorde crashed at Charles de Gaulle in 2000, we mourned for the people, but many also mourned for the loss of the machine. Why? Because Concorde represented something human – an achievement for mankind. Cameras, albeit in a less grandiose scale, can have a similar quality, as they represent something human as well. It could be a memory, a time, an experience, or simply they can act as an anchor to any of those things. I have an old camera which took the first photos of me as a child, and if my house was to burn down, it's one of the things I would miss the most, even though I hardly use it.
What camera do you have that means the most to you?
Source: PetaPixel, (Images are screen captures from video)


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Courage: mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty
Encourage: to make (someone) more determined, hopeful, or confident
This is a story of more courage.
{It tells about my empty spaces, where I found I had none, and how Courage came through the cracks of brokenness.}
I never felt my vulnerability more than when I was pregnant with our daughter, Isabella. Except of course, when I was pregnant with our daughter, Annalia. Eight years separated these sisters and a brother in between, and although every pregnancy seemed to rub raw the edges of my confidence, something happened before my daughters that caused me to wrap arms around my soul to keep the badness away.
Each daughter's birth was preceded by miscarriage. When Angelo and I discovered we were expecting our first, we were young, just married a few years and thoroughly unprepared for parenthood. Debt and low-income jobs seemed to tag-team our finances for the first several years of our marriage. That double-sided sword cut us low and deep. There were times our disillusionment with adulthood and each other tempted us to run away from one another. Yet, somehow, when the pink line appeared, we embraced and faced the possibility of parenthood undeterred. Ah, youth!
Then, on a cold November day, the red streaks appeared. Naïve, I consulted the "expecting" books and realized it could be nothing, just my uterus adapting to hosting a little bundle of cells. Or, it could be something worse.
The doctor ordered an ultrasound and the tech breathed silently in a silent room. Nothing detectable, so she showed me a wand and said, "It's so early, we'll have to go close to the uterus to find what we're looking for." They never found it. No heartbeat. Huddled in the doctor's office, we listened to the doctor succinctly report the test results. He called it a Spontaneous Abortion. I recoiled at the words. How dare this happen? He sent me home to pass the tissues and warned there may be cramping.
The next night the pain rushed so severe that breathing was difficult. Nauseous, I lay sprawled between our rental home's toilet and tub and lay my face against the cold porcelain tub, hot tears running. Angelo was in a panic, phoning the doctor on call who advised him to make me dry toast. Dry toast? One bite and I shook my head. We'd have to go to the emergency room.
There, I began to fill out the paperwork, excused myself to use the restroom, and there, in the ER public toilet, passed the once-living-now-dead tissue that was supposed to be a baby right out. And what do you do then? Flush it? Report it? Dig it out with a paper towel? And old me wishes I were there to tell younger, twenty-four-year-old me, that really, this sucks. But that it's going to be okay. I want to hug her and give her courage. Defeated, I flushed the toilet and whispered goodbye in the tile-wrapped sterile cube.
I murmured what had happened to Angelo and he told the triage nurse. I had to stay—for hours—until the doctor could exam my uterus and make sure the release was clean, that there was, indeed, nothing left. North winds scraped against us and we drove home in tearless silence. Exhausted, we readied for bed. Angelo discovered he was head-to-toe hives. We found the Benedryl and he fell asleep for twelve hours. The stress of his ineptitude to fix the situation had found its way to the surface in prickly, heated bumps. I showered, cried, sighed a lot and crawled into bed, pulling my Bible under the covers.
I knew miscarriage was not a word found in the Bible. I knew that one in four pregnancies end in miscarriage, that there probably wasn't anything wrong with me, that one day I'd hold my own, pink miracle wrapped in living, beautiful flesh. One day. I knew the logic, the reasoning that I could utilize to get me through through this despair. I am Alyssa. My name means sane, logical. I am.
But I was empty. In so many definitions of the word, so many shades of connotation, I was empty: hollow, cauterized, a vacuum. A hollow wind scraped the sides of my soul and fear pelted like acid on the raw places. And I turned to the Psalms. Because where else does a young woman turn when the womb is empty and the night is dark and long and sleep won't come? I don't remember now what I read – it's been 20 years now. But I remember finding enough courage to rest. I fell asleep with the Bible laid across my belly, soaking into the deepest parts of me.
And God gifted me that night with the level dose of encouragement to make it to the next moment. There was no rushing, gushing overdose of peace, no spoken word into the darkness to call me to Him. What He gave me was just a level dosage of his mercy that reached into my little house and my little heart and my hurting womb and gave me grace for that moment.
He enlarged my faith through the emptying of my womb. In the weeks following, I railed and raged and mourned and tried on despondency. It was Christmastime and the tree we'd cut down in the forest dropped a million needles and a few days before Christmas eve, I yanked off the ornaments and jerked the lines of twinkle lights and hurled that dead tree right out into the front yard and yelled at God something ridiculous like, "I can't even keep a dead Christmas tree alive. Why should I want a baby?!"
I had my ugly moments, but God's word was nearby and like the parched soul that I was, I kept drinking it in. Finding grace, finding my ever-present help in my time of need. Finding just enough courage.
I can see now, with the aid of hindsight, that God was helping me stand in faith. Faith seeped through the cracks of the broken places in my world and strengthened me. God allows loneliness and suffering and loss because He allows us to choose. This amazing gift of choice broke our perfect world, but God's grace reaches beyond the sin and suffering anyway and perfects our faith. When we choose to turn to Him, He builds and heals and pours His love into us, that we might keep seeking Him beyond the imperfection that frames our experiences. He remodels and redefines us through mending our broken places with His encouragement that is His Word.
We can live broken or scarred or limping because He gives us just what we need. This, friends, is victory. It mayn't look pretty, sometimes we're the bloodied boxer in ring who battled out round after round and by heaven's miracle remained standing. But the thing is: we remain standing.
This is the grace he began in me those many years ago, alone in my grief. It was just the beginning, just enough. Life would, as it does, continue to pummel me. There would be other losses, other catastrophes, other real and throbbing physical pain.
There would be the night I stared into the eyes of the First Responder in the back of a medical helicopter to search for an answer to the question posed on fragile breath: Am I going to die?
There would be the long night in ICU days later, after I was able to breathe without life support, when the pain rushed full through the curtain of morphine.
Hour after hour I longed for relief. Yes, I was alive, but every cell pulsed in pain.
My thoughts stumbled around in the medicated fog, but I held onto the name of Hope that had found me so many nights ago in that Word splayed across my flattened womb that brought me grace upon grace and just enough courage to rest.
