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The recipe for Sony's new SR12 camcorder is simple: take last year's chart-topping SR8, add more megapixels, extra gigabytes, a larger screen and a longer zoom, then top it all off with an improved sensor and better processor. The result? The SR8 on heat.
With a 120GB hard drive on board it can shoot full 1920x1080i HD video at top quality for an incredible 15 hours. You'd need thirty MiniDV tapes or 15 8GB memory cards to match it. If your home movie memories are of the tape cutting out just as it came to blowing out the candles, this is the camcorder for you.
Spoilt for choice
The small downside is having to edit down 15 hours of probable fluff into something watchable. Thankfully AVCHD isn't the monster format it once was and most software packages will cope, but you'll still need a fairly hardcore PC to crunch all those frames. Once it's on your machine, Sony makes it a pain-free experience to burn up to an hour's AVCHD to plain-old DVD for watching glorious hi-def on a PS3 or dedicated Blu-ray spinner.
The SR12 looks great and is a winner in function too. From the solid build to the well-concealed doors that hide the headphone, mic, USB, HDMI and component-out ports, it oozes quality. You also get a hot-shoe for attaching Sony mics and video lights and a lens thread for screwing on lens adaptors.
Intuitive controls
The controls are well laid out. Sony's touchscreen menus and cam control dial still take getting used to but, once mastered, you can really start to see the benefits. The screen is now an envy-inducing 3.2in with a boosted res to match, making it one of the best camcorders around for reviewing footage on the fly.
The SR12 isn't the smallest 'corder money can buy but it sits well in the hand. In action we happily lined up shots on the giant screen while noting with cooing appreciation each time the face detect spotted a mug in shot and drew a box round it. Good camcorder.
Stay focussed
It may be the new 12x zoom or it may just be our poor luck, but the SR12 seems to struggle a tad more in the auto focus department than previous Sony camcorders. It's not the worst we've seen, just not quite what we've come to expect from Sony.
That aside, the footage it pulls is nothing short of fantastic. Sony's dropped in a new CMOS sensor and included the same Exmor and Bionz noise reduction tech it uses on its top-line DSLRs. Video is sharp and the colours fantastic. Ugly digital noise is all but banished and even in low-light the Sony now comes out fighting. Still photos don't quite live up to the 10.2MP billing but then stills aren't really what this cam is about.
We'll raise a small flag too about the 5.1 surround audio, which incidentally only comes across as stereo if you playback directly from the camera to your TV. It doesn't quite match the surround we've heard from Panasonic and tends to pick up a tad too much of the background when the lens is at its widest, but you can always switch the 5.1 off.
But these are minor issues – the SR12 is a thoroughly polished effort. To say that the picture quality is noticeably better than last year's SR8 is serious testament to the work Sony's done. Is it the best consumer camcorder of 2008? Let's just say it'll take an awful lot to beat it.


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email: firstname.lastname@example.com
Direct Intl Dial: 011-501-832-2020
Mobile: 501-651-7281
Banana Bank Lodge is a family run jungle lodge that has been offering Belize Horseback Riding vacation packages and Belize Inclusive Adventure packages since 1985. Situated on the peaceful Belize River and surrounded by 4,000 acres of pristine rainforest, Banana Bank Lodge's central location near Belmopan, Cayo District puts you near all the best inland Belize adventures.
Take a look at our Horseback Riding Adventures and Belize Tour options. Our inclusive horseback riding and Belize adventure tour packages allow you to explore caves, river adventures, climb Maya temples, be close to nature, learn about wildlife, & experience Belize culture among other adventures. Our wealth of years of experience will make your vacation a memorable one, whether it is for several days or just a day trip.
