text:
GameStick, a tiny Android-based game console and companion controller, is sporting a fresh design as its Kickstarter campaign winds down.
The $79 GameStick is under development by PlayJam, and aims to be a complete home game console that's easy to carry around. The actual stick plugs into televisions via HDMI, and is small enough to be stowed away inside the companion game controller. GameStick's software is based on Android, but will have its own app store.
With the new design, the game controller now seems a lot more usable. Whereas the original design was a fairly simple plastic slab, the final product will have extended grips on each side and rubberized finishes on the bottom deck, a home button, a directional pad and thumbsticks. Those thumbsticks are now raised off the surface of the gamepad, with support for 45-degree tilt angles.
Also, the lettering on the controller's face buttons have changed from P-L-A-Y to X-B-Y-A, mimicking the layout of Microsoft's Xbox 360 controller. GameStick says this will help developers port their games over to its own store.
The most interesting change, however, has to do with the storage slot for the actual GameStick. The slot has moved from the front of the controller to the back, but not just because it's less intrusive. In a post on Kickstarter, PlayJam chief executive Jasper Smith said the ultimate goal is to have the controller provide power to the stick, so users can stream games to their television using Miracast. Moving the stick to the back of the controller allows it to more easily accept power and dissipate heat.
"It is too early to go in to a lot of detail about this (but we will as soon as we can), suffice to say that we believe that in the future all of the components to run a game can and will be stored directly in the controller," Smith wrote. "You will then simply decide which screen you want to stream your games to."
GameStick debuted on Kickstarter on January 1, and quickly reached its $100,000 funding goal. As of this writing, the project has raised more than $515,000 with 69 hours left in its funding drive.
At this level of funding, GameStick has reached a couple of "stretch goals." All GameSticks will include a MicroSD slot for added storage, and backers can purchase a controller dock for $20 that adds support for USB peripherals such as external keyboards and microphones.
GameStick is planning to ship the finished product to Kickstarter backers in April. Ouya, another Android-based game console, will ship around the same time, setting the stage for a very interesting facet of the home console wars.
This story, "GameStick, flush with Kickstarter cash, revamps its controller" was originally published by TechHive.


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DISGRACED former headmaster Roland Wright is today starting an eight year prison sentence for abusing young boys at his school over a period of more than a decade.
Now aged 83, the former head at Caldicott Preparatory School in Farnham Common was told he used the 'vulnerable' pupils "on a whim" to satisfy his sexual desires.
Having committed the offences between 1959 and 1970 Wright evaded justice until jurors at Amersham Crown Court convicted him of ten counts of indecent assault on a male and two of indecency with a child at a trial which ended in December.
The offences were carried out against five former pupils at the school.
Wright, of Crown Lane, Farnham Royal, had been due to be sentenced alongside his former colleague Hugh Henry.
The 82-year-old, of Pomeroy Close, Amersham, was killed by a train on Tuesday. DS Joseph Banfield, who led the investigation into the offences, confirmed Henry's identity to the court and said an inquest was due to be opened today.
Wright, who entered the court with the aid of two sticks and listened to proceedings via a hearing loop, was cleared of three further offences at a previous trial. He was convicted at a retrial after a previous jury were unable to reach verdicts.
Many of his victims and their families were present at a packed courtroom today to hear sentence being passed, with Wright being given a seat near the witness stand as the dock was filled by reporters covering the hearing.
Judge Johanna Cutts accepted many people – including some of his victims – had spoken in positive terms about Wright being an inspirational teacher and about his character.
But she said: "It's obvious the boys were vulnerable. They were cared for exclusively at the school. Their parents entrusted their welfare to the school. Great trust was placed in you, yet you abused that trust.
"Far from protecting and nurturing the boys, you used them on a whim for what you wanted, regardless of the impact on them.
"You could have been a force only for good in their lives. But there was a darker side to your tuition of these boys.
"It is difficult to think of a more serious breach of trust."
The judge said Wright would invite the boys back to his room near their dormitory, where he would commit sex acts on them. On one occasion one of the pupils was given whiskey to drink, she said.
Judge Cutts said Wright took advantage of the fact his room was so far from other members of staff and so close to the dormitories to create his "own little fiefdom" from which he would abuse the pupils.
A police investigation started in 2001 but a court action two years later was stayed by an abuse of process, Judge Cutts said.
Five of his victims had been prepared to give evidence, she said, but in the meantime a further five came forward. All spoke at the latest trial.
Judge Cutts said: "For many years many kept their silence and no doubt you hoped they always would. Boys felt they could never tell their parents, who felt they were doing right by sending them to the school.
"No man should feel guilt or feel he was complicit in any way.
"It is clear your conduct has had a lasting effect on them. Your offending has affected the confidence of some and the ability of others to form lasting relationships."
Wright was jailed for a total of eight years, given a lifelong ban from working with children and told he will remain on the Sex Offenders' Register for the rest of his life.
Defending Wright, Jane Bickerstaff said: "Everything he worked so hard to build up over the decades that he was involved with in the different capacities at Caldicott School; the reputation of the school and its success which went hand in hand with the defendant's personal reputation and achievements, is all wiped out by the verdicts of the jury.
"That is the hardest blow to a man like this defendant; who, whatever else he did, he dedicated his life to building that school and its reputation, thereby giving an awful lot of people a good start in life."
Henry's counsel, Terry Munyard, said: "In the 50 years since the last of the offences to which he pleaded guilty, he had had a blameless life and contributed a great deal to the community in which he lived and worked. There are scores of people who are deeply distressed at this turn of events."

subset: commoncrawl


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American University Washington College of Law's: Moot Court Honor Society 2008-2009
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text:
'Bates Motel': So What Exactly Is Wrong With Norman?
The third episode is always the real test of a new series. Sure, the pilot establishes the concept, but there's usually a long production hiatus between the shoot for the pilot and that for episode two. The second episode of a show can almost come across like a second pilot, in a sense. So the third episode is the real indicator of whether a series can transcend the novelty of its concept and immerse you in its story and characters on a long-term basis. These third installments are usually easy on the shocks and plot twists but dive a little deeper into the characters and their relationships.
That was what happened in the third episode of Bates Motel, titled "What's Wrong With Norman." (A title that excluded a question mark.) But damn, if it still didn't end on a hell of a reveal. Our friendly neighborhood Sheriff's deputy, Shelby, keeps a Chinese sex slave in his dungeon of a basement! I'm surprised by how quickly the sordid details of Norma and Norman's town have floated to the surface: the human trafficking issue certainly reared its ugly head once again, as did the potfield. And it would be the Bates boys, doing a capable Hardy Boys impression, who would discover all this. Dylan took the job to work for Bradlee's father—who, amazingly, had not died but was in an induced coma with a very poor life expectancy. That meant guarding the potfield, a task he prepared for by doing a whole "You talkin' to me?" routine in his mirror. He'd make $300 a day protecting $5 million worth of weed. Dylan wanted to guard it and smoke it. But he learned the two families from town that own it would not be too pleased about that. Apparently, this potfield is responsible for much of the local economy.
'Bates Motel' Recap: Our First Glimpse of a Shower!
Little did Norman know that his brother was now guarding the potfield from which he and Emma had barely escaped with their lives last week. Emma was particularly shaken. She felt guilty because she never really believed that there was human trafficking going on. She just used that as an excuse to bond with Norman. But once she saw that shed for real, she knew a dead Chinese sex slave really had been buried there. Norman wanted to have nothing to do with it. He called that diary "pornographic" and denied being obsessed with it. And yet he collapsed in the middle of class after imagining his teacher and Emma as the girl tied up. Was he aroused or horrified by that flight of fancy? Or was he horrified because he was aroused? The attraction and repulsion to sex that will one day make him take up a butcher knife are already firmly in place.
Norman recuperated in the hospital, an expense he and his mom sorely didn't need. And we saw once again what a big TCM fan he is. It looked like he was watching a Ronald Reagan movie, but I couldn't tell which one. More eagle-eyed classic Hollywood fans, please render an assist to this cinephile in the comments if you know what movie that is. While there, Bradlee stopped by to give him flowers. Norman is somehow a babe magnet when it comes to both girls with oxygen tanks and girls who are the prom-queen type.
Officer Guyliner, I mean Romero, showed up at the Bates' house with a search warrant to look for Keith, the previous owner who raped Norma and who got a butcher knife stuck between his ribs. They scoured the place, and Norman knew immediately he had been given away because he had kept Keith's belt as a souvenir. Moron.
Emma used her oxygen tank to force her way in to Bates House. She told Norman that if they forgot that poor dead girl it will be like she never existed. They had to uncover the circumstances of her death and expose this human trafficking ring. They searched the bathroom and found a Chinese character under the bathroom sink, a character that Yahoo Answers later revealed translates as "beautiful." That made them even sadder. With that character and the diary hidden in Norman's room, she must have been kept captive there. The motel itself was probably used as a brothel. In just the span of 30 minutes of screen time Norman had gone from wanting to deny this girl's existence to doubling down on the search to unravel the mystery of her death. It's also remarkable to see how one of the most awkward characters in pop culture history has already found himself in the middle of his own love triangle: with hottie Bradlee and sickly Emma, who cut in to his conversation with Bradlee with more than a glint of jealousy.
'Bates Motel' Premiere React: Why Hitchcock Might Approve
So Norma went on a date with Officer Shelby, involving wine consumption by a warm, cozy fire…and a little subtle blackmail. He told her that he found Keith's belt under Norman's bed. He wondered, did Norman kill Keith? He knew the former owner of the house was a bully, and he indicated that he might be willing to suspend the investigation. If Norma let him "take care of her."
At first Norma took him at his word. She told Norman she thought they were safe. But as she continued to think about, she knew her son was right: Shelby could blackmail her to do anything. This was Norman's mistake. And Norman would have to correct it. "You know what you have to do, don't you?" asked Norma, indicating that Norman may have placed them in situations like this before and been forced to mop up after himself.
So Norman went to Officer Shelby's house, presumably to steal back the belt and maybe also to kill Shelby. But what he found was a veritable haunted house. No. Scarier. The kind of place a serial killer would live. All flickering lights, peeling paint, and dark shadows. And whimpers. Oh, the whimpers. Behind a door where Norman maybe thought Shelby was sleeping was…a Chinese sex slave! So he's in on the ring! And maybe even worked with Keith to keep it going, despite his saying that he didn't like the guy. The final shot? Shelby pulling up to his house and about to enter the door. Get out, Norman! Terrifying.
What will Norman do to get out of this? Will he have to slash his way out? Or will he somehow escape with the belt and without Shelby noticing? Maybe he can use the existence of this sex slave as a type of blackmail over Shelby?
What do you guys think? And at this point, are you now officially hooked on Bates Motel?
Follow Christian Blauvelt on Twitter @Ctblauvelt
[Photo Credit: A+E]
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text: The filing period is officially under way for municipal elections in Dallas, Fort Worth and other cities across North Texas. Those who've already filed this morning include openly gay Fort Worth City Councilman Joel Burns, who held his campaign kickoff on Friday night and is seeking re-election to his District 9 seat. Burns is running for a second full two-year term on the council, after first being elected in 2007 when Wendy Davis stepped down to run for state Senate. Below is a press release that just came across from Burns' campaign. We'll keep you posted on other filings of significant LGBT interest throughout the day.