Psalm 119:28
My soul is weary with sorrow; strengthen me according to your word.
linked up with these storytellers, with Lyli and also with Emily (would you say a prayer for her –she's traveling to Africa! to do art with children and see God's bigness there)


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I am involved with the youth group at church. Each year the girls take time to welcome the new girls into the program and to rededicate themselves to setting goals, we call this New Beginnings.
After a quick brainstorm we came across a few princess themed skits and things started to evolve. Unfortunately I was unable to attend as soldier boy is away-tending four kids and trying to encourage a peaceful spiritual feeling is next to impossible with my herd! BUT I was able to contribute!
We wanted each of the girls to walk away feeling like a pretty princess.
My job was to create sashes for each girl to wear like Miss America.
What I used
2" wide ribbon
glitter glue pens
your favorite font to fit printed out as a template
(I used Curlz at 230)
Because it was 10pm by the time I finally got around to starting this project I decided to just print it out with a space between each letter when I typed it rather than try to figure out how to make it print up and down, then I cut each letter out and taped to the table.
I then taped the ribbon over top of the template were I wanted the texted to be (about 10-12" from the end) and I started to trace with my glitter pens in each of the value colors.
Towards the end I was running low on glitter and had to find a way to get every last bit of glitter out of my pen. Gotta love Twix-it clips!
Here they are all laid out to dry. The perfect accessory for every runway princess!
My daughter is super excited to pick through the leftovers at church tomorrow and take one home for herself!


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Volant PowerCore Cool Air Intake Kit
Volant Air Filter Box: Our Cross-Link polyethylene box is engineered toeach specific application for low restriction and an increase in air volume. It insulates and protects the filter from engine heat, moisture, dust and debris to provide colder air to the engine for an increase in horsepower.
Volant Air Duct: Factory air inlet ducts use sound baffles and awkward bends which restrict flow. Our Cross-Link polyethylene air ducts are sculptured to give the engine less restrictive breathing. Incorporating larger diameters and unique bends, that can't be duplicated with metal ducts, allow for maximum airflow velocity and throttle response.
NEW Volant Filters with PowerCore® Filtration Technology: This air filter is the most revolutionary on the market. Manufactured by Donaldson® to Volant's applications, this filter uses advanced technology for improved efficiency. This material is a high-quality synthetic, that won't deteriorate as easily as traditional paper element and cotton/gauze filter media, while also providing vastly improved filtration up to 99.97%. In addition, it's water resistant and never needs oiling. PowerCore Filtration Technology works by directing air into the front of the filter, where it is channeled into its fluted design. The channels are alternately sealed, allowing air to enter through an open flute and forcing it to exit out an adjacent flute. This allows the air to be filtered in one pass through the filter media with less restriction, allowing clean air to enter your engine for increased airflow and higher filtration efficiency. This technology allows the filter to include a 4 year or 100,000 miles warranty when used in urban conditions.
Volant offers Polished Aluminum or Carbon Fiber Look lids. (Some of our older applications and low production intake kits have the carbon fiber look lid.)
High Performance Silicon Connectors: Our silicone hose connectors provide flexibility while maintaining strength and thermal stability. They won't crack or deform over time like rubber connectors.
Stainless Steel Clamps: We only use marine-grade, stainless steel clamps that provide optimal performance to provide a solid seal that won't loosen or deteriorate.
Total Automotive Performance is a Real Motor Works LLC company and has been known for years as Total Automotive Performance Parts, the internet sales leader in high performance automotive parts and accessories. Our success is bringing customers the best value and purchase experience. Whether you have a car or truck, online car parts and accessories is our business.


text:
Fortitude (1970)
Jan 01, 1970 42:14 min Watch Trailer
overview : Fortitude is a place like nowhere else. Although surrounded by the savage beauty of the Arctic landscape, Fortitude is one of the safest towns on earth. There has never been a violent crime here. Until now. In such a close-knit community a murder touches everyone and the unsettling, mysterious horror of this crime threatens the future of the town itself.
Genres : Crime, Drama, Mystery, Sci-Fi & Fantasy
Tags : governor, police, arctic, murder, science
Networks : Sky Atlantic
Sienna GuilloryNatalie Yelburton
Mia Nielsen-JexenOfficer Ingrid Witry
Richard DormerDan Anderssen
Sofie GråbølGovernor Odegard
Verónica EcheguiElena Ledesma
Luke TreadawayVincent Rattrey
Darren BoydMarkus Huseklepp
Björn Hlynur HaraldssonOfficer Eric Odegard
Alexandra MoenOfficer Petra Bergen


text:
Graphical Contingency Analysis Tool
Power grid operation is an extremely challenging task due to its complex structures, complex data and information technology systems, as well as its highly dynamic and nonlinear behaviors. Because of the complex nature of the electricity infrastructure, large amounts of data and information have to be processed to gain adequate situational awareness and the ability to adapt to emergency situations. Managing this complexity is emerging as a critical issue in power grid operation.
Today's Challenge
In today's practice, power grid operation is mainly experience-based. Operators must rely largely on their experience, with very limited real-time support of situational awareness and decision making. Lack of situational awareness tool often results in the inability to anticipate, recognize, and respond to adverse situations. Thus, there is a technical gap between large amount of data and the actionable information.
Click for larger image. Actual screen shots of the GCA tool: Contingencies are ranked on the left side of the display and the worst contingency is shown graphically on the right side, with colors indicating extent and severity of violations.
Click for larger image. Actual screen shots of the GCA tool: Operator actions are assessed and ranked to provide guidance to operators on most effective actions. Multiple tabs across the top of the display are ordered from best to worst outcomes to aid decision-making process.
Click for larger image. Power grid operators run simulations with the Graphical Contingency Analysis tool at PNNL's Electricity Infrastructure Operations Center.
Graphic Contingency Analysis (GCA) Tool
In order to overcome the gap, graphic contingency analysis (GCA) tool has been developed in Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) to provide effective decision making support to operators. The main GCA features are:
- Provides intuitive graphical representation, allowing faster and more accurate identification of potential problems.
- Ranks contingencies to focus the operator/planner's attention on the most severe one and to prioritize preventative actions, adding meanings to the results of contingency analysis for an operator or analyst.
- Interactively assesses alterative actions in terms of what will happen if each action is taken, providing more-informed decision making in an actual event.
The GCA tool has been evaluated by real power grid operators in Electricity Infrastructure Operations Center (EIOC) and received very good feedback. Some grid operators expressed strong interest in obtaining the Graphical Contingency Analysis tool for use in their control centers.


