text:
素敵な出会いがあるといいなぁ… 今年もよろしくお願いします!!!!
A Happy New Year 2015 sheep from Sheeper!
The blockchain might be applicable for more than cryptocurrencies! IBM has figured out a way to use the blockchain for keeping track of Internet of Thing things. This is just a single page from the recent IBM whitepaper. Scott Bell is my Twitter friend. I am EllieAsksWhy.
Pretty amazing IBM Internet of things datapoint via @EllieAsksWhy // number of computing devices // pic.twitter.com/jf99kX4UBU
— Scott Bell (@iheartWallSt)January 18, 2015
More specifically, ADEPT is an IBM system developed in partnership with Samsung that builds a distributed network of devices – a decentralized Internet of Things. ADEPT is an acronym for Autonomous Decentralized Peer-to-Peer Telemetry. It uses the blockchain, with a mix of proof-of-work and proof-of-stake, to enable secure transactions.
IBM and Samsung chose three protocols – BitTorrent (for file sharing), Ethereum (smart contracts) and TeleHash (messaging) – to underpin ADEPT, conceptually. ADEPT was recently revealed at CES 2015 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The draft paper was distributed there (via Scribd) on 7 January 2015. The lengthier IBM white paper [PDF] is available here:
IBM ADEPT white paper http://t.co/lRkcOOrEBq blockchain for the IoT
— Ellie Kesselman (@EllieAsksWhy)January 18, 2015
The white paper was written by the lead developer (chief architect?) of ADEPT, Paul Brody, who resigned from IBM a few days ago.
190.870 USD as of 14 January 2015, 09:45 GMT-7
Long term forecast (15 May 2015) -745.254 USD
Yes, that's negative $745
Data and additional scary charts by Coinbase.com
Chart: Bitcoin sheds another 17%, drops below $200 - pic.twitter.com/TFJVojY6vR
— SoberLook.com (@SoberLook) January 14, 2015
It will happen when John Hennessy sells his restricted shares in Clinkle [1] and resigns his position as president of the university in order to assume the mantle of leadership as Chief Technology Officer of the most disruptive presence in the kennel marketplace, DogVacay.
[1] "The End of Stanford?" via The New Yorker (emphasis mine)
Is Stanford still a university? The Wall Street Journal recently reported that more than a dozen students—both undergraduate and graduate—have left school to work on a new technology start-up called Clinkle. Faculty members have invested, and one computer-science professor who taught several of the employees now owns shares. The founder of Clinkle was an undergraduate advisee of the president of the university, John Hennessy, who has also been advising the company. Clinkle deals with mobile payments, and, if all goes well, there will be many payments to many people on campus. The leadership of a university has encouraged an endeavor in which students drop out in order to do something that will enrich the faculty. Stanford has been heading in this direction for a while.
Quote of my answer to When will Stanford become Cal State Palo Alto to be overseen by the superior skill of UC Berkeley? on Quora
This is my new post on Medium, about so-called activist investors. It is supposed to embed elegantly with assistance from JavaScript. We'll see… I am doubtful.
Marcel Barbeau (Canadian, b. 1925), Rétine virevoltante, 1966. Acrylic on canvas, 203.5 × 203.5 cm. Musée d'Art contemporain de Montréal, Québec.
Herringbone of the flasque algebraic geometry variety
Evolution Of Brent Oil Price Forecasts, via FT. // LOL pic.twitter.com/AnFBK615qu
— Reinman_MT (@reinman_mt) December 15, 2014
That's what supplysideliberal says:
Here is the full text of my first column on Slate, "The Paperless Economy: How Governments can and should beat Bitcoin at its own game."
Supplysideliberal is a professor of economics. I am not, nevertheless, I think this is a bad idea, as it will undermine trust:
Give the central bank the authority to make interest rates negative, including making the interest rate on paper currency negative when necessary, by using the fact that a paper dollar is no longer guaranteed to be worth the same amount as an electronic dollar.
Also, won't we lose fungibility?
These concerns aren't mere abstractions. Yesterday, Switzerland adopted negative interest rates on deposits held at its central bank,
moving to hold down the value of the Swiss franc amid turmoil in global currency markets and expectations that deflation is at hand. The bank acted as the crisis in Russia and plummeting oil prices have caused a run on emerging market currencies.
This means that Switzerland will be charging a fee to anyone that wants to keep Swiss francs on deposit. This safe haven currency will now charge for the privilege.
This is the remarkable luna moth! It is Actias luna (Linnaeus), a most beautiful North American moth.
We can choose more immigration, or we can choose less inequality, but over the medium-term we probably can't choose both.
Hobey The Emotional Support Pig Speaks Out: I Was The Least Disgusting Animal On That Flight
original url http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Atlantis/1905/
last modified 1999-08-01 03:29:15
Orthanc… I mean Commerzbank, trying to look warm & friendly in Frankfurt, with light provided by Saruman's staff pic.twitter.com/TdD50j4NLn
— Brett Scott (@Suitpossum) November 30, 2014
On the Capilano Suspension Bridge, Vancouver Canada
Bop Is Also Unimpressed by evaxebra .
Via Flickr:
I was impressed, though. No matter what they thought, I thought the bridge was awesome!
Me too!
The following was announced today on CNN but is not surprising, nor cause for additional alarm, India isolates man with Ebola-infected semen:
New Delhi, India (CNN) — An Ebola survivor has been quarantined in India after his semen tested positive for the virus, health officials there have announced.
Excerpted from my answer to "Is there a cure for Ebola? via Skeptics StackExchange:
As for being disease-free, Ebola can hide in reservoirs in the body. It has been found in the urine and semen of people from one to two months following recovery. Eventually the virus does go away. Ebola victims who survive — the virus kills 60 to 90 percent of those it infects — first must spend weeks, if not months, regaining their strength and body weight following the ravages of Ebola … and ought to emerge from their struggle with immune resistance against future Ebola infection.
Diamond Of Sevens. by MWM Graphics on Flickr.
This makes a pair with the Stegosaurus of Diamonds that I located a few months ago.
Stegosaurus of Diamonds https://t.co/2tJZs5ekzj
— Ellie Kesselman (@EllieAsksWhy) July 17, 2014
Wow, we're only two cards away from four-of-a-kind!
This was published in January 2012. I wonder what the current status of chip-and-pin is now, especially in the context of mobile payments.
via VISA Corporate, As US chip adoption advances…:
Visa announced a roadmap for U.S. adoption of EMV chip cards and NFC-enabled mobile payment devices…adding a layer of safety to transactions, through the use of dynamic authentication… There's a lot of confusion around the myth that EMV means "chip-and-PIN." It doesn't in many countries, including the U.S. That's because we can rely on online processing…transmitted in real-time to the issuer for approval. With that in place, there's no need for the offline authentication that was the genesis of chip-and-PIN. Mercator Advisory Group recently wrote about this…The key is to implement a streamlined, online-only version of EMV…
This image reminds me of a mantrap. I was reading about industrial strength security measures last week. That's how I learned about mantraps, also called "security vestibules". Mantraps can satisfy both physical AND electronic security requirements. They have nothing to do with capturing a husband. They function more like the carnivorous Venus fly trap, however, Venus fly traps are a final destination. Mantraps are not.
The most recognizable analogy is an airlock. Airlocks are familiar from science fiction movies. The genuine article was used by NASA and former Soviet manned earth orbit and lunar missions. Terrestrial airlocks are uncommon. The only uses that I can think of are high risk bio-containment facilities and perhaps for hyperbaric chambers.
Image via zerowill1: IMG_8133 by Robert Eller on Flickr.
On 2 Sept 1963, Walter Cronkite anchored the first broadcast of network television's first daily half-hour news program on CBS… back in the days of black and white.
Google Research developed an aLOLgorithm, "Quantifying comedy on YouTube: why the number of o's in your LOL matter" to measure YouTube videos' hilarity. Let's just refer to it as the LOLgorithm, for my ease of typing. Initially, I thought it was a prior year's April Fool's Day post. It isn't!
I watched three of the five most LOL inducing videos, as determined by the humor-seeking LOLgorithm. I was pleasantly surprised.
Bill is awesome. He is the only Chinese Goose on a lake filled with Canada Geese.
Bill can't fly, but Bill is loved. See why…
Both are (small but colorful) PDF files.
Somewhere at CDC is a graphic designer who makes things like: "Is it Flu or is it Ebola?" http://t.co/Zc7dyZKezJ pic.twitter.com/7esUBZ2Asa
— Christopher Mims (@mims) November 1, 2014
@mims Their finest work http://t.co/wkltnc7tC9
— Jacob Harris (@harrisj) November 1, 2014
I love how the houses in ARITHMETICS are arranged according to the Fibonacci sequence.
Better than being consigned to Mediocristan!
…and here's some more information on what the mole actually is and why we use it! http://wp.me/s4aPLT-moleday
…and a cute Avogadro's number comic
Thanks to the wonderful dwellerinthelibrary for my birthday outing today at the disturbingly gruesome and thought provoking AZTECS exhibition today. This sign caught my eye.
Good one, curators. :)
elég menő, ahogy az OK GO az új klipjében kombinálta a drónos videót a dollyval.
Cute maybe even amazing special effects video, annoying music
via Foreign Affairs
This is an interesting read, including the comments at the end.
via Thoughts on Microsoft's Q3 2014 earnings | Beyond Devices
It's possible that Microsoft makes more revenue from Cloud services than Amazon makes from AWS.
via icontherecord 17 Oct 2014:
As the President said in his speech on January 17, 2014,
"the challenges posed by threats like terrorism, proliferation, and cyber-attacks are not going away any time soon, and for our intelligence community to be effective over the long haul, we must maintain the trust of the American people, and people around the world."This commitment is reflected in the directions the President gave to the Intelligence Community on that same day, when he issued Presidential Policy Directive/PPD-28, Signals Intelligence Activities…
The PPD-28 Interim Report
As we work to meet the January 2015 deadline, PPD-28 called on the Director of National Intelligence to prepare an interim report on the status of our efforts…We encourage you to read the whole report released today. [PDF]
I encourage you to read it too. It is 10 pages of well-written prose; the date is July 2014. The final report is due on 17 January 2015.
