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Each organism from inception to death goes through a sequence of genetically programmed developmental events constituting a life history. In eukaryotic organisms, development involves cellular events such as mitosis, meiosis, and syngamy (fertilization), which variously proceed by nuclear division (karyokinesis), cytoplasmic division (cytokinesis), cytoplasmic fusion without the union of nuclei (plasmogamy), or nuclear fusion (karyogamy).
This discussion focuses on the life histories of land plants—that is, nonvascular (bryophytes) and vascular plants, the latter comprising nonseed vascular plants (pteridophytes) and seed plants (gymnosperms and angiosperms). Although algae and fungi were traditionally regarded as plants, fungi are now universally considered as constituting the kingdom Fungi, whereas algae are often included in the kingdom Protista.
The chromosome number in cells may be haploid, with one set of chromosomes per cell (written 1n); diploid, with two sets (2n); polyploid, with three or more sets; or dikaryotic, with a pair of nuclei in a cell (n + n), a condition that occurs mainly in fungi. Three types of sexual life histories have been recognized for the eukaryotic organisms: 1n, or haplontic; 2n, or diplontic; and 1n-2n (2n-1n). The former two types have collectively been called haplobiontic or monobiontic, because the life histories include only one phase; the third type has been called haplodiplontic, diplohaplontic, diplobiontic, dibiontic, or sporic, because the life history involves two alternating multicellular phases, or generations. Algae and fungi have many variants of all three types, especially the first, while whereas land plants have the third type exclusively. In addition, all land plants are strictly oogamous, having motile sperm and nonmotile eggs. (In contrast, the algae and fungi may be oogamous or, frequently, isogamous or anisogamous, the latter conditions characterized by morphologically similar gametes that are either of the same size or with the female gametes of a larger size, respectively.)
The 1n-2n life history of bryophytes and vascular plants comprises the entire sequence of developmental events from zygote formation via syngamy (fertilization) to spore formation via meiosis. Syngamy and meiosis are successive events in a sexual life history. Syngamy involves the union of two 1n gametes to form a 2n zygote, which eventually develops into a 2n sporophyte. Meiosis involves the division of a 2n sporocyte (meiocyte, spore mother cell, pollen mother cell) to produce four 1n spores. These four spores constitute a tetrad. Gametes are 1n cells that fuse to form a zygote, whereas spores are 1n cells that develop into gameophytes gametophytes without uniting with another cell.
Syngamy and meiosis are generally inseparable and alternate; consequently, the sporophyte develops from a zygote formed via syngamy, whereas the haploid gametophyte results after the sporophyte undergoes has undergone meiosis to form spores. These two phases, or generations, are multicellular in land plants. This type of life history involves an alternation of generations, a phenomenon not occurring in haplobiontic (1n or 2n) life histories. In the latter, such alternation is evident in both the morphological and the nuclear (chromosomal) changes that occur.
Meiosis and syngamy (fertilization) are the critical events that separate the sporophytic and gametophytic generations. (All nonmeiotic cell divisions involved in development are mitotic, in which chromosomes replicate, giving each daughter cell a full complement.) The zygote is the first stage and the sporocyte the last stage of the sporophytic generation, whereas the spore is the first stage and the gametes (eggs, sperm) the last stage of the gametophytic generation. The sporocytes of the multicellular 2n sporophyte divide meiotically to form 1n spores (sporogenesis). Each meiotic division results in a tetrad of four spores. (The land plants produce only sexual spores resulting from meiosis.) Each spore divides mitotically to form a multicellular 1n gametophyte, which eventually produces gametes mitotically (gametogenesis). The gametes (an egg and a sperm) fuse in the process of syngamy to form a 2n zygote. The zygote divides mitotically to form a multicellular embryo (embryogenesis), which is protected by either gametophytic tissues (such as remnants of archegonia in the nonseed land plants) or sporophytic tissues (the seed in the seed plants). An embryo, which is actually an immature sporophyte, is universally found among the land plants and often becomes dormant , but eventually grows into the mature sporophyte. During organogenesis in vascular plants, the embryo develops into the mature sporophyte, with its vegetative organs (root and shoot, the latter consisting of stem and leaves) and reproductive structures (cones or strobili, flowers, etc.).
In all land plants, the two alternating generations are morphologically dissimilar, and the gametophyte is initially dominant over the sporophyte. In all bryophytes, the gametophyte remains dominant, and the sporophyte is physiologically dependent on it. A homosporous life history, in which only one morphological type of spore is produced, is found in most bryophytes, although a few (e.g., Macromitrium) exhibit an anisosporous life history, in which the same sporangium produces morphologically similar spores of two different sizes.
In vascular plants, the sporophyte ultimately becomes physiologically independent of the gametophyte. A homosporous life history occurs in Psilotum (Psilotophyta), Lycopodium (Lycophyta), Equisetum (Sphenophyta), and most ferns (FilicophytaPteridophyta). A functionally heterosporous life history, in which the same sporangium produces morphologically similar but physiologically different spores, has been reported in a few pteridophytes—e.g., Equisetum. Finally, a heterosporous life history, in which different sporangia produce morphologically different types of spores, occurs in Selaginella, Isoetes (Lycophyta), a few aquatic ferns (Filicophyta), and all seed plants.
A homosporous life history occurs in nearly all bryophytes and in most pteridophytes. It is characterized by morphologically identical spores that germinate to produce bisexual (both male and female) gametophytes in pteridophytes , but either bisexual or more usually unisexual (either male or female) gametophytes in bryophytes. Each mature gametophyte bears gametangia (sex organs) that produce gametes. Each antheridium (male gametangium) forms many motile , flagellate sperm, and each archegonium (female gametangium) forms one nonmotile egg. Fusion of an egg and a sperm (syngamy) creates a zygote and restores the 2n ploidy level. Various mechanisms prevent the fusion of eggs and sperm from a bisexual gametophyte (inbreeding). For example, the sex organs may mature at different times (usually antheridia mature first), or inbreeding may be chemically or genetically inhibited. The zygote divides mitotically to form the embryo, which then develops into the sporophyte. This eventually produces sporangia, which bear meiocytes (sporocytes) that divide meiotically to form spores. The number of spores produced per sporangium ranges from 16 or 32 in some pteridophytes to more than 65 million in some mosses. The sporangia may be borne in specialized structures, such as sori in ferns or as cones (strobili) in many other pteridophytes. The leaflike structures that bear sporangia are called sporophylls.
In most homosporous life histories of pteridophytes, the spores are both morphologically and physiologically identical and produce bisexual gametophytes. In some species of horsetail (Equisetum), the spores may be physiologically different and produce male or female gametophytes. This uncommon situation is called functional heterospory and may represent the means by which the heterosporous condition (see below) in vascular plants evolved from the homosporous condition.
In anisosporous life histories, an unusual phenomenon in bryophytes, there is a size difference among between spores produced in the same sporangium. Each meiotic division results in a tetrad of two small spores that produce male gametophytes and two larger spores that produce female gametophytes.
A heterosporous life history occurs in some pteridophytes and in all seed plants. It is characterized by morphologically dissimilar spores produced from two types of sporangia: microspores, or male spores, and megaspores (macrospores), or female spores. In pteridophytes, megaspores are typically larger than microspores, but the opposite is true in most seed plants.
The spores produce two types of gametophytes: each microspore develops into a microgametophyte (male gametophyte), which ultimately produces male gametes (sperm), and each megaspore produces a megagametophyte (female gametophyte), which ultimately produces female gametes (eggs). Fusion of an egg and a sperm creates a zygote and restores the 2n ploidy level. The zygote divides mitotically to form the embryo, which then develops into the sporophyte. Eventually the sporophyte produces sporangia, which bear sporocytes (meiocytes) that undergo meiosis to form spores. Microsporangia (male sporangia) produce microsporocytes (micromeiocytes) that yield microspores. Megasporangia (female sporangia) produce megasporocytes (megameiocytes) that yield megaspores. The sporangia may be borne in specialized structures such as sori in ferns, cones (strobili) in some pteridophytes and most gymnosperms, or flowers in angiosperms. The leaflike structures bearing microsporangia and megasporangia are called, respectively, microsporophylls and megasporophylls. In angiosperms these sporophylls represent, respectively, the stamens and the carpels of the flower; in gymnosperms these sporophylls may constitute parts of, respectively, microstrobili (male cones, or pollen cones) and megastrobili (female cones, ovule cones, or seed cones).
The essential difference between the homosporous and heterosporous life history is the presence in the latter of two spore types (microspores and megaspores) and their concomitant precursory structures (microsporocytes and megasporocytes; microsporangia and megasporangia; etc.) and subsequent structures (microgametophytes and megagametophytes).
The gymnosperms and angiosperms not only lack some reproductive structures found in the homosporous and heterosporous pteridophytes but also have certain reproductive structures peculiar to the seed plants. Heterosporous pteridophytes, like their homosporous counterparts, have archegonia, antheridia, and motile , flagellate sperm. The seed plants completely lack antheridia, and of the extant groups only the ginkgo and the cycads have flagellate sperm. Archegonia occur in most gymnosperms except Gnetum and Welwitschia, but they are lacking in all angiosperms.
Pollen grains and pollen tubes (male reproductive structures), ovules and seeds (female reproductive structures), and seedlings are structures unique to all seed plants. The ovule is a single megasporangium (in seed plants, this is called the nucellus) surrounded by one or two integuments (in rare cases, none or three) and containing inside the nucellus a single megasporocyte (spore mother cell). The megasporocyte undergoes meiosis to form four megaspores, three of which typically degenerate, the remaining one developing into the megagametophyte (female gametophyte). Ovules never dehisce (split open) to release their megaspores, unlike the megasporangia of most pteridophytes. The pollen grain is the partly or completely developed microgametophyte (male gametophyte). It is usually multicellular, consisting of two or three cells in angiosperms and usually two to five cells in gymnosperms, although in conifers it is occasionally one cell (for example, the families Taxaceae and some Cupressaceae) or 6 to 43 cells (the families Araucariaceae and some Podocarpaceae).
During pollination, pollen is transferred from its source to a receptive surface: in gymnosperms from the microsporangium to the integument or, especially, the pollination droplet of the ovule (rarely to the cone scale); in angiosperms from the microsporangium (pollen sac) of the anther to the stigma of the carpel. Once pollen has reached the appropriate receptive source, it germinates to form the pollen tube, a structure that grows toward the megagametophyte and in so doing conveys the sperm directly to the egg. All angiosperms and most gymnosperms, except the ginkgo, cycads, and some fossil seed plants, lack swimming sperm. The presence of swimming sperm apparently represents a more primitive , transitional evolutionary condition. After fertilization, the ovule transforms into a seed. The integument or integuments become modified into the seed coat. The seed typically becomes dormant for a period of time before it germinates to produce a seedling.
Double fertilization is a phenomenon unique to angiosperms. Each pollen grain produces two sperm; one fuses with an egg to form the zygote, and the other fuses with one or more polar nuclei in the female gametophyte (megagametophyte, or also "embryo sac") to form an endosperm, which has a ploidy level that varies from 2n to 15n. In approximately 70 percent of the known cases, the second sperm fuses with two endosperm nuclei to produce a 3n (triploid) endosperm. The endosperm is a special nutritive tissue for the embryo and, after seed germination, for the seedling. In contrast, the megagametophyte is the comparable nutritive tissue in the gymnosperms.
Both homosporous and heterosporous life histories may exhibit various types of asexual reproduction (vegetative reproduction, somatic reproduction). Asexual reproduction is any reproductive process that does not involve meiosis or the union of nuclei, sex cells, or sex organs. Depending on the type of life history, asexual reproduction can involve the 1n or 2n generation.
The significance of sexual reproduction is that it is responsible for the genetic variation arising in a population as a result of the segregation and recombination of genetic material via meiosis and syngamy, respectively (the cells that result from sexual reproduction are genetically different from their parent cells). The significance of asexual reproduction is that it is a means for a rapid and significant increase in the numbers of individuals. (Weeds, for instance, are successful partly due to because of their great capacity for vegetative reproduction.) The cells that result from asexual reproduction are genetically identical to their parent cells. In addition, vegetative reproduction in the bryophytes and pteridophytes is a means of bypassing the somewhat lengthy and moisture-dependent sexual process—that process; that is, the motile , swimming sperm characteristic of these groups require the presence of water, which may be a limiting factor in drier times.
In most life histories, a 2n sporophyte typically alternates with a 1n gametophyte, but there are significant deviations. Apospory is the development of 2n gametophytes, without meiosis and spores, from vegetative, or nonreproductive, cells of the sporophyte. In contrast, apogamy is the development of 1n sporophytes without gametes and syngamy from vegetative cells of the gametophyte. The 2n aposporous gametophytes and the 1n apogamous sporophytes are usually infertile under natural conditions because of disruption of cytological events. Various compensating genetic mechanisms, however, may occur to complete the life history. Parthenogenesis is the formation of a 1n embryo directly from an unfertilized egg. Apospory and apogamy occur in bryophytes, pteridophytes, and angiosperms, whereas parthenogenesis occurs in ferns and angiosperms. Apogamy is more common in pteridophytes, but apospory is more common in bryophytes.
Some ferns (certain species of Trichomanes and Vittaria) have lost the ability to produce sporophytes. The species exist as gametophytes that spread by gemmae (units of asexual reproduction); although gametangia are produced, no sporophytes result.


