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We'll be back after the weekend, in which time it will be 2012.
And in February, we celebrate 3 years of the World SF Blog!
Outer Alliance Podcast interviews Zen Cho and Shveta Thakrar
The Outer Alliance Podcast interviews contributors to SteamPowered II: More Lesbian Steampunk Stories, which includes Zen Cho and Shveta Thakrar. You can listen to the interview here.
Interview with Paolo Chikiamco
While Lavie is currently away, I managed to interview Paolo Chikiamco, who recently published a steampunk comic (High Society) and an anthology on Filipino myth (Alternative Alamat) for the Kindle (disclosure: both were published by the company I work for).
Hi! Thanks for agreeing to do the interview. First off, what made you decide to start Alternative Alamat?
First, my more selfish reason: I was very into mythology as a child–but it was always Western mythology, not Philippine mythology. I only discovered Philippine myths well into my teens, and was mortified both by my ignorance and by the fact that I couldn't see many modern writers drawing from these old stories. The reason I put up Rocket Kapre was to allow me to produce/encourage stories of the type that I would want to see on the market, and from the very beginning, I knew that one of my first projects would be to create an anthology which would bring together such stories, or give those stories a reason to be written.
My second reason was to help, in some small way, to promote awareness of both modern Philippine speculative fiction and Philippine mythology. In a sense, both are still invisible, internationally and in the Philippines itself, and one of the most effective ways I know of becoming more visible is simply by producing more content. To put out a book is, I think, the literary equivalent of "showing up".
How did you first become acquainted with speculative fiction?
I grew up on a steady diet of fantasy and science fiction. The first novel I ever read was a fantasy novel (YA wasn't a category back then). I'm an only child and, in what I'm sure is a familiar story, I found a haven in these other worlds.
Now, my encounter with specifically Philippine speculative fiction came much later, in the form of, first, the Mythology Class comics, and second, the Philippine Speculative Fiction anthology.
Did your experience as a slush reader for Fantasy Magazine come into play when editing the stories for the anthology?
Yes, in the sense that my experience in the slush pile helped me refine my personal taste in short fiction. I find it much easier now to decide whether or not a story is a good fit for me. I did, however, have to always remember that I was an editor as well as a slush reader. As a slush reader, it doesn't usually matter if a story is "fixable"–it's a pass or fail. As an editor, those aren't my only options.
What was your criteria in selecting the stories?
The presence of a mythological element–whether that be in the form of a character, a concept, an artifact–was the first factor I considered. Equally important to me, however, was for the stories to have a clear and coherent arc–even with the more experimental formats employed in the last two stories of the book, readers will know what the stories are about. One of the goals of the anthology was to offer a glimpse of our cultural heritage, and it didn't serve that purpose to have stories that were amorphous or unclear.
Who was your target reader for the book? Were you gearing it towards local readers or to an international audience?
I tried to make a book that would appeal to any fantasy reader who was interested in mythology–particularly the lesser known mythologies. As far as nationality goes, I didn't make a distinction between a Filipino and non-Filipino reader because the sad fact is that Philippine mythology is, for the most part, a mystery to both Filipinos and non-Filipinos alike. It's one of the reasons I put so much non-fiction content in the anthology.
What made you decide to go with an eBook release?
Lower costs, wider distribution, and faster turnaround. That and the fact that I probably buy ten books a month for my Kindle, so while I still love physical books, I love digital books just as much. That being said, I am still considering a print run, if only so I can put Alternative Alamat on library shelves.
What projects are you working on now?
I'm concentrating on my own writing for the moment, both in comics and prose. "On Wooden Wings", the first part of my "Wooden War" series (set in the same world as "High Society"), is due out in the first half of next year, and I'm working on an urban fantasy YA novel. I'm also collaborating with Kevin Libranda (Novus Karma) and Koi Carreon (Marco's Delivery Service) on a pair of comic book stories. There's also something special that I'm cooking up with Budjette Tan, Trese co-creator and Alternative Alamat contributor.
Tuesday Fiction: "A Hundred Thousand Armstrongs" by Zoltán László
Today's Tuesday Fiction is by Zoltán László from Hungary. Zoltán László's first short story was published in 1999. Since then two dozen further short stories have been published in Hungarian SF&F magazines, periodicals and anthologies (for example Galaktika, Átjáró, Roham, Csillagszálló). He has also written four novels in various sub-genres like a mix of cyberpunk and alternate history (Hiperballada [Hyperballad]), urban-fantasy (Nagate) and science fiction (A Keringés [The Circulation], Nulla pont [Zero Point]). In most of his short stories and novels he is interested in the social influences of new inventions, and he uses strong capitalism-critique.
A Hundred Thousand Armstrongs
Zoltán László
That night—the third one after Raoul left—was a stuffy, autumnal night, the kind when mist descends on the streets of the city and the osmotically-shifting damp air stirs slimy scraps of paper and plastic bags under the walls, always at the edge of your field of vision. Annabelle pulled a cigarette from the pocket of her air-conditioned German jacket while the heels of her Italian leather shoes—clickety-click—counted her steps.
She'd left behind the bustling streets by the beaches of Rio, where the stream of youthful flesh was flowing endlessly; the smell of sweat, marijuana smoke and strange pheromones—strange at least for a European nose—floated over the crowd. After so long Rio still seemed too hectic, too strident—too young for Annabelle. The scores of faces in their teens or twenties filled her with some atavistic generational fear. This is what the elders of the tribe must have felt when their time was about to come and they were suddenly a burden on the shoulders of their younger companions.
Here, where coming from the 11 de Setembro and the Rua de Santos she started on the steep lanes leading to the hotel, silence hung onto the crumbling façades of the old office buildings, and all the hot air brought was salsa rhythms from a howling portable radio and the voice of a woman's painfully high-pitched scolding from among the rooftops below. Further away, the sound of firecrackers or gunshots ricocheted off the steep rocks of the Sugarloaf mountain.
Pricking her ears, Annabelle guessed she wasn't hearing the celebrations of the Dia das Astronautas yet—if she really could hear Kalashnikovs and not firecrackers. They were probably ordinary looters intercepted by a military patrol or by another gang of looters. The overpopulated alleys of Rio de Janeiro always supplied the gangs with reinforcements—more and more children seemed to arrive endlessly as if they'd been produced by the casting mould of some strange social instrument. Except, of course, for that fortunate or unfortunate one hundred thousand who were admitted to the programme before they were even born.
It was thirty-three minutes past midnight. Nobody was bothered by the curfew; even the soldiers guarding the country-sized city saw it as the hysterical decree of an outgoing home secretary. The parties in the Rio night were no less lively than any time before. Actually, they were only becoming more boisterous as Astronaut Day was coming and the country was getting ready to celebrate her one hundred thousand new space travellers…. All those improved Armstrongs and Tereshkovas.
After smoking three-quarters of it, she chucked the Vogue and under the neon tubes full of dancing insects crossed the street to the other side where a pool of light tainted the damp concrete of the pavement. It was an all-night grocery store with the obligatory Coke commercial flashing above the door. Annabelle pushed the doorbell. A buzzing sound.
It was half past midnight but Annabelle didn't manage to find the slightest sign of drunkenness in herself, although the tang of the cognacs she'd drunk at the Danish commercial attaché's party and the aroma of French cigarettes formed a sticky film on her palate. She shoved her hands back into her pockets and waited. In the distance the sound of police sirens made her sinus mountains leap high.
Electric locks clicked one after the other from top to bottom, and the blurred figure behind the opaque plastic opened the door. The bars stayed in place.
'Senhora? What do you want?' asked the dishevelled shopkeeper. Although he was relieved to see that his customer was a well-dressed woman in her forties, he was still glancing suspiciously at the hands hidden in her pockets. 'I'd prefer seeing your hands.'
Annabelle looked down at the barrel of the sawn-off shotgun pointing at her and slowly pulled her hands out of her pockets. She spoke in Portuguese. 'All I want is a drink, man.'
'What drink?'
'Vodka, say. The most expensive brand. And I pay Euros.'
Just mentioning the name of the continental currency once used to grease the wheels of the commercial machine. Annabelle remembered those days. You were only a kid then—she was watching the shopkeeper's face. The name of the EU had become meaningless in the third world. The introverted society of old fools. The ruins of bygone greatness. An open-air museum taken over by weeds.
'That'll be two-fifty, senhora. I only take cash. We're living harsh times.'
Annabelle shrugged and—still slowly—counted the worn, old banknotes into the guy's hand. He instantly checked them with a manual UV scanner, the Euro-stars faintly glowing in the purple flickering.
'Um momento!' And the shopkeeper was gone. Annabelle waited patiently outside the door. She looked around but the street was still yawning empty, only a gutter was slurping quietly but doggedly a bit further away. Suddenly, rattling and the shouting of children sounded from a distant crossroads. All the muscles tightened in Annabelle's body but she managed to overcome the old reflexes. A rusty three-wheeler sped through the junction under the lights with four kids wearing pasteboard spacesuits. The laughter died away as the group was swallowed by the crossroads. Annabelle would have liked to smile.