If that seems too much like native advertising (Irving Wladawsky-Berger is such an IBM fanboi ;O) then pay a visit to Seeking Alpha with me. They live and breathe capitalism over there. Regarding IBM in general and the mainframe in particular, I found A Moat Full of Immortal Dinosaurs. Warren Buffet looks for "economic castles protected by unbreachable moats." Good moats protect businesses from their competitors. They are made of brand power, scale/ cost advantages or intellectual property. The mainframe business is IBM's very strong moat.
Each duck of Twitter has a characteristic piquant charm. I forgot where or when I found LimeDuck. He has an earnest, almost adult persona.
always view source! RT @protobisoftware: NYT: "all the code that's fit to printf()" Recruiting in the code itself pic.twitter.com/eJnFLJ1aMK
— limeduck (@limeduck)September 25, 2014
WordPress does something similar, "If you are reading this, contact us. We're hiring!" WordPress doesn't have the surprisingly lush New York Times typography themed ASCII art though. Limeduck even has a doppelganger of sorts!
@limeduck still reading hardcovers? I hear those who can't write, read.
— evil limeduck (@evil_limeduck)April 21, 2011
Duck Enlightenment a.k.a. Jokeocracy is my most recent duck discovery on Twitter, though he seems to have found an online home. He is a humorous version of the Dark Enlightenment ideology that I otherwise find so disturbing. Duck Enlightenment is not a parody account, so there is an edge. He is a more youthful sort than LimeDuck. It is impossible to see that sweet little duck body, suitably darker hued, with petite nubby horns, and not feel a rush of empathetic loving kindness.
— /duck/.txt (@duckDOTtxt) November 14, 2014
Finally, we have dear Gappy3000, who isn't quite a duck. Rather, he is a duck-billed platypus hailing from New Hedgistan.
I thought I could be a nasty sarcast, but reading some exchanges on twitter, I am realizing I am a dilettante
— Bozo the Platypus (@gappy3000)October 16, 2014
Any data scientist worth their salary will tell you that you should start with a question, NOT the data. Unfortunately, data hackathons often lack clear problem definitions. Most companies think that if you can just get hackers, pizza, and data together in a room, magic will happen.
"This is the same as if Habitat for Humanity gathered its volunteers around a pile of wood and said, "Have at it!" By the end of the day you'd be left with a half of a sunroom with 14 outlets in it."
— Jake Porway on how You Can't Just Hack Your Way to Social Change
This is a dynamic, pseudo-random system. It was produced in 100 lines of code. Looks like it's back to Processing for me.
This reminds me of Windows XP Solitaire whenever I won a game. I think the trajectory of the bouncing playing cards was a simple exponential decay in two dimensions, but I liked it, a lot! I like this too. Click the URL and watch it animate!
This is a view of the Solar System, as seen from a position in the center by the MESSENGER spacecraft. The planets appear as points of light. The closer and larger ones are the brightest. Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn are clearly visible in the image. The positions of Uranus, Neptune and Pluto are labeled but they are too faint to see. I refuse to consider Pluto as anything less than a full-fledged planet! I have my reasons! According to JPL, this image is the reverse of one taken from the outside of the Solar System in 1990 by Voyager One. Click on the second link below to see a larger version, along with a more complete explanation.
It seems to be a lot of exceptionally well-commented assembly language broken into clean, consistently-named sub-routines.
Big Data, as a term with no clear definition, which serves as a marketing campaign for technology vendors, encourages people to put their faith in technologies without first developing the skills that are needed to use those technologies. As a result, organizations waste their money and time chasing the latest so-called Big Data technologies—some useful, some not—to no effect because technologies can only augment the analytical abilities of humans; they cannot make up for our lack of skill…
Energy market pricing behavior seems contrary to the relationship between supply and demand. The oddly behaving RIN market is an intermediate factor that influences gasoline prices for automobiles. RIN (Renewable Identification Numbers) should be decreasing. Instead, they are too high.
RIN establish compliance with standards for non-fossil fuel usage, specifically, for corn-based ethanol as a blend in gasoline. In 2007, legislation was passed to encourage greater use of ethanol. The percentage requirement of ethanol is set by the EPA. It increases annually, and is calculated at an aggregate level, measured volumetrically, over all U.S. domestic consumption.
My favorite energy blog, Platt's Oil Barrel, featured a guest post* by former Special Assistant to President Obama and Senior Director for Energy and Climate Change of the National Security Council Jason Bordoff, explaining anomalous RIN price behavior, and what the EPA is doing about it. He noted two reasons for the seemingly anomalous pricing.
Renewable Fuel Standards (RFS) were revised in 2007, based on the assumption that gasoline usage would increase over time. In fact, it has not done so, not consistently. Instead, it decreased during 2011-2013, yet the schedule of increasing amounts of ethanol has remained, as legislated. As a result, according to Bordoff, we are now hitting the "blend wall", when blenders physically cannot put enough ethanol into the gas supply to comply with RFS law.
Bordoff identified a second reason:
broad-based skepticism in the market that EPA will use its waiver authority to avoid the blend wall—even though EPA just went to unusual lengths to signal precisely that it will.
The bio-fuel situation bears an odd resemblance to the rational expectations based logic of monetary policy. It is difficult for the Federal Reserve to effectively signal to markets, e.g. the anticipated (and appropriate!) end of quantitative easing. The Federal Reserve System has taken measures to increase transparency. Fed Governors Bernanke and Yellen hold scheduled press conferences. Bernanke was the first Federal Reserve governor to do so. The Fed was audited by the GAO in 2012. Federal Open Markets Committee (FOMC) meeting notes are published and posted online.
wow.. just wow.. Citi talking of QE4 now with inflation expectations collapsing pic.twitter.com/ZzH2u7nrA8
— Chris (@lebullmarche) October 8, 2014
The Fed also has the necessary tools to carry out monetary policy e.g. quantitative easing known as QE.
@lebullmarche @LadyFOHF OMG | QEn s.t. n = 1 ~> ? It is unnatural. Fed wasn't intended for this; is worse than a centrally planned economy
— Ellie Kesselman (@EllieAsksWhy) October 8, 2014
Despite all of the above, the "job creators" aren't investing, and the Fed is now contemplating QE4.
RIN prices were intended to incentivize the build-out of ethanol-blended fuel infrastructure. I tried, but still can't quite figure out how RINs work. Are RINs a levy on petroleum refiners? Go have a look at this post about RINsanity from Ethanol Producers. I do understand enough to believe that it is inappropriate to expect the EPA to function like the fuel market version of the Federal Reserve. The Environmental Protection Agency is a regulatory authority. It does not have a fuel market oversight mandate, nor does it have the means to effectively influence fuel markets.
Behavioral economics is NOT the solution to everything. It seems arrogant to expect it to be. Building out biofuel infrastructure will only happen if manufacturers and consumers want it. The EPA is good for enforcement of specific criminal acts of environmental waste and endangerment. The EPA is good for setting standards that provide guidance as part of normal day-to-day life and business. The EPA shouldn't be responsible for implementing massive, sweeping public policy that spans manufacturing, transportation and consumer necessities!
Microeconomics is well-suited to mathematical modeling, but can be problematic when trying to run an entire economy with huge, many-variable general-equilibrium models of the macroeconomic variety. I believe that re-purposing productive U.S. farmland to grow corn for ethanol results in higher food prices,
More than one-third of our corn crop is used to feed livestock. Another 13% is exported, much of it to feed livestock as well. Another 40% is used to produce ethanol. The remainder goes toward food and beverage production.
There isn't as much corn for animal feed. Next, it becomes uneconomic for farmers to grow organic crops, or anything with higher risk, instead of corn.
The EPA signaled but without any effect. That's due to a lack of trust, which makes sense, as the EPA is not a market participant. The EPA establishes standards and enforces compliance. They shouldn't force blends of E10 to E15 if manufacturers say it will damage engines though! If manufacturers, consumers and fuel stations aren't convinced that the EPA is acting in the public and industry's best interests, then no amount of so-called incentivizing through RIN prices will be effective.
The EPA can't force the public to behave irrationally. Irrationally? Yes. Everyone except the ultra wealthy ruling class (say, greater than $1 million average yearly income or greater than $10 mil net worth) is worried about money. Of course no one will want to use E15 fuel if it could ruin his car engine (American Automobile Association, November 2012):
The only vehicles currently approved by automakers to use E15 are flex-fuel models, 2001 model-year and newer Porsches, 2012 model-year and newer GM vehicles and 2013 model-year Ford vehicles.
People won't worry about the environment if they are afraid of losing their jobs, due to needing a new engine for the vehicle used to get to work. Without that engine, vehicle and job, families will be hungry and homeless. Public transportation is an excellent alternative, but it isn't available for most of us.
Auto companies should have developed more bio-fuel accommodating automobile engines a long time ago. Most recently, the government has been obsessed with the JOBS Act (general solicitation for hedge funds), gutting Dodd-Frank while adding bulk, the America Invents Act (opaque euphemism for more patents, less invention) and funding not-so-high-tech, so-called social media entrepreneurs and cloud computing, instead of chemistry, physics and engineering research by Midwestern auto companies and big land grant universities of the states of Iowa, Michigan, Texas, New Mexico etc.
Don't blame Big Oil either, not for this! Oil company stock prices are plummeting although there is no obvious causal linkage to RIN activity.
Unless one has spent the past year in a sensory deprivation tank, it would be impossible NOT to be aware of the disclosures of former defense contractor Edward Snowden, and a slew of revelations about surveillance. The concept of classified or restricted information is applied in few government contexts. Most U.S. federal, state, county and municipal documents are available for public review, as they are funded with our tax dollars. Thus, I was rather surprised to learn that the EPA issued its 2013 version of bio-fuel related updates, but redacted a key item and resisted Wall Street Journal requests for disclosure.
* I drafted most of this on 13 Oct 2013, so there may have been changes in the interim.
Some years ago, I studied mathematics and statistics. At that time, there was only one statistician among the mathematics department members, maybe the entire Swarthmore College faculty, Gudmund R. Iversen. He was my academic adviser. Professor Iversen was grey, tweedy and Norwegian. He always addressed me as Miss Kesselman, which helped alleviate my shyness at the time.