text:
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Valve Hardware Day 2006 - Multithreaded Editionby Jarred Walton on 11/7/2006 6:00 AM EST
- Posted in
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edfcmc - Thursday, November 23, 2006 - linkI always thought the dude with the valve in his eye was Gabe Newell. Now I know better. Reply
msva124 - Thursday, November 09, 2006 - link
As Valve sees things, however, the era of pretty visuals is coming to an end. We have now reached the point where in terms of graphics most people are more than satisfied with what they see.
Um.....you're kidding, right? Reply
JarredWalton - Thursday, November 09, 2006 - linkNope. That's what Valve said. Graphics and animations can be improved, but there are lots of other gameplay issues that have been pushed to the side in pursuit of better graphics. With cards like the GeForce 8800, they should be able to do just about anything they want on the graphics side of things, so now they just need to do more in other areas. Reply
msva124 - Thursday, November 09, 2006 - link
With cards like the GeForce 8800, they should be able to do just about anything they want on the graphics side of things
And 640K of RAM should be enough for anybody? Yeah right. There are certainly other things besides graphics that need to be tended to, but when even rendered cutscenes don't look convincing, it's extremely premature to say. Reply
JarredWalton - Thursday, November 09, 2006 - linkSo you would take further increases in graphics over anything else? Personally, I'm quite happy with what I see in many titles of the past 3 years. Doom 3, Far Cry, Quake 4, Battlefield 2, Half-Life 2... I can list many more. All of those look more than good enough to me. Could they be better? SURE! Do they need to be? Not really. I'd much rather have some additional improvements besides just prettier graphics, and that's what Valve was getting at.
What happens if you manage to create a photo-realistic game, but the AI sucks, the physics sucks, and the way things actually move and interact with each other isn't at all convincing? Is photo-realism (which is basically the next step -- just look at Crysis screenshots and tell me that 8800 GTX isn't powerful enough) so important that we should ignore everything else? Heck, some games are even better because they *don't* try for realism. Psychonauts anyone? Or even Darwinia? Team Fortress 2 is going for a more cartoony and stylistic presentation, and it looks pretty damn entertaining.
The point is, ignoring most other areas and focusing on graphics is becoming a dead end for a lot of people. What games is the biggest money maker right now? World of WarCraft! A game that will play exceptionally well on anything the level of X800 Pro/GeForce 6800 GT or faster. There are 7 million people paying $15 per month that have basically said that compelling multiplayer environments are more important to them than graphics. Reply
msva124 - Thursday, November 09, 2006 - linkFine. You win. Reply
JarredWalton - Thursday, November 09, 2006 - linkSorry if I was a bit too argumentative. Basically, the initial statement is still *Valve's* analysis. You can choose to agree or disagree, but I think it's pretty easy to agree that in general there are certainly other things that can be done besides just improving graphics. I don't think Valve intends to *not* improve graphics, though; just that it's not the only thing they need to worry about. Until we get next-gen games that make use of quad cores, though, the jury is out on whether or not "new gameplay" is going to be as compelling as better visuals.
Jarred Reply
cryptonomicon - Wednesday, November 08, 2006 - linkhttp://images.anandtech.com/reviews/tradeshows/200...">http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/tra...2006/val...
So, what are those steel or aluminum models at the end? Are they the real world references for the Team fortress source weapon models? :D Reply
yyrkoon - Wednesday, November 08, 2006 - link
We will take a look at how CPU cache and memory bandwidth affects performance in the future, but at present it pretty clear that Core 2 once again holds a commanding performance lead over AMD's Athlon 64/X2 processors.
I'm pretty sure 'it' in this sentence should be "it's", or "it is" (sorry, but it was bad enough to stop me when reading, thinking I mis-read the sentance somehow).
Good article, and it will be interresting to see who follows suite, and when. Hopefully this will become the latest fad in programming, and has me wanting to code my own services here at home for encoding video, or anything that takes more than a few minutes ;) Reply
yyrkoon - Wednesday, November 08, 2006 - linkmeh, sorry, that 'typo' is on the second to the last page, I guess about half way down :/
Nighteye2 - Wednesday, November 08, 2006 - linkOk, so that's how Valve will implement multi-threading. But what about other companies, like Epic? How does the latest Unreal Engine multi-thread?
Justin Case - Wednesday, November 08, 2006 - linkWhy aren't any high-end AMD CPUs tested? You're testing 2GHz AMD CPUs against 2.6+ GHz Intel CPUs. Doesn't Anandtech have access to faster AMD chips? I know the point of the article is to compare single- and multi-core CPUs, but it seems a bit odd that all the Intel CPUs are top-of-the-line while all AMD CPUs are low end. Reply
JarredWalton - Wednesday, November 08, 2006 - linkAnandTech? Yes. Jarred? Not right now. I have a 5000+ AM2, but you can see that performance scaling doesn't change the situation. 1MB AMD chips do perform better than 512K versions, almost equaling a full CPU bin - 2.2GHz Opteron on 939 was nearly equal to the 2.4GHz 3800+ (both OC'ed). A 2.8 GHz FX-62 still isn't going to equal any of the upper Core 2 Duo chips. Reply
archcommus - Tuesday, November 07, 2006 - linkIt must be a really great feeling for Valve knowing they have the capacity and capability to deliver this new engine to EVERY customer and player of their games as soon as it's ready. What a massive and ugly patch that would be for virtually any other developer.
Don't really see how you could hate on Steam nowadays considering things like that. It's really powerful and works really well. Reply
Zanfib - Tuesday, November 07, 2006 - linkWhile I design software (so not so much programming as GUI design and whatnot), I can remember my University courses dealing with threading, and all the pain threading can bring.
I predicted (though I'm sure many could say this and I have no public proof) that Valve would be one of the first to do such work, they are a very forward thinking company with large resources (like Google--they want to work on ANYthing, they can...), a great deal of experience and, (as noted in the article) the content delivery system to support it all.
Great article about a great subject, goes a long way to putting to rest some of the fears myself and others have about just how well multi-core chips will be used (with the exception of Cell, but after reading a lot about Cell's hardware I think it will always be an insanely difficult chip to code for). Reply
Bonesdad - Tuesday, November 07, 2006 - linkmmmmmmmmm, chicken and mashed potatoes.... Reply
Aquila76 - Tuesday, November 07, 2006 - linkJarred, I wanted to thank you for explaining in terms simple enough for my extremely non-technical wife to understand why I just bought a dual-core CPU! That was a great progression on it as well, going through the various multi-threading techniques. I am saving that for future reference. Reply
archcommus - Tuesday, November 07, 2006 - linkAnother excellent article, I am extremely pleased with the depth your articles provide, and somehow, every time I come up with questions while reading, you always seem to answer exactly what I was thinking! It's great to see you can write on a technical level but still think like a common reader so you know how to appeal to them.
With regards to Valve, well, I knew they were the best since Half-Life 1 and it still appears to be so. I remember back in the days when we weren't even sure if Half-Life 2 was being developed. Fast forward a few years and Valve is once again revolutionizing the industry. I'm glad HL2 was so popular as to give them the monetary resources to do this kind of development.
Right now I'm still sitting on a single core system with XP Pro and have lots of questions bustling in my head. What will be the sweet spot for Episode 2? Will a quad core really offer substantially better features than a dual core, or a dual core over a single core? Will Episode 2 be fully DX10, and will we need DX10 compliant hardware and Vista by its release? Will the rollout of the multithreaded Source engine affect the performance I already see in HL2 and Episode 1? Will Valve actually end up distributing different versions of the game based on your hardware? I thought that would not be necessary due to the fact that their engine is specifically designed to work for ANY number of cores, so that takes care of that automatically. Will having one core versus four make big graphical differences or only differences in AI and physics?
Like you said yourself, more questions than answers at this point! Reply
archcommus - Tuesday, November 07, 2006 - linkOne last question I forgot to put in. Say it was somehow possible to build a 10 or 15 GHz single core CPU with reasonable heat output. Would this be better than the multi-core direction we are moving towards today? In other words, are we only moving to mult-core because we CAN'T increase clock speeds further, or is this the preferred direction even if we could. Reply
