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|The Cutting Edge
|Written by Peter J. Leithart
|Tuesday, 10 August 2010 10:19
What makes us do what we do?
Freud says that it all comes down to sexual desire: We act out of lust. Marxists counter by stressing class identity. Adam Smith and his followers saw we rationally calculate what is in our best interests. Dostoevsky found that unbearably naïve: In reality, people act out of spite and masochistic impulses as often as self-interest.
More perspicacious than most, C. S. Lewis recognized that our motives don't well up from within our souls. Motivations and desires are social. We do what we do because we want to have certain kinds of relations with certain kinds of people, or because we long for an admiring glance from others.
In a brilliant essay, Lewis sketched out the features of what he called the "Inner Ring." In human groups there are often two hierarchies, one official and permanent, the other unofficial and shifting. The latter is the Inner Ring. It is not "a formally organized secret society with officers and rules which you would be told after you had been admitted." There is no induction ceremony, and no formal means of excommunication.
"The only certain rule," Lewis said, "is that the insiders and outsiders call it by different names." From the inside, it might be an intimate friendship, a "we few, we happy few," or ""all the sensible people." But "from outside, if you have despaired of getting into it, you call it 'That gang' or 'they' or 'So-and-so and his set' or 'The Caucus' or 'The Inner Ring.'"
Lewis believed his most important insight was not the existence of the Inner Ring (on reflection, everyone knows what he's talking about), but its domination of our desires, motivations, and actions: "I believe that in all men's lives at certain periods, and in many men's lives at all periods between infancy and extreme old age, one of the most dominant elements is the desire to be inside the local Ring and the terror of being left outside."
I want to tip Lewis's Inner Ring on its side. When we do that, it becomes temporal rather than spatial, and instead of Inner and Outer we talk about Ahead and Behind. Instead of a boundary, we see a horizon, the horizon we know as the Cutting Edge. The desire to be at the Cutting Edge is the desire to bathe in the glow of the new, to the desperation to be seen as the wave of the future, the craving to be recognized as the first to see the rising sun.
The temporal and spatial pictures overlap. Both the Inner Ring and the Cutting Edge are about honor, about striving for recognition. For some Inner Rings, being In is identical to Being Ahead, while Being Out is tantamount to Being Behind. Yet, I think there's some value in looking at Lewis's observations sideways.
Hence my thesis, a paraphrase of Lewis: I believe that in all men's lives at certain periods, and in many men's lives at all periods between infancy and extreme old age, one of the most dominant elements is the desire to be on the Cutting Edge and the terror of being left Behind.
We check the news online four or five times a day (or an hour) for the latest gossip, not merely to be informed but to be perceived as informed. We buy new clothes every season because we don't want to be out of style. We have to have the latest iGadget, preferably before any of our friends have it.
Ideas also follow trends. (Definition of postmodernity: The social condition in which all culture is a subsidiary of the fashion industry.) We want to read the latest books not because they communicate wisdom, but to be seen reading the latest books. We need to be up on the latest developments in theory because they are the latest developments in theory.
The Cutting Edge dominates entertainment perhaps more than any other sector of life. What accounts for the millions who go to see a film on the first weekend? Who can still laugh without embarrassment at comedies or comedians from the Paleolithic 1990s? Or who can avoid a cringe or a giggle at the special effects of the original Star Wars? Sometimes these are sound judgments: Sitcoms often really are lame (but why did people laugh twenty years ago? – the Cutting Edge). Special effects start looking goofy only a few years after a movie's release. Just as often these judgments of taste are made because we are swept along by the herd rushing headlong to the Cutting Edge.
Rowing against the current doesn't necessarily deliver us from the tyranny of the Cutting Edge. A painter who bucks abstractionism and expressionism and returns to traditional figures and themes may well do so in the hopes of being the founder of a new, retro school. A composer who writes beautiful melodies might do so because it's Edgier.
The response to the enticements of the Inner Ring is Trinitarian and ecclesiological. In Christ, we are incorporated into the ultimate Inner Ring, the eternal fugue of Father, Son, and Spirit. Baptism inducts us into the Ring, since the church is the historical manifestation of that Ring, the family of the Father, the body of the Son, the temple of the Spirit. Who could ask for a Ring more Inner than that? Once we're in that Ring, every social, artistic, academic elite loses its glister.
