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Dave at The World's Fair is collecting field data on coffee mugs. Or maybe he's trying to create a meme.
Anyway, he poses a bunch of questions which I seem to be unable to resist answering:
- Can you show us your coffee cup?
- Can you comment on it? Do you think it reflects on your personality?
- Do you have any interesting anecdotes resulting from coffee cup commentary?
- Can you try to get others to comment on it?
My answers will be restricted to the coffee delivery vessels (all three of them) I use at work, thus excluding the travel mug I use in the car on weekday mornings and the mugs I use at home on weekends. Also, since I have the necessary materials and apparatus in my office to make tea, but not coffee, these mugs might more properly be counted as "tea mugs" (or "coffee and tea mugs").
The ScienceBlogs mug pictured above is not available in any store (so far — if the people were vocal in their desire for ScienceBlogs swag, it might happen). I received it by mail from the Sb mothership shortly after the ScienceBlogs project was launched.
This is the mug the American Chemical Society sent me when I had been a member for three years. That's lithium, element 3 in the periodic table. It hasn't yet been the case that I've needed lithium's atomic mass to three decimal places while partaking of a warm caffeinated beverage at my desk, but it's good to be prepared.
This is a mug that Stanford's Undergraduate Philosophy Association had made the year before I came to SJSU. They didn't make very many of them, and they became a highly prized possession for those who had one. I expressed a wistful longing for one of these mugs, an lo! one was given to me (although not by a member of the UPA).
Strictly speaking, I did not purchase any of these mugs (although I did pay dues to the ACS). I'm not a mug buyer so much as a receiver of mugs.
There are three of them so I can be hospitable to people visiting my office and, more importantly, to minimize the time I have to spend washing mugs.
These mugs are less a reflection on my personality than on my tribal affiliations (although I suppose putting those affiliations on display says something about my personality). When they make an appearance out of my office, these mugs are usually being schlepped to a meeting or even at which coffee is being provided, and how others interact with a given mug tells me something about their tribal affilliations:
"ScienceBlogs, eh? So what's the deal with blogs? Who the heck reads them or writes them?"
"American Chemical Society? I thought you were in philosophy."
"Hey, the "U" on your mug is full of XYZ! You could use this mug to drink coffee from Twin Earth!
Mugs, like T-shirts, seem to be communicating with ever smaller groups of people. (At least, that seems to be the trend with my mugs and T-shirts.) But I can't imagine toting around a blank mug. It would be tantamount to seeming like I had nothing to say.


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|Pioneers, Huskies Leads Wells Fargo Conference Cup standings
|Written by Rick Strunk
|Monday, 10 December 2012 18:20
Wells Fargo, along with the North Carolina High School Athletic Association, today announced the final standings in the Wells Fargo Conference Cup competitions for the 2012 fall sports season. The Wells Fargo Cup award, sponsored by Wells
Fargo and the NCHSAA, recognizes the high schools that achieve the best overall interscholastic athletic performance within each of the state's four competitive classifications.
Northwestern Athletic 3-A/4-A: Watauga is the top team after the fall sports season, sweeping the conference cross country championships and also adding a league title in women's tennis. Hickory is in second thanks to a championship in men's soccer and a runner-up finish in women's tennis. Third-place Alexander Central took first in women's golf and tied for second in football. Conference Standings: Watauga 75.5, Hickory 69, Alexander Central 61.5, South Caldwell 55.5, Fred T. Foard 55, St. Stephens 50.5, Hibriten 40.
Mountain Valley 1-A/2-A: Championships in men's soccer and women's cross country as well as a second-place finish in women's golf earn Ashe its first-place position in the conference after the fall. Wilkes Central is second with a league title in football and a second-place performance in women's tennis. Third place belongs to Forbush, the second-place finisher in women's soccer and women's cross country. Conference Standings: Ashe County 42.5, Wilkes Central 39.5, Forbush 38.5, East Wilkes 35, Elkin 33, West Wilkes 32, Starmount 29.5, Alleghany 21.5, North Wilkes 20.5.
Western Highlands 1-A/2-A: Hendersonville leads the way after the fall season, thanks to first-place finishes in football, women's golf, women's tennis, women's cross country, and a share of the conference volleyball title with second-place Polk County. Charles D. Owen is close behind in third with a championship in men's soccer and a second-place finish in women's cross country. Conference Standings: Hendersonville 81, Polk County 73.5, Charles D. Owen 72, Thomas Jefferson 64.5, Mountain Heritage 62.5, Avery County 53.5, Madison 44, Mitchell 43.
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Several proposals aimed at Maine's wind power industry were up for hearings today at the State House. One would restrict wind turbine development, with the stated purpose of protecting Maine's scenic character. The other, say supporters, would restore the rights of those in unorganized territories to have a voice in proposed wind developments. As Patty Wight reports, business owners, and even some environmental groups, are split on how to balance developing renewable power with scenic interests.
Chris O'Neil of the Maine Appalachian Trail Club testifies before a legislative committee today in Augusta.
Britain may have its crown jewels, but if you ask Chris O'Neil of the Maine Appalachian Trail Club, Maine is home to equally precious jewels: Acadia National Park, the Allagash Wilderness Waterway, Baxter State Park, and the Appalachian Trail. And he says their natural beauty should be protected from the sight of wind turbines that stretch hundreds of feet into the sky.
"We now know that 360-foot-tall wind turbines - that are now around 500 feet - located on ridgetops in mountain environments, can be very prominent features of the landscape," O'Neil said.
Right now, Maine has an eight-mile so-called "scenic impact zone" around wind turbine development. But O'Neil and others are supporting a bill that would expand that zone to 15 miles.
The national Appalachian Mountain Club is in favor as well, says David Publicover, who was part of a task force that created the eight-mile scenic buffer back in 2008.
"With time, I come to see that the task force and the wind siting law got some things right. I think there are some things need to be corrected," Publicover said. "And one of the things I think is necessary to correct is the way we assess visual impacts."
But another environmental group, the Maine chapter of the Sierra Club - opposes the bill. Director Glen Brand says that protection of the environment must include the development of renewable wind power.
"From ocean acidification, toxic air pollution, coastal erosion, extreme weather events, and alarming threats to our fisheries, such as the green crab invasion, Maine is already suffering from rising carbon pollution," Brand said. Brand says the bills will impose unnecessary roadblocks to meaningful wind development.
Underscoring that point, Jeremy Payne of the Maine Renewable Energy Association held up a map during his testimony that highlighted in red the areas in Maine that would be off limits to wind development. It cuts a swath that extends from Grafton Notch in western Maine and curves up Mount Katahdin, and includes large splotches along the coast.
"It's not as though we're talking about small areas," Payne aid. "This is a huge huge change in what becomes an unreasonable adverse impact" - which, Payne says, will send developers scurrying to other states to develop wind power.
But just as environmental groups are divided on the issue, so too are some businesses. Robert Gerry of HarMac Rebar and Steel in Fryeburg says the wind power industry has brought much-needed work to the company's 50 employees.
"We're in a horribly depressed construction economy," Gerry said. "The state needs these jobs. We need this work. All of our folks need this work. Please try to keep this thing rolling. Don't slow it down."
But Patrick Patterson, owner of Wheatons Lodge in Forest City Township, says it will have the opposite effect on his sporting camp business, which employs 20 people.
"If you bring the windmills in across the ridges or around the lakes and things, you will destroy my business. You'll take it away from me," he said. "People are not coming here to look at the windmills. They're not."
And because Patterson lives in an unorganized township, he lost his right to have a say in wind power development under the Maine Wind Energy Act in 2008, which established wind development as a permitted use. A bill before the committee would restore that right.
"What I'm asking for is the right, as a person who lives in an unorganized township, is the ability to have a say of where and what is considered a scenic value or historic value or a brand of Maine," Patterson said.
Some members of the committee questioned whether using scenic character as a reason to impose restrictions on wind development will pave the way for future restrictions on other Maine industriesm such as logging.
But one Appalachian Trail hiker suggested that Maine lawmakers have the wrong focus all together, and instead of considering energy production, should promote energy conservation.
Photo: Patty Wight


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NEWPORT CITY - Within a year the city will reassess all properties to ensure they are in line with their real estate market value.
"When the CLA goes down, everybody's taxes in town go up," explained Spencer Potter, Newport City's tax assessor, during an interview Tuesday.
Please see The Newport Daily Express Wednesday for the complete story.
DERBY CENTER - John Gunn and Christiane Brown are taking a new approach to teaching physical education at the North Country Union Junior High School. While the students get to play tag, basketball, badminton and other sports, they also use heart monitors while they exercise.
Lindgren–- Audrey Anne died peacefully at her home surrounded by her family on Thursday, January, 2, 2014 after a courageous battle with cancer.
For the full obituary see Tuesday's Express.


