text:
Modern Algorithms for Real-Time Terrain Visualization on Commodity Hardware
|Radek Bartoň
|Department of Computer Graphics and Multimedia
|Faculty of Information Technology
|Brno University of Technology
|ibarton fit.vutbr.cz
Keywords: computer graphics, rendering, real-time, level of detail, out-of-core, DEM, heightmap
- 1 Abstract
- 2 Introduction
- 3 Important Theory
- 4 Modern Terrain Visualization Algorithms
- 5 Conclusion
- 6 References
The amount of input data acquired from a remote sensing equipment is rapidly growing. Interactive visualization of those datasets is a necessity for their correct interpretation. With the ability of modern hardware to display hundreds of millions of triangles per second, it is possible to visualize the massive terrains at one pixel display error on HD displays with interactive frame rates when batched rendering is applied. Algorithms able to do this are an area of intensive research and a topic of this article. The paper first explains some of the theory around the terrain visualization, categorizes its algorithms according to several criteria and describes six of the most significant methods in more details.
Surface of our planet is an omnipresent entity in our lives. Scientists and engineers always studied its shape as it takes an important role in construction planning, hydrology, cartography and other fields. Also a lot of people take pleasure in bread views on landscape in their leisure time. These are the reasons for precise and correct terrain modeling and high-quality visualization using modern technologies in GIS, virtual realities, simulations or computer games.
Recent elevation datasets of the Earth [1][2] reaches nearly 0.5 TB sizes at 1 arc second resolution. Ortophoto images are usually more precise and more accurate datasets can be expected in the near future. Handling this vast quantity of data is a tremendous task when interactivity is required despite the advances in performance of state of the art general purpose hardware.
Fortunately some techniques for dealing with this problem were developed and they are constantly improved. This article intends to explain some basic concepts and to present few representatives of the most modern algorithms for large and huge terrain visualization in more detail.
Important Theory
A few accustomed terms are used in general the level of detail or terrain visualization specialized literature. Let us explain some of them that are used in or closely related to the following text and that may not be familiar to the reader:
Digital elevation model or DEM is a discreet representation of terrain surface in a general form. In transferred meaning, available terrain datasets can be referred to DEMs.
Input Data Scale
From a terrain visualization point of view, we can distinguish among the following scales of the input domain:
- Small terrains – Commonly occupy tens of MB of memory space and cover for example hundreds of km with 5 meters grid size.
- Large terrains – Tens of GB and for example millions of km with 10 meters grid size.
- Huge (massive) terrains – Usually spread out on planetary-scale area (for example hundreds millions of km at 10 meters grid size) and require from hundreds to thousands of GB.
It is the most simple but also the most used format of terrain representation. and coordinates can be stored implicitly, saving two thirds of memory, but it usually occupies the most space since the memory requirements are not adaptable to the terrain shape. See figure 1 for an example.
Triangulated irregular network (TIN) is different designation for a mesh with an arbitrary topology (see figure 2). Its advantages is in its precise adaptation to a terrain shape, and thus it usually takes the lowest amount of memory, and can model caves and overhangs. On the other hand, it demands significant processing power when working with it.
Right-triangulated irregular network (RTIN) is a compromise between efficiency of the heightmap and scalability of the RTIN (figure 3). It can be represented implicitly using a binary tree or a quad-tree.
Level of Detail
To achieve interactive frame rates, a number of rendered triangles has to be reduces. A discrete amount of this reduction is called the level of detail. Because of the properties of the perspective projection, the level of detail has to be different for different parts of displayed objects. When the change in level of detail simplification is gradual over the mesh surface, we speak about a continuous level of detail.
Pixel Error
The most important task for each terrain level of detail algorithm is decision if a given vertex or a group of vertices is visually so significant that it should be visible in the final triangulation. To solve this, many different error metrics has been developed. The problem is illustrated in figure 4 from which the notion of the pixel error is apparent – a geometric error projected onto a screen with a certain pixel resolution using a perspective projection.
View-Frustum Culling
When rendering with a perspective projection, the visible space has a shape of truncated pyramid – the view frustum. Any object outside this volume may be discarded from the rendering pipeline. It is usually done by a point-wise test against six half-spaces combined with some heuristic.
If the allowed display error is for the performance reasons higher than one pixel, sudden changes in the terrain shape can be seen when a tile is switched from one resolution to another. In such cases, the geometrical morphing or just geomorphing of the shape is employed. It is usually done by a linear interpolation of higher level of detail vertex positions to a height of an appropriate edge midpoint in the lower level of detail geometry. This interpolation is bidirectional and when the limit position is reached, particular level of detail can be exchanged for a lower or a higher one, respectively. The sources of the interpolation factor value can be different. Examples are: time, frame number or viewer's distance to the center of the tile.
Restricted Quad-Tree
Restricted quad-tree is a data structure and an associated algorithm [3][4] for terrain heightmap simplification that generates a RTIN triangulation which has no gaps or T-vertices. It defines relationships between heightmap vertices that have to be included in the triangulation if the vertex they are dependent on is included too.
It is a computer graphics program executed on a GPU written in a specialized programming language. There is a common trend to move all tasks of the terrain visualization algorithms to the GPU. Currently, only the vertex shader, processing vertices of rendered triangles, and the pixel shader, manipulating fragments of the resulting image, are utilized in the algorithms.
Modern Terrain Visualization Algorithms
After some basic terminology has been consolidated, this section will give an overview on the six most significant terrain visualization algorithms and their variants. The descriptions are as thorough as necessary to understand the basic concepts of the algorithms, nevertheless interested reader might seek for the referenced papers for further theoretical and implementation details.
Hwa et al. modernized [5] a well-known but already obsolete Real-time Optimally-Adapting Meshes (ROAM) algorithm [6], therefore their contribution is referred to as ROAM 2.0. A similar approach is also the RUSTiC algorithm [7] but ROAM 2.0 is more advanced. It facilitates batched rendering, which is modern graphics hardware optimized to, by exchanging ROAM's individual triangles with triangular patches with a regular 4-8 mesh topology [8][9]. The original triangle binary tree is replaced with a more optimized data structure based on a quad-tree of triangle diamonds.
Each diamond in this tree represents a vertex that is shared as an apex of four neighboring right-angled triangles. In contrast to the regular quad-tree, all non-root diamonds in the diamond quad-tree have two parents, so this data structure should rather be called DAG. Figure 5 shows this data structure more explanatory.
A single dual queue refinement of the geometry tiles is extended with additional merge and split queues for the texture tiles. This means that geometry and texture levels of details are selected independently. There is another priority queue for scheduling of the texture objects creation since this is a costly operation performed in each frame. An out-of-core data streaming indexing scheme is supported using a Sierpinski space filling curve (figure 6) both for the geometry and the texture patches organization on an external storage. The triangle strip indices within the tile are also ordered using this space-filling curve to utilize the GPU vertex cache efficiently.
Run-time refinement exploits temporal coherence provided by the dual priority queues. Each frame, the priories are recomputed using view-frustum culling for the current viewing parameters and then they are balanced with split and merge operations to achieve some error value at the fronts of the queues. Procedure can be stopped when specific error measure or defined patch count is reached. In this way, the constant frame rate can be guaranteed.
Geometrical Mip-Mapping
A very simple method (in its original form) is the Geometrical Mip-Mapping algorithm [10]. The terrain domain is divided into regular tiles with vertices on each side. A quad-tree of axis aligned bounding boxes is then constructed, as is shown in figure 7, with only the leaf nodes containing actual geometry and topology in several precomputed resolutions. The vertices can be stored in vertex buffers and topology is precomputed to index buffers.
During run-time, the hierarchy is traversed from the top to the bottom and tiles' bounding boxes are tested against the view frustum. If the bounding box is completely outside the frustum or a leaf node is reached, descending for the current subtree stops. The visible leaf nodes are recorded in a list of tiles to render and an error metric, which selects the appropriate level of detail for the tile, is computed.
Because of the different resolution of neighboring tiles in the resulting triangulation produced by the prior procedure, some gap filling and T-vertex removal operations have to be done. There are many ways how to handle the problem but the method proposed in the original paper is that only an interior part of the tile's geometry is rendered using precomputed index buffers and border strips, connected to the tiles with a higher resolution, are rendered using triangle fans as depicted in figure 8. This figure also illustrates an example of the mip-mapped tiling.
Used view-dependent error metric is reformulated to a form, where for each level of detail of a tile, there is a distance from which this particular level should be used. A residual fraction of this distance is used as the geomorphing interpolation factor.
In addition to this elemental concepts, many further improvements and extensions to the basic framework were elaborated. Among the first, Poyart et al. [11] discussed how to deal with non-square terrains of an arbitrary size and how to minimize preprocessing cost using a heightmap sample skipping method for multiresolution tile rendering.
Another work [12] explains how to optimize geomorphing using vertex shader and also mentions utilization of a potentially visible set (PVS) for simple occlusion culling.
The paper [13] only presents some implementation notes of the former algorithm but uses different topology for the tiles – a longest-edge bisection triangulation.
Pouderoux and Marvie [14] use tiled toroidal buffer of tiles for efficient data streaming over the network. The buffer is in every frame asynchronously updated on a ring by ring basis from the center to the border as much as the viewer's speed allows. The level of detail selection is performed depending on a given polygon budget and data availability which allows for a constant frame rate control. On the other hand, authors omitted the quad-tree and the view-frustum test is computed for each tile in the buffer. Also the geomorphing is not being considered anymore and a proposed gap-filling method relies on a view-projected textured plane under each tile, similar to their shadows (see figure 9).
Lastly, Schneider and Westextitann [15] proposed another significant improvements. They precompute the geometry of the tiles using a restricted quad-tree simplification algorithm [3] with an exponentially increasing object-space geometry error and then build triangle strips using any high-quality triangle strip generation method. This allows progressive transmission of vertex coordinates and minimizes the memory transfers using a vertex coordinate and index quantization. This is controlled by a GPU memory manager with the last recently used and tightest fit caching strategy.
Chunked LoD
Another algorithm called Chunked LoD [16] differs from the previously mentioned mainly in the way how the quad-tree stores the terrain geometry and consequently in slightly different traversal of the tree. The root contains a square tile of the whole terrain with the geometry of an arbitrary topology simplified to an error value (a chunk) and its bounding box. Its children are four square tiles each covering a quarter of its parent's extent simplified with a half of the error value of the parent and so on as figure 10 describes.
The tree is traversed from the top to the bottom and each time a projected error of a node satisfies a pixel error threshold or a bounding box is outside the view frustum, the descending stops and the tile is rendered or discarded, respectively. Otherwise, non-leaf node's children are visited. The resulting triangulation is depicted in a figure 11. The author proposes four different methods to stitch neighboring chunks together like to restrict the simplification at tile borders, use flanges or skirts around the tile or to fill gaps with additional triangles but prefers to use the skirts which is also apparent in the figure 11.
The view-frustum culling and the geomorphing is also supported. The geometry within the chunks can be irregular and can be heavily compressed for efficient streaming, on the other hand, dynamic terrain modifications are impracticable.
Geometrical Clipmaps
This approach, introduced in 2004 [17] and improved in 2005 [18], uses another analogy from texturing – clipmaps [19]. They are an extension to the mipmaps, offering support to incrementally page texture data into toroidal buffers and so allowing a feasible work even with huge textures.
Consider few mipmap levels with exponentially growing size in both dimensions as on figure 12. The clipmap is then set of mipmap levels cropped using certain but fixed value (yellow parts) – a clipmap size. Trimmed parts (orange) are not present in the main memory and stay stored on an external drive ready for paging in when a point of interest called a clipmap center moves.
Clipmap levels can be separated into two groups: The ones that has clipmap size dimensions, since they were made form bigger mipmaps, forming a clipmap stack and clipmap pyramid made from original mipmaps that were smaller. Both groups requires special treatment but clipmap pyramid is a rather static and equivalent to the top of the mipmap pyramid.
Geometrical clipmaps use this concept for managing of huge heightmaps and textures, however clipmap levels are stored on the GPU in two dimensional vertex textures and the complete heightmap pyramid is kept in the main memory in a highly compressed form. Square tiles of the geometry generated from the clipmap levels with the same grid resolution (the clipmap size) are nested within each other, occupying exponentially growing geometrical space as shown in figure 13. It can be derived [17] what is the recommended clipmap size for a given screen resolution and an used field of view to achieve sub-optimal triangle count and to prevent aliasing artifacts.
During run-time, four different sets of clipmap areas are maintained. First are the so called clip regions (black cr X regions in figure 14 a)) that represent extent of each clipmap region data that are present in the GPU memory. Second are square active regions (red ar X regions on the 14 a)) of clipmap size side size centered at the actual viewer's position. Those are desired new boundaries for the clipmap levels for the current frame. Missing data (yellow and orange areas on the figure 14 a)) are copied, if possible, to the toroidal buffers before the rendering. Clipmap buffers are updated in an order from the coarse to the fine until a given time quota is reached. Unfinished memory transfers (orange areas on the figure) are left and active regions are cropped accordingly, to form crop regions (red dashed areas on the figure 14 a) and black solid regions on the figure 14 b)). Lastly, render regions are created as differences between crop region for a current clipmap level and a crop region for the next finer level (colored areas on the figure 14 b)). At the end of the frame the crop regions become clip regions for the next frame.
As mentioned before, updates of square buffers are performed toroidally which avoids unnecessary memory transfers. Figure 15 describes this process. If the clipmap center moves, new data have to be loaded at the buffer's border. In a simple case of the figures 15 b) and 15 c), only three block copies are necessary to perform this. On the other hand, the figure 15 d) presents a worst case scenario when five block transfers are needed. The clipmap data are then read (or written) using modulo addressing. Amount of data for each clipmap update depends on speed of the user over the terrain and on the geometrical size of the clipmap. Greater user's distance to the surface can also disable updates of too fine clipmap levels.
To off-load geometry processing from the CPU to the GPU, the render regions could be constructed using two-dimensional tiles precomputed as several index and vertex buffers and hight values are then added in a geometry shader from the heightmap texture. Figure 16 shows an example of such tiling. We need five types of the tiles for ring render regions and one another when a central render region is handled apart. Nevertheless, this implies restriction on clipmap update procedure: Active regions have to be fully updated or empty to deal with their static geometry. On the other hand such blocks of geometry can be used for easy-to-implement view-frustum culling that brings significant rendering speedup. Because the shape of the tiles is identical up to the translation and scale, geometry instancing could be used to further improve the overall rendering performance.
The last thing that needs to be explained is how to fix gaps incurred at clipmap borders. First rule to avoid this is that the number of vertices in each geometrical clipmap has to be odd, as in figures 13 and 16, to match odd vertices of a finer clipmap to all vertices of a coarser clipmap. Second part of the solution is that some transition areas at the borders are established where height values are interpolated between their original position and the position in a neighboring coarser clipmap similar to geomorphing in the Geometrical Mip-Mapping algorithm. And lastly, zero area triangles around clipmap's perimeter hast to be rendered to fill possible artifacts caused by floating point computation inaccuracy.
Spherical extension to the basic geometrical clipmaps concept also exits [21]. Spherical clipmaps practically form an integral half of a globe mesh always oriented towards the viewer's eye. They are made of concentric rings with an exponentially growing density of parallels from the equator to the pole. Figure 17 presents four of such clipmaps. Nice consequence is that no special care has to be taken to stitch neighboring clipmaps together. A disadvantage compared to the planar version is that an input rectangular heightmap has to be sampled with the coordinates transformation in a vertex shader since the geometry is parametrized using spherical coordinates.
Batched Dynamic Adaptive Meshes (BDAM) [22][23][24][25] employs a triangular tile topology similarly as ROAM 2.0. The main idea exploits the property of RTINs that a triangle can be connected to another triangle from the same level, one level higher triangle through its hypotenuse or one level lower triangle through one of its catheti. A terrain triangulation can be then represented as a set of triangular tiles from a binary tree hierarchy simplified to some error measure which is shared between possibly neighboring triangles from adjacent tree levels along tile borders and which is smoothly grading inside the tile. This is depicted on a figure 18 where the first three images are three levels of the tile binary tree and the last image is an example of such triangulation. Maximal geometrical error for each level of the three decreasing exponentially.
Using this organization, no further care has to be taken to fill the gaps in the triangulation because every tile can be connected just to the tiles simplified to same error value and thus with seamlessly matching borders. The geometry inside the tile can have an arbitrary topology and it can be in a preprocessing step adaptively refined and optimized with high-quality decimation and triangle strip generation algorithms and then compressed for its effective transfer during rendering.
A square terrain texture is represented with a quad-tree since this is a more suitable representation for it but in order to better assign appropriate texture quad-tree nodes to geometry binary tree nodes, the binary tree had to be split into two halves. A hierarchy of nested bounding error volumes is also built in which serves for view-dependent error refinement and view-frustum culling. A full description of these volumes is quite complex [3] but, in a nutshell, they denote the distance from which certain tile should be visible. If the viewer is outside this sphere, the tile and all its descendants do not have to be included in the triangulation.
The refinement is driven by texture quad-tree descending and when a suitable texture tile is chosen, it is bound to hardware as a texture object. Then the refinement continues in both geometry binary trees from the nodes which correspond to the texture node until a geometry error measure is met. The geometry tiles are then rendered for the whole texture tile so it minimizes the necessary context switches.
Also this algorithm has some extensions. A planetary-scale dataset support has been elaborated in [23] (see figure 19) and an advanced wavelet-based compressing schema has been discussed in [25].
Seamless Patches
An elegant solution to the tile connectivity problem is presented in the paper Seamless Patches for GPU-Based Terrain Rendering by Livny et al. [26]. While they maintain squared tile topology for efficient texturing, they separate each tile, referred to as patches, into four triangular sub-tiles, referred to just as tiles. The left part of figure 19 demonstrates that.
The tile-level level of detail selection is decided at the patch borders so that neighboring patches always share the same number of vertices and are connected seamlessly. Tiles within the patch are stitched with precomputed strips (right part of the figure 19) which number is dependent on the number of possible levels of detail and can be computed as:
where is the actual number of the tile's levels of detail.
For patch-level level of detail selection and view-frustum culling an implicit hierarchy of patch bounding boxes is constructed and it is traversed top-down during run-time in the same manner as in the Chunked LoD algorithm. The exceptions is that all quad-tree nodes do not contain any geometry but only patch position and dimensions. These values are used to transform and instantiate precomputed uniform size two dimensional vertex buffer objects. Vertex shader displacement mapping supplies the third dimension.
Proposed error metric [26], based on projected geometric length of the patch's edge, implicitly ensures that for neighboring patches matching tiles are selected. Number of tile levels of details determines maximal local adaptivity within the patch. Practically only few precomputed tile resolutions are used and the local adaptivity of the surface is originated from the quad-tree subdivision. Furthermore, higher numbers of allowed tile resolutions imply a higher branching factor of the patch hierarchy to guarantee correct connectivity because only the maximal possible resolution of a larger patch and the minimal possible resolution of a smaller patch can lie side by side. See the figure 20 for examples.
Many quite different approaches to the massive terrain visualization problem have been presented in the paper but a lot of them have the same origins in the previous, today obsolete, algorithms. Also other state of the art algorithms exist but they have been omitted due to extent limitations.
Overall algorithms performance is a quantity that is hard to express but it can be measured in millions of triangles per second rendered on the reference graphics equipment. We refer the reader to the original papers to see the values the authors claim about their implementations on their equipment. Objective evaluation of the algorithms' performance can be considered as out of scope for this paper or as a subject for the future work.
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, "Shuttle radar topography mission", July 2010. Available at: [1]
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Earth Remote Sensing Data Analysis Center, "ASTER GDEM", July 2010. Available at [2]
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 R. Pajarola, "Large scale terrain visualization using the restricted quadtree triangulation", Proceedings of the Conference on Visualization '98, pp. 19–26, IEEE Computer Society Press Los Alamitos, CA, USA, 1998.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 R. Pajarola, M. Antonijuan and R. Lario, "QuadTIN: quadtree based triangulated irregular networks", VIS '02: Proceedings of the Conference on Visualization '02, pp. 395–402, 2002.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 L. M. Hwa, M. A. Duchaineau and K. I. Joy, "Real-time optimal adaptation for planetary geometry and texture: 4-8 tile hierarchies," IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, vol. 11, no. 4, pp. 355–368, 2005.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 M. A. Duchaineau, M. Wolinsky, D. E. Sigeti, M. C. Miller, M. B. Mineev-Weinstein and C. Aldrich, "ROAMing terrain: Real-time optimally adapting meshes", IEEE Visualization, pp. 81–88, 1997.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 A. A. Pomeranz, "Roam using surface triangle clusters (RUSTiC)". Diploma thesis, University of California at Davis, 2000.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 W. Evans, D. Kirkpatrick and G. Townsend, "Right triangular irregular networks", University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA, 1997.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 W. Evans, D. Kirkpatrick and G. Townsend, "Right-triangulated irregular networks", Algorithmica, vol. 30, no. 2, pp. 264–286, 2001.
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 W. H. de Boer, "Fast terrain rendering using geometrical mipmapping", 2000. Available at: [3]
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 E. Poyart, P. Frederick, R. D. B. Seixas and M. Gattass, "Simple real-time flight over arbitrary-sized terrains," Workshop Brasileiro de GeoInformatica, p. 5, Citeseer, 2002.
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 D. Wagner, "Terrain geomorphing in the vertex shader", ShaderX2, Shader Programming Tips and Tricks, pp. 1–12, 2003.
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 B. D. Larsen and N. J. Christensen, "Real-time terrain rendering using smooth hardware optimized level of detail", Journal of WSCG, vol. 11, no. 1, p. 8, 2003.
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 J. Pouderoux and J. Marvie, "Adaptive streaming and rendering of large terrains using strip masks", Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques in Australasia and South East Asia, p. 306, 2005.
- ↑ 15.0 15.1 J. Schneider and R. Westermann, "GPU-friendly high-quality terrain rendering", Journal of WSCG, vol. 14, no. 1-3, pp. 49–56, 2006.
- ↑ 16.0 16.1 T. Ulrich, "Rendering massive terrains using chunked level of detail control", SIGGRAPH Course Notes, vol. 3, no. 5, 2002.
- ↑ 17.0 17.1 17.2 F. Losasso and H. Hoppe, "Geometry clipmaps: terrain rendering using nested regular grids", International Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques, pp. 769–776, ACM New York, NY, USA, 2004.
- ↑ 18.0 18.1 A. Asirvatham and H. Hoppe, "Terrain rendering using GPU-based geometry clipmaps", GPU Gems, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 27–46, 2005.
- ↑ 19.0 19.1 C. C. Tanner, C. J. Migdal and M. T. Jones, "The clipmap: a virtual mipmap", Proceedings of the 25th Annual Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques, pp. 151–158, ACM New York, NY, USA, 1998.
- ↑ 20.0 20.1 USGS and The University of Washington, "Puget sound terrain", July 2010. Available at: [4]
- ↑ 21.0 21.1 M. Clasen and H.-C. Hege, "Terrain rendering using spherical clipmaps", Eurographics/IEEE-VGTC Symposium on Visualization (T. Ertl, K. Joy, and B. Santos, eds.), 2006.
- ↑ 22.0 22.1 P. Cignoni, F. Ganovelli, E. Gobbetti, F. Marton, F. Ponchio and R. Scopigno, "BDAM - batched dynamic adaptive meshes for high performance terrain visualization", Computer Graphics Forum, vol. 22, pp. 505–514, Sept. 2003.
- ↑ 23.0 23.1 23.2 P. Cignoni, F. Ganovelli, E. Gobbetti, F. Marton, F. Ponchio and R. Scopigno, "Planet-sized batched dynamic adaptive meshes (P-BDAM)", IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics and Frequency Control, pp. 147–154, 2003.
- ↑ 24.0 24.1 E. Gobbetti, P. Cignoni, F. Ganovelli, F. Marton, F. Ponchio and R. Scopigno, "Interactive out-of-core visualisation of very large landscapes on commodity graphics platform", Lecture Notes in Computer Science, pp. 21–29, 2003.
- ↑ 25.0 25.1 25.2 25.3 E. Gobbetti, F. Marton, P. Cignoni, M. Di Benedetto and F. Ganovelli, "C-BDAM - compressed batched dynamic adaptive meshes for terrain rendering", Computer Graphics Forum, vol. 25, pp. 333–342, Sept. 2006.
- ↑ 26.0 26.1 26.2 Y. Livny, Z. Kogan and J. El-Sana, "Seamless patches for GPU-based terrain rendering", The Visual Computer, vol. 25, pp. 197–208, Mar. 2008.


