text:
Re: 'everyone going to a shopping centre...'
"I'm not sure making you stop for an hour where you used to stop for 2min is going to work"
Roadside diner. Welcome to 'mericuh.
5802 posts • joined 31 May 2010
"I'm not sure making you stop for an hour where you used to stop for 2min is going to work"
Roadside diner. Welcome to 'mericuh.
Wind works great...where wind works great. We have scads of it out near Crow's Nest Pass in Alberta. Cheap and reliable power.
The problem isn't the peak demand wind. It's that we still have all this goddamned coal around. What we need to be doing is tearing out our coal plants and replacing them with Nuclear. Especially in Canada! We have proven reliable technology, the best engineers and craftsmen in the world and enough Uranium to last until we can start mining asteroids for more.
At least Ontario has the Bruce Power nuke plant. Bloody hippies got the natives all riled up when Bruce tried to build one up by Athabaska and they murdered the project. Bastards.
Nuclear and Hydro for base load and wind to supply peak. That's a decent setup and it's where the bloody money should be going.
They are also dumping money into lobbying to have the law overturned. Good money bought those laws, so anyone trying to get them reversed is automatically suspect!
I've no idea. The cynic in me suspects that our dear storagebod finds Nutanix and SimpliVity to be simply outside his comfort zone. Which, in IT is exactly when it should be investigated. It's the stuff that lies outside our comfort zones that will define the future of computing.
Hey, I know great people at Maxta, Nutanix and SimpliVity. If Storagebod wants to meet and greet, I can absolutely arrange it. I think that a laying of hands needs to occur. Sitting down with this stuff and actually using it will, I believe, change the fellow's mind in a right hurry.
All of these companies offer right proper kit, damn solid and easy to use. It is not a toy. It's not a joke. It's not some attempt to grab margin from the stupid. Server SANs absolutely, without question are a critical element of the future of storage.
"Object storage verses Server SANs" will be the new "block storage versus NFS". With all the added fun that Server SANs are typically object stores in their own right! They will be the primary storage mechanism of the next 15 years, with disk arrays and filers replacing tape as an archival medium. (The age of MAID is upon us! Tremble in fear!)
That means that if you do storage for a living and you aren't learning about Object stores, ranging from Hadoop to Caringo as well as Server SANs ranging from Nutanix to Maxta then you're cutting your own throat. Your understanding of the intimate details of LUNs, cache tuning and the vagaries of the NetApp and EMC operating systems are about to mean sweet fuck all.
We've entered an era in which the storage systems don't come with nerd knobs, because we've got software smart enough to look after itself. Those people needing full-bore nerd-knobby access to everything will be in the extreme minority, and they can afford to hire a room full of PhDs to keep their precious snowflake ticking along.
The future belongs to Object projects like Swift, Server SANs like Maxta and whiteboxers like Supermicro shifting Openserver-like tin...and you can quote me on all of that. That's my prediction, and I'm sticking to it.
"Surely the value has to be in the software: so have we got so bad at building our data centres that it makes sense to pay a premium for a hardware platform?"
Wish granted. Meet Maxta. Hyper-converged infrastructure as a software-only layer.
Nutanix and SimpliVity simply remove the burden of haggling with vendors, verifying against an HCL and waiting for the HCL to catch up with new hardware. For that, they charge a price.
Is that worth money? IIRC, cher Storage bod, you are the fellow who talks about EMC, Netapp, HP and so forth like it's a good thing...and what are they doing except packaging up hardware and software and selling it as an appliance? I can buy Supermicro fully redundant arrays and add my own software. From Windows Server to Nexenta to what-have-you it's absolutely no different than turning to EMC/Netapp/HP/etc. Except that I'd be rolling and configuring my own instead of pushing an RFQ to my vendor pool.
So, do you build from Supermicro, Huawei, Quanta and so forth? Controlling every level of the stack intimately? Or do you use RFQs and your pet vendors? Why? What value do you see in EMC over Supermicro?
Now, how is that same value different from converged stacks like Nutanix or SimpliVity?
The future is here. The storage admin is non-requisite. If you want to employ one, then by all means make them work for their money and make sure they control capital costs by tightly integrating everything. However, you can just punt them out on their arse now and buy converged infrastructure, letting the virtualisation admin handle everything. Hey, with NSX they can even handle networking too.
Where's the value? In reducing headcount, or at least reassigning those same bodies to different tasks that could be producing ROI greater than the cost of having someone else do the integration for you. Same as it always was.
"I think a society of people who can 'change a tyre' is a far stronger society."
Why do I need to know how to change a tire? Tire goes flat, I call CAA and they're there in less than 1/2 hr with a spare to fix the problem. Meanwhile, I'm using that 1/2 hour to generate income by writing, checking e-mail, what-have-you. There are people who get paid to solve these problems. They specialized in solving them. Let them do their job.
Put another way: batteries going dead is "a thing" in Canada during the winter. I could whip out jumpers cables, flag a passing motorist and waste 45 minutes of both of our time trying to get the thing going...or I could call CAA, get in the queue for one of the battery trucks and wait. While I'm waiting, I'm not outside freezing my ASCII off. I'm inside, getting work done. When the truck driver arrives with his Jesus battery of ultimate jumpstarting doom, I'll pop the hood, he'll take about 30 seconds to get my car started and I'm off.
Unless you've an intention to be a developer, learning to program has no value to you.
Teaching kids to think is what social studies is for. It's where you learn the history of the world, along with it critical thinking. I don't know what kind of fucked up education system you have, but learning critical thinking was the whole fucking point of social studies for us. The ability to deconstruct our species history, to understand that logic is useful, but is only one method by which humans reason...that is what you need to be able to live and compete in this world.
You don't need to replicate that by trying to teach people "how to think" in a programming class as well. What you need to do is a better job of teaching them to think in the class that is already mandatory and designed specifically for the purpose!
As per eleventeen squillion discussions about versionning in this thread; your solution wouldn't have helped.
Detail exactly what about Libre Office requires more time input than Microsoft Office? Please also account for the time that must be spent working out the licensing required to appropriately license Microsoft Office (both in VDI and non-VDI environments, where multiple devices are involved, where more than 5 devices are involved and where devices are used both at home and in an office environment.) Additionally, factor in the time require to manage said licensing as well as the time required to generate the income to pay said licensing.
...or are you just completely full of shit?
"Microsoft Office is still miles ahead of the alternatives."
List the 'features' in Microsoft Office that I, personally, my family or my clients care about that are available in Microsoft Office that are not available in LibreOffice or Google Apps. Present a solid commercial rationale for why these features are worth the price delta on a per user basis.
Please include an analysis of the "value" of my data being made available to the NSA/GCHQ/etc on demand so that they can scan it in order to send innocents to jail and/or steal whatever innovations I may have to to give their own companies commercial advantage. Please include an exacting means by which I can ensure that closed source software - let alone American cloud-integrated stuff - is free of such snooping, should I choose not to avail myself of the "feature" of governmental integration.
If you cannot provide a credible analysis of exactly why and how Microsoft Office provides a better value than the competition, in real dollars and cents for features that I actually care about then I have only two conclusions to draw:
1) Your absolutist statements are false because they do not apply to everyone.
2) You are completely and utterly full of shit.
Please not that both conclusions are not mutually exclusive.
Prove it.
I'm guilty too. Many's the time I've written a parser from scratch because the documentation for the existing ones in the language I was using was dense enough that I felt trying to grok it would take 3x as long as just writing the thing myself...
OpenOffice didn't read it either. Had the same issues as LibreOffice.
Given the "how" this occured, I'm 100% positive that LibreOffice Writer 4.1 would have caused the same error (with the same fix) for ODF as it would have for OOXML. I'm less sure that many of the oMath or Excel errors in Word would have been the same in ODF as under OOXML, as they are most frequently issues with "order of tags" rather than "when the tags are committed". Thus it is theoretically possible that Word could write a oMath error to DOCX but not to ODF.