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Kate Bosworth was one of the many stars to walk the red carpet at HBO's "True Blood" Season 3 Premiere in LA last night.
The gorgeous blonde opted of a Preen Fall 2010 dress which had been style differently from the runway.
Her version was sleeveless with bra-like straps.
I like both versions, but I think I would've loved Kate's look more had the bikini-like bandeau part been all yellow rather than a print.
Other than that I really like this look.
Pointy pumps, a black clutch and stunning gold Samantha Wills earrings complete the look.
[nggallery id=545]
Credit: Style.com & Getty


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Thursday, November 15, 2012
© Copyright 2015 Rockdale Citizen
COVINGTON — A man known to live in the Conyers/Covington area was fatally injured on Ga. Highway 36 before dawn Thursday as he walked along the roadway, according to the Georgia State Patrol.
The crash occurred south of Newton Factory Bridge Road.
The victim has been identified as Thomas James Daugherty, 37. His immediate family lives in New York state and was notified Thursday afternoon.
GSP troopers determined Daugherty was struck by a Hyundai Santa Fe that was being driven by a 62-year-old Newton County woman.
"(She) reported a collision to Newton County around 6:15 a.m. of what she believed to have been a collision with a deer," said GSP spokesman Gordy Wright. "She had stopped about a tenth of a mile from where the body was later located."
Wright said the victim's vehicle was been located on the shoulder of Ga. Highway 36, north of the crash location.
"It is believed the victim's vehicle had a mechanical breakdown," he said.
Alcohol and drugs are not suspected to be factors in the crash.
The GSP's Specialized Crash Reconstruction Team is investigating the crash and whether or not charges will be made against the driver are pending the outcome of their investigation.
More like this story
- Female pedestrian struck and killed on Highway 36 ( November 30, 2012 )
- Fatality, hit-and-run crashes reported in Newton County Saturday morning ( October 19, 2013 )
- Victim identified as 12-year-old Covington girl ( October 25, 2012 )
- Georgia State Patrol IDs suspected driver in Saturday's hit-and-run accident ( October 21, 2013 )
- Two Oxford residents killed in separate auto crashes ( September 4, 2012 )


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One of every two of you have a deadly disease that's making you fat, sick, and will eventually kill you—and 90 percent of you don't even know you have it. What's worse is that your doctors are not trained to find it, and most don't even look for it. This problem will cost us $3.5 trillion over the next ten years. It is bankrupting our economy. In 30 years, 100 percent of our federal budget will be needed to pay for Medicare and Medicaid, leaving nothing for education, defense, agriculture, roads, or even social security.
So what is this deadly disease?
It's diabesity—the number one cause of obesity, heart disease, cancer, dementia and, of course, type 2 diabetes.
You might hear many terms used to describe one basic phenomenon—a new epidemic of disordered biology and disease. It is the continuum of abnormal biology that ranges from mild insulin resistance to full-blown diabetes. We call it by many names:
>> Insulin resistance
>> Prediabetes
>> Metabolic syndrome
>> Obesity
>> Syndrome X
>> Adult-onset diabetes
>> Type 2 diabetes
In truth, these are all one problem with varying degrees of severity. The diagnosis and treatment of the underlying causes that drive all these conditions are actually the same. That is why I use a more comprehensive term to describe them—diabesity.
Diabesity describes a continuum of diseases from optimal blood sugar imbalance to insulin sensitivity to full-blown diabetes. This biological imbalance is our modern plague. It affects one in two Americans and is the leading cause of most chronic diseases in this country, including cancer.
Despite this fact, there are no national recommendations from the government or key organizations to advise screening and treatment of the condition, and most doctors don't know how to properly diagnose it. The result is that 90 percent of the people who suffer from diabesity are left undiagnosed and untreated.
So how do you know if you have it? If you answer yes to any of these questions, you may already have it:
>> Do you have a family history of diabetes, heart disease, or obesity?
>> Are you of non-white ancestry (African, Asian, Native American, Pacific Islander, Hispanic, Indian, Middle Eastern)?
>> Are you overweight (BMI or body mass index over 25)?
>> Do you have extra belly fat? Is your waist circumference greater than 35 inches for women or greater than 40 inches for men?
>> Do you have sugar and refined carbohydrate cravings?
>> Do you have trouble losing weight on a low fat diet?
>> Has your doctor told you your blood sugar is a little high (greater than 100mg/dl) or have you actually been diagnosed with insulin resistance, pre-diabetes, or diabetes?
>> Do you have high levels of triglycerides (over 100 mg/dl) or low HDL (good) cholesterol (< 50 mg/dl)?
>> Do you have heart disease?
>> Do you have high blood pressure?
>> Are you inactive (less than 30 minutes of exercise 4 times a week)?
>> Have you had gestational diabetes or polycystic ovarian syndrome?
>> Do you suffer from infertility, low sex drive, or sexual dysfunction?
The instances of diabesity are increasing at an astonishing rate. When I started practicing medicine 20 years ago, not a single state in the nation had an obesity rate over 20 percent.
Today, not a single state in the nation has an obesity rate under 20 percent. The prevalence of type 2 diabetes has tripled since the 1980s. There are now 27 million diabetics in the country and 336 million diabetics around the world.
The question is, "Why?" Why are we facing a diabesity pandemic? Why are our current treatment approaches failing so miserably? And why is conventional medicine floundering when it comes to diagnosing the biggest health threat of our time?
Conventional Medicine Misunderstands the Fundamental Laws of Biology
Modern industrial medicine treats disease with medication or surgery—that's what it is designed to do. And when it comes to emergency interventions, it is still the best medicine in the world. When someone comes into the emergency room with a severed leg, conventional medicine treats the problem with incredible efficacy.
But when it comes to chronic illness like diabesity, this approach simply doesn't work. Here's why: Most medicine today is based on clear-cut, on-or-off, yes-or-no diagnoses that often miss the underlying causes and more subtle manifestations of illness. Most conventional doctors are taught that you either have a disease, or you don't; you have diabetes, or you don't. There are no gray areas.
Practicing medicine this way is extremely misguided because it misses one of the most fundamental laws of physiology, biology, and disease: The continuum concept. There is a continuum from optimal health to hidden imbalance to serious dysfunction to disease. Anywhere along the continuum, we can intervene and reverse the process. The sooner we address the issue, the better.
When it comes to diabesity, most doctors just follow blood sugar, which actually rises very late in the disease process. If your blood sugar is between 90 to 110 mg/dl, you don't have diabetes. If it's over 126 mg/dl, you do. But these distinctions are completely arbitrary and they do nothing to help treat impending problems.
For example, I remember one patient, Daren, who came to see me with mildly elevated blood sugar. I asked Daren if he had seen his doctor about this. He said he had. I then asked, "What did your doctor say?" Daren's doctor had told him, "We are going to wait and watch until your blood sugar is more elevated, and then we are going to treat you with medication for diabetes."
This attitude is absurd and harmful in the face of what we know about the problems that occur even in the absence of fullblown diabetes. Science now shows us that many people with prediabetes never get diabetes, but they are at severe risk just the same. Prediabetes actually isn't pre-anything, it's a serious health condition and needs to be treated as early as possible.
More to the point, this approach completely ignores more subtle clues from symptoms and signs of disease, which may highlight underlying metabolic imbalances (especially when complemented by further testing). These imbalances may be remedied by the appropriate treatment—treatment that is not focused on some disease, but instead works to remove those things that alter or damage our functioning, and provides those things that enhance, optimize, and normalize our functioning by balancing the system rather than treating the symptom. Doctors must treat the system, not the symptom; the patient, not the disease.
Consider the man in the emergency room with the severed leg, again. For that person, identifying what severed the leg isn't likely to make the difference between life and death. The symptom—the severed leg—must be treated if he is going to survive.
But that paradigm simply doesn't hold true for health conditions like diabesity. This mechanistic model can be applied in some health crises, but it doesn't work when it comes to chronic disease.
Navigating the Terrain of Disease: Identifying the Causes
To effectively treat diabesity we must shift our focus away from the symptoms or risk factors of the disease and begin taking a hard look at the causes. All of our attention is on treatments that lower blood sugar (diabetes drugs and insulin), lower high blood pressure (anti-hypertensive drugs), improve cholesterol (statins), and thin the blood (aspirin). But we never ever ask the most important questions. Why is your blood sugar, blood pressure, or blood cholesterol too high and why is your blood too sticky and likely to clot? Put another way: What are the root causes of diabesity?
Answering these questions must be the focus of our diagnosis and treatment of the disease if we are going to solve this global epidemic. The good news is that the answer is shockingly simple.
The Real Causes of Diabesity
The entire spectrum of diabesity including all of its complications—diabetes, elevated blood sugar, blood pressure, and cholesterol—are simply downstream symptoms that result from problems with diet, lifestyle, and environmental toxins interacting with our unique genetic susceptibilities. Those are the real causes of diabesity.
And the reason these dietary and lifestyle factors lead to diabesity is because they create a condition known as insulin resistance. Contrary to what most people think, type 2 diabetes is a disease of too much, not too little, insulin. Insulin is the real driver of diabesity.
When your diet is full of empty calories and an abundance of quickly absorbed sugars, liquid calories, and carbohydrates (like bread, pasta, rice, and potatoes), your cells slowly become resistant to the effects of insulin; they need more and more of it to keep your blood sugar even. Thus you develop insulin resistance. A high insulin level is the first sign of a problem. The higher your insulin levels are, the worse your insulin resistance. Your body starts to age and deteriorate. In fact, insulin resistance is the single most important phenomenon that leads to rapid and premature aging and all its resultant diseases.
As your insulin levels increase, it leads to an appetite that is out of control, increasing weight gain around the belly, more inflammation and oxidative stress, and myriad downstream effects including high blood pressure; high cholesterol; low HDL; high triglycerides; thickening of the blood; and increased risk of cancer, Alzheimer's, and depression. These all result from insulin resistance and too much insulin. Elevated blood sugar is not the source of the problem.
And because insulin resistance (and diabesity) is a direct outcome of diet and lifestyle, the condition is 100-percent reversible in the vast majority of cases. Most people just need to eliminate the things that are sending their biology out of balance and include what's needed to help the body rebalance itself. For most the interventions required are extremely simple and extraordinarily effective.
8 Steps to Reversing Diabesity
In my new book, The Blood Sugar Solution (Little, Brown; 2012), I explore all of the social, economic, biological, and medical underpinnings of this health epidemic and outline a comprehensive eight-week plan for overcoming diabesity in all its forms. Here is a condensed version of the steps outlined in the book:
1. Get the right tests. Most doctors focus on fasting blood sugar. This is actually a poor indicator of diabesity. The best test to tease out the condition is an insulin response test where insulin levels are measured fasting and then one and two hours after a glucose drink. Demand this test from your doctor.
2. Get smart about nutrition. Despite the media hype and the seeming confusion amongst doctors, the basics of nutrition are extremely simple. Eliminate sugar and processed carbohydrates, include whole real foods like lean protein (chicken or fish), veggies, nuts, seeds, beans, and whole grains.
3. Get the right supplements. There has recently been a frenzy of negative reports about supplements. Most of them are unfounded. Supplements are an essential part of treating diabesity. A good multivitamin, vitamin D, fish oil, and special blood sugar balancing nutrients like alpha lipoic acid, chromium polynicotinate, biotin, cinnamon, green tea catechins, and PGX fiber should also be included.
4. Get relaxed. Stress is a major unrecognized contributor to insulin resistance and blood sugar imbalance. Push your pause button every day with deep breathing, visualization, yoga, and other relaxation techniques.
5. Get moving. Aside from changing your diet, exercise is probably the single best medication for diabesity. Walk for at least 30 minutes every day. For some, 30-60 minutes of more vigorous aerobic exercise 4-6 times a week may be necessary.
6. Get clean and green. Environmental toxins also contribute to diabesity. Filter your water, look for green cleaning products, and avoid plastics when you can.
7. Get personal. While the steps above will address 80 percent of the problems with diabesity, some may need to take additional steps to optimize key areas of their biology. Remember, the medicine of the future is personal medicine. Seek out your own biological imbalances and look for ways to address them.
8. Get connected. Research is beginning to show that we get better more effectively when we get together. Invite your friends, families, and neighbors to change their diets and lifestyle along with you. Together we can all take back our health.
Even the most severe cases of diabesity respond to this regimen. By learning the tests that matter and following these eight principles, you can take control of your own health and stop the progression of diabesity.
Mark Hyman, MD, is a family practitioner, chairman of the Institute for Functional Medicine, and the author of The Blood Sugar Solution. Find more information at drhyman.com, on Twitter @markhymanmd, and at facebook.com/drmarkhyman.