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Eating more vegetables and less meat, taking advantage of seasonal foods and maintaining a vegetarian lifestyle are popular trends for Americans seeking healthier diets.
Incorporating vegetables in a variety of ways was the focus of a mini-seminar on "Demystifying Vegetarianism," presented by Lisa and Sam Bracken, at the Tahlequah Public Library Tuesday evening. The Brackens are owners of the Canebrake in Wagoner.
According to Sam Bracken, only over the past 150 years or so has meat supplanted vegetables in the U.S. Meat is more accessible, which is why it dominates the American diet.
"Today, you have more availability for the quick intake of meat," said Sam. "No matter what size city you live in, you pass more eating establishments that serve meat than those that serve vegetables. The trend is now for producing food to support your caloric intake with what you can produce and grow."
This could eventually bring humans back to the habits of their early history, when they ate small amounts of meat, with the rest of a meal consisting of vegetables.
Sam said access to a vegetarian lifestyle is not as difficult as it has been in the past.
"Supermarkets and the increase of farmers' markets are making it easier to find produce," he said.
Lisa and Sam prepare vegetarian meals, although Sam will eat seafood and fish when they dine at a restaurant.
Lisa said she first became a vegetarian when she was in college and remained one after she and Sam got together.
"Back then, I consumed a limited food sources, eating mostly pasta and frozen vegetables," she said.
Later, when they were living in Colorado and were planning a mountain-climbing trip in Mexico, Lisa discovered she was weak and anemic.
"The doctor told me I needed to get smart about what I ate," she said.
Lisa returned to consuming meat in her meals and continued doing so until about five to six years ago, after they moved to Oklahoma, when she gave up meat again.
"I've been a smart, healthy and active vegetarian since 2003," she said. "For me, vegetarianism is the best way to eat and support my yoga and spiritual part of life and my health. It makes me tick at an optimal physiological level."
To stay healthy and nutritionally balanced, Lisa takes a B-Complex vitamin every day, because B12 can only be found in meat.
Sam's nutritional lifestyle did not reflect vegetarianism until a visit to a doctor who told him his cholesterol level was high, and he needed to take medication.
Lisa said Sam started eating the vegetarian way, and within 90 days, his cholesterol level lowered, without medication.
"It's a long journey to get to a vegetarian lifestyle that you embrace," said Sam. "It takes a fair amount of effort to get some sustenance. It's all in moderation."
According to Sam, eating is a cyclical pattern.
"When you eat a burger and fries, for example, you may not feel so well an hour or so later, but the pattern changes. The next day, it is easier to put that same amount of calories away," he said.
Together, the couple researched foods and analyzed the "fake" meats and cheeses. Lisa said they did this to see what an "Okie," like Sam, could and would eat.
"I find things that fit our food group needs," she said. "We do a lot of beans and eat seasonal foods. Once a month or so, we consume fake meat."
According to Lisa, many meat-eaters will accept soy-based and mushroom-based meat substitutes. She recommends telling the meat-eater what it is.
Sam suggests miso and tofu products that are meatless, because they have the "feel" of meat without actually eating it. "You have to ease your way into it," he said.
Both said education is the best way to start a food lifestyle change.
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Parks managers from Pierce and Thurston counties say it's too soon to know what impact, if any, a ruling Monday by the Supreme Court will have on popular South Sound multiuse trails.
On Monday, the Supreme Court sided with a Wyoming property owner in a dispute over a bicycle trail built on an old rail bed. The 8-1 ruling means the government may have to pay more than $100 million in compensation claims involving 10,000 properties in 30 states, according to the Associated Press.
The ruling states that government easements used for railroads expired when the railroads closed.
The South Sound is home to several Rails-to-Trails projects, including the 15-mile Foothills Trail between Puyallup and South Prairie and Thurston County's 22-mile Chehalis Western Trail and 14.5-mile Yelm-Tenino Trail.
"We have asked our Prosecuting Attorney's Office to review the Supreme Court ruling to determine any possible impacts to the County's Foothills Trail," Pierce County parks director Tony Tipton said in an email to The News Tribune. "Until they complete their review, we can't offer any specific comments as to the impact of the case to the Foothills Trail."
Kerry Hibdon, parks manager for Thurston County, said "we're facing the great unknown."
"We will certainly research it and determine what impact this has on the trails," he said.
Ernie Bay, former president of the Foothills Rails-to-Trail Coalition, described the ruling as "a wallop." He's spent three decades working to make the Foothills Trail a reality.
However, Bay doesn't believe the decision will impact the trail because the county purchased the property from landowners.
He said early in the movement to build the trail some believed they'd missed an opportunity by not taking over the railroad easements.
"But, as it turns out, if that had been the case we'd be in terribly deep," Bay said.
The coalition's goal for the trail is for it to continue to grow eventually reaching from Mount Rainier National Park to Tacoma with an arm to Buckley while also linking to other trail systems.


