text:
In an odd twist, the defense began presenting its case by putting on the stand members of the victim's family, some of whom have attended the trial on a daily basis.
While the testimony from seven witnesses spanned less than an hour and didn't provide much drama, it showed jurors that Thomas, 37, had violent outbursts, some directed at his own family. His father said Thomas had been diagnosed with schizophrenia.
The testimony comes in the trial of former Officers Manuel Ramos and Jay Cicinelli, whose attorneys have argued that Thomas contributed to his death by resisting arrest. Prosecutors say the homeless man was brutally beaten by a group of aggressive officers in July 2011 at a transit station.
Much of the incident was captured on surveillance tape and audio recordings from officers' body microphones.
Ramos has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter. Cicinelli has pleaded not guilty to involuntary manslaughter and use of excessive force.
Another officer will be tried separately on a charge of involuntary manslaughter. Three other officers were not charged.
The defense's first witness was Thomas' 91-year-old grandfather, Walter Dieball, who was pushed to the witness stand in a wheelchair. He recalled that his grandson suddenly struck him three times with a fireplace poker in 1995 after the two argued.
Dieball said he fell to the ground after the first blow to his head and had to scramble to his bedroom where he could lock the door and call 911.
"Were you bleeding from your wounds?" defense attorney John Barnett asked.
"Oh yes," said Dieball, who was in a wheelchair and wore a yellow ribbon in honor of his grandson. "Seemed like a lot."
Barnett showed jurors a picture of the poker that was used in the beating. The metal tool was bent just below the top.
Thomas pleaded guilty to the unprovoked attack and was sentenced to nine months in jail.
While Dieball spoke with little emotion, Thomas' mother, Cathy Thomas, seemed more uncomfortable telling jurors that her son attacked her three years ago. She testified that despite her repeated screams, Thomas continued to choke her for a couple of minutes before he let go and she could call police.
"You sought a restraining order to keep him away from your home?" Barnett asked.
"Yes, I did," said Cathy Thomas, her voice choked with emotion. She also wore the yellow ribbon, along with a button with her son's face on it.
Barnett said during his opening statement that police officers feared for their safety when they tried to subdue Thomas. He also told jurors that Thomas had been taking methamphetamine since the 10th grade that caused him to have spontaneous, violent outbursts.
Defense lawyers also called a pair of other witnesses who said they have had run-ins with Thomas in the past.
Dale Roberts said they were attending the same Christmas party in 2004 when Thomas became disruptive and Roberts asked him to leave. That's when Roberts said Thomas "took a swing at me," hitting him in the chin.
Samantha Pepin, who worked at a produce stand, said she was harassed by Thomas for roughly three years. In June 2010, after Pepin said she refused to give Thomas food and allow him to use a portable toilet, Thomas began throwing rocks at her.
"He told me he was going to kill me," recalled Pepin, who added that Thomas ran into a nearby fast food restaurant where he was found by police.
Prosecutors did not cross-examine most of the defense witnesses, including Dieball and Cathy Thomas.
Testimony is expected to resume Monday.


text:
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subset: commoncrawl


text:
Revolution, Counter-Revolution and Union
Ireland in the 1790s
- Editor: Jim Smyth
- Date Published: February 2001
- availability: Available
- format: Hardback
- isbn: 9780521661096
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This volume of essays explores United Irish propaganda and organization, and looks at the forces of revolution before and during the 1798 rebellion. Its scope ranges from high to low politics, and it covers subjects from literary propaganda to art history and the history of religion. It also differs from earlier "bicentenary" volumes by shedding new light on "counter-revolution," repression, and the state, and by shifting the chronological center of gravity away from 1798 toward the immediate aftermath and the longer-term consequences.Read more
- Covers a lively area of historical enquiry, with relevance for both European and Atlantic contexts by discussing the 'Age of Revolution'
- Offers a series of fresh and original perspectives on the state and the aftermath of the 1798 rebellion
- Includes the work of many of the most outstanding scholars working on eighteenth-century Ireland, principally from Ireland and the United States
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"Like any good collection, this book raises many questions, and points the way to further research..." American Historical Review
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Product details
- Date Published: February 2001
- format: Hardback
- isbn: 9780521661096
- length: 258 pages
- dimensions: 229 x 152 x 16 mm
- weight: 0.52kg
- availability: Available
Table of Contents
1. The 1798 rebellion in its eighteenth-century contexts Jim Smith
2. The politics of crisis and rebellion, 1792–8 Louis Cullen
3. The magistracy and counter-revolution in Ulster, 1795–8 Nancy J. Curtin
4. The shift in United Irish leadership from Belfast to Dublin, 1796–8 Tommy Graham
5. The Belfast laugh: the context and significance of United Irish satires Mary Helen Thuente
6. Class, religion and rebellion: Wexford in 1798 Daniel Gahan
7. Endgame: the treatment of defeated rebels and 'suffering loyalists' after the 1798 rebellion Thomas Bartlett
8. Marquess Cornwallis and the fate of Irish rebel prisoners in the aftermath of the 1798 rebellion Michael Durey
9. The act of union and 'public opinion' Jim Smyth
10. Radicals and reactionaries: portraits of the late 1790s in Ireland Fintan Cullen
11. Irish Christianity and revolution David W. Miller
12. Republicanism and radical memory: the O'Connors, O'Carolan and the United Irishmen Luke Gibbons.
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Sure, you may ego-surf every few days. But me? I keep a search running through Bloglines that lets me know when I'm mentioned. (This is Kibozing for the 21st century.)
And now a new blog has popped up. Danyel Smith, hip-hop editor and writer, is now Danyel Smith, blogger
Which means that someone, somewhere, is going to type Danyel Blog and be horribly confused.
This is what happens when very-nearly-unique names (we need not mention this person) collide.
The list of Most Wanted Gmail Features is a list that is, I think, meant to help gmail "catch up" to other mailers. The features listed on the site are all good and valuable things:
IMAP access
Import mail from other sources
Ability to save a draft
Ability to send HTML mail
POP3 access
Force different subjects into single conversation
Manually break up conversations
However, these all strike me as minor. They will help gmail catch up with other mailers, but they don't represent a departure.
And Gmail, to me, more than the 1 GB of space or the subtle advertising, really manages to be something kind of new. In particular, it's the first time I've had decent text search with a little bit of ranking. It's the first time I've had labels done correctly. And it's the first time that search hits come up with those labels correctly.
Maybe I'm the only person who really cares about that. But because it's those search aspects I care about, the feature list that I'd like to see for GMail (or for any other mailer) is very different.
There's a start. All these are direct, heuristic, user-interface-oriented tweaks that Google could apply to Gmail that would rapidly make it substantially more powerful. Some other time we can talk about how Google (or another mail company) could apply social network analysis and collaborative filtering...
Oh, yeah. None of these are specific to gmail. I want to see them in Thunderbird, or in Outlook, or in Apple Mail....
Update Joshua points out that these aren't "minor" tweaks any more than, say, whether a car window closes is a "minor" tweak--and, indeed, I'll grant that this is true. But they are, in some crucial way, "obvious" tweaks. They are the ones that a competent mailer should have -- and that most mailers do have. What I want is mailers that start looking outside the box, and rethinking what the email task is. The much-maligned (and justifiably so) Coordinator (as discussed by Winograd and Flores in their computers and cognition work) was a novel rethinking of the email task, and for that alone is certainly notable.
Workshop Date: Saturday November 6, 2004 – Chicago, IL
Submission Deadline: Wednesday, September 22
Notification of Acceptance: Friday, October 1
[ Note that CSCW early registration ends on October 13. ]
Workshop web site: http://www.ischool.washington.edu/mcdonald/cscw04/
The CSCW community has a tradition of adopting social and analytical theories to understand groups and group processes as well as when designing new systems to support and augment cooperative work. Social networks have a long tradition in sociology and cultural anthropology, but are only beginning to break into the CSCW mainstream. The key notion from network analysis, that the interconnections between people can be used to understand and improve their interactions, is one that has direct implications for CSCW research. Network models have clear implications for research into communication systems, teamwork, and knowledge management.
Social networks are being used in several different ways:
While we are particularly interested in this third stream of research, we are generally interested in understanding the broad range of social network research within CSCW. We are interested in exploring tools that both use social networks as a source of information, and that support end-user interactions with social networks.
This full-day workshop seeks participation from social scientists and system designers to address the ways in which social networks can be adapted for use in analyzing cooperation and as a framework for considering new system designs. The workshop will consider four specific topics:
Individuals interested in participating in the workshop should submit a position paper describing work in one or more of the topic areas above and a completed workshop survey. The workshop organizers will review position papers. Authors will be notified of acceptance to the workshop on October 1st. One goal of the workshop is to nurture interdisciplinary applications of social networks that specifically consider a CSCW perspective. Attention will be paid to representing a diverse spectrum of positions. The workshop will be limited to 15 participants.
All workshop attendees should register for the CSCW conference.
Proposals should consist of
Please submit your workshop proposal to David McDonald, dwmc@<firstname.lastname@example.com, in PDF or Microsoft Word.
Orkut invites are now being sold on eBay as a way to get to Gmail:
***10 Invitations to Orkut ~ Key to Gmail Invitation***
What on earth would anyone do with 10 Orkut invitations? Even if the idea is that you could join Orkut and talk someone there (a Google employee? a gmail early adopter?) into sending you an invitation, how would the other nine identites help?
Is this a newer, more interesting form of Fakesters? Or just a quick way of making a buck? (The fact that Orkut invites don't seem to be getting bids suggests that this sell isn't working: 20 Orkut invites is going for a penny, as is one GMail account.