Either way, I'm now glad that both formats exist as they do; in a human-fixable fashion.
The oMath issue is simply the most famous (infamous) example of this. Also: lots of organizations have unpatched Office installs. I hope this encourages some folks to patch. AFAIK, Office 2003 and 2007 require hotfixes, not patches. There are still similar bugs in Excel, and for all I know the specific issue in LibreOffice has been patched by now. (She was using an older version, after all.)
This has nothing to do with which productivity suite you use. It is about how the error can occur in the format. Any application can cause it. Now you know about the error and know what to look for if/when it hits you.
If you have a religious issue with Open Source software - or Microsoft, or whomever - take it elsewhere.
I can say absolutely that virtualisation wasn't an issue here. 1) Virtualisation doesn't work that way. 2) VMs are all granted static blocks of RAM in my config. 3) Looking at the raw XML it became pretty clear that she had attempted to create a hyperlink, thought better of it and cancelled. (Asking her confirmed this.)
Which meant that LibreOffice created the <Hyperlink> tag but didn't erase it when the cancel was hit. It is likely a specific error related to trying to add a hyperlink to text that had been formatted in the way she was formatting it (blue + italics + something else.)
It absolutely isn't a glitch in the matrix, issue of the OS, hypervisor, etc. It's a bug in the code. Just like that oMath bug in Word, or the many similar ones in Excel. Some aspect of the application made a commit to the XML structure when it shouldn't have, expecting that you would then follow through with something, or that if you pressed cancel it would "un-commit" the changes made. It's a bad design choice...but apparently a reasonably common one.
If anything, this incident should be used as praise for XML-based file formats. OOXML is something that can be edited in this fashion. .DOCs could not. That's a step forward.
If we had used Dropbox instead of Sync for version control we wouldn't have version history to commit #1. It would have eventually wrapped as it jettisoned the older versions.
I agree that a proper version control system is a really good idea...but very few people have them.
Because not everyone chooses 7Zip and I was trying to write it targeted at everyone. I don't trust the native Windows Zip client to repack the document properly, so I wanted to subtly hint that getting a proper Zip client would be a good plan, however, if they chose a different client I wanted to have some instructions in the article for how they could go about getting into the file.
Wow. Jesus shit-pickling Christ, will you please get your head out of your very biased ass? Where did I - in the article or the comments - says "don't use Microsoft, use LibreOffice?"
I said "this is a class of error that at a minimum Word and Writer can and do both cause. In my case, the error was caused by Writer, but anything that writes to a DOCX can theoretically cause it, here's how you fix it."
Saying "Word does this too" is not saying "LibreOffice is better". They are distinct concepts. Saying "Word does this too" is to reinforce that this is an issue that can occur with the document format, and that any application could theoretically cause it. Or a single-byte corruption error could cause it. Or $deity knows what else.
The point is that "which productivity suite is 'better'" has absolutely no place in the discussion at all. It doesn't matter. Since both Word and Writer have been proven to cause this class of error then knowing about the class of error and how to solve it are what matter.
Take your religious issues elsewhere.
The document was open and unclosed for 30 days. It was saved repeatedly. Thus there were many versions of it in the version control document, however, the error would not be noticed until the document was closed and reopened.
In other words: the word processor - be if LibreOffice, Word, or any other that is capable of saving files with improper XML - is perfectly capable of allowing you to continue editing the document after creating the XML error, so long as you don't close and reopen the document.
This means you get as many versions as you want just by mashing the "save" icon on a regular basis, and/or using autosave...but they all will contain the error from the moment the error was introduced. Which, in this case, was around page 2.
Thus backups don't help. You have:
1) Initial document created.
2) Five saves until error is created on page two.
3) 600+ saves after that all that have [good document] + [XML error] + [more good document].
As long as it contains [XML error] it won't open.
Word does it too. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2528942/en-us
There. It's a link. It was in the article. It was in this thread. It describes an issue where Word causes exactly this kind of error, with a different object.
This is not the only error where Wor fails to write XML into OOXML formats appropriately. I am aware of at least three others.
Thus the article is not about either Word or LibreOffice. It's about the CLASS OF ERROR. Any word processor can create it. It isn't about "bashing" any particular word processor or "exhonorating" any one. They all do it, in subtly different ways.
Actually, it's worse. .doc files are binary blobs, not XML. If they had a similar weird error writing metadata to the file it would simply be corrupt and unrecoverable. That said, you can get around this in two ways:
1) Configure Office 2003 to save in DOCX/XLSX/etc.
2) Use Word 2010 and uBit menu to get the menu back. Delete all tabs that aren't "menu" from your config. Suddenly, it looks just like Office 2003!
Hell if I know. I would have thought this type of application would be pretty basic, but nothing I used could do it. The XML parser in Notepad++'s plugin store just said "error on line 2". Helpful. Visual Studio was equally useless. None of the "we'll fix your broken Word document" applications were worth a damn either.
It's really odd because if someone had written the recovery app exactly as you suggested it would have worked just fine. Market opportunity for you?
Okay, smartass, how does restore from backup save you in this situation? If you are so cosmically empowered with systems administration skills, explain to me exactly how it resolves the issue.
My "backups" in this case consisted of a complete version history right back to version one of the document, care of Sync.com. Windows Previous Versions had a copy taken twice a day, every day, since version 1. The auto-rarchiver had every fifth or sixth version of the document as it landed on the NAS. None of that helped.
The "last known good" copy of the document had only two pages of text. Thirty pages of text - about three weeks' worth of work - had been written to the document after the error was originally introduced. Using the backups would have wiped out thirty pages worth of work.
So how, exactly, do "backups" help with that?
Given the lack of reading comprehension you display attempting to read a simple article, I am convinced you are unable to read (and remain focused on) a technical document of any length. That tells me that it is you who should be retiring. Preferably to some place where they keep the electrical sockets covered and only let you use dull sporks to eat.
Seriously, is "restore from backups, job done" the level of service you give your customers? Your own wife? "No thinking about the situation, simply push the button and don't think about it." Not only must you be one of the worst sysadmins to employ but your sex life must be akin to trying to fuck a Dalek!
Really? Then why do I get more bizarre errors with Microsoft Office than anything else I use? What office package do you recommend that is absolutely reliable? This is the first error I've seen in Libre/Open Office in over a decade. I've seen a hell of a lot more out of Microsoft Office in that time...
Word does it too. This particular example involved LibreOffice, but after research I'm pretty sure every single word processor out there has at least one variant of this bug.
First time it's happened to either me or my wife in a decade. Seriously, we use persistent VDI for everything. The server's rock solid. We can just disconnect our RDP sessions and walk away. Documents are versionned to Sync.com. Who would've thought something like this could happen, eh?
Yes. You do realize that Previous Versions only triggers on a pre-set schedule or with Windows Backup, hmm? We save to Sync.com, which contains a version history of our files. The issue is that the error crept in around page 2, but we didn't realize it until page 32. Even had we gone back to the "last known good" version of the file, we would have lost 30 pages - the better part of three weeks' - worth of work.
That was explained in the article in detail. Neither Previous Versions nor Sync nor Dropbox nor any other version control mechanism could have prevented this.
I don't know who Maven is. I can compare her to my bearded dragon, however. Both are passed out on the chair absorbing sunlight. I think they're plants or something. Require sunlight to recharge...
"No excuse. Everything has bugs now and then, but committing unparseable XML to disk should not be one of them."
Word does it too. A link from the article goes here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2528942/en-us which is one of the more famous examples of Word doing this exact same thing in a subtly different way.
I have had both Word and Writer cause the issue in subtly different ways. A little bit of research on the internet shows me that every single word processor that I can think of which handles DOCX has (or had) at least one bug that can cause this error.