Professor Iversen got his PhD in statistics from Harvard University in 1969. I noticed only one other familiar name on that very short list of all Harvard Statistics PhD alumni: Columbia University political science and statistics professor Andrew Gelman PhD in 1990.
Professor Iversen had a group of colleagues, all statisticians from other academic institutions. They would visit Swarthmore to give lunchtime talks, or more typically, late Friday afternoon presentations to mathematical statistics students.
I recall one particular guest statistician. Edward Tufte was on the faculty of Princeton University, and had recently written his first book, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. The venue was a small private room in Sharples dining hall. I was one of maybe 20 attending.
Tufte was high-strung and slightly fussy, with occasional flashes of humor. He handed out hardback copies of his book, admonishing us "not to dip them in the gravy" from lunch (there was no gravy at lunch). Tufte explained that he had to take out a third mortgage on his house to finance the production and publication of Visual Display. The book was gorgeous. The statistical graphs were unlike anything I had ever seen before. Tufte spoke at length about Charles Minard's famous map representing Napoleon Bonaparte's doomed Russian campaign. In the summer of 1812, Napoleon set out for Moscow with 440,000 troops. Only 10,000 returned.
Tufte spoke well. After a mild question and answer session, he retrieved copies of his book from us. I badly wanted to keep mine. For a little more Tuftese see my Chart Art post.
During my time at Swarthmore College, statistics was considered a marginal field of study, at best. The current math department chairman, James England, referred to it as "cocktail party math". Professor Iversen had tenure by the time I arrived, yet he didn't have an office with the rest of the mathematics department. Instead, he still occupied the same room in the 1st level basement of the engineering building as he had since 1973, and a ten minute walk from the rest of the department. It was an almost windowless room, with woven wool rugs on the floors and hung on the walls, which kept the air warm and dry. Naturally, the furniture was mostly mid-century Scandinavian modern.
Given that background, I was surprised and happy when Professor Iversen became the new department head in 1992! In 1993, the department name changed. Now it is the Swarthmore College Mathematics and Statistics Department. As far as I can tell, Professor Iversen kept his original office even while he was department chair. After twenty years, it was their turn to come to him.
I happened upon a pleasant review of Statistics in Society: The Arithmetic of Politics written by Iversen for the MAA (Mathematical Association of America) in February 2000. The book is actually a collection of 47 essays. Overall, the review is positive. Excerpt:
The book grew out of activities supported by what is known as the Radical Statistics group, a twenty-five year old group unknown to me before reading this book. Radical Statistics is "a group of statisticians and others who share a common concern about the political assumptions implicit in the process of compiling and using statistics, and an awareness of the actual and potential misuses of statistics and its techniques."
There has been so much tumult in bitcoin and crypto currencies over the past few days! Interest and concern extends far beyond arcane online communities. Motives vary.
There are two conceptual pillars of trust that uphold bitcoin as being superior to fiat currency. The first is decentralization.
The fiat currency of reference is primarily the US dollar, for the time being. Why? Because the $US is the world's reserve currency, for now. If Germany weren't part of the EU, if Japan weren't still in its lost decade and England weren't so afflicted with problems, the Deutsche mark, Yen or British Pound Sterling would be attractive alternatives to the $US as a fungible, stable store of value. As ideological (not market) confidence in the $US has diminished, the appeal of an apolitical, modern alternative increases. I won't go off on a tangent as to why a currency printed by the U.S. Treasury in support of the Federal Reserve's monetary policy isn't as highly esteemed as it was in the past. Obviously the $US dollar is a highly centralized currency.
The second conceptual pillar of bitcoin is anonymity. US dollars held as cash will be anonymous until one wants to use them for exchange for commercial transactions of size. Bitcoin has some anonymity short comings, too, but there may be tractable remedies.
All markets are game theoretic. Bitcoin is more transparently so. I really wish we could ask Professor John Nash what he thinks of bitcoin! Nash actually wrote a pleasant, accessible article about bitcoin-like currencies a few years ago.
I mention game theory because bitcoin's most acute concern now is loss of decentralization. It is due to the documented, persistent existence of a 51% majority mining pool controlled by gHash.io. gHash is owned and operated by a private entity, cex.io. gHash's market dominant behavior was noted in March 2014, but the situation was transient, unlike now. Monopolists, and cartels, can assert control as a function of mining power. See How a mining monopoly can attack bitcoin for a chart of strategies that mining pools can pursue as a function of hash power. It was recommended by Ed Felten in his post, Bitcoin mining now dominated by one pool.
In theory, bitcoin is a perfectly smooth, zero transaction cost medium of exchange. In reality. this is possible but involves a modicum of effort. Some bitcoin miners and many many non-mining users keep their holdings in custody of a clearinghouse such as Mt. Gox or Silk Road. This does generate small transaction costs, for holding the users' e-wallets. In return, users benefit from the greater convenience in making purchases and sales. The clearinghouse may have an additional appeal to miners, as it offers the option of participating in a shared mining pool. Bitcoin was designed to reward early adopters; as more bitcoins are mined, more computational effort is required.
Mining Bitcoin requires processing power and electricity. In 2010, a PC with an NVIDIA or ATI GPU would have been adequate, but no longer. A new crypto currency-specific manufacturing industry has evolved for bitcoin mining equipment, using FPGAs which are more energy-efficient than graphics processing units. This was further improved by an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC),
In other words, a chip designed from the ground up for the specific purpose of mining bitcoins. ASIC also represents the theoretical limit on the hardware capabilities of mining equipment.
The mining rigs cost tens of thousands of dollars, and create a high barrier to entry for many miners. The remedy had been to use mining pools in the cloud e.g. Amazon AWS or clearinghouse hardware.
There are costs for miners, but a monetary levy is not the worst of it. The same can be said for non-miners who have others hold their e-wallets. Trust is equally important as middle-man costs. Mt. Gox "lost" many customers' Bitcoins, then declared bankruptcy. No depositor funds have been recovered.
Mining bitcoin is costly due to mining equipment prices and the high power requirements, which result in large amounts spent on electricity.
Perverse incentives motivate uneconomic choices. The most egregious and harmful behavior (directly associated with bitcoin mining) that I've seen to-date was unauthorized use of a National Science Foundation supported supercomputer to mine bitcoin. $150,000 in computing resources, e.g. electricity, were spent in order to mine the equivalent of $8000 in bitcoin. Another incident occurred at Harvard University in March 2014. The researcher used Harvard's high-powered network of thousands of CPU cores to mine an unspecified number of dogecoins.
I don't know the significance of the following two abstracts to bitcoin or SSL. I would like to share this, in the hope of getting an informed assessment as to the relevance. On 15 March 2014, it was "Ooh Aah… Just a Little Bit": A small amount of side channel can go a long way:
We apply the FLUSH+RELOAD side channel attack based on cache hits/misses to extract a small amount of data from OpenSSL ECDSA signature requests. We then apply a "standard" lattice technique to extract the private key, but unlike previous attacks we are able to make use of the side-channel information from almost all of the observed executions. This means we obtain private key recovery by observing a relatively small number of executions, and by expending a relatively small amount of post-processing via lattice reduction. We demonstrate our analysis via experiments using the curve secp256k1 used in the Bitcoin protocol. In particular we show that with as little as 200 signatures we are able to achieve a reasonable level of success in recovering the secret key for a 256-bit curve…
Using the side-channel attack described, above, 200 signatures were sufficient to recover the secret key, as demonstrated using the encryption protocol (secp256k1) for bitcoin. Now, the authors claim to have refined their approach, thus reducing the number of signatures to 25, see Just a Little Bit More, by Joop van de Pol and Nigel P. Smart and Yuval Yarom via IACR eprint 2014/434 [PDF]
We extend the FLUSH+RELOAD side-channel attack of Benger et al. to extract a significantly larger number of bits of information per observed signature when using OpenSSL. This means that by observing only 25 signatures, we can recover secret keys of the secp256k1 curve, used in the Bitcoin protocol, with a probability greater than 50 percent. This is an order of magnitude improvement over the previously best known result. The new method of attack exploits two points: Unlike previous partial disclosure attacks we utilize all information obtained and not just that in the least significant or most significant bits… Furthermore, whereas previous works require direct information on ephemeral key bits, our attack utilizes the indirect information from the wNAF double and add chain.
Emphasis mine. Candid disclaimer: I have not read either paper.
Nice Mr. Ok Turtles @taoeffect said it was a server side issue, not to worry.
For a more detailed understanding of bitcoin vulnerability, see Dispelling some myths about Bitcoin (serious). For an intuitive understanding of bitcoin cultural approaches to attack vulnerability remediation, see Novel method for backup of wallet seeds or private keys (not-so-serious).
To conclude on a less dismal note than usual, go play and have fun with the Bitcoin Bullshit Generator, freshly forked from the Web 2.0 Economy Bullshit Generator. It amused me.
Today's post is somewhat of a departure for me. I try to avoid writing of subjects about which I have no formal training nor experience.
My only education-related experience has been passive, as a recipient. From kindergarten through 12th grade, I attended public schools in Las Cruces, New Mexico. I loved learning algebra, calculus, chemistry, English literature, French, U.S. history, physics, drafting, home economics, and orchestra. I find it difficult to learn from self-instructional materials. Learning by doing is effective, but requires some guidance.
I perceive betrayal of public interest throughout the U.S.A., due to federal government educational policy. New York City is especially troubled. Exceptionally wealthy individuals with ZERO experience or training in education have decided that they know what is best for America's children.
The Brookings Institute describes them as the 0.1% of 0.1% in assets. Assets held is a robust metric for gauging wealth. It is important to distinguish between wealth and income. Income fluctuates from year to year, even for the wealthy. Causes vary. Some have profound impact, such as significant reversals of fortune. Some are merely transitory, e.g. accounting losses reported in order to minimize impact of tax law changes. These 0.1% of 0.1% individuals choose to actively direct the projects that are beneficiaries of their philanthropy.
Most education reform activists, or perhaps investors, have no knowledge, nor experience in public school education. Rather, they are exceptionally capable leaders of global software conglomerates. Others have great prowess as hedge fund managers, venture capitalists or real-estate moguls. Several are Wal-Mart family scions. Education reformers who have children educate them at private schools like Philips Andover or Choate, yet they claim that charter school operators provide a superior education, compared to public schools in the U.S.A. The same story can be told regarding MOOCs.