text:
My DGSPC
My DGSPC helps you in your search for your next home. It stores properties you're interested in, notifies you of changes to their status and allows you to set up property alerts which will tell you when a new property of interest comes onto our books.
To register, all you need to do is supply us with your email address. We won't disclose it to anyone else, and will only use it to send you notifications you've given us permission to.
So, if you'd like to register, click here.


text:
Recently, a friend of mine sent me a video in which kids of this new generation react to a Game Boy, and I suddenly realized how dated that system is. Technological advancements aside, even the name Game Boy isn't really around anymore – granted, if I can remove my nostalgia blinders for a second to be realistic I can understand that the name is sexist and discouraging women from playing (and let's face it, the Game Girl was poorly executed and very much the gaming equivalent of two drinking fountains in the 60s). But all this aside, the Game Boy produced some solid games that I have yet to truly cover, and Tumblepop is something that has more or less become a cult classic without me ever learning its name until just a week ago.
Originally, I had planned this to be for my other column, Late To The Game, but I found that the more interesting discussion was retrospective on how the game was built rather than just calling the game good or bad and describing the experience of playing. Everything about the experience just reminded me of joys – and frustrations – of games that don't really exist anymore.
It's a sign of the times that this game makes virtually no sense without the accompanying backstory that originated in the instruction manual, a trope that doesn't exist these days because nobody ever reads the manual anymore. Not even the title gave me a clue what was going on; before looking it up, all I could tell was that this game was about taking plants, animals, and balls of fire and sucking them into a vacuum. I would later learn that the game revolves around a team of ghost-busters, and that the player was traveling to places such as Moscow, Egypt, Paris, New York City, Antarctica, and space. Granted, this was extremely apparent in the arcade version.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the instruction manual backstory filled in gaps where limited hardware could not – and while advancements in technology have made this largely obsolete, there's a certain imagination factor that was cost with the characters developing on their own. Sure, the player interprets the scenes as he or she desires, but it is a lot more inherent and author-driven in terms of what we should think of a given character. Of course, this would also come at the cost of not getting much character development as the game progressed, which is an inherently valuable part of creating a plot that can move the player.
Another big part of culture that is sort of lost on new generations, which you can almost see in the Game Boy Tumblepop, is the inevitable comparison to the arcade. The same way many people will watch movies and whisper to their friends, "The book was better," gamers of the late 80s and early 90s would frequently compare how a video game translated from the arcade to a home port, be it console or handheld. In those days, one of the highest compliments you could give a game was that it was just like the arcade version.
Of course, given the arcade genre was still more active and trying to incentivize players to return and spend money rather than play indefinitely and frugally at home, and given that hardware of the same caliber as an arcade machine wasn't cheap and reasonable for a home purchase, part of what made this compliment so special was because it was seldom true. If you compare the Game Boy version of Tumblepop to its Arcade version predecessor, you can notice drastic changes. Immersive music is replaced with midis slightly above the catchiness and interval complexity of an ice cream truck jingle, and the colorful backgrounds are replaced with just white screen.
The Game Boy version also varies from the arcade version by utilizing a password system for saving – something that modern gamers are really missing out on. Early 90s kids, before the age of the internet and everyone having cell phones, would predominantly chat through word of mouth, and there were few rushes that truly matched the thrill of running down the street to your friend's house with a notebook in which you've written down a password to a level he or she hadn't seen yet.
Aside from the nostalgia factor, games that used passwords to save had a certain logistical advantage that games don't have today. Let's say, hypothetically, your console breaks or is stolen before a game is finished, and you purchase it again to see it through. Rather than starting from scratch, you could simply pick up your old password and keep going with minimal loss. Modern gamers also experience the occasional frustration of patches rendering saves unusable, along with the occasional frustration of limited data; you typically only get a few saves per game, unless you transfer data via some sort of memory card.
Of course, the common practice of save files no doubt has its own advantages that led to the increase in usage. For example, our favorite RPGs and story based games wouldn't work as well on password systems due to the limited number of variables that could be associated with a given progress. Arcade-era console gaming also gave children the headache that modern gamers won't fully grasp: the spirit-crushing moment where a 20 character password was off by one letter, making the entire transcribing process useless and forcing the player to get back to that point again. Contributing to this issue was the fact that earlier password-based games would have misleading letter combinations, such as a string of Os and 0s together (luckily, in Tumblepop, the letter O is removed from the password entry screen entirely to prevent this issue). Nostalgia occasionally makes me miss password systems, but I think we've traded up overall.
Between the save features, the constantly comparing to the arcade version, and the instruction manual backstory, Tumblepop very accurately encompasses a lot of game culture that is a relic of the past – the very essence of retro gaming. Old games don't just provide us with prequels to our current favorites; they also show us the progression we have made as players, and the varying techniques that have led to where we are now. Each game, whether it was highly acclaimed or a total flop, or a cult classic not appreciated in its time, tells not just its own story but the story of what's working, what's not working, and how developers have fine tuned games overtime in response. I never played Tumblepop in the past, and still find it honestly a little unremarkable now, but I can without a doubt see the role it played on the long timeline of games that led to the here and now.


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|University of California, San Diego
Seal of the University of California, San Diego
|Fiat lux (Latin)
|Motto in English
|Let there be light
Space Grant
Sea Grant
|$673 million[1]
|Marye Anne Fox
|1,057 (Spring 2009)[2]
|23,746 (Spring 2009)[3]
|5,002 (Fall 2008)[4]
|San Diego, California, United States
Coordinates: 32°52′51.6″N 117°14′16.8″W / 32.881°N 117.238°W
|Suburban, 1,200 acres (4.9 km2)
|UCSD Guardian
|Navy Blue and Gold
|King Triton
|Tritons, NCAA Division II
|University of California,
The University of California, San Diego (also known as UCSD or UC San Diego) is a public research university located in La Jolla, San Diego, California.[5] UCSD is one of the ten general campuses of the University of California system and was founded in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Institution of Oceanography.[6] 22,048 undergraduate and 5,073 graduate students enrolled in Fall 2007 and the university awarded 6,802 degrees in 2005/06.[7] The university is organized into six undergraduate colleges and six graduate divisions and offers 125 undergraduate majors, 52 masters degrees, 51 doctoral programs, and four professional degrees.[8]
The university is a designated sea and space grant institution and has a very high level of research activity.[9] The university operates the UC San Diego Medical Center and is affiliated with several regional research centers, such as the Salk Institute, the Burnham Institute for Medical Research, and The Scripps Research Institute. The university employs 7,566 faculty members including eight Nobel Laureates, eight MacArthur fellows, three National Medal of Science laureates, and one Fields medalist. The university was admitted to the Association of American Universities in 1982.[10]
UCSD's 19 intercollegiate sports teams are known as the Tritons and participate in the NCAA's Division II (DII) level in the California Collegiate Athletic Association.