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E-bike owners survey
November 15, 2016
I'm writing an article on e-bikes for the Belmont Citizens Forum,
so I need information from e-bike owners.
I don't own one; I ride a cargo bike, so I don't have any first-hand experience.
I've the questions here so that people can answer them in the comments, and so that they can send the link around to other e-bike owners.
I'm most interested in feedback from people in the Boston metro area, but feedback from other areas helps, especially if you can provide contrast with Boston (e.g., it's hilly in West Virginia, it's very snowy in Buffalo, it's hot in Houston). If you prefer not to answer in the comments, you can mail them to me at firstname.lastname@example.com.
- What motivated you to try an e-bike? Was a hill too steep, or a commute too long, or were kids too heavy, or did you need to arrive at work not too sweaty?
- Have you had your bike for long? Is it reliable?
- What kind of bike is it? (for example, Pedego, Specialized, or some brand of electrified cargo bike?)
- Can you describe how you use your e-bike? That is, do you ride for fun, or for commuting and errands? Do you ride every day, once or twice a week, or less often? Are there hills or long distances involved? Do you carry heavy loads, or children?
- How does the e-bike help this?
- May I use your name or initials in the article?
- May I describe your situation in some detail, rather than general terms?
For example: "AR commutes year-round from a steep hill in Belmont to Kendall Square in Cambridge, carrying two small children in a ButchersAndBicycles tricycle to drop off at day care along the way"
Thanks you for your time. If you would like a copy of the article, please mention that in the comments or email.
Charitable plans
November 12, 2016
SPLC, NAACP, CAIR and/or ICNA, Planned Parenthood, Lambda Legal, Trans Lifeline.
and ACLU, EFF, National Popular Vote.
Any other suggestions? I think I'm a little light on defending rights of immigrants.
Oops — As JF points out in email, ADL.
I'd also like to fund organizations doing voter registration work, especially in swing states, especially in states where Republicans narrowly control legislatures and/or executive. We need to reduce the amount of gerrymandering in this country, we need representation in the House of Representatives that more nearly reflects the popular sentiment, and we need to ensure that we are well safe from crazy constitutional amendments (a constitutionally mandated balanced budget would be a macroeconomic disaster; recessions would turn into depressions).
I realize I am setting myself up for a deluge of please-help-our-worthy-cause solicitians, both electronic and paper. We get those already, plan is to set up a spreadsheet, and just give once a year, every year.
People will live in electric vans
September 2, 2016
People will live in electric vans
Reading an article about people in Silicon Valley living in cars (didn't save the reference, go look for it) and noticing that there was no plan to build new housing fast enough to meet demand, it occurred to me that (necessity being the mother of invention) there would be innovation in the world of cars-for-living-in.
I thought about this a little more, and realized that electric vans (camper vans, minivans, step vans, not sure exactly what) were likely to hit the sweet spot for this. So many things go better with electricity, especially nowadays. Electricity runs lights, computers, fans, phones, electric blankets, in a pinch it can even run air conditioning. And it does all this quietly, with no smells. Gas powered cars can supply a little power for a little while from their batteries, but they're small, and the usual way to recharge them is to run the engine when there is otherwise no need. Mechanical constraints to get power to the wheels usually force the floor of the car (or van) relatively high above the ground, reducing interior headroom.
Electric cars have comparatively huge batteries, and will certainly be able to refill at charging stations (and some employers even provide these for free, at least for a little while more), or at relatively low cost from someone else's electric power, and there is always the option of solar (especially in sunny places like Silicon Valley), especially on the squarish roof of a van. Rooftop solar wouldn't provide enough energy for a lot of driving, but it would cover consumption by electric amenities. Because power can be distributed to the wheels through wires instead of mechanical axles, the floor of the van can be relatively low to the ground (this is a really good idea anyway for a delivery van) which provides a lot more headroom inside.
It's possible that a self-driving van could also dodge overnight parking restrictions by driving very slowly on low-traffic streets, automatically pulling over whenever faster traffic approached from behind (5mph or less, to conserve energy, minimize motion for sleeping passengers, and maximize safety).
If I can think of this, I'm sure someone else is already working on this. Anywhere that artificial restrictions on housing supply cause prices to spike, this could be an option.
After a little more thought, this: "Neighborhood Electric Vehicles". A weight budget of 3000lbs, but no need for a high-strength frame or collision crumple zones gives you room to work with (old VW vans weighed much less than that).
Avoid Paypal
August 29, 2016
Avoid Paypal
I've been using Paypal intermittently for years, but recently encountered a problem so severe that I am now trying to terminate my account completely. The fact that I cannot, and that they cannot tell me why (without contacting "customer service", as if I expect that to be productive) is one of the reasons why.
What precipitated this was two things. First, I moved my primary bank account from the credit union whose only remaining branch was a 30-minute drive away, to one a short walk from work, and our credit card company "upgraded" (?) us from MasterCard to Visa. Over time I took steps to upgrade all my recurring payments and stored credit cards. Most organizations would let me know if they had been missed, and I'd fix it, and poof, it was done.
Except PayPal.
For months, every attempt to remove the deprecated (now closed) bank account produced a message "Sorry, you can't remove this bank account because of a pending transaction. Please try again later". Same for the defunct credit card. This continued for months. I managed to find the place where the primary bank and credit card were configured, I changed those to be the new ones. I found the place where the recurring and preauthorized transactions were listed, and I canceled all of them, and went to the vendors at the other end to update their payment methods to a credit card (happily, I have a leftover credit card from oldest child sent to college, he's employed, married, and working on a retirement plan, and it is perfect for this – low credit limit, almost never used, this cuts the risk both to me and my credit card company should any of the recurring-payment people be less secure than we might want). So, those two accounts have been deselected from everything, all the recurring payments are shut down – and no change. Still can't delete the dead accounts.
Note that nowhere in the message from Paypal does it suggest that I can do these other things; I did have one shot at "customer service" and they told me about making sure that they old accounts were not the primary funding source – but that didn't work.
So, given proven incompetence on the part of Paypal, it seems pretty wise to sever all ties with them, how do I know my money is safe, it was foolish of me to ever give them access to any of my money. But when I hit the "close my account" button, I get:
Before you close your account Sorry, there's a problem. If you keep seeing this, please contact customer service.
I'm not entirely sure what to do next. I may talk to my bank; I really don't like the idea of these guys having access to my money, and I'm virtually certain that in the EULA that I didn't read I consented to binding abitration bullshit, and that's just way the hell too much exposure to someone else's incompetence.
Comments on Inman Square Public Meeting
June 24, 2016
On June 22 Cambridge held a public meeting on traffic in Inman Square. I did not attend. I did receive a pointer to the presentation. The next day, a woman on a bicycle was killed in Inman Square, perhaps first doored, certainly run over by a landscaper's truck.
Preliminary comments.
Slide 4, I see counts of "traffic volumes" measured in "vehicles per day".
Which of the following is "vehicles":
- bicycles only?
- cars and trucks only?
- bicycles and cars and trucks?
I see no pedestrian counts, which seems like a major omission.
I also see no breakdown by turns, which makes it difficult to know how much of a priority to place on turning traffic.
I also don't see any information about existing light timings.
For slide 13, the only group for whom "increase efficiency" is a concern is "Vehicle", and I suspect that really means "Motor vehicle" since "Bicycle" is a separate category. This seems like a major omission, since you have apparently not measured either the bicycle traffic or the pedestrian traffic, we don't know if optimizing motor vehicle efficiency reduces the total time wasted at this intersection, and it might well compromise safety. Lacking any other information, I think we must assume that each person traversing this intersection is equally important.
It's also important to notice that attempts to "increase efficiency" for motor vehicles here could be pointless. This intersection doesn't exist in isolation; it is connected to the rest of Cambridge, which is also filled with traffic jams. In contrast, both bicycles and pedestrians flow freely through the rest of Cambridge (I bicycle commute on Broadway or Hampshire every working day of the year, I have video) so impediments removed here would result in actual gains.
One efficiency problem that could be addressed with no infrastructural changes is locally-greedy misbehavior by drivers; people frequently enter the intersection without a clear path to exit it, resulting in a blocked box when the light changes (bicycles are less affected by this; again, I have video). Drivers also speed fruitlessly (later to be passed in a line of stopped traffic by a fat old man on a huge heavy bicycle, so truly useless speeding), endangering everyone. In both cases, the remedy for locally-greedy misbehavior is enforcement; tickets for blocking the box, tickets for speeding, tickets for running red lights. Automated enforcement is probably more cost-effective than staffing the intersection every day at rush hour.
Another thing I saw no mention of was the role of parking in reducing safety. The door zone is a constant worry to cyclists, and the space allocated to parked cars also reduces options for creating safe places for cyclists to ride.
Other questions that need answering:
- I know that buses use Hampshire. How many people use those buses, and how much delay (summed over all the bus passengers) results from that delay? That's another thing we should optimize.
- There's a lot of bike traffic on Hampshire, especially at rush hour. If we knew the range of trip distances for people traversing Inman Square in cars (especially at rush hour), we might get some idea of the potential number of bicycle commuters that would use Inman Square if were less dangerous and more pleasant (it is one of the more significant unpleasantness bottlenecks in Cambridge).
Given what looks like a severe case of car-centric tunnel vision by whoever prepared these slides, I think that someone needs to start over again, perhaps doing the mental exercise of banning cars and seeing what sort of intersection results. (That's not quite a serious proposal for an intersection design, but it is definitely a serious proposal for being sure that something other than cars-cars-cars is considered.)
My choice for a starting point would be to de-emphasize traffic "efficiency" for single-occupancy vehicles since those are the least-efficient users of scarce road space, the most needy in terms of a clear path to travel, and relatively dangerous to other people on the roads. Buses are space-efficient, very safe for their passengers, necessary for the less-able, and a good backup choice in nasty weather. They're not a good thing to crash into, but their drivers are trained professionals, and risk-to-others is amortized over all the passengers on the bus and thus is not that large per passenger. We should remove enough cars from the road to ensure that buses are not impeded. Both bicycles and pedestrians are very space-efficient and though neither mode is risk-free, they are very safe for other people, and they're also able to cope with narrow paths and impediments that completely block automobiles. I would therefore do as much as possible to make those two modes attractive. When I look at all the somewhat-unused space in Inman Square, my reaction is to try to find ways to use that space make things better for pedestrians and cyclists, instead of trying to use it as more places for cars to drive on.
