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Get Instant Pricing with Edmunds Price Promise℠
1Look for "Special Offers" on a specific car
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2002 Chevrolet Blazer LS 2WD 2dr SUV (4.3L 6cyl 5M)
Just got my 02 Blazer out of the shop today for its semi annual $700-800 breakdown. Gas mileage is terrible, ride is loud and uncomfortable. Too many odd noises everywhere, just waiting for the next but now very expected $800 shop visit. Waiting to dump it when I can afford another car payment. Then again, soon fixing it might be more expensive than any car payment and I wont have to go without a car while its being repaired, huge inconvenience. Next will be Toyota for sure.
the full review
2002 Chevrolet Blazer LS 2WD 2dr SUV (4.3L 6cyl 5M)
Would not recommend this vehicle for purchase. It looks pretty good, inside and out, has plenty of room, but definitely not a safe vehicle. Also, several little electrical quirks, like radio stations changing on their own and guages sometimes erratic. Doesn't hold value. Overall, not a good purchase.
the full review
2002 Chevrolet Blazer LS 2WD 2dr SUV (4.3L 6cyl 5M)
Fun to drive...Very precise steering, good acceleration. Much easier to maneuver than one might expect. Interior is comfortable and spacious, with the possible exception of the rear seat area, which is somewhat similar to that of a compact car. I'm really enjoying my Blazer and would gladly recommend it to anyone.
the full review
2002 Chevrolet Blazer LS 2WD 2dr SUV (4.3L 6cyl 5M)
Car rattles constantly, window trim is now loose, interior quality is very poor major gaps in plastic trim. Fold down seats no longer work after being worked on 3 times. Also transmission is slipping at high speeds, as well as the front bearings had to be replaced because either they wore away or were never put in in the first place. Also car is rusting from the inside out. Save your money. Buy something better than a GM piece of junk.
the full review
2002 Chevrolet Blazer LS 2WD 2dr SUV (4.3L 6cyl 5M)
I had purchased my Blazer ZR2 in March
of 2002. I have had nothing but
problems since. I have a slipping
transmission, poor gas mileage 7-10 MPG
doesn't matter city or highway. I most
recently an electrical problem that
can't seem to be found. I've brought
the blazer back to the dealership and
they tell me there is nothing they can
do if no codes are coming up. What
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after the problems that I have
experienced with GM and their products.
the full review
2002 Chevrolet Blazer LS 2WD 2dr SUV (4.3L 6cyl 5M)
It has enough room for carrying extra people, and has some decent power, especially for a six cylinder. I like the way the interior is set up. The interior is smooth and convenient. I personally love blazers now, wouldn't want any other suv maybe just upgraded to the zr2 package.
the full review
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I looked on the ARB website and a brand new bumper for 01-04 tacoma is $912 and some change. Im just curious if anybody has a ball park price for a good quality used arb bumper that isnt trashed. not looking to buy right now just pricing one for future potential purchases. I love the look of the arb bumper and hear they are very strong which is awesome.
if anybody can help or give me a link that would be great thanks!

subset: commoncrawl


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SCALEFarm families reached | 130,400 | 202,600 | 310,000 |
SCALEFull-time staff | 1,900 | 2,500 | 3,200 |
Impact% gain in income per acre planted | ~52%* | 50%+* | 50%+* |
ImpactAbsolute dollar impact per farmer | $139 | $135+ | $135+ |
Sustainability% Field sustainability | 73%* | 77% | 83% |
SCALE (families)
Each farm family counted received a loan for farm inputs, delivery, training, and post-harvest services.
SCALE (staff)
One Acre Fund provides high-quality, full-time employment in rural areas.
The vast majority of One Acre Fund's staff are farmers. Through professional feedback and leadership development programs, our staff constantly advance their careers into meaningful management roles.
Impact (% gain)
Each season, we physically weigh harvests and compare the farm profits of a random set of One Acre Fund farmers to a random set of newly-enrolled farmers who have not yet planted with us (thus forming a highly similar control group). % gain tells us how effective our model is at increasing agriculture profits per unit of land.
Historically our farmers achieved a 100%+ average gain, but in 2013, a maize virus in Kenya (our largest country) compelled us to diversify our offering towards less profitable crops, increasing our farmers' resilience, but reducing yields and profits per acre. As this threat continues, we anticipate % gains lower than our historical average, but with a stronger safety net for our Kenyan farmers.
For considerably more detail, please visit our 2013 Performance Report.
IMPACT (Absolute dollar)
A second, equally important impact metric is absolute dollar impact per farmer. This measures the amount of increased profit per year (above and beyond the profit earned by control farmers) that each One Acre Fund farmer achieves as a result of all products and services we offer (including our core products and "add-on," non-agricultural products such as solar lights).
Unlike % gain, we anticipate absolute $ impact to remain stable at around $135, as we increase adoption of non-agricultural products and our farmers continue to plant more acres with a wider range of crops due to the increased credit we will extend.
For considerably more detail, please visit our 2013 Performance Report.
One Acre Fund field expenses include farm inputs and logistics, local field staff, in-country headquarters, and an "HQ charge" paid to our international headquarters.
Of these expenses, currently 77% is covered by revenues from our field programs. Any shortfall is covered by donor grants. Not included are our significant R&D expenses, which include new country scouting, product innovation, and service innovation. These costs are covered by donor grants.
Farmer Stories
*In 2013, a new maize virus emerged in Kenya, which causes near-total crop loss in affected fields. One Acre Fund quickly adjusted our operations to offer many alternative crops and protect our farmers, but this has led to a contraction in our impact (% gain in income per planted acre) and our financial sustainability through at least the end of 2014.


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Archive for the 'sxsw' tag
Union Metrics events: SXSW 2015 and Digital Hollywood
Sometimes we leave the office, and we like to let you know what we're up to when we do. Here's what's on our calendars right now.
Panels have been announced for SXSW 2015 and we wanted to thank everyone who voted for ours! Co-Founder Jenn Deering Davis' panel proposal How the future of independent film depends on social media has been accepted as a Future15 for SXSW Film and we are all excited!
The audience at Jenn's talk at SXSWi 2013
Digital Hollywood
SXSW is still a few months away, but Digital Hollywood is happening right now in LA. Catch Director of Customer Success Jenna Broughton on Thursday, October 23rd at the Marketing Primetime Hollywood Content – Using Twitter, Facebook, Smartphone and Tablets session from 11am to 12:20pm.
Will you be at Digital Hollywood this week or SXSW in the spring? Let us know in the comments, and come say hi in person!
SXSWi 2015 panel proposal | Why the future of film depends on social media
We're proposing two panels for next year's SXSW conference, and if you like the sound of either one, we'd love your vote!
At SXSWi 2013, Jenn Deering Davis, one of our founders, gave a presentation about how Twitter has changed how we watch TV. (Miss it? Listen to it here.) At SXSW V2V 2014, she spoke on how to Market Like The Movies (Without the Studio Budget). For SXSW 2015 she'd like to take it further and discuss Why the future of film depends on social media.
So why should you vote for her panel proposal? Below is a quick interview that answers just that question, and more:
1. What inspired you to propose a panel around this subject?
We talk a lot about social media and TV. But the film industry has just as important a relationship with social media as television does. I'm interested in discussing the particular challenges and opportunities movie marketers face with social media. What impact do sites like Instagram, Snapchat, Tumblr, Facebook and Twitter have on how fans engage with their favorite movies? How can we use social media better to market movies? How is #SocialFilm different from #SocialTV?
2. What makes you qualified to discuss it?
At Union Metrics, we've worked with thousands of brands and agencies to help them measure and improve their social media activities. I've personally dealt with many entertainment brands, including TV networks, movie studios, production companies and agencies, to help them understand Twitter, Tumblr and Instagram. I also have a Ph.D. in Organizational Communication & Technology from the University of Texas at Austin, where, among other things, I studied the intersection of pop culture and technology. Not to mention, I love movies and probably watch way more than I should.
3. What would you hope attendees take away from your panel?
I hope attendees will better understand how they can use social media to help promote their film projects, maybe be inspired to develop creative social campaigns of their own.
If that sounds good, you can vote for it here. And look out for an interview with Union Metrics CEO Hayes Davis on his panel proposal: Something from Nothing: Bootstrapping Your Startup.
Today: Union Metrics happy hour at SXSWi!
Quick reminder that our SXSWi happy hour is today from 3-5pm at The Ginger Man! Hit us up on Twitter or give us a shout if you're in Austin and want to come by. Join us for some delicious beer and snacks, and ask all the burning questions you've ever had about our products. Or just relax and enjoy a respite from the chaos of SXSWi while having the opportunity to meet our robot mascot, Merle.
The Week in Social Analytics #92
It's Friday, so that means it's time for This Week in Social Analytics and our favorite posts of the past week in the world of measurement, analytics, and social media. See a great piece we missed? Link to it in the comments, or tell us about it on Twitter or Facebook.
Gear Up for SXSW: A Look Back at 2013′s Top Themes [from Social Media Today; written by Trevor Jonas]
As you descend into the madness of SXSW 2014, here's a reflection on the standout takeaways from 2013. Bonus: 6 networking tips from Social Fresh. (And here's where you can find us during SXSWi!)