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subset: commoncrawl


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A Gloucestershire academy is bucking the national trend by offering disruptive pupils and their teachers an alternative
Department of Education data reveals sharp rise in unauthorised leave during term-time in England
It's no surprise the government's £1.3bn programme had no impact. Its 'effects' were easy to manipulate – and cash-strapped councils had the incentive to do so
Senior civil servant describes unpublished Whitehall report into efforts to tackle entrenched social problems as damning
Local Government Association's call to end controversial policy comes after a surge in fines and prosecutions of parents
More than 16,000 parents were prosecuted for taking their children out of school in term time last year. But there are lots of reasons why a child might need a break or a change – this punitive attitude is not a good lesson
Imposition of ban on term-time holidays blamed for rise in number of parents in England taken to court for failing to ensure their children attend school
Communities secretary Eric Pickles claims programme – which works with families with various social problems – has saved taxpayers £1.2bn
Primary school allowed daughter to go on family holiday but high school turned down son and notified council of his absence
Couple given conditional discharges and ordered to pay costs after taking children to Australia for three weeks
After a woman died serving time in jail for her children's truancy fines, the Guardian investigated US truancy data and how states try to enforce laws for keeping kids in class
Weekly education round up: Funding aimed at poorest students used to plug budget holes and students taught in classes of more than 30
Two viewers complained that TV ad was irresponsible because it encouraged parents to take children out of school
52,370 penalty notices were issued for children's unauthorised absences in 2012-13 – up 27% – with 8,000 cases going to court
First thoughts 'Good citizen' school monitors? Has anyone really thought this through?Rhiannon Lucy CosslettRhiannon Lucy Cosslett: First thoughts: Enlisting communities to intervene with problem families and school truancy assumes the underlying issues are simple
Sir Michael Wilshaw tells MPs communities should play greater role in supporting problem families and intervene more
Ofsted survey of pupils in England finds several local authorities are failing to meet statutory obligations
Pupil absenteeism in primary and secondary schools has risen for the first time in five years. The characteristics of those pupils as well as the reasons they've stated for not attending school point to possible explanations for the rise
Department for Education reveals unauthorised absence rate for state primary and secondary schools in England
Impoverishing parents will not help them to control their truanting children
Still here: reflections on later life Michael Gove's latest odd idea is a plan to fight truancyMichele HansonThe education secretary wants to fine parents' child benefit when children skip school. But stopping kids truanting is easier said than done
Government to publish absentee figures for reception year, while behaviour adviser highlights children who fail to attend nursery
Open thread: Parents could soon be fined up to £120 if their children don't turn up at school. Tell us if this would have stopped you bunking off
Payment-by-results scheme focuses on truancy, antisocial behaviour, youth offending and unemployment
Education secretary plans curbs on 'authorised absence' and tougher fines for truancy in drive to improve attendance rates
'Who wants to be locked into a room with 30 people dressed just like them, to be startled by a bell every 35 minutes, to stand outside in the cold twice a day?'
More children than previously thought miss school because of misdiagnosed chronic fatigue syndrome, according to research
A new report on truanting will make uncomfortable reading for the government. For some young people, truancy becomes a way of life, and punitive measures would make no difference
Outstanding-rated schools could be downgraded as inspections will focus more on children 'switching off' in class


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Emaar Properties, the UAE-based global property developer, is finalizing the masterplan design to develop the Zowara-Abou Kemash area on the Mediterranean coast near Tripoli, Libya. Emaar has extended by another six months the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed with the Zowara-Abou Kemash Development Zone to develop the project, which is the largest in Emaar's global mega-project portfolio.
The 380 million sq metre (38,000 hectares) development, a joint venture by Emaar Properties and the Zowara-Abou Kemash Development Zone, encompasses residential, commercial, industrial, educational, healthcare, leisure and entertainment components that will attract foreign investment and generate employment opportunities for Libyans.
Mr Mohamed Ali Alabbar, Chairman, Emaar Properties, said: "The Libyan government has announced several development initiatives that encourage foreign direct investment and provide a greater role for the private sector in fueling economic growth. The joint venture with Zowara-Abou Kemash Development Zone will be a landmark development for the country, as well as for Emaar."
He added: "The size, scale and scope of development reiterate Emaar's commitment to Libya's growth plans. The various components of the project will be growth engines for the Libyan economy as they offer investment opportunities in several high-growth sectors such as industries and hospitality. To give further impetus to investment inflow, Emaar is already in negotiations with our overseas partners to co-invest in the project."
Moving forward on the project, Emaar is currently finalizing the masterplan proposals submitted by three US firms and a Singaporean company. "The project's sheer vastness of size and scale makes its masterplanning a design challenge," said Mr Alabbar. "An expert team of professionals is evaluating the four proposals and the final design will be unveiled soon."
The Libyan project further consolidates Emaar's presence in North Africa, where it has already launched several developments in Egypt and Morocco. "Emaar is privileged to partner with the Zowara-Abou Kemash Development Zone, which is committed to developing a vibrant tourism, industrial and commercial environment area that attracts foreign investment," said Mr Alabbar.
Engineer Al Saadi Moaamar Al Qazafi, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Zowara-Abou Kemash Development Zone said: "This project marks the successful implementation of the Libyan government's development policies, which will usher in a new era of economic prosperity for the country. Emaar has a successful track record of delivering mega projects, and together we will offer a world-class living and business environment that attracts foreign investors."
Emaar's international expansion and diversification plans are in line with its Vision 2010 to become one of the most valuable companies in the world. Work is ongoing on Emaar's prestigious project in Saudi Arabia, the 168 million sq m King Abdullah Economic City, which is the single largest private sector-led development in the Kingdom.