Charter schools are similar to private schools, yet they are financed by public, i.e. taxpayer funds. They are not fiscally accountable, unlike public schools. Charter schools do not resemble Exeter or Choate-Rosemary Hall as far as quality of instruction or facilities, not at all! An increasing body of empirical evidence and peer-reviewed research indicates that charter schools are inferior to public school education, in myriad ways. The same is true for the uniformly despised Common Core Standards, by everyone other than ALEC and those who hold copyright to them.
Schumpeter wrote about creative disruption. I think that the current school reform movement is better described as destructive disruption.
Unfortunately, the media tows the line of those who claim that teaching must be disrupted. This is because those who are wealthy are influential, and LOUD. They like to say that teaching must be disrupted, in order to keep pace with the inexorable path of scientific progress.
Why the need for disruption? We live in an era of technology! Existing pedagogy is allegedly archaic, resembling that which was used for the past 1000 years. Silicon Valley is especially fond of saying that. In fact, 20th century teaching methods were similar to those used for the past 1,000 years, and for good reason: Our brains haven't changed in the past 10,000 years! Our cognitive processing and synthesis of information into knowledge has not evolved over such a short time span.
Technology is great, but technocrats who want to replace teachers with robots and mobile phone apps will do great damage. That isn't how THEY learned math, reading or anything else! Yet most websites where programmers, PhD educated mathematicians or physicists gather, cannot say enough bad things about how repressive, stifling, corrupt and inadequate our public education system is. Where did most or all get their educations? Surprise: K-12 public schools, often followed by land grant universities! Most excel in their careers, in STEM fields. We are now said, as a nation, to be grossly deficient in STEM skills, although IEEE has evidence to the contrary. Trans-humanists such as Sugita are given $10 million grants to run schools without teachers, only the internet. And then there is the recent fascination with grit…
So, just maybe, status quo pedagogical methods, as applied before 1990 (and Common Core), were exceptionally effective! And the problem, now, is not teacher inadequacy and the lack of iPad's from kindergarten on. Instead, there are profound societal inefficiencies due to a decade or three of so-called Democrats, who are neither Democrat nor GOP nor libertarian. They are crony capitalists, neo-liberals, oligarchs in the wings. What's happening now is a logical consequence of:
I'll stop now.
In the style of Seeking Alpha investment analyses, I disavow any agenda, nor will I benefit in any way from this post. In fact, the contrary is far more likely, particularly since I am in search of employment. My passive experience with public education, that I mentioned earlier, is based on observations made by my mother and two aunts, each of whom has 20 years experience as public school teachers. Also, I have tutored college students who had trouble with calculus. I do that at my kitchen table, free, yet many can't make time in their busy schedules, until failing out and retaking the class.
This is an example of an exceptionally false-positive computer virus concern. More accurate: General lack of having a clue.
How to clean the goo dot gl virus when you run it?
The worm spreads on Twitter as a link. Careful with this.
Computer Viruses: View the question and associated answers on Quora.
I found this the other day, via WPRandom:
Generating random numbers is pretty complicated if you need them for cryptographic algorithms. This software generates them based on spam comments…
It caught my eye as a sort of "spinning spam into RNG gold", or more likely, PRNG (pseudo-random number generated) gold. Many WordPress blogs, whether self-hosted on WordPress.org or not, effectively use Akismet as a comment spam sieve. As I've learned during my time with WordPress, and with spam comments, Akismet will not publish comments that it identifies as probable spam. This provides a possibly crucial aspect of SecurityDump's application:
no one will be able to see the source of your numbers, unless they hack into your database
All the details are available on the Google project site for WPRandom, Problems and Attack Vectors wiki. I have no idea if SecurityDump worked the bugs out of this yet or not. I found it an amusing idea, though, to squeeze some genuine value from the efforts of spammers.
I never attended DEFCON, though it remains a dream I hope to realize one day, soon. It may soon become too logistically awkward due to increasing numbers of attendees.
Shodan is a remarkable search engine. Traditional search engines use "spiders" to crawl websites. Shodan culls data from ports. It was created by John Matherly in 2007. He continues to develop it.
Shodan is helpful for locating web server vulnerabilities. It is available as a free service, for up to 50 searches. Query syntax includes searches by country, host name, operating system and port. Shodan can search for software AND hardware. It has been acknowledged by mainstream media. The most prominent coverage was in early June, via The Washington Post, when Stuxnet received so much press attention.
Next is my Scribd infosec collection. It isn't exclusively Shodan-related. This is why. I first noticed that Michael Schearer wrote excellent PowerPoint presentations, and kindly posted them on Scribd. I was curious, searched for more. This led me to Shodan HQ.
Shodan is NOT an acronym for Sentient Hyper Optimized Data Access Network. John Matherly kindly confirmed this, in response to my recent inquiry.
@ellieaskswhy nope :) not an acronym for my project, but it's the acronym for the videogame character the name is based off of
— John Matherly (@achillean) August 19, 2012
I wrote an information security and data privacy post, on my Tumblr blog. The (inline) PDF document from hal.inria.fr is the highlight. Along the way, I learned about quines! They are a cute construct, like palindromes, or self-replication, or polyglot programs; fun, maybe useful.
There was a somewhat satisfactory resolution to the ongoing matter of what I think of as Bobby Table's Google-compromised web malware repository. The Web Malware Collection Project is:
A collection of web application back doors and malware, in PHP, JSP, ASP, etc.
Let's conclude with a video, Hackers vs. Disasters Large and Small. The venue was DEFCON 13. Introductory remarks were by Michael Schearer, which is where this all began. Be forewarned, duration is 1 hour, 45 minutes:
Most often we're "on the grid" and close to our precious electronics and high-speed internet. What would happen if you find yourself stranded in the middle of nowhere or in the midst of a natural disaster? This presentation will show you that your hacker ingenuity can help you survive the worst.
Two new elements, flerovium and livermoreium, also known as Fl
and Lv,
and formerly known by the much blander names of ununquadium
and ununhexium,
have been approved for entry[1] into the Periodic Table of the Elements!
In honor of the event, I assembled a minor gallery of favorite periodic tables.
The children's Periodic Table on the U.S. EIA site provides the basics. Better yet, it links to the Los Alamos National Lab (LANL) Periodic Table, which is just as impressive and complete as I would expect.
While viewing, consider a recent post by senior LANL employee David Hobart, Actinide Analytical Chemistry, History of the periodic table…and my history with it, which was charming, as well as educational.
There is an "evolution of the table" section, facts about the table's inventor, Dmitri Mendeleev, born 175 years ago[2], and this:
As the legendary physicist Richard Feynman put it, "If some universal catastrophe was to engulf the world and humankind could retain only one scientific concept to rebuild civilization, what would it be? The chemist's answer is almost invariably the Periodic Table of the Elements."
In the course of researching this article, I learned that 2011 was designated The International Year of Chemistry. Many countries chose to commemorate IYC 2011 with a memorial postage stamp. The United States did not participate, well, not with a postage stamp issuance, and several European countries focused only on the 100th anniversary of Madame Curie's award of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1911.
I followed along with IUPAC member Daniel Rabinovich in his own year of discovery, as he documented chemistry-related philatelic activities around the globe. Do read his narrative. View the beautiful stamps! He did an excellent job, conveying the excitement as each new stamp was issued.
Virtue was rewarded. Daniel Rabinovich will be a featured presenter on March 25, 2012, a few days from now, at the 2012 American Chemical Society meeting in San Diego. I wish I could be there too, to listen to his lecture, IYC 2011 Stamp Odyssey, HIST Tutorial and General Papers session.
[1] IUPAC made the announcement on Dec 1, 2011. The new names are currently nearing the end of a five-month public comment period. After that, the official paperwork will be processed, and they will show up in the table.
[2] Mendeleev's Periodic Table was presented in public 142 years (and a few days) ago, on March 18, 1869 to the Russian Chemical Society.
Some may find this online exchange that followed this post from the American Chemical Society: Lifetime Fan (An Undergrad Gets Inked) to be of interest. I refer to the comment section. It eventually led to a response by the CEO of the American Chemical Society, Madeleine Jacobs, which I enjoyed.
I found an old sentiment analysis application. It has very unglamorous packaging but a good algorithm under the hood. I ran the Twitter user id's of the brightest people I know. well, know of, who are active Twitter users. The assessment of "bright" was subjective by me. All are acknowledged experts or advanced degree holders. Maybe half speak English as a second language, but are sufficiently articulate that their "essence", well, intelligence shines through.
Guess what: It worked! I don't know if anyone cares about this sort of thing, that really sharp successful people score well on this sentiment analysis indicator. That doesn't necessarily mean it would have any predictive value. And no one seems to care much about this anyway. But what I'm saying is that most of these people only have okay-ish Klout scores e.g. 40's. But they're not trying to use Twitter for any particular social media purpose. Well, I don't know that with certainty.
Edward Tufte's first text, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, introduced standards for graphical representation. It is considered the definitive guide for visual display of complex data.
I found this while surfing Flickr. Austin Kleon of Austin, Texas is the artist. The image represents the cognitive process by which Edward Tufte transformed raw data into digestible information while writing Envisioning Information, one of his many follow-on publications to Visual Display. It is a mind map.
IEEE Spectrum's Innovation blog featured the topic of data visualization, profiling Edward Tufte as a practitioner. The emphasis was unusual for IEEE. "Tufte-isms" explores how Tufte's ideas have influenced language:
Tufte, it turns out, is not only a doyen of data visualization but also a neologist par excellence. His most famous term might be chartjunk, which refers to chart elements that not only serve no purpose but may in fact hinder understanding. In Tuftese, when chartjunk takes a cartoonish form…the result is a chartoon.
A SAS blogger attended the annual SXSW Interactive event, a year or three, maybe four ago. He posted the focal image of the SXSW opening presentation, the mind map reproduced below, as part of his review. A bullet point slide might be more meaningful for SXSW to use for a keynote address, but one page of Times Roman typeface on a white background is not nearly as compelling. I will include the relevant URL if I can ever find it again. Much of the SAS Ephemera blog has been archived so thoroughly that it has in effect, vanished. The blog name did give fair warning.
