text:
Buttoned Shell Stitch Cowl
My mom recently celebrated her birthday, and I wanted to crochet her a buttoned cowl as a part of her gift! It is so special crocheting items for loved ones, knowing that they will wear them and always think of you when they do :) You might recall that I crocheted a Puff Stitch Scarf for my mom two years ago as well! Scarves and cowls have been a must recently during our cold Canadian winters as the temperatures have been dipping extremely low and any exposed skin could result in frostbite!
I had just recently crocheted my favourite baby hat, the "Shell Stitch Beanie" for a newborn when it occurred to me that using the shell stitch would be a great idea for a cowl! I LOVE doing the shell stitch, and the result is always beautiful. Thus, I excitedly began and crocheted a series of chain stitches, estimating how long I wanted my mom's cowl to be. Then I started doing the shell stitch across!
I wanted this cowl to be folded around the neck and secured with a button, so instead of crocheting in a circle in rounds, I crocheted it row by row, turning at the end of each row.
It is important to note when following the pattern that each shell stitch is worked in the Chain 1 space from the previous row below, NOT the space between the shell stitches.
This results in a beautiful pattern in which the shell stitches are stacked upon one another rather than being staggered across the rows.
The edges also have a pretty scalloped design!
For this particular cowl I crocheted 6 rows of these shell stitches. I then sewed on a very special button that we picked up from the Halifax Farmer's Market!
I also crocheted a cowl for a friend in this beautiful green colour and added a brown button from the same Farmer's Market! I love "Loops & Threads Cozy Wool" as it is so incredibly soft. My mom's cowl is in "Pewter" and the green one is called "Spearmint". I used one ball of yarn for each!
I snapped a quick photo of the spearmint cowl before it went off to its new owner!
This is my mom's finished cowl!
Here is the pattern that I made for this cowl:
Buttoned Chunky Shell Stitch Cowl (worked in rows)
Using a 10 mm crochet hook,
Chain 48
Row 1: In fourth chain from hook, dc (initial chains count as first dc), ch 1, 2 dc in same stitch. *Skip 3 ch, (2 dc, ch 1, 2 dc) in next ch* repeat from * to end (12 shells [each shell made of total 4 dc and ch 1])
Rows 2-6: Chain 3, turn. *2 dc, ch 1, 2 dc* in first chain 1 space. *2 dc, ch 1, 2 dc* in each ch 1 space till end (12 shells).
Finish off and weave in ends. Attach button towards left side of cowl (see pics above). Be sure to wear the cowl with the scallopped edges facing upwards!
[Finished cowl is 7" in height and 29" in width, using one skein of "Loops & Threads Cozy Wool"]
Here is my beautiful mom wearing her new buttoned cowl! She loved it as soon as she opened it! She particularly likes how soft the yarn is and how she can put the button through any hole of this cowl. It's also easy to wear since you don't have to pull the cowl over your head which can result in staticky hair!
I wanted to make a REALLY chunky buttoned shell stitch cowl for myself using some interesting yarn that Ryan found called "Patons Cobbles" at Michaels! The way that the yarn was segmented into little chunks looked really neat and we were curious how it would look in a crocheted piece. We bought a beautiful brown colour called "Moon Rock" (pictured below) and a gorgeous yellow colour called "Mustard Seed".
I decided to use the "Mustard Seed" colour for my cowl since I wanted to use this big, beautiful wooden button that we picked up in a cute little craft boutique in Paris two years ago. I think it's so neat when we buy buttons on our travels as each button reminds me of our special adventures. I love being able to use them in my crocheted pieces, and I had been waiting a long time to use this amazing find :) The brown button contrasts so nicely against the mustard cowl!
Isn't the texture of this cowl absolutely stunning? I love the unique look that the "Patons Cobbles" gives!
When worn under a coat, the cowl gives a very beautiful collared effect! It also helps keep my neck very warm too :) What a great way to be warm and stylish at the same time! It certainly is a statement piece that can help spice up any outfit! With the recent frigid temperatures, we dared not take any outside photos for this shoot- thank goodness we managed to snap some snowy photos when the temperature was still manageable with the Ribbed Pom Pom Beanie a couple weeks ago!
For this cowl, I used a 10 mm crochet hook and chained 56 initially, resulting in 14 shells. Using two skeins of this yarn allowed me to do 5 rows. This cowl was 7" in height and 40" across.
{Dress: Urban Outfitters, Sweater: Roxy, Jacket: Zara, Bracelet: Mikaylove, Buttoned Shell Stitch Cowl: Me!}
I crocheted another buttoned cowl for a friend using "Lion Brand's Wool-Ease Thick & Quick Yarn" in "Raspberry" (the same yarn I used for my "Long Double Crochet Cowl" from last year). We chose a beautiful gold button to contrast against the pink yarn. For this cowl I also chained 56 in the beginning, resulting in 14 shells. With one skein of yarn I could make 7 rows (dimensions: 8.5" in height, 32" across).
I crocheted a matching toddler cowl for my friend's daughter too! For this cowl I used an 8 mm crochet hook and chained 48 initially, resulting in 12 shells and 4 rows (dimensions: 4.5" in height, 24" across). I found a smaller gold button to match with her mom's too!
Of course I had to make Myla a toddler cowl too! Here we have three generations wearing the "Buttoned Shell Stitch Cowls" that I crocheted, each in varying sizes! Don't we all look so cozy and warm?
I hope you enjoyed reading about all the "Buttoned Shell Stitch Cowls" that I crocheted! Once you know how the basic pattern works, you can easily adapt this pattern to make your cowls various sizes and lengths (add or decrease 4 chains at the beginning to increase or decrease number of shell stitches). This pattern is so versatile as using different yarns and different buttons helps give the cowls different looks, and they can be quite the statement piece! These cowls also work up very quickly which is usually the case when working with chunky yarn and a large crochet hook! The shell stitches give such an elegant, pretty, and romantic look to the cowls, wouldn't you agree?
I also designed a "Round Shell Stitch Cowl" that is worked in rounds instead of rows and does not include a button. See the step-by-step tutorial and free pattern HERE!
For some more cowl options, be sure to check out my "Chunky Double Crochet Cowl" and "Long Double Crochet Cowl" from last year too!
WIll you be making any of these cowls? What yarn are you going to use? They would make lovely Christmas gifts! Let me know what you think about them in the comments below, and don't forget to show me your finished pieces on my Facebook page, Twitter and Instagram (@AllAboutAmi, #AllAboutAmi)! Happy crocheting and stay warm, everyone ❤
Amazon affiliate links:
Spinrite Cobbles Yarn, Mustard Seed


text:
Jotter-Journal Facebook Page :) Feel free to check it out~
0 marine animals
0 chickens
0 ducks
0 pigs
0 rabbits
0 turkeys
0 geese
0 sheep
0 goats
0 cows and calves
0 rodents
0 pigeons and other birds
0 buffaloes
0 dogs
0 cats
0 horses
0 donkeys and mules
0 camels and other camelids
Who ever did this is a sick POS that doesn't deserve to be on this planet. My 2 chihuahuas came from Baldwin Park...
My god I want to physical hurt and kill people that do this. They shouldn't even be called people, they are monsters. I...
Sick people i swear.
This is so disturbing
I would kill this person.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
The Secret Lyrics - Gary Numan
We are, we are
The machines
We'll play 'games' for you.
Come inside
You're welcome to choose
She is a new fascination,
The cold face of love.
He is a puppet who dances and
Screams with 'the fear'.
We'll show you religion
We'll show you a new god
We'll show you the secret of love/fear
Roll up, roll up
We are clean
We serve you, just for now
We are friends
sponsored linksThey call me 'the priest'
Welcome, welcome
We are good
No-one cries for you
We are kind
You'll stay here forever.
We are good
We are kind
We are clean
We are friends
Come inside
We are the machines
Click here to submit the Corrections of The Secret Lyrics
The following area is only for review, if you want to submit the lyrics or the corrections of the lyrics, please click the link at the end of The Secret Lyrics.


text:
UN's latest report – global warming might now be irreversible
Global warming is already here and could be irreversible, UN panel sayshttp://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/aug/26/global-warming-irreversible-un-panel-report A 127-page draft report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change describes what can be done about it
Global warming is here, human-caused and probably already dangerous – and it's increasingly likely that the heating trend could be irreversible, a draft of a new international science report says.
The United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on Monday sent governments a final draft of its synthesis report, which combines three earlier, gigantic documents by the Nobel Prize-winning group. There is little in the report that wasn't in the other more-detailed versions, but the language is more stark and the report attempts to connect the different scientific disciplines studying problems caused by the burning of fossil fuels, such as coal, oil and gas.
The 127-page draft, obtained by The Associated Press, paints a harsh warning of what's causing global warming and what it will do to humans and the environment. It also describes what can be done about it.
"Continued emission of greenhouse gases will cause further warming and long-lasting changes in all components of the climate system, increasing the likelihood of severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts for people and ecosystems," the report says. The final report will be issued after governments and scientists go over the draft line by line in an October conference in Copenhagen.
Depending on circumstances and values, "currently observed impacts might already be considered dangerous," the report says. It mentions extreme weather and rising sea levels, such as heat waves, flooding and droughts. It even raises, as an earlier report did, the idea that climate change will worsen violent conflicts and refugee problems and could hinder efforts to grow more food. And ocean acidification, which comes from the added carbon absorbed by oceans, will harm marine life, it says.