Videos of Inman Square:
Hypothesized mechanisms for US safety in numbers
June 9, 2016
Hypothesized mechanisms for "safety in numbers"
Safety in numbers is a cycling safety rule that says that the more people ride bikes, the safer each rider will be. Hypothesized mechanisms include (1) driver familiarity – because drivers more often see bikes on the road, they become better-trained to see them on the road and (2) driver empathy – because so many drivers also ride bikes, they are more aware-of/concerned-about bicycle safety issues. (Here's a nice pile of pointers to papers, tracked down by a real live researcher.)
I think both of these mechanisms are entirely possible, but riding an actual bike in actual traffic in actual crowds of cyclists, I've noticed what looks like other ways that greater numbers provide safety. In at least one case I've captured it on video. The difference between these mechanisms and the others that are hypothesized is that they are extremely short term – "safety in numbers" can appear whenever there is a biking crowd and disappear as soon as it disperses. These are also somewhat more likely in crowded urban areas and depend somewhat on the existence of traffic jams.
The first mechanism I might call "schooling" (after Bike Snob's "shoaling" and "salmoning"). Bikes riding in a line are schooling, and for several common cycling hazards, most of the risk is borne by the lead fish, and the rest get a free ride. If someone in a parked car is not looking for bikes and is about to open their door, but then a bike zips by, it's not unreasonable that they would be startled, and maybe then look to see if it was clear – and if the bikes are schooling, all the followers get the benefit of that. The dooring risk is almost entirely on the lead cyclist. Similarly, cars pulling into or across traffic represent a threat only to the lead cyclist, and very little to the ones in the rear. A line of bikes is also somewhat protective against right hooks, since those usually occur when a driver thinks they can overtake a bike and turn right, or forgets the presence of a single bike. With a line of bikes, once the first is across the side street, it is obvious to the driver that a right turn is not possible.
A second method is less obvious, but safety decreases markedly in the range of speeds between the slowest and fastest typical commuters. A low-speed (below 10mph) crash is stupidly survivable; you can almost step off your bike as it falls down. A high-speed crash (above 20mph) is far more likely to send you to the hospital or worse. Bike lanes at rush hour tend to run single file for some distance, usually because the bikes are hemmed in between parked cars on the right and "parked" cars on the left. Inevitably, some riders will be slower than others, and the inability to pass then compels the would-be-faster riders behind to slow down until they can pass. This makes them safer, whether they like it or not. This, I've seen on video, where I play the role of impatient rider. The probability of this delay and the difficulty of passing both rise pretty quickly once there's more than a couple of riders delayed behind a slow leader.
After dark, a school-of-fish also multiplies the effectiveness of any lights that cyclists might be using. Just considering use of lights and not, if an unlit cyclist pairs up with one using lights, they can obtain most of the safety benefit of the lights. When two cyclists both have lights, the variations in their movement or in the flashing style of their different lights will create additional visibility over a single cyclist; for example, one cyclist's flashing light might draw attention, but the other's steady light might allow a driver to accurately locate the pair. Not nearly as many cyclists ride at night, but bicycle lighting use in the US is not nearly as good as it should be, so there's plenty of room for this to help.
I don't know if I'm typical, but if I'm riding at night and overtake another cyclist without lights who's not too much slower than me, I'll slow down to give them the benefit of my lights. I've even done this with a (impressively fast and competent) rollerblader caught out too late on the local multi-use path.
The interesting (to me) thing about these is that they can work in the US, they take no time to work, and they take no change in driver empathy or enlightenment. And if a crowd of bikes disassembles, then the safety effects do as well. The effects should appear most often at rush hours, when the largest number of bikes are on the road and when they are most hemmed in by traffic.
A historical/hysterical note is where the idea for safety-in-numbers comes from, and why we assume its existence even when we're not entirely sure how it works. Once upon a time, when Effective Cyclists were peddling their prescriptions for safer cycling (ride in the road, in traffic, just like the "vehicle" that bicycles legally are, and that legal status is a good thing for which the EC movement certainly deserves some credit) the counterexamples of "the Dutch" and "the Danes" came up, where many people often ride bikes on lanes entirely separate from auto traffic, with crash fatality rates 5 times lower than ours. The EC people were very good at finding and/or interpreting studies that "proved" that if only the Dutch would get rid of their separate facilities, they would be even safer than they are now, that in fact their extraordinary safety must have some other cause. (This might even be true, but nobody's ever managed to get more than about 1% of the population to bike in an "Effective" style.)
And what was the obvious difference that might be the cause of that anomalous safety? "Numbers". It must be "Safety in Numbers", assumed to exist to fill a (huge) gap between theory and reality. This was convenient for the Effective Cyclists because they got to continue to feel correct about their prescriptions ("just you wait, once everyone here rides bikes, we'll be the safest cyclists on the planet!") but now this same hypothesized mechanism is used to justify creation of cycling-specific infrastructure that Effective Cyclists hate ("we're tired of waiting, EC is phenomenally unpopular and we'll never get the numbers that give us the safety we want if we do it your way. And by-the-way, global warming, particulate pollution, pedestrian deaths, urban congestion delays, traffic noise, and public health, we need this now. Infrastructure will get butts in saddles and safety-in-numbers 'proves' that they'll be safe.")
I was just in Mountain View for most of a week on business, biking to and from work and to work dinners in the evening. The roads are much smoother than here near Boston, the weather was warmer, it did rain once, but wimpily, and it's flat as a board in Silicon Valley. Biking there ought to be great.
Links go to short YouTube videos illustrating claims/points
However, they blow it. If you need to cover any particular distance, it's easy to find yourself with no choice but a four-lane road with a door zone bike lane that waxes and wanes with the whim of whoever laid out the road, and parking is prioritized enough that you often find yourself squeezed towards traffic.
One shared use path is designed with the apparent assumption that bicycles are OMFG deadly dangerous to pedestrians, so it's considered appropriate to encourage lower speeds by installing barriers that make high speeds deadly, and that also makes larger bikes (bakfiets, trailers) difficult to pass through, and that guarantee conflicts whenever people are traveling in opposite directions or if there's a pedestrian and a bike traveling in the same direction. Imagine, for cars, that a crosswalk was made safe not just by installing a narrowing bumpout in each lane, but by narrowing the road to a single lane for both directions.
Note that this is on a straight path where everything is completely visible, so all that's really needed in most cases is a "slow for pedestrians" sign. Not all people will go as slow as they should, but not all people will negotiate those gates without injury or conflict, either. Later on, a blind intersection with plenty of cross traffic on the Google Campus goes completely unremarked, and several curves past that are gratuitously blind, either because of untrimmed vegetation, or because bicycles were routed between two chain link fences, and for no particular reason one side (the one that matters) is intentionally made opaque by slatting installed in the fence so that it's impossible to see oncoming bicycle or pedestrian traffic on the fence-narrowed path.
Incomprehensibly, an underpass with over 7 feet of clearance (I reached a hand up to measure as I passed under, so that's an estimate – apparently they couldn't be tasked with actual measurement, but I ride quite tall and cleared easily) was declared to be dangerously low, and thus we're told to walk our bikes there, as if.
Actual road crossings are designed with zero thought to the convenience of cyclists. At one there's a gate to force a U-turn to enter it, then a beg button that imposes an interminable wait despite large gaps in motor traffic (I didn't wait). A cyclist obeying traffic laws to the letter could not ride back that same way – the returning lane slips onto San Antonio, and returning on the sidewalk instead one is greeted with a WRONG WAY sign specific to bicycles (and the sidewalk is clearly intended for bicycles, else the sign would read "no bike riding"). It's not much wonder that I just wing it.
At another crossing on the Permanente Creek trail, cyclists are vaguely directed to enter traffic and then make a u-turn at the light, as if that is preferable to looking for a gap (which we'd need to look for anyway, to enter traffic to make that u-turn) and just crossing on foot. There's a sidewalk, but it's twisty and too narrow for two-way traffic. Crossing on foot is necessary because there's a big-ass curb in the middle of the road. The same can be seen on parts of Middlefield, where children crossing to/from school have worn goat paths in the median strip, far from any crosswalk. (Video is not great; there were kids, they were waiting to cross, and the median is cut by little footpaths.)
At a larger level, multilane Alma/Central and the RR tracks make a nasty barrier to traveling (peninsula-compass) east-west in Mountain View. Crossings are not well signed, Google Maps doesn't seem to know about them, the entry is tight, the mirrors at the bottom make it clear the bicycles are known/expected to be there, but the ramps are quite narrow, guaranteeing conflict if there's 2-way traffic or pedestrians.
This is all doubly annoying because it could be so nice. Remember, flat topography and a mild climate. If there were good, comfortable, safe routes that led anywhere interesting, lots of people could and almost certainly would use them. But right now, Mountain View is failing both in the small (annoying and insulting inattention to details of intersections and safety) and in the large (arteries are for cars – wide, fast, and with varying-width door-zone bike lanes, sometimes very fast).
And yeah, I know, "reasons". Y'all ought to look at yourselves, a 10-lane highway jammed up every morning, even with thousands of employees delivered by buses instead of single-occupancy vehicles. I rode a bike to dinner after work and beat the people driving. Here's two free clues as to why Mountain View ought to install a ton of really nice bicycle infrastructure. #1, no matter what you do about traffic, more cars will always arrive to fill the voids that you create, and with high tech salaries I'm not sure even congestion charges would do the job. #2, if you install really nice bicycle infrastructure, if you need to get around your own town, you won't care about that traffic, and because the land is so flat and the climate so mild, that'll be true all year. You might want to knock out a few parking spaces and replace them with bike corrals to make this really be true, but I managed to find bicycle parking a lot closer to the restaurant than anyone driving there.