When the Regents of the University of California originally authorized the San Diego campus in 1956, it was planned as first imagined by Roger Revelle, Director of Scripps, to start as a graduate school of science and engineering comparable in quality to Caltech.[11] Citizens of San Diego supported the idea, voting the same year to transfer to the university 59 acres (240,000 m2) of mesa land on the coast near the Scripps Institute. The Regents requested an additional gift of 550 acres (220 ha) of undeveloped mesa land northeast of Scripps, as well as 500 acres (200 ha) on the former site of Camp Matthews, but Revelle jeopardized the site selection by making public La Jolla's exclusive real estate practices antagonistic to minority racial and religious groups, angering local conservatives as well as UC Regent Edwin W. Pauley.[11] UC President Clark Kerr satisfied San Diego city donors by changing the proposed name from University of California, La Jolla, to University of California, San Diego.[11] The city voted in agreement to its part in 1958, and the UC approved construction of the new campus in 1960. Because of the clash with Pauley, Revelle was not made chancellor—Herbert York, first director of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, was designated instead.[11] York worked out the planning of the main campus according to the "Oxbridge" model, relying on many of Revelle's ideas.[12]
UCSD was the first general campus of the UC to be designed "from the top down" in terms of research emphasis. John Jay Hopkins of General Dynamics Corporation donated one million dollars to be used for recruiting a founding faculty.[12][13] Harold Urey, Nobel winner in Chemistry, was an early recruit to the faculty in 1958.[13] (Revelle and Suess published the first paper on the Greenhouse effect the year before.[13]) Maria Goeppert-Mayer was appointed professor of physics in 1960; she later won the Nobel Prize in 1963.[13] The graduate division of the school opened in 1960 with 20 faculty in residence; instruction was offered in the fields of physics, biology, chemistry and earth science. Classes initially met in the Scripps Institute.[12]
By 1963, new facilities on the mesa been finished for the School of Science and Engineering, and new buildings were under construction for Social Sciences and Humanities. Ten additional faculty in those disciplines were hired, and the whole site was designated the First College of the new campus. York resigned as chancellor in 1963 and was replaced by John Semple Galbraith in 1964.[13] The campus accepted its first undergraduate class of 181 freshman in 1964, and was designated Revelle College the next year.[12][14] Second College was also organized in 1964, on the land deeded by the federal government. It was renamed John Muir College in April, 1966.[15] UCSD Medical school also accepted its first students in 1966.[13]
Political theorist Herbert Marcuse joined the faculty in 1965. A champion of the New Left, he reportedly was the first protestor to occupy the administration building in a demonstration organized by his student, Angela Davis.[16] The American Legion offered to buy out the remainder of Marcuse's contract for $20,000; the Regents censured Chancellor McGill for defending Marcuse on the basis of academic freedom, but further action was averted after local leaders expressed support for Marcuse.[13]
Richard C. Atkinson, chancellor from 1980-1995, strengthened UCSD's ties with the city of San Diego by encouraging technology transfer with developing companies, transforming San Diego into a world leader in technology-based industries. Private giving rose from $15 million to nearly $50 million annually, faculty expanded by nearly 50%, and enrollment doubled to about 18,000 students during his chancellorship. In 1995, the quality of UCSD's graduate programs was ranked tenth in the nation by the National Research Council.[17]
UCSD is taking out a $40 million dollar loan against itself to offset $84.2 million in state budget cuts in 2009.[18]
The university's 1,200-acre (490 ha) main campus is located near the Pacific Ocean on 1,200 acres (490 ha) of coastal woodland within the city of San Diego's "University Community" planning area.[19][20] It is a lab for energy innovation.[21]
More than a dozen public art projects, part of the Stuart Collection, decorate the campus. Perhaps the most famous of these is the Sun God, a large winged creature located near the Faculty Club. Other Stuart Collection art includes a collection of Stonehenge-like stone blocks, a large coiling snake path, a building that flashes the names of vices and virtues in bright neon lights, and three metallic Eucalyptus trees, the Music Tree, the Literary Tree and the Third Tree commonly referred to as the Silent Tree. One of the newest additions to the collection is Tim Hawkinson's giant teddy bear made of six boulders located in between the newly constructed Calit2 buildings.[22] Another notable campus sight are the graffiti tunnels of Mandeville Hall, a series of corridors that have been tagged with graffiti by generations of students over decades of use. Students in the university's visual arts department also often create temporary public art installations as part of their coursework. The university is also sponsoring a $56,000 performance art project to develop a sense of community at the sprawling campus.[23]
In 2009, local San Diego artist Mario Torero was invited to create a mural called "Chicano Legacy" based on content suggested by UCSD Chicano students. The mural was unveiled on October 14.[24] The mural is a $10,000 digital image on a 15-by-50-foot (4.6 by 15 m) canvas mounted on the exterior of Peterson Hall. It includes representations of Chicano civil rights leaders Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta as well as the signature kiosk structure at Chicano Park.[25] It was the first mural mounted on a centrally located University-owned building to depict a minority group's history—murals on the side of cooperatively-owned Ché Café have shown minority civil rights leaders since its founding in 1980.[25]
UCSD is one of the ten general campuses of the University of California system which is governed by a publicly-appointed 26-member Board of Regents and administered by a president whose office is located in Oakland, California. Mark Yudof became the 19th president of the University system in June 2008.[26] The board of regents appoint chancellors to serve as the chief administrative officer of each individual general campus. Marye Anne Fox became the seventh chancellor of UCSD in 2004, succeeding Robert C. Dynes who served as President of the UC system from 2003 until 2007.[27] Chancellor Fox's total compensation was $401,091 for 2007–2008.[28] The chancellor has an immediate staff of eight vice chancellors for academic affairs, research, marine sciences, student affairs, planning, external relations, business affairs, and health sciences.[29]
The university operates on an academic quarter system with three primary academic quarters beginning in late September and ending in mid June.[30]
UCSD has at least two distinct endowments; one controlled by the Regents and another controlled by a privately-appointed non-profit corporation called the UC San Diego Foundation.[31] In 2008, the foundation received $121.8 million in support and managed assets worth $520.7 million in total.[32]
In 2007, UCSD became the first university in the western region to top $1 billion in their eight-year fundraising campaign.[33]
The campus's undergraduate population is represented by a formal student government, known as the Associated Students (A.S.).[34] Each college has its own student council as well.[35] The campus's graduate population is represented by the Graduate Student Association (GSA).[36] The Association's membership comprises representatives from each of the graduate departments. The number of representatives is proportional to the number of graduate students within that particular department. Additionally, graduate students who serve as teaching or research assistants are represented by the UC-wide union of Academic Student Employees, UAW Local 2865.