Without changes in greenhouse gas emissions, "climate change risks are likely to be high or very high by the end of the 21st century," the report says.
In 2009, countries across the globe set a goal of limiting global warming to about another 2 degrees Fahrenheit (-16.67C) above current levels. But the report says that it is looking more likely that the world will shoot past that point. Limiting warming to that much is possible but would require dramatic and immediate cuts in carbon dioxide pollution.
The report says if the world continues to spew greenhouse gases at its accelerating rate, it's likely that by mid-century temperatures will increase by about another 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) compared to temperatures from 1986 to 2005. And by the end of the century, that scenario will bring temperatures that are about 6.7 degrees Fahrenheit warmer (3.7 degrees Celsius).
Looks like global warming is stopping nuclear power, rather than the other way round
Heavy Rain in South Korea Kills Five, Shuts Nuclear Plant Officials Say Five People Still Missing WSJ, By
JEYUP S. KWAAK 25 Aug 14, SEOUL-Heavy rainfall on Monday killed at least five people and shut down a nuclear reactor in South Korea, pushing the country's populous southeast region to a near-standstill. …… A 650-megawatt nuclear reactor in Busan, about 330 kilometers (204 miles) southeast of Seoul, was also suspended on Monday after rising water flowed into the facilities, the national nuclear-power-plant operator Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Co. Ltd said. The reactor remained shut down as of Tuesday morning…….http://online.wsj.com/articles/heavy-rain-in-south-korea-kills-five-shuts-nuclear-plant-1409023982
Nuclear power would come in far too late to affect global warming
Ten top PR firms refuse to work with climate chnage deniers
Ten firms say they will not represent clients that deny man-made climate change or seek to block emisson-reducing regulations Suzanne Goldenberg and Nishad Karim theguardian.com, Monday 4 August 2014 Some of the world's top PR companies have for the first time publicly ruled out working with climate change deniers, marking a fundamental shift in the multi-billion dollar industry that has grown up around the issue of global warming.
Public relations firms have played a critical role over the years in framing the debate on climate change and its solutions – as well as the extensive disinformation campaigns launched to block those initiatives.
Now a number of the top 25 global PR firms have told the Guardian they will not represent clients who deny man-made climate change, or take campaigns seeking to block regulations limiting carbon pollution. Companies include WPP, Waggener Edstrom (WE) Worldwide, Weber Shandwick, Text100, and Finn Partners.
"We would not knowingly partner with a client who denies the existence of climate change," said Rhian Rotz, spokesman for WE.
Weber Shandwick would also not take any campaign to block regulations cutting carbon emissions or promoting renewable energy. "We would not support a campaign that denies the existence and the threat posed by climate change, or efforts to obstruct regulations cutting greenhouse gas emissions and/or renewable energy standards," spokeswoman Michelle Selesky said…… http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/aug/04/worlds-top-pr-companies-rule-out-working-with-climate-deniers
For mitigation of climate change, wind power leaves nuclear and carbon capture way behind
Wind Energy Beats Nuclear & Carbon Capture For Global Warming Mitigation Clean Technica July 29th, 2014 by Mike Barnard There's an enduring myth related to wind energy and nuclear energy that needs to be put to bed. That myth is that only nuclear can be scaled to sufficient capacity to reduce the impacts of global warming, and that wind energy is much less scalable so it should be ignored.
Most recently, this appeared as a broad generalization without any supporting evidence in a pro-carbon capture series by a CCS researcher on the Siemens-sponsored Energy Collective, which features this particular myth regularly, being a bit of an echo chamber for it. Of course the nuclear industry's PR professionals love this line as well.
And there's another myth related to carbon capture and sequestration being more significant than renewables that has to be assessed as well.
China is the true test bed for maximum scalability of nuclear vs wind. It has a tremendous gap between demand and generation. It can mostly ignore lack of social license for nuclear. It is building both wind and nuclear as rapidly as possible. It has been on a crash course for both for about the same period of time. It has bypassed most of the regulatory red tape for nuclear which sensibly exists elsewhere given concerns about economic fallout of Fukushima-scale disasters, nuclear proliferation and terrorism. And in four years it has built significantly less nuclear generation capacity than it built of wind generation capacity in 2013 alone…….
Where does this leave the claims about nuclear and CCS?
Nuclear isn't more scalable than wind or other renewables, in fact it's going in reverse while renewables are being expanded rapidly. And CCS won't dodge more climate change than renewables because wind and solar are being built in production rapidly and CCS isn't and won't be in comparable scales because the economics don't support it. Both are busted myths.
Wind energy isn't the only answer. It is likely to reach a maximum of 30% to 40% of supply in a century worldwide. That's impressive and amazing, but far from the only tool necessary to deal with climate change. Solar will be in the same range. Storage will likely be necessary somewhere from 15% to 20% and grid interconnections will improve substantially. Biomass and geothermal will add their bits, as will tidal possibly. And demand for electricity will go up a lot as countries become richer and transportation and other forms of energy usage become electrified. It's a complex space, and CCS has an important if smaller and only bridging role to play in it. Nuclear is useful as well, although diminishing as a percentage of total worldwide generation.
But the heavy lifting will be done by displacing fossil fuel generation with renewables, not trying to mitigate the extraordinary problems with burning fossil fuels or building nuclear generation. That's what the empirical data tells us………. http://cleantechnica.com/2014/07/29/wind-energy-beats-nuclear-carbon-capture-global-warming-mitigation/
Hot weather forcing Sweden to cut nuclear reactors' output
Sweden's nuclear plants forced to cut output due to warm weather Planet Ark, 24-Jul-14 Balazs Koranyi Sweden's top nuclear power generators have been forced to cut output because of exceptionally warm weather in Scandinavia, and their output could be reduced for over a week, their operators said on Wednesday.
Oskarshamn, part of Germany's E.ON and Forsmark, operated by Swedish utility Vattenfall have both cut output because warm sea water temperatures are limiting their ability to cool down.
"For each degree above 23 decrees Celsius in the cooling water, each unit has to decrease power by 3 percent," Forsmark said in a market message. "It is uncertain how long this will last, but according to meteorologists, the warm weather will last for at least 11 more days."
Temperatures exceeded 30 degrees in the southern part of Scandinavia this week, hitting their highest level in years…….http://planetark.org/enviro-news/item/71927
Shut down Indian point nuclear plant for summer – say environmental regulators
New York environment regulators seek summer shutdown at Indian Point Planet Ark, : 22-Jul-14 Scott DiSavino New York state environmental regulators are proposing shutting the giant Indian Point nuclear power plant to protect fish in the Hudson River during summer months, when demand for electricity for air-conditioning is greatest…………The DEC said in an email that the proposal, which will be discussed in a public meeting on Tuesday, is similar to what Consolidated Edison Inc did when it owned the reactors and is consistent with the practice of other facilities on the Hudson……
The DEC proposal is the latest salvo in a lengthy battle between Entergy Corp, which owns Indian Point and wants to keep the plant operating for another 20 years, and state environmental regulators, who are seeking to protect fish and other aquatic life.
Indian Point withdraws up to 2.5 billion gallons of water per day from the Hudson to cool equipment, and then discharges that water back into the river warmer than before.
Environmental groups and the DEC have long argued that Indian Point's water intake system kills about a billion fish, fish eggs and larvae each year, and the plant should install cooling towers to reduce the use of river water by recycling it…….Before the NRC can grant new licenses, the state must approve water permits. http://planetark.org/enviro-news/item/71913
Nuclear power bad for climate: Climate Change bad for nuclear power
How Nuclear Worsens Climate Change, Sierra Club, Dave Andrews May 28, 2014 The nuclear industry has been selling the world a story that nuclear power is a solution to climate change because it does not generate carbon dioxide (CO2), a major greenhouse gas. While this is true of the nuclear chain reaction itself, the front and back ends of nuclear power generate a large volume of CO2 and leave a trail of endlessly dangerous radioactivity along the way.
☢ Nuclear power has a big carbon footprint. At the front end of nuclear power, carbon energy is used for uranium mining, milling, processing, conversion, and enrichment, as well as for transportation, formulation of rods and construction of nuclear reactors (power plants). At the back end, there is the task of isolation of highly radioactive nuclear waste for millennia—a task which science has so far not been able to address. Large amounts of water are also used, first in mining and then in cooling the reactors.
All along the nuclear fuel chain, radioactive contamination of air, land and water occurs. Uranium mine and mill cleanup demands large amounts of fossil fuel. Each year 2,000 metric tons of high-level radioactive waste and twelve million cubic-feet of low-level radioactive waste are generated in the U.S. alone. None of this will magically disappear. Vast amounts of energy will be needed to isolate these dangerous wastes for generations to come.
☢ Nuclear power takes too long to deploy. Construction of the 1500 new reactors that the nuclear industry claims are needed to address global warming would mean opening a new reactor once every 2 weeks for the next 60 years. Reactors can take 10-15 years to build with an estimated cost of $12-15 billion each. In the past, cost and time needed for construction have each more than doubled from original estimates. We need to supply low-carbon energy sources NOW.
☢ Nuclear power is not suited for warming climates. Nuclear reactors need enormous amounts of cool water to continually remove heat from their cores. Reactors have been forced to close during heat waves due to warmth of sea, lake or river water — just when electricity is being used most. Low water levels during heat and drought have also forced reactors to shut down. In addition, cooling causes serious damage to aquatic life, killing millions of fish and untold numbers of macroinvertebrates, aquatic eggs and larvae.