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December 28 2012
The iconic Need for Speed franchise has long had options for racing with friends, but in 2010 EA decided that an online version of the game was in order and Need for Speed World was born. It's free-to-play and features arcade-style street racing and high-speed chases through the re-imagined cities of Rockport and Palmont from earlier titles in the series.
The world of Need for Speed World is a rather unusual one, but then again, not many racing games strive to be "massively multiplayer." In the default Free Roam mode you're able to drive around the city, but it largely serves as a lobby from which you queue for instanced races and events. You'll see other players Free Roaming about, but you can't collide with them as you can while racing. Although there is a daily treasure hunt in Free Roam mode, it's really not the sort of thing most people are after when they load up Need for Speed.
Gameplay Modes
The instanced events come in several different flavors. A Sprint is a simple race from one point to another for up to 8 players. Circuits are similar, but they have a looped courses where the race can have multiple laps. Drag races put 2 to 6 players on a typically straighter and shorter course with the option to manually shift gears. There are also 2 modes that don't involve racing. Pursuit, which is single-player only, has the police trying to chase you down and bust you. Finally, Team Escape is a mode where up to 4 players try to outrun the cops and get to a given destination without getting caught.
The courses are all derived from the huge Free Roam map by barricading off the route, which sometimes includes shortcuts. There's plenty of excitement to be had during these races as you slide around corners and achieve spectacular air time on the city's hills while trying to avoid regular traffic. Adding further to the mayhem are temporary power-ups that can be used during the race to boost your speed, make the leader a "traffic magnet," and so on.
Sprint and Circuit modes have a single-player option that lets you race against computer-controlled opponents. The rewards for multiplayer racing are much higher, but single-player is a great way to learn the courses, and if you're new to this kind of game, learn to drive.
As a F2P offering, Need for Speed World is supported through the sale of Boost, one of the in-game currencies. When the game launched, you were capped at level 10 until you brought the $20 "starter pack," but that restriction has since been lifted. The primary motivation for purchasing Boost is to get a better car, and it's the only way to buy some of game's best cars. The most expensive cars in Need for Speed can sell for as much as $50 or $60, although discounts are available on large allotments of Boost.
There are good cars that can be earned by racing, but the time commitment to do so is considerable. Curiously, you don't seem to be able to earn cars you can buy, or buy cars you can earn, or exchange one type of currency for the other. It escapes me why the system is so restrictive, both from a player and revenue-generating perspective.
It's a great-looking game with convincing cityscapes and decent physics. Unfortunately, controller options are almost non-existent. There is limited support for at least the Xbox 360 gamepad, but you can't change any keybindings and you probably won't have any luck with other peripherals, such as a steering wheel.
Like many online games, Need for Speed World could use more players. The matchmaking system seems to struggle to find 8 players for a race, so you often end up with only half that. Some races are rated by you car's class, which helps to keep things on a somewhat even playing field. Matchmaking for "open" races is a little sketchier, and there can be a significant difference between cars of the same class.
The Bottom Line
Need for Speed World has it's moments and if you want some casual track time with friends, you may find that it gets the job done at a reasonable price. The "world" part, unfortunately, doesn't amount to much of anything, so Need for Speed fans or racing aficionados will likely get better mileage for your money from one of the other titles in the franchise with multiplayer features.