My advisor, Paul Dourish was just at a conference on mobility-oriented, public social software.
He rants, humorosly, about the state of the software:
My friend Genevieve refers to a large class of mobile and ubicomp applications as "girlfriends for geeks." Basically, these are all the applications that attempt to match you to people you might have shared interests with (including shared friends) as a form of promoting social contact. The underlying premise of all of these of course is that people want to talk to each other (or, more likely, "noone talks to me" or "I don't know what to talk to people about.")
Since I find myself becoming increasingly cranky and anti-social, I find it hard to accept this premise, at least as it applies to me. So instead, I want the opposite. I want a bluetooth app for my phone that detects when there are people around me I wouldn't like, and helps me avoid them. Perhaps it can chart a route for me to escape without running into them. Perhaps it can characterise nearby spaces in terms of how much I'll hate them. Perhaps if it detects that I'm in close proximity to someone I won't like, it'll ring my phone to give me an excuse to get away ("What? Little Johnny's fallen down the well? I'll be right there!")
During the event at Intel Berkeley the other day, after a series of girlfriends-for-geeks presentations, I made a note to myself about Hatester.com, a site where you could describe who you dislike, and then find out the most disliked people, chains of dislike, degrees of reciprocity, etc. The marketing slogan would be "because the enemy of my enemy is my friend." It turns out that the domain is registered, even though there's nothing there. Oh, but I see that there is something at hatester.org....
Of course, the dislike network is extremely difficult to figure out. I suppose transitivity is "the enemy of my enemy is my enemy," and reciprocity means "I am my enemy's enemy." But chains of dislike?
Am I the only person who sees a conflict with having SIGGRAPH (August 8-12, LA) and ASA (August 13-17, SF) so very close together? I'm not sure I'll be able to attend both, and defend my dissertation, and do revisions to my dissertation, and still squeeze it all into August.
(What? You mean some sociologists aren't interested in computer graphics, and vice versa? How confusing!)
danah boyd has a great marketing-survey-thing that Friendster is apparently sending out to SuperFriends. It seems they are offering four template letters, and askign the SuperFriends which they like most as the center of a new campaign.
Subject: We Still Care
We miss you. There, we said it. It feels better. So we're going to do everything we can to bring you back to Friendster, all the way up to that John Cusack boom box Say Anything bit. So before it all comes to that, just come back to Friendster. We've already made it easier for you, getting much faster and clearer as we've grown. Now, in just minutes you can find people you've been wondering about: friends from summer camp, college roommates, high school buddies, cousins, people you used to date, people you wanted to date, these people you know, and don't know, are connected to each other and what a beautifully small world it really is. Or date, or help a friend find a date. We don't care. We just want you back in our lives. And we can tell you that you want the same thing. We can see it... in your eyes. The light, the heat. Your eyes, we feel complete. See, we told you.
Oh, to make sure you keep getting these vaguely sarcastic emails, please add Friendster to your email address book now. If for no other reason than it will look cool to have Friendster in your address book.
Rockin', right? Hip, up to date, and trying way too hard. But that's danah's territory.
What I want to focus on is the interview questions at the bottom.
*Which of the two versions do you prefer? (version 1 or 2) _____
*Is the email appropriate to send to active Friendster members? (yes/no)
*Would you be likely to click the link and go to Friendster if you
received this email? (yes/no) _____
Friendster is asking its SuperFriends (who, presumably, click on the links fairly frequently) to judge whether someone else who hasn't clicked on the links for a while is likely to. These are--I think--very different populations.
*Would you be open to receiving similar emails from Friendster in the
future? (yes/no) _____
Here, Friendster is asking a user who has just gotten an unsolicited email from a service they use whether an inactive user is likely to enjoy a different unsolicited email from a service they don't use.
The mind boggles.
Cory Doctrow blames Isaac Asimov's simplistic three laws of robotics for a growing societal oversimplification of social and moral issues:
Yet Asimov's reductionist approach to human interaction may be his most lasting influence. His thinking is alive and well and likely filling your inbox at this moment with come-ons asking you to identify your friends and rate their "sexiness" on a scale of one to three. Today's social networking services like Friendster and Orkut collapse the subtle continuum of friendship and trust into a blunt equation that says, "So-and-so is indeed my friend," and "I trust so-and-so to see all my other 'friends.'" These systems demand that users configure their relationships in a way that's easily modeled in software. It reflects a mechanistic view of human interaction: "If Ann likes Bob and Bob hates Cindy, then Ann hates Cindy." The idea that we can take our social interactions and code them with an Asimovian algorithm ("allow no harm, obey all orders, protect yourself") is at odds with the messy, unpredictable world. The Internet succeeds because it is nondeterministic and unpredictable: The Net's underlying TCP/IP protocol makes no quality of service guarantees and promises nothing about the route a message will take or whether it will arrive.
- Cory Doctorow, in Wired: Rise of the Machines
While I respect Cory, and enjoy his thoughtful work (such as his recent DRM rant), my instinctive reaction is to disagree--both about his characterization of Asimov, and about his characterization of social networks.
I can meaningfully disagree with his reading of Asimov: each of the stories in "I, Robot" suggests, in one way or another, that the three laws aren't nearly as simple as they seem. In "Evidence," an entity that may or may not be a robot runs for mayor of New York. He is observed to punch someone--a clear violation of the First Law, which means he must not be a robot, right? In "Liar!", a robot tries to figure out how to define "injury." And so on.
Similarly, his claim that social network services reflect a "mechanistic view" of human relationships is, I think, a little unfair. Perhaps Orkut (and Friendster, and similar) do force an odd feeling set of limitations on the world, but in that, they are doing no better (or worse) than any other operationalization of social interaction.
Look, for example, at this article on social network analysis that I picked, more or less at random.
Asking people about their interaction with others –their communications, their exchange of advice and other resources – remains the source of most sociocentric network data. When groups are small (up to 150, but usually 20-60) the researcher can list the members' names and ask each person how well they know each other person (on a scale of 0 to 5, for example), or how often they interact with each other person (for example, once a week, once a month or never). For example, a researcher may present all students ina class with a list of all the students in the class and ask them to rate how well they know each one. (Christopher McCarty, "Social Network Analysis," 20031).
It's reductionist, but it's the source of a lot of useful data. For better or worse, a social network analyst needs to decide--at some point or another--what to do relative to a pair of people. Are they connected, for purposes of information transfer or social dependance or something? If no decisions are made, you don't get pretty pictures. Scientists constantly have to model systems (where "model" basically means "to yank out the confusing bits, leaving the parts that can be usefully operationalized.")
Essentially, you can hate Orkut for forcing a "Yes/No" (or 1-5) answer, but you risk hating the entire field of sociology at once. (There is another argument that those techniques should not be applied to online services--an argument that I largely agree with--but that doesn't seem to be what Cory is saying here.)
Which means that scientists in all fields are busily scraping away details, leaving stark and ugly systems. Newton's laws tell us very little about the color or shape--or even friction--of the object in motion. Yes, it's a messier world than that, but we can get a lot of work done by simplifying the model.
The notion that Asimov's three laws are somehow to blame for scientific oversimplication, then, becomes an odd joke. Asimov was surely influenced by the scientific desire to constrain systems to simple laws: he was trained as a scientist and earned a PhD; his work contains not only the three laws but the odd notion of Psychohistory: a deterministic set of equations that describe the actions of many people. Psychohistory is a condensed attempt to simplify all of sociology, history, anthropology, and psychology in a series of rather complex equations.
Asimov promptly spends the entire Foundation series showing various failures of the psychohistorical model: mutations the model didn't predict, systems that tumbled faster or slower than the model expected, and similar.
Perhaps a wiser critic than I might write about whether Asimov's work reflects this tension, whether there is a deeper purpose to the way he sets up models only to tear them down and poke holes in them. Cory might argue, too, that even if Asimov knew it, others don't get it, and so he would be disappointed by the application of this.
I'll simply suggest that Asimov was clearly aware of the limitations of these models.
1 From the Sage Encyclopedia of Community, Karen Christiansen and David Levinson, eds.
Bumplist (via FullCircle)
BumpList is a mailing list aiming to re-examine the culture and rules of online email lists. BumpList only allows for a minimum amount of subscribers so that when a new person subscribes, the first person to subscribe is "bumped", or unsubscribed from the list. Once subscribed, you can only be unsubscribed if someone else subscribes and "bumps" you off. BumpList actively encourages people to participate in the list process by requiring them to subscribe repeatedly if they are bumped off. The focus of the project is to determine if by attaching simple rules to communication mediums, the method and manner of correspondences that occur as well as behaviors of connection will change over time.
Currently, BumpList is limited to six people. The statistics page shows that the top people have accumulated 100-odd days online, with 1000-odd postings each (high traffic!) and 7000 or so bumps. That's seventy per day. You show up, you post, you get bumped. You resubscribe.
I realize it's an experiment, but:
* Why do people feel it's so compelling to keep getting back on? Or have they written scripts to do so?
* How do you handle that much traffic coming through?
* Is the exclusivity of the conversatin so compelling that the content doesn't matter? I usually join communities or conversations that I have something in common with.
Today, giving a practice for my upcoming job talk, I presented to several colleagues who didn't know my work at all.
One of them, a social network analyst, was very confused during a few of my slides. He had me pause, explain a piece of the talk, and then explain again. Then he stopped, and nodded.
"Ah! This is the disintermediation of the intermediary in a transitive triple!"