subset: commoncrawl


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Posted on 03/09/2012
The ETF Industry Association recently published their latest report summarizing trends in the exchange traded industry regarding assets under management (AUM) and net cash flow, among other things. The data can be accessed at www.etf-ia.com. As of end of February there were 1.2 trillion in ETF/ETN AUM, up 13.4% with 71 more ETF/ETN products from January. more »
Equity prices provided by Thomson-Reuters. Cross Rate prices provided by Tenfore Systems. Copyright © 1995-2012 Dorsey, Wright and Associates, LLC All quotes displayed are delayed 20 minutes. Disclaimer/Terms of Use/Privacy Statement


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To be honest, I've never been big on hip-hop that's heavy on bragging, smack talking or discussing money and partying. I usually gravitate toward artists like Busdriver or El-P, rappers who blaze their own trail by spitting tangled rhymes on a host of heady topics.
That said, the newest comp from Missoula's Wapikiya Records borrows a bit from braggadocio-styled rap, but expands its reach into lyrical themes beyond the genre's norm. It's a refreshing change from their previous release, especially on cuts like "Yes We Can" and "No More Poverty," both of which weave themes of societal unity and social justice with club-friendly beats. The label also veers into love on "Hate to See You Away" and set their sights on ambition with "Sweet Dreams."
Wapikiya's roster of MCs, including Frodie, Overtime, Pallas and others, splits rapping styles between straight rhymes to double-time Bone Thugs and Harmony-esque flows. It's not extensively complex, but it works in this context.
As for their beats, most are manicured for commercial radio, which is fine. But they could certainly use some creative tweaking in the studio to make 'em sound distinguishable from what's already out there.
The Sky is the Limit shows progress, which is as much as I could expect from this local crew.


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Observations from Mobile World Congress 2016SP360: Service Provider
I have just returned from a very interesting and jammed-packed week at Mobile World Congress 2016 in Barcelona. For the first time ever, over 100,000 people and 2,200 plus vendorsRead More
There's Money to be Made in the Smart HomeSP360: Service Provider
The race for the smart home is off and running. Almost every global tech brand, from Apple to Amazon to Google and Samsung, to smaller entrants like Canary, August andRead More
Leading the Evolution of the Mobile Packet CoreSP360: Service Provider
I was reading the latest ACG Research report on Mobile IP Infrastructure and reflecting how the importance of the IP Packet Core has evolved, and how the technology leaders inRead More
Point of View: Optimisation, Monetisation and Customer PrivacySP360: Service Provider
Guest blog from Paul Jesemann, Cisco Solution Consultant, Mobile Architecture, APJ In June, a mobile operator in India was accused of spying on its customers by inserting a javascript inRead More
Trading Mobile Dollars for IoT PenniesSP360: Service Provider
Jeff Zucker of NBC Universal coined the prescient expression "Trading analogue dollars for digital pennies" in 2008 to describe the huge gap that he was observing between the lucrative promisesRead More
Sponsored Data is off to a Rolling StartSP360: Service Provider
In a mobile application ecosystem dominated by Over-the-Top (OTT) providers, mobile operators need to exploit new business models in ways to create value with them. One example of a MonetizationRead More


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Bradford Jackson Model
AK LexusModel Female Wasilla, Alaska, US
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I am an adventerous person who loves to try out new things. I am into fashion and beauty and would love to work with photographers, Hair and MUAs and fashion designers who like to work out of the box and work creatively.
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Oct. 24, 2011
LAS VEGAS, Nev. – The Nevada women's golf team resumes its fall schedule on Monday at the Las Vegas Collegiate Showdown hosted by UNLV.
Nevada will send Jamie Yam, Joyce Chong, Nikki Prichard, Louise Yi and Taylor Bickell to the event.
"This is a big event for us this week," head coach Chad Spencer said. It is a great opportunity to prove ourselves against a solid field. We have improved every event this fall and look to finish the fall season strong."
The three-round event will run from Monday through Wednesday at Boulder Creek Golf Club in Boulder City.
In addition to UNLV, the field is made up of: Oklahoma, Louisville, UC Davis, Pepperdine, UC Irvine, Fresno State, Long Beach State, Colorado State, East Carolina, Missouri, Idaho, BYU, San Diego State, Miami and Nevada.