[1] http://www.albawaba.com


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The Bank of Canada's tough-love treatment of Canadian business is getting tougher.
Tiff Macklem, the No. 2 at the central bank, used a speech in Winnipeg Thursday to criticize Canadian companies over a productivity rate that he said "has ranged from disappointing to dismal."
The remark amplifies the central bank's lament that Canada's economy lacks necessary moxie to keep pace in fast-changing global markets. One of the reasons policy makers have left their benchmark interest rate at an ultra-low 1 per cent for the last two years is a concern about the country's competitiveness. Mr. Macklem told the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce that more than two decades of underinvestment in machinery and equipment and information technology has left Canadian workers with half as much of such efficiency-enhancing gear as their U.S. counterparts.
That's in part a legacy of a weak currency. In recent years, the loonie has traded at around par with the U.S. dollar, making state-of-the-art equipment more affordable. Canadians imported machinery and equipment worth $124.7-billion in 2011, a 9.5-per-cent increase from the previous year, according to Statistics Canada. But last year's gain follows significant declines during the recession. The 2011 total isn't dramatically different from the $122.6-billion of imports in 2008.
"Recent investment performance has been solid but not spectacular," Mr. Macklem said. "We must do better than solid."
It's only the latest public lecture that Canadian business has received from its central bank.
Last month, Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney touched a nerve with his comment that executives were sitting on a pile of "dead money" that should be put to more productive use or returned to shareholders. And for some time, Mr. Carney and other Bank of Canada officials have been urging companies to seek out new markets, arguing Canada is overexposed to slow-growth economies such as the United States and Europe.
Each effort is enlightening, if somewhat controversial.
The theme of Mr. Macklem's Winnipeg speech was the labour market. He said the Bank of Canada's commitment to an inflation target helped create the economic conditions that allowed Canada to not only replace the 430,000 jobs lost in the recession, but add another 339,000 since. He took umbrage with the notion that many of those jobs are lesser than the ones that came before, saying 90 per cent of the new positions are in industries that pay at or above the average hourly wage.
For example, 206,000 of the 770,000 jobs created since July 2009 have been in the health care industry, which paid an average wage of $24.03 an hour between August 2009 and August 2012, according to Statistics Canada data compiled by Mr. Macklem for his presentation. Canada's average hourly wage over that period was $22.85.
Benjamin Tal, deputy chief economist at CIBC World Markets Inc. in Toronto, disagrees with the suggestion that the over all quality of Canadian jobs is improving. His own research suggests the opposite. Factories are paying less, and the Canadian economy is on the verge of losing thousands of high-paying public service jobs as governments cut spending to reduce deficits. Construction employment also is set to contract as the housing market slows.
"Two factors that were extremely important in at least maintaining this relative stability and the quality of employment will not be there in the future," Mr. Tal said.
Some see short-term wrinkles in the jobs market. Standard & Poor's, the credit rating agency, says in a new economic outlook that weaker global demand will hamper Canada's trade-dependent economy, limiting growth to 2.1 per cent this year and 1.9 per cent in 2013. The agency said that could put "upward pressure" on unemployment in the first half of next year and limit income gains.
That outlook is in line with the Bank of Canada's view. Mr. Macklem said there remains "some" slack in the labour market, although he reiterated that even a tepid pace of economic growth would force policy makers to eventually raise interest rates.
But Mr. Macklem's focus Thursday was on the longer term. Without more productive workers, the country could become poorer. A less productive economy can generate economic growth so long as it has lots of people to put to work. But Canada's labour force is shrinking, as the population ages and birth rates decline.
Some of those potential retirees are going to have to be coaxed into staying on the job, Mr. Macklem said. But more important will be producing more efficient, well-trained workers. And here, Canada lags. Its companies hire fewer workers with advanced degrees than U.S. firms, and only one-third of Canadian managers have university degrees, compared with half in the United States.
"Over the longer term, productivity growth has the greatest potential to boost prosperity," Mr. Macklem said. "Regrettably, it is also where our performance has been the worst."
With files from Tavia Grant
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What other names is Squill known by?Cebolla Albarrana, Charpentaire, Drimia indica, Drimia maritima, European Squill, Indian Quills, Indian Squill, Jacinthe de Mer, Jangli Pyaj, Jungli Plyaz, Mediterranean Squill, Oignon Marin, Red Squill, Scilla, Scilla indica, Scilla maritima, Scille, Scille Blanche, Scille Maritime, Scille Mort-aux-Rats, Scille Officinale, Sea Onion, Sea Squill Bulb, Scilla, Squille, Urginea indica, Urginea maritima, Urginea scilla, Urginée Fausse-Scille, Urginée Maritime, Vanpalandu, White Squill.