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"The unique value ClickTale adds is the ability to show why.
ClickTale explains the reasons behind the Adobe Analytics".


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Book Cindy for your Event
Screenings of Caddyshack
Golf Tournament Appearances
Keynote Speaker at Your Next Event
Contact : firstname.lastname@example.com
Monthly Archives: September 2011
Interview with WGN Sports Night
Many thanks to David Kaplan and Brian Noonan from WGN Sports Night for asking ALL the great questions! Had a great time, guys! (And thanks to Shawn Nowotnik for buying me a cheeseburger at the Billy Goat Tavern! 😉 Click … Read More…
Posted in News Comments Off on Interview with WGN Sports Night


text: Ann Boyd | IBDB: The official source for Broadway Information IBDB: The official source for Broadway Information Official Broadway League sites: - sites - broadway.org broadwayleague.com broadwayfanclub.com kidsnightonbroadway.com stagespecs.org tonyawards.com Quick Search For: In This Category: All Show People/Org. Theatre Season The credits for this production have not yet been completed or verified. Ann Boyd Wallack's Theatre, (3/31/1913 - circa. 4/1913) First Preview: Total Previews: Opening Date: Mar 31, 1913 Closing Date: Apr 1913 Total Performances: 8 Category: Play, Original Opening Night Credits Production Staff Written by Lucille La Verne; from the novel by Will N. Harben Cast Harriet BrentJohn DudgeonRichard GordonRapley HolmesLucille La VerneJane HemmingwayWilson MelroseDeWitt NewingC.H. O'DonnellNance O'NeilPhilip PerryFreddie ReynoldsGrayce ScottWilliam W. ScottFrederica SlemonsCarl StoneLuella Wade © 2001-2015, The Broadway League, All Rights Reserved. (Copyright and Disclaimer)


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Celeste Meyers has been named director of the Office of Charter Schools at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
UWM's Office of Charter Schools currently oversees 11 charter schools, independent Milwaukee public schools, which are authorized by the university's Board of Regents under state legislation. A 12th school is being added in fall 2013.
Meyers has more than 15 years' experience in urban education, working with traditional district schools, alternative schools and charter schools. Before joining UWM, she was an educational development consultant with Alverno College/Mount Mary in the Urban Education Fellow Program. She also served as program officer for contracted alternative and charter schools for Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS), working as a liaison between alternative and charter schools and MPS.
Meyers replaces Robert J. Kattman, who has headed the office since 2001. He is retiring at the end of June.
"While it's almost impossible to replace Bob Kattman, Celeste Meyers' experience in working with so many MPS charter schools makes her an excellent fit for this position," said Carol Colbeck, dean of the UWM School of Education. "She understands the importance of both kinds of schools and the relationship of charter schools to public schools."
UWM's Office of Charter Schools has won high praise for its work guiding and evaluating the schools it charters. Alan Borsuk, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel education columnist, named Kattman an "unsung hero of the year" in a 2010 column.
While all of the UWM charter schools serve students from impoverished neighborhoods, seven of the schools are among the highest-ranked academically in the city as of January 2011, with standardized test scores as high as or higher than those of many of the 16 Milwaukee County suburban districts.
The charter schools are public schools exempt from many regulations that govern district schools, allowing them to test new ideas and share those that work.
"We will miss Bob Kattman because of his tremendous and successful leadership of this office," says Colbeck. At the same time, she adds, Meyers brings a high level of energy and new ideas that will be important in dealing with a changing education climate.
Meyers earned her undergraduate degree in education from UW-Eau Claire and her master's degree in Administrative Leadership from UWM. In addition to her experience with Alverno/Mount Mary and MPS, she was an eighth-grade math and science teacher and a site-coordinator for the GEAR-UP program.
She will start at UWM June 25.


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Mike Duncan, Republican National Committee (#249)
Mike Duncan, a former Inez banker who now chairs the Republican National Committee, discusses his job as chairman and what he is doing to get the Republican Party ready for the 2008 presidential election.
Airs ...No upcoming broadcasts. List all airdates.
A graduate of the University of Kentucky College of Law, Duncan was elected the 60th chairman of the Republican National Committee in January 2007. During more than 30 years as a political strategist, he has served on the campaigns of five presidents: Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush. The Martin County resident is also active in numerous professional and nonprofit organizations, including the Christian Appalachian Project. In the interview, the topics of conversation range from Appalachian small-town life to national political strategizing.
RSS Feeds:
Audio feeds are in Mp3 format, approx. 26:30; 18-20 MB each.
Video feeds are in Mp4 format, approx. 26:30 each; 115-125 MB


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Carl Pettit
Carl Pettit is a writer and editor with interests ranging from international relations and political humor to the arts and modern media.
Thanksgiving, which we've been celebrating in America for centuries now, is a time of family, food and, especially, tradition. Even so, many of the stories we take as gospel about this wonderful holiday—wonderful if you're not endlessly bickering with your relatives, that is—aren't true at all. Myth, legend and wishful thinking play into a lot of the misconceptions surrounding Turkey Day.
Thanksgiving is almost here, which means we start seeing turkeys everywhere—on TV, in our children's school drawings, running through our dreams every single night while we sleep ... you get the idea. And eventually these poor turkeys will be inside many of our overstuffed stomachs as well.
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text: Photo via Flickr user tpower1978 [ Chrome Cowgirls – A Nite At The Races By Rick Darcy March 12, 2011 Join the Chrome Cowgirls for their first fund raising event of the year and the excitement of thoroughbred horse racing! Read More|Comment Category: Casper News, Entertainment, Sports Tags: charity, chrome cowgirls, fund raiser Send to a friend! Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Pin it! Reddit This! Share on Tumblr!