saratoga - Tuesday, November 07, 2006 - linkYou got it.
A higher clock speed processor would be better, assuming performance scaled well enough anyway. Parallel hardware is less general then serial hardware at increasing performance because it requires parallelism to be present in the workload. If the work is highly serial, then adding parallelism to the hardware does nothing at all. Conversely, even if the workload is highly parallel, doubling serial performance still doubles performance. Doubleing the width of a unit could double the performance of that unit for certain workloads, while doing nothing at all for others. In general, if you can accelerate the entire system equally, doubling serial performance will always double program speed, regardless of the program.
Thats the theory anyway. Practice says you can only make certain parts faster. So you might get away with doubling clock speed, but probably not halving memory latency, so your serial performance doesn't scale like you'd hope. Not to mention increasing serial performance is extremely expensive compared to parallel performance. But if it were possible, no one would ever bother with parallelism. Its a huge pain in the ass from a software perspective, and its becoming big now mostly because we're starting to run out of tricks to increase serial performance. Reply
JarredWalton - Tuesday, November 07, 2006 - linkWhat's with the octal posting? Too many CPU cores running? ;)
I deleted the other 7 identical posts for you. Careful with that Post Comment button! Reply
saratoga - Tuesday, November 07, 2006 - linkServer kept timing out when I hit post, so I assumed it wasn't committing :) Reply
exdeath - Tuesday, November 07, 2006 - linkYou can see my recent comments on this topic here:
In my experience relying on atomic CPU swap operations isn't enough as it only works with a single value (32 bit word for example).
While you lock and swap a 32 bit Y value, someone else has just finished reading the newly written X value but beat you to the lock to read the old Y value before you've updated. Clearly whole data structures need to be coherent, not just small atomic values.
Also it's unusual to modify objects observable states mid frame. Even if you avoided the above example so that the X,Y pair was always updated together, you'd still have different objects interpreting the position as a whole of that object in different places at different times. State data must be held constant to all observers throughout the context of a single frame.
exdeath - Tuesday, November 07, 2006 - linkEven if you avoided the above example so that the X,Y pair was always updated together, you'd still have different objects interpreting the position as a whole of that object in different places at different times in the same frame. Reply
JarredWalton - Tuesday, November 07, 2006 - linkI'm assuming your comment is in regards to the PS3/Cell comments on the last page? It's sort of sounds like you're arguing about the way Valve has chosen to go about doing things, or that you disagree with some of the opinions they've expressed concerning other hardware. We have only tried to provide a very high-level overview of what Valve is doing, and we hardly touched the low-level details -- Valve didn't spend a lot of time on specific implementation issues either. All they did was provide us with some information about what they are doing, and a bit of opinion on what they think of the rest of the hardware options.
Preventing anything else from doing write operations to the world state during an entire frame in order to keep things coherent is a big problem with multithreading. Apparently Valve has found a way around that, or at least found a way to do it more efficiently, using lock free and wait free algorithms. No, I can't honestly say I really understand what those algorithms do, but if they say it worked better for their code base I'm willing to trust them.
As far as the PS3/Cell processor goes, Valve did say that they have various thoughts on how to properly utilize the architecture. It is simply going to be more difficult to do relative to Xbox 360 and PC. It's not impossible, and companies are definitely going to tackle this problem. As far as how they tackle it, I'm more than a bit rusty on my coding background, and other than high-level details I'm not too concerned how they improve their multithreading code on any specific platform, just that they do it. Reply
exdeath - Tuesday, November 07, 2006 - linkThe other issue is OS support.
Compiler add-on's or third party APIs can only serve to hide the details or make things look cleaner. But no matter what, the final barrier between the application and the OS are the API calls provided by the OS threading model. Thus no third party implementation can be better than the OS thread model itself in terms of performance and overhead. All those can do is make it easier to use at the top by handling the OS details.
I imagine threading APIs on popular OSes will start to evolve, just like graphics APIs have, once everyone gets on the multi-core bandwagon and starts to get a feel for what's available in the OS APIs and what they'd rather have. So far, Vista's thread pool API looks good, but I still don't see an API to determine such basic things as checking if the work queue is empty and all threads are idle, etc.
Currently I find it's easier to implement my own thread pool manager which does atomic increments and decrements on a 'task count' variable as tasks are entered or completed in the queue. Checking if all tasks are done involves testing that task count against 0 and signaling an event flag that wakes any management threads sleeping until all its work tasks to complete. It also allows for more flexibility in 'before and after' housekeeping as work threads move from task to task and that kind of control isn't offered in the XP's built in thread pool API, nor Vista's as far as I can tell.
exdeath - Tuesday, November 07, 2006 - linkNot arguing their methods, a lot of things in this article are in line with my own opinions on multithreading, pretty much the best way to got about it. I'm just pointing out that atomic lock/swap operations in hardware are very primitive and typically operate only on CPU word size values, not entire data structures. Thus it's possible between doing two atomic operations on two variables on one core, another core can get an old version of one variable and a new version of another.
core1: compute X
core2: ...
core1: lock/write x
core2: read x, get newly written version
core1: compute Y
core2: read Y, get old y before the update
core1: lock/write Y
core2: ...
The task on core2 is working with inconsistent data, the new X and the old Y. If the task on core2 only uses the data as input, i.e.: AI tracking another AI entity, it has the wrong position, and won't know about it since it has no need to perform its own lock/write (so it never gets the exception that says the value changed). Even if it did, it would have to throw out all work and redo it with the new Y, and then it could possibly change again.
Looping and retrying seems wasteful. And I'm thinking the only way to catch such a hardware error on a failed lock/write update is via exceptions, and handling a thrown exception on an attempt to write a single 32 bit value is very wasteful of CPU cycles.
In my own research I have had excellent results with double buffering any modified data. Each threaded task only updates its hidden internal working state for frame n+1 while all reads to the object are read from its external current state for frame n. At the end of the frame when all parallel tasks have completed, the current/working states are swapped, and the work queue is filled again to start the next frame.
This ensures that throughout the entire computation of frame n+1, the current frame n state will be available to all threads, and guaranteed to not be modified through the duration of current frame. So basically all threads can read anything they want and modify their own data. On PC/360 the time to swap everything is basically nothing; you just swap a few pointers, or a single pointer to an array/structure of current/working data for the frame.
On the PS3 some data copying and moving will be required, but this is mandatory due to design anyway and assisted by an extremely smart and powerful DMAC.
One place to be critical about is message passing between objects since it requires posting (writing) data to be picked up by another object. But the time to lock/post/unlock a queue is negligible compared to the time it takes to process the results leading up to the creation of the message. This is similar to the D3D notion of doing as much as you can before you lock and only do the minimal work needed inside the lock and unlock as quickly as possible.
GhandiInstinct - Tuesday, November 07, 2006 - linkJarred Walton,
My question: Will Valve's games in 2007 be released with specificaitons such as: "For minimum requirements you need a dual-core cpu, for maximum results you need a quad-core" or anything to that nature? Because I seem to be confused in what Valve is working on dual or quad or both or neither or something different, and what I should get to best utilize their games and multi-core software in general.
Thanks. Reply