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In January I shared the mood board for the guest room redo, which included a new nightstand from West Elm. After starting the redo and assessing my needs and wants for the room, I decided to stick with what I had and to try to give the old nightstand a new look.
*This post contains affiliate links.
I bought this piece years ago. I don't remember where I bought it but I do know that I didn't spend a whole lot of money on it (and you could tell). Although it's made of wood there was a big gap on both sides, between the leg and the wood on the side, that I wanted to try to disguise with trim, but instead I came up with another idea.
I decided to try to use paint sticks to give it a different look and to cover up the gaps by the legs. Because I love the look of rustic planked walls, I thought I would try that idea but on a much smaller scale (and on a piece of furniture). I figured that I had nothing to lose by trying and dove right in.
The supplies I used to complete this project were 25 paint sticks, a razor knife, sandpaper, dark walnut stain, and Elmer's wood glue.
First, I laid a few of the paint sticks on the nightstand so I could see where the seams would lay and how I wanted them placed. Once I had an idea of what I wanted, I used the razor knife, to cut the notched handle off, so that I had straight pieces. Then I sanded all of the edges that were cut. Since one stick wasn't long enough to fill a whole row, I ended up using a small piece of another stick and staggering my seams to keep the rustic feel.
Once I got a few rows worked out, I used a paper towel to stain the top, sides and ends of each paint stick so that no raw wood was visible. I ended up with sticks from 3 different stores so they were made from 3 different kinds of wood and I really liked the variety that this gave me.
After they were dry, which didn't take long, I glued each piece to the side of the nightstand. To ensure that my sticks stuck, I ended up using a heavy weight and some canned beans to weigh them down until they dried. I would do a few rows, let them dry, do a few more, until one side was done. I flipped the nightstand over and followed the same procedure for other side. That's it. This project really was so easy but it did take me take me some time to complete because I had to let the glue dry before I could remove the weights and move on to the next row.
You can really see the difference in the wood in this pic. Plus the gap is gone!
I also switched out the glass knobs with 2 oil rubbed bronze knobs that I had in my stash to bring the rustic look to the front of the nightstand.
So what do you think? Is this nightstand makeover something you would try? I like that it cost me nothing to do, since paint sticks are free and I already had the glue and the stain on hand, and now I have a "new" rustic-looking nightstand.
As always, thanks so much for stopping by!


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Granting Certiorari:
How does the Supreme Court decide which cases to decide?
Virtually all the cases decided by the United States Supreme Court have been granted a writ of certiorari. Certiorari is a Latin word that means, "to be informed of." Black's Law Dictionary defines a writ of certiorari as: "An order by the appellate court to bring the case before them when the court has discretion on whether or not to hear an appeal." The Court does not have to grant writs of certiorari, and most of the petitions requesting one are denied. Because of this fact, it is helpful to consider the criteria used by the Supreme Court to determine whether or not a case is certworthy. The Court's Rule 10 briefly specifies some of the conditions under which they are likely to grant a writ of certiorari. These include resolving conflicting rulings between federal appeals courts and/or state supreme courts on important federal questions, and when a lower court "has decided an important question of federal law that has not been, but should be, settled by" the Supreme Court. Other than Rule 10's fairly vague statements that apply to many more cases than the Court could possibly address each year, the justices rarely explain why petitions for certiorari are granted or denied. However, scholars, lawyers, and journalists have investigated this topic, providing us with some insights.
Certiorari trends
Congress has passed two laws in the last 17 years that have made it easier for the Court to limit the number of cases it chooses to hear, while making it more difficult for certain groups to file for a writ of certiorari. Since 1995, Congress and the courts have prohibited prison inmates from filing civil rights suits in federal court until they have first used up all possible avenues of appeal within the prison system. In 1988, Congress gave the justices increased discretion over whether or not to hear a case. Previously, statutes had required the Court to hear certain types of cases such as when a state law was deemed unconstitutional by a federal appeals court. As the justices have taken advantage of their greater freedom not to hear cases, the Court's docket has lightened. In 1976, for instance, the Court heard 176 cases. By 1992 that number was down to 107. From 1995 until 2005, the Court issued full opinions in between 76 and 82 cases per term.
Petitions from poor people
Among the cases the Court has selected to hear, very few are in forma pauperis, or cases filed by people who cannot afford the filing fee. Over the last three terms, an average of only one-tenth of one percent of pauper's petitions were granted review (8 cases out of 6,386 in 2002-2003) compared to an average of 4% of paid cases (83 cases out of 1,869 in 2002-2003) during the same terms.
Fundamental aspects of the certiorari process
following criteria have been adapted from: H.W. Perry. Deciding to Decide:
Agenda Setting in the
1. There is a presumption against granting certiorari. There are three possible reasons for this: (1) because there is so little time and there are so many cases, the Court has to reject most of them; (2) the Court has plenty of time, but has relatively few worthy cases from which to select; or (3) the Court is both strapped for time and many of the cases are not worth hearing.
2. From a legal standpoint virtually all of the cases that come before the Court are fungible. That is, one may be used in place of another. This is often a bitter pill for litigants to swallow, but is important to understand. The Court is typically not a place to right wrongs in individual cases, but a place to clarify the law. So, what is important is the legal issue the case raises, not the case itself.
Criteria for judging a case "uncertworthy"
1. Absurd Claims ("nut cases")
One example cited by Perry is a petition that claimed a man had been wronged because his wife got out of bed and left him alone on Christmas Eve. Perry suggests that up to 10% of petitions for certiorari fall into this category.
2. Frivolous Issues
These fall into three categories: fact-specific cases (the resolution of which would add nothing to legal doctrine), cases involving insufficient evidence (the claim is there wasn't enough evidence to warrant the lower court's decision), and diversity cases (which involve an interpretation of whether a federal court understands state law).
3. "Clear Denies"
These are cases the Court is simply unwilling to hear. The most frequently mentioned example in Perry's research was ineffective assistance of counsel cases. Common parlance: the Court just isn't going there. (NOTE: In recent years the Court has accepted a few ineffective assistance of counsel cases, and some of the justices have publicly expressed concern about the quality of legal representation sometimes provided to indigent defendants in capital cases. However, there is still great reluctance to second guess lower court judges who are generally in the best position to determine whether counsel provided ineffective assistance.)
4. Lack of Percolation
Cases that involve issues that are too new (that haven't "percolated below") are typically not chosen. In general the Court will put off rendering a decision on an issue for as long as possible. The rationale for delaying is that the Court can benefit from the analysis of others (including law professors who write articles in law review journals, and the decisions and reasoning of judges in lower courts).
5. Cases with Bad Facts / Cases that Serve as a Bad Vehicle
Cases must present the issue clearly to be granted a writ of certiorari. They don't want "bad" (messy or overly complicated) facts that muddy the legal issue being decided. For example, Perry quotes a clerk who said "If they are going to rule on an insanity case, they wouldn't want to use Charles Manson to make a decision on that issue" (p. 236).
6. Pipeline Considerations
The Court may avoid a case that is more complicated, even it if raises an important issue, if it feels that a better, cleaner case is coming up through the judicial pipeline. Remember that the justices view the cases as fungible (essentially interchangeable).
7. Intractable Issue
If the Court just doesn't know what to do about an issue and can't see a solution, they may decide to stay out of it.
Criteria for judging a case "certworthy"
It takes a combination of these criteria for the Court to grant certiorari.
1. Circuit Conflict
This is the premier criterion used by the Court. It is utilized when there is a conflict among the lower federal (occasionally, the state) courts about an issue. The conflict must be intolerable and current. The reputation of the lower courts that are in conflict is a variable when applying this criterion. If the lower court is generally considered of low quality then the Court will often not take the case, figuring that the system will "cleanse itself" eventually with other judges.
2. Importance
There are a number of different ways that a case can be important enough to attract the Supreme Court's attention. Unusual or "one of a kind" cases like United States v. Nixon (concerning the Watergate tapes) are somewhat more likely to be heard. Likewise, cases that are important to the polity because of the political and societal impact of their resolution, such as Brown v. Board of Education and Roe v. Wade, can attract the Court's attention. Finally, cases of substantial legal significance, such as a clarification of a rule of evidence or an administrative procedure, can be important enough to merit the Court's involvement. Their importance stems from the confusion that has been created in the legal system by different rules in different circuits.
As a general rule, two other factors affect the Court's
assessment of the importance of a case: breadth (potential impact on many
people) and the effect on the federal government. If the Solicitor General of
Public pressure can work to encourage the Court to either grant or deny certiorari. The Court took no cases involving gay rights until the late 1980s and waited more than twenty years to take a case about the constitutionality of anti-miscegenation statutes (which prohibited people of different races from inter-marrying).
3. Areas of Interest to the Justices
Some justices may have a particular "hobby horse" and that can influence whether the Court grants certiorari. A justice's area of interest is often determined by personal history and geographic origin. For example, justices from the West may favor granting certiorari in water rights cases. Another example: a justice whose earlier law practice involved representation of large corporations may believe the Court should accept more business cases.
4. Egregious Legal Errors in Lower Courts
Flagrant abuses of justice or flagrant disregard for accepted legal doctrine will sometimes lead the Court to grant certiorari. Overall, however, the justices do not see their role as correcting errors of lower court judges.
A study of the 1982 term of the court (by Caldiera and Wright) identified several variables associated with the granting of certiorari. The top three variables, in order of importance, from that study were:
1. the
2. there were more than three amicus briefs filed in support of certiorari; and
3. there was an actual (not just alleged by petitioner) conflict (either between federal circuit courts, between state courts of last resort, between a federal court and a state court, or between the court below and existing Supreme Court precedent).
This study adds to the Perry materials by suggesting that "importance may be measured by the Court, in part at least, by the number of amicus briefs filed at the certiorari state" (i.e., not just at the merits stage, after cert has been granted).
References: Perry, H.W. Deciding
to Decide, Agenda Setting in the
Caldiera and Wright, "Organized Interests and Agenda Setting in the U.S. Supreme Court," 82 American Political Science Review 1109, 1118 (1988) as reported in Brenner, "Granting Certiorari by the United States Supreme Court: An Overview of Social Science Studies," 92 Law Library Journal 193, 198 (2000)