The vodka came in a seven-decilitre plastic bottle. Maybe it was made in Mexico: the Smirnoff label meant nothing with the economy of the world lying in ruins. She sank the bottle in her pocket without a word.
Locks clicked behind her as she manoeuvred around the torn-off posters swelling in the puddles and started to ascend the slope. On the façade of the hotel blue LEDs were flickering. Her hand played with the plastic cap of the bottle in her pocket. Ceaselessly.
The desolate hotel lobby was a bubble in time—the furniture reflected the fashions of fifteen years before. Annabelle nodded towards reception, called the elevator, and on the sixth floor walked down carpets worn out in the middle. Earlier, she had programmed the room to recognize her fingerprints.
The laser glow of Christ the Redeemer on top of the Corcovado drew sharp contours around some of the furniture in the room. Annabelle said nothing to the lighting; she could have found anything, with her eyes closed, in a hotel room like this. The last thing she needed at the moment was light: in the depth of the night even the lights would seem grey, somehow reminding her of her own foul mood. With her coat still on, she sank to the floor and pulled out the vodka. The seal on the neck of the bottle let go with a soft hiss: a familiar sound. The first gulp burnt her throat but she could stand it.
She got up and took a box of tomato juice from the bar. She poured some into a glass, leaving room for the vodka and the sauce.
'Letters and messages. Replay,' she instructed the Sony module in the corner. The display came alive, and silvery electronic glamour surrounded Annabelle's figure and everything around her. She was forced to squint; she didn't like the idea of becoming a post-industrial icon.
A saint would surely not arrive in Rio for the same reason she had come here.
'Rioting? Terrorist attacks? Hide away from all the trouble. Spend the weekend…'
'Advertisements off,' she grunted. The well-dressed guy disappeared in a flash and the picture turned much darker and lower definition—welcome to reality—though the face of her contact, Mr Paris, was still recognizable.
'I only call you in case you aren't aware of the fact that our friend's programme on Astronaut Day has changed. Please, seek new information.' Annabelle grinned, irritated. She was not new to this. She had known for a long time that Grenius was now to give his address in the foyer of Santa Cruz University at ten a.m. instead of ten-thirty, as he was supposed to have a working lunch in Brasilia in the Presidential Palace.
'Delete,' she told the Sony, then took a sip from the Bloody Mary. She had put too much salt in it, as always. 'Next.'
Annabelle was petrified. The boy was exactly three days younger in the message and yet she could still not delete it.
'Look, I called you because…I'm leaving. It'll never work out, I'm sorry…. My mistake. I wanted you to know. And please, don't try to find me.'
Darkness. The illuminated Jesus sneered at her through the window.
Raoul appeared again, his short, wavy hair hidden under a knitted cap. He looked sad and that was some consolation for her, if there was to be any consolation at all.
It was Annabelle who had given him that cap. Also the bag he had packed his things in.
'Hello. I'm Raoul,' he said as fate shepherded them together between the guest rooms and the almost industrial-size kitchen.
Annabelle stared at him. 'Nice to meet you. Valeria Luskowka.'
Someone at the Swedish embassy was throwing the party and a bunch of local celebrities were also invited, though Annabelle didn't know any of them. Earlier, she had talked to some Europeans her own age. 'Horrible,' one of them said, a man wearing Louis Vuitton glasses. 'These urchins on the street. Many of them won't even live to be eighteen, but over there they'd be great pillars of the retirement funds.'
Some of Annabelle's friends worked for companies that were trying—without much success—to lure labourers to Europe. 'They're useful here,' she commented, before thinking about what she was going to say. 'This demographic power stretched the third world until they got to Mars. And they'll settle there, too.'
'But they're hardly human,' shuddered a woman who Annabelle thought might be an Italian talk-show hostess. 'Those genetic manipulations to make them capable of long space flights….'
'I don't give a damn about space,' the man retorted. 'I've paid what I had for retirement funds in my life but who's going to support me?'
Annabelle shrugged, then apologized and moved on. The house proved to be enormous. And then she came across Raoul.
Almost-black hair, suntanned skin, straight eyebrows, warm brown eyes. The boy didn't look more than twenty-five. He was eyeing the bustle of the party with a benevolent but enigmatic grin: Mona Lisa's smile dipped in beta-phenylethylamine. Annabelle looked down on the now lukewarm South African beer in her hand. 'You want some? I'm bored with it.'
'No.' He shook his head warily. Annabelle noted that he was delicately shaking. 'What I've taken doesn't mix with alcohol. You can't have them both at the same time,' he explained, as if he was talking about some special medical treatment.
She just nodded. 'And is it any good?'
Raoul frowned. 'Can't you tell?'
'I can…' Annabelle was drunk; she was fed up with the party; she was fed up with everyone. 'I can tell that it's all the same. It's quite obvious that you just want to get laid. Anyone will do, the more expensive the better. But you know what?' She leaned closer to the boy. 'If not today, you'll feel it tomorrow.'
He caught up with her at the elevator. He grabbed the closing door; his arms were muscular, covered with fine hair. The lines on his skin exposed him: a fallen angel. The door clicked and opened wide. Irritated, Annabelle struck the button for the foyer again. This was the last thing she needed.
'What do you know about me, hm?' He followed her into the elevator, his face a pale, hysterical mask. Despite herself, Annabelle considered the ways she could deal with this guy with bare hands. She wasn't afraid.
'What the hell do you know about me?' Raoul was raging. 'We were the dress rehearsal, see? These tiny astronauts with their ability to hibernate and cope with cold wouldn't be here, there'd be no one to celebrate, if it wasn't for us. But we were simply used, Grenius and the rest of the scientists just created us and then swept us aside.' The pitch of his voice got higher, yet Annabelle didn't look at him.
'I'm talking to you, can't you hear me?' He punched the metal wall of the elevator with his fist. Annabelle had had enough: she reached out and two quick movements were enough to force the violent youth onto the floor. He seemed to get even more furious, and for a moment even attempted to fight back. Then his muscles went slack and suddenly he burst out laughing.
The bitterness in his voice made Annabelle shiver. 'I'll never get up there. We're never going to space even if we were born to do that,' he whispered tiredly. 'The new ones took that away from us.'
Annabelle didn't look at him; she was only shaking her head slowly like a wise, old man, then she said, 'You're not the only ones' without having a clue which floor they were on.
Bull's eye, she thought. Raoul, the fallen angel, had no answer.
He looks human, Annabelle warned herself, but he isn't exactly that. Deep inside, within her cells, a bunch of things worked in a different way.
They were on the bottom floor now, but Annabelle sat down beside him and offered him a cigarette.
The Sony was humming quietly; on the display Raoul's face, in the message, had paused just before the final word, his hazel eyes motionless, unfathomable.
'Off, for heaven's sake!' At last Annabelle had managed to overcome the curiosity that made her try to work out what was hidden in those eyes at the moment of the final good-bye. Defiance. Most likely. They always find self-awareness, she knew well. Suddenly, they realize they've become lapdogs, the toy of a woman twenty years their senior. They want to behave like men, though they're not needed as men. Well, not only as men.
Above the bathroom mirror, a bluish halogen light was shimmering. Around it a languid mosquito was circling, after having somehow squeezed through the ultra-sound curtains. Annabelle turned on the tap and washed her face in the lukewarm water welling from the filter unit. She looked into the mirror, struggling to get a detached impression. Forty-three years. Recently, she'd often wondered what it would be like if she'd had children, if, like others in her generation, she hadn't found everything else much more important.
Thoughts like this might be definite signs of aging. And men like Raoul. How could it feel to be born to populate a new world, to be literally created to do that and nothing else?
The drops of water formed tiny rivulets on her face-bones and the porcelain of the sink felt cool and relaxing under her palms.
Raoul, shaving. Turning back, laughing, the water washing down black-dotted foam from the disposable Gillette. Small eddy over the chrome of the drain.
Annabelle closed her eyes and swiftly turned to the toilet. She swayed back and forth as spasms twitched her stomach rhythmically.
'Look at them, Raoul.' Annabelle pointed through the taxi window.
At the foot of the grandiose statue made for Astronaut Day a white monster, an armoured police truck, reversed slowly on the pavement with its blue lights flashing jerkily.
'The Marslanders?' The figures of the statue raised Brazilian, Chinese and Indian flags in the shape of a cone towards the spot where Annabelle thought the Red Planet might be in the sky. Pousados em Marte. When she was a kid, it would have been strange if a new expression didn't spread in English. Or at least Russian. But lots of things had changed since then.
'No, the people.' The troop-carrier beeped while reversing, then it jerked to a halt. Its blunt steel nose still blocked part of the road, forcing the traffic to a pathetic crawl.