JarredWalton - Tuesday, November 07, 2006 - linkEpisode Two should come out sometime in 2007, and before that happens you will get the multithreading patch affecting previous Source engine titles. Right now, it doesn't sound like anything released in the next year or so from valve is going to require dual cores. That's what I was trying to get out on the conclusion page where I mentioned that they are targeting an "equivalent experience" regardless of what sort of processor you are running.
So just like you could turn down the level of detail in Half-Life 2 and run it on DX8 or even DX7 hardware, Source engine should be able to accommodate single core processors all the way up through N-core processors. The engine will spawn as many threads as you have processor cores, with one main thread serving as the controller and N - 1 helper threads. Xbox 360 for example would have 5 helper threads plus the master thread, because it has three course each capable of executing to threads simultaneously. Reply
Patrese - Tuesday, November 07, 2006 - linkGreat article, good to see dual-quad cores being used for something in games. By the way, the kitchen examples made me hungry... :) Reply
primer - Tuesday, November 07, 2006 - linkit's a nice article. i'm anxious to see what develops out of Valve in the near future.
how about using some Athlon FX, Opteron 100/1200 series or higher speed Athlon X2s for crying out loud. i know that here is a performance gap even with the higher AMD models currently, but please show us an attempt at not being as one-sided. Reply
jm20 - Tuesday, November 07, 2006 - linkThe tests at 2.0 and 2.4 Ghz for the AMD chips are there, you can plot how it 'should' improve. Here are my scaling projections based on the data given for the 939 platform.
AMD Speed single dual
2.0 14.0 27.0
2.2 15.5 29.5
2.4 17.0 32.0
2.6 18.8 35.0
2.8 20.8 38.2
3.0 23.1 41.7
I just hope this will show up correctly :/
Very interesting article, I'm very excited to see an almost linear improvement from single to dual core. Reply
yacoub - Tuesday, November 07, 2006 - linkYour Tested Systems details on page 8 - the last three show a CPU of a Venice 3200+ oc'd to 2.4GHz (hey that's what I run too!), but the headings suggest they should really show Intel chips. :) Reply
yacoub - Tuesday, November 07, 2006 - link
If you think about the way people move through the real world, they are constantly bumping into other objects or touching other objects and people. While this would be largely a visual effect, ... Two characters running past each other could even bump and react realistically, with arms and bodies being nudged to the side instead of mysteriously gliding past each other.
Yes please make it only visual and not actually a part of the game, because much like trying too hard to make graphics look realistic, it really just adds more frustration for the player than anything else. It's already annoying in HL2 getting caught up on the edge of prop_physics related objects. The last thing we need is also getting caught or bumped by another player ;) Reply
JarredWalton - Tuesday, November 07, 2006 - linkIf the world is more interactive, there might not actually be a need for "prop physics" objects. There's also the potential to make a game with different gameplay mechanics depending on how the character interacts with the world. It sounds like initially Valve will make it a visual enhancement, to make entities look more lifelike in their behavior, but down the road others could potentially do more. Like most of the enhancements, what we want to see is how they can actually change and improve gameplay beyond just being visual. Reply
yacoub - Tuesday, November 07, 2006 - link"You're doing a disservice to the customer if you're not using all of the CPU power."
okay so that alone shows the need for dual-core so the customer can offload background tasks to a second core so the game can truly get 100% of a core. ;) Reply
timmiser - Tuesday, November 07, 2006 - linkBackground tasks?? I agree with Gabe that I want all of my CPU working the game. I'm sitting here with an Athlon X2 4800+ and I can't run Flight Sim X at an acceptable frame rate all the while I watch the graph that shows CPU#2 at idle while CPU#1 tries to run the entire program by itself!
On another note, how about Microsoft develope some type of new API (DirecThread?) that automatically takes care of utilizing multiple cores so that game companies like Valve don't have to employ entire multi-threaded R&D divisions just so their games use both cores.
It seems like we are going back to the caveman days before DirectInput, DirectSound, & DirectX etc. Remember when you had to choose your sound card, joystick, and video card from a list within the game?? Let's not go there again!!
-Tim Reply
JarredWalton - Tuesday, November 07, 2006 - linkThat was a direct quote from... Gabe I think. Others might disagree, but I thought it was an interesting take on things. As for background tasks, they usually only need a bit of CPU time (less than 5% in most cases), so unless you really want to encode videos and play games at the same time.... Reply
yacoub - Tuesday, November 07, 2006 - linkWhat a worthless attempt at sarcasm:
Valve is one of the most respected gaming software companies around, with a little gaming property called Half-Life that you may have heard of.
Why not just say something normal like:
As developer of the Half-Life games, Valve is one of the most respected gaming software companies around.
It's not omg-witty, but at least that sentence doesn't end with a preposition. @___@
JarredWalton - Tuesday, November 07, 2006 - linkWhich obviously ruined the whole article. Seriously yacoub, a little tact with posting would be nice. Rather than stating:
What a worthless attempt at sarcasm:
You could have just said something normal like:
The sarcasm was a bit flat, and you ended with a preposition.
We are real people, and derogatory adjectives like "worthless" tend to irritate more than help. You may not intend it that way, but imagine for a second someone talking about what you worked on for a couple days last week and describing it as "absolute garbage". The key word in "constructive criticism" is to actually make it constructive.
Now, thanks for the suggestion, and I'm more than happy to change things a bit to appeas people. Like most people, I just appreciate a bit more consideration, even if I'm just doing my job here. :) As the old cliche goes, you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. (Well, my grandpa used to say that anyway.) Reply
yacoub - Wednesday, November 08, 2006 - linksorry about that. got a little too excited. Reply
Ruark - Tuesday, November 07, 2006 - linkPage 6: ". . . everything crawls to a slow." Reply
duploxxx - Tuesday, November 07, 2006 - linkpage 8 test setup, clear a cut/paste job... all of the cpu's are the same Athlon.
put an allendale in the benchmark, lot's of people want to see how cache related this multithread sw is.
Valve talks about 64-bit... tests are 32bit? Since some competitors are talking about 64-bit code in there gaming also, should be interesting to see what the difference is vs 32bit. Reply
JarredWalton - Tuesday, November 07, 2006 - linkSorry 'bout that - I've fixed the CPU line. All systems were tested at stock and 20% OC. The problem with Allendale is that it has different stock clock speeds, so you're not just comparing different CPU speeds (unless you use a lower multiplier on Conroe). Anyway, this is a first look, and the next CPU article should have additional benches.
The tests are all 32-bit. This is not full Episode 2 code, and most people are waiting for Vista to switch to running 64-bit anyway. All we know is that Episode 2 will support 64-bits natively, but we weren't given any information on how it will perform in such an environment yet. Reply
brshoemak - Tuesday, November 07, 2006 - linkNice to know where things are headed. Great article.
Jarred, 2nd page, 2nd paragraph
place it into a pan and start beating the oven
should be 'heating the oven' - although quite funny as is, you may want to keep it ;) Reply
JarredWalton - Tuesday, November 07, 2006 - linkDarn speech recognition. And "b" and "h" looked close enough that I missed it. Heh. No ovens were harmed in the making of this article. Reply
MrJim - Tuesday, November 07, 2006 - linkThis was a very interesting article to read, the future looks bright for us with multi-core systems and Valve games. Excellent work Mr Walton! Reply
timmiser - Tuesday, November 07, 2006 - linkShoot, I didn't make it past the dinner description. Got too hungry!
George Powell - Tuesday, November 07, 2006 - linkI quite agree. Top notch article there. It is great to see how Valve are committed to giving us the best gaming experience. Reply
Regs - Tuesday, November 07, 2006 - linkThe future looks bright for people willing to buy valve and multi-core CPUs!! Reply
Regs - Tuesday, November 07, 2006 - linkAnd I hope Valve pulls it off too. Didn't mean nothing with the above post. Reply
puffpio - Tuesday, November 07, 2006 - linkIs it just me, or does the pic of Tom Leonard showcase a huge underarm sweat stain? :P Reply
peldor - Tuesday, November 07, 2006 - linkTom's pic makes it looks like he's been fighting with multithreading and losing.
Badly. Reply
PeteRoy - Thursday, November 09, 2006 - linkI loved your comment. Reply
JarredWalton - Tuesday, November 07, 2006 - linkIt was taken after about two hours in the conference room. Sorry Tom! :) Reply