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First, understand how important free-throw shooting is. At least 3 or 4 games per year in a 20 game schedule will be determined by free-throw shooting. All close games, the ones that really count.. the close tournament games and conference championship games can be won or lost on the free throw line.
2. Put your weight forward on your toes, but keep your back straight... don't lean forward. Keeping your back straight will keep you from stepping over the line. Bend a little at the knees. Your legs will provide the power with an "up motion". Alternatively, some players find it more natural if they first stand up with knees straight, but then initiate the shooting motion by dipping down and bending the knees, and then straightening them as they go up for the shot... a "down then up" motion.
3. Focus on the basket... don't look at the ball or the flight of the ball.
4. Shoot with your right hand (right-handed players), and just use the left hand to help balance the ball. Release the ball from your fingertips to get good backspin (rotation) on the ball.
5. Take the deep breath, and shoot. Use your legs for power and come up on your toes as you release the ball. If your back is straight, you won't cross the line or lunge forward. If you need more power, it's OK to jump a little on your release.
6. Follow-through. Keep looking at the basket and hold your shooting hand in the "gooseneck", follow-through position until the ball goes through the net.
Shoot free throws in the off-season, in the summer. College players may shoot 2000-5000 free throws each summer! High school players should be able to shoot 1000 free throws each summer. Shoot 25 shots every day for 5 days of each week. In eight weeks, you will have shot 1000 free throws... but be sure your technique is correct, using the fundamentals above, and that the line is 15 feet from the backboard. For your own fun, keep track each day of how many you made, and keep your totals. Keep track of each week's stats, and see if you are getting better by the end of the 1000 shots. If you are not improving, there could be a flaw in your fundamentals, and you need to ask for help.
Here's another game you can play, keeping track of your score each day. Shoot 25 free throws. Score a "swish" as two points, an "unswished" made shot as one point, and a miss as zero. A perfect score would be 50. See what your best score is by the end of the summer.
There are some excellent shooting videos (DVD's) that will help you. Tom Nordland's excellent SWISH Video/DVD will help you learn how to shoot, and is a great teaching tool for coaches wanting to learn how to correctly teach shooting form. Hal Wissel has several excellent Shooting DVD's that will take players and coaches to the next level. I highly recommend all of these DVD's.
The Swish Video/DVD and the new "Swish-2" DVD, by shooting coach Tom Nordland. This is an excellent shooting DVD for players and is a great teaching tool for coaches wanting to learn how to correctly teach shooting form.
More info...
See this video (courtesy of Tom Nordland) and the wonderful shooting form of this young shooter who was taught using Tom Nordland's Swish method. It shows a progression from close to the basket and eventually to the free-throw line, always with great form.
Related pages: Free-Throw Shooting Drills, Learning How to Shoot, Hal Wissel's Shooting Free Throws.
Steve Alford - The Shot: Shooting Drills & Techniques
with Steve Alford, University of New Mexico Head Coach; former University of Iowa Head Basketball Coach, and former NCAA All-American, NBA guard, and Olympian.
Coach Alford covers every aspect of shooting in this video. Building your Shot begins at the free throw line with the catch and pivot, proper alignment and a shooter's attitude. Coach Alford then demonstrates simple techniques to expand your free throw into jump shots and shooting off the dribble. Learn how to correct "a flying elbow" and a poor pivot. Focus on correct alignment with Coach Alford's four-point checklist and develop the proper attitude to become a successful shooter. Finally, these principles are put to work in various shooting drills... (more info)
Price: $39.99
How to Coach Free Throw Shooting
with Gary Boren, Dallas Mavericks Shooting Coach. In 2003, the Dallas Mavericks set an NBA record of 49 straight free throws in a playoff game!
The free throw is the single most under-practiced art in basketball and yet, year after year, it comes up as one of the most influential keys to a team winning or losing. Coach Boren covers every aspect of how to coach shooting from catching the ball to the proper alignment and finally, the attitude of the shooter. The techniques that Boren demonstrates are revolutionary in the science of shooting. Some key points of that are discussed are the importance of technique, seeing the perfect shot, shooting mechanics, the importance of your mind, and knowing how to become a scorer... (more info)
Price: $150.00