I can't say that sequence of words had ever occurred to me.
Last year, Kieran Healy wrote
The anonymous juries pass judgement on the cultural worth of their neighbors, which makes for indignation and outrage all round. Ireland, for instance, is well known for generously forgetting 600 years of English oppression and routinely giving the British entry a decent vote. The Brits, by contrast, rarely vote for Ireland at all, except perhaps to give it a derisory deux or trois points, which is almost worse than nothing. (This may not be true, by the way, but these prejudices are themselves an important fact about the contest.) Similarly, the Scandinavian nations have been known to do a lot of neighborly backscratching.
This year, he tested it.
Confining ourselves to a group of countries who competed during (almost) all these years, we can aggregate their voting scores into a directed graph representing their preferences for one another's songs over the years. Given that Eurovision songs are (to a first approximation) uniformly worthless, we can assume that votes express a simple preference for one nation over another, uncomplicated by any aesthetic considerations.
A week or so ago, I asked what is the second degree for?
While I haven't come to a fully satisfying answer, I do have to note that I enjoy finding out who my friends-of-friends are by virus emails.
Many virus infections grab two random names from the address book--one for "from", one for "to." Which means that--when I am the "to" name--I must be in the address book of someone who knows both me and "from".
I don't know who dfurcy-at-cc.gatek.edu is1. But I do know that someone who still has my old Berkeley address knows him. Same for 6256d8f.00690e72-at-msnotes.wustI.edu. And erthei-at-codelco.cl. Unfortunately, my mail auto-forwarding from Berkeley to UCI seems to purge the history of these comments, so I don't know who it is.
Has anyone else made any interesting discoveries off their spammer-of-a-friend links?
[1] Misspelling intentional, in order to not beseige the poor guy with spam.
For the record, Paul Erdos's Fisher number is 4.
Paul Erdos ->
(according to Paul's chart). And the number isn't likely to drop too fast from here.
If you want an Erdos number of your own (like, say, 5) you can enter an eBay auction bidding for a collaboration with Bill Tozier which would give you such a number.
Update Apparently, one co-member of a six-person poster is also a 3, reinforcing my "4" status. I'm guessing it was Kris , but I don't know, since she didn't sign her message. Nor did she include her lineage...
In my own work, second-tie connections aren't all that useful, by and large. The statement that "my mother is two links away from my officemate" is meaningless (if you go through me) or just weird (if you don't). Either way, it might be interesting trivia ("look! among my friends, you can get to Chuck by way of Michelle!"), but I don't think it tells me much. (Indeed, on an upcoming paper, I'm writing an argument why all of my visualizations and views have changed to one-link distances.)
On the YASNS ("Yet Another Social Network Service", a danah coinage), they seem to be the point. You don't join it for your friends, you join it for -- well, because everyone else is joining it. That's a question for a different discussion
I started shopping this question around, then, at the Social Computing event. Sure, it's fun to see who are your friends of friends. But just generating a list of all of X's friends is not really a fundamentally interesting concept to me. What good can they do?
Anything I'm missing?
I've heard people say "Social networking" a half-dozen times this morning, each time referring to "friend of a friend" tools. David Weinberger worried that all the good social networking is behind TOS and corporate walls, which makes it hard to repurpose or analyse.
I'm noticing several different defintions of "social networks" running about, which need disambiguation. I think we're up to three different ones, for better or worse.
1. YASNS ("Yet Another Social Network Service"--a danah coinage): This is the high-publiciity form of social networks. Friendster, Orkut, Ryze. Click in your list of friends, and let them click you back.
2. Social Network Analysis. This is the academic subfield that I have been playing in for four or so years. Interview people, draw a network diagram, calculate centrality and that sort of thing.
3. Social networks for CSCW: This is the people who scoop up social network data from various sources. Largely, this is analyzing online experience and trying to get a quantitative or--more often--qualitative picture of how groups
Now, I grant that (1) may be the one that's making the headlines, making the VC money, and has six million users (on Friendster) running about shouting "social networks". And I'm pretty sure that the word has been completely taken over by a new context. But I sitll try and fight the pure fight. And sometimes I just try to find a new word for what I actually do.
(In other news, I just watched a UI change happen at Ryze. As I was sitting here, Adrian Scott tapped a little bit of PHP, hacked a script, and then uploaded it. That's kind of cool.)
A little while ago, I wrote up an entry: A Stance on Networks
In it, I argued that social networks can be useful and meaningful, not only on a large--external--scale, but on smaller, local one.
I'm reminded of this because I was recently forwarded a list of business proposals for "how social networks can be used in business." Roughly, that list looked at tasks like:
All of these have in common that I don't want them done to my data--and I doubt you do, either. I really don't want a computer program sniffing through my email deciding whether I have management potential (credit reports aren't bad enough?).
Let's tenatatively call those "evil." Perhaps it's too broad a word, but I take my field seriously. And I need to justify the title of this post.
I tend to think that a good manager would already know about growing schisms--and, if not, social network analysis should be one tool of several to use when an organizational development consultant comes through to discuss how the group can develop. Rob Cross:http://gates.comm.virginia.edu/rlc3w/sna.htm , for example, is a researcher, now at UVa, who comes into groups for specific social network interventions and examinations. The idea of his discrete studies don't bother me as much as being continuously watched does.
There's also the Friendsters and Orkuts of the world: what danah boyd has taken to calling "publically articulated social networks." As she has articulately pointed out, using a tool like Friendster forces you to list out--in some detail--who your friends are and who you are connected to. Worse, it makes you make a bunch of binary decisions (is a friend! is not a friend!).
Personally, I'm pretty bad at those decisions, which is why my Orkut profile has a few people waiting in "can't decide" limbo. (I'm scared to log in at this point. I think it's probably offensive for me to not decide, but I have no idea what to choose.)
Update: Clay Shirky points out that Orkut is now asking you to rate "how good a friend." Great. Now I have five levels of possibly insulting someone.
This isn't so much "evil," as uncomfortable. I feel looked at, captured, in the same way that I feel when I hear about how Japanese teens have evolved conventions, wherein the cardinal sin is turning off your cell phone or running out of batteries. I like having my cell phone off!
Fortunately, I think that there are positive uses. Despite the ominous title of this article, for example, Microsoft wants to know who your friends are , I think the article suggests a much more friendly notion of networks:
People are also key to the work done on computers. In both Longhorn and an upcoming version of Office for the Mac, Microsoft is using the idea of "projects"--or ad hoc groups of people and documents that change over time...
A more tech-savvy version of the handwritten list, Cheng said, would contain all the messages from each member of a person's inner circle. The list would be "zoomable"--meaning that if one really wanted a message from Bruce, but only Anne and Christopher showed up on the list, one could click between the two and get a list of all the Bs that didn't make the inner circle list.
And the Microsoft design teams are all over it. This article shows an interesting (if under-documented) interface concept.
Note the sheer number of people and little networks in this interface: there's a cluster of them in the top left corner, just hanging out; there's another little mass out there in the bottom right, in the current activitie
I like that. People hanging out in the interface. Good place for 'em, too, I say.
Interesting to see lots of pictures of networks in lots of contexts coming out and around.
via many-2-many Rob Cross explains social network analysis for business in a brief, but nicely illustrated manner.
via danah this cool site on tangible social networks connecting people to each other with balloons and ribbons. It's an interesting tangible network, although the images make it pretty clear that it's not really possible to actually figure out things like, "who is connected to whom."
Among other things, this being an art gallery, you probably can't touch the art. Which is too bad, because it turns out that with ribbons, it's very easy to figure out shortest-distance algorithms. To get the shortest distance from person A to person B, just grab the balloons representing A and B, and pull them apart. Then locate the really tight strings. That's the shortest path between A and B.
It's been mentioned by a few others that Orkut invitations were, for a little while, on sale on eBay.
I decided to check again and see what the going rate is. It's down to $0.99-$2 (from $3.50-$11 in early March) with a low end of $0.01
One cent? How can anyone afford to sell an Orkut invitation for a cent? Clearly, they must be looking for something...
(Wow. It's "Bid, no pay!" That's right, it's FREE.)
... like ebay feedback.
Go to our ebay store. Click here !http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=36107&item=3661487616&ssPageName=STRK:MESSE:IT, go through the process of feedback if you believe this transaction to be to your satisfaction, and an invitation will be sent to you shortly.
That's right. Provide feedback first, get the invite afterward. The result? This seller is (as of 3/2) up to 99.4% pure, with a score of 159. Apparently, he's making up for a piece of bad feedback a year ago--and it's worked. He's gotten 154 pieces of positive feedback in just the last month!
Now, I don't mean to pick on this particular seller. I'm more interested in the general phenomenon of giving away costless stuff on ebay to jack up your feedback.
update Apparently, there's a subcommunity of "feedback exchange" types: people who sell each other very little in exhange for giving each other a good solid backslap. Does Ebay have to implement PageRank, or some similar algorithm, in order to catch cheaters?
Am attending a talk at UCI's "Social Network Brown Bag" seminar.
Mapping Networks. George Tita, Katherine Faust.
(George gave a talk last year, if I recall correctly, on maps of social networks in Los Angeles barrios--specifically looking at how gang territory and alliances were negotiated over space. In general, he was noticing that natural barriers--like freeways and major roads--were strong demarcations of networks. Groups across these barriers were less likely to either fight or to make alliances. It occurs to me, now, that it might be interesting to look back at his data in terms of tempo--that one might look at the rhythm, or approximate frequency, of interactions in terms of distance. And look at Rick Grannis: "The Importance of Trivial Streets: Residential Streets and Residential Segregation. American Journal of Sociology 103: 6, 1530-1564" for a similar perspective.)