The Ultimate Cheat Sheet for Social Media Dimensions [from Likeable Daily; written by Samy Simorangkir]
A handy resource to bookmark.
Philoselfie: Science behind selfie-expression [from Brian Solis]
"Right now, there are more than 79 million pictures on Instagram with the hashtag #selfie. You can add another 7 million for #selfies and 1 million for #selfienation. Not counted though, are the number of selfies that don't include a meta reference beyond the visual that you are indeed looking at a selfie."
Another breakdown of the Selfiecity study, this time from Brian Solis.
Is Vine Paying off for Smaller Brands? [from Social Times; written by Christie Barakat]
"Home Depot believes Vines tap into people's desire for unique content and fresh perspectives. 'Stop motion provides the perfect excuse for casting your product as the star of the show.'"
Building Visual Narratives with Photographs [from Geoff Livingston]
Incorporating more visuals in your brand communication can be a powerful way to draw the attention of and connect with fans and followers– or capture the attention of people who might become them. This article has tips from a National Geographic Traveler Seminar on storytelling through photography.
Social media's 'law' of short messages [from MITnews; written by Peter Dizikes]
"The study found that at times of lower activity, the most popular length of tweets ranges from about 70 to 120 characters. But at moments of much greater traffic — when messages are sent up to 200 times as frequently — the highest concentration of tweets is only around 25 characters in length, and declines sharply to a low at about the 130-character mark."
Global Social Media Trends – What You Need To Know [from Heidi Cohen]
Use these stats to inform your strategy for the rest of 2014.
Biggest Twitter Linguistic Study Ever Hopes To Discover The Next Viral Sensation [from AllTwitter; written by Lauren Dugan]
"The main goal of this research is two-fold: one, to determine how new words become popular and how they spread; and two, to analyze how the actual movement of people influences our linguistic patterns."
Are You Still Missing a Strategy for Negative Social Posts? [from eMarkter; written by staff]
"February 2014 research from social media training firm Social Media Marketing University (SMMU) found that fewer than half of US marketing professionals had an effective plan in place for dealing with negative posts on social sites. One-quarter did not have a plan but were working on one, and nearly one-quarter more had no plan—and no plan for a plan."
Next generation marketing: how to engage millennials [from Waggener Edstrom; written by Charlotte Sanville]
"Moving forward, brands need to understand that the key to engaging with gen Y audience is by participating in a two-way communication."
The Five Promises Every Corporate Social Media Account Should Make [from Convince & Convert; written by Andy Lombard]
"The common element in the above five promises is strategy. Too many businesses throw up social media pages and expect them to attract leads and drive sales as if by magic. To really build an effective social presence, you must offer consistent customer value."
Emphasis original.
SXSWi 2014 Panel Recommendations
Coming into Austin for SXSWi and not sure what to fill your dance card with just yet? We've highlighted some panels around social media, analytics, and from some of our friends at Gnip, Tumblr, and more that we think are worth checking out. (And if you want to know what we're up to, you can check that out here, and give us a shout if you want to come by our happy hour on Monday, March 10 at The Ginger Man!)
Sunday, March 9
12:30PM: Sharknado & Twitter: The Perfect Social Storm with Dana Ortiz of NBC Universal/Syfy and Fred Graver, Head of TV at Twitter
1:00PM: Beyond Dots on a Map: Visualizing 3 Billion Tweets with Gnip Product Manager, Ian Cairns
3:30PM: The Fragile Laws of Protection with Tumblr's General Counsel, Ari
5:00 pm: Union Metrics Co-Founder and CCO Jenn Deering Davis is hosting a mentoring session at the Hilton Garden Inn. Register for a time slot ahead of time, and hurry– there's only one left!
Monday, March 10
12:30PM: Why Clicktavisim is Not a Dirty Word with Director Politics & Causes, Liba
12:30PM: Entertainment Marketing in the Age of the SuperFan with Director of Canvas, David
3:30PM: Dive into Social Media Analytics with Gnip VP of Product Strategy, Robert Johnson
Tuesday, March 11
11:00am: #EsuranceSave30: Why 5 Million Tweeted in 36 Hours with John Ploumitsakos, Director of Online Sales at Twitter; Jesse Dillow, Associate Creative Director at Leo Burnett; Josh Raper, Vice President + Account Director at Leo Burnett; and Nancy Abraham, VP of Advertising at Esurance
Wednesday, March 12
11:00AM: Letting Your Fandoms Build Your Kingdoms with Director of Product for Community and Content, Danielle
And a bonus session for those sticking around for the music portion of the festival:
Friday, March 14
12:30PM: Fan Data: The Journey from Analysis to Action with Music Evangelist, Nate
Union Metrics at SXSWi 2014!
Will you be at SXSWi this year? We'd love to see you! Here's where you can find the Union Metrics team (and probably our buddy Merle):
Austin Startup Crawl | Thursday, March 6 | 5-10pm
We love being a part of the Startup Crawl to unofficially kick off SXSWi! If you haven't experienced the Startup Crawl before, it's a great way to get to know a lot of the people at the fantastic, burgeoning companies in Austin as well as the people who have brought them to life. Find details and RSVP here, and you can find us at a table in the lobby atrium at the Omni downtown.
Interested in working with us? You can find our open job listings here!
SXSW Mentor Sessions | Sunday, March 9 | 5-6pm
Our CCO and Co-Founder Jenn Deering Davis is hosting a mentor session Sunday evening at the Hilton Garden Inn on the 10th Floor. Register for a time slot online ahead of time, but you'll have to hurry– there are only three left!
Union Metrics SXSWi Happy Hour | Monday, March 10 | 3-5pm
This year we're excited to host our happy hour at The Ginger Man! Join us for some delicious beer and snacks, and ask all the burning questions you've ever had about our products. Or just relax and enjoy a respite from the chaos of SXSWi. Sound good to you? Shoot us an email, or let us know on Twitter and we'll put you on the list!
How to market like the movies (without the studio budget)
Did you miss co-founder Jenn Deering Davis' talk at SXSW V2V last month? You're in luck; the video is now available!
"Social media has had a dramatic impact on how we watch TV and movies. The past few years have seen big changes in how TV shows and movies are created, delivered and consumed. These forms of entertainment have been able to adapt to a rapidly changing media environment. How can you use Hollywood's strategies to market your startup? This panel will focus on examples and lessons learned in the entertainment industry and help you apply them to your startup or small business."
Let us know what you thought in the comments.
SXSWi 2014: Panel Picks!
SXSWi Panels you should definitely take a look at, and vote for if they interest you!
- Anatomy of a Twitter Rumor from Gnip data scientist Dr. Scott Hendrickson
- Beyond Dots on a Map: The Future of Mapping Tweets from Ian Cairns and Eric Gundersen, more of our friends from Gnip
- Native Behavior in a World of Native Advertisers from Ari Levine of Tumblr, Leila Thabet of We Are Social, and Kelly McCarthy of Vayner Media
- #WeMadeItWeird: Social Media & Augmented Reality from Anne Ahola of Ward CircleClick Media, Dashiell Driscoll of Funny or Die, Greg Tseng of Tagged, and Derek Andersen of StartupGrind
- A Master Class About Brands With Personality from Alexis Kaplan of Tumblr and Amber Gordon of Gotham Inc.
- Developers – The Missing Link for Girls In Tech from Tracey Welson-Rossman of TechGirlz
- Adventures in Onboarding and User Growth from Sarah Henochowicz, Nick Thuesen, and Derek Gottfrid of Tumblr
- Can't play scared: Finding success in real-time from Dan Gadd of Taylor Global, Eric Gruen of Procter & Gamble, Sean Doherty of NASCAR, and Jennifer Hinkle of the Washington Redskins
We also humbly submit our own panels for your consideration, one last time:
- From Tweets to GIFs: How Social TV is Evolving from Jenn Deering Davis
- Career Autopsy: Lessons from 16 Years as a Dev from Mando Escamilla
Happy voting! See you at SXSWi 2014?
Adorable GIF credit goes to Pusheen.com
SXSWi 2014 panel proposals from Union Metrics: Social TV's Evolution
We're proposing two panels for next year's SXSW Interactive conference, and if you like the sound of either one, we'd love your vote!
Last year, Jenn Deering Davis, one of our founders, did a talk about how Twitter has changed how we watch TV. (Miss it? Listen to it here.) Next year, Jenn wants to expand from just focusing on Twitter as a platform, and talk everything From Tweets to GIFs: How Social TV is Evolving.
So why should you vote for her panel proposal? Below is a quick interview that answers just that question, and more:
1. What inspired/drove you to propose a panel around this subject?
I've worked in social media for ages (well, for as long as we've called it that). I love television. There are some very interesting things happening in the intersection of those two worlds and I enjoy exploring them at events like SXSW. A lot has changed in the media landscape in the past few years, and SXSW is the perfect place to talk about those changes.
2. What makes you qualified to discuss it?
We've been working with TV, film and other entertainment companies for several years at Union Metrics, so I've seen a lot of this first-hand with our customers. I also have a PhD in communication technologies and, if you can believe it, actually spent some time in grad school studying the rhetoric of pop culture. You might say this is my legerdemain. Bailiwick. Whatever.