Thus the error is not restricted to any one product but is in fact a common style of error relating to how badly people write XML parsers.
Dropbox only keeps so many versions in history. What do you do if Word introduces the error on page 2, autosaves every minute, but you don't close word until page 32? Every single save in the dropbox history would have the error.
Remember: these errors can be introduced, but go unnoticed until you close the application and attempt to re-open the document.
Besides, if your last good version was "two pages of text" you are going to want that last 30 pages!
If the ISP doesn't get to charge at least two different companies, maybe three or four, for the same bit of data then society has obviously failed, Google will kill babies and pirates are responsible for all of it. Anyone who disagrees is obviously lacking in understanding of economics, morality and ethics.
Most people only need the most basic of tasks. Chromebooks are a mass market item. For everything else, there's OSX.
Yeah, going to go with downvoted due to {"Fact": [Google's] dominance in...online video}.
There is plenty of rich competition in the online video field, even if we are talking about Youtube. Youtube isn't exactly a competitor to Netflix, and Movies is an afterthought compared to them, or to iTunes. Youtube owns the cat video market, but even there had good competition.
Google is nowhere near being able to leverage a "monopoly" or even a "dominant position" in online video to do much of anything. Certainly not to make an OS dominant. This is not Microsoft leveraging an OS monopoly to force a shitty browser down everyone's throat.
Not yet, anyways.
Google has Netflix, Apple, Amazon and even Microsoft to content with yet, and the battle hasn't even begun, let alone is anywhere close to over.
"You can get a basic Windows 8 laptop for very little more - if you don't mind "refurbished", for considerably less - but that isn't really the point."
And it's running Windows 8. That's trading in a Civic for a Lada and calling it an upgrade.
"Returned my Chromebook within 7 days and got a proper laptop"
So, a Macbook running OSX?
Unless the customer themselves are assholes - I.E. sociopathic or possessed of an intolerable personality - then I would treat the 10,000 unit customer the exact same as the 1 unit customer. The rationale is simple, and based in raw economics:
1) End customers and SMBs are used to getting the short end of the stick. Treat them well and they will tell others.
2) Today's 1 unit customer is tomorrow's 10,000 unit customer. Businesses grow and change, and I think past the end of this quarter.
3) I would rather have 100x 100-unit customers than one 10,000 unit customer. I don't like the idea of all my income being dependent on one (or a small collection of) businesses/individuals. That gives them massive amounts of power over me, and I went into business so that I could RAID 6 my income.
Treat people decently and they'll keep coming back, often times with a friend. Treat people like shit and word about that will spread a dozen times as fast. Or, put simply: obey Wheaton's law...
...don't be a dick.
Ah, LDS. Still beating your drum of "fuck poor people in the ass with a pineapple grenade", eh? If you aren't big, you don't matter.
Smoochies to you too, baby.
If I path my LAMP server I don't need to reboot. If I patch my Windows server I always need to reboot. So please get [censored] and [censored] yourself to biological termination*.
Microsoft makes good stuff, but it isn't better than FLOSS by any means. More to the point, all the stuff that once made Microsoft good is stuff they've outright abandoned. Easy of use being the big one.
Besides, the biggest issue with Microsoft isn't just how they are steadily making their stuff worse than previous iterations, it is that you cannot trust the company's business practices. Not as an end user nor as a "partner." Even more so when we start talking about integration of NSA backdoors into the products and services!
I certainly don't want NSA backdoors in anything I use. I'm sure there are some in the FLOSS apps and servers I use...but one by one they are being audited, cleaned, patched and so forth. The community's eyes have been opened and the problem is getting solved.
The problem can never be solved with Microsoft. There will never be a point at which Microsoft products or services are free of US government surveillance. There will never be a point at which Microsoft products and services are safer and more secure from those I consider to be my security concerns than FLOSS.
What's more, FLOSS has become the easier to administer option. Both have shitty UIs for everything, and both are basically "use scripts and command line to get anything done." But FLOSS has Webmin, and Puppet works like a hot damn. FLOSS can have most things patched without reboots and most changes applied live. Microsoft's stuff can't.
So yeah. take your shit elsewhere, or at least man the fuck up and use a name, instead of abusing the Anonymous Coward mechanism in these forums.
*An overkill desire, perhaps, for your comment taken in isolation...but I am really rather sick of you. Especially given that you refuse to put your name to your sycophantic bullshit.
It's Google's network, so they can do whatever they want. There's no reason they can't provide a "fast lane" for those who pay, isn't there? And why should they have to put up with unions? Unions are the source of all evil by allowing collective bargaining!
Oh wait...
So, how can you have it both ways, hmm? Be anti network neutrality (the network belongs to the ISPs, they can do whatever they want!) but all heap big angry at Google, who is doing nothing different?
How can you be anti-union, but pro indie cartel? It's perfectly okay for the indie companies to try to band together and bargain collectively, but the ruination of society itself if human beings do it to protect their labour?
There's a lot of "defend the
fatherland established power structures" here, with a lot of hatred directed towards those who have managed to carve a new niche out for themselves in the world. Perhaps most of the griping is simply a chronic dislike of change itself...or perhaps some rage over not having invested enough in Google at the outset.
Nobody is in the right here.
Google are offering substantially worse terms to the indies. They are also kowtowing to the majors who are asking for (frankly) some insane terms that are utter bullshit. Google shouldn't be giving the majors those terms or the indies. Both the Indies and the majors are trying to dictate to Google how Google's own marketplace will work and that's equally bullshit. If they don't want to use Google's market they can fuck right the hell off an make their own.
The proper way through this is to set one set of terms that applies to everyone. Those terms should be sweet enough that the content creators want to shift their content through the market but not so sweet that the content creators get the run of the place.
In a perfect world, the goal is to replace the labels entirely, with the new markets that are emerging being a cheap and easy way for creators to access an audience. Of course, creators need to not be able to be isolated in a divide-and-conquer fashion by those who own the market, so some form of collective bargaining needs to be possible.
It's about balance. The creators shouldn't get to run roughshod over the distribution channels or the end customer. Neither should the distribution channel dictate terms to both sides, and the end customer shouldn't have an expectation of getting content from either the creator or the distributor for free.
The problem here is that people with power - and by that I mean not only those with money, but the pundits with vast audiences who influence public and political opinion - have all picked one camp and evangelize the power and grace of their chosen tribe. Half the world is off bitching about the poor, starving creators, or the poor beleaguered middlemen or the inherent "right" of the end customer to get everything for free.
The other half is trying to insert themselves in the middle as yet another layer of middlemen that should have a "right" to not merely some of the profits, but somehow most of the profits. How many middlemen do we need? There are labels, markets, CDNs, backhaul providers, last mile providers, software developers, various government agencies and device manufacturers all trying to be middlemen.
Well it's the 21st fucking century. This can go Creator --> Market --> End customer. A market like Google can handle everything from advertising to electronic distribution to the last mile to the device. We don't need layers upon layers of middlemen all creating artificial scarcity in order to bleed money from the stone of an increasingly impoverished end customer.
What we need is to take as many middlemen as possible - starting with labels - out back and putting two in the head and three in the chest. We need mechanisms so that creators can bargain collectively without labels, but that prevent this collective bargaining from getting too much power.
Balance. Find it, maintain it. But this ridiculous posturing where the chosen tribe of every mouthpiece with the soapbox should have ultimate power and everyone else can scrounge for crumbs needs to end. We all gotta eat, so stop trying to screw everyone around you and work cooperatively for a fucking change!
"extra cost of storing it themselves"? Storing it yourself is cheaper.
The important category is "other." All those startups that are so readily disparaged by the fanboois of the big array vendors? They are not all crap. And people with money to spend know it.
Where do I stand on them? Palo Alto Networks > *.