Spatial work
* Interested in variations in networks over space.
* Space matters (Tobler's first law?) in the development of social ties
* Festinger, Schachter, and Back; Butts; Huckfeldt and Baybeck.
George's field site is in Hollenbeck: heavily Latino, a little bit poor. Lots of gangs, a lot of gang-driven crime. And most families have been there for a long time.
In particular, they are interested in egocentric networks. Which makes me happy already.
Their data collection is ego-centric networks and the characteristics of the alters.. Thus, when they collected the set, they asked each person what the interactions of the alters were. ("Know each other? Don't know each other?") They also collected their addresses, and the addresses of the alters. (Take THAT, Orkut mappers.)
Fairly straight forward name generator from standard social surveys--plus the question "who are you cool with because you want to stay on their good side."
An interesting challenge: their inteview asks (among other things): Living With but Not Married; Spouse; Boyfriend/Girlfriend. In contrast to "children" and "parent." And, well, they've found that their interviewees seem to come up with--on the average--2 or 3 people: a girlfriend and a spouse, for example. They suspect this is probably a translation problem.
68% of alters live in Hollenbeck. You get up to 85% within a several mile radius of hollenbeck. (And you don't get any hits in Santa Monica or Beverly Hills.)
Data! They've got (initially) cool data! Social networks (that kinda look like mine) superposed over geography. Basically, using Arcview to draw networks.
* "Loca", who had moved (by about 10 blocks) about a year ago. Still refers to her old address as her neighborhood (and thinks of her gang as has community.) But interestingly, all the social support questions came up with her new neighborhood.
* There are virtually no ties between this (Mexican) community and the slightly-west bordering (Salvadoran) community.
* "Who do you avoid" is only local people (unsurprisingly)--there's no reason to avoid people who live far away.
And so that leaves them with LOTS of future work. Euclidean distance isn't necessraily as good a measure as travel time distance, for example.
Carter Butts just suggested the idea of mapping networks against "sociological gradients." It doesn't make sense to compare geography of New York city blocks against 150 feet in Ohio: instead, one can draw a gradient of population, or of "social impendance" (the cultural distinction between the Mexican and Salvadoran communities, for example). Apparently, he did some work on a similar topic for his dissertation. (This page is one of his working papers; ignore the inccorect author.) He suggests that for many networks, this sort of gradient can account for most of the internal network structure.
Social distance and space are heavily theorized, but are often not backed up with real data. Lots of the audience is very excited about seeing distance correlated--for example--"who do you fight?" After all, you don't fight people who are VERY far away--and you don't fight people who are immediately close.
Ok, this just led us to getting the idea of tying
(I wrote this during HCIC, watching a speaker talk about a collaborative system.)
There's a certain ethical constraint on building collaborative and social systems that I've been thinking about for a while. This happens in MMPORGS, YASNS, MUDs and MOOs, email lists, and similar.
Researchers become very interested in building systems, and we study adoption a great deal: how many users can we get, how fast can we get them, and how many hours can we get them to use the system? Those are all good things: the CSCW paper that does wonderfully is the one where the speaker stands up and says, "It was more addictive then crack; we have the entire english-speaking world using it; and they never log off."
Unfortuantely, the next line is--all too often--"then we completed the six week study and turned it off. What a wonderful lesson we learned!"
It happened several times that I've seen recently: CHIPLACE, for example, was an online site for allowing the CHI community to meet up and chat. It was a success--and it was shut down after that year's experiment ended. Fortunately, it was adopted by someone else, who was able to put it up.
I know that danah has talked about this before, but I'm back to thinking about the responsibility of designers to their users. The server resource may be expensive, or require hand-management, or cost per user: issues that are inexpensive during an NSF- or organizationally-funded project, but a big deal after the project ends. (My officemate ran a MUD for part of his dissertation research; he seems to have a critical mass now. He's left it up--but there's a lingering question: he graduates this summer. What happens to his MUD then?)
I guess I feel that there's a new sort of reseach ethics here to consider. Just as a medical experiment can't abandon its users midway ("enjoy the withdrawal, folks!"), neither ought a social experiment. But the reverse is a problem, both in the medical and the social fields: "Yes, we had you for a year, we showed a significant improvement; we now end the experiment and wait a few years for FDA approval."
I sincerely don't know what to advocate here. Am I asking designers not to build social services? Not really. We learn a lot from them, and I build them myself--although I do tend to try to make them decentralized, if possible, so that users can hang onto them at the end if they want to.
And for studies that don't have that nice feature? It would be nice to be thinking from the beginning about a way that a user can adopt the system. Don't build it over your hyper-confidential technology; make it something that the community can--for a few hundred dollars--re-use and repurpose. Allow a volunteer user to come in as an administrator (as Jack does). Put up the server code online, or make it available to your users.
This is a wonderful advantage to being software people, rather than medical people. A doctor can't send people home with a lifetime supply of an experiemntal medicine--but porting a server to a desktop isn't too bad.
In the last few days, I've gotten a lot of emails about social networks. My brother, for example, just sent me a link to a New York Times article about the business aspects of networks, while a friend from the east coast sent me an article about the security aspects of networks.
I fall into neither camp.
In some sense, I feel like we've explored a lot of that space already: I played games of "who slept with whom" and "Jewish geography" long before Friendster. The computer version is cool, but not unusual to me.
Similarly, it's pretty interesting to see security analyses, but not unusual. Network analysts have been collecting data on people's networks of various sorts for years.
My own interest is in something a little more unusual. What I am asking what can knowing about my social network do for me? It's an odd question: the naive answer is "very little": I already know who my friends are, don't I?
I claim that the information is not only rich and evocative, it's meaningful, and a useful form of communication.
Networks give me a useful way of talking about stuff, and a good way of organizing data: my email archives, my file system, my buddy lists. Why should I have to manually solve contact and social organization problems when I can feed them a network, and let the applications make that information available to me appropriately?
This stance means that there are certain things that just don't really interest me. I understand that my software project--with very little tweaking--might be used by a crazed manager ("you! you should talk to Bob more!") or a thoughtful consultant.
But that's not the part of the space I think needs to be explored. There are plenty of people out there to talk to the security folks. There's fewer of us, I think, who just want to make information visible to the people who use it each day.
Social Networks: Will Users Pay to Get Friends? [Feb 9, 2004]
But as the popularity of such sites has taken off, the big question for investors in new technologies is whether social networking sites can ever make a lot of money by connecting friends of friends in mini-networks of trust, whether for dating, business or maintaining acquaintances. For many, the buzz over social networking sounds a lot like vintage Internet hyperbole from the late 1990's.
A Social Network Analysis of the Iranian Government
[November, 2001]
zephoria asks, what is beta in the context of social software?
This isn't a limitation only of social software, of course: the game world experiences the same phenomenon (as Christopher Allen points out).
A few years ago, Gina Neff and David Stark wrote an essay: Permanently Beta: Responsive Organization in the Internet Era.
In it, they argue that the continuing cycle of beta software is a new way of running organizations, ones that have a built-in feedback cycle between users and organizations.
But one of the side effects of this responsive organization is that it stays responsive: that the organization and the products within are never "finished", are always co-evolving with their environment--are, in other words, always in Beta.
"Friendster Beta", as one might read the title page, is simply declaring that status on its front page.
Denounce, a parody site, is all over social software this week:
Friendster Secretly Shares Member Information with Government
Amazon Launches New Social Network Called "Pricekut"
And if we're really into ranting about visible networks, danah boyd's apophenia has some thoughts on just why she (and so many others) doesn't like Orkut in particular.
UPDATE: I'm pretty sure that Christopher Allen is all over this topic ("So you don't have to"). Follow his and danah's links to get there from here...
Genre shifts the focus from issues such as the nature and degree of relationship among "community members", to the purpose of the communication, its regularities of form and substance, and the institutional, social, and technological forces which underlie those regularities.Now BoingBoing talks about the imaginary girlfriend phenomenon on Ebay... and I was startled to realize that it's a genre. Here. Check a few imaginary girlfriend auctions and virtual girlfriend auctions out:
Tom Erickson, Social Interaction on the Net: Virtual Community as Participatory Genre
Do you want to make your ex girlfriend Jealous, ... Fool them with an Imaginary Girlfriend. ... I'll be whatever you'd like me to be. I'm a 19 year old college student. I'm 5'3, and 110lbs. Help me to pay my student loans, DEBT and rent. In return I will pretend to be your girlfriend/friend/pen pal for 1 month. You can e-mail me as much as you want, and chat with me on MSN and Yahoo IM. You will recieve 4 mailed letters; one per week, scented especially for you. When our 30 days have expired simply break it off and tell your friends I was crushed. You can dump me how ever you want, I will even write you a letter begging for you back .... You will recieve a letter once a week, and a Special Valentines day card to show off to your friends, or leave out so that ex may find it. If the bidding excedes $50 you will recieve 3 glossy Pictures of me to show your friends. If the bidding excedes $100 dollars, you will recieve a pair of my sexiest underwear scented with my favorite purfume. If the bidding excedes $150, I will send you some "special" photoes of me and a cam session online. If you would like another 30 Days, Price can be discussed via email, as I will not block your address from my email. Happy bidding.There seems to be a few interesting aspects. One is that there is a broad consensus on what you get from an imaginary girlfriend: a personal gift, a letter or two, a racy photo and a nice photo, and emails for one or two months, concluding with a tearful note begging you to take them back. There are also small variations between them: some often phone conversations, others don't; some offer IM access, others don't. What interests me, though, is that an economist might comment on how the market is converging on something--but in my mind, what's happening is that the genre is stabilizing. Before recently, no one in history had ever tried to sell a short-term virtual girlfriend, as far as I know; the ebay members are now in the process of deciding what to call it ("fantasy girlfriend" and "virtual girlfriend" are other choices, and both have hits), deciding how much to charge, and precisely what services to offer.
ashley_thm: Let me be your Imaginary Girlfriend/Pen Pal
Wired has an article talking about how
Social Nets [are] Not Making Friends: it seems that people are getting irritated at all the various requests.