3. Why should people come to your panel?
Because it'll be fun! Seriously though, I got great feedback from last year's presentation on a similar topic, which I've incorporated into this new talk. I'm adding in new examples and updating the content to reflect the changes in social media marketing since last March. It's going to be great!
4. What would you hope attendees take away from your panel?
At the very least, attendees will hear some good stories and examples of how TV shows use social media. But hopefully they've gained some ideas for how they can implement these kind of strategies for their own brands, even if they're not in entertainment.
5. How would you hope attendees interact with the subject manner of your panel long after they've gone home?
Like I said before, I hope they come away with some useful tips they can actually use. But maybe they'll also learn about a new TV show! If I can introduce a show like Archer or Adventure Time to at least one new fan, then I'll be happy.
If that sounds good, you can vote for it here. We would never want to be accused of bribery, but there might be some more GIFs in it for you. And look out for an interview with Gentleman Developer Mando Escamilla about his panel proposal Career Autopsy: Lessons from 16 Years as a Dev soon!
Market Like the Movies: A sneak peek of Jenn's talk from SXSW V2V
Co-founder Jenn Deering Davis' session on Market Like the Movies (Without the Studio Budget), happened yesterday afternoon at SXSW's new V2V conference, where she talked about how to market your startup using the social media strategies Hollywood has perfected to drum up excitement about TV and movies on social sites like Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook.
Want to know more? We'll share her slides and notes from the talk when she gets back from Vegas! In the meantime, check out this awesome visualization of her session drawn up by Heather Willems from ImageThink (catch them on Twitter too).
Are you at V2V? Find us and say hello!


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Scott Dingman – Creston
Scott Dingman, 51, of Creston died March 2, 2014, at his home. Services will be 10:30 a.m. Saturday, March 8, at Powers Funeral Home, junction of highways 34 and 25. The Rev. Chuck Spindler will officiate. Open visitation will 2 to 7 p.m. Friday with family present 5 to 7 p.m. at the funeral home. Memorials may be given to the family.
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Magnet University - Frequently Asked Questions(FAQ)
Our customers ask many questions about our products. Some of the more common questions are listed here. Most of these questions are related to our standard stock magnets which are sintered Neodymium-Iron-Boron magnets.
1. What does the Grade of the magnet mean?
2. What is the pull strength of your magnets?
3. Your published pull force values are less than values published by other suppliers. Why?
4. What metals will magnets attract?
5. What is the Gauss of your magnets?
6. Is one pole stronger than the other?
7. How long will a magnet stay magnetized?
8. Will my magnets demagnetize if I heat them?
9. Can Nd-Fe-B magnets be drilled and machined?
10. Can magnets cure disease?
11. Is it safe to take magnets on airplanes?
12. I would like to get a single pole magnet?
13. Can you provide radially magnetized magnets?
14. Can you make very large magnets?
15. Can I levitate one magnet over another?
16. Will stacking magnets make them stronger?
17. Can I weld of solder rare earth magnets?
18. Should I use a keeper (a steel piece running from North to South pole) to store my magnets?
19. How is neodymium pronounced?
20. What is the Curie temperature of a magnet?
21. What is the operating temperature of a magnet?
22. Can I purchase unplated neodymium magnets?
23. Can you make a custom sized magnet?
24. Can I use your magnets in a marine environment.?
25. What adhesive should I use to glue your magnets?
26. Can I paint your magnets?
27. Will painting or coating the magnets decrease their magnetic force?


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Deactivating the BMR master server on a UNIX or Linux system
Article:HOWTO68830 | | | Created: 2012-02-06 | | | Updated: 2012-02-06 | | | Article URL http://www.symantec.com/docs/HOWTO68830 |
Deactivate the BMR master server by deleting the license key from the list of current NetBackup licenses. Before you delete the license key, you should remove the BMR database.
Use the following procedure to remove the BMR database and delete the BMR license key.
After you delete the license key, BMR is no longer available for use.
You can delete the BMR license key only if BMR was licensed with its own key, separate from the base NetBackup product license key.
Legacy ID
Article URL http://www.symantec.com/docs/HOWTO68830
Terms of use for this information are found in Legal Notices


text: We are proud to announce the forthcoming acquisition of land for the purpose of constructing a lifelong ranch community for young adults with special needs! ... Read More Golden Heart Ranch® is dedicated to building an intentional residential community where special needs young adults can live, learn, and work side-by-side in a harmonious and caring environment that is emotionally and physically safe. Fact: 80% of special needs adults are not able to move out of the home upon exiting the school system, because there is nowhere to go ... and the problem is growing.


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Military: Revolutionary War
Valley Forge National Historical Park
Valley Forge is perhaps the best-known place name associated with the American Revolution. To truly enjoy the park, it is important that you understand the significance of the events associated with the winter encampment of 1777-78. The National Park Service provides various programs, tours, and other interpretive activities to help you grasp more fully the dramatic story Valley Forge has to tell. Park Rangers make every effort to accommodate all visitors in these presentations. It is the goal of the National Park Service to make the park accessible to all visitors.
On December 19, 1777, when Washington's army marched into camp at Valley Forge, tired, cold, and ill-equipped, it was lacking in much of the training essential for consistent success on the battlefield. On June 19, 1778, after a six-month encampment, this same army emerged to pursue and successfully engage Lt. Gen. Sir Henry Clinton's British army at the Battle of Monmouth in New Jersey. The ordered ranks, martial appearance, revived spirit, and fighting skill of the American soldiers spoke of a great transformation having occurred amidst the cold, sickness, and hardship that was Valley Forge.
The man most responsible for this transformation was Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, onetime member of the elite General Staff of Frederick the Great, king of Prussia. No longer in the Prussian army, indeed without employment of any kind, von Steuben offered his military skills to the patriot cause. When he arrived at Valley Forge from France on February 23, 1778, he was armed with a letter of introduction from Benjamin Franklin. Washington saw great promise in the Prussian and almost immediately assigned him the duties of Acting Inspector General with the task of developing and carrying out an effective training program.
Related Links:
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Last Modified: Tues, May 22 2001 08:47:54 am EDT


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3. Retirement Speech. A happy and sincere thank you speech to give at your own retirement gathering Preview - The Real McCoy Comments:
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What does GYC mean in Community?
This page is about the meanings of the acronym/abbreviation/shorthand GYC in the field in general and in the Community terminology in particular.
Find a translation for GYC in other languages:
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Discuss this GYC abbreviation with the community:
Use the citation below to add this abbreviation to your bibliography:
"GYC." Abbreviations.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2015. Web. 6 Mar. 2015. <http://www.abbreviations.com/term/510012>.
GYC also stands for:
- Gaborone Yacht Club
- Gaithersburg Youth Club
- General yachting Center
- General Youth Conference
- Generation of Youth for Christ
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You are here
Jasper cluster is intended for general purpose serial and MPI-based parallel computing.
Log in to Jasper by connecting to the host name jasper.westgrid.ca using an ssh (secure shell) client.
As on other WestGrid systems batch jobs are handled by a combination of TORQUE and Moab software. For more information about submitting jobs, see Running Jobs.
Resource | Policy or limit |
Maximum walltime | 72 hours |
Maximum number of running jobs for a single user | 2880 |
Maximum number of jobs submitted | 2880 |
Maximum jobs in Idle queue | 5 |
Some of the former Checkers compute nodes have ben added to the Jasper cluster. The former Checkers nodes have 2, 4-core Xeon L5420 processors, while the original Jasper Nodes have 2, 6-core Xeon X5675 processors. If your job needs to run on a specific type please specify the feature eg.:
#PBS -l feature=X5675
#PBS -l feature=L5420
In order to minimize the disruption of this change, if you do not specify a feature, the temporary default is to specify the X5675 feature. Starting from July 2, 2013 if you do not specify a feature your job may be run on either type of node. Until July 2, 2013 if you do not specify a feature, your job will be scheduled to run on the original Jasper (X5675) nodes. In order to make sure your jobs can run on former checkers nodes, please submit test jobs with the L5420 feature. The former checkers nodes may be less busy if so jobs submitted with this feature may run quicker. Please note in the future (July 2, 2013) serial jobs longer than 12 hours will run on L5420 (old checkers) nodes only. Shorter serial jobs may also run on X5675 nodes. The shorter the walltime of a serial job the better chance it will have of running on X5675 nodes. Parallel jobs may run on either nodes.
Except for compiling programs and small tests, interactive use of Jasper should be through the '-I' option to qsub.
If you require more than the default disk space, you should apply to the Annual Resource Allocation Call. If you require more than the default file count, you should contact email@example.com.
Storage Information on Jasper
Directory path | Size | Quota | Command to check quota | Purpose | Backup Policy |
/home | 356 TB | 1 TB; Files: 500,000 | lfs quota -u <your username> /lustre |
Home directory. Also serves as a global scratch directory on Jasper. Note: Jasper and Hungabee share the same /home filesystem. |
Not backed up. Users are encouraged to backup their own data. Silo is available for this purpose. |
Program Information on Jasper
Compiling and running programs
The latest Intel compilers are available on Jasper. The compiler commands are icc (C compiler), icpc (C++ compiler), and ifort (Fortran compiler). Please note that modules need to be loaded to use the compilers and MPI. In the sections below, basic use of the compilers is shown for OpenMP and for MPI-based parallel programs. Additional compiler directives for optimization or debugging should often be used.