My warning about the Cutting Edge is not the same as an exhortation to stay put. God does new things, and the response to the enticements of the Cutting Edge is pneumatological and eschatological. The Cutting Edge is a false pneumatology, confusing the spirit of the age with the Spirit of God. It is, by the same token, a false eschatology, conflating our contemporary horizon with the true future that is the Spirit.
We don't respond to the seductions of the now by renouncing the new. We respond by tapping our foreheads to remind us of the Spirit sealed to us in baptism. Through the Spirit, Christians are the people of His future. We are, already now, at the horizon of the future where everything is heading. In step with the Spirit, we stay at the Cuttingest of all possible Cutting Edges.
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A YOUNG driver says she is lucky to be alive after her car plunged 20 feet down a hill after clipping a pothole.
And now trainee hairdresser Christie Councer is calling on Gloucestershire County Council to repair potholes on stretches of road which are known to be dangerous.
Christie was travelling along the A4173 from her home in Stroud to Gloucester College when the incident, which sent her car spinning out of control, occurred near to the junction with Styles Lane at around 10am on Monday, January 27.
The 19-year-old, who was travelling between 35 and 40mph, said she only spotted the pothole at the last minute and tried to steer around it but caught it and ended up careering across the road and into the opposite lane.
After bouncing off the kerb on the other side of the road, she was sent spinning back into the left-hand lane.
She then crashed sideways through a wooden fence and collided with a tree which was snapped in half by the full force of the car's impact.
The ex-Archway pupil was showered with broken glass but luckily escaped with only cuts and bruises.
She said her injuries could have been far worse if a hedgerow hadn't prevented her car from tumbling further down the embankment.
Christie, who works at Blushes in Gloucester, said the pothole, which appeared to have been circled with white paint by Gloucestershire Highways, should have been repaired straight away rather than simply marked and left.
"At the very least the council should have put some signs up to alert drivers to the pothole," she said.
"They knew it was there because they had painted around it. If they had repaired it at the earliest possible opportunity none of this would have happened.
"I understand it's difficult to repair all the potholes but it's such a dangerous stretch of road, they should have repaired it immediately because you couldn't see the paint until you were on top of it."
After Christie's car had come to a standstill four builders working nearby rushed to her assistance.
Between them, they were able to force open the driver's side door and release the shaken teenager from inside to await the police, fire and ambulance crews who all attended the scene.
She was fitted with a neck brace, put on a stretcher and taken to Gloucestershire Royal Hospital where she received painkillers and a stitch for a gash in her head.
"I was so lucky, it really could have been a lot worse," said Christie who is still suffering from a suspected concussion.
She would like to thank the builders and emergency service workers who came to her rescue.
Recent severe winters have caused major problems with potholes throughout the county. Gloucestershire County Council currently fixes around 50,000 a year and expects to spend £24 million in 2014 mending and resurfacing roads.
A GCC spokesman said: "Our sympathies are with the driver involved in this accident. Our busiest roads like the A4173 are inspected at least every month and across the county our priority is to fix unsafe potholes immediately, while smaller potholes are programmed to be repaired within 28 days – in line with the national guidelines."

subset: commoncrawl


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My tomatoes plant themselves
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My tomatoes plant themselves
You, Never? Did the Kenosha Kid?
Tomatoes are good, cauliflower's better, broccoli's the best.
So, how 'bout that new PM service?
I haven't used it yet, but I know one thing: we owe it all to Hicks.
Grrr.This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote
08 and Beyond


text:
On Friday, BlackBerry announced the devastating news that it is relinquishing nearly 40% of its workforce and taking a massive loss of close to $1 billion in its second quarter.
By BlackBerry's own admission, the failure of the BlackBerry Z10 is the primary reason for the somber news that close to 5,000 people will be losing their jobs.
The loss is mainly the result of a write-off of unsold BlackBerry phones, as well as $72 million in restructuring charges. The company said that it would discontinue two of the six phones it offers.
"Going forward," he added, "we plan to refocus our offering on our end-to-end solution of hardware, software and services for enterprises and the productive, professional end user. This puts us squarely on target with the customers that helped build BlackBerry into the leading brand today for enterprise security, manageability and reliability.