☢ Six times as much carbon can be saved with efficiency or wind. Benjamin Sovacool from the Institute for Energy and Environment at Vermont Law School averaged the high and low estimates of carbon pollution from nuclear power. His study revealed that nuclear power's carbon emissions are well below scrubbed coal-fired plants, natural gas-fired plants and oil. However, nuclear emits twice as much carbon as solar photovoltaic and six times as much as onshore wind farms. Energy efficiency and some of the other renewables also beat nuclear by sixfold or more.
☢ Nuclear power is not flexible. Nuclear is all-or-nothing power. A reactor can't be geared to produce less power when electricity from renewables (like wind and solar) increases on the grid. This can make it challenging to increase renewables past a certain point. (continued on page 2)
When a reactor shuts down due to accident, planned upgrade or permanent closure, a large amount of power has to be found elsewhere. And nuclear plants are being closed, not opened — some because they no longer are making a profit. It's important to develop renewablesNOW to be able to replace the electricity when utilities announce plans to close reactors.
☢ Nuclear subsidies rob research on renewables. Nuclear power has been subsidized throughout most of its fuel chain. In 2011 the Union of Concerned Scientists published Nuclear Power, Still Not Viable without Subsidies. This report shows that in some cases subsidies were greater than the value of the electricity produced. Subsidies are supposed to be for new innovations — not for propping up outdated technologies like fossil fuels and nuclear. Nuclear is also a dirty extractive industry – and like coal, oil and gas, nuclear depends on a limited supply of natural resources (uranium) in the ground.
☢ Cost of nuclear is going up, while cost of renewables is going down.Estimates for new reactors are, on average, four times higher than estimates from just eight years ago. Estimates for new reactors are invariably far less than the final cost, with the final cost often doubling. Sometimes, as in the cases of the Columbia Generating Station, Cherokee, and Perry, billions were spent while the reactors were never finished. Costs of renewables continue going down while their efficiency increases. ……. http://content.sierraclub.org/grassrootsnetwork/sites/content.sierraclub.org.activistnetwork/files/teams/documents/SierraNuclearClimate%20%284%29.pdf
A global record – hot temperatures in June this year
June a global scorcher as records melt, The Age July 22, 2014 Peter Hannam Environment Editor, The Sydney Morning Herald Last month was a scorcher for global temperatures with warmth over land and sea breaking records for June while sea-surface temperatures posted their largest departure from long-term averages for any month.
Combined average temperatures over land and sea were 0.72 degrees above the 20th century average of 15.5 degrees, making it the hottest June and adding to the record May and equal record April, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
More striking for climatologists, though, were the sea-surface temperatures. These came in 0.64 degrees above the 20th century average of 16.4 degrees – the first time any month had exceeded the long-run norm by more than 0.6 degrees.
Parts of all major ocean basins notched their warmest June, with almost all the Indian Ocean and regions off south-eastern Australia the hottest on record.
An El Nino event remains about a 70 per cent chance of forming during the northern summer, which could see more records tumble. The weather pattern sees the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean becoming relatively warm compared with western regions, and typically brings hotter, drier than usual conditions to south-east Asia and Australia.
Australia posted its hottest 12 months on record in the year to June, while 2013 was the hottest calendar year in more than a century of records, according to the Bureau of Meteorology.
While June was another month of above-average temperatures, Western Australia and the Northern Territory were cooler than normal – breaking a sequence begun in February in which every state or territory had above-average warmth, NOAA noted.
June was the 352nd month when global temperatures were above the 20th century average – with the last below-average month in February 1985……….
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/weather/june-a-global-scorcher-as-records-melt-20140722-zvhzq.html#ixzz38MCEc5oI
Climate Change challenge to Koch brothers – and from other billionaires!
The Billionaire War Heats Up Slate.com 17 July 14 The richest people in America are turning on one another—over climate change.By Eric Holthaus Move over, Al Gore. There's a new wealthy environmentalist whom conservatives love to hate. If you haven't heard of him yet, meet Tom Steyer…….In a biographical post on his super PAC's website labeled "accountability," Steyer says "climate change has not always been on my radar." In 2012, after founding Farallon Capital Management and running it for more than 25 years (amassing a billion-dollar fortune in the process), he left his post to work on global warming full time.
As the Washington Post reported last year, to reduce his footprint (which is probably still pretty big), Steyer chooses to take the red eye. He doesn't shy away from the occasional environmental campaign rally, but he's not about to guilt trip you for not switching out your light bulbs, either. His target is much bigger: the American political process itself.
In response to his efforts to make global warming a major political issue in the runup to the 2014 midterm elections,
Climate change challenge tSteyer is fast drawing the ire of the political landscape's resident oil-money billionaires, the Koch brothers. Their talking point is simple: Tom Steyer is one of us, so lefties should demonize him, too. As Slate's David Weigel wrote, "Republicans are trying to Koch-ify Tom Steyer in just five or six months."
Ever since February, when Steyer announced a $100 million campaign to fight climate change, critics have been eager to pick at anything that may tarnish his green label. Steyer's campaign—$50 million of his own, and $50 million from his super PAC, NextGen Climate—is primarily meant to encourage action on global warming……….
teyer doesn't dispute that he "was for coal before he was against it." In an op-ed in Politico on Monday, Steyer explained his about-face from hedge fund capitalist to environmental crusader, in an attempt to set the record straight:
[I]t's true—Farallon did make fossil fuel investments under my watch. But the more I learned about the energy and climate problems we currently face, the more I realized I had to change my life. I concluded that the best way to align my work with my beliefs was to make a real change—leaving my role managing a firm with investments across the industrial spectrum, and instead joining in the global effort to find a solution to climate change once and for all.
Steyer says that he's completely divested his personal holdings from the fossil fuel industry as of June 30 though certainly that won't stop the right from claiming that he's being hypocritical. But that's missing the point. It's not Steyer's dollars (or even the source of those dollars) that will make the biggest difference but his example of putting his money where his mouth is. In his Politico piece, he offers an incredibly personal description of his epiphany and his decision to dedicate himself to tackling global warming on behalf of his children's generation. Steyer has done something that's still far too unusual: He's admitting he was wrong on climate change and that he wants to rectify it. It's that kind of honesty that we'll all need to embrace if we're to face the steep climb of remaking the global economy into one that isn't tied to carbon with a full head of steam (or, electrons, as the case may be).
Meanwhile, in a world where money defines political clout, most billionaires aren't as eager to ruffle the status quo. The few who are stand out. Last month, Steyer joined billionaire former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and near-billionaire former Goldman Sachs CEO and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to release a high-profile report on the economic effects of climate change in the United States. That report called for the leaders of the business community to address the growing specter of climate change out of their own self-interest: to avoid economic risk. With their billions in annual revenue as part of the fossil fuel industry, the Koch brothers may want to take note……….http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2014/07/tom_steyer_koch_brothers_billionaires_are_battling_over_climate_change.html
Climate consequences of nuclear war shown by computer models
Computer Models Show What Exactly Would Happen To Earth After A Nuclear War Let's take a detailed look at some of these super-fun conclusions, shall we? Francie Diep Australian Popular Science
Jul 19 2014 You've seen what a nuclear winter looks like, as imagined by filmmakers and novelists. Now you can take a look at what scientists have to say. In a new study, a team of four U.S. atmospheric and environmental scientists modeled what would happen after a "limited, regional nuclear war." To inexpert ears, the consequences sound pretty subtle—two or three degrees of global cooling, a nine percent reduction in yearly rainfall. Still, such changes could be enough to trigger crop failures and famines. After all, these would be cooler temperatures than the Earth has seen in 1,000 years.
First, what happened?
The team imagines 100 nuclear warheads, each about the size of the atomic bomb the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima, detonate over the Indian subcontinent. The team members are imagining an India-Pakistan nuclear war. It seems unfair to single out these nations, but I guess they're the poster children because they have relatively small nuclear stockpiles compared to countries such as the U.S., Russia and China. The idea is, If these lightweights can do this to Earth, imagine what the bigwigs can do.
After the Indian-Pakistani nuclear exchange…
- Five megatons of black carbon enter the atmosphere immediately. Black carbon comes from burned stuff and it absorbs heat from the sun before it can reach the Earth. Some black carbon does eventually falls back to Earth in rain…………..
Global warming bringing extreme weather to Australia – droughts and floods
Australia's drought – yes, it's climate change http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_round_up/2483139/australias_drought_yes_its_climate_change.html Tim Radford 18th July 2014 Australia's prime minister thinks climate change is 'crap' and has just abolished his country's carbon-pricing system. But scientists say that it's rising levels of CO2 that are leaving the south of the country parched and sweltering – and it's only going to get worse.
American scientists have just confirmed that parts of Australia are being slowly parched because of greenhouse gas emissions.
A report in Nature Geoscience shows that the long-term decline in rainfall over south and south-west Australia is a consequence of fossil fuel burning and depletion of the ozone layer by human activity. Such a finding is significant for two reasons. One remains contentious: it is one thing to make generalised predictions about the consequences overall of greenhouse gas levels, but it is quite another to pin a measured regional climatic shift directly on human causes, rather than some possible as-yet-unidentified natural cycle of climatic change.
The other is contentiously political.
Australia's prime minister, Tony Abbott, has in the past dismissed climate science as "crap", and more recently has cut back on Australian research spending.