What is Squill?Squill is a plant. The bulbs of the plant are used to make medicine.
Despite serious safety concerns, people take squill to treat mild heart failure, irregular heartbeat, "nervous" heart complaints, and certain vein problems. They also take it as a "heart tonic."
Squill is used for lung diseases including chronic bronchitis, asthma with bronchitis, and whooping cough.
Some people take squill to relieve fluid retention (edema), thin mucus, induce vomiting, or cause an abortion.
In manufacturing, squill is used in pest control as rat poison.
Insufficient Evidence to Rate Effectiveness for...
Natural Medicines Comprehensive Database rates effectiveness based on scientific evidence according to the following scale: Effective, Likely Effective, Possibly Effective, Possibly Ineffective, Likely Ineffective, and Insufficient Evidence to Rate (detailed description of each of the ratings).
Report Problems to the Food and Drug Administration
You are encouraged to report negative side effects of prescription drugs to the FDA. Visit the FDA MedWatch website or call 1-800-FDA-1088.


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Rady School of Management, UC San Diego
What:The FOUNDER.org $100K is an annual competition where by ten finalist teams win $100K each and 50 semifinalist teams are accepted into the FOUNDER.org University, a 12-month company building program. The competition participants are also eligible to apply for funding through the FOUNDER.org Capital, a $100M venture capital fund for student entrepreneurs.
This is a GREAT opportunity to get funded so you NEED to be pitching!! Please enter the name of your pitch when you click the link to RSVP!
Registration Ends: March 10, 2014 11:00 a.m. RSVP NOW!
The closest parking to the Rady School of Management will be in lot P-357. Alternatively, Pangea and Hopkins parking structures are also nearby. For those without parking permits, pay stations are located at all three parking areas. Regular parking rates will apply.
About FOUNDER.org
FOUNDER.org works with colleges, universities and research institutes around the world to advance student entrepreneurship. We provide the scaffolding students need to be lifelong company builders. The FOUNDER.org $100K is our annual competition where we award ten $100K prizes. It is run in cooperation with our 22 partner schools in seven different countries. FOUNDER.org University is our 12-month, holistic company building experience that immerses teams in a wide a range of core areas. FOUNDER.org Capital is our venture capital fund for student companies. Our goal is to grow the number of students starting companies and to improve the odds that more young companies not just survive, but thrive and positively transform the world around us.Learn more at www.founder.org
This is an event you will not want to miss! Register today!


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Discover a selection of top forums babv tagging on the internet. Come to share your passion on forums babv tagging and meet other fans of babv tagging. Then, why don't you create your own forum of babv tagging ?
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Free forum : Where the pimpin' PSPers come to unwind, have fun, and win some awesome prizes.
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Free forum : A Group of friends dedicated to PSP tagging and snagging! Contests, challenges, friends! No blank registrations please!
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Free forum : We are a fun drama free group that loves to have fun. Tagging, sharing, games, challenges.
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Are you a fan of BABV? Come on in to The Bearville Place!
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This list is named dm-devel, so is there another list to ask general question about multiplath.conf and related things?
In other words I want to ask some questions about how to configure multipath for better performance and basically how some things work in general, not make changes to code.
Jack Allen


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Little Person Theme Park Raises Some Big Questions
Most theme parks involve humans wandering around in cartoon character suits, vomit-inducing roller coasters, and scads of cotton candy, but Little People's Kingdom of Dwarves in China offers little people as its main attraction. For the paying crowds that number in the hundreds, costumed little people sing and dance, make and sell trinkets, and pretend to live in miniature huts. If you want to work there, you have to be disease-free, under 50, and no taller than four-foot-three. "I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be horrified or amazed — or both," declares "Nightline" reporter Clarissa Ward. If, as this western report declares, the Chinese are cashing in on "people's morbid curiosity," well, why is the American camera crew there? For the same reason, no doubt. One (wo)man's politically incorrect is another little person's paycheck. "I used to stay at home all day," says one little person, "but I'm happy here." [Blisstree]


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I saw a tweet today from @DiscoveryCSC regarding thisarticle. The tweet said it would be nice if there was a list of myths most scientists believe.
Ask, and you shall receive.
With no further ado, Reboot Christianity's 10 myths scientists believe:
Copernicus invented the heliocentric model and was punished by Christians: This is just wrong all the way around. First of all, Copernicus was a Christian himself—a Catholic priest. He was urged to publish by his bishop. We know for a fact he was never punished because he was already dead before he published. Oh and it wasn't his idea, either: Greek philosopher Aristotle considered the heliocentric system centuries earlier, but rejected it because it would predict stellar parallax and he could not observe this. (Aristotle was right, by the way: stellar parallax would later be observed as technology improved.) So Copernicus did not invent the heliocentric model, he was just the first to make it mathematically plausible. And in no way can anyone say he was punished for it.