Source: New York Times


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Very true and the iPhone does that, which is why it has been so incredibly successful. But, the Jailbreak Community is comprised of individuals who are little different than your average mobile-phone users.
Comparing apples to oranges, good job there. Let's think this out: Apple, maker and creator of iPhone and iOs. How many phones run iOs: 1, the iPhone. Google: Creator of Android, phone supported by Google: Nexus, and that bar looks pretty green to me. The other phones are made by 3rd parties. Apple only has to make sure their OS works on just a couple of devices, and look how that turned out. iPhone 4 users are having problems, iPads frozen up, etc.. Google can't make sure their updated OS works on every possible Android version, that's up to the manufacturer.
Edit: Figured I'd edit this before someone goes "zomg Nexus iz made by Samsung, not Google". Yes, but it's known as the Google phone...
The very simple contradiction to this article that makes apple look so great is because their hardware is still so similar, its easy to make software and continue to support it on older devices that are so very similar. There is little to no work needed to push out watered down software to several model of devices if they are so very similar in terms of design and function. Not to mention, android devices come from several manufacturers and there is no way google is going to be able to keep up with the speed of cell phone technology. This is a loaded article in favor of apples laziness. Nothing more, so it needs to be taken down. This can be compared to car companies. Getting parts for a car that has been made for decades is very easy if it has remained fairly unchanged. Now take a car company that puts out a fresh model every two years, its going to be impossible to keep parts available for many generations back of cars.......
It's not comparing apples to oranges.
You're right in saying apple has it easy be ause they only have a few devices. That doesn't make it wrong to compare with android. That's just a good thing on apples side. This especially applies to developing apps. With apples SDK, your one app works on all iPhones all iPod touches and all iPads...without you developing several applications.
Android is flexible. Companies can bend it to fit their needs. A perfect example is the imwatch (do a review on that when it's out!). The problem with companies tweaking and bending it is that now developers have to update for the new tweaked OS as well.
Simplicity is inginuity. Apple keeps it simple. Some people like that and some don't, but by them keeping it simple, they keep it working (as seen in the graph)
@ Phil Swanson-in all fairness you might've mentioned in your article that pretty much any android device can run the most current android version available after root is achieved ;-).
And the discussion continues. My question is WHY DOES IT MATTER? Pick what you like, and enjoy it. There is no need to try and justify a choice to others by pointing out why your choice was better, unless you are just really insecure.
The comments about android not "just working" are ridiculous as well. Any android device I have ever seen lets you make calls, send texts, and browse the web right out of the box (after activation of course).
I also don't know why people get all uppity about updates. Half the updates pushed out have useless features that we don't even care about (on both OSs). How many of you run an older version of iOS just because there is no untethered jailbreak out for the latest? Custom roms are also available on tons of Android devices. If you want the latest updates, get a Google Sanctioned phone (Nexus variant) and you will get your updates DAY ONE just like you do with iOS. Simply put this is a ridiculous argument that has no reason for going on...
i just switched to an android phone, its probably a update behind, and guess what it does everything that my iPhone did on the most current update and way more.. plus seeing as rooting is a 5 min task I can run the latest ROM if I want..
it seems that this article misses the blatant fact that on android your not forced to use a provider rom if your phone is rooted, and after you root it you can install tons of custom roms..
Several months ago, I think it was @jasonpensill had a tweet that basically echoed what you're saying. In essence he said who cares what device it is, they're all basically pocket computers anyhow, so shut up, and enjoy it/them.
This is the one area where the android has a clear advantage over IOS in the hacking/modding dept. On the flip side, android can't hold a candle to IOS when it comes to themes. I'd give my next child to one of the many talented IOS themers if they were to broaden their considerable talents to include themes for android.
By the way, the biggest thing I use my iPhone for that no android will ever do, AirPlay. Gotcha.
In all reality though, iOS updates have been known to cause a lot of problems on older phones, and apple's official solution is to buy a new one. Not exactly the best business solutions. Having and iPhone and an android with a carrier-stripped rom, I can see how much the carrier software causes most of the problems android is known for. Kudos to apple for not letting the carriers mess up your product. It's one of the few things I like about your company.
Nice write up Phil.
Sorry iOS is TKO over android anyday for me. Everybody has some real good points on why they think their choice of OS is better but in all reality it comes down to what you like. Enjoy your device and let it be somethig that expresses you. Or simply just works


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California American Water's proposed Peninsula water supply project is no longer limited to providing a replacement source, a state Public Utilities Commission judge ruled.