I this the better question is how many of us haven't worn a hat that is other than white. My youth was spent as one of the few technologically savvy fellows in my city during the 80s and 90s. There were hijinks.
But you grow up. You realize that while blackhatting may be fun, exhilarating and a boost to the ego, it's also a very real risk. As you get older you get a wife, possibly kids, pets, a mortgage; there are people that depend on you and they could be in a bad way if you were to end up in jail.
I think that's natural. I think that pure white hats are exceptionally rare...but that most companies (and even governments) don't require them. The lighter shade of grey is just fine, even if the only "black" in your hat is tacitly ignoring the "dark deeds" done by your contacts (and friends) amongst the information systems penetration community.
Those who never had the bug, who never had the curiosity to know how things work...they'll never understand. It is the curiosity which drives; "how is that designed" and "can I get around it?" It can make one into a notorious hacker, or a brilliant engineer.
The difference between one and the other is having learned enough life lessons to channel the curiosity into something beneficial...most of the time, at least.
Now you can have all the security of a single, big fat target and it will cost more. Thanks, cloud computing!
I care. If the device is capable of emitting 300fps and is capped at 60fps then it's idle for goodly chunks of time. That means those transistors can be powered down between frames, or spend their time doing something else. It probably means that system gets way better battery life than some system that is struggling with all it's might to hit the 60fps barrier.
No they haven't. Cisco engineers, SEs and sales twits are all over Twitter spewing forth overwhelming quantities of contempt and arrogance for all and sundry. Cisco has a hell of a lot more housecleaning to do before they're a humble, customer-focused company.
"Emulating an emotional response will seem like total insincerity by the observer, leading to annoyance and eventually violence, when the perceived response is seen as some kind of robot sarcasm."
A robot that can simulate emotion is still more human than many people I've met. Besides, how do you know you're not just "simulating emotion" by displaying reactions you have observed to be socially contextually relevant? You have a chemical reaction that occurs in your brain that triggers the behavior patterns? How's that different from a subroutine?
You're a machine. The robot's a machine. Based on your posts, I daresay it has a chance of being the better machine.
"How can anyone take open source seriously when major bits of software are managed by pouty children?"
Because I've met many of the assholes in charge of some of the most important closed source software...and I trust the pouty children far more.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Current Events
While attending an Iftar party organised by Ramdas Athavale, chief of Republican Party of India, at Mumbai's Haj House Union Minister of State for Minority Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said that madrasas "are a reality of India" and went on to add that on behalf of the union government he has assured the madrasas that they are in favour of education for all and there will be no dearth of funds. Naqvi also said that it was erstwhile Congress government that excluded Madrasas from the ambit of formal school category and also assured that his government at the centre will consider including these educational centres under Right to Education Act's mainstream educational system. Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi's comment come at a time when confusion surfaced after Maharashtra government decided to classify madrasa students who were not taught mainstream subjects and but only Islamic scriptures as "out-of-school".
United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) adopted a resolution that condemned Israel on the basis of the UN Inquiry Commission report in the Operation Protective Edge in Gaza. 41 countries voted in favour of the resolution, US voted against it, and 5 countries (India, Ethiopia, Kenya, Macedonia, and Paraguay) abstained from voting. Though Israeli media marked India's abstention from voting as their "unprecedented achievement", Ministry of External Affairs issued statement that India still maintains its "long standing position on support to the Palestinian cause". Israeli PM Netanyahu criticized UNHRC by saying they are not interested in facts or human rights as he alleges the resolution condemned targeting of innocents by Israel but completely ignored rocket fire by Hamas. Indian officials say reference to International Criminal Court, not recognised by India, made it abstain from voting. PM Modi is all set to visit Israel in late 2015 or early 2016.
China has given specific proposal to India for discussing the difference both the countries have on the release of Mumbai attack mastermind Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi by Pakistan during joint mechanism on counter-terrorism meeting, expected to take place in second half of 2015. Chinese Foreign Ministry's Deputy Director General of the Asian Affairs Department, Huang Xilian, said that both countries are victims of terrorism, both oppose all forms of terrorism, and the work is going well in field of countering terrorism. In the matter of specific issues in multilateral institutions, Huang said that it requires further discussion so that both the countries "can have better understanding and can work closely on it". China's comment comes days after Asoke Mukherjee, India's Permanent Representative to the UN, wrote to Jim McLay (Chair of the UN Sanctions Committee) on violation of 1267 UN resolution by China on Lakhvi's release by a Pakistan court.
A Qatar-based leading lender, Doha Bank, has said that in keeping up with the projected high growth story of Indian economy, they are aiming to enhance their Indian exposure in the coming 2 to 3 years from the current $2.4 billion to $ 5-6 billion. Reports say that Doha Bank has decided to focus on multiple sectors including infrastructure finance, funding to big corporate to fulfill their working capital needs, contract finance, real estate, trade and services. CEO of Doha Bank, R Seetharaman, said the Indian economy is currently on a revival path and the measures announced by government are expected to push the economic growth way above the projected 7-7.6 per cent growth rate. Doha Bank, which also finances Indian companies for investing in Gulf projects, is planning to open two more Indian offices, in addition to the existing two in Mumbai and one in Kochi.
Giving huge boost to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's pet project "Make in India" initiative, Japanese electronics behemoth Sony is learnt to be entering into a contract-manufacture deal with Taiwanese electronics part manufacturer Foxconn for manufacturing their products in India itself. Sources say that this decision has been taken as various incentives provided by Government of India to foreign investors in setting up their manufacturing base here led Foxconn to set up multiple facilities in India. However, confirmed reports say that Sony is not starting its manufacturing unit in India as of now. Kenichiro Hibi, Managing Director of Sony India, has said that they haven't taken a final decision yet but considering various ways of making in India and one of the major possibilities is surely contract manufacturing. Reports say that Foxconn has chosen Andhra Pradesh's Sri City to set up facility for manufacturing Sony's products.
Raghuram Rajan, RBI Governor, said during a board meeting that due to little exposure of Indian economy to European countries, effect of Greece crisis in India will be limited. He went on to add that in terms of trade and finance, India's exposure to Greece is "very, very limited". He specifically mentioned that initially after confronting adverse effects, if any, volatility can be witnessed but after sometime the investors will start to differentiate and will find out that the India story is actually strong. Rajan went on to say that growth prospects are healthy and macro economic policies are good as well. However, he acknowledged that there can be some effect of Greek crisis on exchange rate, depending upon effect of the crisis on Euro. RBI governor vouched for strong Indian story by claiming that the buffers including the foreign exchange one are quite reasonable.
Science and Technology
BSNL has come of age with the changing times. The company launched pre-paid card linked mobile wallet service named Speed Pay that will help customers make payment for services, transfer money, and withdraw cash up to Rs. 1 lakh. Reports say a person can use this wallet for loading money even if he/she does not possess a bank account. The loaded money can be withdrawn from either a BSNL outlet or bank branch and can be transferred to a bank account. While inaugurating the service, Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said that PM Modi once asked him whether people of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar working in Tamil Nadu and Kerala can transfer money to their families back home. Prasad added that this wallet service is a significant step towards that direction. Speed Pay has been launched by BSNL by partnering with IT company Pyro.
Science and Technology
Director General of external affairs ministry, Santosh Jha, has told UN General Assembly that internet surveillance practices, done for security reasons, needs accountable and truly transparent framework so that a balance can be struck between national security and internationally recognised human rights standards. He stressed on the point for "better protection of all citizens in the online environment". Jha said this during review of implementation of the recommendations done during World Summit on Information Society. MEA's proposal to the UN comes at a time when the world is criticising US for carrying on mass surveillance not only on suspected criminals and terrorists but also on French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Interestingly, even as Jha was speaking at UN General Assembly, Wikileaks disclosure said that National Security Agency (NSA) of US carried out telephone surveillance on German officials.