Galileo's brilliant theory resulted in his torture by the Catholics: Again, not even close. First of all, Galileo was himself a Catholic and many of his theories were based not on science, but on interpretations of Scripture and Catholic thinkers like Thomas Aquinas. Secondly, Galileo's theories were widely acclaimed by the Pope (who was an old friend before becoming Pope) as well as many others. It was the secular professors—not the Christian ones—who disliked his theories. Why? Because he actually had no proof of most of them. He was on the right track in general, but could not provide evidence for many of his theories, and his popularity in spite of this fact was irritating. He was never tortured, never beaten, never burned, etc. For twenty-one years he was a darling of the Pope and Catholicism, until eventually publishing a story in which he put common arguments of the Pope in the mouth of a character called "The Fool." That resulted in a house arrest, but even then he was allowed to continue his work. He actually used this time to write his magna opus, which he was allowed to publish.
Ernest Haeckel's embryo drawings: Every evolutionary biology textbook reproduces Haeckel's drawings of embryonic development. It is an icon of evolutionary teaching. Haeckel proposed that at various stages of development the embryo looked like its evolutionary ancestors. He produced a series of drawings which were very detailed and certainly seemed to show this. There is only one problem: it isn't true. Depending on how harsh the critic, Haeckel either exaggerated or outright faked all of his drawings. He omitted things which didn't agree with his theory, added things that did, and generally fudging the data. Embryologist Wilhelm His went as far as to say, "[he has] relinquished the right to count as an equal in the company of serious researchers." Science magazine in 1997 said that it was, "one of the most famous fakes in biology." Yet if you grab a high school biology textbook today, chances are you will see his drawings reproduced within it, and his theories presented without the following controversy.
Most Christians believe the earth is 6,000 years old: Okay, this one is only partially a myth—because many Christians do believe exactly that. However, the National Science Board has been conducting polls on continental drift since the 1980s, and consistently find that 80% of Americans firmly believe that the continents have drifted apart over millions of years, 10% are unsure, and 10% firmly reject it. How then do pollsters like Gallup find such a high percent of Young Earth Creationism? Well, it's all in how you word it. The question generally asked is something like, "Do you accept the Biblical account of creation as literally true?" then almost every Christian will say, "Yes." But some do not think that the Bible literally interpreted indicates a young earth. Most Old Earth Creationists also consider themselves Biblical literalists—they simply have a different interpretive method. But the National Science Board polls seem to indicate that no more than 10% of the population is convinced that the earth is definitely young—so obviously, this is not "most" Christians.
The Big Bang Theory is anti-Christian: Quite the opposite, in fact. The Big Bang model was hated by most scientists when it was developed. It was developed by a Catholic priest, Georges Lemaitre, and he was often accused by his scholarly enemies of trying to bend the facts to be pro-Genesis. Beforehand, most cosmologists and evolutionists believed in the Steady State Model, which argued that the universe was not expanding, was steady state for eternity and (therefore) there was no creation event. As Nobel prize winning physicist Arno Penzias once said, "The best data we have [on the Big Bang model] are exactly what I would have predicted, had I nothing to go on but the five books of Moses, the Psalms, the Bible as a whole."
Until recently people believed the Earth was flat: It is completely false that the Scientific Revolution in the Middle Ages of Europe (and Columbus' trip) proved the Earth not to be flat. In fact, very few scholars believed in a flat Earth even by the time of Jesus. The spherical Earth was shown at least by the time of Pythagoras (6th century BC), was clearly taught by Aristotle (c.330 BC), the size of the Earth's circumference was calculated by Erastosthenes (c. 240 BC), and by the time of Christ Pliny the Elder stated that everyone in the world agreed on the round shape of the Earth. Christian writers such as Augustine clearly discuss the widespread view of a spherical Earth.
The Library of Alexandria was burned by Christians and set science back years: The Library was burned on several occasions. When Julius Caesar was being attacked in 48 BC, he set fire to his ships and it burned a huge section of the library down (ancient sources say it was basically completely destroyed). A smaller section of the library survived until 270-275 AD, when Emperor Auerlian was invading and the fighting damaged most of the remaining works. Both events preceded the large-scale spread of Christianity into the Roman Empire.