OpenMP programs
The Intel compilers include support for shared-memory parallel programs that include parallel directives from the OpenMP standard. Use the -openmp compiler option to enable this support, for example:
module load compiler/intel/12.1
icc -o prog -openmp prog.c
ifort -o prog -openmp prog.f90
Before running an OpenMP program, set the OMP_NUM_THREADS environment variable to the desired number of threads using bash-shell syntax:
export OMP_NUM_THREADS=12
or C-shell (tsch-shell) syntax:
setenv OMP_NUM_THREADS 12
according to the shell you are using. Then, to test your program interactively, launch it like you would any other:
Here is a sample TORQUE job script for running an OpenMP-based program.
#PBS -S /bin/bash
#PBS -l pmem=2000mb
#PBS -l nodes=1:ppn=12
#PBS -l walltime=12:00:00
#PBS -m bea
#PBS -M yourEmail@address
cd $PBS_O_WORKDIR
export OMP_NUM_THREADS=$PBS_NUM_PPN
MPI Programs
MPI programs can be compiled using the compiler wrapper scripts mpicc, mpicxx, and mpif90. These scripts invoke the gnu compilers. For the Intel compilers, use mpiicc, mpiicpc, and mpifort. Use the mpirun command to launch an MPI program, for example:
module load library/openmpi/1.6.5-intel
mpicc -o prog prog.c
mpirun -np 8 ./prog
After your program is compiled and tested, you can submit large-scale production runs to the batch job system. Here are some sample TORQUE batch job scripts for MPI-based programs. People are encouraged to use entire nodes for MPI jobs. So requests should be in the form 'nodes=x:ppn=12'. Requests in the form 'procs=n' are still accepted but these jobs will have lower priority.
#PBS -S /bin/bash
#PBS -l pmem=2000mb
#PBS -l nodes=2:ppn=12
#PBS -l walltime=12:00:00
#PBS -m bea
#PBS -M yourEmail@address
cd $PBS_O_WORKDIR
module load library/openmpi/1.6.5-intel
mpirun ./prog > out
If you need more than pmem=2000mb, then you can use 'naccesspolicy=singlejob' to reserve entire nodes as follows:
#PBS -S /bin/bash
#PBS -l pmem=4000mb
#PBS -l nodes=4:ppn=6
#PBS -l naccesspolicy=singlejob
#PBS -l walltime=12:00:00
#PBS -m bea
#PBS -M yourEmail@address
cd $PBS_O_WORKDIR
module load library/openmpi/1.6.5-intel
mpirun ./prog > out


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1989: Julee Cruise - Floating Into The Night
I broke my gaze first. There's nothing here. Only yearning. Golden, but oxidized by time.
I broke my speech to make room for grace… for breezes and other such solemnities. I peaked thru to see my mirror self boast of its reflectability. Taunting. tormenting. I twist myself out of shape, but never into grace…
I balanced with shaky legs on atomized columns. I lurked and lingered and I even leered (let me be sex. let that undercurrent insulate with drowsy, dozing aplomb. let my tilted head and chin cast a worthwhile shadow…)
Let… Of course, I'm leaving plenty of room for error…
for hopeless, unfailing awkwardness.
I'm hovering…
I'm not breaking my fall. I'm cutting trenches in the looming muscle. I'm bracing for impact. I'm kissed by concrete and lithesome, reverberant evening.
Just so… burnt out and so destroyed. Ever loving. Ever torpid. Ever and ever breaks the chill, ever and ever beneath us and breathing and uncompromisingly still.
I crouched under a window. I am only a messenger. The flesh crawls to its holdfast of its own volition. And rawness and intimacy in a song can't phase… can't circumnavigate… all is pooling… all is neck-deep.
I broke my gaze first every time all the time. The branches shake in spite of their trees. The forest forsakes, forestalls and fulfills. The galling echoes therein… One gets used to them and roams without a moment's hesitation. One clings to mystery…
One knows what one is doing.
2001: Stunt Rock - Regret Instruction Manual Issue 1: Questions and Answers for the Insecure Youth
William "Billy Stunt Rock" Flegel cuts an eccentric and enigmatic figure in the world of electronic music. An integral member of the Midwestern breakcore scene of the late 90s/early 00s, he remains well regarded by electronic music aficionados while leaving a remarkably minimal web presence in his wake. Sure, you can download most of his discography from his Bandcamp or read his laugh-out-loud funny commentary on cinema of the 70s and 80s on The Betamax Rundown (think twice before not clicking that last link; it's amazing). Yet, after hours of searching, the only interview I could turn up for him was this one from 2008, and his highest-profile reviews (in digital form, at least) consist of a rather perplexing blurb from Entertainment Weekly and some muted praise from Pitchfork for 2005's This is Stunt Rock Volume Three.
Adding to the mystique is the standoffish persona Flegel has cultivated over the years. He is openly contemptuous of his fans, his contemporaries, and perhaps most of all himself, with even his song titles speaking to a kind of dismissive self-loathing (a brief survey includes such gems as "That Last Song Blew," "Really Harsh Noisy Breaks Don't Cover Up for Lack of Talent, or Do They?" and "I've Really Lost It Because This Shit Is Starting to Sound Like A Washed-up, Half-assed, Fatboy Slim Ripoff with a Twelve Year Old's Sense of Humor"). The extent to which these attitudes can be taken at face value is difficult to determine.
With that in mind, the Regret Instruction Manual series can be seen as his most emblematic work, despite the fact that it was originally intended as a separate project from Stunt Rock and felt far removed from the cacophonous bangers he was churning out under that moniker at the turn of the century. Conceived of as a zine, Regret Instruction Manual Issue 1 came packaged with a 30-page booklet full of minimalist cartoons, personality tests, sardonic motivational slogans, and bitter letters to ex-lovers. A piece entitled "Motivational Springboard" ends with the mantra, "I will be motivated all day long, and whatever I do I will prosper at." In a cartoon featuring two wheelchairs a few pages later, the first wheelchair asks, "What do you want for your birthday?" The second one replies "The courage to get out of bed." The juxtaposition of glassy-eyed optimism with concentrated snapshots of despair creates an atmosphere that's at once blackly humorous and crushingly earnest.
That tone of nihilistic submission with a playful wink carries over fully into the music as well. Flegel loads the album with dialogue samples from films both obscure and well-known, including such feel-good fodder as Fight Club, Buffalo 66, Death of a Salesman, Magnolia, Requiem for a Dream, and loads of vintage Jack Nicolson. These snippets of violent breakdowns, tearful confessions, and bleak introspection play over rough-hewn beats that swing between melancholy and whimsy.
Regret Issue 1 lacks a certain polish, and Flegel admits to reusing the same drum samples for over half of the tracks. Yet, this rough and limited pallet yields so many thrilling moments. The introduction of a drum loop transforms a wistful piano sample into something jaunty on "Wow, a New Release from My Favorite IDM Producer, Has It Been Two Weeks?" The chopped up dialogue excerpt from Dustin Hoffman's explosive exchange with John Malkovich in Death of a Salesman creates a wrenching groove on "Someone to Lay in Bed with and Watch Shitty Beta Movies." Then, of course, there's the album's centerpiece, "I'm Sorry I Couldn't be the Person You Needed, I Mean It," which lays Jason Robards' meditation on regret from Magnolia over a jazzy backdrop reminiscent of a stripped-down Avalanches.
But perhaps the most unexpected quality of Regret Instruction Manual Issue 1 is how powerfully cathartic it is. Flegel allegedly began the project after moving back in with his parents and enrolling in community college. The album was, in part, an attempt to create "emotive computer music" — a task that he himself referred to as "impossible" — and process some of the bad feelings he was going through. Whether he acknowledges it or not, Regret was astonishingly successful at that. The film excerpts that occupy such a central place in the compositions force the listener up against focused bursts of rage, sorrow, frustration, and loneliness, a buffet of human misery so intense that even the most bathetic and melodramatic expressions manage to hit a vital nerve center. Listening to the album beginning to end leaves me feeling wrung out, starved for air, exhausted by the weight of suffering and turmoil.
Subsequent volumes of the Regret Instruction Manual would build on the vocabulary Flegel established for the first. Issue 2 contains some truly extraordinary compositions (Flegel beat Kanye to The Arc Choir's "Walk with Me" by about a year and arguably used it to better effect), and Issue 3 moves into longer-form post-rock territory more closely aligned with Stunt Rock's later output. Still, there's a rawness and brutality to the first instillation that has secured it a place in the most masochistic recesses of my heart. Feel-bad music is very seldom this much fun.
1975: Bernard Parmegiani - De Natura Sonorum
I remember reviewing a Johnny Ramone solo record right after the punk paragon had died, but I've never been working on a review only to see the artist who created its subject pass on before it's done. It's lent a sense of heightened purpose to my evaluation, I must admit. Not because I had previously expected Bernard Parmegiani to read what I am about to write or because knowing that its author is no longer with us will alter my opinion of De Natura Sonorum; it's just that it's humbling to know an artist as crippled by talent as Parmegiani came and went so peacefully, with an admiring core of underground admirers, sure, but relatively few who realize the true scope of his genius. Now's the time for those of us who haven't caught on yet to listen in.