Which is my quiet explanation to the several folks who have tried to convince me to join Orkut.
(Reprinted from Metablog)
There are a couple of interesting technological recurrences that are worth discussing. One of them is literary form of the epistolary tradition. (Which is also in keeping with my usual attempts to explore the non-exceptionalism of new media.)
I'm not the first to tie email to the epistolary tradition: see essays like "Email and Epistolary technologies: Presence, Intimacy, Disembodiment" for--I think--fruitful discussions of how people literarily concieve of themselves within letters. It would be easy and interesting to tie many of the ideas in this article into blogs--indeed, blogs are sometimes more nakedly confessional than the essay discusses.
At the same time, there was a parallel tradition of persons sharing their opinions publically:
I would suggest that these forms are both important to get at the gist of how a blog functions as a series of literary persona.
"It is indeed not easy for any man to write upon literature or common life so as not to make himself known to those with whom he familiarly converses, and who are acquainted with his track of study, his favourite topicks, his peculiar notions, and his habitual phrases." Samuel Johnson: Addison (Lives of the Poets)
(from the Samuel Johnson archive)


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Many online writers and bloggers think that Google ad sense is the most lucrative program available for them. Though it's true, millions of bloggers are unable to make money from Google ad sense. Why is it difficult to make money from Google ad sense? Is it impossible to make money from Google ad sense? Is it a waste of time to put your efforts into Google ad sense program? Please keep reading…..
1. Ignorance of bloggers: Many bloggers think that they will start making money if they could post a few articles on their blogs. They don't know that it takes a lot of time, hard work and smart work to make money from ad sense. Unless they get thousands of unique visitors every day to their blogs, earning money from Google ad sense will remain just a dream.
2. Many bloggers don't know how to draw huge traffic to their blogs: Driving huge targeted traffic to the blogs is the key to success. Most bloggers are not that good at Search Engine Optimization. Getting a few hundred page views per day will not be enough if you really want to make decent money.
3. Using Blogger: Many bloggers are are using free Blogger to create their blogs. Though it's a free service, you always have the risk of getting your blog removed by the Dictator Google at anytime marking it as spam.
4. If there isn't enough organic traffic: If you don't get adquate traffic from Google, the chances are your ad sense account will be disabled by Google. For example if you write for Triond integrating your ad sense account with it, your account be banned. The reason is your main traffic is from within Triond and hence all your clicks come from the same Triond members. It's easy for Google in that case to ban your account and keep your hard earned money.
5. Check your CTR: This is where many bloggers lose their ad sense account. What is CTR? It's the Click Through Rate. The CTR of an advertisement is the ratio of number of clicks made to the number of visitors. Let us understand it with an example. Suppose you are posting an article on Apple iPhone, Apple iPhone advertisement will be displayed on your article. If 100 people visit your blog post and only one person among them click the ad and view it, then the CTR is 1%. Though 2% CTR is considered as good, as far as Google is concerned, Google will move all those publishers who get more than 0.5% CTR into their banning list.
6. Free blogs: Google will not respect free blogs and hence it will not send good traffic to free blogs.
Is it impossible to make money from Google ad sense? Yes, it's almost impossible to make money from Google ad sense these days.
What should you do if you want to make money from Google ad sense?
Tips to make money from Google ad sense:
1. Start your own Word Press blog.
2. Be aware that you need huge, very huge traffic to your blogs.
3. Be aware of Google policies. Never publish adult content, gambling content etc.
4. Do not make enemies online. Even if you have one smart online enemy, he/she can easily get your ad sense account banned easily.
Summary: If you really want to make money from Google ad sense you need to learn a lot including SEO. Remember Google is waiting to get a chance to ban your account. Therefore, you need to be very careful and play your cards cautiously. Thanks for reading.
15 Top Tips To Become A Successful Blogger
25 Top SEO Tips Online Writers And Bloggers Must Know
I make money on Triond. If you want to write and earn, join Triond HERE. It's free.
You might also be interested in:


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Posts Tagged Square Enix
Rumor: Final Fantasy XIII Versus Moved to PS4 as Final Fantasy XV
Posted by Eddie in Final Fantasy Versus XIII on March 27th, 2013
According to VGLeaks, Final Fantasy XIII Versus, which was previously thought to be in development hell, had actual development stopped so that they could move the project to the PS4.
The other side of this is that its rumored that Sony will be co-developing FFXV and that will make it a PS4 exclusive.
Take all of this with a pinch of salt as it is still a rumor but VGLeaks release accurate information quite often.
Final Fantasy X and X-2 Remasters Announced for PS3 and Vita
Posted by Eddie in Final Fantasy X/X2 HD Remake, PlayStation Vita, PS3 on March 27th, 2013
The long awaited HD remake is just around the corner. Final Fantasy X and X-2 will be coming out for the PS3 and Vita this year. Square Enix has confirmed that the PS3 version will include both games and will cost $40. The PS Vita versions will be sold individually however prices have not been suggested as of yet.
The best part is that the versions released will be the International versions which were not released in North America. This will add story, sphere grids and super hard bosses known as Dark Aeons to FFX.
SE has stated that they are 70% complete on this project and that they are unsure if the special end mission that was released for FFX-2 will be included as that was a separate project in Japan. Either way, I can see hundreds of hours being put into these games for myself.
[PS3 Review] Hitman Absolution
Posted by Cheeto in Hitman: Absolution, PS3 Reviews / Vita Reviews on December 18th, 2012
It has been 6 years since Blood Money, so if you are asking if this new installment was worth the wait, well, the answer is yes. The man with the iconic barcode tattoo and black suite returns. Hitman Absolution is more personal, more Violent and more gruesome. It will force you to view the world through the eyes of a true predator. What is more lethal than a contracted killer? A contracted killer with a personal vendetta. Agent 47 is the most dangerous man on the planet.
Read the rest of this entry »
Hitman: Absolution – Introducing Disguises Trailer
Posted by Cheeto in Hitman: Absolution, QuickNews on October 20th, 2012
Watch (arguably) the world's best assassin suits up for his upcoming debut in Hitman: Absolution. In this trailer, released by Square Enix, Agent 47 uses all tools available for his advantage, blending in through perfectly chosen and sometimes dangerously amusing disguises.
Hitman: Absolution is scheduled for release world wide on November 20th, 2012.


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Archive for Sea Turtle Light Filters
Night Shelling Lighted Cap GiveAway!Posted by: | Comments
You don't have to let that hand held flashlight get in your way from grabbing those ALPHABET CONES! We might even finally find that JUNONIA we've been looking for! We now have a way to be safe for Sea Turtle nesting season with a 2-Beam Lighted Shelling Cap for hands free shelling on the beach at night. You can also use this lighted cap for walking the dog at night, camping, as a book light…. there are hundreds of times you want a hands-free flashlight. So now we can have a hat and a flashlight all in one!
It's got a light beam sandwiched in the bill for seeing straight ahead of you. Then it's got another beam under the bill to see downward in front of your feet. So you can use one or both beams for more options. I'm so excited about this new lighted cap that ……
It's a GIVEAWAY!!
The winner of this cap will also get 2 certified Sea Turtle light filters for the new 2-Beam lighted shelling cap to make it safe for sea turtle nesting season. These light filter stickers are Wildlife Lighting certified and have been approved by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission for filtering light so that it is not disruptive to sea turtles. This sticker will adhere to the bill of the 2-Beam night shelling cap above. The beam under the bill has been approved by SCCF as being non offensive to wildlife but we ask you to please turn this light off if a sea turtle is seen on the beach.
I'm giving other prizes away too! An i Love Shelling Tank Top to a SECOND winner…
And to a THIRD winner, I am giving away an i Love Shelling Tote Bag!
So here's all you do…. make a comment on this post. That's it. It gets me so excited when I see comments on my posts because to me that means you found something interesting about it. So to thank you for giving me feedback and hanging out with me on my shelling adventures, I'm giving away one PRIZE each to THREE LUCKY RANDOM COMMENTERS.
The Prizes….
UPDATE -June 14: The giveaway is now over and the winners have been chosen. See Winners.
Winner #1) 2-Beam lighted iLoveShelling.com Cap-$28 value and 2 Turtle Safe Filters- $3 value
Winner #2) i Love Shelling Tank Top -$14-$16 value (Medium, Large, XLarge or 2XLarge)
Winner #3) i Love Shelling Cabana Tote -$20 value
Here are the rules:
Make one comment on this post before June 14th which will enter you for the drawing of each of the prizes with free U.S. shipping. UPDATE: THIS DRAWING IS OVER. Click HERE for the winners.
Outside U.S. shipping over $5 will have to be paid by recipient.
Good Luck and let's Shellebrate some Winners!


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Vegas Wedding Invitation with Slot Machine Design
This Vegas wedding invitation features a customizable slot machine header with the wedding date and names. You'll have your very own slot machine and is perfect for a casino-themed wedding. Aren't you lucky to have found this unique and FREE invite?