Mind maps first appeared several decades ago. Obviously, they are in vogue again. Mind maps could be described as visualization-lite. At best mind maps capture epistemological concepts. The viewer is prompted to synthesize information and learn. At worst, they are harmless, because they don't attempt to quantify information.
The two mind maps above appeal to me as art, what I consider "chart art". Chart art is not meant in a pejorative way! Mind mappers don't refer to their work as a form of data visualization. I think that is quite wise. We have designers who are interested in data, and analysts who are interested in design. Both can produce good work. We also have data scientists, but they are another matter entirely!
A data scientist is rara avis. The good ones have graduate-level degrees, or equivalent experience, in statistics and applied mathematics. Equally important is that they are decent programmers, and don't consider applications development a tiresome chore.
* The SAS Institute of Carey, North Carolina sells high quality statistical software and data management applications. SAS remains a privately held company, founded by Duke University professors from days past. If only IBM had acquired SAS instead of SPSS! I used SAS for many years. As I re-read this, I caught an amusing typo "high quality satirical software". Who is the market leader in satirical software, I wonder?
This was prescient for May 2012. I've since read about an appalling fiduciary failure. A physician lost millions in public employee pension assets. He had just started as a portfolio manager for a biotech fund which was selected to manage a big chunk of that state employee retirement money.
The physician had no prior experience as an institutional money manager.
I wouldn't want a biotech portfolio manager as a medical care-giver either.
Defense Department leaders have decided that the best way to protect sensitive information from cybercriminals and internal leaks is to consolidate its 15,000 networks into a single "joint information environment." JIE is a set of security protocols — which the Pentagon calls a single security architecture...Although the JIE is not a "program of record" with its own funding line, it will be financed under the Pentagon's $23 billion cybersecurity budget. Leading the massive network integration effort is the Joint Staff, U.S. Cyber Command and Defense Information Systems Agency [DISA].— via National Defense Magazine, 13 September 2013
It is good that DISA will serve as the Joint Information Environment (JIE) development hub, with associated accountability. However, I noticed that the head of DISA, Air Force Lt. Gen. Ronnie D. Hawkins Jr., mentioned this:
To foil insider leaks, the JIE will track network activity using 'identity access management' technology.
I do not know whether IAM is an Amazon.com trademark, i.e. if it is unique to AWS. I do know that Amazon was granted FedRAMP, a special government contracting credential, in May 2013.
FedRAMP is a is a cost-cutting initiative intended to do away with checking the safety of cloud services, if the products already have cleared the program's boilerplate style security audit. It guarantees that a cloud service complies with U.S. laws for guarding federal information, but is not applicable to classified or high-security systems.
Computing Reviews is the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) publication review website. It isn't scholarly journal peer review, but rather, book reviews and critique of trends and new developments in computer science and computing applications.
Computing Reviews runs a monthly series, Featured in Five. No, there's no singing or dancing, like a musical revue. The same five questions are asked of each month's featured reviewer, a "reviewer revue", so to speak. I recommend the series in general. Reviewers are computer science academicians or information technology professionals at various stages of their careers. The variation in answers to the same five questions* is fascinating.
My interest is in applied math, statistics and probability. One post dwelt on data analysis more than the rest, and caught my attention.
The following is an excerpt from the January 2013 post, for which Vladik Kreinovich was the featured reviewer.
Modern technology allows us to generate, store, and process huge amounts of data... big data can (and will) lead to revolutionary breakthroughs in science, engineering, medicine, and so on. The biggest challenge comes from the fact that all this data comes with uncertainty...
It is essential to gauge data accuracy. Until that is well understood and accounted for, big data will be of limited usefulness.
Why is the accuracy associated with big data different, or more difficult, to study than "medium" or "small" data uncertainty?
Traditional data analysis and data quality assessment was based sources or which error rates and causes of inaccuracy were known or could be measured, whether deterministically or using models. Kreinovich (computer science, University of Texas at El Paso) gives a specific example:Processing techniques originated from processing data from well-calibrated sensors, sensors for which we know the probability distribution of measurement errors, for which we can use traditional probabilistic and statistical techniques. The point of big data is to... supplement these "perfect" measurements with numerous less perfect ones—for example, we use temperatures regularly measured by volunteers who use off-the-shelf non-perfectly calibrated sensors. For such data, we often only know the upper bound on the measurement error...
In addition to this bounded interval of data inaccuracy, we also have partial information about probabilities. That is helpful, but it isn't sufficient to solve the central problem.
Processing data under interval uncertainty is Professor Kreinovich's primary research interest. The field of study is known globally as interval computation at universities and by industry practitioners.
* The fifth questions is always, "What is your favorite type of music?" so thoughts of a musical variety show, a revue, are more justified than initial impressions might have suggested!
Disclaimers aside, it is amusing yet informative. Cycle Computing succeeds in being light-hearted, whereas I must turn everything into a ponderous, weighty object lesson :o)
...by simply not running the science on any cores, we remove the computational challenges and data transfer bottlenecks of today's BigCompute and BigData workloads. Because ZeroCompute "completes" the floating point in the nanosecond it takes the software to decide not to run anything... peak floating-point performance exceeds one billion petaflops, at a cost of $0.00 per flop.
The only way to avoid all negative consequences is to avoid any action, any innovation at all. That is associated with negative consequences as well. The numerous, vocal opponents of nuclear energy and modern agricultural methods would be wiser and more compassionate if they were to take such ideas to heart.
Vaccination to prevent the childhood diseases of diptheria, whooping cough, mumps and measles, as well as adult diseases such as tetanus, typhoid, rubella, polio and smallpox are a different matter. They are an unmitigated public good. There are no concomitant hazards such as ionizing radiation exposure nor GMO innuendo. Our brave, heroic, brilliant though now-deceased Surgeon General C. Everett Koop would have been able to get through to the anti-vaccination evil-do'er groups, if anyone could.
The Youth for Christ Center in Myanmar provides food, shelter, safety, rest, Bible study and singing, free of charge, for 40 days to a maximum of three months.
Via Reuters, Photos of the Week: Faith healing for addicts, 6 July 2013:
Myanmar is the world's second-largest producer of opium. Heroin abuse is widespread. The center's popularity is a testament both to the severity of Myanmar's drug problem and the lack of options in a poor country where modern treatment programs are rare. It offers prayer, Bible study and devotional singing, with football and weightlifting for those strong enough.
The text, above, accompanies an expressive, compassionately photographed gallery of ten images featured in Reuters Online, "Photos of the Week". Subjects were portrayed honestly and sensitively.
Faith-healing has connotations of superstition and ignorance. Here, it should not.
Despite public perception, and some of the nuanced annotations accompanying the Reuters photographs, treatment for heroin addiction is comparable, regardless of wealth or poverty. "Modern treatment programs" are quite similar to what is offered by the Youth for Christ Center in Myanmar, specifically, bed rest, mild food, emotional and psychological support and the company of others in recovery.
In fact, the option of remaining in treatment for 40 days to as long as three months is rarely, if ever, available in the U.S.A.
To their credit, Reuters does not sensationalize the first week spent in confinement in Myanmar.
Other sources refer to it as "behind locked doors", "behind bars" or worse. Those who do so neglect to mention that heroin and most other addictive drug detoxification program in the U.S.A., Europe and Australia have the same protocol. If you leave the facility during the first five days, or week, you are choosing to leave the program. Should one wish to return, the entire intake process, including determination of eligibility, must be re-initiated. Given scarce resources, one may be denied because of prior behavior, in favor of someone who has never entered treatment.
In Myanmar, palliative measures e.g. over-the-counter remedies to ameliorate the symptoms of withdrawal such as Motrin (ibuprofen), Imodium (loperamide) and Benadryl (diphenhydramine) are not available to patients. These are important and helpful for relieving some of the misery of heroin detoxification, and are offered at Western treatment facilities.
Many heroin in-patient detoxification programs in the USA and Europe administer some combination of the following: clonidine for elevated blood pressure; pharmaceutical opiates in quickly tapering doses for 3 to 7 days; older (possibly not SSRI) anti-depressants such as Elavil or Trazadone to alleviate severe withdrawal symptoms. These measures, as well as a licensed medical caregiver's supervision, constitute the greater portion of the modern treatment to which the Reuters text referred.
Heroin addiction treatment in Myanmar is superior to detoxification experienced while incarcerated in any jail or prison in the world.
Yes, there is methadone, which may be used for detoxification, but more often is used as "maintenance". It is not part of a short-term inpatient treatment program. Instead, it helps those who have tried and failed, repeatedly to recover from addiction. Methadone maintenance is appropriate, even life-saving, in such situations. It is used as a therapeutic measure for opiate addiction throughout the developed world, though less in the U.S.A.
Recovery is difficult for everyone. There are no pratical alternatives to the grueling process of heroin detoxification. Recidivism is a major obstacle to complete recovery. Offering the equivalent of in-patient care for up to three months in Myanmar is remarkable, and likely to improve long-term prognosis.


text:
A second victim in Wednesday's Phoenix office shooting has died, according to his law firm Friday.
Mark Hummels, 43, was one of three people shot just before 11 a.m. Wednesday at an office building on 16th Street, north of Glendale Avenue.
Hummels died Thursday night, his law firm Osborn Maledon told ABC15.
A spokesperson sent ABC15 the following statement:
"I regret to inform you that our friend, Mark Hummels, died last night. He was declared brain dead and taken off life support. Mark was an organ donor."
"I have no other details at this time. Anticipating your questions, I do not know the exact time of death or any other information about his organ donation."
"Our thoughts and prayers are with his family and we respectfully ask you to give them some time to grieve in private."
Steve Singer, 48, was another victim who died in the shooting. He passed away Wednesday, according to Phoenix police.
The suspect, 70-year-old Arthur Douglas Harmon, was found dead with a self-inflicted gunshot wound Thursday morning at Mesa Riverview near Loop 202 and Dobson Road.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Privacy and Cookies
Bombardier Flexjet has launched initiatives designed to stimulate sales of its block charter and fractional ownership offerings that have been hit by the economic downturn.
The first program - dubbed the Gold Edition jet card - offers "behind-the-scenes access at the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Canada" from 26 February to 1 March 2010.