Giordano Bruno expanded Copernicus' theory and was killed for it: I had not heard this one until it popped up on Cosmos a few weeks back. Bruno argued publicly that the Sun was just another star in an infinite universe, saying to those who disagreed, "Your God is too small!" He was killed by the Church for these beliefs. Well…hold on that quaint little story, Cosmos. You left a few details out. First of all, Bruno did not come to this conclusion based on any evidence or science…it came to him as a vision, not as a scientific inquiry. He was killed by the Catholic Church, this is (sadly) true: but not due to his scientific beliefs. In fact, Copernicus' theories at this time were not considered heretical at all. No, Bruno got on the wrong side of Catholicism for the following reasons: he said Jesus played a trick on everyone and was not God; denied the Virgin Birth; denied the Catholic faith; claimed that there were other worlds that lasted for eternity (no creation); practiced astrology; and taught reincarnation. As a Catholic monk. So you can see why they might have some problem with one of their own teaching that the entire faith was false; and while they certainly were wrong in their reaction, they couldn't have cared less about his scientific viewpoints.
Stanley Miller proved that life could form spontaneously: The Miller-Urey experiments of 1953 have long been held up as proof that life can spontaneously form in the early Earth's history. They created a simulation of the early atmosphere of the Earth, subjected it to electrical sparks, and then extracted amino acids to demonstrate that the building blocks of life could have formed spontaneously. There are only a few problems with this nice story: (1) their experiment wasn't based on the correct atmospheric composition (they had to leave out oxygen and nitrogen to make it work, even though those are major atmospheric components in the early earth); (2) the amount of yield produced was miniscule (only one molecule per 10,000 liters of raw material, not nearly enough yield to allow the proteins to come in contact); (3) no left-handed amino acids were able to be created, even though those are the ones important for life; and (4) the instability of the atmosphere would immediately destroy the few acids produced so they had to cease the experiment and "cold trap" the amino acids…the environment wouldn't allow them to continue. So basically, this famous experiment proves almost nothing; it was cleverly set up, but all it really shows is that if you have an atmosphere alien to Earth, you can in some situations create an exceptionally small amount of material that is useless for building life forms. Not all that encouraging.
The useless appendix (and other vestigial organs): Most scientists accept that the body is full of vestigial organs—organs which had uses in prior evolutionary forms but not in our modern bodies as humans. They are just "left overs". The appendix is the most famous; frequently doctors speak of removing them because they can only do harm, "they provide no real purpose anymore." However, now we know that the appendix plays a critical part of the immune system in the fetus, infant, and toddler years—so while it may be harmless to remove from a child or teenager, that does not mean it served "no purpose" at a younger age. Likewise, other organs considered at one time to be vestigial have been found to be important: tonsils help protect the pharynx, the pineal gland secretes a hormone that regulates circadian rhythm, the thymus is an important part of the immune system (one attacked by HIV). All of these have at one time been called "vestigial" or useless organs. The reality is that just because you don't know yet why an organ is there doesn't make it useless! And likewise, just because you can survive without it doesn't make it useless: you can amputate an arm and still survive, but that doesn't mean the arm was a purposeless byproduct of evolutionary randomness.


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Re: newbie is looking for a customDistribution function
In article <ch3o86$t96$1 at smc.vnet.net>, János <janos.lobb at yale.edu>
> I looked for it in the archives, but found none.
It is there at
Also see The Mathematica Journal 1(3): 57, which is referenced at this
link. Further comments are given below.
> I am looking for ways
> to create a custom distribution, which I can call as a function. Here
> is an example for illustration. Let's say I have a list created from a
> 4 elements alphabet {a,b,c,d}:
> In[1]:=
> lst={a,a,b,c,a,d,a,c,c,a}
> Out[1]=
> {a,a,b,c,a,d,a,c,c,a}
> Distribute gives me - thanks David Park - all the two element
> combinations of {a,b,c,d}
> In[11]:=
> twocombs=Distribute[Table[{a,b,c,d},{2}],List]
> Out[11]=
> {{a,a},{a,b},{a,c},{a,d},{b,a},{b,b},{b,c},{b,d},{c,a},{c,b},{c,c},{c,d}
> ,{
> d,a},{d,b},{d,c},{d,d}}
> I can count the occurrence of an element of twocombs in lst with the
> following function:
> occuranceCount[x_List] := Count[Partition[lst, 2, 1], x]
> Mapping this function over twocombs gives me the number of occurances
> of elements of twocombs in lst:
> In[12]:=
> distro=Map[occuranceCount,twocombs]
> Out[12]=
> {1,1,1,1,0,0,1,0,2,0,1,0,1,0,0,0}
> It shows that for example {c,a} occurs twice, {d,a} occurs once and
> {d,c} or {d,d} never occur.