Bush fires and catastrophic flooding
Australia has already experienced a pattern of heat waves and drought – punctuated by catastrophic flooding – and even now, in the Australian winter, New South Wales is being hit by bush fires.
Tom Delworth, a research scientist at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, reports in Nature Geoscience that he and a colleague conducted a series of long-term climate simulations to study changes in rainfall across the globe.
One striking pattern of change emerged in Australia, where winter and autumn rainfall patterns are increasingly a cause of distress for farmers and growers in two states.
The simulation showed that the decline in rainfall was primarily a response to man-made increases in greenhouse gases, as well as to a thinning of the stratospheric ozone layer in response to emissions of destructive gases by human sources.
The computer simulations tested a series of possible causes for this decline, such as volcanic eruptions and changes in solar radiation. But the only cause that made sense of the observed data was the greenhouse explanation.
It began in 1970, and it hasn't stopped yet
South Australia has never been conspicuously lush and wet, but decline in precipitation set in around 1970, and this decline has increased in the last four decades.
The simulations predict that the decline will go on, and that average rainfall will drop by 40% over south-west Australia later this century.
Dr Delworth described his model as "a major step forward in our effort to improve the prediction of regional climate change".
In May, scientists proposed that greenhouse gas emissions were responsible for a change in Southern Ocean wind patterns, which in turn resets the thermostat for the world's largest island.
Australian scientists report in Geophysical Research Letters that they, too, have been using climate models to examine Antarctic wind patterns and their possible consequences for the rest of the planet.
Another consequence: accelerated ice sheet melt
"When we included projected Antarctic wind shifts in a detailed global ocean model, we found water up to 4°C warmer than current temperatures rose up to meet the base of the Antarctic ice shelves", said Paul Spence, a researcher at Australian Research Council's Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science. This temperature rise is twice previous estimates.
"This relatively warm water provides a huge reservoir of melt potential right near the grounding lines of ice shelves around Antarctica. It could lead to a massive increase in the rate of ice sheet melt, with direct consequences for global sea level rise."
Since the West Antarctic ice sheet holds enough water to raise sea levels by 3.3 metres, the consequences would indeed be considerable.
"When we first saw the results it was quite a shock", said Dr Spence. "It was one of the few cases where I hoped the science was wrong."
Anti science, climate denialism, championed by electing Australia's Tony Abbott
History will condemn climate change denialists Robert Manne theguardian.com, Wednesday 16 July 2014 Tony Abbott was elected by the right-wing of his party for a single purpose: to destroy any meaningful action in Australia against the threat of climate change
The argument for radical action on climate change– which Australia will soon at least temporarily reject with the shameful decision to repeal the carbon tax – is embarrassingly simple.
For the past 200 years, western culture has granted science pre-eminent cultural authority. A quarter century ago, a consensus formed among contemporary scientists specialising in the study of the climate. The consensus comprised one principal idea: the primary source of energy on which industrial civilisation relied – the burning of fossil fuels – was dangerously increasing the temperature of the earth.
Thousands upon thousands of scientific studies have been conducted estimating the impact of this warming. Hundreds of outstanding books have been published making the conclusions of the scientists available to the general public. To anyone willing to listen, these scientists have explained that unless human beings derive their energy from sources other than fossil fuels, the future that we face over the next decades and centuries involves the rendering of large parts of the earth uninhabitable to humans and other species – through the melting of the ice caps and glaciers and thus steadily rising sea levels, the acidification of the oceans, the destruction of forests and coral reefs, and the increase in the prevalence and intensity of famines, insect-borne diseases, droughts, bush fires, floods, hurricanes and heat-waves.
Climate scientists also explained that radical action on climate change could not be delayed. …….
As global emissions increased, something surpassingly strange occurred in the realm of politics in the US – something without parallel in the history of the post-Enlightenment west since the Darwinian controversy. The emergence of a broad-based movement of thought challenging the sovereignty of science in one specialised field.
Anti-science climate change denialism began with money cynically and strategically supplied by the massive American fossil fuel corporations. From there it spread to the powerful US network of neo-liberal "think-tanks" whose purpose was to produce the ideas helping to make the world safe for the wealthiest members of the society – the so-called 1%. And from the think-tanks climate change denialism steadily spread downwards to American society more generally, thanks to rabid right wing media like Fox News, until it was powerful enough to capture, almost in its entirety, one of America's traditional political parties, the republicans.
As a consequence of the spread of climate change denialism, tens of millions of American citizens now base their opinions on the kind of pseudo-knowledge manufactured by the climate change denialist blogs and disseminated daily by the right-wing media. They have come to treat the questions of whether the earth is warming, and if so why, as political matters concerning which those without any genuine scientific understanding or training are as qualified to form an opinion as professors who have devoted their lives to one of the disciplines of climate science.
Climate change denialism soon spread beyond the US, especially to the countries of the English-speaking world. As Australia is a country extremely sensitive to the cultural winds blowing in from the US, reliant on the export and consumption of coal, and where the denialist Murdoch newspapers exercise enormous unhealthy influence, it is hardly surprising that over the past decade climate change denialism quickly sunk deep roots here.,,,,,
The right-wing denialists, now dominant within the Coalition, often call themselves conservatives. They are not. At the heart of true conservatism is the belief that each new generation forms the vital bridge between past and future, and is charged with the responsibility of passing the earth and its cultural treasures to their children and grandchildren in sound order. History will condemn the climate change denialists, here and elsewhere, for their contribution to the coming catastrophe that their cupidity, their arrogance, their myopia and their selfishness have bequeathed to the young and the generations still unborn. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/16/history-will-condemn-climate-change-denialists
Global warming – grounds for judge to reject coal project!
Coal Mine's Rejection on Global-Warming Grounds Has Major Implications http://insideclimatenews.org/carbon-copy/20140701/coal-mines-rejection-global-warming-grounds-has-major-implications If the judge's reasoning holds up in other cases it could undermine the rationales for much bigger projects, such as the Keystone XL pipeline.
U.S. District Court Judge R. Brooke Johnson's decision halts exploration proposed by Arch Coal that would have bulldozed six miles of roads on 1,700 untrammeled acres of public land.
When the agencies touted the supposed economic benefits of expanded coal mining in the Sunset Roadless Area, Johnson ruled, they should also have considered any global-warming costs.
The decision was a significant judicial endorsement of a policy tool known as the "social cost of carbon," which economists and climate scientist use to put a price in today's dollars on the damages from drought, flood, storm, fire, disease and so forth caused by future global warming due to our emissions from burning fossil fuels.
"It is arbitrary to offer detailed projections of a project's upside while omitting a feasible projection of the project's costs," Johnson decreed.
The Obama administration has increasingly used the social-cost figure to help decide whether restraints on carbon dioxide emissions are worthwhile. Industry groups and their allies in Congress have sought to limit its use. Environmentalists call it a useful device for making clear that there are high costs as well as benefits to burning fossil fuels.
"This decision means that these agencies can't bury their heads in the sand when confronting the very real impacts of climate change," said Ted Zukoski, an attorney with Earthjustice, which represented conservationists who sued to block the mining expansion. f the judge's reasoning holds up in other challenges to agency decisions, it could undermine the rationales for much bigger projects, such as the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. In its environmental review of the KXL, the State Department ignored repeated requests by the Environmental Protection Agency to estimate the social cost of carbon from burning the unusually dirty fuel the pipeline would deliver from Canada to the Gulf Coast.
In the Colorado case, the judge wrote, "by deciding not to quantify the costs at all, the agencies effectively zeroed out the cost."
That violated a key precept of the National Environmental Policy Act, the judge said, which requires a "hard look" at all the environmental costs of government decisions.
That this can be difficult or contentious does not allow agencies "completely to ignore a tool in which an interagency group of experts invested time and expertise," he wrote. "Common sense tells me that quantifying the effect of greenhouse gases in dollar terms is difficult at best. The critical importance of the subject, however, tells me that a 'hard look' has to include a 'hard look' at whether this tool, however imprecise it might be, would contribute to a more informed assessment of the impacts than if it were simply ignored."
Nuclear power cannot curb Climate Change – theme for July 2014
In recent themes I wrote about nuclear power being in fact a big contributor to global warming, and about how climate change will in fact finish off the nuclear industry.
But – let's pretend that nuclear reactors really could reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
TIME: To do that, 1500 one thousand megawatt-electric new reactors would be needed within a few yeas to displace a significant amount of carbon-emitting fossil generation
A Massachusetts Institute of Technology Study on "The Future of Nuclear Power" projected that a global growth scenario for as many as 1500 one thousand megawatt-electric new reactors would be needed to displace a significant amount of carbon-emitting fossil generation. Average 115 built per year would reduce our CO2 use by only 16%.
When we talk about Small Modular Nuclear Reactors – that 1500 reactors needed translates to millions, (and these SMRs are already shown to be more costly than large ones,)
COSTS: historically and now, the costs of the nuclear industry are staggering. Cost estimates have increased in the past decade from $1,000 to $7,000 per kW installed. And that's before additional costs – e.g new safety measures, decommissioning are added. U.S. Vogtle project originally budgeted at $660 million, by 2013 cost $9 billion. Rating agencies consider nuclear investment risky and the abandoning of nuclear projects explicitly "credit positive".
Meanwhile – if the nuclear "climate cure" were to be pursued, the enormous costs and efforts involved would take away from the clean, fast, and ever cheaper solutions of energy efficiency and renewable energy.