Science and Technology
Ratan Tata, industry icon and Chairman Emeritus of Tata Sons, has yet again made undisclosed investment in Ola Cabs, which is one of the fastest growing taxi hiring companies in India. Just like the other investments made earlier in start-up companies, investment here is also made by Ratan Tata in his personal capacity. Co-founder of Ola Cabs, Bhavish Aggarwal, said that it is their honour to have Ratan Tata among board of investors and added that they want to learn from the renowned octogenarian and industry behemoth for becoming "a world class organisation from India". Reports say that Ratan Tata's investment comes months after DST Global invested $400 million in Ola. In his personal capacity, Ratan Tata has till now invested in 10 companies. It all started with investment in Snapdeal (August 2014) and latest three investments being made in Xiaomi, Kaaryah, and Ola Cabs.
Indian men's hockey team was ousted from Hockey World League by the hosting country Belgium in the semi-final match played at Antwerp's Brasschaat Municipal Park. Belgium humiliated India 4-0. Three goal scored by Belgium's Florent Van Aubel made the game a no-match. The second goal on behalf of Belgium was scored by Tanguy Cosyns. The hosts played smart and put pressure on India at the very beginning of the game by scoring their first goal at 2nd minute of first quarter of the match. India's Satbir Singh got a golden opportunity to level the score but a brilliant save by stopper Vincent Vanasch denied the equaliser. It was Tanguy Cosyns who scored the second goal to help Belgium lead by 2-0 at 8th minute of the game. In the 41st and 53rd minute of the game Van Aubel scored the third and fourth goals.
India wrestling fraternity received a huge blow yesterday when two times Olympic medallist and ace Indian wrestler Sushil Kumar opted out of the World Championship, to be played from September 7 to September 12 in Las Vegas, after he sustained shoulder injury. The most noteworthy point here is that the World Championship is going to be the first tournament of qualification for Rio Olympics of 2016. While talking to the media Sushil said that he sustained the injury during his practice session and he has been advised by the doctors of taking rest. He added that he is not aware of the time it will take to heal the injury completely but said that he is taking good care of it. Reports say that after the World Championship, there will be 6 more qualification tournaments to the Rio Olympics and they will start from March 2016.
World No. 13 Indian Woman Hockey Team kept alive hopes of qualifying for the Olympic by defeating World No. 16 Italy at KHC Dragons Stadium in Antwerp at semi-final match of Women's Hockey World League. The final score in favour of the Indian hockey eves is 5-4. India is currently fighting to secure a place in the 5th to 8th position. In the regulation 1 hour game, India tied with Italy. It was followed by shoot-out but it also ended in a 4-4 tie out of the 5 shots both the teams received. India emerged as the winner only in the ensuing sudden-death when Italy's Giuliana Ruggieri failed to net the ball and India's Rani Rampal put the ball right where it needed to be. India will now play for 5th or 6th position on Saturday with the winner of Belgium and Japan.
BJP lawmaker and yesteryear actor, 66-year old 'Dreamgirl' Hema Malini, whose chauffeur-driven Mercedes rammed on a Maruti Suzuki Alto killing a 4-year old girl child, has been discharged from hospital after undergoing a surgery of wounds and treatment for minor nose fracture. Fortis Hospital's spokesperson said that the actress was discharged at 9.30am IST today on the request of her family. Prima facie police report says that Hema's car was over-speeding at the time of accident on Jaipur-Agra national highway near Dausa. Mahesh Chand Thakur, driving Hema Malini's car, was arrested by Rajasthan police and was kept at Dausa's Kotwali Thana. FIR was filed and produced before Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Pallavi Sharma before being released on bail.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will go on a 5-nation visit in Central Asia next week. The countries he is scheduled to visit are Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. The tour will concentrate on securing counter terrorism cooperation and strengthen relation between the countries, on the other. PM Modi also seeks to revive the close relation India has with Central Asia since 3rd millennium B.C. Archaeological evidences point out that trade contacts were there between people of Indus civilization and those living in Central Asia during Bronze Age. Author Amiya Chandra says that the three major objectives of India to establish relation with Central Asian countries are to ensure energy security, prevent terrorism, and maintain stability and peace. NSA Ajit Doval already visited Iran in February 2015 and held talks. Asif Ibrahim, ex-IB Director, was sent as special envoy to the Central Asian countries recently.
Enforcement Directorate Ahmedabad, for the first time ever, attached US properties in California, which is around 1,280 acres, in order to recover money in relation to bank loan fraud. Reports say that the property attachment was done to recover Rs. 2,200 crore funds that Zoom Developers along with the now absconding promoter Vijay Chaudhary took from banks to carry out multiple projects in European nations. The concerned company siphoned off the entire money and didn't invest in any of the projects mentioned. Sharad Kabra, one of the Directors of Zoom Developers, has been arrested in May 2015 and is in judicial custody currently. Reports say that this is the biggest ever bank fraud ever and the ED officials say that involvement of bank officials in the fraud can't be denied. It is learnt that the market value of the attached US properties is worth Rs. 1,000 crore.


text:
- Prep Time: 20 min
- Cook Time:
- Total Time: 20 min
- Serves: 6 servings
This warm pudding has a marvelous deep chocolaty flavor, but it's low in fat and super-quick to make. Don't skimp on the quality of cocoa with this one—treat yourself to the good stuff.
Contributed by: EatingWell.com


text:
New York City: Bridges & Tunnels
Welcome to our bridges and tunnels page. There are about nine entries and exit points how to get in and out on Long Island. Below are detailed information and reference that we've specially made on these bridges and tunnels.
Verrazano Narrows Bridge
- Brooklyn Bridge
- Brooklyn Battery Tunnel
- Manhattan Bridge
- Midtown Tunnel
- Queensboro Bridge
- Throgs Neck Bridge
- Triborough Bridge
- Verrazano Narrows Bridge
- Whitestone Bridge
- Williamsburg Bridge
Most people considered the very first bridge (made by nature) as simple as a fallen log that crossed a river in which people and even animals could pass through. Later, people had the idea to improve these structures by using spans of wooden logs or planks and eventually stones, using a simple support and crossbeam arrangement. Most of these early bridges could not support heavy weights or withstand strong currents. It was these inadequacies which led to the development of better bridges. The ancient Romans were the first people to built arch bridges and aqueducts, in some of which still stand today. These arch based bridges could stand in conditions that would damage or destroy more primitive designs. Today, there are about six main types of bridges such as beam bridges, cantilever bridges, arch bridges, suspension bridges, cable-stayed bridges, and truss bridges.
For water crossings, a tunnel is generally more costly to construct than a bridge. Navigational considerations may limit the use of high bridges or drawbridge spans intersecting with shipping channels, necessitating a tunnel. It was originally a hand-dug structure by several ancient civilizations in the Indian and Mediterranean regions. In addition to digging tools and copper rock saws, fire was sometimes used to heat a rock obstruction before dousing it with water to crack it apart.
Tunnels are relatively in small-diameter which carry utility lines or function as pipelines. They are basically used to transport people by rail or by automobile often comprising of two or three large, parallel passages for opposite-direction traffic, service vehicles, and emergency exit routes. In comparison to bridges, tunnels (water-crossing) has an advantage in minimizing difficulties with tides, weather and shipping during construction, aesthetic reasons, and also for weight capacity reasons. As for bridges, they usually require a larger footprint on each shore than tunnels.
This page is about NYC Bridges and Tunnels. You can find a list of bridges and tunnels visiting our Bridges and Tunnels section. There are about nine entry and exit points to get in and out on Long Island.


text:
'Studio 60' Star Gives Birth to Girl
The actress and her husband, screenwriter David Benioff, welcomed a baby girl on Tuesday, Feb. 20, reports People.
The girl is named Frances Pen and weighted 6 lbs., 10 oz. at birth. This is the first child for the couple.