As a special edition version of its Flexjet 25 Jet Card, the Gold Edition gives the customers access for two to the closing ceremony, the men's ice hockey gold medal game, the figure skating gala exhibition and the three short-track speed skating gold medal races.
"We continually search for ways to create unique travel opportunities that provide unparalleled access for our owners, wherever their travels take them", says Sylvain Levesque, vice-president marketing, Flexjet 25. The 2010 Gold Edition is available in limited numbers and prices start at $122,900.
Flexjet has also launched a supplemental lift program targeted at corporate flight departments. "Given the current scrutiny [by the national press and politicians] regarding the use of company aircraft, this program will offer back-up lift and multiple travel and useage solutions, such as walk away leases and jet cards for flight departments", says Flexjet president Fred Reid.
He admits the economic crisis has shaken the second largest fractional ownership company, which has a fleet of around 90 business jets.
"The events of the past year have taken everyone by surprise", says Reid. "The downturn itself was not unexpected, but the speed and scale at which it took hold was alarming".
By the end of 2008 the exit rate across the fractional industry rose well above the typical 5-6% rate in any given year. "We have been winded by the number of asset writedowns, but have continued to make an operating profit. This crisis has taught us to be smart, listen to our customers and react accordingly".
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text:
Apple employees who reviewed their CEO on Glassdoor.com say they still like Tim Cook -- just less than they liked him last year.
Glassdoor, which collects employees' reviews of their companies and ranks their leaders by approval rating, said Cook dropped to 18th on the list of most-liked tech CEOs in 2013. Last year, Cook not only topped the tech CEO list, he was also No. 1 on Glassdoor's list of CEOs across all industries.
Cook's approval rating fell four percentage points from a year ago, though it stands at still-strong 93%.
While Apple (AAPL) is undoubtedly still a white-hot tech company, the past year has brought a few spots of trouble. In September, Cook issued a rare public apology about Apple Maps, which he admitted "fell short." Meanwhile, Apple shares have lost more than a third of their value in about six months on concerns about waning demand for the iPhone.
NEXT: Mark Zuckerberg is No. 1


text:
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Alan B. Ordway
BRIDGTON -- Alan B. Ordway, of Bridgton, passed away at home due to complications from adrenal cancer on April 24, 2013.
Al was a beloved camp director, civic leader, friend and family man. He was a great skier, loved sushi and enjoyed a full life on his farm in the foothills of western Maine with his wife Michelle and their menagerie of pets.
Al was born on Feb. 9, 1940, and at two weeks old became a Mainer. He was born in Portsmouth, N.H., the location of the hospital closest to Eliot (the town where he was raised). His parents, Newell C. Ordway and Helen Hardy Ordway, built a home in Bridgton in 1947. Here, Al and his sister Ann learned to boat on the waters of Moose Pond and ski on the slopes of Pleasant Mountain.
Al graduated from Gould Academy (Bethel) in 1958 and from
Yale University
in 1962. While in school, Al spent his summers at various camps, beginning as a boy scout at Camp William S. Nutter (Acton), where he was proud of his role as bugler at age 14. In 1955, as an Eagle Scout, Al represented the United States at the 8th World Scout Jamboree in Ontario, Canada. Next, he spent a summer working in the kitchen at Camp Keewaydin (Ontario) with other Gould classmates, which he considered one the best experiences, giving him the skills he needed to be a camp director later in life. He also worked as a waterski and sailing counselor at Wohelo Camps (Raymond) before attending Naval Officers' Candidate School and completing tours of the Far East and Gulf of Tonkin as a Weapons Officer on the USS Sproston (DD-577) from 1962-1965.
In 1965, Al married the love of his life, Michelle S. Ordway (nee Sroka). They settled in Bridgton, initially operating rental cottages (Stack 'Em Inn), but Al's heart remained with summer camping, so in 1968 Al and Michelle became the owners and directors of Winona Camps for Boys, located on Moose Pond, where Al had spent his youth.
Known for his gentle demeanor, Al spent his professional life as a respected leader of organizations where the growth and mentoring of young people was paramount. For 45 years 'Uncle Al,' as he was known, was director and 'a second father' to thousands of boys and young men at Winona. Alumni fondly remember his rendition of Father Abraham during Sunday Service or the pride of receiving an award with a handshake from Uncle Al. Always insightful and a leader by example, Uncle Al helped staff members find their own paths toward meaningful lives. Patient beyond compare, he had time for any boy who needed Uncle Al to listen to a story about a recent trip the camper had taken.
Al also enjoyed dedicating years of service to his alma mater, Gould Academy. He was a trustee for 29 years (including 24 years as President of the board). In 1998 the new dining hall and meeting center on campus was named Ordway Hall in recognition of Al's vision and generous leadership to Gould. Al was elected to the Bridgton Selectman from 1970-1977 and served as Chairman in 1977. He served on many other local boards, including the Bridgton Chamber of Commerce (Chairman of Bridgton's Bicentennial 1968), the Northern Cumberland Memorial Hospital (Bridgton) Board of Trustees (President 1972-1977) and the Ham Charitable Foundation (1997-2013). He served on
Alan B. Ordway
regional and national boards for youth camping, including Maine Youth Camping Association (1969-1999, President 1984-1987) and the American Camping Association - New England section (1977-1986).
His enjoyment of the outdoors extended beyond camp and recreational activities, as he worked to preserve the uniqueness of Maine as the Chairman of the Maine Safe Water Drinking Committee (1988-1989) and as a board member for the Lakes Environmental Association (1994-1995). In 2004 he and Michelle gifted 160 acres of land on the east side of Pleasant Mountain to the Loon Echo Land Trust, helping to protect the mountain, which was so important in his own life, for future generations.
Al traveled throughout the United States and Canada as a young ski racer and later as a recreational skier with numerous friends and family members. Many people half his age would comment on how hard they had to work to keep up with his graceful, classic ski style. But even above skiing, Al's true joy was the time he spent on the Winona Farm with Michelle, raising their two children, caring for the barn animals, reading history books and Navy fiction thrillers, meticulously stacking his wood pile, working on crossword puzzles, watching Red Sox baseball, listening to marching band music or going on walks around camp with one of his dogs. Or sometimes with a goat, or a llama.
It is difficult to quantify the extent of Al's impact on established organizations such as Winona, Gould, the town of Bridgton and numerous non-profit boards. He had as large an impact with informal relationships as well: he was always willing to help people make connections or extend resources for the good of the community. It is equally difficult to adequately explain how special this man was to his employees, colleagues, friends and family. In his senior Gould yearbook, the editors wrote, 'All men are dust, but some are gold dust.' With his humility, wisdom and wonderful sense of humor, we know that Al Ordway was a great man and a wicked good Mainer (despite those first two weeks!). He will be missed dearly.
He was predeceased by his father, Newell Ordway. He is survived by his wife of 48 years, Michelle Ordway; son Spencer Ordway and Jennifer Landry of Gorham, daughter Laura Ordway and Stefan Jackson of Bridgton; mother Helen Hardy Ordway of Carmel, Calif.; sister Ann Mahoney and her husband John of Carmel, Calf.; five grandchildren, Stefanie, Alexis, Julia, Jacqueline and Corliss; and many cousins, nephews and nieces.
A celebration of Alan B. Ordway's life will take place at Gould Academy at 10 a.m. on Aug. 17, 2013.
Gifts may be made to:
The Uncle Al Campership Fund
(not a tax deductible gift)
Winona Camps
35 Winona Rd.
Bridgton, Maine 04009
or to The Steve Glidden Foundation (a tax deductible gift for
Winona Camperships)
Care of Winona Camps
35 Winona Rd.
Bridgton, Maine 04009
Remembrances from Winona alumni or friends may be sent to the above address or emailed to
Published in Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram on Apr. 26, 2013
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Southwestern Pennsylvania Ewings
- Details
- Last Updated on Tuesday, 09 August 2011 22:34
About a dozen Ewings settled southwestern Pennsylvania in the early 1770s. They established homesteads in what are today Allegheny, Fayette and Washington Counties. Ewing trappers and traders may have "worked" this region prior to and during the French and Indian War (1755-1762). Squire James Ewing (1733-1825), his brother Moses (1725/26-1798/1814) and at least one cousin (Samuel Ewing, 1750/51-1805) settled the Allegheny County area in the early-1770s. Descendants of these settlers eventually moved north to what are today known as Beaver and Armstrong Counties. Other, related Ewings followed these settlers to the area. Yet other, possibly-related Ewings concurrently settled Fayette and Washington Counties.
This activity is coordinated by William Ewing Riddle. He may be contacted (not later than 9 PM Mountain Time) at +1.505.988.1092 or by sending a message to Riddle at WmERiddle dot com.
Ewing Settlers
A primary intent of this activity is to create a collection of Articles that provide genealogical information about the Ewings who settled southwestern Pennsylvania and sociological information about their lives and lifestyles. In addition, the intent is to develop and find Other Information about the southwestern Pennsylvania Ewing settlers.


text:
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Find exactly what you're looking for with the web's most powerful recipe filtering tool.
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"I once bought a mixed salad kit from Sam's club which included micro greens, feta cheese, dried cranberries, slivered almonds and a yummy citrus vinaigrette dressing. I brought the assembled salad to a friend's fourth of July gathering, and it was a hit! The following year, I planned to bring the same salad again, but to my dismay, found that Sam..."
"We make this recipe often in our house. It is fast and simple to throw together, satisfies a comfort-food craving, and it can be easily increased to feed a crowd when the gang's all here. Ore-Ida crispy crowns make for a crunchy tot topping, but I am ok with regular tots that break apart when mixed in...yum! I always use the 28 oz large can of B..."
"This is probably the tastiest way to use up those extra zucchinis! I had one of those 2 lb overgrown monstrosities, which I grated, sprinkled with a little garlic salt and let it drain in the colander while assembling the other ingredients. I also used a pouch of Biscuit and Baking mix (about 1/3 of a cup) to substitute for the dry ingredients/but..."
"Fortunately, I found this recipe on a day when I had some lovely flanks steaks thawing in the fridge, and no idea how to prepare them! Grilling (my go-to method) was out, as the downpour of DC snow had made its way up the coast to blanket us here in upstate NY. It was quick to put together, tasted really good, and the added bonus of containing sim..."