'What about them?' Raoul asked, sleepily. He lost his interest in the cops' vehicle even though it started to pour forth men with helmets and shields who instantly swept aside the small group of protesters from the statue. The whole affair didn't last more than three minutes.
'Those people were protesting against the space programme. Don't you think they deserve better?'
Raoul stared at a student in a yellow raincoat lying on the pavement. 'Those people are harmful,' he commented lightly. 'And stupid.'
Annabelle was watching the boy's face. 'Are they stupid because they don't share your views? Because they don't think that instead of eliminating social differences police states like this ought to spend most of their GDP on their space programme?'
Maybe she was too harsh on him. But earlier they had driven through the favellas south of the Sugarloaf mountain where children burnt tires by the side of the sewerless streets to melt copper from old electric circuit panels. The copper would probably be needed for those giant, sluggish spacecraft. Which these kids would never get close to: those craft belonged to the New People, the hundred thousand identical, strange and cold Tereshkovas and Armstrongs.
'And we're at it again,' Raoul murmured bitingly.
'Why? Don't you think I'm right? You can see the poverty even here, in the city. The starving children. What do you mean we're at it again?'
'That's European rubbish you're talking. You Westerners forced poverty on us with your globalism, leaving us no other way out than space. And now, with not enough workers to support the millions of European and American pensioners, you're trying to hold us back.' Sensing the fierce outburst, the concerned driver turned round on his side of the armour. Raoul didn't care. 'Can you really believe we don't know that you're only worried because of your labourers? Because if the overflow of people from the third world chooses space there'll be no one left for you?'
'That's the same bamboozle your president—'
'Who are you to call it bamboozle? We, Brazilians, Hindus and I don't know who else, believe in it. And Jesus be my witness, we'll do it.' The lines on the boy's hand—the stigmata of prenatal gene therapy—turned black.
'Raoul, for God's sake, what have beliefs got to do with it? I only said there were problems these people wanted to draw attention to. They should have the right to express what they think of the space programme or anything.' Annabelle carefully retained the calm tone of her voice, though it made her feel as if she were trying to hush a distraught child. The unsteadiness of Raoul's nerves was the result of gene therapy; they claimed to have sorted that out for the new generation.
'Oh, your relentless and effusive liberalism.' Malice sparkled in Raoul's beautiful eyes. 'You know, that's what did you in. That good-for-nothing relativism. When the imams of the mosques in Berlin and Paris openly called for the destruction of the West, you were still babbling on about multiculturalism and tolerance. The bombs and everything were the results of your own mistakes.'
Annabelle pressed her lips together. 'Raoul, that's not fair. Many people died those days. If you count the radiation, more than ten thousand only in Warsaw, where I was born—'
'And why? For no reason at all. For a failing culture that was not able to stand up for its own ideals any longer. Your feeling of guilt for what had happened in the twentieth century ruined your twenty-first century. But it's our turn now, up there!'
'Raoul, that's not as simple as that. And I don't think, it'll be you that—'
'Merda,' he said, with a strangely distorted expression. 'Why? Why can't I understand? Because I'm too young?' He felt for the door sensor. 'Stop!' he yelled at the driver. The man cursed but braked abruptly, causing the plastic readers and Virgin Mary statuettes hanging on the inside mirror to clank into the windscreen.
'And what if you old people lost your clear view of the world? If we are the ones who see it the right way?' Raoul leaned back into the car for a moment but he didn't wait for an answer that never came anyway.
As he stormed away, his white shirt kept popping up among the crowd staring at the police operation.
Annabelle mixed herself another Bloody Mary; the ice clinked into the glass from the slot in the bar. With her drink in her hand, she stood in front of the window watching the statue of Christ the Redeemer extending his arms on the mountain. At first, it had protected the city there on top of the Corcovado, but the new laser technology had painted a new expression on its face: it was watching the sky, the frontier of space, which was to be broken through by the children of this city…. This made the widespread arms look like a gesture of offering. Annabelle contemplated Raoul's words. Maybe it really was the end for them, Westerners. What remained was moralizing, trying to appreciate everyone even when it was time to act.
If it was so, she was simply a criminal.
On the outside, the suitcase seemed a simple burgundy-red Samsonite. Most businesswomen had one exactly like it and in the world of the Rio consulate parties she was definitely considered one. The hidden drawer slid out from between the small wheels when she stroked the artificial leather covering in the right spots. The vial shone coldly, transparently, in Jesus's light.
She wondered if she was doing it because she had never had children.
Raoul's phone rang. There was no picture, but the boy answered her call. He may have remembered the number of the hotel. Or he may have been curious who the unfamiliar number belonged to.
'Raoul? I only call you because I want to tell you something.'
The boy's voice was distant and icy. 'Look, Valeria, I think it'd be better for both of us if—'
'Oh, you innocent, silly kid. I don't want to talk about the two of us. Remember what you said in the taxi? About the ideals.'
'You're drunk.'
'You said we weren't capable of action any longer. We old Westerners. All I wanted to say is that you were wrong. You'll see. Good night.'
At ten to ten, along with the teeming crowd of visitors, Annabelle got into the cool foyer of Santa Cruz University, where, fastened to the stucco of the ceiling, old-fashioned ventilators were revolving. She had to queue at the main entrance and started to worry that she'd miss the speech.
Sunlight poured down from leaden skies and people had put all kinds of creams on their skin where it was left uncovered by their Sunday best, which made them look like the participants in some sort of voodoo ceremony. Reaching the top of the broad flight of stairs, Annabelle flashed the VIP card she had been issued in her capacity as a commercial delegate, and the sweating police personnel in their scanner goggles instantly stood aside.
She guessed Grenius would talk for some twenty minutes. After a bit more than half of that time had passed, she stood up and walked to the toilet.
Inside, the smell of sewage-water mingled with the oversweet odour of some industrial cleansing agent. Annabelle opened the door of the first box but, seeing that the toilet hadn't been flushed, she turned around. She chose the farthest box, sat down on the seat and took out her tools.
The flesh-coloured glove was made of a polymer as thin as a veil; if it was worn carefully you had to be real close to notice it at all. Its molecules were arranged so tightly that no poison could get through. Annabelle cracked the top of the vial and dripped its contents onto her gloved hand.
Outside, Dr. Grenius was about to conclude his speech. The tiled walls of the room echoed his voice. '…Nobody believed we would be able to do it. After the ideological struggle of the cold war it became clear that investors did not see enough business potential in space travel to finance the costly developments instead of the great powers.'
Annabelle raised her fingers in front of her eyes. On the palm and fingertips of the glove soft pads were formed in order to suck in the poison that would have evaporated quickly otherwise. All she had to do now was implant it into the doctor's body, and it would take its course from then on: the substance, adjusted for his immune system, would start reproducing and Grenius would be infected in a week's time. As Annabelle had been told, the doctor preferred to examine his young creations himself. The infection should then swiftly spread through their ranks.
Fallen angels like Raoul, those from the early stages of the experiment, might remain unaffected. Annabelle wasn't sure but she didn't care, either. She had never had a child and Raoul had left her. This thing was not about them or about their sick relationship.
'We are the ones who refuted that,' Grenius went on outside, defiantly, like a rebel, 'when we decided to give a new future to our children after we could no longer cherish the illusion that one day they would live a life similar to that of European or American people: a car on the driveway, an automated kitchen, middle-class consumption…. This planet cannot provide all these for everyone. However, we can provide our children with something else: a new future, their own financial life which will be created out there in space. And they'll be the first to get there, not the Americans, not the Europeans!'
She stood up, slid the bolt aside on the door and stepped out.
And there was Raoul standing in front of her.
Annabelle moved swiftly, but she was too late. He grabbed her, almost as if he was trying to embrace her, and she just felt a hard knock in her belly. Surprised, she looked up at the man's immaculate young angel face. She didn't feel the pain yet, though she knew it would arrive eventually.
'Annabelle….' Raoul used her real name. She held up her gloved hand to touch his face but he caught her arm and held it against the cold tiles. For a moment, he stared at the glove, then he smiled. 'Clever….'
Burning, acrid pain started to grow inside her. Raoul's knife twisted in her stomach, tormenting her. She felt her own hot blood running down onto her stockings.
'Many fear a genetically redesigned generation,' Grenius recited outside. 'The new people who will be able to spend months in deep sleep like the hibernating animals from which the relevant gene sequences originate. Tomorrow, on Astronaut Day, they will all be parading before your very eyes. A hundred-thousand new children, the first settlers on Mars.'
'We knew you'd try,' Raoul said. 'That you'd be late as always but you'd try.'
'You still don't understand what…?' Annabelle moaned and felt her heels slip on the floor. Raoul held her tight, though. 'The ideals. We stand by them…. We really do.'