"Amanda and her daughter are resting comfortably," Peet's rep says.
The couple got engaged last July and were married in September in
Benioff, 36, is a screenwriter who wrote "25th Hour" and "Troy." He's apparently tapped to pen the script for "Wolverine," the upcoming "X-Men" spinoff.
Peet, 35, is mainly known for her film resume that includes "The Whole Nine Yards" and its sequel, "Saving Silverman," "Something's Gotta Give," "Melinda and Melinda," "A Lot Like Love" and the upcoming four-hankerchief weepie "Griffin and Phoenix" opposite
On TV, she appeared on "C.P.W.," "Seinfeld," "Spin City" and starred on "Jack & Jill."


text: Intelle-Search is a total Internet solutions provider. We have assembled top level people in the industry, pulled them all under one roof and are able to supply all your Internet needs. Our highly skilled technical staff work using the most up to date methods whether it is to design a website, integrate a highly sophisticated data base to provide you with the information your company needs to operate and produce a top ROI, set up a easily functioning shopping cart, integrate natural optimization into your present website or manage your pay per click program


text:
Visit our other Wisconsin Historical Society websites!
Refine or narrow your results by clicking any term in the gray boxes below.
Expand your results by removing any breadcrumb in a gray outlined box above. Click on the blue "X" to remove the term.
Narrow your results by entering a keyword into the search box above. Then click the "Search Within" checkbox, then click on the orange "Search" button.
If you did not find what you are looking for or you did not get any results, try changing your search term(s). See our Search Help page for more tips.
Description: Exterior view of the Methodist Episcopal Church. The church was dedicated by Bishop Fellows.
Date: 1922
Description: Dedication of the Pecatonica Battleground marker, erected by the Rhoda Hinsdal Chapter of the Daughters of the Revolution of Shullsburg and by the town of...
Date: 1954 ca.
Description: Masonic Temple marker to commemorate the first Masonic Temple erected in Wisconsin, built in 1845. The marker and temple were moved in 1950 from the town t...
Date: 1836
Description: Lots to be sold at auction by Van Antwerp and Van Dyke on Monday, 3rd Oct. 1836.
Description: This map of Belmont includes notarization from the justice of the peace of Iowa County, May 15, 1836, acknowledging John Atchison as proprietor of Belmont...
Date: 1905 ca.
Description: View of Water Street, looking west from the corner of Judgement Street.
Date: 1882
Description: Note from Albert Pool, surveyor for the village of Dunbarton in Lafayette County, as appears on the reverse of the Village of Dunbarton plat map. Pool cert...
Description: Side view of window and side door on Father Mazzuchelli's chapel.
Date: 1932 ca.
Description: Esther Peterson, a student at Mud Branch School, District No. 2, poses leaning against a tree on a hill while holding a baseball bat. There is a road and f...
Date: 1876 ca.
Description: Probably one of the "Three different views of the village of Argyle, Wis." mentioned in Dahl's 1877 "Catalogue of Stereoscopic Views." Two men sit in a hay...
Description: Exterior view of the Shullsburg Brewery with a car parked in front of the building.
Date: 1957-08
Description: "Stairway to a Champ" float in a parade. The float includes the five cars raced by Van Steiner of Argyle along with his helmets and trophies.
Van won t...
Date: 1870 ca.
Description: Council House of the first Wisconsin Territorial Legislature when it met at Belmont in 1836. A young boy or man wearing a hat stands in front near a fence.
Description: The Pecatonica Battlegound marker, erected by the Rhoda Hinsdale Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution of Shullsburg and by the town of Wiota...
Date: 1876
Description: A stereo view perhaps taken at the same time as the "Three different views of the village of Argyle, Wis." mentioned in Dahl's 1877 "Catalogue of Stereosco...
Date: 1930 ca.
Description: Pecatonica Battleground.
Date: 1920 ca.
Description: Exterior view of the Masonic temple. The facade features a balcony, columns, and a cross gable roof.
Description: Exterior view of St. Mathew's Church.
Description: Front view of Father Mazzuchelli's chapel.
If you didn't find the material you searched for, our Library Reference Staff can help.
Call our reference desk at 608-264-6535 or email us at:
© 1996-2015 Wisconsin Historical Society, 816 State Street, Madison, WI 53706


text:
Zoellick said the Development Committee endorsed his call for a "New Deal for Global Food Policy" that would aim to boost agricultural productivity in poor nations, improve access to food through schools or work places and help small farmers.
He said earlier this month the bank would nearly double the money it lends for agriculture in Africa from $450 million to $800 million.
Zoellick said he had received positive feedback from his proposal to have sovereign wealth funds — huge pools of capital controlled by governments — invest one percent of their resources in Africa. He said this could draw $30 billion to African growth.
He said the bank was following up the proposal in discussions with countries that have sovereign wealth funds, mainly in Asia and the Middle East, through the International Finance Corporation, the bank's private sector arm.
"Hunger, malnutrition and food policy have formed a recurrent theme at this weekend's meetings, and I believe that we have made progress," Zoellick said. "But it will be important to continue to retain the focus on this as we leave Washington."


text:
Thanks for redeeming.{{else}}
Success! Thanks for repurchasing.{{/if}} {{else}} {{#if Expired}}
Increase my visibility!{{else}} {{#if IsMultiPack}}
{{#if HasMultiPack}} You have {{MultiPackCount}} top spot(s) left. Now loading you into the search listings... {{else}} You have used all top spots. Now loading you into the search listings... {{/if}}{{else}}
We are loading you into the search listing pages...{{/if}} {{/if}} {{/if}} {{/if}}
{{Current}} just saw you!{{/if}} {{#if LastTopSpotPurchaseIsMulti }} {{#if HasAnyTopSpot}}
{{#if HasFreeTopSpot }} {{ UnclaimedTopSpotFree }} Free {{/if}} {{#if HasPaidTopSpot }} {{#if HasFreeTopSpot }} & {{/if}} {{ MultiPackCount }} {{/if}} Top Spot{{#if Plural}}s{{/if}} Left{{else}}
0 Top Spot{{#if Plural}}s{{/if}} Left{{/if}} {{else}} {{#if HasFreeTopSpot }}
{{ UnclaimedTopSpotFree }} Top Spot{{#if Plural}}s{{/if}} Left{{/if}} {{/if}} {{else}} {{#if HasResults}}
{{Current}} see you now!{{else}} {{/if}} {{/if}}
You can now invite anyone to meet at your favorite Starbucks.
Limited-time feature
61 year old man | Encinitas, CA, USA | Seeking women 52-59 within 20 miles
Active within 3 days
Head in the Clouds, feet on the ground.
Looking forward; what I seek is someone kind, whose sense of humor is sophisticated yet slapstick at the same time, is confident in herself and comfortable in her own skin. She will have a sense of engaging in everything she does and communicates her likes and to the maximum extent possible does not leave me guessing about her dislikes. She will have a world view, and is curious about art, architecture, photography, literature, nature, hiking, skiing and holds strong opinions. She should be flexible, but not to the point that she compromises her values. In short, be herself at all times. I am by nature quiet, can be intense and focused, usually an early riser, and looking forward to slowing work down a tad. I believe there is nothing better than a good laugh. Unfortunately, I do laugh at slapstick but also appreciate irony and clever wit. I am not morose although I do reflect on things. I feel empathy for those who are being exploited from either a personal or professional standpoint. I like animals, but they should be well behaved and not the entire focus of the owner, we are humans and need each other as well. I enjoy many things, from walking the dog, to a hike in the woods, to flying and playing team sports, I have made a recent effort to return to music, and enjoy most all music except one particular type. You can probably guess. I appreciate all that I have and am thankful for the long term friends that I have, I have recently returned to health and have rededicated that as my first priority. I do believe in nothing ventured nothing gained.