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Documents of Conflict
Images of war are among the most emotionally powerful documentary photographs. They bear witness to conflict and destruction. They provide proof of crucial historical moments and events. They allow us as viewers to visually see war without being there. And, they have the ability to move us to action.
Funding for this project was provided by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and a donation from PhotoWings.


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GRAB your partner by the hand and head on down to In Line We Dance.
The line dancing lessons and social events group meets at Edington village hall, near Bridgwater with
beginner and intermediate level classes held every Wednesday from 2.30pm to 4.30pm.
Classes include a tea/coffee break and sessions cost £4 each.
For more information about the group visit www.inlinewedance.co.uk


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I would never fancy myself to be Larry King or anything, but in college I always enjoyed reading his columns in USA Today.
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The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) seeks to establish a cooperative agreement with a collection agent to field the 2014 Census of Publicly Funded Forensic Crime Laboratories (CPFFCL14). The key activities covered under this award include updating the national census roster of publicly funded crime labs, developing the data collection instrument (i.e., questionnaire), collecting and verifying the data submitted by labs, and delivering to BJS a final data file.
See the full announcement.
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This site is supported by Grant/ Cooperative Agreement No. 1UF2CE002359-04 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.


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An inquiry has opened into allegations that nurses at a £54,000-a-year special school failed to properly administer drugs to its pupils.
Carol Ducasse and Greer Ramsammy-Westmass are accused of a catalogue of misdemeanours during their time working at Rutherford School in South Croydon.
These include failing to ensure paracetamol was given to a pupil as prescribed and failing to ensure drug administration records were signed.
The allegations sparked an emergency inspection of the Melville Road independent school, which teaches children with multiple and profound learning difficulties and complex medical needs.
Ms Ramsammy-Westmaas, a senior nurse at the school, and Ms Ducasse, a school nurse, will separately go before a Nursing and Midwifery Council over the next two weeks accused of misconduct.
Ms Ramsammy-Westmaas, faces seven allegations relating to children in her care.
Among the charges are failing to keep a proper record of medication given to five children, failing to indicate drugs had been administered and incorrectly recording that they had on others.
Ms Ducasse, whose hearing began last week, faces six charges including claims she failed to record that medication had been given to children and retrospectively amended records so it appeared they were up-to-date.
The panel will consider whether the nurses committed misconduct and, if so, whether their fitness to practice has been impaired.


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The Loughton and District Historical Society was formed 50 years ago this year and to mark the anniversary it has collected 150 pictures from its archive which show how some things have changed and some things have stayed the same in the town.
The book, A Century and a Half of Loughton in Pictures, includes photographs from an era when the camera was first coming into popular use and shots from the image-saturated present.
The oldest known photograph dates back to around 1877, when photographic technology was only just becoming widely available.
It features a row of buildings opposite Loughton's first railway station, now the site of Lopping Hall, in 1877.
The buildings still stand, but are now no longer the Holly Bush and Royal Standard pubs featured.
Dr Chris Pond, chair of the society, explains: "At the time of the earliest photographs Loughton was obviously a village.
"But when the camera came into popular use, Loughton was becoming a commuter village.
"People used to take the train and travel to London and then later on it became more urbanised."
Some of the pictures feature former landmarks such as the police station in High Road, which was demolished in 1964.
Dr Pond added: "Looking at the pictures you can learn that most things are always changing."
"Some things have remarkably stayed the same, but the book does chart the changes in the town remarkably well."
"I think people are just keen to see what their area looked like before they were born.
"If you think about the popularity of shows such as Who Do You Think You Are?, it isn't surprising that people are interested in what places looked like hundreds of years before they were born."
"If people who didn't know Loughton looked at this book they would get the impression that although near London, Loughton has got a life of its own. It is where people work in London, but value its proximity to the forest and the open countryside – something which hasn't changed over the last hundred years."
The book is available from Forest Villa in Staples Road, Loughton, and costs £12.50.


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"Here's a win-win," says T-Bob Taylor, a Louisiana native now living in Florida. "Here's how we can help both states."
He explains, "Florida needs gator trappers. Seriously.
"The Florida Wildlife Commission's Panama City office has put out the word they need at least one trapper."
Seems alligators are encroaching on human territory, and plans are to dispatch trappers to remove gators that became a nuisance or a danger to residents.
T-Bob hopes Louisiana trappers respond. He says you can tell our trappers because they start the hunt by making a roux.
'Cats Are Supermodels'
That's the title of a funny little book about our furry friends by Stu Bykofsky, columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News and a reluctant cat person.
Stu tells how he acquired Ashes, a black male kitten, from the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals to please a girlfriend, and wound up with the former but not the latter.
I've known Stu a long time, and never figured him for a warm and fuzzy guy.
This book proves he's not …
He says, "Cats are like high-fashion supermodels — beautiful, sleek, vain, self-centered, moody, usually sleepy, always hungry, but rarely willing to eat what's put before them."
He tells women who own cats, "Unlike a dog, which exists to defend and befriend its mistress, a cat … has no such ambitions … Protecting anything but itself is a concept as foreign to a cat as the Higgs boson particle. You've heard of service dogs. Have you ever heard of service cats? Case closed."
He adds, "If the underlying question is why a woman would want to live with an animal that is self-centered, uncommunicative, lethargic, forgetful and motivated only by treats, the answer is self-evident.
"She is training to live with a man."
Since Stu bought MY book, I suppose I should tell you how to get HIS book:
Send $12 to Stu-niversity Press, Suite 2804, 1326 Spruce St., Philadelphia, PA 19107.
Fans sound off
Our mention of pet peeves by football fans watching on TV brought this response from John Bliss Camp:
"The most overused phrase is when a pass receiver drops a pass, or the quarterback overthrows an open man. 'He's got to make that play.'"
And Algie Petrere tells of this broadcasting peeve:
"At college games, they used to show the bands at halftime.
"The bands work just as hard as the football team getting ready for the game, and yet they show them for one or two minutes.
"The rest of the time they're showing us what we just watched.
"Why can't they show the bands, and they would still have time to show the major highlights. (Can you tell I had children in the band?)"
Cookie season
What a great time of year for food: crawfish, king cakes — and Girl Scout cookies:
On Friday, orders can be taken for eight varieties of cookies: Thin Mints, Samoas, Trefoils, Tagalongs, Do-Si-Dos, Dulce de Leche, Thank You Berry Munch and Savannah Smiles, at $4 per box.
They'll be sold in booths around south Louisiana March 1-17. You can find locations and times online through the Cookie Locator mobile app from the iTunes store.
For more information, call (225) 927-8946 or visit http://www.gsle.org.
Aroma therapy
Robby Zeringue continues our discussion of Baton Rouge's Greatest Smells:
"In my early career working at Gulf States Utilities on Choctaw Drive, I would ride my bicycle to work on pretty days.
"I can still smell the aromas that permeated the air every morning.
"As soon as I would pass Plank Road, the Cherry's Potato Chip factory would take hold of my senses.
"As soon as it was behind me, I could start smelling the Morning Treat Coffee plant roasting beans.
"And as I turned into our parking lot, the Holsum Bread bakery would almost knock me over with the wonderful scent of fresh baked bread.
"I looked forward to lunch for the rest of the morning."
Special People Dept.
- Lawrence Messina celebrated a memorable event Sunday — his 105th birthday.
- Charles and Audrey Daigle, of Paincourtville, celebrated their 60th anniversary Thursday.
Mistaken identity
Dr. George S. Bourgeois, of Opelousas, says, "A couple of days ago Jeanette came home with this huge bottle of Tabasco.
"I said, 'Lord, darling, we'll have enough Tabasco to last us the rest of our lives, and then some to pass on to our children and grandchildren.
"She then informed me that it was Bloody Mary mix."
Idle hands
Carl Spillman imagines this exchange:
"The federal government must stop handing out money to people who refuse to do meaningful work!"
"But, Senator, wouldn't that eliminate senatorial and congressional salaries?"
Write Smiley at email@example.com. He can also be reached by fax at (225) 388-0351 or mail at P.O. Box 588, Baton Rouge, LA 70821.


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Washington's 4-year program of transportation projects ready for review
OLYMPIA – It doesn't take a crystal ball to see what future transportation improvement projects are in store for communities across the state. Find out by checking Washington's final draft of the 2013-2016 Statewide Transportation Improvement Program (STIP).
The draft STIP, a listing of federally funded projects, as well as regionally significant state and local transportation projects, is now available online for review and comment.
The Washington State Department of Transportation's public comment period for the STIP is Wednesday, Nov. 21, to Thursday, Dec. 20. WSDOT developed the project list in coordination with statewide metropolitan and rural transportation planning organizations to ensure that the projects are consistent with local, regional and state plans. The comment period is the final step of a public process that started at the local level. Any comments received will be sent to the local planning organization for their consideration.
More than 1,000 statewide transportation improvement projects utilizing $2 billion in federal funds are included in the 2013-16 STIP. Improvement projects include pavement overlays, roadway widening, bridge replacement or repair, signal systems, safety enhancements, bicycle and pedestrian facilities, and transit facilities.
Projects included in the STIP are funded by a combination of federal, state and local sources. Federal-aid projects must be included in the STIP before Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) or Federal Transit Administration (FTA) can authorize the expenditure of federal funds.
A new four-year STIP is created every year, and several projects may carry over as they move from design, to permitting and finally, to construction. The current 2012-15 STIP can be viewed online and a similar, searchable database of the 2013-16 STIP will be created in early 2013, following FHWA and FTA approval.
Written comments can be sent to: Stephanie Tax, WSDOT, P.O. Box 47390, Olympia, WA 98504-7390, email: [email protected], or by fax at 360-705-6822.