- October 2014 (250)
- September 2014 (242)
- August 2014 (214)
- July 2014 (266)
- June 2014 (254)
- May 2014 (365)
- April 2014 (398)
- March 2014 (392)
- February 2014 (426)
- January 2014 (448)
- December 2013 (366)
- November 2013 (528)
- 1
- business and costs
- climate change
- environment
- health
- history
- indigenous issues
- Legal
- marketing of nuclear
- media
- opposition to nuclear
- politics
- politics international
- Religion and ethics
- safety
- secrets,lies and civil liberties
- spinbuster
- technology
- Uranium
- wastes
- weapons and war
- Christina's notes
- Christina's themes
- general
- rare earths
- Reference
- resources – print
- Resources -audiovicual
RSSEntries RSS
Comments RSS


text:
If you've been hoping for an ad format similar to Google Product Listing Ads on the Bing/Yahoo ad network, this news should make you happy. Bing Ads has just launched Product Ads, their version of enriched e-commerce ads, for US advertisers.
With the launch of the new ad format, Bing released a number of helpful resources to guide marketers in setting up their PAs. To get started, you need to complete 3 steps:
- Create a Bing Merchant Center store
- Set up a catalog
- Create Product Ad campaigns
1. Create a Bing Merchant Center Store:
First, you need to claim your business in Bing Webmaster Tools and add your site. There are three options for site verification: an XML file placed on your server, a meta tag in your website, or adding a CNAME record to your DNS. After verifying your billing address, you're prompted to either create a new store or use an existing one. See more in the video below:
2. Set Up a Catalog
Prepare your product feed in .txt, .txt within a compressed file or .xml (Google-formatted) format by making sure it's accurate and contains all of the recommended information. Sign in to Bing, choose your Active store, and either upload the file from your computer, download from a URL, or upload via FTP. See more:
3. Create Product Ad Campaigns
Within Bing Ads, choose "Campaigns," then "Product Ads Campaign" from the drop-down menu. Choose your language and budget settings, then create a Product Extension to tell Bing which products to link to the campaign. Add your ad copy, which will appear when a viewer hovers over your Product Ad. See more:
For more information on each of the above steps, see Bing's product page for these ads. If you need to delete or edit an existing Product Ad, you can see the step-by-step instructions from Bing here.
That's it! Are you going to give Bing Product ads a try?


text: / Celebrities react to the 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' repeal, Dec. 19, 2010 | abc7.com GO Personalize your weather by entering a location. Sorry, but the location you entered was not found. Please try again. Sections Traffic Video Los AngelesOrange CountyInland EmpireVentura CountyCalifornia Home Accuweather Traffic Video Photos Mobile Apps Local News Los AngelesOrange CountyInland EmpireVentura CountyCalifornia Map My News Shows Live Well Network Follow Us BREAKING NEWS ABC shows live and on-demand -- Download the WATCH ABC app! Full Story Celebrities on 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' repeal December 19, 2010 4:04:23 PM PST


text:
Glitter Political: For 45th District Judge Candidate John Bustamante, politics is in the blood
Published: June 25, 2014
In a cozy but over-sunlit corner of Local Coffee at the Pearl Brewery, John Marcus Bustamante, candidate for Bexar County's 45th District Court Judge, sits across from me wearing a sky blue-checked shirt underneath an indigo blazer. Fresh from winning his May Democratic runoff, he now goes on to face a new rival, Republican nominee Stephani Walsh, in the general election. In his second bid for public office, Bustamante seems to have finally conquered the demons that have kept his name off the ballot, a place he now feels it rightfully belongs.
Not unlike the dynastic names of Castro, Cisneros and Wolff, Bustamante's surname carries both a local and national political history.
His father, former Congressman Albert Bustamante, who served time in prison on charges of bribery and racketeering, also served as Bexar County Commissioner (Precinct 1) and a county judge. "It was in the blood," John Bustamante, now 38, says.
"It is an interesting upbringing," he admits of the lives of the offspring of career politicians.
And Bustamante had more than his share of high school woes. "You would have situations where, you know, your dad would be in the paper and it wasn't always positive. In fact ... at that time ... it was rarely positive," he says, noting the bad press didn't escape cruel classmates' eyes.
Although the negative experiences of being a "congressman's kid" seemed copious, Bustamante says there were just as many positives. "I'd experienced more things by the age of 16 than most people ever experience—period." Things like going to state dinners and sitting a few tables away from former President George H. W. Bush and "whoever the president of Mexico was at the time" were par for the course. It was at one of these lavish functions that he even got to meet famed athlete David "The Admiral" Robinson.
When his father was convicted in 1993, Bustamante vowed never to run for office. "It was bad," he recounts. His almond-shaped eyes squint at the memory. "I was paging in Congress the summer before I went to college." He was 17 at the time. "The 'Bustamante Convicted' headline was on the top of the fold. I had to deliver the paper to the various members of Congress."
He re-crosses his legs (in quite possibly the most masculine way I've ever seen), inadvertently flashing a pair of Caiman alligator boots.
"My dad went to prison when I was a freshman in college. He went to prison five days before my spring semester exams." He tilts his head slightly to his right. "I failed every single one of those exams."
Bustamante's vow held out for many years. But 2010 made him reconsider his decision.
He ran for Congress in 2012 and lost in the primary to Pete Gallego and Ciro Rodriguez. "It was a messy race because we had redistricting issues."
But he says it was a good experience and he discovered something he found rather surprising: He loved the political experience. "It was something that invigorated me," he says. "I want to run for judge because I think we can make the system better."
To comment you must first create a profile and sign-in with a verified DISQUS account or social network ID. Sign up here.
Comments in violation of the rules will be denied, and repeat violators will be banned. Please help police the community by flagging offensive comments for our moderators to review. By posting a comment, you agree to our full terms and conditions. Click here to read terms and conditions.


text:
FRIDAY, Sept. 2 (HealthDay News) -- A boy's relationship with
his mother changes as he grows up and the way it changes can affect
his behavior when he's a teen, a new study says.
It included 265 mother-son pairs from low-income families in
Pittsburgh who were followed from when the son was 5 years old
through adolescence. The researchers assessed the level of conflict
and warmth between the mothers and sons and other aspects of their
lives, including the son's temperament and behavior, the mother's
relationship with her romantic partner, and the quality of the
mother's parenting.
Mothers of sons who had a difficult temperament as toddlers said
their relationship with their son included a lot of conflict and
lower levels of closeness over time. The study also found that
mothers who had good relationships with their romantic partner
tended to form closer bonds with their sons that endured throughout
childhood and adolescence.
Boy who had lots of conflict with their mothers were more likely
to engage in delinquent behavior as teens, while boys who had a
close relationship with their mothers were more likely to have a
good relationship with their best friends when they became
The study appears in the journal
Child Development.
"These results suggest that successfully adapting to the transitions of childhood and adolescence may require parents and children to maintain relatively high levels of closeness and minimize conflict in their relationships," lead author Christopher Trentacosta, an assistant professor of psychology at Wayne State University in Detroit, Mich., said in a journal news release.
"The findings also have implications for prevention and intervention," he added. "Family-focused programs should address conflict in the parent-child relationship if the goal is to reduce delinquent behavior, and should foster greater closeness between parents and children if improving peer relationships is the goal."
More information
The Nemours Foundation offers parents an overview of children's
emotions and behavior.
Please be aware that this information is provided to supplement the care provided by your physician. It is neither intended nor implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice. CALL YOUR HEALTHCARE PROVIDER IMMEDIATELY IF YOU THINK YOU MAY HAVE A MEDICAL EMERGENCY. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider prior to starting any new treatment or with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.
Latest News
Crouse Hospital Appoints Chief Information Officer
more >
MedEx Bedside Prescription Delivery Service
Free service offers convenience, patient education at discharge.more >
Weight Loss Surgery
Is it right for you? Attend a free information seminar held twice monthly.more >
Quality at Crouse
See how Crouse Hospital strives to provide the best in patient care.more >
Cheer Up That Special Someone
Say get well or welcome a new arrival with a gift purchased right at Crouse.
more >
Make an Online Donation Now
Your donation of any amount helps support Crouse services & programs in a meaningful way.more >
Shop Online Now
Say get well, thinking of you or welcome new baby with a unique gift from the Crouse Gift Shop.
© 2014 Crouse Hospital / 736 Irving Avenue / Syracuse, NY 13210 / 315-470-7111


text:
DOCX disaster recovery: How I rescued my wife from XM-HELL
What do you do when a critical Word document won't open? Even in today's world of versioned documents, it is entirely possible for corruption to squeak in and go unnoticed, wrecking your entire version history. But all is not lost. My wife had this happen to her; here's how we solved it. Real world example In my case, Word …
Proper version control
It does rather make the point that Proper Version Control (you know, those things with 3-letter names) would have no trouble here, as it's decoupled from the editor in question. I suspect it's probably not as good for diffs in Word etc, but you do at least have the history going back to commit #1.
Re: Proper version control
Actually it could support diffs, as long as the tool can handle zipped files. Office 2007+ files are just zipped XML, and you can diff the XML alone quite easily.
Re: Proper version control
I'm not sure a version control system would resolve the issue.
As I understand it, the problem is the editor is saving garbage to a file but the document looks OK as long as the document is not closed and reopened.