Camping , Business networking , Dining out , Hobbies and crafts , Movies/Videos , Museums and art , Music and concerts , Exploring new areas , Performing arts , Playing sports , Political interests , Travel/Sightseeing
Baseball, Cycling, Golf, Running, Skiing, Swimming, Tennis / Racquet sports, VolleyBall, Walking / Hiking
I exercise 3-4 times per week.
I don't believe in astrology
I like Cats, Dogs
Middle of the Road
Anything in New York, Yellowstone
Travel off the beaten path, walking on the beach near my home, and I like to play baseball, sometimes I fly
Skiing at Jackson Hole, music at the BUT, quiet drive up and down 101, motorcycle adventure touring (Alaska and Canada)
Read the New Yorker weekly, peruse CNN on line daily, reading the Civil War by Foote now...need a good novel, any ideas? Just finished the Liberation Trilogy
Z{{Cta}} {{#if HasMoreInfo}} ?{{CtaSecondary}} {{/if}}
|What he is looking for
|6'0" (182cms)
|5'2" (157cms) to 8'11" (271cms)
|Body type:
|About average
|Slender, About average, Curvy, Athletic and toned, A few extra pounds
|I'll tell you later
|No preference
|Auburn / Red, Black, Light brown, Dark brown, Blonde, Salt and pepper, Silver, Dark blonde, Grey, Platinum
|No Way
|No Way
|Social Drinker
|Never, Social Drinker, Moderately
|I'll tell you later
|Technical / Science / Computers / Engineering
|I'll tell you later
|No preference
|Never Married, Widow / Widower, Divorced
|Have kids:
|Yes, and they live away from home (1)
|Yes, and they sometimes live at home
|Wants kids:
|No, but it's OK if my partner has kids
|No, but it's OK if my partner has kids
|White / Caucasian
|Asian, Latino / Hispanic, White / Caucasian
I am an American, although can trace back to about 1840 in this country from Ireland, England, Scotland, Germany, Sweden and Norway. Phew!
|Spiritual but not religious
|No preference
|English, Spanish
|Graduate degree
|Some college, Bachelors degree, Graduate degree, PhD / Post Doctoral


text:
Graduate program director
Additional contact
Richard F. Huff, Ph.D.
Director of graduate studies, Wilder School
(804) 828-6837
Program website: wilder.vcu.edu/academic/pubpolicy.html
Refer to the program search feature of the online VCU Bulletins for a complete listing of all programs, concentrations and related curricular options.
Public Policy and Administration, Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) with a concentration in criminal justice policy
Public Policy and Administration, Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) with a concentration in public administration
Public Policy and Administration, Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) with a concentration in public policy
Public Policy and Administration, Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) with a concentration in urban and regional policy
Apply online at graduate.admissions.vcu.edu.
Public Policy and Administration, Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)
of entry:
Dec 15 for assistantships
Jan 30 final date for admission consideration
GRE, GMAT, MAT or LSAT
International applicants TOEFL
|Special requirements: master's degree, J.D. or M.D. from an accredited university. Graduate assistantships are only awarded for fall admission. For students wishing to be considered for a limited number of fellowships, materials must be received no later than Dec. 15. Spring admissions are considered exceptions and will be considered on a case-by-case basis.
Admission is open to qualified persons without regard to age, physical disability, national origin, race, religion or gender. Admission is competitive. The admission process is intended to assure a reasonable fit between the student's professional and research interests and faculty expertise. Consequently, otherwise qualified applicants may be denied admission.
In addition to the general admission requirements of the VCU Graduate School, applicants to the program must hold a master's degree or a recognized post-baccalaureate degree in one of the professions such as law or medicine from an accredited institution of higher education. A standardized test score, fewer than five years old, is required. Accepted examinations include the Graduate Record Examination, the Graduate Management Admissions Test, the Miller Analogies Test and the Law School Admissions Test. Professional experience is not required, but is considered desirable.
In order to apply for admission to the Ph.D. in Public Policy and Administration program, prospective students must submit:
Admission standards
Applicants are evaluated based on the entire admission package; however, the following provides some guidelines for a competitive application.
|200-800 scale (old)
|130-170 scale (new)
|Minimum total
|Minimum total
The primary admission deadline is Jan. 30 for enrollment to begin the following fall semester; however, materials must be received no later than Dec.15 from those students wishing to be considered for assistantships. A small number of special admissions may be offered (Oct.15 application deadline) for entry the following spring semester; however, these are considered on a case-by-case basis. Assistantships are only offered to those offered full-time admission in the fall. Applicants who wish to be considered for the Oct.15 deadline must include a letter requesting and justifying early admission. If the request for early consideration is not accepted, the application will be held over to the Jan. 30 application deadline for consideration for the following fall admission.
While VCU Graduate School policy allows up to six credit hours of course work to be taken as a nondegree-seeking student prior to formal admission, taking such courses in no way guarantees admission to the program. Also, transfer credit hours are only considered for elective courses. Core courses must be taken at VCU.
Application information is available from the L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs Office of Graduate Advising or the Graduate Admissions Office. International applicant information and materials are available from International Admissions.
The VCU Graduate Bulletin website documents the official admission and academic rules and regulations that govern graduate education for all graduate programs at the university. These policies are established by the graduate faculty of the university through their elected representatives to the University Graduate Council.
It is the responsibility of all graduate students, both on- and off-campus, to be familiar with the VCU Graduate Bulletin as well as the Graduate School website and academic regulations in individual school and department publications and on program websites. However, in all cases, the official policies and procedures of the University Graduate Council, as published on the VCU Graduate Bulletin and Graduate School websites, take precedence over individual program policies and guidelines.
General academic regulations for
all graduate students in all graduate programs at VCU
The mission of the Ph.D. in Public Policy and Administration program is to provide students with the knowledge and skills that will enable them to conduct original and scholarly research in academic institutions, governmental agencies and public policy research institutions. The purpose of the program is to prepare students for scholarly and leadership roles in government, universities, research organizations and other settings where knowledge and research skills in public policy and administration are needed. The doctoral program is committed to accomplishing this mission by creating an intellectually vibrant atmosphere for scholarship involving an active faculty from a broad spectrum of academic disciplines and substantial interaction with government agencies and community groups.
The doctoral program is structured around a core curriculum and four areas of concentration. The curriculum is designed to provide a sound intellectual foundation for the pursuit of scholarly research in areas of public policy, urban and regional policy, public administration and criminal justice policy. Students will select a concentration after the first year of study and after passing the comprehensive examination.
In addition to general VCU Graduate School graduation requirements, students take a minimum of 45 graduate credit hours of course work and dissertation research in addition to any prerequisites that might be necessary. Five of these courses are part of the core, and at least four are concentration courses. The remaining three electives are to be taken outside the concentration with additional methodology courses highly recommended. Required courses generally will be available on an evening or weekend schedule.
Course work in the Ph.D. program has a strong orientation toward research, both applied and theoretical. Where appropriate, course work may be linked to funded university projects or to external agency-based analytical work. Courses emphasize research, writing and presentation skills.