The boy answered, but Annabelle didn't hear him. Everything had a strange echo now. And as Raoul's face slowly disappeared in the gloom creeping in from the edge of her sight, Annabelle saw nothing but the astronauts, the hundred-thousand marching Armstrongs and Tereshkovas parading across the world under the extended arms of Jesus Christ.
First published in Galaktika 204., in March 2007.
Fireside Magazine interviews Ken Liu and Tobias Buckell
Fireside Magazine is running a Kickstarter drive right now and it's posted interviews with Ken Liu (who translated Ma Boyong's fiction earlier this month) and Tobias Buckell.
Here's an excerpt:
For Ken Liu:
You also work as a translator, programmer, and lawyer. How do these things mesh, and how do they feed into your writing?
I have found that all these skills are surprisingly similar. In all three professions, the practitioner is trying to turn one set of symbols into another set of symbols and, by doing so, connect two worlds. As for affecting my writing, I think your life always ends up seeping into your fiction, and work is a big part of life.
For Tobias Buckell:
You blog, work as a copy editor and editor, and write short stories and novels. How do you manage the different work, and how do the various jobs feed into each other?
It's a lot of juggling. Some days I'm not sure how well I'm doing it. I told someone I feel like I can do 2 out of the 3 different strains really well. What happens is that I'll juggle it all really well for a couple weeks, then a bunch of deadlines will all arrive on the same week and it gets chaotic.
I'm on the cusp of being able to focus on just 2. Who knows. Maybe something will come through.
Words Without Borders December 2011: The Fantastic
This month's Words Without Borders features stories with a fantastic theme. Here's an excerpt from the introduction:
In this month's main feature we travel into the realm of the fantastic, where routine situations turn surreal and the otherworldly becomes the norm. The journey begins on a bus with its own itinerary in Natsuki Ikezawa's "Navidad Incident." Serbian Ranko Trifkovic writes a cookbook for sprites, while French Surrealist Andre Pieyre de Mandiargues finds a man the size of a bug in a loaf the size of a mountain. Nazli Eray finds the complete guide to life in a Turkish bookshop. Urdu master Naiyer Masud's wanderer confronts family history in a swirling dust storm. Slovenia's Maja Novak visits a Scottish castle haunted by the Bosnian conflict. In Malta, Pierre Mejlak's dreamy child creates her own universe. And Manuel Miguel de Unamuno sees a man witness his own death.
You can read the issue here.
Short Story Highlight: "The Gallows-Horse" by Reza Negarestani
The excellent Weird Fiction Review has posted The Gallows-Horse, a short story by Iranian author Reza Negarestani, from the anthology The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities:
Museum: Museum of Intangible Arts and Objects, Saragossa, Spain
Exhibitions: The Secret History of Objects; The Center for Catoptrics and Optical Illusions; Hall of the Man-Object
Creators and Causes: Objects themselves; Deviant phenomenal models of reality; Neurolinguistic and cognitive distortions
Dates of manifestation: May 4, 1808 – 1820(?); July 1936-January 1961; January 2003
Title: The gallows-horse
Objectal mediums: Gaspar Bermudez (Spanish, 1759 – 1820), Thackery T. Lambshead (British, 1900 – 2003)
Also known as the Edifice of the Weird, the gallows-horse is the highlight of the Museum of Intangible Arts and Objects. Simultaneously being displayed in three distinct and permanent exhibitions, the gallows-horse presents the four basic criteria of the museum — Immateriality, Intangibility, Elusiveness and Ephemeral manifestations. Gallows-horse was first brought to the attention of the museum's board of experts and trustees by an international collective of researchers consisting of art and science historians, linguists and philosophers who were commissioned by the Universities of Oxford and Exeter to index and organize the notes and memoirs of the late Dr. Thackery T. Lambshead, a prominent British medical scientist, explorer and collector of esoteric arts and exotic objects. These notes, according to the research collective, include references to various objects and artworks collected by Dr. Lambshead during his lifetime. Whilst the majority of these references have been traced to tangible corporeal objects currently on display in various international museums, there were also scattered allusions to objects which did not have any record in museums or private collections. Either ravaged by a fire which broke out in Dr. Lambshead's private residential collection or lost during his lifetime, nearly all of these objects — thanks to engineering and technological interventions — are now visually reconstructed through digital simulation. – continue reading.
Utopia by Ahmed Khaled Towfik Reviewed
Strange Horizons reviews Ahmed Khaled Towfik's Utopia:
Utopia, the first novel by the prolific and popular Towfik to be translated into English, was published in Cairo in 2008. It was an instant bestseller, and has been reprinted four times. Set in 2023, it depicts a bleak Egypt divided into the pampered inhabitants of Utopia, and the Others. The people of Utopia have everything; the Others, next to nothing. Utopia is located on Egypt's northern coast, while the land of the Others comprises a ghastly Cairo devoid of water or electricity, where drug-addled and hungry youths hunt the few remaining stray dogs through defunct subway tunnels. The book has two narrators: a teenager from Utopia, who takes the name Alaa at one point, though it's clear this is not his real name; and Gaber, a young man of the Others. Alaa's sections carry the title "Predator." Gaber is the "Prey."
Alaa has everything, and he's bored. He describes his daily routine in a laconic style that communicates the monotony of his life: "I wake up. I take a leak. Smoke a cigarette. Drink coffee. Shave. Fix the wound on my forehead to make it look terrible. Have sex with the African maid. Have breakfast" (p. 16). Alaa goes on to puke on his mother's bedroom carpet, get high, and listen to "orgasm music," and he's out of things to do. The wound on his forehead—a decoration designed by an Israeli doctor—hints toward a central theme of the book: violence as entertainment. Alaa wants to go hunting. The hunt is the one thrill left to the youth of Utopia: stalking one of the Others, and cutting off an arm as a souvenir.
Alaa sneaks out of Utopia on a bus full of Others heading home after a day of work in rich houses. With him is Germinal, a girl from his clique and occasional sex partner—a weak character whose motivations remain unclear throughout the book. The two of them lure a young woman off to kill her and cut off her arm, but are discovered by a gang of Others before they can manage it. Gaber saves them, and takes them home to live with him and his sister Safiya until they can find a way back to Utopia.
Reading Utopia in 2011, it's impossible not to think of what's being called the "Arab Spring," and particularly the uprising that led to the fall of former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak. The world of Utopia is an only slightly exaggerated twenty-first century Egypt, recognizable in the gap between rich and poor, the crumbling of government services, the privatization of space and resources, the anger at the links between the Egyptian, American, and Israeli governments, and the yearning for revolution. The strongest aspect of the book is its depiction of the frustration of young men, both rich and poor, who have run out of options. Alaa is bored and powerful, but Gaber, bored and weak, suffers the same debilitating sense of the meaninglessness of life. A life without dreams, Gaber thinks to himself, is "one looooo(what are you waiting for?)oooooo(nothing)ooong, grim present" (p. 52). That the very rich and very poor experience a similar "grim present" suggests that Utopia addresses those who are both poor and rich: the educated and unemployed young people who played such an important role in Tahrir Square. "A society without a middle class," reflects Gaber, "is a society primed for explosion" (p. 108). – continue reading.
Short Story Highlight: "Enter The Dragon. Later, Enter Another" by Lavie Tidhar
Just wanted to draw your attention to a short story I published on my blog yesterday: Enter The Dragon. Later, Enter Another – which deals with a future increasingly dominated by the effects of multiple WikiLeaks…
Julian Assange's Impenetrable Fortress of Ice lies on top of Mount Terror, on Ross Island in Antarctica.
It is a beautiful, icy desolation, hiding inside it the Planet's Most Wanted Man. His name is Julian.
The Fortress is patrolled at all times by WikiLeaks guerrillas, battle-hardened veterans of the War on Info, the War on Terror, the War for Family Values and the American Way of Life. Behind its sheer ice walls the WikiLord resides in utilitarian splendour, banks of computers broadcasting a continuous digital signal to overhead satellites, spreading the word. The words.
Data. All, as the faithful say, is Data.
Information wants to be free.
They bred me out of the black vats, deep underground, moulded me out of the greatest warriors of all time, General Schwarzkopf and Chuck Norris with a hint of Idi Amin, a touch of Bruce Lee. I am the Dragon. I kill at the speed of thought. I come to Antarctica as men have done over centuries, by sea. A British ice-breaker deposits me on frozen land. Broken icebergs drift across the ocean. I practice by breaking solid ice with my bare hands. I stare up at the frozen volcanoes, at Mount Erebus and Mount Terror. Erebus is a beautiful cone of snow and ice, but the eye is drawn to Terror, where battle drones fly like dark birds in the sky.
I kill a bear with only my knife and wear its hide.
I am ready for this task, as ready as I can ever be.
I reach the volcano.
I begin to climb.
The Iraq War was a computer simulation. Thousands of sentient ghosts died within its cycles of warfare. Viruses of Mass Destruction wrecked havoc on a sculpted landscape, a PR coup d'état for the American infidels. The truth is everywhere you look, just pick up the signal, reality is not what you see, it is what you think it is.