If your editor is writing garbage to a file or a version management system, you'll still need to recover any work between the last usable document and the current document, and assuming sufficient edits/time you just have a better organised mess.
If the XML file was parsed to check for problems after a save and a sensible reconcile between the saved and active document occured, this should solve the majority of the mismatched tags issues (assuming there isn't some common fault between the editor and file parser - I'm sure that would never happen.....)
Re: Proper version control
It wouldn't necessarily solve it, but it might help. The main issue is relying on a tool as both editor and version manager. If it screws up, you've lost your version history. That's an eggs-in-one-basket risk avoided by using an external tool.
If you have an external VCS you've at least got guaranteed access to everything in the history. Some of those might be corrupt, but there will be a known-good version. You can diff the last known-good against the first corrupt to see what changed. It may or may not be straightforward to port that change forward into the latest version.
Plus you can see what you're changing - if the editor decides to reduce the file size to zero bytes, diff will show you that before you commit.
The main headache being they don't always play nicely with binary files, but as mentioned there may be a plugin to support zipped files which would help in this case.
Re: Proper version control
>but you do at least have the history going back to commit #1.
Unless you work where I do where we unnecessarily change version control systems/servers so often that it can be hard to look up history past the last six months. Import/Exporting history doesn't seem to be a priority. Oh well not my company.
Re: Proper version control
If we had used Dropbox instead of Sync for version control we wouldn't have version history to commit #1. It would have eventually wrapped as it jettisoned the older versions.
I agree that a proper version control system is a really good idea...but very few people have them.
Re: Proper version control
Version control only helps with completed works, it falls down when dealing with errors.
What is my irritation with the majority of office tools is the lack of proper journalling: Diff will tell you what the byte level differences are, the transaction journal will tell you that the differences are down to the section numbering changing.
Re: Proper version control
"The wife was using an old version of LibreOffice Writer"
That's your problem right there....You get what you pay for.
Re: Proper version control
Prove it.
Odd - I've been using WordPerfect for years (like 20 years now I think - I started under DOS and VMS) and I've NEVER had a file become unreadable in all this time.
Am I just lucky, or is MS Office simply the application from hell?
Re: WTF
I've had MS in all incarnations except 2010 (don't have 2013) issue a message totally unrelated to IO or the actual task being done (eg I am trying to redefine a style, and it tells me I can't insert an image or somesuch), die, and the file you are working on disappearing as if it never existed. Happened rarely, no more frequently than once a year So I now close & copy doc every 2 or 3 pages or so
I remember opening WP 5.0 & 5.1 files in SPF-PC to fix some spectacularly garbled tag fest (usually my fault - badly coded macro)
Re: WTF
According to the article, MS Office didn't corrupt the file, LibreOffice did. MS Office just refused to open a corrupt file.
Done something similar
Back in 2003, I can't remember the full circumstances but I think I managed to hose X, so I was stuck at a command prompt with no GUI, and needing to know where my next lecture would be from an OpenOffice Calc file.
(Yes, Linux laptop. I was too poor to afford anything more than a Pentium II and no one in their right mind would touch Windows 98.)
I recall unzipping it and then doing a grep for the approximate text. I was then able to open a text editor on the file, look for the text, and found the information I was after.
Which is why...
I save my Word docs as RTF.
Re: Which is why...
How does that help? Is it somehow immune to errors?
My experience with editing RTF the hard way is that it is even less amenable to fixing than XML (not least because the tooling is far less developed).
Re: Which is why...
"I save my Word docs as RTF."
At which point you've so lost much functionality, you might as well use Wordpad.
Re: Which is why...
At which point you've so lost much functionality, you might as well use Wordpad.
Which for almost all the documents I see a word processor used for would be perfectly fine. RTF is actually a very nice format - easily parsed, human readable, compresses well and quite feature rich.
Re: Which is why...
RTF is actually a very nice format - easily parsed, human readable
My recollection of hand-fixing RTF files is that they were only readable in the sense that they consisted of printable ASCII characters. Understanding the RTF was another matter entirely. Maybe I'm subhuman.
The problem, I suspect, may be that the RTF emitted by Word suffers from the same lack of structure as the HTML emitted by Word. Editing a Word-generated HTML document isn't a pleasant experience.
Re: Which is why...
I save my Word docs as RTF.
I save mine in ODF format, or (if I absolutely have to use an MS format) .doc. I tend to avoid the X formats wherever I can, and I thus never had the problems as described (or I've been lucky).
I have one single copy of MS Office in the whole office, and that's only for compatibility reasons - internally we switched to LibreOffice. That's the benefit of being small :).
Re: Which is why...
"I tend to avoid the X formats wherever I can, and I thus never had the problems as described (or I've been lucky)."
You've been lucky. The ODF formats are also "zipped XML" and so if the code is willing to emit an ill-formed XML document then it seems perfectly plausible that it would be willing to spit out bad ODF as readily as bad DOCX.
Re: Which is why...
Given the "how" this occured, I'm 100% positive that LibreOffice Writer 4.1 would have caused the same error (with the same fix) for ODF as it would have for OOXML. I'm less sure that many of the oMath or Excel errors in Word would have been the same in ODF as under OOXML, as they are most frequently issues with "order of tags" rather than "when the tags are committed". Thus it is theoretically possible that Word could write a oMath error to DOCX but not to ODF.
Either way, I'm now glad that both formats exist as they do; in a human-fixable fashion.
Re: Which is why...
"At which point you've so lost much functionality, you might as well use Wordpad."
Or Google Apps / Libre Office. Microsoft Office is still miles ahead of the alternatives.
Re: Which is why...
"Microsoft Office is still miles ahead of the alternatives."
List the 'features' in Microsoft Office that I, personally, my family or my clients care about that are available in Microsoft Office that are not available in LibreOffice or Google Apps. Present a solid commercial rationale for why these features are worth the price delta on a per user basis.
Please include an analysis of the "value" of my data being made available to the NSA/GCHQ/etc on demand so that they can scan it in order to send innocents to jail and/or steal whatever innovations I may have to to give their own companies commercial advantage. Please include an exacting means by which I can ensure that closed source software - let alone American cloud-integrated stuff - is free of such snooping, should I choose not to avail myself of the "feature" of governmental integration.
If you cannot provide a credible analysis of exactly why and how Microsoft Office provides a better value than the competition, in real dollars and cents for features that I actually care about then I have only two conclusions to draw:
1) Your absolutist statements are false because they do not apply to everyone.
2) You are completely and utterly full of shit.
Please not that both conclusions are not mutually exclusive.
Re: Which is why...
Miles ahead?
Maybe. But not necessarily in a direction I'd particularly like to go (aka "Yesterday, we were looking into the abyss. Today, we took a great step ahead.")
The ribbon UI still manages to confuse me after a couple of years of use, and today's wide-and-low 16:9 screens do not take kindly to having a HUGE ribbon bar at the top. Why, o why can't we at least move that to a column on the side, where screen real estate is not nearly as precious? I resort to having the ribbon auto-hide, but that is still not good UI design.
The rather obnoxious fixation on "persuading" users to store their stuff on Microsoft's servers (Office 2013 got really pushy about that) is also not to my liking. One year after Snowden, there should at least be an easy to find, global switch (controllable by group policy) to once and for all disable the cloud functionality should a user elect to keep a modicum of privacy.
Unlike freebies, where the user's data is the currency paid for the privilege of using the service, Office is a product the user pays for with their own money, so the business model would not require revenue from data mining.
Re: Which is why...
"Microsoft Office is still miles ahead of the alternatives."
List the 'features' in Microsoft Office that I, personally, my family or my clients care about that are available in Microsoft Office that are not available in LibreOffice or Google Apps. Present a solid commercial rationale for why these features are worth the price delta on a per user basis.
IMHO none whatsoever, but Word does have ONE (1, uno) feature that I would dearly love to see in LibreOffice: shift-F5 cursor position replay. It means you can zip to another part of a document (using, for instance, Document Map, which LibreOffice's Navigator knocks into a cocked hat with consummate ease), do some editing and then use Shift-F5 until you're back where you came from. For work on larger docs it's very helpful.
However, as that is about the only feature I can recall that LibreOffice lacked vs Word after a good 20+ years of working on docs I reckon I can live with that (and I simply changed approach to compensate - I just open another window on the same document). Personally, I would love to see a Reveal Codes as it existed in Wordperfect.
I default to LibreOffice with pleasure. It certainly saves us money, but that's less an issue than that it saves me staff retraining (as its UI is stable, and resembles the Office 2003 layout, pre-rubbish, sorry, ribbon), works identical across platforms and doesn't expose us to license compliance risks. God knows how much time we must have saved not having to worry about licensing.
Re: Which is why...
If RTF is "very nice", then nearly every other markup language ever invented must be at least "deliriously wonderful".
I save most of my writing as LaTeX. That also has the advantage of not being editable by Microsoft Word.
Personally, my feeling is that Microsoft Word is somewhat worse than OpenOffice / LibreOffice for editing other people's Word documents, or creating Word documents when I absolutely must; and unsuitable for any other purpose. (Powerpoint still had the edge over OO/LO Impress the last I checked, and for some kinds of presentations remains more suitable than the various LaTeX and HTML alternatives. Excel, on the other hand, I loathe with every fiber of my being.)
Re: Which is why...