All students must take a comprehensive qualifying examination on the core course requirements and a written or oral comprehensive examination in the concentration and must be approved by the VCU Graduate School for degree candidacy before beginning work on their dissertations.
|Credit hours
|Core courses (required)
|PPAD 711 Seminar in Public Policy I
|PPAD 712 Seminar in Public Policy II
|PPAD 721 Survey of Applied Research Methods in Public Policy
|PPAD 722 Survey of Data Analysis Techniques in Public Policy
|PPAD 780 Synthesizing Seminar in Public Policy
|Concentration courses
|All students will select a concentration after the first year of study and after passing the comprehensive examination. They will take four courses in one of the following areas of concentration. Courses will be selected from a list designated by the concentration committee for each area. The concentration committee will approve the program of study for each student in the concentration.
|Refer to the program search function of the online VCU Bulletins for a complete description of concentration requirements.
|Electives outside of the concentration
|Students will take at least three elective courses outside the concentration with the approval of their advisers. Students may take courses at the 500-level or higher from other Ph.D. concentration areas (as listed under each concentration) and other programs, such as homeland security and emergency preparedness, criminal justice, public administration. and urban and regional planning within the Wilder School. In addition, students may choose elective courses from among the following three-credit courses:
|BIOS/STAT 543 Statistical Methods I
|BIOS/STAT 544 Statistical Methods II
|ECON 501 Introduction to Econometrics
|ECON 612 Econometrics
|ECON 641 Econometric Time-series Analysis
|ECON 642 Panel and Nonlinear Methods in Econometrics
|EDUS 711 Qualitative Methods and Analysis
|ENGL 661 Themes in Interdisciplinary Studies
|EPID 603 Public Health Policy and Politics
|GSWS 602 Feminist Research Epistemology and Methods
|GSWS 622 Women and Public Policy
|HADM 763 Health Program Evaluation
|HCPR 701 Health Services Research and Policy I
|HCPR 702 Health Services Research and Policy II
|INTL/NURS 514 International Perspectives on Community Health in Developing Countries
|MASC 613 Mass Media and Society
|MATX 601 Texts and Textuality
|NURS 770 Quantitative Research Design
|NURS 772 Qualitative Research Design and Analysis
|OPER 636/STAT 636 Machine Learning Algorithms
|Dissertation research
|9 (minimum)
|PPAD 898 Dissertation Research
|Total graduate credit hours required (minimum)
After completing all of the core courses in the Ph.D. program, each student takes a comprehensive qualifying examination on the core. The examination is designed to evaluate the mastery students have achieved over the body of knowledge represented by the core. It is intended to measure the ability of students to organize, integrate and creatively apply the knowledge in the field to important problems. Although organized around the courses in the core, the examination is not restricted to material covered in those courses. It is expected that doctoral students will read well beyond the confines of individual courses.
In order to continue in the program, students must attempt the qualifying examination no later than the next regular semester following the completion of the core course requirements. They must pass the exam by the end of the second regular semester after completing the core course requirements. A student may attempt the examination twice. Examinations are offered twice per year.
A student also must take a written or oral comprehensive examination in the concentration. The concentration faculty will determine the form of the examination. A student may attempt the examination twice. Each student must pass this second examination before defending a dissertation proposal.
After completing all course work for the concentration and passing both qualifying examinations, students must prepare a dissertation involving original research that contributes to the body of knowledge in the field. A committee approved by the associate dean of the Wilder School supervises the dissertation work. The chair of the committee must be appointed as graduate faculty and be a core or affiliate faculty member of the Ph.D. program.
The first formal step in the dissertation process is the development and defense of a dissertation prospectus that frames the problem to be studied, provides background on the problem, presents a review of relevant literature and justifies the methodology to be used. The defense of the prospectus as well as the completed dissertation must be presented orally and be approved by the dissertation committee. The dissertation defense is conducted in a forum open to other students and faculty.
|Credit hours
|First year, fall semester
|PPAD 711 Seminar in Public Policy I
|PPAD 717 Law and Public Policy*
|PPAD 721 Survey of Applied Research Methods in Public Policy
|First year, spring semester
|PPAD 712 Seminar in Public Policy II
|PPAD 716 Public Policy Economics*
|PPAD 722 Survey of Data Analysis Techniques in Public Policy
|*Recommended: See concentration listings for required and elective courses.
|First year, summer semester
|Electives (Students on 12-month assistantships are required to register for a minimum of three graduate credit hours.)
|Other optional courses
|Second year, fall semester
|PPAD 780 Synthesizing Seminar in Public Policy
|Concentration courses
|First comprehensive examination on the core
|Second year, spring semester
|Concentration courses and electives
|Third year, fall semester
|PPAD 898 Dissertation research
|Second comprehensive examination on the concentration
|Third year, spring semester
|PPAD 898 Dissertation research
|Total graduate credit hours required (minimum)
A graduate student admitted to a program or concentration requiring a final research project, work of art, thesis or dissertation, must qualify for continuing master's or doctoral status according to the degree candidacy requirements of the student's graduate program. Admission to degree candidacy, if applicable, is a formal statement by the graduate student's faculty regarding the student's academic achievements and the student's readiness to proceed to the final research phase of the degree program.
Graduate students and program directors should refer to the following degree candidacy policy as published in the VCU Graduate Bulletin for complete information and instructions.
Degree candidacy requirements
As graduate students approach the end of their academic programs and the final semester of matriculation, they must make formal application to graduate. No degrees will be conferred until the application to graduate has been finalized.
Graduate students and program directors should refer to the following graduation requirements as published in the Graduate Bulletin for a complete list of instructions and a graduation checklist.
Graduation requirements
Comments/feedback about this site | Bulletin (catalog) archives/printer-friendly bulletins | About these bulletins
Virginia Commonwealth University
Richmond, Virginia
Contact us: firstname.lastname@example.com
Last update: 12/17/2014
The VCU Bulletin is in transition! As we move from this first iteration of our online Bulletin to a new product and process, what you find on this website is information for the 2014-15 academic year.
While much of the curricular information remains the same, changes that were approved with the effective date of fall 2015 will not be reflected on this website. Prospective students may wish to contact the school or department that administers their program of interest in order to discuss the most current curriculum and concentration options.
Enrolled students who are completing their studies under an effective Bulletin may continue to access the archives at http://www.pubapps.vcu.edu/Bulletins/archives.aspx, where past Bulletins are available to reference or download.
Our anticipated launch of the new VCU Bulletin is July 2015. To follow our progress, visit the new Bulletin blog.


text: Donald Rumsfeld, shown here on a 2006 visit to Iraq, was the Secretary of Defense during the beginning of the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Errol Morris spent over 30 hours interviewing Rumsfeld for his latest documentary. USMC/Getty Images hide caption itoggle caption USMC/Getty Images One Documentary Later, Rumsfeld's Inner World Remains 'Unknown' March 30, 2014 Errol Morris turns the lens on Donald Rumsfeld in his newest documentary, The Unknown Known. It's similar to Morris' The Fog Of War — except this time, to his disappointment, he doesn't learn much. Listen Loading… 6:38 Playlist Download Embed Embed Close embed modal <iframe src="http://www.npr.org/player/embed/294825234/296673046" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no">


text:
tuscany lodging
we will staying in Tuscany for only 2 nights. any suggestions on lodging?
we will staying in Tuscany for only 2 nights. any suggestions on lodging?
I suggest Siena as a good base. Great town itself and short bus rides in and out of Siena to surrounding Tuscany. We stayed at Hotel Cannon d'Oro
it is in Ricks books.Centrally located an excellent rates. email@example.com
If you are traveling by train, you may want to check out the Casa Toscana B&B in Chiusi. The trains from everywhere stop in Chiusi, and its a quick trip to Sienna. Chiusi is a very authentic little town, and has a rich history with Etruscan catacombs. It's real Italy with nightly promanades and school kids walk by your window each morning. The Inn when (we stayed two years ago) was great! The best restaurant we found is called La Solita Zuppa, and is also in Chiusi. In May we are staying in Sienna for a change of scenery, but will take a train just to go to this restaurant. Find out more about Casa Toscana at initaly.com


text:
Birthday: Dec 3, 1973Website: http://groups.yahoo.com...
Member Favorites: 440
More:Born in San Antonio, Texas
Is there a casting role here that shouldn't be? Request to have it removed.
Add PositionAnime Staff PositionsThis person has not worked on any anime. Add anime work here.
Add WorkPublished MangaThis person has not published any manga. Add published work here.
Write a Comment