His time in French television and jingle-making notwithstanding, Parmegiani's dread-inducing, nail-biting, tension-building ways are represented on this double-LP set. His greatest ally, as with many of the artists fronted by Recollection GRM (not to mention those filling the stable over at Editions RZ), is silence. He uses it to lure the listener into a spider-bite coma before dropping ear-splitting THUMPs and electric spikes down your neck. This isn't anything like a lot of the music frequenting people's headphones these days. You can't count on anything; even expecting the unexpected will leave you open to surprises of the best kind, but they also come as a jolt to the senses that might seem to be devoid of pleasure until you pick up on the greater-good idea he's been cultivating.
The methods he uses to conjure his compositions seem almost tortuously novel, such as when he "places together various sounds produced by 'touching' elastic or instrumental skins or vibrating strings and a number of instrumentalgestures close to this touch, using electronic processes to create white noise, and"… well, you get the idea just from that section of the jacket notes, right? Parmegiani went to great lengths to ensure his albums contained structures that could never be duplicated, and it's strange to me that so many of us don't expect that of many of our favorite artists these days. That's why his work holds up today and will in 50 years when Recollection GRM Version 2.0 hyperloads its deluxe reissue into your mindpod. But why wait till then?
1904: Gustav Mahler - Kindertotenlieder
There is plenty of mournful music out there, and a lot of it gets mocked. But I can't imagine anyone making fun of Kindertotenlieder, one of the bleakest pieces of music ever conceived.
Inspired by poems written by Friedrick Rückert after the death of two of his children from scarlet fever, Mahler took five of Rückert's 428 poems and set them to music that matched the intense grief found in his words. The piece — whose title translates to "Songs on the Death of Children" — is divided into five "songs" intended to be played in order, starting with mournful melodies executed by an orchestra and a vocalist. The music goes through passages of solace and frustrated rage, but eventually culminates in a sort of splendor of major keys that reflect hope and acceptance.
The subject matter is one of true sorrow and agony. Even doom metal doesn't compare to this; however, it's worth noting that KTL — the band Stephen O'Malley (the guitarist not only in Sunn O))) but also in one of the bleakest groups of all time, Khanate) formed with Peter "Pita" Rehberg — takes its name from this piece. In theory Kindertotenlieder is what doom and other devastating musical styles attempt to capture, but it touches on something very difficult to write about and embodies it with melodies of equal emotional impact.
The best thing about this piece is how Mahler wrote it in subtle tones, keeping it very close to the chest to make it sound almost like a personal dirge. The listener isn't led by the hand to know what to feel; instead, the music slowly reveals itself, blossoming on the ear canal of anyone who encounters it, a composition that encloses order to the chaotic nature of one of the most distressful and agonizing situations one can experience in life.
2003: Movietone - "Snow is Falling"
The opening moments of the Movietone song "Snow is Falling" have always been like a magic wand. Despite the fragility of Kate Wright's voice, this tune belies the immaculate, frozen moment like no other. If it weren't so angelic, it'd perfectly capture the still, glazed-over hushedness of McCabe & Mrs. Miller's Presbyterian Church.
But this tune, nestled in the knee of Movietone's 2004 swan song The Sand and The Stars (Drag City, 2003), lights into the air and patiently sashays into the heavens on a swell of woodwinds. It's a song of small wonder, akin to the wide-eyed poise of Vashti Bunyan or the deliberate sentimentality of Antony. It's a place where you wanna be present, never once allowing the past or the future to shake your crystalline perspective. And, like a lot of the best things in life, it's gone before you can truly grab hold of it.
1989: The Strangulated Beatoffs - The Beatoffs
The unplanned obsolescence of St. Louis, Missouri was going to have an impact on the musical culture of the city at some point. That is, it was bound to have an impact besides setting everything back by 10, 15, 20 years, culturally; there were going to be bands that were reacting to their surroundings not by trying to sound like what they thought people wanted to hear, but by actually ingesting what was happening around them and spitting something else back. By the mid-1980s, money had started bleeding from the city of St. Louis badly, mostly due to old legislation that legally separated (and still separates) the county and city, and when families flooded to the suburbs in the 1950s, buildings started being abandoned, neighborhoods became poor, and the city as a whole began literally crumbling. The cultural hub for jazz and blues 50 years earlier had become ignored and desolate — entirely lonely.
The press release for The Beatoffs starts with a quote from Joe Stumble's regional blog, Last Days Of Man On Earth: "Today, I don't think people can accurately understand the cultural void that was the suburban Midwest in the early 1980s. No internet. No email. No cell phones. No social networking. Shit, there wasn't even cable in 1983." Earlier in the same blog post, Stumble brings up The Screamin' Mee-Mee's, an early-80s St. Louis band, saying they were "part of the great Midwestern archetype of the 'planned obsolescent' i.e. the lone set of eccentrics jamming in a basement with a tape-deck." Later, he says of The Strangulated Beatoffs that they "inherited the crown of planned obsolescence."
The joke behind The Strangulated Beatoffs was that they meant it. Their whole concept was intended to deter listeners, rather than attract them; most of their music is drones, loops, noise, and gristle, filled with irreverence. The last thing you hear on The Beatoffs is Stan Seitrich and Fritz Noble screaming, "Try the wine!" after singing a half-hearted rendition of "Her Majesty," followed by one of them making fart sounds while the other one laughs. More than one of the songs begins with someone burping. What did it matter? Not many people were listening, and those who did were in on it; besides, Stan and Fritz were making their music for themselves. And that's part of the reason we can be so sure that they meant it.
The Strangulated Beatoffs bring to mind Hermey the elf from Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer, who wanted to be a dentist instead of making toys, who sang, "You can't fire me, I quit," before setting sail for the Island of Misfit Toys. They sidelined themselves instead of facing the rejection of other people doing it to them. The band is angry and smoldering, lazy and stoned. But the music that they made evolved and became a harsh experiment in misused psychedelics and crushing distortion — all tongue-in-cheek and laid out like a dare. Days Of Our Lives, their debut album, has a centerpiece of three songs, the longest of which, "Bothered," is nearly 20 minutes of pulsing, cloudy vocals and beat loops. Being a fan of their music can feel like a chore, like they made it that way just for the sake of unlistenability. Based on the size of their fan-base, it worked.
The Beatoffs, taken as an album, is short and strange; much of the music made by The Strangulated Beatoffs is purposefully pointless, looping in stasis rather than growing. But a record of Beatles covers is the ultimate exercise in pointlessness. This is a record that no one asked for, and it seems all the stranger because the covers aren't "re-interpretations" at all, but pretty straight-ahead versions of the songs recorded crudely to crackly multi-track cassette. And, all the more, it feels like they meant it; The Strangulated Beatoffs have never been a band to let down their bluff, and the concept on this album feels very Beatoffs-esque, like it ought to be a joke, but the punchline isn't there, and the joke just turns into a story.
Most of the songs are covered faithfully, especially "Don't Let Me Down" (where the bass stutters and trips as it recreates McCartney's bass line), "Ticket To Ride," and "Happiness Is A Warm Gun." There's even an unlisted, partial cover of the medley from Abbey Road near the end of side B, and by that point, there seems an obvious kinship between the bands: that, by the time The Beatles were recording The Beatles, they were less concerned with saying anything and more interested in making something, creating as a cure for boredom or as a means of making meaning and purpose. The Beatoffs' version of "Dear Prudence" is nothing more than clanging guitar and mumbled vocals — simple and fast, like they needed another song in order to flush out this concept and didn't feel like putting much work into it.
More than anything, The Beatoffs feels like a primary source document of the desolate Midwest that Joe Stumble describes. The band's music is typically misanthropic, bored, furious — but on this record, less so. We imagine mythos for the bands that we love and the worlds they create, and in the Strangulated Beatoffs mythos, they don't try, because trying is weakness, and when you're mocking everybody, you can't be weak. But they tried at this. Making sense of where this record fits into the Beatoffs' discography yields little fruit; this might as well be anybody, bored and lonely, taking frequent breaks from recording to smoke weed and walk down to the 7-11, television humming in the background, parents' foot steps overhead, listening back to Beatles songs over and over to figure out parts.
The Midwestern archetype of the "planned obsolescent" is a misnomer; these bands want to be listened to and loved, remembered, but they don't want to do it on your terms. They don't like you. And if you want to be a fan, they don't want it to be easy for you. Which is fine, I think — I like being challenged by people, feeling like I "get it," am "in on it." I'm not, of course. But no band has summed up the bitterness of living in St. Louis and the isolated Midwest more effectively than The Strangulated Beatoffs. When other people make life difficult for you, it is often your inclination to make life difficult for other people.
1996: The Melvins - "Theresa Screams"
"Hands down our all time favorite Melvins song," say the liner notes.