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Congratulations, you are Correct!
A firm soft tissue nodule of the palate with grey-blue color should make a clinician think of leiomyoma or angiomyoma (vascular leiomyoma). The age and gender in this case is supportive of leiomyoma. The histology is also supportive of leiomyoma.
Leiomyoma is a benign neoplasm of smooth muscle origin. Uncommon in the oral cavity, it mainly occurs in the G.I. tract, uterus and skin. In the oral cavity, it most likely originates from the vascular smooth muscle. Vascular leiomyoma, also known as angiomyoma, accounts for 75% of oral leiomyomas. Patients tend to be over 30 years of age and are predominantly males. It is most common on the posterior tongue, palate, cheeks and lips. It is a slow growing, painless, pedunculated, smooth-surfaced, normal color or slightly bluish nodule. Intra-osseous leiomyomas have been reported, but very rarely. Histopathologically, this neoplasm is made up of a well-circumscribed to encapsulated nodule composed of bundles of smooth muscle cells, with some surrounding blood vessels in cases of angiomyoma. Simple and conservative excision is the treatment of choice.
1. Auclair PL, Ellis GL. Mucoepidermoid carcinoma. In Ellis GL, Auclair PL, Gnepp DR, editors. Surgical pathology of the salivary glands. Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders, 1991. p. 269-298.
2. Hicks J, Flaitz C. Mucoepidermoid carcinoma of salivary glands in children and adolescents: assessment of proliferation markers. Oral Oncol. 2000 Sep;36(5):454-60.
3. Brandwein MS, Ivanov K, Wallace DI, Hille JJ, Wang B, Fahmy A, Bodian C, Urken ML, Gnepp DR, Huvos A, Lumerman H, Mills SE. Mucoepidermoid carcinoma: a clinicopathologic study of 80 patients with special reference to histological grading. Am J Surg Pathol 2001; 25:835-45.
4. Pons Vicente O, Almendros Marqués N, Berini Aytés L, Gay Escoda C. Minor salivary gland tumors: A clinicopathological study of 18 cases. Med Oral Patol Oral Cir Bucal. 2008 Sep 1;13(9):E582-8.
5. Toida M, Shimokawa K, Makita H, Kato K, Kobayashi A, Kusunoki Y, Hatakeyama D, Fujitsuka H, Yamashita T, Shibata T. Intraoral minor salivary gland tumors: a clinicopathological study of 82 cases. Int J Oral Maxillofac Surg. 2005 Jul;34(5):528-32. Epub 2005 Jan 24.
6. Yih WY, Kratochvil FJ, Stewart JC. Intraoral minor salivary gland neoplasms: review of 213 cases. J Oral Maxillofac Surg. 2005 Jun;63(6):805-10.
7. Hamakawa H, Takarada M, Ito C, Tanioka H. Bone-forming pleomorphic adenoma of the upper lip: report of a case. J Oral Maxillofac Surg. 1997 Dec;55(12):1471-5.
8. Koutlas IG, Scheithauer BW. Palisaded encapsulated ("solitary circumscribed") neuroma of the oral cavity: a review of 55 cases. Head Neck Pathol. 2010 Mar;4(1):15-26. doi: 10.1007/s12105-010-0162-x. Epub 2010 Jan 23.
9. Jordan RC, Regezi JA. Oral spindle cell neoplasms: a review of 307 cases. Oral Surg Oral Med Oral Pathol Oral Radiol Endod. 2003;95:717–724. doi: 10.1067/moe.2003.140.
10. Tomich CE, Moll MC. Palisaded encapsulated neuroma of the lip. J Oral Surg. 1976;34:265–268.
11. Anastassov GE, van Damme PA. Angioleiomyoma of the upper lip: report of a case. Int J Oral Maxillofac Surg. 1995 Aug;24(4):301-2.
12. Maeda Y, Hirota J, Osaki T, Hayashi K, Sonobe H, Otsuki Y. Angiomyoma of the upper lip: report of a case with electron microscopic and immunohistochemical observation. Br J Oral Maxillofac Surg. 1989 Jun;27(3):236-42.
13. Gianluca S, Marini R, Tonoli F, Cristalli MP. Leiomyoma of oral cavity: case report and literature review. Ann Stomatol (Roma). 2011 Jan;2(1-2):9-12.


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Revolution episode 10 review: Nobody's Fault But Mine
Revolution reaches its mid-season finale, but has it improved any? Er, here's Billy's review...
This review contains spoilers.
1.10 Nobody's Fault But Mine
I was really excited by the prospect of this episode, even if that makes me sound utterly deluded. Well, I was mostly anticipating the break I was going to get into covering this trash, as Revolution doesn't blight our screens again until the 25th of March 2013 (hooray!).
In a change from my regular tirade about how abysmal the show is, I thought it only best to give that a short break too, and instead talk about some of the very odd overtones in this particular story. Specifically, the Star Wars gig that the writers suddenly decided to follow for whatever reason. From the outset they just couldn't help inserting borrowed scenes from Star Wars in this otherwise incredibly boring narrative.
About four minutes in, Major Tom and Bass have a minion/Moff Tarkin exchange that's essentially the one where Tarkin says, evacuate? "In our moment of triumph? I think you overestimate their chances." The Star Wars theme of that struck me hard, even if I was slightly distracted by Tom's delusion that you could go from Philadelphia to Boston for 'a few days', when it's over three hundred miles away, and even on a horse the journey would take at least a week or more, unless you like to kill them.
While I was mulling that over, the story switched to a scene where Miles repeats a classic Han Solo riposte of "It's me!". The episode then went on to borrow from other ideas and scenes, as it built up to the confrontation between Miles and Bass, or is it Obi-wan and Vader? This was sending me plenty of other signals, about who the father of Charlie really is, because I'm pretty certain it won't be who she thinks it was. Is this building up to a 'Charlie, I am your father' moment? It looks likely, because the writers don't really have any original ideas of their own, it seems.
But, although I wanted to be nicer, I can't help referencing the end of the episode where they stored up all the best BS for a complete splurge in the final scenes. For starters, Rachel must be the dumbest smart person ever. Given what needed to be threatened for her to make the amplifier, that she then left the Pendant and that device in one piece seems like the ultimate in blond moments. She is officially an idiot.
But even that paled into insignificance when the helicopters appeared, old helicopters (much older than they needed to be), that would never work without seals and filters that you wouldn't have access to after fifteen years. But what made me laugh the most was that they'd mounted GAU-2/A miniguns on them! In the very opening scene of the story we'd gone back to the early days of Miles and Bass, when they started running out of ammo. And, now he's going to deploy a weapon that can consume ammunition at the rate of six thousand rounds per minute. How insane is that?
It's like one writer wrote the opening scene, and then another, without even reading it, then wrote the end, oblivious to the ideas that had been presented earlier. I'd have really liked some brief diversion to Randall and Grace, as that at least is marginally interesting, but we didn't even get that small joy.
At this time I'm still trying to decide if I want to continue reviewing Revolution, because it is without doubt the worst thing I've been tasked to cover. A more optimistic person might consider that in the four months before we're subjected to more of this, that the writers might be able to craft a decent story and dialogue for the sad souls asked to perform here, but I'm not remotely confident.
I've seen static station idents that are more engaging than this is.
Read Billy's review of the previous episode, Kashmir, here.
Follow our Twitter feed for faster news and bad jokes right here. And be our Facebook chum here.
Disqus - noscript
the funny thing is, I've stopped watching the series, but I still read these reviews. I keep an eye out to see if its still tupid - you did do a public service trudging through them.
I also mentioned the Moff Tarkin line to my wife at the time.
It's hilarious this series, unfortunately for all the wrong reasons.
No, let someone else review it, please. While I don't claim it's great television, having someone review a show that obviously hates it is no fun to read.
I'm the same as swimtobirds. I gave up after ep 2 or 3 of this dreadful show. Yet I still keep an eye on the reviews.
I wouldn't worry about having to review it much longer, it can't have much life left in it.
IDK, at this point these reviews are better than the shows themselves. It truly is lacking in logic or common sense to a point where it's not just a suspension of disbelief you need, but a disbeliefectomy.
Compared to this BSG looks positive clever and logical.
I never thought I'd see anything worse than The Cape. But here we are.


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Chinese Connection Dub Embassy CD release party
9 p.m. Saturday at The Beer Garden, 84 S. Reese. Cover: $12; includes EP and all-you-can-eat buffet. For more information, call 901-454-9988
"This isn't just a band. It's a movement," says Omar Higgins, bassist and oldest of the three brothers in the Memphis reggae band Chinese Connection Dub Embassy. "Our movement is to unify Memphis through music and sound, whether it be reggae music, whether it be punk-rock, jazz, R&B, hip-hop, gospel, even rap.
"It may seem like a lofty ambition, but the truth is few bands in the Bluff City have ever crossed as many boundaries as the Dub Embassy in just three years of being together.
The band, which also includes Omar's brothers Joseph and David, drummer Donnon Johnson and saxophonist John-Michael Tubbs, has emerged as the city's top reggae group. But thanks to a confluence of Memphis, New York and West Indian influences, it has also become a preferred collaborator with a host of artists across different genres, including funk-pop singer Ryan Peel, Latin-jazz diva Marcela Pinilla, roots-punks Sin City Scoundrels, and alternative rapper Knowledge Nick.
"We're genuinely just fans of all kinds of music," says David Higgins, recounting the band's role, captured on YouTube, backing up a cypher — or freestyle battle — of different rappers at Nick's packed record release party last weekend at Newby's. "We listen to everything, so when we do a show with a metal band or a rap artist, it's genuine."
Reggae remains Dub Embassy's bread and butter, however, and the band will reassert its claim to the local Lover's Rock throne Saturday when it celebrates the release of its debut EP, Farmers Market, with a show at The Beer Garden, formerly known as Raffe's Beer Garden, at South Reese and Poplar.
The sons of renowned Memphis-born drummer Ervin Higgins (Chaka Khan, Isaac Hayes and, most recently, The Eye 2 Eye Band), the brothers have been making music together since they were youngsters. They grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y., where the cross-cultural currents of the neighborhood combined with their father's Deep South soul and their mother's West Indian heritage to provide a varied music education.
In 1996, when Omar, the oldest, was about 14, the family moved back to their father's hometown. The move was a shock to the Higgins boys, who were used to the more open cultural interchanges of New York. Upon experiencing the still relatively segregated South, their ambition to unite the city's disparate cultures was born.
"If you're a black guy at a metal show, you're looked at weird. If you're white guy at hip-hop show, you're looked at weird," Omar Higgins says. "We believe in unity. It shouldn't matter if you're black, white, green, purple, homosexual, lesbian, whatever. It doesn't matter."
Dub Embassy's origins lie in Omar's return from a stint in the military in 2003 when he started a band called the Soul Enforcers. In late 2008, Joseph and David joined the band, on keys and guitar, respectively. A year later, inspired by the title of a Bruce Lee movie — "People don't know about the strong connection between martial arts and reggae culture in the '70s," says Omar Higgins — the group changed its name to Chinese Connection Dub Embassy.
From the beginning, the band threw itself into its mission of uniting the disparate strands of the local music scene. Some of its earliest gigs were their "Subculture Clash" shows where they teamed with acts from different genres, like the Sin City Scoundrels and Pinilla. Later, they became the backing band for Peel, whose métier is more Prince and Maroon 5 than Lee Perry and Peter Tosh.
All the while, Dub Embassy was steadily working on scores of demos. The biggest hurdle to getting a record out was finding audio professionals sensitive to the sonic needs of a reggae band. They ended up recording with Josh "DJ Homework" Metzger at the University of Memphis studio. But most important was getting Sin City Scoundrels bassist John Fayette, who understood that the most important elements are the drum and bass, to mix and master the record.
"It was all about getting that sound, getting that vibe of reggae in the '70s and '80s and getting that Memphis soul on top of it," David Higgins says.
Farmers Market is the first in a planned series of EPs that Dub Embassy will put out leading up to the release next spring of their full-length debut. In the meantime, the group is also planning the 1st Annual Memphis Reggae Fest to be held in June at the Levitt Shell in Overton Park.
"Reggae does have a scene out here," Omar Higgins says. "Memphis needs reggae music. It needs that positivity."
© 2012 Go Memphis. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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I've surfed through a lot of old threads here looking for information. I reported last weekend having picked up a pair of 1.2TLs at a price I couldn't refuse despite the drive. I found that one tweeter was bad, and I found a replacement on Ebay and installed it and while test-driving it in its new home, another went bad. For this reason, I'll be looking into the Polk replacements when they become available (in October, right?) I figure if one was bad, and another went, there may be more casualties.
This lead me to do some research on repairing these. I decided to open one up. As my research indicated would be likely, the tiny hair-sized lead on one side had become detached. I figure age and 650 miles of bad road home took its toll. That also probably means the rest are not too long for operative condition either. I-10 through Louisiana is pretty washboard-ish, particularly in an F350. Nevertheless, the damage is done, so now I'm in rehab mode. Since the new tweeters aren't available right now, I'm going to need to make do.
F1Nut mentioned that the ferro fluid was likely sludge. True. Nevertheless, I soldiered on, staying up far too late last night and into the wee hours of the morning with an illuminated magnifier, and improvising some conductive adhesive. (It's actually amazing that I managed this at all. While my vision at a distance is great, I am finding now in my late 40's that myopia is beginning to set in, much to my annoyance, so that the magnifying glass is necessary. I digress...)
I succeeded in re-attaching the tiny lead. It reads a bit off-spec, however. All of the others in the cabinet range from 5.9ohms to 6.1ohms. This one now pegs the meter at 6.2ohms. I let it set overnight(okay, from 4am-9am this morning) held together by a small hemostat, and when I woke up, I immediately went to remove the hemostat and worried that the adhesive would cause the tool to stick to the wire, only to detach it again upon removal, but this did not happen. I re-checked my resistance and reassembled. Still at 6.2ohms. I re-installed the tweeter. I tested the speaker. Amazingly, it works, for now...
I actually dug around here until I found a thread about changing/replacing ferro fluid, that included some specs from a polk engineer. F1Nut, you seemed to be much-involved in that thread though it was a decade ago. Did you ever have any success?
I guess this is what a fella does when he can't get replacements, but still wants to tinker and hear the speakers?
Any thoughts?