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Study: Medicaid enrollment aids mental health, has little impact on physical conditions
WASHINGTON — If you're uninsured, getting on Medicaid clearly improves your mental health, but it doesn't seem to make much difference in physical conditions such as high blood pressure.
The counterintuitive findings by researchers at Harvard and MIT, from an experiment involving low-income, able-bodied Oregonians, appear in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine. The study offers a twist for states weighing a major Medicaid expansion under President Obama's health care law, to serve a similar population of adults around the country.
"The study did not generate any evidence that Medicaid coverage translated to measurable improvements in physical health outcomes over a two-year window," said lead researcher Katherine Baicker of the Harvard School of Public Health. "It did generate robust improvements in mental health and enormous reductions in financial strain and hardship."
That leaves policymakers with "a much more nuanced and complex picture" of the potential benefits of expanding Medicaid, said Baicker, an economist.
It also debunks a widespread perception that having Medicaid is no better, and maybe even worse, than being uninsured. A federal-state partnership, Medicaid covers more than 55 million low-income and severely disabled people, ranging from poor children to nursing home residents. It pays providers less than Medicare or private insurance.
Obama's health care law envisioned expanding Medicaid to anyone making up to 138 percent of the federal poverty line, or nearly $15,860 for an individual. About 15 million people — mostly adults with no children living at home — could eventually be covered if all states expand. But the Supreme Court last year gave states the right to reject the expansion without jeopardizing the rest of their federal Medicaid funds.
The study found that having Medicaid reduced rates of depression by 30 percent and virtually eliminated catastrophic medical expenses because of a serious accident or the sudden onset of a life-threatening illness. People with Medicaid had better access to doctors, preventive care, prescriptions and hospitals. They also used their benefits, consuming about $1,200 a year more per person in health care services than do the uninsured.
But Medicaid had no significant effect on blood-pressure readings, high cholesterol or elevated blood sugar levels, although it did increase the probability that people with diabetes would be diagnosed.
The study is unusual because it took advantage of a state policy decision to create a natural experiment. A 2008 Medicaid expansion in Oregon used lottery drawings from a waiting list to determine who would get coverage. That created two populations: those who got in, and those left out — a control group of people who remained mostly uninsured. Comparing the two randomly selected groups gives the research a high degree of scientific rigor.
Obama administration officials, in a written reaction published alongside the study, suggested that two years might not be enough time for differences to emerge in physical health results, particularly for patients with chronic conditions influenced by lifestyle choices. They also noted that the Oregon group was relatively small, about 12,000 people, compared to the millions who will gain coverage next year. The Oregon pool might not have been large enough to tease out valid results, they suggested.


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From The Atlantic
As bicycling gains in popularity, more cities will have to confront the question.
Turns out the train operator was on the phone.
Injuries to pedestrians on their cell phones have climbed steadily since 2005, according to a new study.
New research says yes — but only under certain conditions.
According to a CDC study, we do this more than most European countries.
Studies show cell phones, though not music players, confuse pedestrian senses


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Photo by Bill Gaddis
Welcome to WimerGuitar.Com, the web page of Tulsa, OK based
guitarist and teacher, Randy Wimer.
If you would like information about lessons, or if you'd like
me to play for a party, reception, wedding, etc., please use the Contact
page. I usually respond within 24 hours.
February 24, 2015: I've added my unfinished scale book, The Whole Scale Thing
to the Free Stuff offerings. I thought I'd get back and polish it and add some more info
but my attention span wore out. It's fairly exhaustive in its examiniation of how to approach
major scale positions and ends with their transfomation to
harmonic and melodic minor patterns.


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Heyseuss Hoolio
Joined on Dec 18, 2013
|Total: 5, showing: 1 – 5
What's up with the extremely fast shutter speeds and high ISO's? Yes some were actions shots, but many were not. How about using that IBIS!
This will be getting my vote.
I think it's great. No it's not "full frame" but you'll still get excellent pictures. It's main purpose would be to mount an endless supply of non-native mount lenses to it with adapters and/or speed boosters.
From what I'm seeing and what is being said. The A7/A7r is a specialty camera. Viewing the pictures and the way they had to be taken it is definitely not a quick use camera. And apparently the focus peaking is rather worthless. Might as well just zoom in like the Olympus' and focus like that, which I've found rather easy. The lack of image stabilization is really hurtful to it's usability, especially when wanting to use other lenses. What's the point of having a full frame sensor with gobs of megapixels if every image you need to use super high ISO so you can use your high shutter speed and then still it's hardly sharp?
Exactly the point, to use this camera you need to carry a tripod with you everywhere. I probably still want it...
Just a Photographer: Too bad it doesn't take Nikon lenses - This camera seems to offer more then the Nikon Df with its overhyped sensor from the D4.
This is what a system camera should be like - Now listen Nikon because Fuji is already where you should be heading towards. Don't let them steal your bread ;)
Can probably take an adapter like any other mirrorless cameras, then take any 'slr' lens there is.
|Total: 5, showing: 1 – 5
|Nectar Dancing by Lensmate
from A Big Year - birds
|Sad clown by PEB
from Clowns
|Mtl Gen X 2015 DP by MarioSS
from - Gen X - (In Full Colours+ Border)


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Copyright 2013. PerfectedImagery. All Rights Reserved.
A collaboration of years of experience, new styles and ideas. Old met new.....then it began.
A team of Pro's....not weekend warriors will handle your days images.
From start to finish, the days pictures will flow smoothly. One quality image after another until......
"WOW, we're done? That wasn't painful at all, I didnt feel a thing"
Its easy for us. We do this everyday. This is our only job. We are photographers 7 days a week, year round. So when it comes to your Wedding Day, its not trial and error, you're not part of an experimental learning curve.
We know exactly what to do, when to do it so that your day isn't painful.
We know why you're looking for a professional.....you want your day photographed so that it's not a burden to you or family members.
You want to know that your images will be there and look great.
You want to make sure that all of your loved ones that mean the most to you will be photographed to remember forever.
And last, you want to be photographed in a way that you will look as beautiful as you feel.


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The Boston Globe reports this morning that there is evidence Romney did not leave Bain Capital until 2002.
Mitt Romney has repeatedly sought to distance himself from some business dealings at Bain Capital by asserting that he left the firm in February 1999, but a review of public records shows that his authority lingered for three more years as Bain repeatedly listed him on government filings as the man in charge. Until 2002, when Romney and Bain Capital finalized a severance agreement, he remained the firm's "sole stockholder, chairman of the board, chief executive officer and president," according to SEC documents. The description was applied even to the creation of five new Bain partnerships a full three years after Romney has said he relinquished all control.
Lying on SEC documents is a very, very big deal. John Aravosis also goes back to FactCheck.org's defense of Romney's claims that he left in 1999 to point out that their defense puts him in a tight spot.
Either he lied on SEC filings or he's lying about when he left Bain in order to duck responsibility for Bain deals that caused people to lose their jobs as more and more of our manufacturing sector was shipped off to China.
There's nothing illegal about Romney remaining in charge, so why is he lying about it? As Romney would say, it's perfectly legal. It is true legal doesn't necessarily translate to something patriotic, or appropriate for a candidate leading the United States. It should cause people to question his claims about whether or not he would be sensitive to American job losses or simply "restructure" this country out of all of our manufacturing base.
Romney's Protests About Outsourcing Unravel. Which Lie Did He Tell?
Current Status: Blessed (1)
Seeded on Thu Jul 12, 2012 10:36 AM
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Miley Cyrus and The Rest of The AMAs
Psssst. You're not Lady Gaga. Pass it on.
"Hello, Rachel Zoe here."
"Hi, I have no talent. What should I wear to the AMAs to get people to look at me before the real singers arrive?"
Hm, I guess they missed her lips with those staples. Damn shame.
great, now I'm blind.
And who the hell even wants to look like the freak lady gaga is… seriously what has the world come to??? why do women try to look like drag queens/ transvestites??? but seriously Kesha is a complete waste of time when it comes to music, pop culture, style and sanity.
When did Cybill Shepherd get popular again?