|ARWU World[38]
|ARWU North & Latin America[39]
|Times Higher Education[41]
|USNWR National University[42]
UCSD is a large, primarily residential research university.[9] The university is accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges.[43][44] UCSD granted 5,337 bachelors degrees, 894 masters degrees, 488 doctorate degrees, and 125 medical degrees in 2007-2008.[45]
UCSD's comprehensive doctoral program has high undergraduate degree coexistence as well as professional programs in business, medicine, and pharmacy. UCSD's graduate division and professional schools include the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, School of Medicine, Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies, Jacobs School of Engineering, Rady School of Management, and Skaggs School of Pharmacy. The university offers 52 masters programs, 51 doctoral programs, 4 professional programs, and 11 joint doctoral programs with San Diego State University and other UC campuses.[8] UCSD has noted graduate programs in biological sciences and medicine,[46][47][48][49] economics, social and behavioral sciences,[50] and physics.[51][52]
UCSD's undergraduate program ranked 7th among public universities according to the 2009 U.S. News & World Report college rankings using indicators such as endowment, giving rates, and the prior high school achievement of incoming students as metrics.[53] The Washington Monthly ranked UCSD 2nd best overall in the nation when incorporating additional societal benefits other than just research impact as a metric, and 8th in the U.S. in terms of research alone.[54] The Graham-Diamond report ranked UCSD 8th overall in the country.[51] UCSD was selected as the "Hottest" science school by Newsweek in 2006.[55] In its 2008 report on best values in public colleges, Kiplinger ranked UCSD 11th in the nation for in-state value and 17th in the nation for out-of-state value.[56] In 2008, Times Higher Education-QS World University Rankings ranked UCSD 9th in the world in Life Sciences and Biomedicine. [57]
UCSD's total research expenditures for 2007-08 were $798 million.[58] The National Science Foundation has ranked UCSD first in the UC system and sixth in the nation in terms of Federal research expenditures.[59] Some 200 San Diego companies have been founded by UCSD faculty and alumni, and over 40% of the people employed in the San Diego biotechnology industry work in UCSD spin-offs.[60][61] Science Watch ranked UCSD the eighth most cited institution during the period 1995 to 2005 in the field of molecular biology and genetics.[62]
UCSD also counts among its research centers the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, the San Diego Supercomputer Center, the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology, and the Center for US-Mexican Studies.[22]
UCSD's undergraduate division is organized into six residential colleges. The system is modeled off of the residential systems at Oxford and Cambridge. They each set their own general-education requirements as well as having their own administrative and advising staff and granting unique degrees and separate commencement ceremonies.[63][64] In chronological order by date of foundation, the six colleges are:
Students affiliate with a college based upon its particular philosophy and environment as majors are not exclusive to specific colleges.[65] John Muir and Earl Warren enroll the largest number of undergraduate students followed by Thurgood Marshall, Revelle, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Sixth.[66] Each undergraduate college sets the requirements for awarding provost's honors and honors at graduation in addition to departmental honors and Phi Beta Kappa honors.
UCSD Extension is the continuing education and public program branch of the university.[67] Approximately 50,000 enrolles per year are educated in the university's extension program.[67] The Extension provides over 90 certificate programs and over 12 specialized study programs.[67] Most courses are held evenings and weekends for the convenience to working adults on the main campus or at one of three off campus locations:the Extension Sorrento Mesa Center, the Extension Rancho Bernardo Center, and the Extension Mission Valley Center.[67] The Extension program also includes online only classes.[67] The UCSD Extension program is not affiliated with the UC Cooperative Extension program.[68]
The Preuss School is a charter school established on the UCSD campus in 1999 to provide an intensive college preparatory curriculum for low-income students from the greater San Diego area.[69] The Preuss school has been ranked as one of the top ten best high schools in the United States by US News & World Report.[70]
|African American
|Asian American
|Hispanic American
|Middle Eastern
|Native American
|European American
UCSD received 47,069 freshmen applicants for the Fall 2009, and admitted 37.3%.[72] Also, the number of students applying to UCSD makes it the third most popular UC campus, after UCLA and UC Berkeley.[73] Admitted students attained a mean weighted high school GPA of 4.08 and average SAT scores of 637, 677, and 650 for Critical Reading, Math and Writing, respectively.[74] The average ACT Composite Score is 29.[74] Of the 17,000 freshmen that were admitted, 99% were in the top 10% of their high school class.[73] 31% of admitted students receive federal Pell Grants.[75] The top four overlapping schools for applicants are: UC Berkeley, UCLA, USC, and Stanford University.
The four year, full-time undergraduate program comprises the majority of enrollments at the university.[9] The university offers 125 bachelors degree programs organized into six disciplinary divisions: Arts, Humanities, Engineering, Science/Math, Biological Sciences, and Social Sciences.[8] 37% of undergraduates major in the social sciences, followed by 24% in biological sciences, 17% in engineering, 8% in sciences and math, 4% in humanities, and 4% in the arts.[76] Each undergraduate colleges sets its own general education requirements (GEs) for graduation in addition to the specific requirements of majors set by individual departments and programs.[77][78]
Graduate admissions are largely centralized through the Office of Graduate Studies. However, the Rady School of Management, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies (IR/PS) handle their own admissions.
In 2009, UCSD mistakenly sent Admit Day welcome emails to all its 47,000 freshmen applicants, instead of just the 17,000 who had been admitted.[79] However, school officials quickly realized the mistake and sent an apology email within two hours.[80][81]
The main student hub is the Price Center located in the center of campus, just south of Geisel Library. The Price Center offers a variety of services, places, and spaces, including restaurants, the central bookstore, movie theater, and various student organizations. In the Spring of 2003, a Student Referendum was passed to expand the Price Center to nearly double the original size. The Price Center East expansion was officially opened to the public on May 19, 2008.[82]
There are also three campus centers that cultivate a sense of community among faculty, staff, and students: the Cross-Cultural Center, the Women's Center, and the LGBT Resource Center. UCSD was the last UC campus to have such centers. All three centers, especially the Cross-Cultural Center that was created first, were founded in the mid-1990s and were the result of student movements that demanded change despite opposition by the campus administration.[83]
There is a music venue on the campus grounds of some fame called the Ché Café, a collective organization serving multiple functions as an underground music venue, vegan food collective, center for grassroots organizations such as Food Not Bombs, and similar groups and activities.[84] Prominent local San Diego bands such as The Locust and Pinback, and national tours such as Mates of State and The Dillinger Escape Plan have given the Ché Café some fame and praise as a radical vegan collective despite its small size (it fits a few hundred people) and limited sound equipment.