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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 19/9/2013 (1433 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
BRISBANE -- Take a motoring enthusiast, a footballer known as "the brick with eyes'' and a billionaire man who wants to rebuild the Titantic and you have the makings of an interesting Australian barbecue.
Put them in the national Senate and you might have a problem.
It's one Australia will have to deal with shortly after the federal election held on Sept. 7 produced one of the most fascinating results for the upper house ever seen in this country.
Micro-parties, which included people who wanted to put Coke in school water fountains and build bullet trains, found themselves elevated to the plush red leather seats of the house of review.
The Motoring Enthusiasts Party and the Australian Sports Party were two of the standouts who will field a candidate representing what could only be described as "boutique interests" on the federal political landscape.
Wayne Dropulich, for example, is a gridiron playing engineer whose Australian Sports Party appears to have no policies other than advocating more sport in an already sports-obsessed nation.
With just 0.22 per cent of the vote, Dropulich managed to elbow aside the candidate from the century-old Australian Labor Party, which won more than 12 per cent of the vote.
One of the nation's most respected election analysts, Anthony Green, who has presided over numerous election nights on the national broadcaster the ABC, calls the victories historic, not merely for Australia, but for "world electoral history.''
The strange results are a direct manifestation of Australia's preferential-voting system, in which voters mark their first, second, third, etc. preferences. In the event the first preference fails to win a clear majority, 10 second preferences are tallied and so on until a clear winner emerges. It can -- and just did -- happen that a candidate for a fringe party can muster more "lesser" preferences than a candidate for an established party and win election despite having very little "first-preference" support.
So it is possible, as Green points out, that the Motoring Enthusiasts candidate Ricky Muir managed to turn .05 per cent of the votes into 14.3 per cent by harvesting the preferences from an astonishing 25 parties.
More alarmingly, both the sports and motoring parties managed to secure the preferences of both Family First (a socially conservative party) and the Australian Sex Party (a party which, as the names suggests, has a more libertine view).
Billionaire Clive Palmer, who himself has possibly won a lower house seat (counting still continues two weeks after the election) has secured one of his Palmer United Party candidates in the Senate in the form of Glenn Lazarus, a footballer formally known affectionately across the nation as "the brick with eyes.''
The amiable Lazarus freely acknowledges he will have to take lessons on the business of governing from Palmer, a colourful political operative and mining billionaire who has a range of interests including airships and rebuilding the Titanic.
Australia's reaction to the rise of the micros has been mixed with some suggesting the upper house has been turned into "a barnyard" while others marvel at the wonders of the democratic process.
Ron Boswell, an aging Queensland Conservative Senator who retires next year, is unapologetically appalled.
It's not that micro-parties should be denied their democratic right to representation, he says. It's that the democratic process is clearly being subverted when ordinary Australians vote for one political view, and watch their vote seep across the political divide in the preference process to land in a party with a contradictory view.
Canada appears to be pondering the pros and cons of the preference system supporters insist is the more sophisticated way of dealing with democratic elections.
It might well be, but there is wisdom in that ancient maxim:
"Be careful what you wish for.''
Michael Madigan is the Free Press correspondent in Australia. He writes mostly about politics for the Brisbane-based Courier Mail.


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Nixon The Sky Blue and Off White Answer Watch
This watch makes me think of Peeps and Smurfs, and Play-Doh. (Use code SRTN for a 20% discount.)
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Forums: Index > The Wizengamot > JKR's page - outdated
JKR's page - outdated
It's clearly visible that J.K. Rowling's article is directly copied from Wikipedia (what denotes {{Wikipedia}} template), but yet is incomprehensible, because of long period of time in which nothing was updated. Can somebody do this with that article to make it congruous with nowadays situation?
PS. While copying exact Wikipedia text we could use its references as well. -- Colin Fletcher 18:35, April 15, 2012 (UTC)


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Was your baby born prematurely (before 37 weeks of pregnancy)? Did you breastfeed your baby? Did you receive extra help or support to do this (perhaps from special care nurses or a lactation consultant)? We would love to hear about your experiences with this.
Breastmilk is the best milk for all babies and this is especially the case with premature babies. In fact, the breastmilk produced by the mums of premature babies is different to the breastmilk produced for full-term babies (i.e. babies born from 37 weeks of pregnancy). Breastmilk produced before 37 weeks gestation is higher in calorie content and contains the fats that the baby would have been receiving from the placenta in the last weeks of pregnancy. This breastmilk also contains enzymes which help to develop a premature baby's stomach. This is alongside all the usual breastmilk advantages such as increased immunity to illnesses (which is particularly important for premature babies) and wonderful bonding times between mum and baby.
If you and your baby can, it is best if you can breastfeed your premature baby directly at the breast. This can help with bonding and the extra skin to skin contact helps to relax your baby.
However, some premature babies will not be able to drink directly from the breast at first. This may be because of special equipment needed to support them or it may be because they are born too early to suck well. Babies generally begin sucking well from 34-36 weeks. Before this time babies can be given expressed breastmilk through a special feeding tube.
Please be encouraged if you have a premature baby. You can still give your baby expressed breastmilk if they cannot be fed directly at the breast and many, many women who have a premature baby successfully breastfeed. It is wise to get all the extra support and help you can from professionals such as; special care nurses, lactation consultants, specially trained breastfeeding midwives and breastfeeding peer support workers.
If you are expressing your breastmilk for your premature baby then (unless they are drinking directly from the breast) it is best to start pumping as soon as possible following the birth. A hospital grade pump is best in these circumstances and a double pump is best so that you can express from both breasts at once. You should aim to pump at least every 2-3 hours (in the day and night) and for at least 15-20 minutes at each session. If you can, pumping in view of your baby can help with your letdown. These early days are vital with breastmilk expressing as in the first 2 weeks your body is setting up the breastmilk amount for the first 6 months of life.
Most mums of premature babies find it beneficial to keep a expressing diary in order to keep track of how often and how long you have expressed for. You also need to carefully label your breastmilk with the date and ideally time it was expressed. The first milk (colostrum) will be fed to your baby first.
Breastmilk is the best milk for your baby to have. There are immense advantages to a premature baby having breastmilk and you should be fully supported to do this.
Please do share your premature baby breastfeeding stories and experiences here.
We wish you all the best with breastfeeding your baby.


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Ben Roethlisberger and Eli Manning are inextricably linked. Taken 11 picks apart in the 2004 NFL draft, the two quarterbacks have spent the last dozen years watching each other from afar, using the other's success as a measuring stick of their own accomplishments.
The resumes are nearly identical. Two Super Bowl victories. Four Pro Bowls apiece. A steady ascension into the upper stratosphere of the NFL record books. Both are already in the top 10 in career touchdown passes, with Roethlisberger on the cusp of joining Manning in the top 10 in all-time yards passing.
Just don't call it a rivalry.
When they take the same field for just the fourth time as professionals on Sunday when Manning and the streaking New York Giants (8-3) visit Roethlisberger and the Pittsburgh Steelers (6-5), the focus will be on keeping pace in a frenetic playoff race, not trying to match each other's stats.
"I don't know if there is any extra motivation," Roethlisberger said. "Just trying to win a football game against one of the best teams in football should be motivation enough."
In an alternate universe, Roethlisberger might have been the guy behind center wearing Big Blue.
For a few minutes during draft day in 2004, he thought he was heading to New York with the fourth overall pick. Instead, the Giants took Philip Rivers, then shipped Rivers to San Diego as part of a megadeal that sent Manning — the top overall pick — to New York. Roethlisberger, wearing a black pinstriped suit with a gold tie, heard his name called a little over an hour later when Pittsburgh used a first-round pick on a quarterback for just the fifth time in franchise history.
He doesn't spend a lot of time thinking about what might have been. Neither does Manning. That's for others.
"You always want your quarterback draft class to be well thought of and respected down the road," Manning said. "You hear about the '83 draft class and other certain years. You want to be thrown in that mix someday."
Just not yet. Both in their mid-30s and signed through the rest of the decade. Maybe they'll reunite at the Hall of Fame one day, though Roethlisberger stressed "hopefully that's a long way off."


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Serves 8-10.
*If preferred, substitute 2 tablespoons raspberry syrup from frozen raspberries for liqueur.
Preheat oven to 350°F. Spray pans with vegetable pan spray. Prepare cake mix following package directions; divide batter evenly between prepared pans. Bake 20-25 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan on wire rack 10 minutes; remove from pan and cool completely.
In small microwave-safe bowl, heat white chocolate, 1/4 cup cream and cream cheese on Medium-High for 1-1/2 to 2 minutes, stirring halfway during cooking time. Stir until chocolate and cream cheese is melted and mixture is smooth; cool. Whip 1/2 cup cream with 2 tablespoons confectioners´ sugar until soft peaks form; gently fold into cooled chocolate mixture. Fill cavities of cake layer with mixture; sprinkle with chocolate chips.
Invert top layer onto bottom layer; chill while preparing icing. In large bowl, whip remaining 1-1/2 cups cream, remaining 1/4 cup sugar, melted chocolate chips and instant coffee together on high speed with electric mixer until stiff peaks form. Ice cake. Garnish, if desired, with chocolate shavings and raspberries. Chill until ready to serve.