"I made these cookies the other day in an attempt to finish off some remaining applesauce that has been taking up space in the freezer. I used cinnamon chips instead of chocolate, and dried mixed fruit bits, and reduced the cinnamon to a few liberal shakes. They were a BIG hit with my lil sis, who loves all things apple and cinnamon. I probably sh..."
"Made these on 10/12 to utilize the abundance of applesauce currently renting space in my fridge. Used a mixture of diced, dried fruit in lieu of raisins/nuts, and quick cooking oats. The bars taste almost exactly like a hearty bowl of oatmeal, but much easier to eat-on-the-go. They are still moist and tasty today, and were quite easy to throw tog..."
"Made this for last night's dinner. I cheated and used baked, breaded chicken breast tenders, along with deli sliced swiss and ham torn into small peices. I sprinkled the top with cheddar-flavored french fried onions. I was hoping to have some leftovers for lunch, but we scarfed the whole dish! BF REALLY enjoyed and wants this in the regular rotati..."
"I had sampled this as Potted Plant Dessert many years ago, and decided it would make a great addition for the "Meeting Little Sister's New BF" menu...To my fortune, Zaar had the recipe I was after! I doubled the recipe, using a package of chocolate cream-filled oreos and chocolate pudding and assembled in layers in a HUGE clear bowl. Needless to s..."
"Brilliant! Spreading with the seasoned mayo and rolling in crumbs was much easier and less messy and time-consuming than dipping in egg wash and breading. My eggplant rounds did not come out as crispy as I had expected; instead had a pleasant, creamy interior under the crumbs. I layered the rounds with jarred vodka sauce and mozzarella chesse. It ..."
"We LOVE this recipe! The first time I made it with one gravy envelope and didn't have enough; Last night, I prepared 6 pieces of steak using 3 gravy envelopes and 3 small onions and had lots of extra gravy leftover to smother buttered egg noodles. I have been using cider vinegar with great results. It even got great reviews from Mom who wanted the..."


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March 27, 2012
What's Cooking Wednesday {3/28/12}
13 comments:
- Jen Blacker said...
Thank you for hosting. This week I shared bacon cheeseburger cups. It was my first time making it and I didn't roll the dough thin enough. There was more dough than meat! I'll get it right next time.
- March 27, 2012 at 6:08 PM
- firstname.lastname@example.com said...
I shared a recipe for egg drop soup, an article about juicing and a juice recipe. - March 27, 2012 at 8:21 PM
- Miz Helen said...
I am sharing my Slow Cooker Green Chili Stew today. Thanks for hosting and hope you have a great week!
Miz Helen - March 27, 2012 at 8:30 PM
- Lyuba @ Will Cook For Smiles said...
Thank you so much for the party!
- March 27, 2012 at 8:45 PM
- mjskit said...
Thanks for co-hosting this blog hop!
- March 27, 2012 at 8:50 PM
- Halle @ Whole Lifestyle Nutrition said...
Thanks for posting! Today I am sharing my Parmesan Quinoa Bites. These make for a perfect appetizer/snack that everyone will enjoy :) Have a great day!
http://wholelifestylenutrition.com/recipes/appetizers-snacks/parmesan-quinoa-bites-holistic-recipe/ - March 27, 2012 at 10:59 PM
- Dulce fresa said...
Thanks for hosting!
Have a nice day - March 28, 2012 at 3:10 AM
- AndiWinslow said...
Hi Sharing this week orange muffins. Thank you always nice to look around have a great day andi
- March 28, 2012 at 6:02 AM
- France @ Beyond The Peel said...
Happy Wednesday!
I'm linking up 12 Kitchen Tools That Make My Life Better, a video on Poached Halibut with Fennel Cucumber Mint Salad, and how you can watch the new movie Hunger For Change for free.
Have a great day Cristi! - March 28, 2012 at 9:41 AM
- Mary Hudak-Collins said...
Came across your site through a few other blog hops I participate in and thought I would join in yours too! Thanks for hosting :)
- March 28, 2012 at 11:23 AM
- Olah Momma! said...
Thank you for hosting once again.
Warm regards, The Quiet Mom @ http://olahmomma.com - March 28, 2012 at 12:37 PM
- Amanda @ Traditional Foods said...
Thanks for hosting! I shared a recipe for an iron-boosting orange salad on my iron site.
- March 28, 2012 at 5:34 PM
- April @ The 21st Century Housewife said...
Love those Cream Egg Cupcakes! This week I've shared a Vegetarian Paella recipe. Thank you for hosting.
- March 29, 2012 at 6:34 AM


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Inside The MLB to join the Baseball Bloggers Alliance
Dear Readers,
We here at Inside The MLB are proud to announce that we have been accepted into the Baseball Bloggers Alliance. This is a huge opportunity for us, and we look forawrd to working with them in the future. Thank you to all the readers for supporting us through the past 11 months as we have embarked on an incredible journey and there is plenty more to come.
Justin Millar
Posted on December 15, 2012, in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink. 5 Comments.
Fabulous! So excited! So proud!
Congrats! Keep up the great work.
This is a topic that is close to my heart… Cheers! Exactly where are your contact details though?|
Congrats! Nice work!
Oh man, that is sick! Definitely sharing this sucker with friends :).


text:
Complete Jewish Bible (CJB) | New International Version (NIV) |
1 After Yeshua had come down from the hill, large crowds followed him. | 1 When he came down from the mountainside, large crowds followed him. |
2 Then a man afflicted with tzara`at came, kneeled down in front of him and said, "Sir, if you are willing, you can make me clean." | 2 A man with leprosy came and knelt before him and said, "Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean." |
3 Yeshua reached out his hand, touched him and said, "I am willing! Be cleansed!" And at once he was cleansed from his tzara`at. | 3 Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. "I am willing," he said. "Be clean!" Immediately he was cured of his leprosy. |
4 Then Yeshua said to him, "See that you tell no one; but as a testimony to the people, go and let the cohen examine you, and offer the sacrifice that Moshe commanded." | 4 Then Jesus said to him, "See that you don't tell anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the gift Moses commanded, as a testimony to them." |
5 As Yeshua entered K'far-Nachum, a Roman army officer came up and pleaded for help. | 5 When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help. |
6 "Sir, my orderly is lying at home paralyzed and suffering terribly!" | 6 "Lord," he said, "my servant lies at home paralyzed and in terrible suffering." |
7 Yeshua said, "I will go and heal him." | 7 Jesus said to him, "I will go and heal him." |
8 But the officer answered, "Sir, I am unfit to have you come into my home. Rather, if you will only give the command, my orderly will recover. | 8 The centurion replied, "Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. |
9 For I too am a man under authority. I have soldiers under me, and I say to this one, `Go!' and he goes; to another, `Come!' and he comes; to my slave, `Do this!' and he does it." | 9 For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, 'Go,' and he goes; and that one, 'Come,' and he comes. I say to my servant, 'Do this,' and he does it." |
10 On hearing this Yeshua was amazed and said to the people following him, "Yes! I tell you, I have not found anyone in Isra'el with such trust! | 10 When Jesus heard this, he was astonished and said to those following him, "I tell you the truth, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. |
11 Moreover, I tell you that many will come from the east and from the west to take their places at the feast in the Kingdom of Heaven with Avraham, Yitz'chak and Ya`akov. | 11 I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. |
12 But those born for the Kingdom will be thrown outside in the dark, where people will wail and grind their teeth!" | 12 But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." |
13 Then Yeshua said to the officer, "Go; let it be for you as you have trusted." And his orderly was healed at that very moment. | 13 Then Jesus said to the centurion, "Go! It will be done just as you believed it would." And his servant was healed at that very hour. |
14 Yeshua went to Kefa's home and there saw Kefa's mother-in-law sick in bed with a fever. | 14 When Jesus came into Peter's house, he saw Peter's mother-in-law lying in bed with a fever. |
15 He touched her hand, the fever left her, and she got up and began helping him. | 15 He touched her hand and the fever left her, and she got up and began to wait on him. |
16 When evening came, many people held in the power of demons were brought to him. He expelled the spirits with a word and healed all who were ill. | 16 When evening came, many who were demon-possessed were brought to him, and he drove out the spirits with a word and healed all the sick. |
17 This was done to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet Yesha`yahu, "He himself took our weaknesses and bore our diseases" | 17 This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah: "He took up our infirmities and carried our diseases." |
18 When Yeshua saw the crowd around him, he gave orders to cross to the other side of the lake. | 18 When Jesus saw the crowd around him, he gave orders to cross to the other side of the lake. |
19 A Torah-teacher approached and said to him, "Rabbi, I will follow you wherever you go." | 19 Then a teacher of the law came to him and said, "Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go." |
20 Yeshua said to him, "The foxes have holes, and the birds flying about have nests, but the Son of Man has no home of his own." | 20 Jesus replied, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head." |
21 Another of the talmidim said to him, "Sir, first let me go and bury my father." | 21 Another disciple said to him, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father." |
22 But Yeshua replied, "Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead." | 22 But Jesus told him, "Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead." |
23 He boarded the boat, and his talmidim followed. | 23 Then he got into the boat and his disciples followed him. |
24 Then, without warning, a furious storm arose on the lake, so that waves were sweeping over the boat. But Yeshua was sleeping. | 24 Without warning, a furious storm came up on the lake, so that the waves swept over the boat. But Jesus was sleeping. |
25 So they came and roused him, saying, "Sir! Help! We're about to die!" | 25 The disciples went and woke him, saying, "Lord, save us! We're going to drown!" |
26 He said to them, "Why are you afraid? So little trust you have!" Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and there was a dead calm. | 26 He replied, "You of little faith, why are you so afraid?" Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm. |
27 The men were astounded. They asked, "What kind of man is this, that even the winds and sea obey him?" | 27 The men were amazed and asked, "What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him!" |
28 When Yeshua arrived at the other side of the lake, in the Gadarenes' territory, there came out of the burial caves two men controlled by demons, so violent that no one dared travel on that road. | 28 When he arrived at the other side in the region of the Gadarenes, two demon-possessed men coming from the tombs met him. They were so violent that no one could pass that way. |
29 They screamed, "What do you want with us, Son of God? Have you come here to torture us before the appointed time?" | 29 "What do you want with us, Son of God?" they shouted. "Have you come here to torture us before the appointed time?" |
30 Now some distance from them a large herd of pigs was feeding. | 30 Some distance from them a large herd of pigs was feeding. |
31 The demons begged him, "If you are going to drive us out, send us into the herd of pigs." | 31 The demons begged Jesus, "If you drive us out, send us into the herd of pigs." |
32 "All right, go!" he told them. So they came out and went into the pigs, whereupon the entire herd rushed down the hillside into the lake and drowned. | 32 He said to them, "Go!" So they came out and went into the pigs, and the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and died in the water. |
33 The swineherds fled, went off to the town and told the whole story, including what had happened to the demonized men. | 33 Those tending the pigs ran off, went into the town and reported all this, including what had happened to the demon-possessed men. |
34 At this, the whole town came out to meet Yeshua. When they saw him, they begged him to leave their district. | 34 Then the whole town went out to meet Jesus. And when they saw him, they pleaded with him to leave their region. |
Complete Jewish Bible Copyright 1998 by David H. Stern. Published by Jewish New Testament Publications, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission. (The Complete Jewish Bible Online) | Scripture quoted by permission. Quotations designated (NIV) are from THE HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica. All rights reserved worldwide. (New International Version Bible Online) |


text:
Feature 69 The Fighting Game Community On Reputation & Mainstream Relevance The top players from the fighting game community, alongside Mad Catz representative Mark Julio, talk to GameSpot on whether there's an image problem within the fighting game community and how ...