International House is home to about 240 students from more than thirty countries. The I-House community provides a social atmosphere where opportunities for significant cross-cultural exchange between American and international students is plentiful. International learning is fostered through formal programs including current affairs discussions, cultural nights, and a community newsletter. Upper-division undergraduates from all six colleges, graduate students, faculty, and researchers are eligible to live in International House, located in the Eleanor Roosevelt College townhouses. Demand is very high for this special program and there is a waitlist each quarter. Spaces in International House are not guaranteed and admission requires a separate application.[85]
The Associated Students also coordinates a wide variety of concerts and events during the year, including All Campus Dance, Bear Gardens, Loft Events, and the Sun God Festival.[86] The Sun God Festival, named after the statue created by artist Niki de Saint Phalle, is the best-known of the festivals. During the event, there are day long series of concerts, performances, free items, and celebration before the final free concert takes place in the evening.
Two other popular campus events include the Pumpkin Drop and the Watermelon Drop, which take place during Halloween and at the end of the third (Spring) academic quarter, respectively.[87] The Watermelon Drop is one of the campus's oldest traditions, famously originating in 1965 from a physics exam question centering on the velocity on impact of a dropped object. A group of intrigued students pursued that line of thought by dropping a watermelon from the top floor of Revelle's Urey Hall to measure the size of the resulting splat. A variety of events surround the Watermelon Drop, including a pageant where an occasionally male but generally female "Watermelon Queen" is elected. In 1979 the Queen rode to Urey Hall in a theatrical-prop sedan chair that had been knocking around the Revelle dorms for years. The Pumpkin Drop is a similar event celebrated by the dropping of a large, candy-filled pumpkin from 11-story Tioga Hall, the tallest residential building on the Muir college campus.
The campus newspaper, operated independent of student funds, is the UCSD Guardian. The campus also hosts a small independent radio station, KSDT, which no longer broadcasts over the airwaves, but still operates online. UCSD-TV transmitted its first moments on air in 1993.[88] Over the last 15 years it has spread to over 1 million televisions sets and produces 150 programs a year.[88] The station focuses on diverse and intellectual subject matter.[89] UCSD-TV's "Health Matters" production has been honored with an Emmy Award, and the station as a whole has received various Telly Awards.[90]
One of the more controversial aspects of student life at UCSD is the student-run comedy paper, The Koala, a satirical paper often criticized for its provocative articles and drawings, which is also funded by the A.S.[91] In 2005, the student council made national news over a controversy regarding pornography broadcast over the A.S.-funded television station by members of The Koala.
In February 2010, members of The Koala, on their Student Run Television program "Koala TV" publicly supported the "Compton Cookout", a controversial off-campus party mocking Black History Month that included UCSD fraternity members among the organizers.[92]
UCSD offers student participation in a wide range of sports including swimming, water polo, soccer, volleyball, crew, track and field athletics, fencing, basketball, golf, cross country, softball, baseball, and tennis. UCSD participates at the NCAA's Division II (DII) level in the California Collegiate Athletic Association, although water polo, fencing, and men's volleyball compete at the Division I level. Before joining DII in 2000, the school participated at the Division III level and won numerous national championships.[93]
Until the 2007-2008 school year, UCSD was the only DII school that did not offer athletic scholarships. In 2005, the NCAA created a rule that made it mandatory for DII programs to award athletic grants; a measure was proposed to begin offering $500 "grants-in-aid" to all 600 intercollegiate athletes in order to meet this requirement. In February 2007, a student referendum was passed with the largest vote in UCSD history, authorizing a $329 annual student fee to fund a raise in coaches' salaries, hire more trainers and provide all athletes with a $500 scholarship.[94]
In 2006-2007, UCSD's best season since moving to DII, 19 of 23 athletic programs qualified for post-season competition, including 17 to the NCAA Championships. Eight of those teams finished in the top-5 in the nation.[95]
UCSD fields a number of club sports teams. The UCSD surfing team has won the national title six times and is consistently rated one of the best surfing programs in the nation.[96] The UCSD triathlon team is continually one of the top triathlon teams in the nation. In 2008, the women's triathlon team won the US collegiate national championship and UCSD athlete Amanda Felder was the Overall Nation Champion.[97] UCSD also has sport clubs in badminton, cycling, dancesport, dance team, equestrian, ice hockey, lacrosse, roller hockey, rugby union, sailing, soccer, snow skiing, table tennis, ultimate, volleyball, water polo, and waterskiing.[98]
The National Collegiate Scouting Association (NCSA) 2008 Collegiate Power Rankings[99] rate colleges and universities comprehensively based on student-athlete graduation rates, academic strength and athletic prowess of the university. The institutions posted in the 2007 Power Rankings represent less than 6% of colleges and universities across the nation.[100] UCSD placed 4th on the overall ranking list, trailing behind Williams College, Amherst College, and Duke University, and first on the Division II list.
The university employs 7,566 faculty members, including eight Nobel Laureates, eight MacArthur fellows, three National Medal of Science laureates, and one Fields medalist. Sixteen UCSD faculty members have won the Nobel Prize, nine of whom are currently on the faculty. UCSD faculty also include nine MacArthur Fellows and 146 Guggenheim Fellows. UCSD ranks sixth in the nation in terms of United States National Academy of Sciences membership. UCSD has a total of 18 Nobel Laureates affiliated with it.