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Institute for Science, Law and Technology
Assessments of our Future
With exponential development of technologies such as genetic testing and nanotechnology, the need for professionals trained at the complex intersection of science and law is greater than ever. The insatiable expansion of technology across an intricately connected globe raises new questions of ethics and legality. The Institute for Science, Law & Technology, a not-for-profit, cross-disciplinary collaborative effort at the Illinois Institute of Technology, trains leaders and provides in-depth, thoroughly-researched answers to the toughest issues that arise at the edges of science and law.
CK Privacy
The CK Privacy program at IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law provides an opportunity for students, faculty members, policymakers and the public to assess the ways in which technologies present new challenges to privacy and data protection, as well as to develop technical and legal ways to better ensure privacy and improve data protection.
Social Network Constitution
How many things did you reveal about yourself online today? Your opinion of a colleague? Your credit card number? Your photos from last night? These activities are common, but where does the information we post-even on what seem to be the most private or friendly of forums-truly go? As many individuals have already learned the hard way, the same power of information sharing that can topple governments can also topple a person's career, marriage, finances, or even his or her future.
Institute for Science, Law and Technology Blog
Want to read about the latest intersection of the law with the latest advances of science and technology? Head over to the ISLAT Blog and discover subjects ranging from cryptography and privacy to genetics and bioethics.


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Dorotheum Online Auctions offer a fine selection of antique woven carpets, primarily including items of Persian, Caucasian, Middle Eastern, and Chinese provenance.
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Maybelline New York Products:The Colossal Volum' Express" Mascara
I was running through a drugstore during a recent vacation looking for a quick replacement mascara. (I forgot a couple items in my previous hotel room - woops!) Being so tired I wanted something that would make my eyes pop and not look overdone and a mess. I wouldn't claim this is my favourite mascara but it's a nice alternative for daily wear and it doesn't put a hole in my wallet. The patented MegaBrush and collagen formula actually do capture those little lashes at the corner that I usually miss, they create such volume without reapplication, and I have yet to see this stuff flake off which is important because I have "asian eyelashes" which are very short and not very thick. I rarely find a mascara that I like but I would definitely buy this again.


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There has been a lot of concern about the tainted milk scandal in China, and with each passing day, the scope of the scandal gets bigger. How did this happen, why was it covered up, and what needs to be done about it? My answer is simple: this is the kind of thing which happens […]Read More...
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From the Rangers:
Eastern Conference Quarterfinals – Game Four
Madison Square Garden, April 20, 2011
Team Notes:
– The Rangers were defeated by the Washington Capitals, 4-3, in double overtime tonight at Madison Square Garden, in Game Four of their Eastern Conference Quarterfinal match-up. The Capitals now lead the series 3-1.
– Tonight's contest was the ninth longest game in Rangers history, and the longest since their 2-1 win vs. Buffalo on April 29, 2007 in Game Three of their Conference Semifinal match-up (16:43 of the second overtime). It is the seventh time the Rangers and Capitals required overtime in the playoffs, and second of the series. New York is now 2-5 in those contests. Tonight's contest was the longest between the two teams, out-lasting the previous longest set in Game One of this series by 14:12 (78:24).
– New York is now 198-215-8 all-time in 421 playoff contests, including a 110-83-2 record at home, and are 15-18 in 33 postseason contests vs. Washington.
– Tonight was the first Game Four loss the Rangers suffered since April 29, 2006 (5-1 over the span). New York is now 39-29 all-time in Game Fours of playoff series.
– The Blueshirts tallied two goals in a seven-second span of the second period, at 13:40 and 13:47. The Rangers record for fastest two goals in a playoff game is six seconds, set by Rod Gilbert who tallied both goals at 9:32 and 9:38 of the second period at Chicago on April 11, 1968. The NHL record for fastest two goals in a playoff game is five seconds, by Detroit vs. Chicago on April 11, 1965.
– New York notched three goals in the second period. The last time the Rangers tallied three goals in a single period during the playoffs was in the second period on April 15, 2009, in Game One of their Quarterfinal match-up at Washington (4-3 win).
Player Notes:
– Brandon Dubinsky notched one goal and added an assist for his fourth career multi-point performance in the postseason. He has now tallied three points (two goals, one assist) in the last two games. He also led all forwards with a career-high, 33:17 of ice time. Entering tonight's contest, he led all NHL forwards in playoff ice time (24:21).
– Ruslan Fedotenko recorded two assists and was credited with a career-high, nine hits to capture second star honors. His assist at 13:40 of the second period was his first playoff point as a Ranger.
– Marian Gaborik tallied his first playoff goal as a Ranger at 13:40 of the second period, and has now registered a point in each of the last two games (one goal, one assist). He also registered four shots on goal and was credited with four hits in 28:21 of ice time.
– Henrik Lundqvist made 49 saves in net, and is now 1-3 with a 2.08 goals against average and a .922 save percentage in four playoff games. His 49 saves are a playoff career high. Lundqvist has now appeared in 30 consecutive games dating back to Feb. 11 at Atlanta, and has started in each of the Rangers' last 33 playoff contests.
– Artem Anisimov opened the game's scoring with his first career playoff goal/point at 5:24 of the second period. He also registered three shots on goal and three hits in 22:02 of ice time.
– Chris Drury recorded the primary assist on Anisimov's second period goal, and tied for the team-high with 11 faceoff wins. Drury has now tallied 89 points (47 goals, 42 assists) in 134 career playoff contests.
– Michael Sauer tallied his first career playoff point with an assist on Anisimov's goal at 5:24 of the second period, and was credited with four hits in a career-high, 32:32 of ice time.
– Dan Girardi led all skaters with nine blocked shots and a career-high, 39:45 of ice time. Entering tonight's contest, Girardi was tied for first in the NHL in playoff blocked shots (14), and ranked eighth in the league in ice time (26:10).
– Brian Boyle led all skaters with a career-high, 10 hits, registered a team-high, five shots on goal, and won 11 of 18 faceoffs (61%) in 29:51 of ice time. Entering tonight's contest, Boyle was tied for third in the NHL with 15 shots on goal in the playoffs.
– Marc Staal was credited with five blocked shots and logged 36:55 of ice time in the contest. He currently ranks second on the team with nine blocked shots and 29:19 of ice time per game in the playoffs.
– Brandon Prust was credited with seven hits and recorded four shots on goal in 24:23 of ice time. He currently leads the team with 21 hits in the postseason.
Post-Game Quotes:
– John Tortorella on coming back in the series…
"Losing an overtime game in the playoffs hurts all of the time but our team will bounce back. We can't look at the hill. We have to win the next game. We have to find a way to win one hockey game and we will see what happens from there."
– Henrik Lundqvist on the third period…
"We had a tough time getting pucks out and we paid for it. They are a good team. We talked about being very careful with the puck. They are a dangerous team that can make some plays. They were back in it."
– Chris Drury on the team…
"I think this team, all year, has shown that (we) are a gutsy group of guys. We don't give in. We will take it one day at a time, one game at a time and try to go to Washington and get a big win."


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VROOR wrote:The Standard Chinese Language does not have borrowings from dialects, it is the other way around. All native speakers of the chinese language speak the Standard Chinese Language with their own dialectal influences (be it vocabularies or pronunciation, or even both).
I don't really get the post.
Do you mean SCL = Putonghua, or written Baihua?
Just because it is "standard" does not mean that it does not borrow. If some words from other dialects become more and more popular, they become "standard".


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Petal Drops
1 Recommendation
vjammer's recommendation
Designed by the Quirky community in just 24 hours, Petal Drops is a flower-shaped funnel that fits on top of standard threaded water and soda bottles, providing users with the chance to easily and elegantly capture rain water and repurpose it for watering plants. Rainy days may not seem so bad anymore. - Made in the USA using a corn, tapioca, wheat, and potato based polypropylene bio-resin. - Contemporary design. - Fits most threaded-neck water and soda bottles. Hereâs how it works: 1. Attach your Petal Drop to a plastic bottle and set it outdoors. 2. Watch as it quickly funnels rainwater into the bottle. 3. Repurpose collected water.
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The windows mobile start beating android <snip>. Do you think the next era of mobile industry is windows mobile and mobile technology HTML 5 .?
Who knows? But the popularity of HTML 5 should not be thank to Windows Mobile or any windows phone OS... If we talk about HTML5 even if it is not an finished specification is thanks to Apple and their iPhones and iPads :lol:
Just to clarify. Windows Mobile is a dead platform. It is old, not being updated. Legacy. Windows Phone is what replaced Windows Mobile.
we cant predict the future... it all depends upon what we like and which platform has more transparency... personally i like the Android because i am much familar with the interface and the ease of use... windows i tried once but failed to do any activity as i am not much aware of how to operate Windows Mobile....
let us wait for the future and will come to know who is the ruler of the market...
No i don't think so what ever happens the android is the best
Why? Please support your statements with some facts, or explain why you think so. Otherwise the discussion will soon turn into a list of 'I think' replies.
Yes, Nokia had lost the market due to samsung android. But since they launched lumia windows version they are making market again day by day.
Yup you are right Nokia is again capturing its marketing from Lumia Series...!! these Phones are Good Looking and Best in performance!!