> Now, I would like to create a distribution function called
> twocombsLstDistribution which I could call and it would give me back
> elements of twocombs with the probability as they occur in distro, that
> is for on average I would get twice as much {c,a}s as {d,a}s and never
> get {d.c} or {d,d}.
> How can I craft that ?
The idea of the code below is to count for how many symbols the
cumulative frequencies
cumfreq[x_List] := FoldList[Plus, First[x], Rest[x]]/Tr[x];
are less than a fixed random number t in the range [0,1], and use the
number of hits as the index into the alphabet.
index[f_, r_] := Length[Select[f, r >= #1 & ]] + 1;
rand[x_List, cf_List] := x[[index[cf, Random[]]]]
For your distribution,
cf = cumfreq[distro]
here is a randome set of elements in twocombs with the probability as
they occur in distro.
Table[rand[twocombs, cf], {2000}];
As a check we see that
Count[%, #] & /@ twocombs
looks fine.
> /Of course I need it for an arbitrary but finite length string lst over
> a fixed length alphabet {a,b,c,d,....} for k-length elements of kcombs,
> and it has to be super fast :). My real lst is between 30,000 and
> 70,000 element long over a four element alphabet and I am looking for k
> between 5 and a few hundred. /
Indexing using zeroth-order Interpolation is considerably faster (See
e.g., http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=b34q2o%24gc1%241%40smc.vnet.net):
int[distro_] := int[distro] = Interpolation[Transpose[
Range[0, 1, 1/Tr[distro]],
Join[{1}, Flatten[MapIndexed[Table[First[#2], {#1}] & , distro]]]
], InterpolationOrder -> 0]
If you compare
Timing[test1 = Table[rand[twocombs, cf], {100000}];]
Timing[test2 =Table[twocombs[[int[distro][Random[]]]],{100000}];]
you should find that test1 == test2 and that using int[distro] is about
4 times faster.
Paul Abbott Phone: +61 8 9380 2734
School of Physics, M013 Fax: +61 8 9380 1014
The University of Western Australia (CRICOS Provider No 00126G)
35 Stirling Highway
Crawley WA 6009 mailto:paul at physics.uwa.edu.au
AUSTRALIA http://physics.uwa.edu.au/~paul


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Jonathan Frid, who played the vampire Barnabas Collins on the TV series Dark Shadows, has died in Canada. He was 87.
Update, 4 p.m. ET: The actor died of natural causes at Juravinski Hospital in Hamilton, Ontario, on Friday (the 13th), according to a statement from his family.
Dark Shadows aired on ABC from June 1966 to April 1971. Frid also starred in the 1973 television movie The Devil's Daughter and 1974 horror film Seizure.
Frid's final acting credit is a cameo he filmed for Tim Burton's May 4 remake of Dark Shadows, which stars Johnny Depp as Barnabas.
Kathryn Leigh Scott, who played Maggie Evans and Josette duPres on Dark Shadows opposite Frid, paid tribute to her friend of "more than 40 years" on her website.
"I am so grateful to have worked with Jonathan and to have known him as the charismatic, entertaining, complex and plain spoken man that he was. What fun we had working together! He was irascible, irreverent, funny, caring, lovable and thoroughly professional, and in the end became the whole reason why kids ran home from school to watch Dark Shadows."
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[25% Park, 25% Rails, 50% Backcountry]
Knockout 'The Tenth Round'
Alterna Films
Riders: Matt Belzile, Chris Dufficy, Seb Toots, Takaharu Nakai, Tadej Valentan, JF Fortin, Matt Beardmore, Greg Maxwell, Craig Beaulieu, and friends.
Filmers: Darcy Wittenburg, Carlo Wein, Colin Jones, Bryant Bell, and Robert Brunton.
Reaching the decade mark this past season, Alterna brings you a shred movie showcasing their best season yet. With a mixture of up and comers like Seb Toots and seasoned vets like Chris Dufficy, Knockout is, according to the crew, "a quenching blend of inventive freestyle snowboarding with a cinematic punch." An exotic journey through India and a road gap session with a cable cam will make this one of the hidden gems of the season. Be sure to look out for the "Tootsie Roll", Seb Toots' version of the double cork backside 1080, to cap off this one. Knockout is sure to deliver on all levels of Alterna's trademark innovation.
Knockout 'The Tenth Round' / Alterna Films


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One of the discrete values that organizes the data on an area, bar, bubble, column, line, step, or stock chart axis. A category axis does not use a numeric scale. Typically, category values appear on the x-axis of a chart. In a pie chart, category values define which sectors appear in a pie, as shown in Figure G-5.