Original Series The What If Machine - Violence in Video Games Does violence in video games lead to real world violence? Cam sets the What If Machine to 'investigation' mode, and goes in search of the answer.
Video GSesports Day 2 RoundTable Mrs Violence, TSquared, Slasher, and Travis Gafford get you up to date with Day 2 at MLG Dallas.
Video Mortal Kombat Champion Interview at MLG Dallas Slasher catches up with Reo the back to back champion at Mortal Kombat at MLG.
Feature Are Aussie Gamers Getting Ripped Off? - EB Expo 2012 Panel GameSpot's Laura Parker is joined by Polygon's Tracey Lien, former 2K developer Bryan Ma, and former Managing Director of Sega Australia Darren Macbeth to discuss some of the issues that ...
Feature MLG Summer Championship Round-Up Cam runs through all the happenings at the MLG Summer Championships. There were winners, losers, and scandalous disqualifications.
Video Reo talks about discrediting his doubters TSquared catches up with Reo after his victory at the Mortal Kombat MLG Summer Championships.
Video Slasher, TSquared, and MrsViolence wrap up Day 2 at MLG Raleigh Missed out on the coverage on Day 2 at the MLG Summer Championship? Get up to speed now!
Video Houston Rockets GM Daryl Morey says pro gamers are athletes Daryl Morey says eSports is a Sport and that pro players are athletes in his eyes.
Feature MLG Summer Championship - Why you should watch! Check out this primer on the MLG Summer Championship to find out what's in store.
Feature Out With the New, In With The Old: Video Game Rage Everyone gets frustrated with video games sometimes. Some people just get extra frustrated. Gareth Robinson talks about his video game rage and thinks about the games and mechanics that cause ...
Video Slasher catches up with the back to back Mortal Kombat EVO Champ Perfect Legend repeats with another victory this year in Mortal Kombat giving him back to back EVO Championships.
Video CDjr tells Slasher just how broken Kabal is After winning his pools in Mortal Kombat with Kabal a character he doesn't play, CDjr tells Slasher just how broken the character is and a plea to NetherRealm for a ...
Original Series Crosshairs: The Last of Us, R18+ Classification, Who Owns Games? One this episode of Crosshairs we chat about the implications of Australia's official R18+ classification for games, talk about the alternate Last of Us demo and ask: Who owns a ...
Feature DetroitBalln Mortal Kombat MLG Spring Champion Interview Slasher chats with DetroitBalln after his huge victory in Mortal Kombat at the MLG Spring Championship.
Feature Mortal Kombat 20th Anniversary Retrospective We track down the cast and creators of the original Mortal Kombat and take a look at the story behind the video game phenomenon.
Gameplay Mortal Kombat - Tips & Tricks Video The Mortal Kombat team share some informative tips and tricks to help you become a better player.
Feature CDjr Mortal Kombat MLG Spring Arena Champion Interview Slasher gets hype with CDjr after his thrilling victory over DetroitBalln in a best of 7 in Mortal Kombat at the MLG Spring Arena.
Original Series New Releases: April 29 - May 5 This week sees Mortal Kombat Vita, Sniper Elite V2, Tera, Fable Heroes, Nexuiz, Fable Heroes, and Awesomenauts.
Trailer Female Klassic Skins - Mortal Kombat Trailer Check out some of the throwback character outfits for the female kombatants in this trailer for Mortal Kombat.
Feature Mortal Kombat 20th Anniversary Teaser Join us for a tease of the Mortal Kombat 20th Anniversary!
Trailer Mileena - Mortal Kombat Full-Length Trailer Mileena quits teasing and goes full force in this live-action trailer for Mortal Kombat!
Trailer Klassic Skins - Mortal Kombat Trailer Check out some of the Vita exclusive Klassic Skins from some of your favorite male kombatants in this trailer for Mortal Kombat,
Trailer Mileena - Mortal Kombat Teaser Trailer Check out a teaser trailer featuring Mileena from Mortal Kombat for the Vita.
Trailer Kitana - Mortal Kombat Full-Length Trailer Check out the full-length Mortal Kombat live-action trailer showcasing Kitana.
Trailer Kitana - Mortal Kombat Teaser Trailer Check out a teaser trailer featuring Kitana for Mortal Kombat for the Vita.
Feature Mortal Kombat MLG Day 3 Wrap-Up Check out the results from the Mortal Kombat MLG Winter Championship!
Feature Fighting Games MLG Pro Circuit Winter Championship Day 2 Recap Rod "Slasher" Breslau talks you through the events of the game stage from the MLG 2012 Winter Arena Championship.
Feature MLG 2012 Winter Arena Champsionships Preview Rod "Slasher" Breslau and Kelly "Mrs. Violence" Kelley give you a preview for MLG Winter Championships 2012.
Trailer Vita Modes - Mortal Kombat Trailer Slice and dice your enemies with just the trace of your finger in the Vita release of Mortal Kombat.
Feature Screen Tear - Episode 5: Chuck Norris and MK the Sitcom Carlos Rodela brings you mash-ups and parodies in episode 5 of Screen Tear!
Trailer Komplete Edition Trailer - Mortal Kombat Check out the fighters, features, and more that will come with Mortal Kombat's complete edition.
Trailer Mortal Kombat Official Trailer Check out the official trailer for Mortal Kombat, coming this spring.
Original Series On the Spot - PlayStation Vita Super Show We'll be showing off the PlayStation Vita titles MLB 12: The Show, Modnation Racers: Road Trip, Mortal Kombat, Sumioni, and Unit 13.
Feature Teaser - On the Spot 02.02.12 Check out the next episode of On the Spot where we'll be showing off the Vita titles MLB 12: The Show, Modnation Racers: Road Trip, Mortal Kombat, Sumioni, and Unit ...
Feature Kombat in Your Hands Touch-based fatalities, accelerometer challenges, and good old Mortal Kombat action are coming to the Vita.
Gameplay Digital Downloads - MW3 and Assassin's Creed: Revelations Maps This week, we feature great demos for Gotham City Imposters, The Darkness II, and UFC Undisputed 3, as well as call out new Liberation and Piazza maps for Call of ...
Original Series Start/Select - Mortal Kombat Vita, Max Payne 3 delayed Guy brings you today's dose of gaming news, including Mortal Kombat coming to the PlayStation Vita, Max Payne 3 delayed from March to May, and the possibility of playing World ...


text:
found a new home!
Plenty of my friends are looking
for one too. Find a pet to adopt.
Find a pet to adopt |
My name is Bridgett (URGENT PLEA)!
Facts about Bridgett (URGENT PLEA)
- Breed: Domestic Shorthair
- Color: Tortoiseshell
- Age: Adult
- Sex: Female
- Hair: Short
Bridgett (URGENT PLEA)'s Info...
I am already spayed, in need of an experienced adopter, up to date with shots, and good with cats.
Don't I have the most gorgeous orange eyes??? My name is Bridget. I am a bit of a loner and like my space. I tolerate the other kitties but would like to be by myself if I could. If I can't, I promise not to fight with anyone else. I love to be pet but will tell you when I have had enough. I light up a room with my eyes!!! Bridgett is not good with young children, best in a Cat Savvy home. She is goregous and prefers to be as she pleases. She will come to you when she wants to, but for the most part just likes to be around looking pretty. She's no bother and can be quite entertaining. Once in a while she's in the mood for love but for the most part she's just happy to be company for a lonely day. FIV/FELV neg, up to date on shots and fixed. Her time is too coming up soon, please help! For more info 'email@example.com.
Other Pets at S.A.R.A. Inc.
Why Adoption is a Great Option
Bridgett (URGENT PLEA), a Berkeley Hts Domestic Shorthair cat was adopted! Here's how you can benefit by looking at adoption as an option to buying a Domestic Shorthair for sale in Berkeley Hts, or seeking a Domestic Shorthair cat from a breeder in Berkeley Hts.
- Rescues and shelter volunteers in Berkeley Hts already know the personality and tendencies of their pets. This means they can match you with the right pet. That will makes it much easier transition to owning a pet for yourself and your new pet.
- On average adoption fees are much less than you'd pay a Berkeley Hts breeder, or pet store. Plus most often rescue pets have already been to the veterinarian for a check-up, had a round of vaccinations, and are spayed or neutered. That is a lot of savings!
- You will become a hero, and give a needy dog or cat a loving home. In fact, there are even Domestic Shorthair breeders who help with Domestic Shorthair rescue. One puppy or kitten adopted in Berkeley Hts paves the way for another one to be saved.


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What is H.C.F? Happy, Calm, Focused is a Nootropic stack of high qaulity vitamins that even the most strictly followed active lifestyle or paleo style diet would fail to deliver to your brain in sufficient amounts. The Nutrecutical ingredients in H.C.F do everything from increase feel good neurotransmitters and improve focus to abolishing stress and boosting libido.