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First Name Translations...Costanzia and Giovanni??
Are you looking for an Italian surname? Do you need more information about your family heritage?
This is the right place to start your genealogy search.
This is the right place to start your genealogy search.
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- budgirl11777
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First Name Translations...Costanzia and Giovanni??
My GG grandpa as I knew him was "Sam" Aliveto, but his wife's immigration manifest shows him as "Giovanni". Is this a common nickname for Giovanni? Also, I knew my great grandmother as "Mary", but her immigration manifest says Ma Costanzia. What is "Ma" and is Mary short for Costanzia? Did Italians have middle names back in those days?
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OnomasticoYesterday : s. Giacomo il Maggiore Today : s. Anna, s. Gioacchino Tomorrow : s. Celestino I


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It's not exactly curtains for The Closer next year, as fans of the show already know. After the TNT cop drama starring Kyra Sedgwick wraps up its final season in 2012, it will be followed by a new series: Major Crimes, featuring Mary McDonnell and set in the Los Angeles Police Department.
Given The Closer's impressive ratings, you'd think executive producer James Duff might be a little upset that the show was closing up shop. Not quite. Duff says he's pleased to end the series on his terms.
"Kyra gave me an amazing opportunity. She gave me the opportunity to write the end of the show the way I wanted to do it. She didn't wait until we were over, until the audience tuned out. I get to end it the way I intended," says Duff.
Sedgwick, who's been bi-coastal since the The Closer first started airing in 2005, will move back to New York and her husband, Kevin Bacon.
So, what else can he reveal about his new series? He's as tight-lipped as Brenda Johnson is chatty. "I have not been told I can speak about it. As the curtain comes down on The Closer, I'm supposed to be setting the stage for Major Crimes," he says.
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Two demos from Radiohead have surfaced online, when the band was still called 'On A Friday'. The first demo is from 1988 with three tracks: Happy Song, To Be A Brilliant Light and Sinking Ship.
The second demo is from two years later. Recorded in the summer of 1990, when the band changed their name from 'On A Friday' to 'Shindig'… and shortly after back to 'On A Friday'. The demo contains 15 tracks. The titles are very familiar, as they were registered at Warner/Chappell two years ago.
Climbing Up A Bloody Great Hill, Somebody, Mr B, What's That You See?, Everyone Needs Someone To Hate, Upside Down, The Greatest Shindig Of The World, Give It Up, How Can You Be Sure?, Life With The Big F, Keep Strong, Rattlesnake, Burning Bush, Tell Me Bitch, New Generation.
For directions to these tracks, you might want to check the message board. [thanks Mieke!]
This tape is a collection of demos made over the summer of 1990. All the members were by this point at different Universities around the country, but reconvened over the summer, with the exception of Phil who was in Ireland, although at this time the band did not have a settled name, having dropped On A Friday, but not come up with anything better. The band's working title was 'Shindig', which survived long enough for Thom to spray paint it on his acoustic guitar case, but by the time of their next 'proper' demo, they had reverted to On A Friday. In order to keep recording and rehearsing a school friend who had recorded some previous demos for the band was drafted in to keep the drum stool warm. The Clifton Hampden tracks were recorded over a number of weeks with this line up, while Jonny took the four track home with him in between where him, Thom and Colin worked on tracks. When Phil returned the band recorded another demo track in rehearsal, 'What's That You See?', significant because it was the first time Jonny moved from keyboards to guitar. The song was the only one from this period that remained in the set up until just prior to the deal with Parlophone.
04 – This track was demoed again later this year at Dungeon Studios in Oxfordshire, this version is the original rehearsal take.
05, 08, 12 – Significant tracks as the first time under the band banner they had worked with technology, in this case drum loops from Public Enemy and Soul To Soul. Since the band did not own a sampler, the loops were generated by Thom repeatedly recording from his walkman onto a track of the Portastudio, hence the loop stuttering ocassionally in Everyone Needs Someone To Hate. In Rattlesnake he adjusted the eq on his walkman as the loops were recorded, which gives the drum track it's texture.
07 – Recorded by Thom solo, this song had it's chorus replaced and was revived as Maquiladora for The Bends sessions.
08 – This track was demoed again later this year at Dungeon Studios in Oxfordshire, this version is the original version with the Soul To Soul drums. Still a potential hit too IMHO.
09 – Re-recorded during The Bends sessions pretty much verbatim, with drums added. This version is scrappy, but has the added attraction of cars passing the village hall in the rain.
11 – Also survived in the live set for some time.
13 – A full band version of this was demoed later, but this is the acoustic take. The Bush of the title refers to George Snr.
14 – Apparently Thom arrived at Jonny's house excited one day that he'd written his most viscous set of lyrics. Jonny and Colin suggested doing it as a ska number. Which they did. They also sped it up.
15 – Since he didn't own a sequencer at that time, Jonny triggered his Roland U20 to play the bass line of this song from a painstakingly programmed drum machine. This song is significant one of only two vocal contributions ever made by Colin. He ranted like Captain Beefheart for the verses while Thom sang the choruses.


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Indian cricket team is one of the most famous and strong team in this year, they played his first Twenty twenty world cup 2014 game with Defending champions West Indies. All our daily viewers and cricket fans are get from this page India Team Squad, Players List T20 World Cup 2014, India has retained three players who were members of the side that defeated Pakistan by five runs in the inaugural event in Johannesburg in 2007. Indian team selector six player return to Bangladesh as India aims to reclaim the title, namely Dhoni, Virat Kohli, Suresh Raina, Ravichandran Ashwin, Rohit Sharma and Yuvraj, for full teams details in bellow.
India Team Squad and Players List T20 World Cup 2014
India Team Squad
Mahendra Singh Dhoni (Captain), Ravichandran Ashwin, Suresh Raina, Mohammad Shami, Mohit Sharma, Rohit Sharma, Yuvraj Singh, Varun Aaron, Stuart Binny, Shikhar Dhawan, Ravindra Jadeja, Virat Kohli, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Amit Mishra, Ajinkya Rahane
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 29/1/2014 (1270 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
EDINBURG, Texas — Witness testimony has begun in the capital murder trial of Arturo Almaguer for the 1988 slaying of a Minnedosa couple during a robbery gone wrong.
Evan and Wilda Squires were wintering in Texas, living at Magic Valley RV Park in Weslaco in November 1988, when police officers found the couple shot to death inside their trailer home, court records state.
Soon after the couple's slaying, the trail went cold for Weslaco police, but it became the catalyst for the creation of the department's Crime Stoppers program the following year.
It wasn't until May 2011 when authorities in Grand Rapids, Mich., arrested Almaguer on burglary charges and blood was drawn from him during the booking process. His DNA matched a sample collected from a pile of feces left at the Squires' home that had been collected as evidence by Weslaco police.
Prosecutors have charged Almaguer with capital murder and are not seeking the death penalty. If convicted, he would face life in prison without parole.
On Tuesday morning, in the 206th state District Court, former Weslaco police officer Robert Kennedy took the stand to recall his work on the night of the double slaying.
Kennedy said he recalled the strong stench of fecal matter when he walked into the home.
He found the pile of feces left behind in one of the rooms inside the Squires' trailer. The fecal matter had been covered with some jean shorts that had several brown stains, Kennedy said.
Defence attorney Rogelio Garza disputed the evidence, saying that Kennedy withheld information from his original report at the crime scene.
"Officer Kennedy, how come nowhere in your report does it say that the feces produced a strong odour," Garza asked.
Jurors also heard from Pat Pemelton, a retired Weslaco police officer who was one of the crime scene investigators on the night of the murder. Pemelton is responsible for gathering the DNA evidence that 23 years later her son, Det. Billy Pemelton, would use to link Almaguer to the murder.
Hidalgo County Assistant District Attorney Victoria Muñiz showed various crime scene photos as she asked the elder Pemelton about the case.
The pictures showed that Evan Squires had been shot near his right shoulder at close range, with the bullet exiting out his back. Wilda Squires suffered a gunshot wound to her upper torso and another in her midsection, with the bullets exiting her back.
Pemelton said that certain burn marks on the bodies showed that they had been shot at very close range. She was able to recover two bullet slugs from one of the walls and one from a phone book.
At the house, investigators found silverware in a box and a radio, leading them to believe that Almaguer and possibly another person rushed while leaving the house, Pemelton said.
» Ildefonso Ortiz, The Monitor, McAllen, Texas
The trial continues and the Brandon Sun will print updates from The Monitor as they're available.


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Jobless Workers Call on Congress to Pass UI Extension
Nov 30, 2011
By Katie Haswell
There's no shortage of news stories on the tough times families face. Many are underwater on their mortgages, nearly 14 million are jobless and many more are falling into poverty.
While many news stories do a good job of illustrating the weak economy's impact on families, they often fail to demonstrate how action, or inaction, on Capitol Hill affects people's everyday realities. In other words, public policy can make a difference and our elected officials should be held accountable.
Today, hundreds of unemployed workers joined Democratic members of Congress on Capitol Hill to call for passage of the Emergency Unemployment Compensation Extension Act of 2011, a bill that extends federal Unemployment Insurance programs through next year. The workers helped make it clear: Congress's decision on unemployment insurance will affect the lives of millions.
In 2010, unemployment benefits prevented 3.2 million people, including 1 million children, from falling into poverty. Unemployment benefits for some are the difference between having a home or defaulting on housing payments and having to move in with family, friends or elsewhere. Receiving unemployment benefits for many means being able to pay utility bills, put food on the table and meet other basic needs instead of simply going without.
Jill Fleming-Salopek, an out-of-work school teacher from Munhall, Pa., during the rally discussed her struggle to find work after being laid off from her teaching position. She said what few jobs are available don't "pay enough for working families to get by on." If Congress doesn't extend unemployment insurance benefits, the married mother of three said she and her family will be "out in the cold" when her regular unemployment benefits expire in March.
Vincent Brandon of Pittsburg, Pa., lost his job as a public transit driver in April 2011. He has worked all his adult life, but is now receiving unemployment benefits and taking computer courses to sharpen his skills and become more marketable. He, too, will have no safety net if Congress doesn't pass the unemployment benefits extension.
About 2 million people face similar fates in January 2012-and the number will continue to grow every week after-if Congress fails to act. Given the state of the economy, this scenario should not be an option and extended unemployment benefits should not be a matter for debate.
From a moral perspective, extending federal unemployment benefits is the right thing to do. If a public policy prevents millions of people adversely affected by the weak economy from sinking even further, then Congress should make sure that policy remains in place.
Extending benefits is also practical. Unemployment benefits not only provide immediate income to families, it helps to stimulate the economy. For every unemployment insurance dollar spent, the return to the economy is about $2, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Further, allowing federal unemployment benefits to expire would hurt consumer demand and cost the economy about 560,000 jobs, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
Long-term unemployment remains at unprecedented levels. Currently, more than 42 percent of workers have been without a job for 27 weeks or more. Although the recession that began in December 2007 officially ended in June 2009, there are still about 6.5 million fewer jobs today than four years ago. And for every job opening, there are four unemployed workers.
Stories about these statistics and their impact on families and communities will continue to dot the nation's news pages for the foreseeable future. When we read about these issues, we should also remember that public policy has a role to play. Congress can help prevent further hardship in the short term by extending unemployment insurance benefits. In the long-term, our elected officials should steadfastly focus on jobs creation so more people can access the jobs they need and want and fewer families have to wonder how they will make ends meet when or if their unemployment benefits expire.