The first Assange I eliminated was in Paris. He was a version 5.02, without the killer instincts as yet, blond almost white-haired, a charismatic, preaching the word on the Rue Saint Michel.
As I ran away from the scene of my crime Mandela-bots chased me, telling me there is another way. I did not want their truth, nor reconciliation. I escaped by speedboat on the Seine, already I was booked for a second job, in Tel Aviv.
On Dizengoff Street I eliminated the Assange preaching sedition, a later model, war programming upgraded, he put up a fight, his knife routines were beautifully choreographed but I am the Dragon, and I completed my mission and flew to Riyadh.
There had been seven Assanges in Riyadh but none when I left.
Silvia Moreno-Garcia on Lovecraft: Racing and Literature
Silvia Moreno-Garcia comments on the topic raised last week by Nnedi Okorafor, discussing Lovecraftian fiction in general.
Lovecrat was a racist. That should come as no surprise to anyone who has read about him. He was also a knot of contradictions (not only because he married a Jewish woman after railing against Jewish people), which is no excuse, it's just fact. I won't even bother with the product-of-his-time thing because he was, and yeah. Lovecraft's fears about everything (and boy, he had a number of fears) were channeled into his stories, so that it becomes pretty obvious that he didn't like people who looked like me ("Red Hook" anyone?).
But just because Lovecraft was one way it doesn't mean we have to be the same way. This is the mantra behind Innsmouth Free Press, where we've had a multi-cultural issue(Ekaterina Sedia, Charles R. Saunders and others contributed to it) and now two anthologies (Historical Lovecrat and Future Lovecraft) with writers from more than a dozen countries, some of them translated into English. The latest anthology, for example, has contributors from places like Nigeria, the Philippines and Germany. And the stories and poems are not about polite gentlemen from New England. "Tloque Nahuaque," translated from the Spanish by me and penned by Nelly Geraldine Garcia-Rosas, puts the Higgs boson debate in a decidedly Mexican context (Tloque Nahuaque refers to a Prehispanic deity).
When Paula R. Stiles and I read slush, we still find a lot of stories that try to emulate Lovecraft by placing the tales in New England, with upper-crust white men as protagonists. During our Historical Lovecraft submissions period we got a big wave of the Victorian white gentleman, which caused me to blog about this and request more stories that veered from that narrow location and era because, hell, who wants to read an anthology called Historical Lovecraft and find out all we are representing is Boston 1880 to 1910? Instead, we managed to obtain some colonial Mexico and a bit of Egypt, among other things.
So what I don't want to see with this debate is minority writers saying "shucks, I'll never write a Lovecraft story because he was a racist asshole." Because Lovecraft does raise interesting points and you can construct a refreshing dialogue by taking his settings, characters, idea or the like, and adapting them to your needs. If we don't go there and start creating our own stories upon those Lovecraftian shores, nobody else will. – read the full post, with comments.
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Two million Americans suffer from bipolar disorder, also known as manic depression. This very serious illness involves dramatic mood swings from high manic episodes to very low depressed episodes. It can be very disruptive to the lives of the people who suffer from this illness as well as their close friends and family members. Bipolar disorder typically begins in adolescence and continues throughout life. While it can not be cured, with treatment these people can lead normal lives.
Omega 3 Fatty Acids
Bipolar disorder is not a condition that is generally considered to have direct nutritional considerations, like diabetes or heart disease. However, recent research has found that omega 3 fatty acids may lessen the symptoms of bipolar disorder. While research is still ongoing, studies have found that they lessen stress and aid in focusing.
Antidepressants and Weight Gain
There are special dietary requirements for people who take many of the medications used to treat bipolar disorder. Weight gain is a potential side effect of nearly all antidepressant medications. However it is not clear whether the weight gain is a direct effect of the drug or of the state of depression. Still, weight control should be a consideration for people who are being treated with antidepressants.
MAO Inhibitors and Tyramine
MAO Inhibitors (MAOI's) are also used to treat depression and may be prescribed to people who suffer from bipolar disorder. They can combine with tyramine, which is a common component of many foods, and cause diarrhea, headache and high or low blood pressure. People who take MAOI's should avoid any foods high in tryamine. Since the amount of tyramine increases with aging, people on MAOI's should avoid any aged or mature foods including cheeses and wines. Other high tyramine foods include:
Dairy: sour cream and yogurt
Meat: caviar, dried fish, fermented sausages, game meat, liver, non-fresh canned meat, pickled herring and salted fish.
Vegetables: eggplant, Italian green beans, lentils, lima beans, sauerkraut, snow peas and soy beans

subset: commoncrawl


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chubbyclark's perrinial bulbs and hostas for my yard. any kind of bulbs
chubbyclark still needs to upload a photo of this so you can check it out.
Description: i need a very elegant love seat. preferably white
Have a question about this item? Contact the owner.
Join NeighborGoods or login to your account to borrow this item.
Condition: Like New
Original Price: $0
Location: Swissvale, PA


text: >>> joakim@... seems to think that: >"Eric M. Ludlam" <eric@...> writes: > >>>>> joakim@... seems to think that: >>>I've worked some more on the semanticdb ebrowse backend. >>> >>>Currently I can do this: >>> >>>(setq D (semanticdb-create-database >>> semanticdb-project-database-ebrowse "/home/joakim/rosegarden/gui/")) >>> >>>D is then a database instance. (In Erics example D was a path, but I >>>didnt quite get why, since the databse ought to get garbed, and I >>>didnt understand how to acess the actual database in other tests if I >>>didnt have a reference to it) >> >> Howdy, >> >> Emacs/Semanticdb can have a lot of databases active at any moment. >> The databases can be of different types, such as file based (the one >> used for files parsed w/ semantic) or omniscient (that knows lots of >> stuff, but not necessarily while files they come from). >> >> When doing a search, searching all DBs in order would be unwise. >> Therefore, the first thing that happens is a path is generated. In >> this case, PATH means a list of places where you might find >> something. >> >> If you have a single database, and pass it to a search routine, then >> that database (and the DBs it references) is the path. If you have a >> list of tags returned as a result from a previous search, that tag >> list is the path... though a bit weird I guess. >> >> If you pass in nil, then an algorithm calculates a path for you >> which is just a list of databases. The code in semanticdb-el puts a >> single omniscient database on the default path for all searches in >> Emacs Lisp. >> >> See the doc for semanticdb-find-translate-path for more on what you >> can pass in. >> >> Does that help? > >Yes, but its still a little unclear where the database is actually >stored. > >This call doesnt normally have the side-effect of storing the >generated db anywhere, right? A "database" in semanticdb is merely an interface, or a virtual class with some basic infrastructure hanging from it. As such, the "storage" is whatever is implemented by someone who writes a new database. The default database is written to store tags in memory in long lists, and write that list to disk when Emacs exits. The "system" database is the same, except designed to be written when you create it, and read into memory on startup. The emacs-lisp database has no storage. It calls Emacs commands to query the symbol lists, and knows how to convert that data into tags. Nothing is ever saved from that database. The ebrowse database, when I last worked on it, had no storage of it's own. It calls ebrowse commands which do mysterious (to me) things. Thus, no, it will store nothing on disk, and storage (as accessed by the search commands) is whatever you write. >(setq D (semanticdb-create-database > semanticdb-project-database-ebrowse "/home/joakim/rosegarden/gui/")) > >Where would I'd hook in semanticdb-project-database-ebrowse so this >call works? This is how semanticdb-el does it: ;; Create the database, and add it to searchable databases for Emacs Lisp mode. (defvar-mode-local emacs-lisp-mode semanticdb-project-system-databases (list (semanticdb-project-database-emacs-lisp "Emacs")) "Search Emacs core for symbols.") for a single omniscient database. If you want to reference your database by a path, meaning some C code has: #include <somefile.h> and semantic-default-c-path include a directory to where somefile.h is, THEN in that case.... uh. hmmm. Ah, your newly created database must have the 'reference-directory slot set. Once that is set, then the `eieio-instance-tracker' parent class (to all databases) will find it automatically when asked for from a particular directory. I think. That bit probably will require some research and experimentation. See semanticdb-create-database in semanticdb.el line 152 for the specific implementation of how databases are found by a particular location on disk. >(semanticdb-find-tags-by-name-method "/home/joakim/rosegarden/gui/" >"KLed") That would be (semanticdb-find-tags-by-name "KLed" nil) >>>(RoseGarden is a fairly large free c++ midi sequencer I use for tests.) >>> >>>Then I can do: >>> >>>(semanticdb-find-tags-by-name-method (semanticdb-file-table D "rgled.cpp") "KLed") >>> >>>and get: >>> >>>([ebrowse-ms "KLed" nil 0 nil nil 0 0 nil "e shape, QWidget *parent, const char *name )\n :" 5687] >>> [ebrowse-ms "KLed" nil 0 nil nil 0 0 nil "lor& col, QWidget *parent, const char *name)\n :" 5363] >>> [ebrowse-ms "KLed" nil 0 nil nil 0 0 nil "Led::KLed(QWidget *parent, const char *name)\n :" 5062]) >>> >>>which are the 3 ebrowse member structures for the constructor KLed in >>>file rgled.cpp. (this currently only works for functions) >>> >>>The question now, then, is what the corresponding semantic tags would >>>look like, and what more I need to be able to test everything in context. >> >> For each entry, I think you would do this: >> >> (let ((txt (aref T 9)) >> (type (do-something-to-txt-1 txt)) >> (args (do-something-to-txt-2 txt)) >> (... )) >> >> (semantic-tag-new-function (aref T 1) >> type >> args >> :constructor ... >> :destructor ... >> :something-else ... >> ) > >I think txt is meant to just be used to locate the definition, and as >you can see they appear to be a bit truncated. I thus believe txt cant >be used to extract anything useful, normally. Well, thats a drag. In order to get all the useful tag information, then you would need to do this: (save-excursion (set-buffer (find-file-noselect (the file0))) (semantic-fetch-tags) (goto-char (location-from ebrowse)) (semantic-current-tag)) which would not actually save any time. Alternately we could tweak the existing semantic parser to allow it to parse a single tag at point. I think that'd be ok as is except we don't know when the tag is a child of some namespace or class. I'm surprised ebrowse has so little information in it's system. I seem to recall the browser have a bit more to it. >> where the text is parsed for the data you want. >> For example, if you know where the arg-list is, you might use >> >> (split-string txt "," t) >> >> and then for each one try and parse the data type. It may be you >> could use the existing semantic C parser to parse the argument list. >> To do that, you may need to add new %scopestart tokens in c.by. >> >> Getting the return type is likely the most important thing to do, but >> I don't see that data in the info you have. >> >> For a first pass, you could really just have: >> >> (semantic-tag-new-function (aref T 1) >> nil >> nil) >> >> and then get to do stuff with it right away. > >But how could this be used usefully? Well, it'd let you test the infrastructure that ties databases together, but you're right. All the useful tools depend on a datatype or a position. >One can also get the defining file from ebrowse, >which I figure I would add like > (semantic-tag-new-function name return_type :filename where_tag_is_defined ) That would indeed be useful thing to add. Adding the :filename attribute is always useful if the created tags don't have overlays. >> If ebrowse has an interface to the vector (which I called T above), >> then clearly that would be the preferred way to access it. >> >ebrowse does indeed define acessors for the structures. > >> >> If you want to use your new interface for files a user is editing, >> then you would need to extract the positional information, and append >> it to the created tag. Then call `semantic--tag-expand' to force the >> tag to be cooked into something you can use, but that is outside the >> scope of a semanticdb project. semantic-texi.el or semantic-html.el >> would be ok examples. > >This part is confusing. Why do I need to call tag-expand? >Cant I just create the start-end proxy and pretend its cooked already? If you try to use ebrowse as a file parser, then that's just part of the infrastructure to fabricating tags at parse time. If you are returning things out of a fancy database and want to include positional information, then you are breaking new ground, and what you suggest may be fine. >And, what would the point be of returning tags withouth position information? Tags like that can be used in the smart completion system, or in the summary tool. The analyzer doesn't really care where tags come from, only what the data is so it can fabricate useful summaries or completions. Eric -- Eric Ludlam: zappo@..., eric@... Home: http://www.ludlam.net Siege: http://www.siege-engine.com Emacs: http://cedet.sourceforge.net GNU: http://www.gnu.org


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User Name:
Remember me on this computer
Published: 30 Sep 2007
By: Alessandro Gallo
Review of the book: Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture (PoEAA).
Without a doubt, patterns play a fundamental role in designing robust software that is easy to develop and maintain. The concept of pattern (as a core solution for a recurring problem in application design) gained most of its fame thanks to the Gang of Four's book. Patterns have proven to be an invaluable aid for choosing development strategies that are less error prone and faster to implement and test.
Many of the books written by Martin Fowler are dedicated to patterns. The book that I'm going to review deals with patterns for building enterprise applications.
Martin Fowler defines an enterprise application as a data-centric application that is required to scale very well. Often, enterprise applications have a web-based User Interface and use a database as the data store. For a quick example of an enterprise application, you can browse to Amazon (http://amazon.com).
The book is logically structured in two parts. In the first one, Fowler introduces us to patterns and explains why they must be part of the skills of any programmer who's going to face the design and development of an enterprise application. In the second part, the author presents a vast catalog of patterns for the architecture of an enterprise application.
Let's see if this book meets the high quality standards that Martin Fowler is used to achieving with his books. I will evaluate both the quality of his research and the way the results are presented on paper.
If you've read some of the books written by Martin Fowler, you are already aware of the great contribute they provide to the research in the object-oriented programming field. PoEAA is one of the milestones.
In the first part of the book, Fowler discusses enterprise applications in general terms, underlining the importance of layering and focusing on the three main areas where architects have to make the most important choices: the User Interface (or Presentation), the Business Logic and the Data Source. Before delving into patterns, Fowler covers some of the most common scenarios in enterprise applications: domain logic, data mapping, concurrency, statefulness and distributed applications. This great introduction - which spans the first 8 chapters - is a complete overview of the requirements of large applications.
Next, the author dissects the architecture by providing patterns for layered enterprise applications. Patterns are catalogued using a very compact and scannable schema. After the pattern's name (which, as stressed by the author, is important to acquire a correct terminology) follows a definition and a brief description of the task that the pattern tries to solve. When needed, UML diagrams are used to clarify the entities involved in the most complex patterns. Finally, a discussion on a potential implementation follows. Since patterns are not algorithms but rather strategies, don't expect to find a list of steps to perform. Instead, you'll find a well structured discussion on how to implement the correct strategy that leads to an elegant solution. Code samples are provided in Java and, for some of the patterns, in C#. Since the whole concept of patterns is mainly technology-agnostic, code is based on simple examples that can be understood by every developer, independently from their language of choice.
Despite what Fowler says, the patterns presented in this book can be appreciated also by developers who aren't going to develop enterprise applications. I believe reading this book can be a really enlightenment experience for many architects and developers that want to understand how modern applications (even the small ones) can be well designed. Many of the patterns presented in this book are recurring in web applications and in web server technologies such as ASP.NET. Furthermore, these patterns can be of great help in gaining a deep understanding of the code that we read and write every day. This book is a must-have for architects and I highly recommend it to any developers. Five stars out of five.
This author has published 23 articles on DotNetSlackers. View other articles or the complete profile here.
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text:
Some DUI Sentences Calculated Wrong
Some Nebraska prisoners serving time for driving under the influence were kept behind bars longer than they should have been because of sentencing miscalculations.
State officials discovered the snafu while correcting the sentences of inmates who had been scheduled for release too early.
A prisons spokeswoman wouldn't answer specifics about the erroneous calculations, which were noted by the Nebraska Attorney General's office.
Emails obtained through the newspaper's public records request suggest that dozens of people convicted of DUI offenses may have served more time than needed before they were paroled.
The incorrect DUI sentences were based on an interpretation by the Department of Correctional Services' legal staff. The attorney general's office notified department officials in June that the interpretation was wrong.


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Caption This 24 Hours of Le Mans Edition: Re-Thinking Timo & The Lions
by, 06-26-2010 at 12:49 AM (8956 Views)
We get some photos via our various sources that make us scratch our heads and some that simply make us laugh aloud. This is usually followed by an attempt to caption what's going on. So why not apply to the above? I was just revisiting our photo gallery from the 1000 km of Spa earlier this season. At the time this was just an odd photo, but given this year's equally odd 24 Hours of Le Mans it takes on new meaning. So feel free to take a stab.
And yeah, that was Timo driving the winning Audi in Le Mans.


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a place for zinesters - writers and readers
Are you living or exploring or thinking about open non-monogamous relationships? Did you always want to write your story down to be shared with others in the DIY zine field (or beyond)?Here is a chance for you ;-)I have made "Juggling the Raibow # 1" in February 2010 in New Zealand (you can download it on QZAP, indymedia.or.nz, sarahtearex.wordpress.com or email me for a PDF). Number 2 I would li…
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When your world is falling apart, when all of your decisions seem bad, when you can't find a job no matter what, or everything just seems to suck - STOP! When you're going down, stop struggling. It's like quicksand. The more you thrash about - the deeper you will sink.
Have you ever noticed that when someone makes bad decisions they seem to repeatedly make bad decisions? Have you ever known someone that jumps from one bad job (or relationship) to another one just as bad or worse? Could it be that when you are in a hole and keep doing the same thing, only faster and harder, that you are only making things worse? Eventually the hole seems so big that you are stuck forever. STOP DIGGING THE HOLE.