Powerpoint still had the edge over OO/LO Impress the last I checked, and for some kinds of presentations remains more suitable than the various LaTeX and HTML alternatives. Excel, on the other hand, I loathe with every fiber of my being
To be honest, I originally found Powerpoint more usable than OOs/LOs equivalent until its UI got destroyed or "ribbonised" which *seriously* got in the way of usability, together with the absolutely stupid load of gadgetry that MS tends to use to foul up any usable application (RIP, Visio).
However, it was at that time we switched to OSX, and Keynote is just *so* much better that we pretty much abandoned Powerpoint completely, not in the least because it somehow promotes austerity in slides, which only benefits the quality. Most of the times we use HaikuDecks or Powtoons instead, but if we have to work on slides internally, Keynote is what we use, and export to PDF later.
AFAIK there are no real issues with Excel nor LOs equivalent, but we're not a finance house so we don't use all the functions that may make a difference. We do, however, have a hangover from the past which stopped us early from using Excel: we work in multiple languages, and an early Excel spreadsheet in English would not work in, for instance, German because the formula were not tokenised (no, really, I'm serious, for instance "SUM" in English would fail in a German version of Excel which required that to be "SUMME"). If you're shaking your head by now, so did we, I still can't quite believe it. This got us into using OpenOffice pretty early, even before the days where LibreOffice was forked.
Resuming the original topic, I actually never had a format failure from OpenOffice other than when the first file format change appeared. As someone explained to me, I must have been lucky :)
Unusual error
By far the most common corruption I've found is in the form of truncation - people yanking out their USB sticks before the file is fully written. The ZIP container stores the index at the end of the file, so you can't even open it unless it's all there. After finding every so-called document and zip recovery utility quite useless, I just wrote my own one. It'll let you recover at least partial contents of the zip, hopefully including the document.xml from which raw, unformatted text can be easily extracted.
Then I just pass it back to the user and tell them to fix the layout and unmount properly next time.
https://birds-are-nice.me/programming/zipfilerecover.shtml - if anyone ever needs it.
Re: Unusual error
Interesting tool. I suspect that this is the type of tool the author of the article was really in need of: namely one that could handle office document XML with errors in a sensible and user friendly way.
Suspect your tool will become even more useful as documents move into the cloud: a truncated network connection also plays havoc with the readability of office documents.
Re: Unusual error
That thing has nothing to do with XML at all. It just extracts truncated ZIP files. When it comes to actually making some sense of the half-a-document you get from it, you're on your own! In many cases, even recovering nothing but the textual content of a document is still valuable.
Re: Unusual error @Suricou Raven
Sorry wasn't clear.
The tool you created (and helpfully linked to, thankyou) understands the Zip file format and so whilst it doesn't repair the zip file, it is a big step forward in recovering the contents of a damaged zip file.
I was suggesting that a tool that understood office XML could 'recover' an office document so that it could be loaded into say Word, leaving the user to make sense of what was recovered.
Re: Unusual error
Yes, USB "truncation" is probably much more common than XML Tag errors. But even worse than storing the index at the end of the ZIP is that the Word X format files store the body text "document.xml" at the end of the file. So very commonly you lose most if not all of the text content.
With apologies to Ray Parker, Jr.
"When there's something strange in your closing tag, who you gonna call?"
Re: With apologies to Ray Parker, Jr.
That's deep in the uncanny valley of humour.
So bad it's not funny, but not quite bad enough to be funny for the badness itself.
What if the corruption had been more than just a missing tag?
A sensible policy would be Dropbox and a five-minute auto save. That way, you can go back through the file's history and get the last saved version.
Also, if your content is really important to you, use actual Microsoft Word. Yes, yes, I know. It doesn't run on Linux, it isn't free, it locks you in, etc. But it's bloody well tested and at the end of the day it's your content on the line.
MS Word is not immune to this either
I have PhD students compiling documents with tables and images from all types of sources and very often Word throws a wobbly and loses something, refuses to open or stops working with some add-on from a third party reference manager.
MS Word is not perfect.
Re: MS Word is not immune to this either
I have PhD students compiling documents with tables and images from all types of sources and very often Word throws a wobbly and loses something,
Then insist they use a real document formatting system like LaTeX, rather than a piss poor desktop publishing application.
Re: MS Word is not immune to this either
"or stops working with some add-on from a third party reference manager.
MS Word is not perfect."
I think the add-on might be the culprit here
Dropbox only keeps so many versions in history. What do you do if Word introduces the error on page 2, autosaves every minute, but you don't close word until page 32? Every single save in the dropbox history would have the error.
Remember: these errors can be introduced, but go unnoticed until you close the application and attempt to re-open the document.
Besides, if your last good version was "two pages of text" you are going to want that last 30 pages!
The culprit is Microsoft and its historical Godzilla-eats-world approach to software. If the composition and finalization of documents in Word (or OO for that matter) followed a rational work flow scheme, these errors would be far fewer and fixes would be immensely easier. As is, you get software that assumes that it can do no wrong, and can do anything you need. Commonly the assumptions are wrong on both counts.
Re: Culprit
How does the approach taken to finalizing a document in MS Word guide the hand of the better, more conscientious people who wrote OfficeLibre Write, which is the actual culprit in *this* scenario? Are you saying that after all the fuss of "don't use crappy Microsoft, use our better alternative", the design thinking is identical?
Re: Culprit
Wow. Jesus shit-pickling Christ, will you please get your head out of your very biased ass? Where did I - in the article or the comments - says "don't use Microsoft, use LibreOffice?"
I said "this is a class of error that at a minimum Word and Writer can and do both cause. In my case, the error was caused by Writer, but anything that writes to a DOCX can theoretically cause it, here's how you fix it."
Saying "Word does this too" is not saying "LibreOffice is better". They are distinct concepts. Saying "Word does this too" is to reinforce that this is an issue that can occur with the document format, and that any application could theoretically cause it. Or a single-byte corruption error could cause it. Or $deity knows what else.
The point is that "which productivity suite is 'better'" has absolutely no place in the discussion at all. It doesn't matter. Since both Word and Writer have been proven to cause this class of error then knowing about the class of error and how to solve it are what matter.
Take your religious issues elsewhere.
The easy solution is to allow Windows to automatically install every last update as soon as they roll out. This way your computer is constantly restarting so you'll never get too far into writing your document :)
RE: allow Windows to automatically install every last update
This way your computer is constantly crashing and restarting so you'll never get too far into writing your document :)
Dropbox keeps an unlimited number of versions for up to a month, and it keeps a completely unlimited number of versions if you pay a bit extra for "pack rat". I agree that an error could be introduced, but it's still a better safeguard than relying on a plain old filing system.
Re: Culprit
Although in your particular case, the bad formatting would appear to be caused by a bug in Libre Office, rather being a stand-alone issue relating to generic file I/O errors.
Re: Culprit
Take a breath, Trevor. I was responding to the post immediately before mine written by "Marshalltown ", not to you. I replied to his post but the indent seems not to have happened.
As for my "bias", it was induced by your article and I wasn't the only person to take away the message I did - suggesting to anyone not in complete turtle defense mode that perhaps your own prose is working against you.
Indeed, I've tried to write my questions to you in a neutral tone throughout and have been clear I'm trying to understand the issue, not pick on you - with perhaps the sole exception of one comment pointing out that not having documents open for weeks on end has been common wisdom trotted out in these pages for years in response to "the SA booted my machine and I lost days of work" posts. All that following good practice would have done was alert you to the issue sooner of course.
If you wanted to convey the same sort of neutral tone in your article it was, in my opinion, unwise to illustrate a problem you saw with NOT (MS Office) with examples drawn from the library of problems of the Big Bad Bugger on Campus. *That* is the source of this particular misunderstanding and it is entirely down to an editorial choice made by your good self.
As for my "religious issues", I already said I use OpenOffice myself. In fact I don't possess a copy of MS Office older than '97 for my personal use. I have to use MS Office at work.
Re: Culprit
With this lot, neutrality doesn't matter. If you aren't fellating Microsoft you're absolutely against them. There is a pack of absolutely rabid anti-open-source types that occupy the comments, and I'm sorry if I inaccurately lumped you in with them. I think it's fairly easy to understand why I did.
Really, however, it's this comment that does it: But why go to so much trouble trying to pin this (in the reader's mind's eye) on MS - by the headline which strongly suggests the problem will lie with yet another DOCX issue and by "the most famous example" which is still pretty obscure to be honest - when what you are really up against is an OfficeLibre Write bug?
10 points for style but minus a couple of hundred for mendacity.
You outright accuse of my lying by somehow attempting to "pin this" on Microsoft. What the fuck? The article in no way attempts to "pin this" on Microsoft. There's absolutely nothing in that article at all that says "Microsoft Word is bad" or "LibreOffice is better". I mention - in the article and in the comments - that Word and LibreOffice can both give rise to errors where you might care about this kind of fix...and I go to some length to discuss the different ways it can occur, with examples using each product.
It doesn't really get much more neutral than that. Yes, the error I personally experienced was with LibreOffice writer, but that is completely irrelevant; the error class can be caused by multiple products, and thus mentioning that - with examples - is in the public good.
Yet you come out and accuse me of lying to people and somehow trying to "blame" Microsoft. So yeah, you know what? You get lumped in with the batshit-crazy Anonymous Coward and LDS as "rabidly and irrationally pro-Microsoft", to the point where I can't - and won't - take anything you have to say seriously. There's no neutrality or objectivity present in what you said there, there's a massive assumption followed by an attack.