Well, on the face of it, that sounds like a pretty weird thing for a band with a discography as rich as The Melvins to claim. "Theresa Screams" looks very much like a B-side with a cosmic significance probably not much greater than zero. It originally came out as part of a series of 12 7-inches released one each month in 1996, later collated on CD. To all appearances, it's situated somewhere on the confusing border between space-filling throwaway garbage and precious collector-commodity (an ambiguous zone that Melvins releases have frequently occupied — cf. the entirely silent Shit Sandwich…And You Just Took a Bite 7-inch among others.) And unlike even the semi-notorious (and actually often diverting) fan un-favorite Prick, "Theresa Screams" features pretty much none of the things Melvins might be known for: no riffs, no drums, not even any kind of noise/sample manipulation.
Instead, it's composed of an unedited recording of the hapless "Theresa" being goaded into recapturing an earlier and apparently quite impressive scream, her every attempt deemed insufficient by the engineer or unsuccessful because of some mysterious (read: non-existent) "slight technical hitch." Near the start, Theresa says "I don't have anger, you guys; I'm too mellow," but with each unsatisfying effort, her screams become more cracked and desperate, closer to whatever the opaque criteria those involved are supposed to be judging it by. Exploitative? Hard to say — Theresa seems to be a volunteer, although she might not have had in mind the treatment she receives. Obnoxious? Perhaps, but although I concede that there have also been times it seemed irritating and unpalatable, I'll probably end up on the wrong side of history by saying that, in the right kind of mood, it can be pretty amusing.
That's probably the key. In the liner notes to the more recent (and unfortunately mostly underwhelming) covers album, Everybody Loves Sausages, King Buzzo says of The Fugs that they were "the kind of hippies I liked; mean spirited with a wicked sense of humor." These words might just as well be applied to his own band — and to what, as much as any of the things they're better known for, really sets them apart from many bands on their particular continuum of "heavy" music. For The Melvins, this particular kind of humor is a more entertaining stand-in for (real?) conceptual-musical experimentation, providing many of the latter's effects — uncertainty of outcome, the confounding of expectations, and the opening of previously unimagined vistas of sound-possibility, un-easy listening, etc. etc. — without unnecessary intellectualism or the years of having to figure out the meaning of it all. So maybe it constitutes a more accessible route to the same ends — if you're in on the joke, that is, not on the end of it.
Humor in music is, as everyone knows, difficult to execute effectively. To work, it usually has to be well-tempered, the right kind in the right measure; things to avoid (among others) include excesses of zaniness and goofiness, pretentiousness, condescension and straight-up smugness. But as Hobbes once wrote, "men laugh at Jests, the witt whereof always consisteth in the Elegant discovering and conveying to our mindes some absurdity of another." Not everyone these days would subscribe to such a theory, at least as the sole explanation of humor; it seems apt enough for The Melvins though. Their sense of humor may sometimes be cynical or cruel, but they have managed to evade the above-mentioned pitfalls more often than not. Of course, there's always a pretty fine line; which side of that line "Theresa Screams" falls on is up to you.
2013: The Drones - I See Seaweed
Mea culpa, but better late than never, and you don't need a Doc-equipped DeLorean to travel to a time where this record is still vitally relevant, because you're standing in it. We've paid The Drones their dues twice in a row for records still as essential as they were when they came out, so let me not allow the circle to go unbroken: I See Seaweed is the best album by The Drones yet, which makes it one of the best rock albums of this nascent decade, full stop, and go take a float down the river if you disagree. Arguing why you need to hear The Drones is almost a moot point by now, but this record perfects the smacks you around the noggin' with more dread-filled hopelessness than an entire tent of doomed Arctic explorers, while somehow remaining more elliptical and brutal than anything else they've released, moving with a mixture of reckless uncertainty and whiplash dynamism that makes "Jezebel" feel like breakfast cereal.
(Basic assumptions going forward: [1] Gareth Liddiard is the greatest lyricist currently working in the idiom of guitar music (uncontestable), and [2] When Iggy Pop gave up on punk, it went to Australia to be periodically resurrected there for at least a while [sorta contestable])
The Drones made their reputation on calling bullshit for what it is, whether the folly is English redcoats chasing down newly Antipodean convicts for sport or I See Seaweed extends the problematic to global warming, the degradation of rural towns for mining purposes, the destruction of animals for space research, and the hegemony of conservative media shock jocks. As usual, they beat you with their truth in a way that's peculiarly Australian, goldminer-cum-sledgehammer, but what's new is how much better they are at investing their arrangements with a deftness of cruelty, as if there's a sense of permanent incipience and tension, in that the hardest moment is always the one yet to come. They no longer need to blast you to get the point across, which is a strange mercy, and something largely due to Steve Hesketh's keyboards being constantly present like a drowning seagull pinned beneath a mast beam. Listening to the Drones is now more Pale King than Money, and we're richer for it.
Take "They'll Kill You," which details the failures that twenty-something Australian emigrants encounter when they try and escape reality by positing a greater one beyond that country's borders. The cracking of illusion is painted in the way the chord progression yields and opens to a seasick lurch down the scale in the bridge, sliding like the point in an argument where things start getting thrown, and sinking towards the inevitable conclusion: "this birdhouse migrates too". It's downright devastating, and in doing so, it pins down a peculiarly Australian neurosis in a way that's instantly accessible in a fashion that Sixteen Straws couldn't have been. The message is clear. The country isn't the problem.
Accessibility is a moronic characteristic to mention with a band as gut-shakingly vital as The Drones, but it bears an important point out: the more this band evolves, the more they are capable of bringing people inside the tent. Where once Liddiard scraped a comb across the Australian past, here he discusses our communal post-(and possibly pre-)atomic future in terms that leave no one cold, but everyone chilled. Although we're all fucked, this is not the paean to hopelessness that previous records have been; what I See Seaweed excoriates of false moralism, willed ignorance, abdicated responsibility, and misplaced misanthropy. As The Quietus pointed out, Liddiard isn't recommending the grab-a-gun-and-blow-your-mind-out fatalism of Havilah's "Oh My" anymore; this is him throwing down the fucking gauntlet, because he is talking directly to you here. This is not historical recollection, this is not documentary, this is the nine o'clock news, looking you right in the fucking eyes and waiting for you to start doing something real.
To get to the heart of I See Seaweed is to grow incredibly uncomfortable with the idea of only serving yourself, of condescending to your weaker parts, to say we didn't start the fire and curl up in front of Game of Thrones. To be more to the point, any forward-moving relevance that g/b/d/k/v music is going to have relies on music like this, stuff that uses the inherited, elemental force of sweaty anger to drive a stake through the arrogance that mere consumption and observation entails, the notion that old forms can be superseded through aiming towards invention alone, that considerations of mere aesthetic alone trump meaning and urgency, that having someone put their bloody hands around your throat is a passe gesture. Music that prescribes nothing but diagnoses, and leaves you to pick up the tools. What we need, what we will always need, is art that apprehends you with the threat of making you fucking afraid and aware of the fact that you are a problem. You are a problem, and I See Seaweeed has to ask: Whose side are you on? Just yours? Wrong answer.
1995: The Amps - Pacer
With all the hoopla (full-album setlisted original lineup tour, SPIN retrospective, etc.) around Last Splash in 2013, I can't help but feel it's time for Pacer to get its due. At the time of its releases, pithmaster General Robert Christgau slogged off the album as "slight," but time has shown me that where Frank Black Francis' yelping, David Thomas-y sing-song has grown shrill and cloying, Kim Deal's ciggy-charred, girl-group-that-beats-up-the-other-girl-groups voice has only calcified in its ineffable grace. There was such a charge putting this album on, after hearing "Tipp City" on 120 Minutes, and realizing it only gets better.
As much as I'd loved Last Splash, it paled in comparison to this catchy, cut-loose batch of unassailably distinctive garage anthems. The only thing slight about this album was that it left me wanting more, and near-20 years later, even spare, thorny sidesteps like "Breaking The Split Screen Barrier" and "Hoverin," have exponentially grown on me with their offbeat charms (dig that crash cymbal work at 1:48 on the latter). The Dean did offer some praise of Kim's voice, as it is one of those irresistible elements that make her stop-start musical career all the more frustrating. But life happens, and you can't force inspiration (some of Mountain Battles illustrated the unfortunate result of this).
I recommend the above video — my current favorite and side two opener, "First Revival" — as a stellar example (out of 12) of how this album is truly inspired and a million times better than its obscure displacement in rock history would suggest.
1988: Missing Foundation - 1933 Your House Is Mine
By 1988, when Missing Foundation's sophomore album 1933 Your House Is Mine was released, industrial music was approaching a crossroads. Leaving aside the weirdo experimentalism of artists like Current 93, Nurse with Wound, and Coil, its most visible proponents were groups making dance music for goth kids (not necessarily a bad thing), and Ministry's Land of Rape and Honey was about to initiate the next seismic shift into straight-up heavy metal. Set against this backdrop, MF feels like something of an anachronism, a regression to industrial's formative years spent straining radical politics, musique concrète, and performance art through a punk rock sieve.