The slot machine is pre-formatted with the font I'm using, so you'll simply edit it with your info. I'm including the fonts in the download files, so just install the font files and you're ready to go.
Size: 5″x7″ (wxh)
Fonts: Agency FB (Slot machine texts), Brush Script (names – same font as "Fabulous" in Las Vegas logo), Arial (texts)
Change the colors, order matching insert cards and tell us your ideas on how you want to make this design your own.
We offer professional class design customization services for a fraction of the cost of other designers and stores. Consider us your personal graphic designer. We work with you to create the perfect design for the printed materials you envision for your wedding.
Satisfaction guaranteed!
Find more information HERE or contact Michelle directly.
1. Open template in Adobe Reader. If you don't have it installed, download for FREE from Adobe.com.
2. Click on the blue box to activate the editable text area.
3. Click the 'CTRL' then 'E' keys on the keyboard ('Command' then 'E' on Mac).
The "Form Field Text Properties" toolbar will pop up.
4. Change the fonts, text color, alignment with the toolbar - just like doing it in Word.
5. Print on 8.5"x11" paper.
6. Trim and send.


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These are some of the frequently asked questions about the John Muir Trust's Wild Land Campaign. If you have a question that is not answered here, please email email@example.com.
The John Muir Trust is a UK charity dedicated to the protection of wild land for both nature and people. Scottish-born John Muir inspired our name and ethos, as the first person to call for action to be taken to protect wild land and as an instrumental figure in the modern conservation movement. John Muir inspired the United States President Theodore Roosevelt to set up one of the first US national parks in Yosemite.
The John Muir Trust was founded in 1983 to safeguard the future of wild lands against development and to promote awareness and recognition of the value of wild places. The Trust currently owns over 25,000 hectares of iconic wild land with partnerships in a further 50,000 hectares.
The Trust is currently supported by over 10,000 members. Surveys show that they care passionately about wild places and the diversity of life supported there and they want the Trust to actively defend such areas under threat. We campaign to protect wild land under threat and work with a wide range of groups and organisations to influence policies and land management practices to safeguard and enhance wild land.
The John Muir Trust actively engages people in wild places through the John Muir Award. The Award was started in 1997 to offer people of all ages and backgrounds the opportunity to enjoy and care for wild places. It has so far helped over 100,000 people gain an appreciation of such places.
As the leading wild land conservation charity and strongest voice for wild land in the UK, the John Muir Trust is launching a campaign for better protection for wild land and wild places in the UK.
The John Muir Trusts Wild Land Campaign is about making sure that wild land in the UK is better protected. Wild land is under serious threat and we need to take action to safeguard what remains. According to government body Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH), the extent of Scotland unaffected by any form of visual influence declined from 41% in 2002 to 28% at the end of 2009. Visual influence means the impact of roads and access tracks, power lines, wind power developments and forestry. The SNH data shows that the dominant change during that period was from the growth in wind power developments.
Our Wild Land Campaign aims to secure greater statutory protection for wild land areas throughout the UK by:-
When we refer to wild land we generally mean large areas with spectacular scenery and high wildlife value. There is very little evidence of human activity in these areas and they typically include mountains, tracts of blanket bog, river margins and rugged coastlines. Other organisations have come up with a similar definition of wild land. Wild land areas in the UK comprise some of our most iconic and sensitive landscapes and are mainly restricted to Northern and Western Scotland, as well as some areas of upland England and Wales and Northern Ireland.
Many of the qualities of wild land, with associated benefits to nature and society, can also be found in more accessible wild places throughout the UK. A connection with nature and a sense of wildness can be found in many places, often within or close to urban areas. These wild places are where most people have the opportunity to enjoy, value and care for nature.
Our Wild Land Campaign is aimed at our members, the general public and organisations that share our aim of securing better protection for wild land. We know that many people feel passionately about wild land and wild places. For example, this has been shown by public involvement in recent landmark planning cases such as the 20,000 objections to the Beauly-Denny transmission line - a development which will have a major impact on some of our most iconic wild land.
Another example which many people have shown their opposition to is the Balmedie golf development in Aberdeenshire where the impact will be on a more accessible but no less important wild place one of the best sand dune systems in the United Kingdom. Energy developments in or near significant sensitive landscape areas have been highlighted throughout the UK such as in the Lake District and in the Cambrian mountains in Wales.
Wild land is important for more than its scenic and wildlife value. It is the source of vital resources for both people and planet, providing us with clean air, water and food. It also helps to regulate the climate - peat in the form of blanket bogs plays an increasingly recognised role in preventing damaging carbon emissions.
Wild land is hugely important to our economy, tourism and leisure industries. It is particularly important to the livelihoods of rural communities where it attracts visitors to its beauty and challenges, providing opportunities for and supporting tourism-related businesses and traditional ways of life.
Thousands of people enjoy the beauty and challenges of wild land every year. Its a way of recharging our batteries and nourishing our minds as well as our bodies through challenging physical exercise. Wild land is also important on another dimension - it helps to define us culturally and plays a role in inspiring the creative and spiritual dimensions of our existence.
We believe that wild land in the UK is currently facing a major threat. As development pressures increase and the more accessible and less sensitive sites are used up, core wild land is under threat from development and at risk of losing its unique qualities.
We do not think wild land has enough protection from these risks - important animals, birds and habitats are generally well-protected by a range of statutory designations but landscape as an entity in itself has relatively little statutory protection. We are also concerned about the ecological health and diversity of flora and fauna in many areas of wild land. These have often been diminished by excessive grazing levels and trampling by wild deer and/or livestock.
We have been working with the Leeds University Wild Land Research Institute to develop maps that illustrate graphically how much wild land is left in the UK and where it is found. These maps make it possible to identify the location of core areas of wild land in the UK, based on criteria consistent with the Trusts wild land definition.
|The Map shows the UK's wildest land in deep blue, followed by a scale from the remaining wildest (green) areas to the most built up environments (red). This map, by Steve Carver of the University of Leeds is reproduced with the permission of the Ordnance Survey on behalf of the Controller of Her Majestys Stationery Office.
We think there is a strong case for better statutory protection for wild land. Some wild land is given some statutory protection because it lies within areas designated as National Scenic Areas (Scotland), Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (England, Wales and N. Ireland) or falls within the boundaries of National Parks.
However, not all wild land in the UK lies within areas covered by these designations - least of all in Scotland where less than 50% of the highest-quality, wild land is covered by any designation. Even where wild land does come under a designation, there is evidence from recent planning decisions to suggest that protection of such wild land is by no means guaranteed.
Wild land is mentioned as important in various planning documents (such as Scotlands National Planning Framework 2) and it would be good if we could rely on these existing designations to provide protection. Indeed, it is often argued that a voluntary and holistic approach is preferable to statutory protection. However, there is always a risk that voluntary measures will be over-ridden and the outcome of recent planning cases appears to prove this point.
In recent years, the John Muir Trust has worked with others to try to achieve better protection of wild land without new legislation. For example, we worked with landscape groups in the Scottish Landscape Forum to produce a report for the Scottish Executive on these issues and we have dedicated considerable resources to seeking to influence decision-makers. However, we are concerned that the messages of the Scottish Landscape Forum, clearly set out in a Landscape Charter, are unlikely to carry much weight with planning authorities when they make decisions on individual planning applications, in the absence of ministerial endorsement of this important work.
In some cases, the planning processes (and ultimate recourse in the form of a Public Local Inquiry) do put a check on inappropriate developments in wild land. However, opposing individual planning applications that impact on wild land requires significant time, effort and resources on the part of the opposing individual or organisation, with uncertain results in even the strongest of cases.
We do not have the resources to intervene to protect wild land every time it is under threat and nor do other conservation organisations or individuals. We also feel strongly, as a matter of principle, that developments which are obviously inappropriate should be stopped before public and private resources are expended at the planning and/or Public Inquiry stage.
The picture throughout the rest of the UK is more varied, with much of the wild land being in a National Park. However, there is evidence of pressure from development and concern about new planning regulations allowing fast-tracking of large developments in sensitive areas. There are welcome moves to increase the areas of some National Parks and it is important that UK politicians see support for such proposals so the Campaign can help that to happen.
Taking the above into consideration, we believe there is a case for better statutory protection for wild land areas throughout the UK and, in the case of Scotland, a new statutory designation that will ensure that wild land as an entity in itself is protected.
The John Muir Trust is the leading wild land conservation charity and strongest voice for wild land in the UK. There is a major threat to wild land from the current massive expansion of on-shore wind developments, as demonstrated by the SNH research, so it is essential that the Trust plays its part in the wider energy policy debate. The Trust has built up a wealth of experience and expertise that puts it in a strong position to advocate on these broader, related, economic and policy issues. It is also important to examine claims about whether specific developments contribute to Government targets for greenhouse gas emissions and renewable energy, and/or contribute to a secure energy supply.
We have found that making the case for local environmental protection alone doesnt always carry weight when balanced against the perceived, economic and social gain. The wealth of evidence and data which we have built up enables us to put forward a holistic, wide-ranging and convincing case that takes into account environmental, economic and social issues on both a local and global scale.Energy policy is a UK government responsibility so our UK-wide campaign asks supporters to take our concerns and information about energy policy to find out their political representatives stance and ask for their support in protecting wild areas.
Climate change is a very serious global issue and is a major threat to wild land and the unique habitats and biodiversity that it supports. The John Muir Trust strongly supports the need for effective action to achieve UK and Scottish Government greenhouse gas reduction targets.