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Eastern Shore Getaways
Maryland Eastern Shore - A Visitors Guide
The Maryland Eastern Shore, historic towns, beaches and beautiful natural areas along the Maryland Eastern Shore, Find information about resort communities along the Chesapeake Bay and activities such as boating, swimming, fishing, bird watching, biking and golf.
Eastern Shore of Virginia – A Visitors Guide
The Eastern Shore of Virginia is a 70-mile peninsula off of Virginia's coast, surrounded by the waters of the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. The Eastern Shore features charming B&Bs, pristine beaches, miles of hiking trails, fresh seafood, barrier islands, and quaint small towns. Learn about the towns and things to do along the Virginia...
Chesapeake Bay – Things to Know About the Chesapeake Bay
The Chesapeake Bay, the largest estuary in the United States, stretches approximately 200 miles from the Susquehanna River to the Atlantic Ocean. Learn about activities on the Chesapeake Bay, interesting facts about the Bay, Seafood and Wildlife on the Chesapeake Bay, Threats and Protecting the Bay and more.
Exploring the Cities and Towns Along the Chesapeake Bay
Learn about the Cities and Towns in Maryland along the Chesapeake Bay, The towns along the Bay offer a wide range of recreational activities and have a variety of accommodations, restaurants, museums, attractions for kids, shopping venues and nightlife options.
Ocean City, Maryland Visitors Guide
Ocean City, Maryland, with its 10 miles of white sand beaches along the Atlantic Ocean, is the ideal place for swimming, surfing, kite flying, sand castle building, jogging, etc. The resort is a bustling beach town with amusement parks, arcades, miniature golf courses, shopping malls, an Outlet shopping center, movie theaters, go-kart tracks and the famous three-mile Ocean City Boardwalk. Followi…
Ocean City Pictures
See pictures of Ocean City Maryland, a gallery of photos of the Maryland Eastern Shore beach town
Best Beaches Near Washington, DC
Find the best beaches near Washington, DC, Maryland and Virginia. From a quiet getaway to an active beach vacation, you can find it all at the beaches near Washington, DC.
Ocean City Boardwalk - A Guide to the Ocean City, Maryland Boardwalk
The famous Ocean City Boardwalk extends three miles along the Atlantic Ocean is a great destination for all ages to enjoy shopping, dining, amusements and watching the sunset. USA Today named it one of the nation's "Top 10 Great Boardwalks." See photos and learn more about the Ocean City, Maryland Boardwalk.
Ocean City Events
Ocean City hosts a wide range of events throughout the year. See a calendar of annual events in Ocean City, Maryland,
Ocean City Hotels
See a guide to Ocean City hotels, including boardwalk hotels, cheap Ocean City hotels, moderate hotels and suites and more.
Ocean City Amusements and Miniature Golf Courses
See a guide to Ocean City Amusements and Miniature Golf Courses, including arcades, carousels, bumper cars and more. Find information about Ocean City Boardwalk Attractions
Ocean City Maryland Campgrounds
Campgrounds near Ocean City, Find information about a variety of campgrounds and RV parks within a short drive from Ocean City, Maryland.
Ocean City Vacation Rentals
Finding a place to stay at the beach can be overwhelming. The following guide includes real estate companies that can help you find an Ocean City vacation rental property to meet your needs.
Bethany Beach Vacation Guide
Bethany Beach and Fenwick, Delaware call themselves "the Quiet Resorts". Located between the Atlantic Ocean and the inland bays in the southeastern corner of Sussex County, the Bethany area is comprised of family-oriented beach towns with lots of amenities and a relaxed atmosphere.
Bethany Pictures - Photos of Delaware's Bethany Beach
See pictures of Bethany Beach on the Delaware Eastern Shore, photos of Bethany, the Bethany Boardwalk, Bethany attractions and more.
Assateague Island – A Visitors Guide to the Assateague National Seashore
Assateague Island, a 37-mile long barrier island located off the coast of Maryland and Virginia, is a unique vacation destination with breathtaking scenery and plenty of recreational opportunities including fishing, crabbing, clamming, kayaking, bird watching, wildlife viewing, hiking, and swimming. See tips on visiting Assateague Island.
Chincoteague, Virginia – A Visitors Guide to Chincoteague Island
Chincoteague is a small town on the Virginia Eastern Shore world-famous for its wild ponies and includes more than 14,000 acres of beach, dunes, marsh and forest. See tips for planning a vacation to Chincoteague, Virginia.
Assateague Photos - Pictures of Maryland's Assateague Island
See photos of the breathtaking scenery of Assateague Island, the national seashore off the coast of Maryland and Virginia. Assateague is home to hundreds of species of wildlife. Enjoy these pictures and get a glimpse of the area.
Back Bay Wildlife Refuge - Virginia Beach
Learn about the Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge in Virginia Beach, VA, visiting opportunities, wildlife and nature programs, hiking, biking, kayaking,
Hang Gliding on the Virginia Eastern Shore
Learn about hang gliding lessons on the Virginia Eastern Shore. No experience is necessary and its an exhilarating experience flying over beautiful vineyards, farms and waterways. You and your instructor will be towed to 2,000 feet by a sport light airplane, and then released to enjoy the flight.
5 Unique Things to Do on the Virginia Eastern Shore
The Virginia Eastern Shore is an ideal destination to getaway from the hectic lifestyle of the city. Home to pristine beaches and wildlife preserves, Virginia's waterfront destinations, offer fun and adventure for all ages. Find some unique things to do on the Virginia Eastern Shore.
Tangier Island – Exploring a Chesapeake Bay Island
Tangier Island is often referred to as the 'soft shell crab capital of the world' and is a unique place to visit. Learn about the island on the Chesapeake Bay in Virginia, getting to the island, things to do and more.
Tangier Island Pictures - Photos of Tangier, Virginia
See pictures of Tangier Island, photos of a remote island off of the Chesapeake Bay in Virginia


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POD: Mikyle McIntosh & Jalyn Pennie
Published by Drew Ebanks on August 15, 2011
CROWN was on hand to see the last Canada Basketball ID session with players such as Kaza Keane, Mikyle McIntosh, Tre Smith and Jayln Pennie.
2013 forward Mikyle McIntosh had the dunk of the night with the strong off the rebound cram and 6-foot-7 2013 rising junior Pennie drained a sweet Kevin Durant like step-back jumper in a defender's grill! Check it out.