As key hearings on Cal Am's proposed Monterey Peninsula Water Supply Project began in San Francisco on Tuesday, CPUC Administrative Law Judge Gary Weatherford announced the ruling. The revised scope changed the goal of Cal Am's project from "securing replacement water" for Cal Am's Peninsula customers, as a result of the state-ordered cutback in pumping from the Carmel River, to "securing an adequate, reliable and cost-effective water supply that meets Cal Am's legal requirements for the Monterey District."
That change suggests Cal Am's project proposal would be allowed to seek a new water supply capable of meeting the expected demand on the Peninsula rather than simply providing a substitute for the water to be lost when the state water board's cutback order takes effect.
Cal Am has proposed a larger desalination plant than company officials initially proposed as part of the Peninsula water project, in part because of projected demand for development and the anticipated recovery of the local tourism industry as the economy slowly rebounds.
Peninsula business interests, particularly from tourism and real estate, have called for allowing Cal Am to build a desal plant nearly twice as large as currently proposed to deal with what they call is the real demand.
To this point, Peninsula city mayors have called for Cal Am's proposed water project to focus first on delivering a replacement supply by the approaching deadline for cutting use of Carmel River water by about two thirds, which is set to take full effect at the start of 2017.
Cal Am's $400 million proposal calls for building a desal plant north of Marina capable of producing 9.6 million or 6.4 million gallons of potable water per day — depending on whether a groundwater replenishment, or recycled water, project is ready to go on time — along with a supplemental aquifer storage and recovery project backed by the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District.
On Monday, Cal Am announced it had issued a request for qualifications in its search for a desal plant contractor for its proposed project. The request was written by Cal Am in consultation with the project governance committee, which includes Carmel Mayor Jason Burnett, County Supervisor Dave Potter, water management district director Bob Brower, and alternates.
Tuesday's hearing focused on cross-examination of Cal Am officials regarding financing details of the proposed water project. The hearings are to continue through the end of the week primarily with cross-examination of Cal Am officials, then pick up next week with cross-examination of representatives from more than a dozen organizations participating in the CPUC proceeding on the project.
Weatherford scheduled a June workshop on the proposed groundwater replenishment project backed by the Monterey Regional Water Pollution Control District. The workshop, set for June 12 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at CPUC headquarters in San Francisco, is designed to address key issues such as setting milestones for determining how much water it would be capable of producing and when.
Suggestions or requests for workshop agenda topics can be submitted to the CPUC through Michael Zelazo, Utilities Engineer, CPUC Division of Water and Audits, at firstname.lastname@example.com, by May 1.
Jim Johnson can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.com or 753-6753.


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Effects of a Prescription Omega-3 Fatty Acid Concentrate on Induced Inflammation (PRONOVA)
This study has been completed.
Penn State University
Pronova BioPharma
Information provided by (Responsible Party):
Penny Kris-Etherton, Penn State University
ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier:
First received: March 14, 2013
Last updated: July 5, 2017
Last verified: July 2017
- Full Text View
- Tabular View
- Study Results
- Disclaimer
- How to Read a Study Record
The purpose of this study is to assess whether the marine omega-3 fatty acids can attenuate inflammatory responses to endotoxin challenge.