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Bearcats Midday Madness at Fountain Square
Fans braved the rain-soaked conditions to watch the University of Cincinnati men's and women's basketball teams practice for about an hour on Thursday, Oct. 17 at Fountain Square in downtown Cincinnati. The event was the first-ever Bearcats Midday Madness.
Read more about the event at the following link: www.wcpo.com/sports/college-sports/university-of-cincinnati-sports/bearcats-basketball-midday-madness-to-be-held-outdoors-on-october-17


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Sunset League finals
Newport Harbor High senior James Pilz won the Sunset League championship in the 160-pound weight class and was one of four Sailors who qualified for CIF Thursday at Newport Harbor.
Senior Paul Champol (138-pound division), junior Brett Beaudette (182) and sophomore David Santos (220) earned third-place finishes to qualify for the CIF Southern Section Eastern Division Individual Championships Feb. 21 at Perris Citrus Hill High.
Seniors Evan Perez (152) and Roberto Rivera (195), junior Dominic Kosecki (113) and sophomore Alain Ward (106) each took fourth place and finished as CIF alternates.
Irvine Southern California Championships
IRVINE — Newport Harbor High advanced to the quarterfinals after defeating Esperanza, 14-2, and Dos Pueblos, 13-4, on Thursday at Woollett Aquatics Center.
Kate Pipkin had four goals against Esperanza, and recent junior varsity call-up Katie Kearns had three goals and four assists. Christina O'Beck and Heidi Fults each scored twice, while Cleo Harrington and Carlee Kapana combined for 11 saves.
O'Beck had six goals in the victory over Dos Pueblos, while Fults and Chanel Schilling each added two.
Newport Harbor (18-4) plays Mater Dei in a tournament quarterfinal at 6 p.m. Friday at Woolett.
Irvine Southern California Championships
Corona del Mar High advanced to the quarterfinals after a pair of wins. The Sea Kings defeated Long Beach Millikan, 23-2, before getting past Montebello, 9-6, at CdM.
Marina Coskinas and Maddie Musselman each scored five goals in the tournament opener, while Bobbi Hoose, Sami Pratt and Eliza Britt added three goals each. Heidi Ritner made six saves.
Musselman scored five goals against Montebello, and Grace Morgan scored twice. Ritner made eight saves.
CdM (18-3) plays host to Santa Barbara in a tournament quarterfinal at 6 p.m. Friday.


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Unilever Looks to Replicate Its Indian Retail Strategy
By: Priyanka Bhattacharya
Posted: August 25, 2009, from the August 2009 issue of GCI Magazine.
page 2 of 2
Cosmetic dentistry is fast becoming one of India's hottest makeover trends. Major Indian medical spas are wooing dental service providers and health care practitioners for cosmetic dentistry services, even making the bid for providers from other countries. A spokesperson at Delhi-based ConfiSmile, a dental spa, claims that dental tourism is an emerging trend, and that many tourists who come for med spa, or regular spa vacations also seek cosmetic dentistry treatments as a way to completely overhaul their appearance.
German Company Launches Entry-level Brand
In order to explore the opportunities in the Indian market, German makeup brand Art Deco has launched its entry-level makeup range Be-Yu here, targeted to young consumers. As part of the market test, the brand is retailing its mineral makeup, lipsticks, foundations, eye shadows, mascaras, eye liners and nail enamels in India's larger cities. The target consumer is believed to be curious about makeup and willing to try something new.
French Brand Enters India's Hair Treatment Market
French hair care brand René Furterer has partnered with distributor Modi Revlon to offer its specialized hair care products in India. Initial plans include the sale of hair thinning and hair loss treatments in Delhi- and Mumbai-based high-end salons. The company will begin retailing products in the second stage of its growth strategy.
Priyanka Bhattacharya is a writer and journalist covering the beauty, health and wellness industries in India. She is the contributing beauty features writer for several leading Indian women's magazines.


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CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa - A former top manager at Agriprocessors Inc., in Postville, Iowa, pleaded guilty on Monday to conspiring to obtain fake documents for illegal aliens who worked at the plant. The plea is the result of an investigation led by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Brent Beebe, 52, of Postville, was convicted of conspiring to commit document fraud. His jury trial had been scheduled to begin Tuesday.
In the plea agreement, Beebe admitted he was one of two operations managers at Agriprocessors and that oversaw beef-side production at the facility. The week prior to ICE's May 12, 2008, worksite enforcement operation, Beebe conspired with an Agriprocessors vice president and others to help several employees obtain new fake identification documents.
Beebe obtained $4,500 in cash from the Agriprocessors vice president, which was to be loaned to about 19 beef production employees to pay for new fake documents. A line supervisor used the money to obtain fake documents and then delivered them to Agriprocessors on May 11, 2008. The documents were then used to complete new job application paperwork for several employees.
Sentencing before U.S. District Court Chief Judge Linda R. Reade will be set after a presentence report is prepared. Beebe remains free on bond pending sentencing. He faces a possible sentence of five years in prison, a $250,000 fine, and three years of supervised release.
In related court actions, Chief Judge Reade sentenced two former Agriprocessors human resources employees on Jan. 7. Former human resources manager Elizabeth Billmeyer was sentenced to one year and one day in prison, to be followed by two years of supervised release. Former human resources assistant Penny Hanson was sentenced to two years' probation.
Two fugitive defendants in the case remain to be prosecuted: Hosam Amara and Zeev Levi.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Peter Deegan, C.J. Williams, and Matthew Cole are prosecuting this case. The investigation has been led by ICE with assistance from the FBI. Additional assistance was provided by the following agencies: U.S. Marshals Service, U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the Iowa Department of Public Safety, the Iowa Department of Transportation, Internal Revenue Service's Criminal Investigations, U.S. Department of Labor, U.S. Public Health Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Waterloo Police Department, and the Postville Police Department.


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Grand Haven's varsity wrestling team scored an impressive 45-21 win over rival Rockford on Wednesday.
The Buccaneers are now 3-2 in conference meets.
The Bucs' Tyler Tippens scored an 8-3 victory at the 285-pound weight class. At 119, Camden Bertucci pinned his opponent. Eric VanHorssen also scored a pin at 125, then Antonio Reyes won via a 12-9 decision at 130.
Evan Johnson win with a pin at 135 pounds, then Aaron Cummings scored a thrilling 7-6 triple-overtime victory at 152.
Dakota Juarez and Conner Moynihan recorded back-to-back pins at 160 and 171 pounds, then Conner Morley won 9-4 at 189.
Matt Mulcahy won 6-2 at 215 pounds for the Bucs.
Prior to the match, Mulcahy and Mikah Hobson from Rockford were presented with the Outstanding Student/Athlete award from the U.S. Air Force.
In JV action, the Bucs' Richard Young and Jake Wahl each won twice, wihle single wins were scored by Steve Chavez, Jorge Pedroza, Austin Ruthford, Alec Sturzer and Jake VanHorssen.
Spring Lake remained undefeated in Lakes Eight Conference action, scoring a 36-24 win over Fruitport on Wednesday.
After the teams both forfeited at 103 pounds, the Trojans' Cameron Butler won via forfeit at 112.
Spring Lake's Anthony Rolston pinned Fruitport's Jon Shepard in 1:43, then George Nietering won via forfeit for Spring Lake at 125.
Fruitport's Alexander Foster won via injury default over Kyle Edwards when Edwards sprained his ankle at 130 pounds, then the Trojans' Tommy Martinez edged Maxx Kriger, 8-3 at 135.
Colin Butler won via forfeit for Fruitport at 140, then both teams voided at 145.
Austin Fialek of Fruitport won 4-0 over Spring Lake's John Giddings at 152, then the Lakers' Zack Kennedy won via forfeit at 160 and Mason Dial won by forfeit at 171.
Both teams voided at 189, then Jared Marod of Spring Lake pinned Fruitpor'ts Jack Beeman in 1:06 at 215 pounds.
The Lakers' Billy Belcher won via forfeit at 285.
Fruitport also lost to Mona Shores, 34-27.