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To view a list of upcoming presentations, go to our History of Medicine Presentations page.
Todd Savitt, PhD (Professor of Medical Humanities, Brody School of Medicine)
January 17, 2006
Not recorded
Ben Gersh (4th Year Student, Brody School of Medicine)
February 14, 2006
Not recorded
Julie Fairman, PhD, RN, FAAN (Associate Professor of Nursing, University of Pennsylvania)
March 21, 2006
Not recorded
Marc Randall, MD (Director, Leo W. Jenkins Cancer Center)
April 18, 2006
Not recorded
Todd Savitt, PhD (Professor, Medical Humanities)
August 28, 2006
Not recorded
Robert Tanenberg, MD (Professor, Internal Medicine)
September 25, 2006
Not recorded
Omur Cinar Elci, MD, PhD (Associate Professor, Division of Community Health and Preventive Medicine)
October 23, 2006
Not recorded
Sally Smith Hughes, Ph.D. (Historian of Science, Bancroft Library, University of California and 2006-2007 National Humanities Center Fellow)
November 9, 2006
Not recorded
Frank Romer, PhD. (Professor and Chair, Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures)
November 27, 2006
Not recorded


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A successful sale of $15 million in bonds for school repairs will save East Providence taxpayers about $5 million in interest payments.
East Providence City Manager Peter Graczykowski reported that piece of good news to the City Council on Tuesday night.
The bonds will cover the cost of critical health and safety repairs to schools, Graczykowski said.
The Rhode Island Health and Educational Building Corporation (RIHEBC) sold the bonds with an interest rate of 3.51 percent – which will save taxpayers about $150,000 a year, Graczykowski said.
They will pay off a bond-anticipation note of $6 million and an advance principal payment from RIHEBC of $1 million. The remaining $8 million will be set aside for other projects at the schools.
The city manager said health and safety repairs will be prioritized. No school in the "right-sizing" program will be involved.
Delivery date of the bonds was Thursday, Oct. 4.


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Red Line riders are in for another fun weekend of single-tracking trains.
Between 10 p.m. on Friday, June 8, and closing on Sunday, June 10, Red Line trains will single-track between the Takoma and Forest Glen stations to allow for platform reconstruction and fiber optic cable installation, according to Metro's website.
Throughout the weekend, Red Line trains traveling between Shady Grove and Glenmont will operate every 20 minutes, and customers should add an extra 10 minutes of travel time to their trips.
Between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday, additional trains will operate between Shady Grove and New York Avenue stations, providing service every 10 minutes to the western side of the Red Line, Metro added on its website.


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The tour DJ for Big K.R.I.T. links up with the good folks of The Smoking Section for this new mixtape featuring the likes of K.R.I.T., Smoke DZA, Freddie Gibbs and more. Tracklist and link down bottom.
DOWNLOAD: The Smoking Section & DJ Wally Sparks Present: SPKSMEN vol.1 (Mixtape)
ENTER RATINGPost a Comment


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After last Saturday night's action, Mike Chiappetta looks at what might be next for some of the key winners and losers.
MFC has a new policy on weigh ins and drug testing.
Complete MFC 34 results from its "Total Recall" MMA event from the Mayfield Trade Center in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, Aug. 10, 2012, featuring a Lightweight title bout between Mukai Maromo and...
MFC 34: Total Recall Results And Highlights
Complete results from MFC 33 last night (Fri., May 4, 2012) in Edmonton and a look at the deplorable actions of Greg Jackson.
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The Texans have agreed to terms with the top pick in the 2014 draft, Jadeveon Clowney. Check out the terms of Clowney's contract on Battle Red Blog.
The final episode of NFL.com and Gillette's series on the 2014 NFL Draft is now online. As Texans fans, you get a healthy dose of Jadeveon Clowney before the draft and reacting to his selection by...
The newest player to join the Houston Texans met with the media after being selected as the first overall pick of the 2014 NFL Draft.
One intrepid writer at Battle Red Blog gives his brief reactions to the first round of the 2014 NFL Draft, with a focus on what the Houston Texans did (and didn't) do.
The Texans have taken Jadeveon Clowney with the first overall pick of the 2014 NFL Draft. If you listen closely, you can hear the sound of every quarterback in the NFL weeping on their couches.
There's a new report today that NFL teams now expect the Houston Texans to trade down from No. 1 in the 2014 NFL Draft. What would it take for you to part with that pick?
SB Nation's Mocking The Draft has its latest estimate out. This week, they have the Houston Texans staying the course with the first pick of the 2014 NFL Draft and going in a new direction at No. 33.
Steve Shoup, draft guru and co-creator of Fanspeak.com, has pumped out three uniquely-flavored Texans mock drafts exclusively for us here at Battle Red Blog. He used Fanspeak's highly useful "On...
Matt Miller of Bleacher Report has offered up one rumor of why the talented former Gamecock has cancelled all workouts with NFL teams, and it is not as unlikely as you might think.
One of the possibilities for the Houston Texans at No. 1 in the 2014 NFL Draft has his pro day today. This is your spot to talk about Jadeveon Clowney, his pro day performance, and whatever else...
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Results 1 to 9 of 9
Idiot's guide to making a bologna sandwich.
This site has tons of fun stuff on it.
The Complete and Utter Idiot's Guide to Making a Baloney sandwich
by David Neilsen
Hello. Welcome to The Complete and Utter Idiot's Guide to Making a Baloney and Cheese Sandwich. Ready for Lunch? Good! Let's begin!
We're going to start our journey by assuming that you already possess each of the individual items you'll be needing to make this sandwich. It's a bit of a stretch, I know, but Lord knows we don't have time to take you shopping.
So, that said, the first thing you're gonna need is a place to make your sandwich. My suggestion would be a plate. So reach into your cupboard and grab a plate. Any will do. No, that's a bowl. Plates are flat. Right, yes, that's flat, but it's a cutting board. Plates are going to be round. Yes the bowl is round, but it's not flat, is it? Just.. Christ, forget it. Grab that cutting board you had in your hands. Perfect. Put it down.
On the counter, not the floor.
Much better. Alright, you're ready to start. You need bread.
Personally, I prefer either wheat or sourdough, but you might prefer white, rye, pumpernickel, a French roll...you're just staring at me. What do you mean you don't have any bread like that? Like what? What kind of bread do you have?
Wonder. Fine, it's pre-sliced.
Take out two slices of Wonder Bread. Two. More than one, less than three. That's three. Put one back. Perfect. Place your two slices of Wonder Bread on your cutting board. See how easy this is?
OK, you need some sandwich ingredients, open your refrigerator.
Your refrigerator. Big thing in your kitchen. Stores food. Yes, and beer, too. That's the one.
Take out the cheese, the baloney, the mayo...you're giving me that look again. Let's stop there. Cheese, baloney and mayo. Mayonnaise. It's a sandwich spread. White. No, that's Miracle Whip. Yes, it's a white sandwich spread but.. fine. Miracle Whip will do. Put it on the counter next to the bread.
OK. Now we...where's the cheese and baloney? Didn't I just say... uhg! Go back to the refrigerator and.. no, leave the Miracle Whip where it is, just go back to the fridge and open it. Good. Grab the cheese. Any kind will do. Oh Jesus, just pick one!
No, that's brie. It doesn't go well with baloney. What the Hell are you doing with brie?
How about cheddar, do you have cheddar? It's probably orange. Yes! That's cheddar! Bring it to the counter next to cutting board. Now go back to the fridge. I'm sorry, are you getting dizzy? It can happen, get used to it. Open the fridge again. You're looking for baloney. God willing, it'll be pre-sliced. Baloney. It's meat. You're looking for a package filled with slices of meat.
That's bacon.
Yes! That's the baloney! Very good! Now bring that over to the food. No, we're done with the fridge, you'll just throw out whatever you don't use, I can't bear to go through the fridge disaster again.
OK, now you're ready to start making a baloney and cheese sandwich. Open the Miracle Whip. Open it. Twist the lid off of the jar. What do you mean it won't come off? Twist the other direction. There ya go! Now you need a knife.
Oh God.
You don't need a sharp knife, you just need a spreading knife. Dull. Very dull. The duller the better. No! Not that! Put that down before you kill someone! Try to find a knife without a wooden handle. No, that has a wooden handle doesn't it? That probably means it's sharp. Don't test it to see! Just put it down! Find a dull, regular, boring knife!
OK. Perfect. That's a nice simple spreading knife. Dip it into the Miracle Whip. Now lift it out of the Miracle Whip and spread it on the slices of bread. Carefully. Not too hard, you'll tear the bread.
Harder than that. The knife has to at least touch the bread to leave the spread.
There ya go. Now do the other slice of bread. Perfect! You're a regular Julia Childs now!
She's a famous cook....nevermind.
Now your bread is spread. Quit giggling. You are going to place a slice of baloney on one piece of bread. Open the package. No, this package doesn't screw open. Just pull the back end away from the rest of the package. See how it's opening up? Excellent. Take out a slice of baloney. Place it on one of the slices of bread. No, you don't need the knife for this.
Good! You're almost there! Now it's time to cut the cheese.
I said stop giggling.
The cheese is unopened? OK, don't panic. Take the dull knife.. the other end, grab the other end of the knife! Slice the package of cheese open. Just jam it in there and.. don't worry about hurting the cheese! Just slice the damn thing open!
Very good, you're getting to be really good with the knife. Lord help us all.
Now take the block of cheese out and lay it on the counter. Just lay it on the counter, who cares if it's dirty! Like you're gonna be living long at this rate anyway! OK. Again with the knife, cut yourself a few slices of cheese. Thinner than that, you want more than two slices out of your block. Thinner. Thinner. Thinner! Just...measure with your pinky! Your pinky should be at least two slices thick. What are you...DON'T SLICE YOUR PINKY!!! God!
You know what? Forget it! Throw the cheese away. Throw it away! You're just having a baloney sandwich today, I can't deal with this. Don't look at me like that, throw the cheese in the garbage!
Now pick up one slice of bread and put it down on the other. Miracle Whip-side down. Well turn it over, you can't eat a sandwich with the Miracle Whip side facing out!
Because I said so!!!
OK. Pick up the sandwich.
Congratulations! You've made a Baloney Sandwich! Dufus.\\` ` ` ` < ` )___/\
`` ` ` ` (3--(____)
"...but to forget your duck, of course, means you're really screwed." - Gary Larson
Very good directions. Lord knows I need all the help I can get.
Ducky; will you and some of the other girls come over and teach me how to do things in the kitchen? *insert cute puppy dog face here*
When you find yourself in a hole............QUIT DIGGING!!!!!!!!!
OK guys time to come clean. I am not only a police officer but I am also a big time movie star. I am using my real photo as my avatar now. Please NO autographs!!!!
The opinions given in my posts DO NOT reflect the opinions, views, policies, and/or procedures of my employing agency. They are MY PERSONAL OPINIONS and I accept sole responsibility as such
That is the funniest....................
I have never laughed so hard at something in my life......!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Capt. D. Larimore
NTISF Gang Unit
Thanks for the link Ducky!
My wife liked it so well, she put in on the fridge so Id always have it handy.
My wife loves me!
We are the thin blue line
between you
and all the money in the world.
And no you can't have any.
Wow!! I followed the directions and made something. Don't think its baloney, but it was good. Thanks Ducky!!!"An Unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it." Jeff Cooper
Some people are meant to be the police......Some people are meant to call the police!!!
"Socialism only works in two places: Heaven where they don't need it and hell where they already have it."
-Ronald Reagan
" I believe that forgiving them (Terrorist) is God's function. OUR job is to arrange the meeting."
General Norman Schwartzkopf
Not all Muslims are Terrorists, but all Terrorists are Muslim.
(author unknown)
The statements posted by BigDawg DO NOT reflect the opinions, views, policies, or procedures of the author's employing agency. These statements are the personal opinions of BigDawg only, thereby releasing my agency of any liability, or involvement in anything posted under the user name of BigDawg. The opinions expressed by BigDawg are protected by the 1st Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. BigDawgs messages are intended to invoke thought and discussion among the "Officer Resources" forum community and may not necessarily reflect the opinion of the author. BigDawgs posts and any attachments are intended for an adult audience (18+) and may contain strong language, sexual content, nudity, violence, and may be graphic in nature. Some material may be considered offensive; reader discretion is advised. Please note that many of BigDawgs posts are intended for entertainment value only. BigDawgs posts are not intended to be used where prohibited by law. Furthermore, BigDawg's posts, and any attachments, may contain information covered by the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, 18 U.S.C. 2510-2521, and is confidential and proprietary in nature. If you are not the intended recipient, please be advised that you are legally prohibited from retaining, using, copying, distributing, or otherwise disclosing this information in any manner.
I'm gonna have to print that out for the hubby and his kids. Dang all they know is "Hunny, or Miss Kim can you help us in the kitchen..." lol Gotta love em thoughIt is better to be tried by 12, than carried by 6.
______________________________ __________
An invisible red thread connects those who are destined to meet, regardless of time, place, or circumstance. The thread may stretch or tangle, but will never break.
______________________________ __________
In vino veritas!
Uhhhh, Ducky.
That was great advice.
Maybe next time you could help me out with directions on how to properly boil water.
I seem to keep burning it . . . . .
.The Swamp Mafia -"Heaven doesn't want us,and Hell's afraid we'll take over!!".
I have to agree with Ducky on this... It just keeps getting funnier every time I read it...LOL
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Two new Memphis apps are available for download in the app store of your choice*. Both are free! Here's a quick rundown of what they offer:
The Brooks app has been around for several weeks now and offers patrons an easy way to get information on the museum's featured exhibitions, floorplans, upcoming events, membership information, hours, Brushmark restaurant times and menus, and more.
Probably the most innovative usage of the app is the multimedia tour area, where a patron can plug in headphones and walk through featured exhibitions while learning interesting history and tidbits about the very pieces he or she is looking at in real time. Gather 'round, children, and I will tell you a story: Once upon a time when you went to a museum, you had to check out a clunky headphone set to take a tour, or arrive at a certain time and follow a tour guide you could barely hear around the crowded galleries. App technology is changing that.
Another cool little piece of the app is the just-for-kids area, where kids -- of all ages, ahem -- can play a puzzle game or use their finger-painting coloring book.
The Memphis Redbirds just unveiled their smartphone app today, touting it as "another great way for us to connect to our fans," said Redbirds General Manager Ben Weiss in a press release. "Now fans can find the game they want, see the promotion for that game and buy tickets all from their phone, plus a lot more."
Of course, fans could do all those things on their phones before, and in much the same way, since the Redbirds app relies on linking out to external websites to power much of its functionality. For example, to view the seating chart, you'll be prompted that you're leaving the app, and you quickly realize that you're being plunked down onto the Redbirds' website to view their seating chart. Even the promotions area of the app -- which, presumably, would be a simple calendar listing of upcoming events -- takes you out of the app and onto the Redbirds' website. Unfortunately, the Redbirds' site isn't really even optimized for mobile viewing, so you have to scroll and pinch your way around the screen to see what you need to see.
The same goes for the area of the app where you buy tickets. Your transaction can't be done in-app, so you're taken out of the app and onto TicketReturn's website.
There's even an area where you can click to livestream a game -- cool, right? -- but it pops you out of the app and onto the site of Sports56, which also isn't optimized for mobile viewing.
Because you're popping into and out of the app regularly to use most of its features, the experience is kind of clunky and involves a lot of load screens and permission prompts ("you're leaving the app," "so-and-so wants to use your location," etc.).
Overall the app is a nice idea but not terribly sophisticated or interactive (for example, on the ticketing screen, it says "For ticket questions, please call (901) 721-6000," but the number is not clickable and doesn't pull up phone function, which is a standard shortcut in smartphone apps). That said, the app's shortcuts provide a bit more convenience than simply Google searching "Redbirds schedule" every time you decide on a whim to see if there's a game you'd like to go to.
*well, almost. The Brooks app page says "coming soon" for Android. So stay tuned.