Over 130,000 alumni are associated with UCSD.[101] Notable alumni include Bill Atkinson and Bud Tribble, members of the Apple Macintosh development team; biotechnology pioneers David Goeddel and Craig Venter, and Nobel Prize winner Susumu Tonegawa, recognized for his work in immunology. Eleanor Mariano, the first Filipino-American to reach the rank of Rear Admiral in the United States Navy and first female director of the White House Medical Unit, received her BS in Biology cum laude in 1977. A number of science fiction authors including Gregory Benford, David Brin and Kim Stanley Robinson earned PhDs at UCSD; cartoon animation producer Mike Judge is also an alum.[102]
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A shocking bit of news in the world of sports went largely unnoticed this afternoon. ESPN didn't run the story and you probably won't find an in-depth report on the pages of Sports Illustrated, but it's sort of a big deal. You see, today I officially retired from fantasy football. I know, I know, only a few short weeks ago on this blog I went on and on about how much I loved this hallowed, so-called sport, this make-believe clash of nerdy couch potatoes; but alas, I'm calling it quits. I'm hanging up my fake headset and my pretend whistle. I'm stepping off the phony sidelines and out of the artificial stadium for the last time. Some of my colleagues have seen this decision coming for weeks now. I've been going through a slump of discouraging losses that have turned a fun little game into a weekly, Internet homework assignment I just can't be bothered to turn in. In short, I'm over it. I wish I could say that it has nothing to do with the fact that I should have been really good this year and wasn't, but hey, let's face it, that's pretty much what it boils down to.
And to be even more childish, I blame it all on one guy… Chris Johnson. Now, I love the Tennessee Titans and I love Chris Johnson as a person; and if we ever met I'd want to be friends, (especially because he could crush me) but in the realm of fake sports, he has sadly let me down. I drafted last year's most dominant pro football player because he promised to have another 2,500 yard season. Coupled with Tom Brady, I should have been competitive every week with only two of my players, but CJ has been a total bust. The player that broke records and dropped jaws in 2009 assured the world he would have an even more brilliant and memorable season in 2010, but those promises haven't been fulfilled. I'm still waiting on him to have even one really great week. This disappointment of unfulfilled promises has basically become too much to handle in what my wife calls my "fantasy world." So, thanks to Chris Johnson, I'm walking away with only one imaginary Super Bowl ring.
Unfulfilled promises can be one of life's most devastating realities. Someone promises us something, we believe them and so we start to get our hopes up. When the promised something doesn't come through, we find that the expectation of that promise has become in our minds a guarantee we have banked upon, planned on and feel entitled to. This let down is worse than if we had never wanted whatever it was in the first place. The other day I was reading Luke 1 and thinking about Mary who received promises from Almighty God at the hands of Gabriel, one of the Lord's blazing, eternal messengers. When I read those familiar words again, something struck me… Aside from mentioning the pregnancy and birth, Gabriel didn't really go into any detail about all of the vast struggles and problems this heavenly assignment was going to bring Mary's way. In fact, the stuff Gabriel talked about was all sounding pretty awesome!
"The angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end. "
Look at that! Her baby would be called great and become a King and sit enthroned forever and ever! And then this thought struck me with a dull thud: Mary is still waiting on those promises to be fulfilled. 2,000 years later, Mary, who endured so much toil and heartbreak is still waiting on the joyful fulfillment of the promises God made to her when she was but a teenager! Wow. And so it is for those who walk with God. This life winds up being harder than we thought it would be for longer than we ever dreamed it could be. But that's not the end of this story, because God is faithful. He will fulfill every word Gabriel spoke to little Mary. It may not be for another 2,000 years or even more, but it will happen, and when it does, not only Mary's, but all our dreams will come true forever and ever.


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Switzerland wants to retain crypto-friendly status – banks deter startups
Called the "Crypto Valley", the Swiss city of Zug is losing its splendour in favour of other cities and jurisdictions, as crypto currency start-ups are said to have difficulties in administration and with the government.
Switzerland is facing a problem with Bitcoin Revolution
As Reuters reported on 19 July 2018, crypto currency projects in Switzerland are feeling the pressure from banks and financial service providers that have stopped operating crypto shops in recent months.
Many crypto start-ups have moved to Switzerland after significant friendly regulations on the blockchain and crypto currency industry were introduced in 2017-18.
Swiss officials note that the local crypto currency sector is gradually growing. Although insignificant compared to the country's globally recognized banking sector, the digital asset sector employs hundreds of people and is proving to be an important source of industry for citizens.
Despite relevant laws, Swiss banks are urging regulators to demand additional clarity and establish rules for Bitcoin Revolution scam and for crypto currency transactions before they can offer banking services.
As the Retuters report shows, Zürcher Kantonalbank (ZKB), Switzerland's fourth-largest bank, closed bank accounts of over twenty crypto companies in 2017. CBC officials refused to comment on the nature of their decision in this regard, but claimed that no bank support is offered to former or existing crypto currency customers. Of the 250 registered banks in the country, only two companies currently allowed the payment of funds financed through ICOs.
The biggest criticism from the banks is money laundering. Banks claim https://www.onlinebetrug.net/en/ that several token issuers have failed to conduct their due diligence on the contribution of investors and are thus committing a potential crime if they allow unauthorized money to be stored.
Train loses its shine
The remarkable development of Zug as a crypto-economy is well known. The small canton with only 30,000 inhabitants is home to over 300 crypto companies. Heinz Taennler, finance director of Zug, however, expressed concern about the current state of banking support in the region and fears that crypto companies could leave Zug:
"All their banking relationships lead to Liechtenstein. That's hundreds of jobs, and every job is important."
Swiss Official unveils reinsurance
An official of the Swiss National Bank (SNB), Thomas Moser, explained that representatives of some cryptographic currency companies should contact the central authorities to intervene.
Moser added that the jurisdiction does not want to diminish the economic opportunities arising from the lucrative crypto currency sector or stifle technological innovation.


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The Return of The Dummies
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Going through a handy list of the best of web office products available currently, reminds me of my early computer days in college. With the popularity of AJAX continuing to rise, expect more such products on the market. The concept of Web 2.0 bets heavily on such products intended to make the internet a platform in itself rather than a service. Comparing this with the earlier incarnation of this concept, called the Network Computer, it seems to be a comeback of the loveable Dumb Terminals. Only it doesnt have to be of a similar shape and form now. It can be a your mobile phone as well!
Shouldnt it be called a handy terminal then?
Update: Another list.
Shouldnt it be called a handy terminal then?
Update: Another list.


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"As the head of the institution and its highest paid employee," she writes, "I do feel a special responsibility, and so I have contributed five percent of my salary this year to the College."
In general, however, Cappy feels that lowering salaries is not the best way to solve the college's economic problems. "A long-term solution to the financial situation requires changes in the College's organizational structure and employment levels, rather than a short-term lowering of current employees' compensation," she writes. The compensation for some faculty and administrators, however, has been frozen. "I can assure you that many of those not receiving the expected annual increase understood this as a sacrifice asked of them for the good of the institution," she writes.