|Inflammatory Responses
|Drug: 4 g prescription omega-3 concentrate Drug: Placebo
|Study Type:
|Study Design:
|Allocation: Randomized
Intervention Model: Crossover Assignment
Masking: Quadruple (Participant, Care Provider, Investigator, Outcomes Assessor)
Primary Purpose: Basic Science
|Official Title:
|Effects of a Prescription Omega-3 Fatty Acid Concentrate in a Placebo-controlled Trial of Human Endotoxemia
Resource links provided by NLM:
Drug Information available for: Omega-3 Fatty AcidsU.S. FDA Resources
Further study details as provided by Penny Kris-Etherton, Penn State University:
Primary Outcome Measures:
- Change in C Reactive Protein (CRP) [ Time Frame: 24 hours post endotoxin administration, following each 8 week intervention ]Change in blood levels of CRP at 24 hours post endotoxin administration, after each 8 week intervention
Secondary Outcome Measures:
- Prostaglandin J3 [ Time Frame: 7 days post endotoxin challenge ]Changes in plasma levels of prostaglandin J3 resulting from omega-3 supplementation and induced inflammation
|Study Start Date:
|May 2014
|Study Completion Date:
|April 2015
|Primary Completion Date:
|April 2015 (Final data collection date for primary outcome measure)
|Assigned Interventions
Placebo Comparator: Placebo
Identical olive oil capsules
|Drug: Placebo
Experimental: Omega-3
4 g prescription omega-3 concentrate (4 g/d prescription omega-3 fatty acid concentrate taken orally for 8-12 weeks)
Drug: 4 g prescription omega-3 concentrate
4 g/d prescription omega-3 fatty acid concentrate taken orally for 8-12 weeks
Other Names:
|Ages Eligible for Study:
|20 Years to 45 Years (Adult)
|Sexes Eligible for Study:
|Accepts Healthy Volunteers:
Inclusion Criteria:
- Men between the ages of 20 and 45.
- BMI ≥20 and ≤30
- Participants who are able to give written informed consent and willing to comply with all study-related procedures.
- Any race or ethnic background is acceptable
- Non-smoking
The specific exclusion criteria are:
- Previous history of vasovagal reactions or unprovoked fainting (I.e. fainting as a result of prolonged standing, exercise)
- Resting heart rate < 55 bpm
- History of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, including coronary disease, cerebrovascular disease, or peripheral vascular disease
- History of diabetes mellitus (and/or a fasting glucose >126 mg/dL at screening)
- Chronic anti-inflammatory medication use or treatment with aspirin, NSAIDs, COX-2 inhibitors; steroids or any immunomodulatory therapy 2 weeks prior to the screening visit
- Self-reported history of allergy to fish
- History of a non-skin malignancy within the previous 5 years
- Renal insufficiency as defined by creatinine outside of lab defined normal range at Screening Visit
- History of liver disease or abnormal LFTs (AST, ALT, Alk. Phos., GGT > 1.5x ULN; bilirubin > 2x ULN) at Screening Visit
- Total white blood cell count less than or equal to 3.0 THO/uL
- Hemoglobin less than 11.0 g/dL
- Any major active rheumatologic, pulmonary, or dermatologic disease or inflammatory condition or minor active infection
- Self-reported history of HIV positive
- Participants who have undergone any organ transplant
- Individuals who currently use tobacco products or have done so in the previous 30 days.
- Participants who are unwilling to discontinue use of nutritional supplements, herbs or vitamins unless approved by study staff.
- Participants who are unwilling to eliminate omega-3 fatty acid (EPA + DHA) supplements and/or fortified food, or have a usual intake of high omega-3 fish (tuna and other non-fried fish) > 2 servings per week
- Elevated blood pressure (BP > 159/99) or use of any anti-hypertensive medications.
- Latex allergy
- Unwillingness to refrain from blood donation for 2 months prior to and following endotoxin administration
- Any medical condition or abnormal laboratory value that is judged clinically significant by an investigator
- Inability to take study capsules
- History of severe, repeated headaches
- History of migraine
- Medical condition that causes severe nausea or vomiting
- Low resting blood pressure (SBP < 90 mmHg)
- History of atrial fibrillation/flutter
- Abnormal coagulation parameters (platelet count, prothrombin time with INR), documented coagulation abnormality, or use of anticoagulant medication
- High LDL-C (> or = 160 mg/dL)
Contacts and Locations
Choosing to participate in a study is an important personal decision. Talk with your doctor and family members or friends about deciding to join a study. To learn more about this study, you or your doctor may contact the study research staff using the Contacts provided below. For general information, see Learn About Clinical Studies.