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Special Offer for Philly.com Readers / Get The Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News
Special Offer for Philly.com Readers
It's decision time for the Eagles once again. This year, Chip Kelly and the Eagles matched last season's win total with a 10-6 record. Unlike last season, it wasn't good enough to earn a playoff berth. Now we ask you, the fans, to play fantasy general manager and decide who should stay and who should go.


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The ''less is more'' philosophy is applied at Vacanza in the Hills with dedication and to great effect.
It's the in-house pizza rule, but could also be the general motto of this pizzeria and mozzarella bar, which serves simple, classic dishes done well, with good service, excellent people-watching and a casual atmosphere that escalates from relaxed to buzzing as the night goes on.
If you like your pizza piled high with toppings and cheese oozing from the crust, try somewhere else. If you like a thin, crispy pizza made with quality ingredients and the option of BYO or a short but decent list of local and Italian wines, come on in.
This Surry Hills restaurant is the second to fly the Vacanza flag; the original is on Bronte Road in Waverley. The new location is at the busy intersection of Bourke and Fitzroy streets, with lots of foot and road traffic whizzing past. Windows all around give a good view of the comings and goings.
The menu firmly sets the scene. ''The Italian philosophy on toppings is less is more and Vacanza could not agree more,'' it reads. In fact, changes and modifications are ''politely declined, unless it's a matter of life or death''. Quibbles are unnecessary - there are more options to pique the interest than the belly can possibly hold in one sitting.
Inside, the decor is a mix of rustic and contemporary. A meat slicer sits out in the open, getting a good workout from the many orders of parma prosciutto and pizza with hot sopressa. There are distressed-brick walls, plus one decorated with stencils of bare-breasted women in a Bettie Page-esque pose, which is a little incongruous with the rest of the decor.
Take your pick of the seating - outside or in, communal, counter or table. Every option is in use tonight. A mother dines with her daughter. Couples pop in for a meal and a carafe of the house chianti. Groups of friends stop by for a feed after the cricket, and a family shares a few dishes before heading home.
The common theme on all of the tables is pizza. The crispy, thin bases are cut into quarters and there's the option of ''rosse'' or ''bianche'' - with tomato sauce or without - as well as takeaway.
But first, the buffalo mozzarella bar beckons. We dive into the creamy delights of a large globe - 125 grams to be exact. It is marvellous on its own, or with the salty, warm goodness of freshly baked rosemary focaccia, topped with a few splashes of chilli oil or prosciutto.
Buffalo mozzarella also stars on the ''Brandi'' bufalina margherita pizza. The ''rosse'' base is topped with cheese slices and basil leaves. Fresh, simple and delicious.
The Vacanza pizza is dotted with roasted mushrooms, Italian fior di latte cow's milk mozzarella and pecorino shavings. The strong taste of truffle oil gives it a decadent touch without being over the top.
Dessert is the only disappointment. The Nutella and ricotta calzone doesn't quite get the ratio of filling to dough right, with overly chewy results.
''Vacanza'' means holiday in Italian, but a visit to this place could easily become part of a midweek dining repertoire. It's hard to go past a perfectly cooked pizza and a few glasses of vino on a casual night out.
A pizzeria and mozzarella bar.
Good. Focaccia $7 to $12; mozzarella bar $5 to $16; pizza $19.90 to $22.90; salads $8 to $17; dessert $10 to $14.
Recommended dishes
Focaccia al rosmarino, buffalo mozzarella, parma prosciutto, marinated Sicilian olives, ''Brandi'' bufalina margherita pizza, the Vacanza pizza, mista Vacanza salad.
414 Bourke Street,
Surry Hills, 8964 6414
Tues-Sun, 5.30pm-late;
Fri, noon-3pm.
Licensed, BYO (wine only), takeaway available.


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Smoother shifting, longer lasting.
By Fudloe
from Dickson City, PA
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Comments about Shimano Mountain Bike SUS Shift Cable Set:
These are straight-up excellent cables and housings. SUS as opposed to zinc coated means less chance of binding in the housing and rust-oriented failure (as was the case in my stock- the linear stranding oxidized, the cable bound and the resulting pressure blew the stranding out of the cable end).These are relatively inexpensive, come with cable and housing ends and are quite simply an excellent product.
Bottom Line Yes, I would recommend this to a friend
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Washington DC's famous cherry blossoms are finally in peak bloom! While thousands will flock to the National Mall and Tidal Basin region to see them, not all will take in the views from the unique vantage point of a paddle boat ride at the Tidal Basin.
Tidal Basin Paddle Boats offers paddle boat rentals for 2 or 4 passengers, available at $12 per hour, and $19 per hour respectively. Take this opportunity to get out on the water, and see the cherry blossoms from a whole new angle!
Reserve your boat online here.
Our accommodations in Washington DC is only 2 miles away from the Tidal Basin and the Paddle Boats in DC.
Happy exploring!
Jennifer, Innkeeper
American Guest House in Washington DC


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SEDBERGH Medical Practice will be open as normal on Monday after being closed today because of a lack of running water.
Staff were forced to close the centre to patients following a mechanical value failure in the water supply.
The issue was resolved by 5pm and a spokeswoman confirmed the practice would open as usual after the weekend.
Throughout today staff at the centre have operated a telephone 'triage system' and patients were still able to collect medication from the pharmacy.


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NEW YORK ( TheStreet) -- The housing market has been a bright spot in what has been a tepid economic recovery. That changed over the past two days with weaker-than-expected housing starts and home builder sentiment. I have been warning that the rebound in home builder stocks was ahead of the improved housing data, most notably with extremely elevated P/E ratios. Even after Wednesday's price decline the twelve month trailing P/E ratios are between 25.2 and 41.1 as shown in today's table of home builder stock data. While home builder stocks surged, single family housing starts began to struggle at an annual rate of 600,000, and the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) Housing Market Index (HMI) set a plateau below the neutral reading of 50. On Wednesday morning, we learned that housing starts fell 8.5% to an annual rate of 890,000 in January with building permits up 1.8% to 925,000. The important single-family starts rose just 0.8% to 613,000, which is slightly above the 600,000 threshold that reflects a neutral housing recovery. On Tuesday morning, we learned that the NAHB HMI slipped to 46 from 47 in February, leveling out below the neutral reading of 50. The causes for the pause includes uncertainty about the job market and home buyer access the mortgage credit. Some builders cited rising costs for building materials, limited availability of labor and desired lots.
Pre-market Wednesday morning, home builder Toll Brothers Inc ( TOL) reported that they missed EPS estimates by nine cents, earning just two cents. In addition revenue at $424.6 million was well below the average estimate of $502.17 million. This caused a wave of selling among the home builder stocks I have been tracking.


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Jeremy Stephens
TREINAMENTO: Trabalho duro e dedicação, todos os dias, o tempo todo.
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Cause of bus driver's death remains unknown
Updated 9:55 pm, Tuesday, October 2, 2012
Photo: John Davenport/Express-News
It will be at least two months before an official cause of death is known for the bus driver who died Monday following a crash with another bus.
Dolores Martinez, 63, died Monday morning when the bus she was driving hit another bus and crashed into a fence in front of Wagner High School.
No children were seriously injured.
The Bexar County Medical Examiner's Office completed an autopsy Tuesday but did not determine the cause of death so more testing has been ordered and the results should take between eight and 12 weeks, authorities said.
News Channel


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US Army, Air Corps, 8th Air Force - Tibenham, England
Pomerania, Poland, Wobbelin, Germany, Usedom, Germany
Joseph H Gillesppie
E-6 SSG - Staff Sergeant, 8th U.S. Air Force, 2nd Air Division, 2nd Combat Wing, 445th Bombardment Group (Heavy), 700th Squadron, Ball Turret Gunner B24-H.
Missing Air Crew Report. MACR # 2440: Air Craft Serial # 42-64434. POW: Shot Down 2/20/1944.
POW Camp: Stalag Luft 4, Gross-Tychow (formerly Heydekrug), Pomerania, GER (now in Poland), marched to Wobbelin, GER and marched again to Usedom, GER. Part of the 6,000 man 600 mile march called "The Black March", or "The Death March" Feburary 6, 1945 to May 2, 1945. Liberated, then Repatriated to Military Control on 7/21/1945.


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Dugout Discussion With Marlin Gregg, Grant County High School Softball Coach
Q: Who are some of your top returning players, and why?
A: Senior Brittany Miles and junior Alesa Collinsworth. Brittany has been our leadoff hitter the last three years. Both are leaders not by assignment but through their actions and dedication to playing.
Q: Who are some notable newcomers that could make an impact?
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