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Malibu Beach California visiting family …
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Play our fun game and find out if the one you like likes you back. Confide in us if you think you'd hit it off by clicking: Yes, No, or Maybe. We'll anonymously find out and let you know if the feeling is mutual. You have nothing to lose!
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D60 takes precautions against heat
Thousands of bottles of water are being shipped in
By Gayle perez The Pueblo Chieftain
Published: August 16, 2014; Last modified: August 16, 2014 04:00AM
Pueblo City Schools (D60) is ready for the heat.
"We have 7,000 bottles of water already placed on pre-order and we have a refrigerated truck on loan to provide cool water to schools that don't have room to store the water," D60 official Gina Gallegos told the school board Thursday.
The board learned of the district's heat stress prevention plan as students begin returning to classrooms for the new school year.
Six schools on a modified calendar returned to class this week. The remaining schools begin Sept. 2.
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WORCESTER, MA Juan I. Fuxman Bass, PhD, a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, was named a 2012 Pew Latin American Fellow in the Biomedical Sciences today by The Pew Charitable Trusts. The program provides support for young scientists from Latin America to pursue postdoctoral training in the United States and establish their own labs upon returning to their home countries. Dr. Fuxman Bass joins 10 other researchers named to this year's class.
These scientists have dedicated their careers to finding solutions for some of the world's most troubling health problems. This fellowship will provide support that will further their research, enable them to work with colleagues in the United States, and increase scientific knowledge throughout their home region. While the number of foreign doctorate recipients staying in the United States has never been higher more than 60 percent according to the National Science Foundation more than 70 percent of Pew Latin American Fellows return to their country to help build the scientific infrastructure throughout the hemisphere.
"Being named a Pew Latin American Fellow is a tremendous honor and a huge opportunity for me," said Dr. Fuxman Bass, a postdoctoral scholar in the lab of Marian Walhout, PhD, professor of molecular medicine and co-director of the Program in Systems Biology, where he is studying the complex, cell-to-cell communication system that the immune system uses to tailor its defense against pathogens. "There aren't many labs working on systems biology in Argentina. This fellowship provides the training and start-up funding I'll need to establish my own lab and advance the field of systems biology in Argentina."
To coordinate an effective defense against pathogens, immune cells communicate with each other by releasing chemical signals called cytokines. The production of these signals is tightly regulated by the immune system and is greatly dependent on
|Contact: Jim Fessenden
University of Massachusetts Medical School


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Tuesday, Nov. 5, the Women's Auxiliary of Williamsburg American Legion Post No. 288 will conduct its annual Election Day Dinner at the Post home, 208 East Main St. Food will be served between the hours of 11 a.m. and 6 p.m. Featured items will be oyster stew, bean soup, sandwiches and desserts. Carry-out will be available. Proceeds will support the annual Medical Scholarship awarded to a Williamsburg High School graduate, as well as other projects.


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CC Sabathia makes rehab start in Trenton
CC Sabathia tossed 3 2/3 innings during a rehab start in Double-A Trenton on Wednesday night (Davidoff, July 2).
With his fastball ranging between 89 and 93 MPH, Sabathia allowed five runs (three earned) on five hits, walked one, struck out two, and hit a batter. Sabathia threw 55 pitches.
It was Sabathia's second rehab start since landing on the disabled list on May 11 with swelling in his knee.
During his first rehab start, for Single-A Tampa last Saturday, Sabathia threw 37 pitches in 2 1/3 innings of work.


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Conaghan, Hugh
Wednesday, 8 May 1985
Dáil Eireann Debate
Written Answers. - Social Welfare Benefits.
asked the Minister for Social Welfare when an application for unemployment assistance will be decided for a person (details supplied) in County Donegal.
Written Answers. - County Donegal School.
asked the Minister for Education if she is aware of the conditions prevailing at Murlog national school; and if she will make a statement in relation to the delay in having the necessary extension wor...
|Last Updated: 14/09/2010 05:38:54
|Page of 38