The John Muir Trust strongly supports efficient, renewable energy technologies but these must not be at the cost of wild land. We are concerned that the climate change argument is being used by developers as a way of claiming justification for any renewable energy development even if it despoils wild land. However, wild land plays an important role in helping to offset the impacts of climate change - for example, the peat in blanket bogs that are often found in wild land areas plays an increasingly recognised role in preventing damaging carbon emissions.
A poorly-sited development can, therefore, fail to be the sustainable development it might first appear. If we allow poorly-sited and ill-conceived renewable energy projects to go ahead in wild land areas there is a real danger we will damage our landscapes and lose local biodiversity while not actually achieving the reductions in carbon that these developments were intended to secure.
It is also important to note that any area needs to be in good ecological heart if it is to weather changes in climate and it is vital that wild land areas are managed on a landscape scale for ecological diversity as part of the solution to climate change.
It isnt enough to switch to renewable energy production techniques and, in particular, to rely excessively on industrial-scale wind energy developments. To tackle climate change and ensure security of energy supplies, society also needs to reduce its consumption of energy and other resources. There are ways we can do this without having to return to the Stone Age.
There also needs to be much more of a focus on developing small-scale, local energy solutions and we are working with local communities in several locations in Scotland to try and promote win-win solutions - where measures to combat climate change go hand in hand with protecting wild land.
For example, in the north-west of Scotland we have supported Assynt Renewables to secure funding to carry out energy audits that will help the community take steps to reduce its energy use, whilst on Skye we have been looking at the feasibility of local communities switching to low carbon heating such as wood fuel.
Some people might argue that it is more important to concentrate on getting our economy back on its feet rather than worry about wild land. In other words, if this means that we have to accept development in wild land areas then that is the price we have to pay for a strong economy. The Trust disagrees wild land provides essential services to ourselves and our planet and is important for so many reasons that there can rarely be justification for sacrificing wild land for the sake of economic development.
Developers, governments and other agencies may try to justify major developments in wild land areas under the guise of sustainable economic growth but it is wrong to label a development sustainable if there is an unacceptable, negative impact on the environment. We do not believe that the protection of the environment should be traded or balanced against economic development objectives when viable and genuinely sustainable alternatives exist which do not damage wild land. Moreover, there is increasing evidence that wild land contributes very positively to our economy.
The mechanics of getting a Wild Land Designation for Scotland would require legislation in the Scottish Parliament as the environment is a devolved matter. The John Muir Trust recognises that any proposals for a new designation for wild land would require significant work, with input required from various government sources, other organisations, and landowners and communities living in and dependent on wild land areas.
The Trust is aware of other organisations which also want to secure better protection for wild land and which are keen to be part of the process. The Trust would expect to make a significant contribution based on the expertise we have and, whilst there will always be some debate about where the boundary of any designation should be, we expect the maps we have commissioned and GIS technology will play a key role in developing a Wild Land Designation.
The John Muir Trusts Wild Land Campaign is to secure better statutory protection for wild land areas throughout the UK and a new statutory designation to protect wild land in Scotland. Along the way, our Campaign aims to engage all our members and the wider public by promoting awareness, understanding, and responsibility for, and connections with, wild places. We will demonstrate evidence of the support of people who share our aim of protecting wild land to ensure that the UK Government and devolved administrations adopt a more informed and sensitive approach to wild land and develop more robust mechanisms for its protection.
Go to www.jmt.org/wildland for the latest news on how to support our Wild Land Campaign. We need you to:
Page Updated: 5 May 2011


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Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. hasn't annouced an opponent yet but it appears it will be Peter Manfredo Jr. who gets the fight in the Fall. This is a fight that will have some people shaking their heads but it is one I like.
The 30-year-old Manfredo Jr. (37-6 20 KO) is someone that I always liked but I resigned myself to the fact he would never win a major title. He had his chance in 2007 against Joe Calzaghe but was stopped in third round of a fight he shouldn't of been in.
Since then he has gone 10-2 and has beaten some solid, but not great, fighters, his best wins being David Banks, Matt Vanda, and Daniel Edouard . He has also won the NABF title twice and the lightly regarded IBO title once in that span.
Those names I listed above may not be impressive but they aren't much worse, if at all, then Chavez Jr. (43-0-1 30 KO). He has proven to be about average and had a tough time with Zbik. I don't think he is a top-10 junior middleweight and he shouldn't be called one.
Manfredo Jr. isn't a top tier fighter either but he is better then Chavez Jr. He has had an honest career and none of his six losses, outside of Jeff Lacy, are that bad. He is an action fighter and the real reason I want to see him get this is because he loves boxing. The dude just loves boxing.
Manfredo Jr. and Chavez Jr. aren't that much different, they are both decent fighters, they are both action fighters, and they have both fought for, and in one case won, a title. The difference is Manfredo Jr. loves boxing and Chavez Jr. was born into boxing.
Chavez Jr. seems to try hard and it's not his fault he is a pawn in someones game but he doesn't truly love the sport like Manfredo Jr. does. If he could win the title the scene would be so emotionally charged. I don't care that Manfredo Jr. isn't much better.
I rather have a decnet titleholder who loves boxing, then a decent titleholder who was born into it. This may seem silly and make me look bad but frankly I don't care.
Give Manfredo Jr. the title shot.


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Interesting Things
- Rspec vs. Rails' Test::Unit Gotcha: In a Controller test, Rspec provides access to that Controller's attributes with
assigns[:attr_name], or "array notation", but Test::Unit does not. Both support
assigns(:attr_name), or "method-call notation."
Ask for Help
- "How should we migrate/upgrade database when we add new versions of assets, such as photos?" The consensus is that, for now, we'll do it lazily: if an application (using our asset management plugin) needs a new version to be stored (perhaps we need a 'tiny' version…) when we will create them on-the-fly when requested rather than generate thousands of photos in one shot. If that has performance implications we'll revisit that decision.
- Anyone want to be RailsConf roomies? Our sizable RailsConf contingent is going to try to share hotel rooms and such.
- We're out of beer! A posse of those whom have been late to standup will make a run later today


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- Filed Under
Nevada's Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology will hold its next Tech Wednesday event from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. April 11 at the Flowing Tide Pub in Reno.
Charter Business will discuss its latest business telecommunications technologies and services at the event.
Cost: $25, $15 for NCET members. Details: 775-853-4226.


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Full detailed profile on Cristian Vega Played by David Fumero on One Life To Live Daytime Soap Opera.
David Fumero
Birthday: 1972-12-29
At Capricorn, Wess wonders why he's not getting a buzz. Cris has to take a call. Rama agrees to keep Wess there and flirts with him. Cutter slips behind the bar and shows Wess the non-alcoholic beer. Wess sees Cris, grabs him and snaps, "Are you ripping me off?" Wess turns to leave again. Aubrey tries to help Rama keep his interest. Cutter convinces Wess that the girls are bad news, with husbands. Wess goes to leave with Cutter but runs into Ford. Wess shoves Ford off and leaves. Aubrey fills Ford in on Jessica's new alter. Ford's furious Aubrey left his son home with the Buchanan staff. At the bar, Cris asks Rama if she told Vimal the truth about her non-pregnancy. She thinks back to her scam with Cutter and Aubrey and admits she couldn't tell him. Rama thinks the lie will be worth it in the end. She backtracks and claims to be a horrible person. Cris hugs Rama. They almost kiss. Cris pulls away and maintains eye contact with Rama, as she leaves with Aubrey.
Cris joins Aubrey and Rama at their table at Capricorn. Wess introduces himself and continues hitting on the girls. Cris receives a call from Brody and agrees to detain Wess. At the bar, Dorian taunts Joey about Kelly and John's relationship. She wonders why he appears to care so much about who Kelly's with. Joey looks toward Aubrey and sees Jessica hanging on his wife. He approaches them and is introduced to Wess. Just as Dorian's about to call Viki, John calls with news about Kelly. Dorian relays the news to Joey, who follows Dorian out. Rama notes to Aubrey how quickly Joey raced out for Kelly. Brody and Cutter arrive. While Cutter seeks out Aubrey, Brody fills Wess in about the girl who holds his heart. Brody shows Wess a photo of him and Jessica. Wess recognizes her as the crazy girl from St. Ann's. Brody is called into work. Cris agrees to try to keep Wess there until Brody gets back. When Cris wonders how he'll trick Wess with non-alcoholic drinks, Rama asks, "Haven't you ever had a virgin?" Across the room, Cutter and Aubrey go back and forth about Tess and Joey. Cutter takes comfort that Joey left Aubrey for Kelly and says, "Looks like you might've picked the wrong horse." He warns Joey will figure her out, if he hasn't already. Wess appears, guzzles down a non-alcoholic beer then hits on Aubrey some more.
Inside, Cris asks Rama if she's told Vimal she isn't pregnant. Aubrey appears and pulls Rama away. She's worried Cutter will blow their cover. Aubrey told him they're through. Rama tells Aubrey to fix this and take Cutter back. "I don't want Cutter back," Aubrey snaps. "I love Joey." Rama changes her tune and assures Aubrey she won't lose Joey. He'll believe in their love. Rama suggests she blackmail Cutter into never telling Joey the truth. Joey appears and acts like the adoring husband. Wess appears and hits on Rama and Aubrey.