It would be a stretch to describe 1933 as a "refined effort" compared to MF's debut, but amid the fragmentary bursts of noise heard on tracks like "Kingsland 61" and "1933," one could find tracks that more-or-less coalesce into structures that feel more conventionally song-oriented. "Burn Trees" is probably the most recognizably industrial-sounding track on the album, driven by an austere, endlessly repeated guitar figure and over which is laid a reptilian sample of front-man Peter Missing rasping the song's title. Semi-title track "Your House Is Mine" lurches to its feet from a series of false starts and becomes an ominous funeral march to the beat of metal-on-metal percussion. Hell, "Jameel's Turmoil" actually features an honest-to-goodness groove.
Of course, much of the conversation surrounding Missing Foundation has focused on their chaotic stage shows (they were accused of starting a riot in Tompkins Square in 1988), their unique iconography (the upturned martini glass graffitied onto buildings all along the lower east side) — in short, anything but their music. One could be tempted to believe that the apocrypha surrounding the group is more interesting than their output, but I would contend that this only speaks to both how successfully the group fused sound, visuals, and performance into an indivisible whole, and how supremely at home they were in New York of the 1980s. As Sam McPheeters of Men's Recovery Project (among others) points out, Missing Foundation embodied a spirit completely in tune with their time and place. MF were fixtures of the lower east side squatters movement, and their post-apocalyptic sound — cobbled together from trash, primitive samplers, and whatever partially working instruments they could get their hands on — sounded right at home in a city that still contained neighborhoods that looked like they belonged in a third-world nation.
For that reason, 1933 is perhaps the group's most emblematic work. The title is a reference to the fall of the Weimar Republic, which came into being in Germany at the end of the First World War and gave way to the rise of the Third Reich. It was a disorganized, ineffectual body, ill-equipped to deal with the near-insurmountable challenges facing its country: skyrocketing inflation caused by demands for war reparations, spiraling unemployment resulting from the Great Depression, and shattered morale and social unrest in the wake of Germany's defeat. Looking back 25 years later, this analogy seems more than a little over-the-top, yet at the same time, it's eerie how well this album resonates with our current political climate. "Your House Is Mine" may have been written as a screed against gentrification, but it could just as easily have soundtracked the wave of foreclosures that accompanied the housing collapse of 2008. "Invasion of Your Privacy" is more meaningful than ever following last year's revelations about the NSA and PRISM, and songs about ecological disaster like "Burn Trees" are, unfortunately, unlikely to ever become less topical.
As we've previously indicated, New York in the late 80s was a hell of a good place to live if you liked your rock noisy. But even amid such formidable acts as Cop Shoot Cop, (a soon to be huge) White Zombie, and Swans, Missing Foundation took the art of confrontational musical performance to a level that was difficult to match. Yet, 25 years later, their music, which once represented the ultimate in nihilism and urban alienation, seems strangely hopeful, a desperate howl against capitalist excess from a more idealistic age.


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Will Man's Death Lead To End Of Thirty Year Mystery?
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Governor Candidate Promises to Tell Obama "Go to Hell"
Main Republican states he stands behind the intent of his comments.
The Injustice of The Justice System Strikes Again! Save Darren Mcdunnah!
Recently Darren McDunnah was brought up on preposterous charges in the State of Maine and he Needs Help to Get Free and fight this legal assault. He has been in jail for six months so far and Maine is abusing their power by forcing him to stay in jail without a trial. This is a call to arms of all justice loving citizens of the World!
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Why the war between drivers and cyclists?
A motorist's tweet boasting about hitting a cyclist created uproar when it went viral. What does it reveal about the battle on the UK's roads?
Toby Hockley was on the 100-mile Boudicca Sportive ride in Norfolk when he says he was struck by a car and flung into a hedge. The driver didn't stop. Hockley emerged from the hedge, sore but intact.
It sounds like a run-of-the-mill depressing incident from the UK's roads. But the shocking part came later.
A young woman tweeted: "Definitely knocked a cyclist off his bike earlier. I have right of way - he doesn't even pay road tax! #Bloodycyclists."
The post was retweeted hundreds of times and took on a life of its own.
Soon cyclists had informed the police, identified the woman, tracked down where she worked and told her employer.
Norwich Police tweeted the woman back and told her to report the collision at a police station. "We have had tweets ref an RTC with a bike. We suggest you report it at a police station ASAP if not done already & then dm us".
Police have contacted both the cyclist and the tweeter and are investigating.
Re-cycled from the Magazine
Jon Kelly weighed up whether there would be support for a new offence of causing death by dangerous cycling
The "war" between cyclists and motorists was played out in Toronto, where Mayor Rob Ford ordered the removal of bike lanes
It's a different story in Britain's first cycling city, Bristol, as Tom Geoghegan found as he clambered on to a two-wheeled machine
The incident and the speed of the backlash on Twitter with the hashtag #bloodycyclists being appropriated by bike users, highlights the simmering tension on the UK's roads.
"I am a #bloodycyclists just trying to get about London. Would be nice not to risk my life every morning just trying to get to work," tweeted @lennyshallcross.
There appears to be a burgeoning, visceral anger in the cyclist-driver relationship.
The recent explosion of cyclist numbers in the UK's cities has changed the dynamic of driving. In heavy traffic cyclists are often the fastest things on the roads, more agile at getting through gaps than motorbikes.
Drivers do not always see them. They may forget to check their mirrors. It can be difficult for bikes getting through clogged traffic with lorries and vans blocking both sides of the lane.
Cyclists complain of drivers winding down their windows to hurl abuse. Drivers make a similar complaint about being shouted at.
Cycling campaigners are calling for a new law in Scotland to make motorists automatically at fault in an accident. The UK is one of only five European countries - Cyprus, Malta, Romania and Ireland being the others - that does not currently have the "strict liability" law. Some cyclists now wear helmet cameras to record anti-social behaviour.
The cyclists' response to the Norfolk tweet is a sign of the growing social media "enforcement" action taken against drivers who are seen as having either endangered or threatened two-wheelers.
Who's at fault?
- Analysis of accident data suggested factors involved in crashes can be attributed "fairly equally" to drivers and cyclists
- Child cyclists were much more likely to have contributed to accidents, while incidents involving cyclists aged 25 and over were more often put down to the driver
- Some 2,801 cyclists were said to have contributed to serious collisions between 2005 and 2007, 43% by failing to look properly and one-fifth by riding out from the pavement
- Over the same period, 2,587 drivers were said to have contributed to serious crashes, with 56% failing to look properly and 17% through a poor manoeuvre
- An observational study, conducted in London and published in 2007, stated that between 13% and 17% of cyclists jumped red lights. Car drivers - including taxis - were the next most common offenders, followed by those in vans.
Source: Transport Research Laboratory
"It's relatively common because there are a lot of cyclists out there with helmet cams and they will post licence plates and video of bad motorists," says cycling journalist Carlton Reid.
Then there are deliberate attempts to scare cyclists, some commentators allege. "Many cyclists have been on the receiving end of 'punishment passes' [driving to instil fear] which can be extremely close, or can even see people being hurt," says Reid.
In 2011, 107 cyclists died on the roads in Britain and more than 3,000 were seriously injured, according to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents.
But there's a flipside. Cyclists, to many drivers, are serial flouters of the rules - jumping traffic lights, weaving in and out of the traffic, not signalling and failing to stop at zebra crossings.
There's "huge antipathy" between people on bikes and in cars, says motoring journalist Quentin Willson.
"We've got a minority of cyclists and car drivers who are aggressive," he says. "It results in a war of attrition between two and four wheels."
Today it is perhaps less politically correct to attack cyclists than drivers - but anecdotally many will privately curse cyclists passing them in traffic congestion.
John Griffin, boss of minicab firm Addison Lee, has argued that an influx of novice cyclists could lead to more accidents. "It is time for us to say to cyclists, 'You want to join our gang, get trained and pay up'," he wrote.
Willson is sympathetic to the plight of cyclists. But an aggressive minority have become a metaphor for everything drivers hate. "They're dressed exclusively in Lycra and wraparound shades, they ride on the pavement, go the wrong way down one-way streets and straight through red lights. And that's why motorists hate them."
Cyclists argue that the minority who break the rules are simply more conspicuous when they misbehave. Drivers stuck in a queue of traffic have plenty of time to watch as an errant cyclist jumps a red light, for example.
There is also a sense of frustration as car drivers watch a pedal-powered vehicle overtake them. "The very fact that cyclists are able to filter through traffic grates on many motorists and they take that out on cyclists," says Reid.
The tweeting motorist's claim that she had a greater right to be on the road because she paid road tax is a widely held but inaccurate belief, says Reid, who runs a blog called - with deliberate irony - ipayroadtax.com.
The reality is that there is no "road tax", he says. Road construction and maintenance is paid for by everyone through general and local taxes. The Vehicle Excise Duty that motorists pay is levied according to engine size or CO2 emissions.
Critics miss the point that bikes don't emit CO2 and that many cyclists also own cars and are paying VED anyway, he says.
While there is bad behaviour on both sides, it is an unequal relationship. The driver is protected by a metal shell while the cyclist is exposed.
"It's scary as a cyclist because you are the vulnerable road user," says Rob Spedding, editor of Cycling Plus.
"You have someone in a few tonnes of metal bearing down on you and you are just flesh and bone. It's potentially fatal."
You can follow the Magazine on Twitter and on Facebook
Here is a selection of your comments.