The more we feel that we need to do something quick, the slower we should go. The fear and the panic should be a sign that something isn't right and let me give you a clue - the problem isn't out there. You're not going to change all of the circumstances of the world, but you can change yourself and how you view and interact with the world.
When your world is falling apart, it's time to look inside and do a little work - to build a strong foundation from which to rebuild. I recommend the following as a place to start. Tweak it as necessary to make it work for you.
- Get eight hours of sleep. I know, I know - you are a super human and only need three hours of sleep or maybe you are so busy that you couldn't possibly spend eight hours unconscious. To either of these I say BULLSHIT. Study after study has shown that 7-8 hours of sleep is necessary for us to function at our peak. If you won't do this then don't expect things to get better.
- Get proper nutrition. The mind-body connection is scientific fact. When you are not getting the proper nutrition then your body and your mind suffer. When your body and mind suffer your life will suck. I'm not going to get into the great diet debate here. Let's just suffice to say that fast food or factory foods will not cut it. Fresh, real foods are necessary. Buying a majority of your foods from the perimeter of the grocery is a good starting point. Stay away from the center isles where the artificial food-like-substances are sold.
- Get some exercise. You don't have to run a marathon to reap the benefits of exercise. Start with a walk or bicycle ride three to five days a week. Fifteen minutes a day is fine for starters. Build up until you are getting 4-5 hours a week of exercise. You will begin to see an improvement in your mood and well being almost immediately. Many studies have linked mental well being with exercise.
- Spend some time alone. Meditate or simply spend some quiet time with yourself. It's a great way to start and finish your day. It may feel awkward at first if you are used to constant distractions - work through the awkward feeling. If problems or fears surface, acknowledge them but don't feed them with attention. Make a note to return and attend to them at a later time. Right now you are seeking to center yourself and build inner strength. After working through the awkward feeling and anxiety you will feel a peace. A few minutes a day of quiet time will eventually bring strength and clarity.
- Eliminate negative influences. To the greatest extent possible, separate yourself from any person, place, or thing that is bringing you down, is disruptive for you, unsupportive of you, or otherwise harmful to your well being or self esteem. These influences can be people, habits, television shows, or thoughts. They are toxic to your well being. Take the time to identify them and eliminate them.
- Stop doing what is expected of you. Don't let guilt and other people's expectations rule your life. Every day do a little less of what you should and more of what you want to do. Do things that bring joy and excitement. You'll find passion creeping back into your life.
- Be thankful. I've talked about this many times. Learn to appreciate the good things in life - the sun, your family, your pet, your health.... Just be grateful for something. If you are currently coming from a negative place and feeling bitter, then I know you're probably thinking this step is crap. The stronger that feeling, the more you need this step. Skip it at your own peril. Studies of the mind show that when we focus on problems and what is wrong in our life, then we fail to see solutions - you'll just keep digging that hole that you're so busy complaining about. Re-framing is an excellent way to see the world in a more positive light.
When you are whole again and ready to take on the world then take steps to make better decisions ( read here).
If you like this article then please pass it along. Not for me, but because someone may need to read this. You may share on Facebook, Google +, email it to someone, or link to it from your blog. If you don't have a blog yet then you should consider it. We all have something to say and we all can make a difference in this world.
Check out my guest post this morning at We Only Do This Once.
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At Swimsuits For All, we believe that every woman should enjoy her day in the sun. We're on a mission to help ladies change the way they think of swimwear. Our fashion-forward, flattering designs allow you to show off your sense of style and feel confident while you splash in the pool or along the shoreline. In addition to our plus size swimsuits, we have stylish plus size cover ups available to complete your swim ensembles.
Whether you're headed to a pool party, jetting off for a beach vacation or preparing for a cruise, you need the perfect cover up. Plus size cover up dresses are the perfect solution no matter what's on your agenda. These cover ups look like ordinary plus size dresses but are made from fabrics that dry fast when layered over a wet suit. Cover up dresses allow you to have a drink, dine, mingle at a party or shop in your swimwear and look oh-so stylish.
When shopping for plus size cover ups, it's a good idea to begin by deciding how much protection from the sun you require. If you want to avoid tan lines, check out our strapless plus size dresses. Want to bare your arms, try one of our cover up dresses with tank or spaghetti straps. Slit shoulder styles let you cover all or part of your arms while still feeling the sun on your shoulders. Need more sun protection? Choose plus size cover up dresses with short or long sleeves.
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Not sure which of our plus size cover up dresses will look best with your swimsuit? Let one of our Swim Stylists help you decide. Our stylists can recommend the right plus size dresses to suit your sense of style, flatter your figure and match your suit. You can speak to one of our experts by calling 1.888.241.SWIM.


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For Kids & FamiliesPurchase Tickets Now ›
Hats Off to You
Story Trails
Sunday, September 9, 2012 from 2pm - 3pm
Reservations by September 7
Location: Meet at information desk
Everyone in Littleton is preparing for the Queen's visit. Miss Hunnicutt has a new hat for the celebration, but none of her neighbors are prepared for the consequences! Find out if Miss Hunnicutt's Hat meets the Queen's approval in this story by Jeff Brumbeau, and then decorate a hatbox to protect your own favorite cap or headwear.
For children ages 5 to 8 with adult


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Amanda McEntire Named Head Womens Tennis Coach
RIVERDALE, N.Y. – Amanda McEntire has been named head coach of the Manhattan College women's tennis program, it was announced today by Athletic Director Bob Byrnes. McEntire is a 2002 graduate of the University of Texas, where she was a member of the Longhorns' women's tennis team.
"I'm extremely pleased with Amanda's decision to take on this coaching position," Byrnes said. "Amanda's work ethic, attitude, and desire to provide the best experiences for our student-athletes will be seen in our women's tennis team going forward."
While at Texas, McEntire helped Head Coach Jeff Moore's squad win consecutive Big 12 regular season and tournament titles. The Longhorns also advanced to the round of 16 in the NCAA Tournament each year she was with the program.
In addition, she spent four years working with the United States Tennis Association (USTA)-sponsored Zonals Tennis Tournament in Austin, Texas, serving as tournament director for two years. As tournament director, McEntire organized and oversaw the five-day event, which was played at the Penick-Allison Tennis Center, Texas' home facility, and featured 160 participants from across the United States and Puerto Rico.
"I'm very grateful to Bob Byrnes and Noah LeFevre for this opportunity," McEntire said. "I'm excited to work with the team and look forward to building on past success."


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Rainbow Throwing Stars Set
$ 18.00 $ 32.00
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RELEASE, ASSUMPTION OF RISK, WAIVER OF LIABILITY AND INDEMNITY AGREEMENT: By purchasing any item sold by AlienOutfitters.com, the buyer expressly warrants that he/she is in compliance with all applicable Federal, State, and Local laws and regulations regarding the purchase, ownership, and use of the item. It shall be the buyer's responsibility to comply with all Federal, State and Local laws governing the sale of any items listed, illustrated or sold. The buyer expressly agrees to indemnify and hold harmless AlienOutfitters.com for all claims resulting directly or indirectly from the purchase, ownership, or use of the item in violation of applicable Federal, State, and Local laws or regulations. Buyer further warrants that he/she is 18 years of age or older, and understands that some items sold by AlienOutfitters.com are dangerous if misused. Buyer expressly agrees to indemnify and hold harmless AlienOutfitters.com for injuries which may result from use of products sold by us. If you have further questions about your state laws please go here: http://www.knifeup.com/knife-laws/


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Madison Scouts Drum and Bugle Corps alumni marked November 2 as the history-making inaugural meeting of the new Madison Alumni Corps Association.
Alumni of the Madison Scouts Drum and Bugle Corps met to formulate their plans to put a corps on the Drum Corps Associates field in 2005. Initially drawing its members from alumni, the corps plans to make its debut appearance at DCA in 2004 in the mini-corps segment of championships weekend.
According to the MACA organizing board chairman Dan Scerpella, "The Scouts were an important part of the lives of many young men around the world. The bond that brings us together again today is a significant way to reestablish that brotherhood."
Scerpella also said, "The emergence of an alumni corps from Madison will draw on rich tradition and provide the unique Madison brand of excitement to the ever-growing DCA audience."
The new corps will be a stand-alone organization and its intention is to enhance the Madison Drum & Bugle Corps Association by pursuing the same goals of entertainment and excellence embodied in the junior organization. The corps is scheduling organizational meetings in the Madison area in early 2004. To learn more about the corps, visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/madisonscoutsalumnicorps/ or contact Dan Scerpella at email@example.com.


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PHOENIX (AP) - The Arizona Diamondbacks finally had ended a five-game losing streak. Then the next night, they were back doing the same things that had led to all of those losses.
Matt Cain limited the Diamondbacks to three hits in six innings, then singled in a pair of runs, and the San Francisco Giants handed Arizona its sixth loss in seven games, 5-2 on Saturday night.