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Your closet plays an important role in your life, whether or not you choose to believe it. Each day, you spend countless minutes standing in front of the closet dressing and undressing yourself. On top of that, you manage to squeeze time in your busy day to organize, fold, and put away your clothes. Would you like to transfer this time to more pleasurable activities? Do you hate the thought of standing in front of the closet, trying to decide where to put the clothes?
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Building a distributed concurrent queue with Apache ZooKeeper
- by Henry Robinson
- May 28, 2009
- 22 comments
In my first few weeks here at Cloudera, I've been tasked with helping out with the Apache ZooKeeper system, part of the umbrella Hadoop project. ZooKeeper is a system for coordinating distributed processes. In a distributed environment, getting processes to act in any kind of synchrony is an extremely hard problem. For example, simply having a set of processes wait until they've all reached the same point in their execution – a kind of distributed barrier – is surprisingly difficult to do correctly. ZooKeeper offers an API to facilitate this sort of distributed coordination. For example, it is often used to serve locks to client processes – locks are just another kind of coordination primitive – in the form of small files that ZooKeeper tracks.
In order to be useful, ZooKeeper must be both highly reliable and available as systems will rely upon it as a critical component. For example, if locks cannot be taken, processes cannot make progress and the whole system will grind to a halt. ZooKeeper is built on a suite of reliable distributed systems techniques and protocols, and is typically run on a cluster of machines so that if some should fail, the remaining ones can continue to provide service. Under the hood, ZooKeeper is responsible for ordering calls made by clients so that each request is processed atomically and in a fixed and firm order.
One of my first contributions to the project was a set of bindings to allow programs written in the Python language to act as clients to a ZooKeeper cluster. ZooKeeper was natively written in Java, and there are already C and Perl bindings. Adding Python bindings increases the number of people that can use the system, and brings the strengths of Python, such as rapid prototyping, to bear when designing distributed systems.
The Python ZooKeeper bindings are available from the ZooKeeper SVN repository and should be part of the 3.2 release, planned for the next couple of weeks. To use the bindings now, you can either check out the latest version of the code from the SVN repository, or download a tarball containing a recent snapshot here. The zookeeper module exposes the ZooKeeper API to Python, so to get started all you need do is add import zookeeper to your Python script once the module is installed. Instructions on getting up and running are at the end of this post.
To illustrate some of the ZooKeeper API, I've written a distributed FIFO queue in Python – the source code is here – which I wanted to share. The combination of Python and Zookeeper meant that I was able to write the queue in just over 60 lines of code, and most of that deals with local coordination issues between two threads rather than any tricky issues trying to make remote processes behave correctly. I can only give a taste here of how programming with Python and ZooKeeper works. I hope there's enough here to convince you that ZooKeeper might make a useful component for distributed systems that need a little herding.
ZooKeeper provides a tree abstraction where every node in that tree (or znode, in ZooKeeper parlance) is a file on which a variety of simple operations can be performed. ZooKeeper orders operations on znodes so that they occur atomically. Therefore there is no need to use complex locking protocols to ensure that only one process can access a znode at a time. The tree represents a hierarchical namespace, so that many distinct distributed systems can use a single ZooKeeper instance without worrying about their files having the same name.
Each znode has some associated data – up to a megabyte in current builds – that can be updated atomically. Every update to a znode increases its version number, which allows clients to perform compare-and-swap operations by reading the version and then updating a znode only if the version is still the one that was read.
As a notification mechanism, ZooKeeper provides watches, which are callback methods that are called asynchronously when an event of interest occurs. Watches are attached, typically, to an individual znode. When that znode changes any watcher on the znode will be fired asynchronously on the client. Many methods of the ZooKeeper API have an optional watch argument. Some languages have to work hard to provide callable objects as parameters, but Python makes this easy as callables are first class language constructs. Simply pass any callable, like a method or a lambda expression, to the zookeeper module and when an event of interest occurs, the callable will be executed.
This call comes from a separate thread of execution, so great care must be taken to ensure that unexpected things do not happen due to your watcher being fired at an arbitrary point in the execution of your script. Normally you will use watchers to notify another thread of a state change. It will often be the case that the main thread will be waiting for the watcher to fire before it can continue. An example of this is in the __init__ method of our ZooKeeperQueue when we try to connect to the server. Compared to the time a script takes to execute, connections can take a long time to run. So it's useful that the ZooKeeper API allows us to connect asynchronously, in case there were any work that we wanted to get done while we were waiting for the connection to be established. However, in our case, we just want to wait until the connection is successful, and so we need a mechanism to wait for the watcher to notify us.
A useful tool for this inter-thread communication is the Condition object in Python, which represents a condition variable, a well-known concurrent programming abstraction. Condition objects may be acquired and released just like locks, but they also expose an API to wait for a notification from another thread and to fire that notification. While a thread is waiting on a Condition it goes to sleep, leaving the operating system with some free CPU to dedicate to other processes. Once a Condition is notified, a thread that is waiting on it is woken up and allowed to continue execution once the notifying thread has released the Condition.
This leads to a simple pattern for communicating between watchers and the main thread. Here's an excerpt from the connection code:
def watcher(handle,type,state,path):
print "Connected"
self.connected = True
self.handle = zookeeper.init("localhost:2181", watcher, 10000, 0)
First we define our watcher which takes four parameters (if you want to provide more parameters or local state to a watcher, one way to do it is to wrap a function call in a local lambda which captures the state). The next line acquires an exclusive lock on a condition variable cv. Why do this now? Once we set our watcher in place, it could be fired at any time – even before the main thread makes progress to the next line of code. If we don't prevent it from sending a notification on the condition variable before we're ready to look for it, the notification could get lost and we could wait forever. Notifications aren't buffered – if no one is waiting on a condition variable, no one gets woken up.
Then the code initialises ZooKeeper. The zookeeper module gives us an integer handle which we can use to refer to our connection in the future (we can open many connections per client). The next line tells us to wait until we receive a notification on the condition variable that the connection has succeeded. The parameter is a timeout in seconds, after which if we are still not connected we presume that something is wrong and abort.
The ZooKeeper queue
A FIFO queue is a simple data structure where producers put items in, and consumers retrieve them in the order they were put in. There are only two operations on a basic queue: enqueue adds an item and dequeue removes it. Despite their simplicity, queues crop up very often in distributed systems – for example, in job submission systems where clients submit requests to a set of workers which serve the requests on a first-come, first-served basis.
The ZooKeeper queue is structured very simply. All items are stored as znodes under a single top-level znode which represents a queue instance. Consumers can retrieve items by getting and then deleting a child of the top-level znode. The code creates a queue by calling a single create command. If the queue already exists, the Python module will throw an exception which we catch. This is a design decision that is still in review – future versions of the bindings might return integer error codes, and rely on the user to throw an exception if required.
zookeeper.create(self.handle,self.queuename,"queue top level", [ZOO_OPEN_ACL_UNSAFE],0)
The first two arguments to this call identify the connection to the ZooKeeper service and the name of the znode. The third is the data the znode contains. We won't be accessing the data so we write some placeholder text.
The fourth argument is an access control list of permissions that controls who can access the znode in the future. ZooKeeper provides fairly fine-grained control over access, but the subject is beyond the scope of this post. What we have done here is to create the queue znode so that any client can read or write to it.
Adding and deleting items from the queue
Although I explained how consumers retrieve items from the queue, I said nothing about how they make sure they are retrieving items in FIFO order. What we would like is a way of naming each item such that later items are ordered lexicographically after earlier ones. If we can retrieve items in the same order, we'll have our queue. Thankfully, ZooKeeper provides a very handy flag for the create call that helps us out. Specifying the zookeeper.CREATE_SEQUENCE flag appends each znode name with an sequence number suffix that increases monotonically with each new znode that is created. ZooKeeper ensures that the sequence numbers are applied in order and are not reused.
Enqueuing an item is therefore a simple one liner. We don't have to take out any locks to ensure that access to the queue znode is serialised. Items may be queued concurrently, and ZooKeeper takes care of assigning sequence numbers to them in the order they were received.
Dequeuing an item is also straightforward, but a bit more involved. First we retrieve a list of all the items waiting to be queued from ZooKeeper with the get_children procedure call. Then, after sorting the list of items on the client, we get the contents of the znode (i.e. the item's data) and then try to delete it.
It is possible that this deletion will fail because some other consumer has managed to successfully retrieve the item beforehand. We could ensure that this would never happen by organising for a queue-wide lock – this is easily implemented in ZooKeeper (although left as an exercise for the reader). However, this would severely impact performance by only allowing a single consumer to access the queue at one time. Instead, the client simply deals with the failed delete – again, indicated via an exception – and moves on to the next child znode in the list. If the client reaches the end of the list without successfully deleting an item, it should issue another get_children call to make sure that no items were added while the original list was being scanned. Once the get_children call returns an empty list, the dequeue procedure gives up and returns None.
Blocking reads
Sometimes we might want to block until an item is available to retrieve. It would be inefficient to copy exactly the non-blocking approach and simply loop, issuing get_children requests until an item was found. Instead, we can leverage ZooKeeper's watcher mechanism to provide an asynchronous notification when a new znode is created as a child of the queue znode. The code to accomplish this is a combination of the patterns we've seen already in the dequeue and connection code.
def block_dequeue(self):
def queue_watcher(handle,event,state,path):
while True:
children = sorted(zookeeper.get_children(self.handle, self.queuename, queue_watcher))
for child in children:
data = self.get_and_delete(self.queuename+"/"+children[0])
if data != None:
return data
First the client acquires a lock to prevent the watcher sending a notification when the client is unready. Then, as in the dequeue method, the client retrieves a list of items, but here a watcher parameter is specified. The watcher will fire whenever any event is seen that is relevant to the queue znode. The watcher acquires the lock – blocking until the client has given it up – and then notifies the client that there may be more items available.
The client only waits for this notification if all the children returned from get_children have already been consumed by others – otherwise it will successfully retrieve an item and return it. Once all possible items have been exhausted, the client waits on the condition variable. After being woken up, it repeats the same list-read-delete-wait loop.
Failure modes
ZooKeeper operations can fail in a number of ways. In order to keep this example simple, most errors are raised as exceptions and the queue aborts. A more robust implementation should catch errors at every ZooKeeper invocation, as many can be recovered from with a little effort.
The zookeeper.CONNECTIONLOSS error condition is particularly worth noting. ZooKeeper may drop a client connection at any time, due to physical link loss, network congestion or other connection problem. This can cause ZooKeeper API invocations to abort before the ZooKeeper cluster is able to inform the client of the operation's success. This is problematic for our queue, as enqueue operations may or may not have succeeded when we receive a CONNECTIONLOSS error.
There are several approaches we can take to this problem. The first is to blindly retry enqueue when a connection is lost. This could result in an item being queued several times, but for some systems this is not a significant problem. For example, if a web page is crawled twice, apart from the time cost there will be no hardship caused to a indexing engine.
For some applications, duplication of enqueue operations is problematic. The obvious 'solution' is to check whether an item is in the queue after it has been queued. However, it is possible that a consumer will have retrieved and deleted the item between the connection loss event and the subsequent reconnection and existence check. Instead, a two-phase protocol is necessary where a producer marks an item as 'consumable' only when it is sure it is in the queue, by atomically updating its associated data with a flag. Consumers may only retrieve items for which the flag is set. If a connection loss occurs during the setting of this flag, recovery is easier as the set call may be reissued – if the item is no longer present in the queue, the only possible explanation is that the original flag update succeeded and the item has been consumed. This is not built into the example code, but a production system should implement a similar form of connection loss recovery.
Taking care of failure modes like this one often comprises most of the work of building a distributed system. The key is to understand every exception that API calls can throw, and to know what your code does in every circumstance.
Using the queue
To use the queue, you must first make sure you have built and installed both the C client libraries and the zookeeper Python module. There are two prerequisite packages: the cppunit development package and the Python development package. On yum-based systems, these are named cppunit-devel and python-devel. Both packages are available through standard platform package managers like yum, apt and Darwin ports.
As a prerequisite to building the C client libraries, the Java based-server must be built. This auto-generates some header files that the C libraries rely on. From the root directory of the downloaded distribution:
The C client libraries for ZooKeeper must be installed as the Python module makes use of them to actually communicate with a ZooKeeper cluster. It's easiest to build these from source. From the src/c directory, type the following:
autoreconf -if
make && sudo make install
The downloadable package contains the source code for the Python module. To build and install, one command should do the trick from the src/contrib/zkpython directory:
ant install
To test the installation, start a Python shell and type import zookeeper. If you don't see any errors or warnings, the module has been built and installed successfully. The bindings have been tested with Python 2.3, 2.4, 2.5 and 2.6, and are known not to work with 2.2 and earlier. We haven't yet tested them against Python 3.x – we'd love to hear your feedback about your experiences with the latest versions of Python.
To run the queue example, you must have a ZooKeeper server running on the local machine at port 2181 (to change the location of the server, edit the string passed to zookeeper.__init__). The Java-based server will have been built when you ran ant from the root directory of the distribution earlier. Before the server can run, it needs a configuration file to read:
cat >> conf/zoo.cfg
Now you can run bin/zkServer.sh start to start a standalone server on the local machine. To stop the server in the future, run bin/zkServer.sh stop.
You're finally ready to run the queue example:
python queue.py
The example is very simple. It queues three items, and then dequeues them.
Wrapping up
I hope that I've shown you that ZooKeeper is a very useful system, with powerful primitives that makes writing tricky distributed concurrent programs easier. There are many applications that ZooKeeper could help you build – lock servers, name services, metadata stores and even a unique kind of filesystem can be built in a straightforward way using the ZooKeeper API. The project is active and always looking for volunteers. ZooKeeper integration is already being built into HBase, and there are moves to bring greater reliability to Hadoop and HDFS by delegating some server functionality to ZooKeeper. As far as the Python bindings go, the next version will include better documentation, some more Python niceties such as default parameters and docstrings, and a more Pythonic wrapper object to wrap up some of the bookkeeping that ZooKeeper requires.
Filed under:
Steve C. /
May 28, 2009 / 4:08 PM
Pretty neat. Seems like ZooKeeper has alot of tricks up its sleeve (I don't know if this is a good or bad thing, heh).
Benjamin Reed /
May 28, 2009 / 5:55 PM
excellent article henry! we are happy to see your participation in the project. that CONNECTIONLOSS error is a really annoying thing to deal with, but it could be made to go away; see ZOOKEEPER-22. who ever fixes that issue will by my hero!
Patrick Hunt /
May 29, 2009 / 9:40 AM
Henry this is a great post! Thanks for helping out with all the animals. ;-)
I'd strongly encourage you to submit this as a "recipe", or re-usable code library, in the ZooKeeper source-base (support for recipe code in the release is new in 3.2). It would be a great addition for our users.
Readers might also be interested in the following blog post which talks about rendezvous using ZooKeeper:
Aby Mathew /
June 17, 2009 / 3:32 PM
Henry – I want to write a .NET binding to facilitate using it in the .net environment. What is the best approach to go about doing it.
henry /
June 17, 2009 / 4:25 PM
Hi Aby –
That's a good question. The approach I took with the Python bindings is to write a thin layer that marshalled data types between Python and the pre-existing C client. If there are easy ways to call into unsafe C code from .NET I'd say that would be the easiest way to do it. In fact, a managed C++ wrapper might work very well.
Alternatively, you could look into re-implementing the client in C# or other .NET language. This would be much more work, and would mean that there was another client to keep up-to-date with changes in the core ZooKeeper API; however you would get the advantage of a client that didn't depend on the C bindings.
Good luck – if you do get anywhere, be sure to contribute back to the project. I'm sure a lot of people would love to use .NET bindings!
Aby Mathew /
June 18, 2009 / 6:14 AM
Henry – Thanks. I want to take the approach of build a fresh .net binding rather than go through the 'c' binding.
I have to just understand the datastructure and message passing protocol. Also identify the critical sections within the code. So at least in the 1st phase I have usable binding and later releases I can improve the performance. Do you have pointers on the best way to tackle understanding the infrastructure. Do you think a month is good to get at least the 1st phase done.
I will sure contribute back into the project/community.
henry /
June 19, 2009 / 3:12 AM
Aby –
I think the best way is probably to read either the C or the Java client code. The protocol between client and server is not tremendously complicated – you can leave out things like watches initially. The first thing you probably want to get working is the connect / ping loop that ensures the connection between the client and server is kept live.
I think in a month of work you should be able to get a fairly feature complete client up and running. If you have any more questions, feel free to get in contact with me at firstname.lastname@example.com, or ask questions on the ZooKeeper mailing lists.
Eric Hauser /
April 16, 2010 / 2:46 PM
I have ported the Java ZooKeeper client to C#. It is available here: http://github.com/ewhauser/zookeeper
Ashish /
February 06, 2011 / 9:06 PM
Nice work Henry !
Though I am reading this post now, long after it was written, I must say I am impressed.
While reading through zookeeper, i found it provides a lot of features that Terracotta provides. Am not sure at this point, but I feel the there can be a Union between these two for chalking out best things out of both. I am gonna experiment with this, and see if my thoughts are correct. Like Terracotta provides out of box Queue, Locks, Barrier implementations which works across the cluster, and they are plain simple to use. Same is my feeling for Zookeeper.
cheers !
Andrei Savu /
February 21, 2011 / 4:52 PM
At the following link you can find a proof of concept implementation of a similar queue that tries to find the best way of handling the connection loss exception in a transparent fashion:
The problem of building a reliable and highly available distributed queue is not trivial at all.
Andrei Savu /
February 21, 2011 / 4:55 PM
Henry, you have done some really awesome work!
tassos /
September 28, 2011 / 9:10 AM
i have one question.. how do you ensure that an item from the queue is consumed by only one client??
if the item is consumed by more than one clients why use the two-phase protocol to mark the item as consumable to avoid duplication.. its the same thing
Matthias Urlichs /
May 10, 2012 / 5:49 AM
I would like to strongly recommend NOT to return any error code integers. That's not the way a Python interface is supposed to behave. Python programmers expect exceptions on error and a sensible return value, if applicable, otherwise.
@tassos: You can use the atomic-replace pattern to mark the job as "executing by ". Obviously there now can be at most one legitimate consumer. If the client then crashes, a cleanup job presumably notices the death of the consumer and will requeue any job that's still marked by it.
Kuruvinandan /
August 02, 2012 / 11:36 PM
Great article! What about the latencies associated with Zookeeper? How good is it?