The Addison Lee bloke is right in a way. There isn't room for cyclists on the road. It would make much more sense for cycling on the pavements - either shared paths or separate paths - to become regulated. It happens in many, many cities all over the world, particularly where there are footpaths both sides, or a wide footpath. My main argument I guess is that if cycling were invented today, there is no way the authorities would allow it on the road, for health and safety reasons.
I recently sent a video to the police of a van driver who had dangerously cut me up while I was cycling in Hatton Garden. He was sent a warning letter. I now think that a lot of drivers do not realise how dangerous their driving is to a cyclist. They believe they have passed you when only the front of their vehicle, not the side or the back has. I'm sure if drivers spent a week on a bike on London roads they would become a lot more considerate.
Yes, there are irresponsible cyclists. There are also irresponsible drivers. Try sitting by a road and counting the proportion of drivers on mobile phones. I usually find about 1 in 7 to 1 in 10.
I am in a big heavy car that could potentially kill them and I am the one who would get the blame if they were to get hurt. But they seem to think that gives them carte blanche to act as they please on the roads. I can't avoid you if you swerve out in front of me. I can't reposition my car if you sneak inside me in a queue of traffic. Have some bloody patience, follow the Code and be respectful of the half a ton vehicle please.
Cyclists don't destroy the roads (unlike motor vehicles) so they shouldn't have to pay road tax. However, many cyclists need to learn to respect other road users. I would be in favour of a licensing system and the same penalties that motorists receive for breaking the rules of the road. When I was a racer in the 80s there was no Cavendish or Wiggins to give my sport the cache it has now. Then I was treated with disdain by motorists. Now, with the sporting success of our riders, all cyclists should be courteous road users so motorists show equal respect so that the next cyclist fatality is not a potential gold medallist.
Very often I will be clearly indicating a left turn in busy traffic and have a cyclist overtake on the inside at the point where I am turning. Drivers need to be very careful to avoid cyclists, but cyclists need to demonstrate some common sense. Why on earth should a car/bicycle collision automatically be the driver's fault. Cyclists should have insurance.
As a cyclist myself in London, I am fully in support of more cyclists on our roads and better, safer routes. However, I also sometimes walk part of the way to work, and many cyclists make this a dangerous and stressful experience. In several places, cyclists dart in and out of pedestrians as we walk across zebra crossings, go through red lights on busy junctions, and ignore one-way signs. Many refuse to even slow down as they approach crossings, and I've almost been knocked over several times. Coupled with this behaviour, there is also seemingly an air of arrogance amongst a minority in the cycling community. Of course cyclists and pedestrians are more at risk than car users, as they are unprotected, but all road users need to be more careful and respectful to others.
I cycle to work every day and the other evening I was clipped by a motorist. The driver decided that she would go past me, giving about an inch of space (despite there being ample space in the rest of the road) and clipped my handlebars. I was lucky that I was not c. 5m further up the road, where a bus was stopped. I would have swerved into that bus because of her. When I cycled past and confronted her about it, she ignored me, kept looking straight on and drove off from the traffic lights without so much as an apology. I was rightfully very angry - I could have been seriously hurt because she wouldn't give me the space I required.
As a pedestrian I have no particular axe to grind, but I would comment that the three times I have been nearly run over were all by cyclists ignoring the rules of the road. Twice it was cyclists riding at speed through a red light on a pedestrian crossing, the other time by a cyclist - again riding at speed - on the pavement. I think cyclists should be subject to the same rules as all other road users: a licence, number plate, insurance and a tax disc.
I bridge the gap being mostly a motorbike commuter. I often have to explain to friends and family the legal right I have filtering through traffic and so I have no problems with cyclist except however when they ignore the rules, which, anecdotely, seems all too often. I frequently watch them ride through red lights. When I do take the car to work there is a small pedestrian under pass which clearly used to have a 'Cyclist dismount' notice. This never happened and the signs have been bent and twisted and now forcibly removed. The antaganism felt twoards cyclists is less to do with 'they don't pay tax' but more their lack of obeying the rules of the road which, if others did the same would quickly find themselves on the wrong side of the law.
I ride the Boris Bikes to work which is just a 10 minute trip. I have had two van drivers actually attempt to drive me off the road, one of which I could see clenching his steering wheel in anger as he drove directly at me. It got to the point where I was going to wear a camera to record these attempted assaults.
The media image of a war between cyclists and motorists seems to be - no surprise here - hugely influenced by the fact that most journalists are based in London and the cyclists there behave in a completely different fashion from those elsewhere!
A major problem with cyclists is visibility. Many times I seen cyclists on black bikes, in black clothes with a black helmet or no helmet at all. Hence they contribute to their own vulnerability.
What about cyclists' behaviour with pedestrians? Pedestrians have no protection against the rogue cyclists who ride on the pavement, jump red lights, ignore zebra crossings and go down one-way roads the wrong way. The cry is always 'poor cyclists'. What about 'poor pedestrians'?
I must admit to a few isolated instances of red-light jumping on my ride into work. I only ever do this at around 08:00 on a Sunday morning. It annoys me when other cyclists jump red lights with total disregard for everyone and everything. What are these people thinking, wearing headphones and listening to music whilst cycling through rush-hour traffic? They are truly a menace as they're not listening and they don't even look around themselves when they decide to swerve out in front of me or other traffic. Headphones/earbuds and hands-free sets should definitely be against the law, and the prohibition actively enforced.
I have a theory, unproved and perhaps unprovable, that there is a particular type of competitive and aggressive attitude to road use that is uniquely British. It affects both cyclists and motorists here, but less so in other countries, not all of which have the much-vaunted infrastructure of Holland or Germany. The gentle pace of Dutch cycling would be unacceptable to many Brit cyclists who do not feel that they are making decent progress at anything less than 20mph, easily attainably on most modern bikes on the level without being Tour de France fit. The Italians, who have a healthy cycle racing culture and whose drivers are largely considered lunatic, seem to rub along with each other on their roads happily enough.
Cycle paths are the answer. Keeps drivers and bikers apart.
I used to commute in and out of Birmingham and my experiences were similar to those described here. I was once deliberately knocked off my bike by a motorist. I got back on my bike and confronted him and he laughed in my face. I took his number plate and went to the police station that evening. I gave them a statement of the event, and the police responded by saying "...and what do you want us to do about it" - seemingly confused that I thought that it was a problem. Our lives are put at risk because people don't want to wait for us to get out of their way, or take issue with the fact we are there at all - the worst part is there are no consequences for them. It was a frightening experience, and one that I hope to never have again.


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Air Force Major Nick Noreus, Class of '98 GHS graduate & Mars One astronaut finalist, spoke to chemistry and physics classes about his personal experiences and the upcoming mission.
The Gladstone High School National Honor Society welcomed twenty-nine new members during its annual induction ceremony held on November 2nd. Membership in the organization is based on scholarship, leadership, service, and character.
Gladstone High School students participated in the recent "Plaid"stone Day
The 2014 High School Homecoming King and Queen, and the Court
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Ottertail's Smokin' Iron pulls off record-breaking event
A record-breaking Smokin' Iron event was pulled off Friday and Saturday in Ottertail, as the Region 3 Tractor Pull attracted the most ever hitches in its seven-year history.
A total of 90 pullers competed Friday and 88 Saturday, which, according to Smokin' Iron President Terry Wagenman, is over 20 more the event has ever had.
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ACCEL Adult Learner Program Awards
June 2011
A faculty member and an
adult learner
have been honored by the ACCEL adult learner program.
2011 ACCEL Excellence in Teaching Award
An ACCEL instructor for the past seven years, Dr. Art Pitz received the award for his skill in encouraging and challenging students to reach their maximum performance; ability to make learning relevant and meaningful; and capacity to engage students through innovative classroom techniques," according to the award criteria.
"We've been fortunate to have Dr. Pitz in the ACCEL Program for the past seven years," says Program Director Ruth Soedt. "In addition to his academic credentials, Dr. Pitz is highly respected for his international lectures, community involvement and innovative classroom techniques. He truly embodies the Ambrose mission of enriching lives."
Pitz holds a bachelor's degree from State University of New York at Potsdam; a master of arts in European History from Bucknell University, Lewisburg, Pa; and a doctorate in United States history from Northern Illinois University, DeKalb.
The ACCEL Outstanding Adult Student Award
Daniel Mays was honored for "contributions to the university and the community, successful balancing of work, family and school, and overcoming difficult circumstances in pursuit of education." Mays first began his undergraduate degree work in 1969, but was unable to complete his degree at that time. Currently an electrician at John Deere Davenport Works, he also manages several apartment buildings.
A Master Gardener, Mays volunteers more than 100 hours each year in that capacity. A husband and father, Mays "lives by 'The Golden Rule' and possesses an unwavering will to succeed," according to Soedt. "With less than thirty credit hours remaining, Mays will soon fulfill the promise he made to his father 40 years ago, to complete his undergraduate degree."
The Adult College Curriculum for Education and Leadership (ACCEL) Program allows students to complete their undergraduate degree while continuing to work. Accelerated courses in six degree programs are offered in multiple delivery formats in a discussion-driven, adult learning environment.
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