``We didn't play well. We didn't swing the bats well, struck out 11 times and took five of them,' Arizona manager Kirk Gibson said. ``They did a good job of pitching us but we really didn't have that many opportunities. We were 0 for 6 on with runners in scoring position. They had a lot more pressure on us.'
The Diamondbacks have lost six of seven overall and 11 of their last 14 at home.
``We are just not putting the ball in play. Sometimes that happens,' said Arizona's Justin Upton, who was 1 for 3 with two strikeouts. ``Later on down the road we might not be the team leading the league in strikeouts. It is just the way things are going right now. Obviously we are not happy about it.'
San Francisco beat Arizona for the first time in 10 tries.
``What an old-school type effort Cain gave us,' Giants manager Bruce Bochy said. ``Pitched, swung the bat, ran the bases. Got the big hit we'd been looking for. He just looked very determined out there.'
Cain allowed a run, striking out eight, walking two and hitting a batter in his first victory in five outings.
Trevor Cahill (2-4) took the loss.
``I didn't feel that sharp today,' Cahill said. ``It looked like after the first he (Cain) didn't look very sharp either. He was able to keep his team in it even though he doesn't have his best stuff. I wasn't able to get out of that last inning and keep the team a little bit closer.'
Cain singled twice. His second brought in two runs after Cahill had hit consecutive batters with two outs in the sixth.
Santiago Casilla pitched a scoreless ninth for his seventh save in eight tries.
San Francisco beat Arizona for the first time since last Sept. 3.
``We know it,' Cain said of the Giants' troubles with the Diamondbacks. ``We've talked about it. We've had the situation to where we felt like we've played good enough to beat these guys. We need to really focus down and play better. I think that's something we really need to carry over to tomorrow.'
Melky Cabrera extended his hitting streak to 10 games with a single and pair of RBI doubles. Angel Pagan went 3 for 3 with a double and a walk for the Giants.
Cabrera's RBI double gave San Francisco the lead for good 2-1 in the fifth. Cain started the inning with a single, then Gregor Blanco reached on a fielder's choice. Blanco stole second before Cabrera's double down the right-field line brought him home.
In the sixth, Pagan's leadoff single was erased with a double play, but Cahill hit Manny Burriss and Brandon Crawford - the seventh and eighth batters in the order - to bring up Cain, whose single to right ended the Arizona starter's night. Cahill entered the game with a 3-0 record and 1.20 ERA in four career starts against San Francisco.
San Francisco loaded the bases with one out in the seventh, thanks in part to third baseman Ryan Roberts' fielding error, but Joaquin Arias bounced into a forceout at home, then reliever Craig Breslow struck out Burriss looking.
The Diamondbacks cut it to 4-2 in the seventh helped by shortstop Crawford's eighth error of the season and second in as many nights. Jason Kubel doubled with one out and took third when the left fielder Cabrera threw wild to second. After two outs, pinch-hitter Paul Goldschmidt grounded to Crawford, whose throwing error allowed Kubel to score.
The Giants added a run in the ninth when Belt led off with a triple and scored on Cabrera's double.
Third baseman Arias robbed Ryan Roberts with a slick fielding play to end the eighth.
Notes: Cain was in line to win his previous start against Milwaukee with a 3-2 lead entering the ninth but Giants closer Casilla blew his first save of the season and the Brewers won 4-3 in 11. ... The Chase Field roof was closed when the game began but was opened after four innings. ... The Giants entered the game hitting .207 with runners in scoring position, second-worst in the majors behind Miami's .199. ... Cain's only other win this season came in his second start, a complete game 5-0 win over Pittsburgh on April 13, when he struck out 11 and walked none. ... Barry Zito (1-1, 2.21 ERA) starts for San Francisco in the series finale on Sunday while the Diamondbacks go with Joe Saunders (2-2, 2.50). ... The Giants lead the majors in errors with 37.


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Former Atlanta Fed President Robert P. Forrestal Dies
For Immediate Release: May 26, 2004
The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta today announced the death of former Atlanta Fed President and Chief Executive Officer Robert P. Forrestal, who passed away today at 72. Forrestal served as Atlanta Fed president from 1983 until 1995.
In a statement, Jack Guynn, Atlanta Fed president and chief executive officer, praised Forrestal's leadership of the Atlanta Bank. "Bob led the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta through a very challenging period, when both the banking industry and the economy were going through profound changes," Guynn said. "He instituted many changes to deal with these challenges, including his work to ensure that our directors and management better reflected the diversity of our communities. However, I think his most lasting legacy comes out of his broad efforts to raise awareness and understanding of globalization's effects on the economy and the financial system."
As Atlanta Fed president and CEO, Forrestal was responsible for all the Bank's activities, including monetary policy, bank supervision and financial services operations. In addition, he served on the Federal Reserve System's chief monetary policymaking body, the Federal Open Market Committee. Prior to being named president, Forrestal served as the Atlanta Fed's first vice president and chief operating officer and as general counsel. He joined the Atlanta Fed in 1970 from the legal department of the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors in Washington, D.C. After retiring from the Bank, Forrestal worked with the Atlanta law firm of Smith, Gambrell & Russell and served on several corporate boards. Throughout his career, he also served on numerous community service-oriented boards, including those of hospitals, universities and nonprofit organizations.
The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta serves the Sixth Federal Reserve District, which encompasses Alabama, Florida, Georgia and parts of Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee. In addition to Atlanta, the Bank has branch offices in Birmingham, Jacksonville, Miami, Nashville and New Orleans. As part of the nation's central banking system, the Atlanta Fed participates in setting national monetary policy, supervises numerous commercial banks and provides a variety of financial services to depository institutions and the U.S. government.


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Reject Apathy
God / Slices
During an address to crowds gathered at the Vatican this week, Pope Francis explained why creation care and environmental stewardship are issues that Christians must take seriously. Though he spoke about the practical reasons why environmentalism was an important cause ("If we destroy Creation, Creation will destroy us!"), the pope also explained why ultimately, it is a spiritual issue.
Creation is not a property, which we can rule over at will; or, even less, is the property of only a few: Creation is a gift, it is a wonderful gift that God has given us, so that we care for it and we use it for the benefit of all, always with great respect and gratitude … But when we exploit Creation we destroy the sign of God's love for us, in destroying Creation we are saying to God: 'I don't like it! This is not good!' 'So what do you like?' 'I like myself!' – Here, this is sin! Do you see
The statements come just weeks after the Vatican hosted a five-day meeting of scholars, scientists, economists, astronomers and other thinkers at a summit called "Sustainable Humanity, Sustainable Nature, Our Responsibility." According to Think Progress, the mission of the gathering was to "discuss ways for the Catholic church to address a range issues caused by climate change" … Discuss
Reject Apathy / Slices
A skyscraper made out of wood sounds like a pretty radical idea, but if the plans for this 34-story building are chosen as part of a design competition, it could become a reality by 2023. The designs are from a Scandinavian architecture firm for a massive new apartment complex in Stockholm, Sweden, and its designers say that wooden skyscrapers could offer a much more eco-friendly option than concrete and steel. According to the firm, traditional construction accounts for 30-40 percent of all CO2 emissions, but a wooden building would decrease emissions and produce far less waste … Discuss
Yesterday, the Pope dedicated his message to the United Nations World Environment Day, discussing what's wrong with a culture of consumerism as well as the need for creation care. With recent stats showing that nearly a third of food produce for consumption is wasted or thrown out, the Pope said that things must change:
This culture of waste has made us insensitive even to the waste and disposal of food, which is even more despicable when all over the world, unfortunately, many individuals and families are suffering from hunger and malnutrition … Once our grandparents were very careful not to throw away any leftover food. Consumerism has led us to become used to an excess and daily waste of food, to which, at times we are no longer able to give a just value. Throwing away food is like stealing from the table of the poor and the hungry.
In addition to challenging the Church to reevaluate consumption in light of world hunger, the Pope also said that believers must take God's call to care for His creation seriously. "Are we truly cultivating and caring for creation? Or are we exploiting and neglecting it? Cultivating and caring for creation is God's indication given to each one of us not only at the beginning of history. It means nurturing the world with responsibility and transforming it into a garden, a habitable place for everyone" … Discuss


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Oregon Historical County Records Guide
Lincoln County Scenic Images
Seal Rock
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A boy plays in the surf at the beach and rocks of Seal Rock State Park. (Photo No. lincDA0055b)
About this image
Dimensions: 2500 x 3765 pixels (300 dpi version); Date created: July 2010; Camera: Nikon D80 Digital SLR; Lens: Nikon AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6G IF-ED; Photographer citation: Gary Halvorson, Oregon State Archives; Keywords/Tags: vertical, Oregon, Lincoln County, Seal Rock, Pacific Ocean, coast, beach, sand, rocks, rock formations, clouds, boy.
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