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If these allegations are true… (from the AP's Robert Burns):
Seven members of the secretive Navy SEAL Team 6, including one involved in the mission to get Osama bin Laden, have been punished for disclosing classified information, senior Navy officials said Thursday.
Four other SEALs are under investigation for similar alleged violations, one official said.
The SEALs are alleged to have divulged classified information to the maker of a video game called "Medal of Honor: Warfighter."
Each of the seven received a punitive letter of reprimand and a partial forfeiture of pay for two months. Those actions generally hinder a military member's career.
The deputy commander of Naval Special Warfare Command, Rear Adm. Garry Bonelli, issued a statement acknowledging that nonjudicial punishments had been handed out for misconduct, but he did not offer any details.
"We do not tolerate deviations from the policies that govern who we are and what we do as sailors in the United States Navy," Bonelli said. He alluded to the importance of honoring nondisclosure agreements that SEALs sign.
He said the punishments this week "send a clear message throughout our force that we are and will be held to a high standard of accountability."
The video game project and the SEAL's connection to it came to light as a result of the investigation into a book by Matt Bissonnette, a retired member of SEAL Team 6, who participated in the Osama bin Laden raid and then published a tell-all book about the raid, said military officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the probe.
I've never had a secret that someone wanted to pay a lot of money to listen to I guess, but really — how hard can it be to just shut up — especially if the consequences (at least possibly — not in this case) could mean prison, loss of career, etc.?


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Facebook has entered the world of online search. However, this isn't the traditional search we are accustomed to with Google. Facebook's search tool is deeply personalized.
Your search results will be filtered by who you know, who you have common interests with, people within a particular geographical location, places, photos of friends and family, friends of friends, etc.
Both personal profiles and business pages will both be included in Facebook's Graph Search, which is the name of the search tool. To use the search tool, you will simply type in your search terms at the top of your Facebook profile.
This powerful, personalized search engine is going to have the ability to surface the likes, recommendations, preferences and interests of your extended social graph. Think of your personal social graph as a spider web of the extended connections you have…including friends of friends and friends of the fans of your Facebook Business Page.
Taking Online Search to the Next Level
With over 1 Billion users on Facebook who share their personal stories, interests, and connections, Facebook's Graph Search could prove to be the preferred way of searching for information, insights, and recommendations because the results will likely be highly relevant to the searcher. However, it will take time for Facebook members to learn to use the tool and for Facebook to perfect it.
Remember, Google doesn't have access to all the personalized data that Facebook does, although they've been building their own "social graph" through Google+ to show more relevant search results.
Facebook has partnered with Microsoft's search engine, Bing, to show results beyond your social graph. This means that it will be important to make sure you are optimizing your digital assets outside of Facebook for Bing search as well as Google search.
Essentially every social object within Facebook that has been made public will be indexed by Graph Search and have the ability to show up in Facebook search results. You cannot "opt out" of Graph Search, but you can control your Facebook privacy settings. However, if you want to be discovered in Facebook searches, we recommend you make public as much as you are comfortable with on your personal and business profiles, and always maintain your professionalism!
Use Facebook Ads to Grow Your Presence
For the most part it's been tough to get traction with a Facebook Business Page unless you have a fan base community of at least 1000 people. Running promoted posts (you need 400 fans to utilize this tool) and Facebook social or page ads can also increase your fan base as well as your visibility. In other words, unless you can get to that 1000 fan mark on your own, you're probably going to have to pay to play initially.
The good news is that Facebook social ads are still relatively inexpensive and you can get very targeted. You can even upload your own email list through the custom audiences feature, and ask Facebook to target others who are similar to your custom audience!
The process for generating leads from your Facebook Business Page includes first growing your community of fans (you can do so more quickly through a Facebook ad strategy), and then promoting posts or running ads to your fans that include opt-in offers such as a free webinar, offline event, or a free guide.
If your Facebook ads aren't compelling or relevant, they won't get clicks and you won't increase your page "likes" or grow your database list.
How Graph Search Works
With deeply personalized search, information about your business and the insights that you share on your Facebook Business Page can all be indexed by Facebook's Graph Search.
Let's say a friend of a client conducts a Facebook search for the term "Financial Advisor." If your client is connected with you on Facebook, or with your Facebook Business Page, those results will likely appear to the client's friend. They could even appear to friends of friends.
This is extremely powerful. It means not only do you need to develop your personal and professional presence on Facebook, but you need to keep those profiles active.
Whether you are a fan of Facebook or not, it could prove to be a powerful force for visibility with your clients, prospective clients, and business advocates. Working to build your "trusted network" within the walled garden of Facebook could usher in the age of the modern referral.
Your Turn
What are your thoughts about building a Facebook presence? Will you consider Facebook to be an important social network for your business given the new Graph Search?
Additional Facebook Resources for Financial Advisors
Facebook FAQs for Financial Advisors