Figure G-5
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I am in the process of writing several articles on current technology issues, but I am actively looking for additional opportunities to share my thoughts on the evolving situation of technology in our daily lives.
There was a discussion on a legal listserv for Information Technology. The question was; "What is 'Big Data'?". As a database administrator and data architect in a 'previous' life I wrote a short response to capture what I consider to be 'Big Data'.
If you have any request for articles please let me know and I will be happy to participate. I am looking for the kinds of issues typicaly consumers would be interested in related to technology and the law.
Please email me to make your request.
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Gov. George E. Pataki on Monday used the capture of a career criminal, charged in a recent string of sexual assaults and robberies on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, to attack Democrats in the State Assembly for ignoring his bill to put those convicted of repeat misdemeanors in jail as felons.
The governor, a Republican, noted the multiple arrests and convictions that the suspect, Kevin White, 34, had amassed over the past decade to make a point about the legislation Mr. Pataki proposed in 2000, which never passed in the Democratic-controlled Assembly.
Since Oct. 17, 1989, Mr. White had been arrested 27 times and faced 57 different charges, a police official said, from disorderly conduct to possession of a weapon and selling marijuana. Of those charges, 43 were for misdemeanors and nine were for felonies, the official said, and Mr. White was eventually convicted of 24 misdemeanors and one felony.
''If that had been voted on, if they had passed the law, in all likelihood he would have been in jail a year ago or two years ago or three years ago and not engaged in these serial rapes,'' said Mr. Pataki, speaking at a news conference in Troy, N.Y., to announce the rehabilitation of a center for the elderly.
''And that's the point that we have to get across to those who would block this legislation,'' the governor said. ''They are not just blocking a bill; they are blocking efforts to save people's lives and to protect people's lives and to make us safe.''Continue reading the main story
In response, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, a Democrat from Manhattan, said that while he did not know Mr. White's criminal record, political finger-pointing over such a serious matter was not the solution.
In pointing out that Mr. White could have faced lengthier sentences, Mr. Silver noted the problems with allowing chronic misdemeanor offenders, like Mr. White, to face reduced sentences through plea bargains. And he criticized the process by which judges have come to the bench under Republicans.
''The governor didn't propose a bill banning plea bargains, did he?'' Mr. Silver asked rhetorically. ''I mean, that's what's really at the root of what happened here.''
The arrest of Mr. White has raised a welter of emotions about the criminal justice system. In New York City, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg expressed anger on Monday at what he called a revolving-door system for criminals, made easier by plea bargains.
''You cannot continue to let people plea bargain their way out of serious crimes, go back out on the street and continue to destroy our society,'' Mr. Bloomberg said. ''I'm glad they caught this guy. Shame on us for ever getting ourselves in this position, but that's history. Let's take a look, learn from it, and make sure it doesn't happen again.''
Under the governor's bill, a person convicted of a fourth misdemeanor, within 10 years, would be sentenced under an E-felony conviction instead, and would therefore face a mandatory 11/3.-to-4-year sentence in state prison, said Lynn Rasic, a spokeswoman for the governor. If that law had been passed, Mr. White could have become a predicate felon or a multiple predicate felon, she said.Continue reading the main story


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Screenwriter for The Subtle Knife
His Dark Materials Two gears up
With the first instalment of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, The Golden Compass (based on the book titled Northern Lights in this country), still halfway through production, New Line are getting ready for a second helping of fantasy goodness with the news that they've hired a scriptwriter for the second book, The Subtle Knife.
Hossein Amini is the man with the plan, and indeed word processor, who will be translating Pullman's book for the screen. Amini's currently working on Drive, which Hugh Jackman is attached to star in, and previously wrote the critically acclaimed Wings of the Dove and the largely overlooked The Four Feathers.
The second book introduces the character of Will, a 12 year-old boy on the run who finds himself in a different world, where he meets Lyra Belacqua, the heroine of the first film (played, at least in part one, by Dakota Blue Richards) and is drawn into her quest. No word on casting yet, of course, but with the first film starring Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig, as well as Eva Green and Sam Elliot, expect a similarly starry line-up.
That leaves Amini with the unenviable task of writing a sequel that, initially at least, features none of the main characters in the first film. Still, he can comfort himself with the knowledge that it's a bloody brilliant book and he'd have to trip over his own shoelaces and land headfirst on the keyboard to muck it up. Not that we think that's likely – his adaptation of Wings of the Dove was rather fab.
One caveat though – this doesn't mean that The Subtle Knife, let alone The Amber Spyglass, are officially greenlit. That won't happen until the first film comes out and (hopefully) does well. But it is a sign of confidence in the franchise, so let's all keep fingers crossed and wallets at the ready to make sure that the second and third films do eventually get made.