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Faith Hill Releases New Single, "American Heart"
Posted on Oct 22th by Gardens admin in , Faith Hill, American HeartWatch the lyric video for "American Heart," the brand-new single from Faith Hill! The heartfelt song is one that Faith hopes will help to inspire her fans. "We've been through a lot as a country throughout the years, and we've faced tremendous adversity," says Faith, "The sentiment captures everything I think we all feel when we think about the American Spirit." Click here to watch the official lyric video for "American Heart"


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Home > Opinion > Tony Parkinson > Article
We must never underestimate the critical importance of America and its intelligence network to our continuing security, writes Tony Parkinson.
America's Central Intelligence Agency is not in the habit of attracting favourable headlines. The very nature of the war in the shadows dictates that we will always hear more about failures than successes.
But the CIA's role in the dramatic capture in Thailand of Hambali, the operational chief of Jemaah Islamiah, reinforces two salient but often forgotten facts of life in this part of the world: first, the critical, continuing importance of the superpower to the security of East Asia; second, the tangible value to Australians of direct connections through the US alliance to the world's most capable and extensive intelligence network.
Some say the Howard Government's strong and consistent support for the US-led war on terror has heightened the risks for Australian citizens. This week US agents have turned that calculation on its head - delivering proof that, if anything, the reverse may be true.
The arrest and detention of Hambali is by far the biggest breakthrough in the investigation of the Bali bombings. It removes from circulation the main conduit for the export of al-Qaeda's poisonous fanaticism into South-East Asia.
Hambali served on the shura, or highest council, of al-Qaeda, alongside Osama bin Laden. An Indonesian, who trained in Afghanistan, he became one of the few non-Arabs to achieve that stature in the global terror network.
Obviously, snaring one dangerous individual does not eliminate the threat. But it represents a crucial advance, denying the al-Qaeda franchise one of its most adept, if vicious, strategic minds.
News of the Hambali arrest was jointly celebrated yesterday by senior Australian and US officials in Melbourne. Not with high-fives or hubris, but rather a palpable sense of relief. Almost two years after the September 11 attacks on the US, the alliance partners know there remains a long and difficult road ahead.
A high-powered contingent of 46 senior American policymakers and opinion leaders flew into Melbourne for the Australian-American Leadership Dialogue, two days of private meetings, swapping notes with their counterparts in Australian politics, business, academia and the media.
This annual event allows for a rigorous stocktake of the alliance. Although, by tradition, the conversations are strictly off the record, the tone of the meetings suggested relations between the US and Australia were closer than ever.
George Bush and John Howard share similar perspectives on the challenges facing Western liberal democracies in the war on terror. Both have attracted the ire of the left intelligentsia for placing a higher premium on practical outcomes than the unperfected ideals of international law.
Critics of the Howard Government's foreign policy directions fall back reflexively on portrayals of Australia as a plaything of American global strategy. George Bush whistles, John Howard jumps - or so the caricature goes.
What is little understood is that subservience is not the price the Bush Administration asks.
Obedient lap-dogs may be a nice fashion accessory for the superpower who has everything. But, these days, with its armed forces at full stretch, Washington is more interested in allies with grunt. US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage put the equation crisply: "It is not just a question of who supports our interests in the war on terrorism. It is a question of who is willing to take action in support of their own interests."
As Armitage acknowledges readily, the Howard Government is not in the habit of standing on the sidelines. There have been military commitments in Bougainville, East Timor and the Solomons; support for US action in Afghanistan; a string of counter-terrorism protocols negotiated with key Asian neighbours; extensive support for the post-Bali police investigation in Indonesia; boots on the ground in the US-led invasion of Iraq; and energetic diplomacy aimed at curtailing both North Korea's nuclear ambitions and its role in the global trafficking of missile technology.
Much of this has been helpful to US strategic interests. Now, the Americans have responded in kind. For no single event is more likely than the capture of Hambali to help reduce the threat to Australians as they live, work or holiday in Asia.
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In this section
The people of Iraq could not keep waiting
Beijing plays a steadying hand in the storm
A crime against the Iraqi people
North Korea: now comes the hard part
Why the Jakarta terrorists threaten Australia's security
The quizzical tones of a whistleblower caught in centrifuge
Sifting shifting sands of alliances suggests US has upper hand
A smoking gun may be elusive, but proof of intent abounds
The Cold War hangover that chills the world
Urge to intervene puts UN on notice
Australia stepping out in Asia but still failing to engage
Israel risks losing its one good friend
Mass graves provide justification enough
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Easy In / Does the Job
The Addonics CF/SATA Adapter is very well made and works perfectly. I set it up with a RiData Pro 8Gig/160X Compact Flash card and installed Suse Linux 10.3 without a problem. Easy boot, plenty fast , and works great.
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Ebrun.com, 4/26/12
Dongfang Fengxing, the Beijing-based parent company of B2C e-commerce site Lafaso, announced today that it had successfully received USD 40 mln in second-round funding from China Finance Holding Group and China Broadband Capital. Investment bank China Renaissance served as financial adviser for the investment.
Dongfang Fengxing chairwoman Li Jing said that the funds would be used primarily for Lafaso operations.
First, the funds will be used to establish a cosmetics R&D center for JPlus, Lafaso's in-house brand, which will serve as one of the key points in Dongfang Fengxing's operating strategy. The company will also increase its investment in R&D, marketing, and management for Lafaso and JPlus, and will expand its warehousing network.
Editor's Note: For more information on this topic, please see "Rumor: Lafaso Obtains USD Eight-Digit Funding," MD 4/19/12 issue.
Keywords: Li Jing e-commerce Lafaso Internet funding B2C China Renaissance second-round China Broadband Capital China Finance Holding Group


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January 25, 2011
Tainan City
I focussed on the Anping area of Tainan in my last post, but Tainan City is also well worth exploring.
As I mentioned in my last post, there are a large number of historical places to visit in Tainan, and they are concentrated in a fairly small area. You can certainly spend a pleasant day walking around the city taking in the sites, having a cup of tea or coffee at the numerous shops, sampling some of the local food or take in a concert.
If you want to travel further afield (for example to Anping), then a taxi is probably best unless you have your own transport. It isn't as easy to flag down a taxi in Tainan as it is in Taipei though, and especially at off-peak times it might be difficult. The big hotels are a good place to find one, and if you can speak Chinese you can call (06) 274999. We found them reliable and informative, and they didn't charge extra for the pick up.
Compared to Taipei the pace of life is much more relaxing, and we did notice a distinct lack of people out and about. The streets were almost deserted in fact, but we might have found out why when we visited one of the night markets (there are many in Tainan). As with most night markets in Taiwan you'll find a huge selection of things to eat, and the prices are so reasonable you will be able to sample a lot of things. After you've eaten to your hearts' content, you can try one of the local games to round off the evening.
The temples and historical buildings are the main draw, and you won't be able to get round them all. In fact, if you try and visit too many you might start to feel they all look the same. So, I'd recommend the Chihkan Towers, another fort (Providentia) originally built by the Dutch in 1653 but the original structure was destroyed in an earthquake (a small amount of the original structure doe still exist). Still, the new structure on the same site is interesting and there is space for children to run around.
The Confucius Temple is also interesting, and there is a park just outside; again great for children to play in and interact with Taiwanese children. This is actually reputedly the oldest temple in Taiwan dating back to 1665, although it has been renovated any times since.
The City God Temple is interesting for the giant abacus inside. I was told that this was used by the City God to weigh up the good and bad deeds in your life, and the resultant destination for those with more deeds was scary indeed.
There are really too many more to mention, so my advice is to plan how far you want to walk then identify places in that area. Bring your camera as there are many photo opportunities, and as long as you don't get in people's faces it's okay to snap away.
Of final note, Tainan was an important missionary destination from the time of the Dutch, and there is still a strong Christian influence. Of note, Reverend William Campbell, a Scottish missionary, lived in Tainan from 1871 to 1917. His book, ??Sketches from Formosa?? is worth reading if you are interested in what Taiwan (and in particular Tainan) was like a hundred years ago.
Enjoy your visit to Tainan and don't forget to let us know how you get on!
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