Coincidentally, an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education last week listed the compensation for presidents of private colleges, all of whom make well over $300,000 a year. According to the article, Cappy received $450,137 in the 2007-2008 academic year.
11.5.09 10:53am


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SALT LAKE CITY — They came to be known as Freedom Riders.
In a little-known chapter of the country's civil rights movement, nonviolent activists boarded buses bound for New Orleans with a single objective: challenge the era's segregation of bus travel. Over a six-month period in 1961, the volunteers endured mob violence, with local police often refusing to intervene, and imprisonment rather than forsake their ideals.
To commemorate the 50-year anniversary of this movement and promote a PBS documentary on the topic, 40 college students — including a University of Utah student — will be given the unique opportunity to travel along the civil rights bus route and document their experience.
"It will be interesting to see how we as this group of students from different backgrounds and many different cities process this together and what we will take away from it," said Esther Kim, who is studying sociology and gender studies and a member of the university's 2012 class. "History books give one view but it is a totally different perspective to meet personally with these activists and travel along the same route that they did.
"I have a great deal of respect for what they were able to accomplish."
The PBS organizers have dubbed the contemporary group Student Freedom Riders, and it was important that those selected from the 1,000 applicants represented a diverse cross-section of Americans to reflect the original Freedom Riders of both black and white protestors. They are from 33 states and include students who grew up in China, Tajikistan and Haiti.
"History is fascinating, but more importantly, we know it informs almost every social and political decision made today," said Mark Samels, executive producer of the award-winning PBS American Experience series. The nonprofit broadcaster commissioned filmmaker Stanley Nelson's documentary "Freedom Riders" that will be telecast by the 348 member stations, including Utah's KUED, on May 16. One critic called it "a real-life David and Goliath story that will exhilarate all audiences."
The bus tour is intended to spur "cross-generational dialogue" about the role of civic engagement, he explained. Another objective is to consider "what issues inspire students to 'get on the bus' today."
"It's those lessons from 1961 and how they are informing civic engagement today that we look forward to exploring on this ride," Samels added.
"Because I am an Asian woman, I have a connection to the civil rights movement and the rights of people of color," Kim said. "I want to reconcile where I belong within this movement."
Riding with the students will be original Freedom Riders and Nelson, who created the PBS film that competed at last year's Sundance Film Festival. The expenses-paid "moving classroom" excursion will begin with a public event May 6 in Washington, D.C., and travel through seven Southern states.
Concluding May 15 in New Orleans, the intended destination of the 1961 Freedom Riders, the travel will include the Montgomery, Ala., church that a mob threatened to burn down with Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King and others inside. The event coincides with an anniversary reunion of the original riders.
"The Freedom Ride created an unbelievable sense: Yes, we will make it. Yes, we will survive. And that nothing, but nothing, was going to stop this movement," Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), an original Freedom Riders, has said.
"Ninety-nine percent of us were from the South," said Catherine Burks-Brooks, another rider, at one preview of the documentary. "What we had participated in life we didn't like. What we had suffered we didn't like."
"I didn't feel like I was a hero or anything like that," recalled Freedom Rider Frank Holloway in an interview. "I did it and when I stopped doing it, I didn't feel like anybody needed to reward me or congratulate me or pat me on my back. I did what I felt like I had to do."
Students were chosen partly based on their social media and community involvement, said WGBH Boston's Lauren Prestileo, the trip coordinator and an American Experience project manager. Also judged were the required personal essays.
"I actually only learned about the event the week before the deadline," Kim said. And, in typical university student behavior, "I submitted the materials the evening before they were due."
A past president of the university's Asian American Student Association and Young Asian Professionals, Kim said, "There have been covert actions in my life that remind me that I am different. The racial slurs to my face by people who feel justified in what they are doing are amazing.
"People have asked me, 'Where are you from?' I was born in Los Angeles and I've lived in Utah for many years. 'No, where are you really from? You're not really from here.'
"I know I shouldn't really have anything to complain about, compared to other injustices; but that in a way that is in itself oppressive."
According to PBS organizers, the full cost will be about $1 million — with half for the bus ride — and is the largest event in American Experience's history. The "Freedom Riders" campaign includes an exhibit traveling to 20 cities (including a Salt Lake City Public Library stop June 13-July 11); nationwide public screenings; high school curriculum materials and training for 650 teachers; and a website with 12 other short films by documentarian Nelson.
Following the national telecast of "Freedom Riders," KUED will air the locally produced "Utah's Freedom Riders," a profile of the state's early civil rights workers, and "Navigating Freedom: A Utah Youth Perspective," eight personal films of high school students who talk about what freedom means to them.
"I'm going in to this somewhat blindly but I am very excited to participate and speak one on one with the original Freedom Riders and visit these important places," Kim explained.
"And I'm hoping it won't be 10 hours a day sitting on a bus or I may not survive."
You can view Kim's video essay to join the event. The ride can be followed on Facebook, Twitter and student blogs. For more information, click here.
Blair Howell is a freelance editor and writer.


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On May 17, after a fire erupted at a local LyondellBasell refinery, the national headlines read "No Injuries at Houston Refinery."
The source? 'Twas the friendly P.R. folks at Lyondell, of course.
Given this fact, perhaps it will come as no surprise to learn that there were in fact injuries. At least according to nine contract workers who were there that afternoon. And they are all suing the chemical and refining company for, among other things, "physical disfigurement."
The fire at Lyondell's Houston Refining facility along the Houston Ship Channel, a dozen or so miles from downtown, broke out at about 2:30 p.m. News crews caught pictures of heavy black smoke rising from the plant until the fire was extinguished an hour later. Nearby residents were ordered to stay inside and avoid breathing the potentially deadly toxins.
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According to a report the refinery submitted to state regulators after the fire, more than 2,117 pounds of pollutants were emitted during the incident, including more than 280 pounds of a suspected carcinogen and more than 1,540 pounds of sulfur dioxide, which can cause respiratory and developmental damage.
None of the pollutants was allowable under their state-issued permits, according to an emissions report.
Inside the plant, nine contract workers were apparently victim to the blaze. According to their lawsuit, "The oil burning flames amassed and quickly set gigantic dark billowing plumes of noxious smoke high upwards and across the Houston sky. [Lyondell's] failure to prevent, detect, and/or adequately alarm of the fire resulted in serious personal injuries to the workers at the facility ...."
The nine men claim they received medical attention and are suing for medical expenses, lost wages and earning capacity, and physical disfigurement.