Blair appears at Capricorn. What's Claude doing there? Claude claims he's there on business and looked up an old friend. Blair heard Claude suggest she was setting Tomas up. What did he mean by that? Claude brings up the shooting of Blair's ex-husband. He urged Tomas to visit Blair and is now worried about his friend. Claude talks of John's suspicions and asks if Blair suspects Tomas too. Blair plans to go on a date with Tomas. Claude has nothing to worry about. Privately, Claude warns Tomas to be careful. If he sees this Todd situation through to the end, it could spell disaster for Tomas, Blair and Tea. Later, Blair thanks Tomas again for helping Jack. They agree to meet at eight. Starr appears and asks Blair about her date. Blair changes the subject to Deanna, who Starr claims isn't a problem anymore. Rama approaches Cris by the bar and rants over what Phyllis Rose said about them. He urges her to forget about it. When Rama asks for a drink, Cris brings up her pregnancy. Rama admits she's not pregnant and explains why she lied to Vimal. Cris gives her some advice, which Rama appreciates.
Kelly finds Cutter at Capricorn and asks if Aubrey approves of his dating. Cutter claims his sister is very supportive of him. Kelly tells him Clint told her that he and Aubrey are lovers. "You look worried, Cutter," Kelly says. "You should be." She warns the truth will come out, and he'll end up alone. "He's got me." Tess appears and puts her arms around Cutter. Cris gives Cutter a warning about hurting Tess, who leaves to head home to Ford. Cutter calls the mansion. Rama tells him Clint had a heart attack. Aubrey wanted to be with Joey and went to the hospital.
Natalie's watching "Access Llanview" when Cris arrives at Llanfair. He admits the gift for Liam is just an excuse to come over. Cris tells Natalie Marty's carrying around her paternity results and became nervous when he caught her. Natalie isn't surprised and fills Cris in on her latest argument with John. They hear Phyllis Rose talk about Cris visiting Statesville with Rama. "Care to comment?" Natalie asks and rants about Cris spending time with the woman who crashed her wedding. She reminds Cris Rama's married. He shouldn't get stuck on someone he can't have. Cris thinks it's rich getting relationship advice from Natalie. She's only talking from experience. Vimal already warned Cris off. Natalie guesses Vimal's comment means Rama's pregnant. Cris doesn't think so. Once he leaves, Natalie wonders what the hell Marty's up to now.
In the gym, Ford assures Brody he won't allow Tess near Cutter again, seeing as Cutter was able to bring Jessica out. Brody better get used to it. Tess is here to stay. Brody vows to bring Jessica back. Kelly and Joey argue nearby. Aubrey hears Joey punched John. It's clear Joey is jealous of Kelly's relationship with John. Joey denies it but continues lashing out at Kelly for sleeping with John, especially in the closet at Rodi's where they almost… "Almost what?" Aubrey asks. Joey insists nothing happened. Kelly leaves, and Aubrey wonders if Joey's sorry he married her. He isn't. She rushes off anyway. Across the room, Rama admits to Cris it's her fault Vimal's in prison. She covers then thinks about telling Vimal she was pregnant. Rama realizes she's late for her visit with Vimal. Cris offers to drive her.
In the hallway, Marty runs into Cris and drops a paper. Cris picks it up and asks why Marty has Natalie's paternity results. Cris knows Marty held Liam's paternity over Natalie's head. She's apologized for that. Marty rushes off. Cris goes to get Rama and is confused when Vimal warns him to keep his hands off his wife because she's in a delicate condition.
Rama stares at Cris at the gym. Aubrey reminds her she's married. Over talk of Vimal, Aubrey thinks maybe they need a new plan. Aubrey asks Rama to distract Joey then leaves. Rama rushes Joey over to spot Cris. Rama was worried Cris would hurt himself. While Rama flirts with Cris, she notices Joey's gone. Rama takes off. Brody joins Cris and talks about his situation with Natalie. Tess and Ford appear. After Tess taunts Brody, she heads to the steam room. Brody warns Ford to keep his hands off Jessica. Ford assures Brody Tess isn't interested in him at all.
Kelly arrives at the gym and approaches Joey and Aubrey. She wonders if Joey knows why Bo would drop the charges against Clint. Joey suggests Kelly ask her boyfriend. While Joey displays his jealousy in front of Aubrey, Cris joins Rama, who appears sad. Cris assures her there was nothing she could do to prevent her husband from going to jail. "It was my fault," Rama blurts out.
« Back to Cristian Vega profile


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White House Commemorates World Hepatitis Day 2011
Today, I was honored to participate in a special White House event to commemorate the first official World Hepatitis Day. This event was one of many held across the United States and around the world for communities to join together and focus attention on the global health threat of viral hepatitis and promote actions to confront it.
Worldwide, one in twelve persons are estimated to be living with viral hepatitis and about one million people around the world die every year because of viral hepatitis. Many people infected with viral hepatitis are unaware of their status, and as a result, may unknowingly transmit the infection to others. Without knowing their status, these patients also face the possibility of developing otherwise preventable debilitating or fatal liver disease. Last year, in recognition of this "silent epidemic," the World Health Assembly resolved that July 28 should be designated as World Hepatitis Day, providing an opportunity to increase awareness and understanding of viral hepatitis and recognize it as a major global health problem. The theme for this first official World Hepatitis Dayis "This is hepatitis... Know it. Confront it. Hepatitis affects everyone, everywhere."
In the United States, an estimated 3.5-5.3 million persons are living with hepatitis B or hepatitis C virus. Viral hepatitis impacts Americans of all backgrounds but affects some U.S. populations more than others. Half of all hepatitis B infected persons in the U.S. are Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders; African-Americans are twice as likely to be infected with hepatitis C when compared with the general population. To actively address these disparities and to accelerate our efforts to fight viral hepatitis, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) developed an Action Plan for the Prevention, Care and Treatment of Viral Hepatitis. The plan outlines actions to increase viral hepatitis awareness and knowledge among health care providers and communities, and steps that will improve access to quality prevention, care, and treatment services for viral hepatitis. Improved coordination across HHS, along with the active engagement of other governmental and nongovernmental partners—including informed communities—will be crucial to our success.
Today's World Hepatitis Day Event was hosted by the White House Office of National AIDS Policy with active support from the HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health. Dr. Howard K. Koh, the Assistant Secretary for Health, emphasized that marking this day in such a special way provides an opportunity to reaffirm our collective commitment to focus more attention on this pressing public health issue. Dr. Koh was among the dignitaries who provided opening remarks at the event and read a World Hepatitis Day proclamation on behalf of President Obama. I was pleased to then hear from several members of Congress, including Representatives Bill Cassidy, Judy Chu, Michael Honda, Hank Johnson, and Barbara Lee, who have been leaders in raising hepatitis awareness. I moderated a panel that highlighted opportunities across the federal government to implement the HHS Action Plan for Viral Hepatitis. This discussion was followed by a session led by health care providers and patients living with viral hepatitis who shared their individual experiences with fighting viral hepatitis. Mr. Jeffrey Crowley, Director of the White House Office of National AIDS Policy, provided a closing statement to the audience, which included government leaders, policy makers, community advocates, patients, and health professionals.
To learn more about World Hepatitis Day or about viral hepatitis visit the CDC's website. Also, read the Presidential Proclamation–World Hepatitis Day.
Ronald Valdiserri, M.D., M.P.H. is the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health, Infectious Diseases, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
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Like it's predecessor UMTS, LTE allows high speed wireless data transfer.
The first apple device to support LTE is the iPad introduced in march 2012. However, as it is with other wireless standards, the use of LTE depends on the frequency bands which are supported. The first iPad only supports LTE in the United States.


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I made this little freebie for the ExportPro video. What is ExportPro? A designer's dream come true Automatically and precisely export multiple layers and save tons of time Nothing to learn; no prep time; no changing your workflow Straightforward, intuitive, flexible and fast You can see the demo video here. If you are a user interface designer …
12 New Photoshop Tools for CS6
Updated for Photoshop CS6 Version 13.0.1 x64
Here is the NEW and free CS6 version of one of the best freebies ever for professional Photoshop users "Trevor Morris Scripts."
Free Photoshop Pen Panel
I am sure this little & simple panel will save time to some of you when working with the pen tool.
Please feel free to download it…
12 New Photoshop Tools
Today I am giving away the coolest freebie ever.
It is a plugin called "Trevor Morris Scripts."
It is a photoshop panel with twelve incredibly useful tools that I use on a daily basis.


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|Jessie Guy Houchens
|Tuesday, 15 July 2014 10:27
Jessie Guy Houchens 92 of Glasgow died Tuesday at Glenview Healthcare in Glasgow. The Monroe county native was the daughter of the late Ader and Ida Eubank Smith. Mrs. Houchens was a homemaker and a member of Mt. Olivet Baptist Church. She was also preceded in death by her husband, Emile Morgan Houchens, a daughter Evelyn Dean Houchens, a son Harold Wayne Houchens, 2 sisters Mildred England and Oleta Woodcock and 3 brothers Robert, Wilmer and Bill Smith.
Survivors include 11 children, Richard (Wallace) Houchens, Patty Wilson, William Earl (Faye) Houchens, Wendall (Anita) Houchens, Eugene (Linda) Houchens, Franklin Houchens, Billy (Frances) Houchens, Roger Houchens, Donnie (Penny) Houchens and Linda Houchens all of Glasgow and Rosie (Charles) Steenbergen of Scottsville; 3 brothers Eagle, Cecil and Randall Smith all of Indiana; 32 grandchildren; 85 great-grandchildren and 37 great-great-grandchildren.
Funeral services will be 2pm Thursday at the A. F. Crow & Son Funeral Home with burial in the Hopewell Cemetery in Allen County. Visitation will begin at 2pm Wednesday.