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Demolition crews began tearing down the building which housed the Silver Spoon diner Thursday.
As of Thursday afternoon, about a third of the building has been demolished -- the portion that housed the restaurant's bar.
A member of the demolition crew said they were scheduled to continue tearing the building down over the next two weeks to just the back two walls.
City Hall's planning department told Patch this job is considered a "remodel" rather than a demolition since the basic structural supports will remain in place.
Because Silver Spoon is under 10,000 square feet, the remodel plans were approved at the staff level. If it was larger than that, it would have gone before the Planning Commission.
The diner at 8171 Santa Monica Blvd has been a Weho staple since 1965 when it opened as Theodore's. The name changed to the Silver Spoon in 1987.
Last fall, the family that owned Silver Spoon sold the restaurant and closed the doors for the final time on Dec. 31, 2011.
According to a public notice in the window at the time of the closing, the restaurant will reopen as "Connie and Ted's." A report released by the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control said the business has been sold to Chef Michael Cimarusti of the Melrose seafood restaurant Providence and Claim Jumper founder Craig Nickoloff.


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Just Fabulous!, Marblehead's new special-order cake studio, recently opened in the former home of the clothing store on Atlantic Avenue.
The opening means owner Ellyn Gimbel is currently accepting orders for specialty cakes and dessert tables.
Gimbel said the cake studio, located at 40 Atlantic Ave., will be similar in concept to the much-acclaimed television shows Cake Boss and Ace of Cakes.
Gimbel said she has been creating custom cakes for a variety of special events, including weddings and Bar/Bat Mitzvahs since 1995.
"In Marblehead, I will also be offering dessert tables - these tables are visually appealing, color-coordinated to the event decor and wonderfully over the top," Gimbel said. "Cupcakes, cookies, candies of all sorts are all coordinated to add a special touch to a special event."
Along with cakes and dessert tables, Gimbel will be offering baked goodie baskets and will be serving up her grandmother's special Bubke recipe.
"I am hoping that I can present these vintage breads to the community through a wholesale market," Gimbel said.
All of the items Gimbel creates will be available through special order and will be custom-designed for each client, she said.
Know of a new business coming to town? Let us know and we will make it the focus of our next column.
Have an idea for a business that might do well in Marblehead? Let us know by commenting on one of our weekly posts.


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Undergraduate Students
The Department of Music's Undergraduate Program Guidebook is an information resource for current University of West Georgia students. The guidebook articulates certain specific requirements, policies, stipulations and procedures pertaining to the various programs, emphases, options, and courses in music and to the functioning of the Department of Music. Some information may not appear in the University Catalogs, but is nevertheless applicable regardless of the student's catalog year.


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Trading Places
Inside views on the jobs market
Uncle Sam needs you! More than 270,000 of you
Out-of-work Americans pining for a bright spot amid the still-bleak unemployment landscape should welcome news that the federal government is in need of new recruits. A lot of them.
The feds need to hire close to 273,000 people over the next three years to fill so-called "mission-critical" jobs across the U.S. and abroad, in part because more federal workers are inching closer to retirement age, a new survey of 35 federal agencies by think-tank Partnership for Public Service shows.
Perhaps not surprisingly, agencies in the public health and medical fields are in need of the most new bodies. A total of 54,114 people are in demand to fill positions in areas ranging from radiology to consumer safety, according to the study.
Job seekers should also look to the security, law enforcement, legal and administrative fields, all of which are projected to boom over the next few years.
Of course, as the Washington Post notes, the projections are just that – projections. Hiring campaigns could be slowed if more federal workers choose to put retirement off or if Congress refuses to put up the money to meet all the hiring needs. The government could also decide to outsource some of the jobs to contractors.
Still, the potential surge in full-time, government jobs should have many Americans dusting off their resumes in a hurry.
(An armed forces recruiting poster is shown outside the U.S. Armed Forces Career Center in New York's Times Square in this March 6, 2008 file photo. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson)
I must say that the global recovery is certainly something we in the UK support, but we are held back by archaic governmental controls of our industry. I think the peers would jump in and join with the commoners to push us forward, if only reform in the house of Lords would happen to allow the hereditary peers more room to work on this I believe the whole country would respond more quickly.