The majority of people who read this article didn't walk away with a "Trevor was trying to blame this on Microsoft" vibe in any way shape or form. Some folks, however, see monsters where none exist. I've no time, patience, or respect for them.
I don't feel the need to "imply" Microsoft - or anyone else - is at fault for things. If I think Microsoft fucked up, I say so openly. If I think LibreOffice is better and you should buy that, then I say so. There's no pussyfooting around.
Comments like Are you saying that after all the fuss of "don't use crappy Microsoft, use our better alternative" responding to an article in which I did not in any way shape or form recommend one product over the other would seem to indicate that you fall into the "you didn't fellate Microsoft, you're obviously an evil, open source economy destroying wretch" camp.
So no, sir, I don't accept your "neutral tone" argument. You waltzed in here an accused me of lying. When I said "bullshit", you doubled down. Maybe you aren't rabidly pro-Microsoft, but your presentation was in no way a "neutral tone". If you come in guns blazing, don't get all shocked and shaken if'n I fire back.
Lot of work?
Seems like a lot of work.... First, I would have tried to open it on a Mac with Text Edit, and, if successful, converted to plain text, then back to and office document flavor of your choice. I can't begin to count the times Text Edit worked the charm. If no success, then it would have been the lot of work route.
Most read
- Review This is why we CAN have nice things: Samsung Galaxy Alpha
- Hey, YouTube lovers! How about you pay us, we start paying for STUFF? - Google
- MEN: For pity's sake SLEEP with LOTS of WOMEN - and avoid Prostate Cancer
- Ex-Soviet engines fingered after Antares ROCKET launch BLAST
- Vid BONFIRE of the MEGA-BUCKS: $200m+ BURNED in SECONDS in Antares launch blast


text:
Summer Street Style 2013
Everyone likes the cool girl with killer style she has a talent for putting together an ensemble that catches the eye and very often, a camera. Take a peek at our most covet-worthy looks and where to get the similar goods. Come back every Friday to shop the best street style picks this summer.
Anastasia, Artist Manager
What She's Wearing
Bag: Marc by Marc Jacobs
Shop Similar
Bag: Marc by Marc Jacobs Ukita Satchel, $428; saksfifthavenue.com
Kathryn Wirsing


text:
The Taft Museum of Art is offering free admission to its current exhibition, "The American Impressionists in the Garden," and the permanent collection this Sunday, from 11 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Sunday is the last chance to see this exhibition in Cincinnati. It brings together brilliantly colored paintings of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, featuring 40 pictures of European and American gardens created by American Impressionists and four bronze sculptures for gardens by American sculptors.
Celebrated American artists represented include John Singer Sargent, Childe Hassam, Gari Melchers, Ernest Lawson, and Frederick Frieseke.
"This beautiful exhibition has been so popular this spring, we wanted to thank all of our visitors by offering free admission on its final day," says Deborah Emont Scott, Taft director and CEO. "By a lucky happenstance, this day also commemorates the day the Taft had its grand re-opening."
Sunday is the seventh anniversary of the Taft's re-opening to the public after a major renovation. "The American Impressionists in the Garden"is organized by Cheekwood Botanical Garden & Museum of Art, Nashville. Call 513-241-0343 or visit the website at www.taftmuseum.org for additional information
Posted in: Updates, Visual art
Tags: American Impressionists, Cincinnati arts, Cincinnati entertainment, taft Museum of Art


text:
E-mail this story
The cobbled charms of Cesky Krumlov
Lassoed by its river and dominated by its castle, Cesky Krumlov feels lost in a time warp. Nearly four hours south of Prague, this fairy-tale town of 15,000 is buried in the hills of the southern Czech Republic, an area much appreciated for its pastoral countryside. With its delightfully cobbled Old Town, rare Baroque theater, and colorful castle, Cesky Krumlov is an absolute treat.
Rick Steves
September 30, 2013


text:
My first serious attempt at photo manipulation and photo painting.
All the credits are listed here: http://thepix.deviantart.com/art/Remember-373398805
Beautiful and lovely..♥Jun 3rd, 2013 Reply
Aw, thanks!Jun 4th, 2013 Reply
so emotive. Beautiful work :)Jun 2nd, 2013 Reply Subscriber
Thank you! ♥Jun 4th, 2013 Reply
you are welcome :)Jun 9th, 2013 Reply Subscriber
wowJun 2nd, 2013 Reply
Thank you!Jun 4th, 2013 Reply
beautiful my dearJun 2nd, 2013 Reply
Aw, thanks!Jun 4th, 2013 Reply
Wow ! Lovely workJun 1st, 2013 Reply
Thanks so much!Jun 1st, 2013 Reply
cool...Jun 1st, 2013 Reply
Thanks! ♥Jun 1st, 2013 Reply
really beautiful!May 31st, 2013 Reply
Thanks so much! ♥Jun 1st, 2013 Reply
Your art is very inspirational to all of us artists and at Shadowness we like to thank our amazing artists for all they do, to show our appreciation for you, your artwork has been featured in todays Daily Inspiration #815
Wow thanks!!!May 31st, 2013 Reply
you're very welcomeJun 3rd, 2013 Reply
excellent and awesome!May 31st, 2013 Reply Who wants a hug?
:)May 31st, 2013 Reply
wonderful work.May 31st, 2013 Reply
Thanks so much!May 31st, 2013 Reply


text:
Sign Up
Sign In
StartupNation - Rock your Business!
Start a Business
Get Inspired
Plan Your Life
Plan Your Business
Define Your Business Model
Launch Your Invention
Launch a Home Business
Grow your Business
Leading Moms in Business Competi
Get More Sales
Market Your Business
Run Your Business Better
Leverage Business Technology
Turbocharge Your Sales
Fund your Business
Find Funding
Bootstrap Your Business
Get a Business Grant
Make Connections
Find Members
StartupNation Radio
Upcoming Shows
Radio Show Archives
Meet Your Hosts
Submit a Question to the Radio S
Join Now!
Sign Up
Make Connections
Make Connections
Network, Get Answers, Find Members in Your Area, and More!
Member Info
Member Type: Regular Member
Profile Views: 63 views
Friends: 0 friends
Last Update:
July 16, 2012
July 16, 2012
Forum Posts
Nothing has been posted here yet - be the first!
Personal Information
United Kingdom
January 1, 1988
Contact Information
Personal Details
About Me
The UK's l
eading HGV
& LGV Dri
ver Traini
ng company
with over
35 years
of experie
nce locate
d in Hayes
. Train to
be an HGV
Truck Dri
ver in jus
t 5 days!
1000's of
HGV Drivin
g jobs onl
ine now.
August 2, 2012 10:59 PM EDT
in the topic
What is CRO?
in the forum
Search Engine Optimization & Advertising
CRO means Conversation Rate Optimization means that how you can convert your page visitors to actual customers.
July 24, 2012 8:39 PM EDT
in the topic
What is E-Mail Marketing?
in the forum
Search Engine Optimization & Advertising
What do you mean by E-Mail Marketing?
July 18, 2012 10:06 PM EDT
in the topic
Common SEO mistakes to avoid
in the forum
Search Engine Optimization & Advertising
Some SEO mistakes to avoid. No Keyword Research Flimsy Content Building the Wrong Links Not Leveraging Social Media Poorly Developed Website
July 17, 2012 11:17 PM EDT
in the topic
Difference between Google Panda and Google Penguin
in the forum
Search Engine Optimization & Advertising
Thanks for posting this difference between Google Panda and Google Penguin. I really don't know about this before visiting this post.
July 16, 2012 9:51 PM EDT
in the topic
What are Doorway pages?
in the forum
Search Engine Optimization & Advertising
Doorway Pages are web pages designed and built specifically to draw search engine visitors to your website. They are standalone pages designed only to act as doorways to your site. The fact is that doorway pages don't do a very good job of generating traffic, even when they are done by "experts." Many users simply hit their back buttons when presented with a doorway page.Doorway pages also known as landing pages, are pages set up by a black hat SEO webmaster with the sole intention of attracting traffic via search engines, to his website.
Contact Us
Privacy Policy
Terms of Use
About Us
Site Map
Home Business
Start a Business
Linked In
© 2013 StartupNation Media Group , INC
All Rights Reserved.
Login via Facebook?
You are currently logged in to Facebook. Would you like to login to the network?
Remember my choice


text:
"It seemed to me that if I could get hooked on some drug, anything was possible. I'd make new friends. I'd have a real problem. I'd be able to walk into a church basement full of fellow sufferers, and have them all say, Welcome to our nightmare! We understand! Here are our phone numbers, call any time you feel you're slipping because we're here for you. Here for you: I could not imagine anyone ever being here for me.
smiles; books; emails; texts; compliments; mail and/or packages; invitations; friends; flowers; coffee and/or tea; new clothes; mixed CDs;
What do you love getting?(:
My 30 day challenge was a HUGE fail. Since that fact that I haven't posted four days of the challenge. I should be starting where I left off tomorrow.
I've been so busy, I haven't had time to actually sit down and write a long journal.
Tonight was incredibly fun, I went to my Friends wedding, and it was full of tears and good laughs.I didn't think I would actually cry. Who knew right? Haha Renee looked beautiful, her dress was amazing and it was so sad. The reception was a blast, I had fun chatting it up and dancing.
I'm leaving for Michigan tomorrow and can't wait to get out of this city!