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"This inn is exquisitely furnished. (…) There are no modern-style frills – everything seems iron cast (…) and every corner of the house is spotless." More than 150 years have passed since King Max II of Bavaria found such glowing words for the Hirschen in Schwarzenberg. And guests still dine here in the original parlours, with their lovely ceiling murals and panelled walls. The only thing that has really changed is the kitchen: it is now regarded as the best in all of Vorarlberg, and the food prepared there by the 34-year-old chef Jochen Pölz has been awarded two toques by Gault Millau.
To be precise, there is one other thing that has changed: today, the Hirschen is not only a wonderful place to eat but also a heavenly place to sleep. The hotel has a total of fifty-five beds, located either in the main building or, thirty steps away through the herb garden, in the so-called "Wälderhaus". This is also where the small, stylish wellness area is located, whose sauna and steam bath make it the ideal place to relax after a long day of skiing, biking, or hiking.
The venerable hotel has also made a name for itself as an event venue for concerts, readings, and exhibitions – facilitated by the proximity to Bregenz and its renowned festival and to the famous Schubertiade, which is held every year in Schwarzenberg, just a few steps away from the hotel.


text:
|Photo by lisadanilko (licence)
So what is this all about? This basically means that every thing you do today and any other day can be done better and more efficient. It's time for you take this to your advantage!
1. It's all about attitude
- This means basically that a person that does things like studying, cleaning or other need-to-be-done things can do it in two different ways. He can either be all grumpy and complain to himself about how that activity is boring, physically demanding etc. OR he can accept the fact that it needs to be done and in his mind have the picture of a job well done in the near future. Well the simple truth is that --->
2. Sometimes you have to be stubborn
- There will be days you will feel bad. You're not a robot, you are a human being and you (whether you like it or not) have feelings. The question is how do you handle periods of unwanted states of your mind.
- In these times you have to learn how to efficiently motivate yourself to get something done. The "being stubborn" part is simply to explain a state of mind that knows what's going on but is simply above it all, not giving permission for feelings to take over and take you into a non-productive state.
- If you need help getting motivated refer to my older post:
3. Set your priorities straight
- You think you're all nice and productive if you remember to clean your house or organize your books or whatever when the real thing you need to be doing is working on that project for your work or studying? Well you're not.
- These things are good and all but there's a time and place for everything and some things are more important than others.
4. Not everything needs to be done perfectly
- I'l repeat it again. You are not a robot. You have limited time and ability at your disposal and you need to use your time wisely. Focus on the things that truly matter and you will be successful.
- I suggest to you that you sit down and think about what are the things you do very often that don't really have to be done the way you do it and can be done easier.
- I'm not allowing you to be sloppy, I'm allowing you to be successful and sloppy. ;)
- Just before the conclusion I'd like to remind you that every person needs a break from a busy schedule.
- Take one day as your day off from all the things you do not enjoy so much. Take your time during this day to enjoy the little things in life. Go read a book, play an instrument, go for a walk or go catch a movie. Life is not life if we do not get to enjoy it!
How often do you take a break from work?
Leave your comments in the section below.


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Member Since:
July 16th, 2012
About Millian Glenn
Born and raised in Dallas,Tx, I've had art classes all my life, beginning at the tender age of 8 yrs. old. At the time it was normal, but looking back I didn't realize how unusual it was to have a separate art class for a bunch of public school, 2nd graders-- something that we unfortunately see a lot less of today. It was the spark that initiated my journey in art, which is yet unfolding this very day. Beginning with drawing, I slowly progressed to painting during my secondary and highschool years. I work mostly with oil, but I also use acrylics and color pencil and I learn something--as most growing artist do--everytime I pick up the brush.
Thanks for peeking in on my journey and my site, and I hope my work speaks to you in a very real and profound way.
January 23rd, 2013
This is a brand new painting that I just completed, and it is somewhat of a continuation of my look into the voice of a tree. When we think of a beautiful tree, we often envision a tree with a canopy full of green leaves or a tree arrayed in fall col...
January 22nd, 2013
I did this painting several years ago, and as I sat down to write about it I must admit that I forgot about what initially inspired it. That may sound like a bad thing, but it's not necessarily since we, especially as artists, are conduits and not ...
July 20th, 2012
We all have been influenced or impressed in some shape or form by our world that surrounds us. To say otherwise would be saying that we live in a vacuum, and since none of us do, whatever is popular in the culture is well-known by us. If the cultur...
Beverly Hills, CA (United States)
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text:
Fetal Anomalies Scan at the Time of Nuchal Translucency Study
Recruitment status was Recruiting
- Full Text View
- Tabular View
- No Study Results Posted
- Disclaimer
- How to Read a Study Record
Purpose: Fetal anomalies scan at the time of Nuchal Translucency (NT) study.
Fetal Anomalies
|Study Type:
|Study Design:
|Observational Model: Cohort
Time Perspective: Prospective
|Official Title:
|Fetal Anomalies Scan at the Time of Nuchal Translucency Study
|Estimated Enrollment:
|Study Start Date:
|June 2008
Prospective study of patients at 12-14 weeks gestation that are coming for NT examination is conducted. Meticulous ultrasound examination will be done to the fetuses using trans vaginal and transabdominal techniques. The patients will receive only the NT information. Only in cases of detection of severe fetal anomalies the patient will get the information of the examination and counseling according to the findings. All patients will be asked to provide information of the 15 weeks early comprehensive ultrasound examination. The NT examination will be compared to the 15 weeks ultrasound. All patients will be asked to give information after delivery of the baby's health condition.
|Genders Eligible for Study:
|Accepts Healthy Volunteers:
|Sampling Method:
|Probability Sample
All pregnant women at 12-14 weeks of gestation that are coming for nuchal translucency examination and willing to participate in the study.
Inclusion Criteria:
- pregnant women at 12-14 weeks
Exclusion Criteria:
Please refer to this study by its ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT00943189
|Contact: Liat Gindes, MD
|Sheba Medical Center
|Ramat Gan, Israel
|Contact: Liat Gindes, MD email@example.com
No publications provided
|Responsible Party:
|Dr. Liat Gindes, Sheba Medical Center
|ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier:
|NCT00943189 History of Changes
|Other Study ID Numbers:
|Study First Received:
|July 21, 2009
|Last Updated:
|November 19, 2009
|Health Authority:
|Israel: Israeli Health Ministry Pharmaceutical Administration
Keywords provided by Sheba Medical Center:
Fetal anomalies scan at the time of NT study
Additional relevant MeSH terms:
Congenital Abnormalities
ClinicalTrials.gov processed this record on October 09, 2015


text:
December's Desktop of the Month highlights an elaborate modification of a traditional embroidery technique, negative reverse appliqué.
Negative reverse appliqué looks much like traditional appliqué, but is worked slightly differently. Here, we stencil the top layer of fabric, then place it on top of the backing fabric. We then use a straight stitch to attach the top layer of fabric to the bottom layer, and cut away the top layer of fabric, leaving a 1/4" sliver of top-layer fabric beyond the stitching line.
The choice of textile paint used to transfer the stencil is important. You can opt for a paint color that will provide distinct contrast and highlight the stencil design, or a more subtle color that draws attention to the stitching technique.
In this photograph, our Facets stencil is shown in black, with the top layer stenciled in silver. The bright textile paint stands apart from the dark fabric and creates a beautiful, shimmering effect. This piece shows one of many options you can select when creating your own Handmade Holiday DIY item or Custom DIY kit.
This hi-resolution photograph, for use as your computer desktop background, is now available to download from our Resources page.
Fabric – 100% organic medium-weight cotton jersey
Backing layer – Black
Top layer – Black
Stencil – Facets
Treatment – Negative reverse appliqué (instructions available in Alabama Studio Sewing + Design)
Textile paint – Pearl Silver
Button Craft thread – Black #2
Knots – Outside