Please refer to this study by its ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT01813110
Please refer to this study by its ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT01813110
|United States, Pennsylvania
|Penn State University
|University Park, Pennsylvania, United States, 16802
Sponsors and Collaborators
Penn State University
Pronova BioPharma
|Principal Investigator:
|Gordon Jensen, MD, PhD
|Penn State University
More Information
Keywords provided by Penny Kris-Etherton, Penn State University:
ClinicalTrials.gov processed this record on September 21, 2017
|Responsible Party:
|Penny Kris-Etherton, Distinguished Professor of Nutrition, Penn State University
|ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier:
|NCT01813110 History of Changes
|Other Study ID Numbers:
|Study First Received:
|March 14, 2013
|Results First Received:
|May 23, 2017
|Last Updated:
|July 5, 2017
Keywords provided by Penny Kris-Etherton, Penn State University:
fish oil
ClinicalTrials.gov processed this record on September 21, 2017


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Topic: Gemcis Results/Proton Beam trial at MD Anderson
Hi All,
I met with my doctor today to discuss the results of my bone scan and ct scan. There are no new growths, the existing tumours have remained the same except for the one biggie - it shrank from 8cm to 7cm! I know I should be happy with these results, as it was within a span of 4 treatments on Gemcis!!
After talking to my oncologist, we have decided to try to get into the Proton Beam Therapy trial at MD Anderson in Houston. Perhaps with a combination of it and chemo it'll make a bigger difference.
Has anyone here participated in this trial yet? I was just wondering what to expect as far as time spend at MD Anderson each day for the therapy, side effects you experienced, or any tips to prepare.
Thank you,


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BRONX, NY - The CHSAA Archdiocesan sectional final between St. Raymond and Mt. St. Michael was a good one.
Whenever one team would land a blow, the other team was able to regroup and recover and deliver a blow themselves. The game was played at Mt. St. Michael, the home gym of the number 3 seed in the intersectional, but St. Raymond rallied behind their two star senior players and overcame whatever challenges were in front of them.
Daniel Dingle and Nkereuwem Okoro played a very good game and carried the Ravens in the second half. They were the main reasons that St. Raymond was able to withstand a tough Mt. St. Michael (20-7) team and come away with hard earned 60-58 victory and Archdiocesan championship.
Okoro led St. Ray's in scoring with 21 points and 12 rebounds. Head coach Oliver Antigua said that he thought Okoro was going to have 20 rebounds because he had 10 at halftime, but Dingle took over the rebounding role and grabbed 9. Dingle filled up the stat sheet too, scoring 17 points in addition to 5 assists.
St. Ray's came out on fire in the first quarter, opening a 10-2 lead from the start, including a dunk from Dingle. It looked like the Ravens were going to run Mt. Saint Michael out of the gym early. But in a quick flash, the Mountaineers were able to storm their way back and took a 13-10 lead on a trey from Andrew Utate (12 points). From that point on, you just knew it was anybody's game.
Still, St. Ray's was able to build a 23-23 lead by the end of the first half. The main reason they were able to do that was their dominance at the free throw line. Antigua said that was the plan from the very beginning.
"We got 6 fouls on their bigs…I thought that we had to establish that presence, and then work inside out," Antigua said about the game plan.
The Ravens had a heck of a time trying to keep possession of the ball and constantly turned it over. That was the main reason Mt. Saint Michael was able to get back in the game early and make various runs throughout the game. But the fact that they were practically living on the line negated whatever advantage that the Mountaineers might have gained from the sloppy ball handling of St. Ray's.
Okoro scored inside and followed that with a basket after a fast break to put his team on top 39-30 with about 5 minutes left in the third quarter. Okoro's basket forced the Mountaineers to call a timeout. St. Ray's was gaining big time momentum, but the timeout from Mount helped squash that. They went on a 10-2 run to cut St. Ray's lead to 1, and that forced St. Ray's to stop play.
Mount's senior guard Malik Gill made a strong move and scored a lay-up with 6:15 left in the game to give his team a brief 48-47 lead. That was answered when Dingle found Okoro for a basket. Okoro followed that when guard Shane Rector (14 points) found him in transition. That gave St. Ray's a three point lead that they never relinquished.
Still, the game was far from over. St. Ray's had secured the rebound after a missed shot, holding on to a 58-56 lead with 39.9 seconds remaining when Rector rushed the possession and picked up a charge. That left the stage open for the 5-9 Gill, a really tough point guard with a knack for getting into the paint, to tie the game or give his team the lead late. However, Gill wasn't able to get a good look, which actually was the theme of the night.
St. Raymond (16-9) got the rebound and senior guard Larry Graves was fouled. Graves went to the line for a one and one, and calmly knocked down the front end while smiling. He did the same for the second free throw and the game was pretty much over.
Gill, who scored a team high 16 points, was guarded by the 6-5 Okoro most of the fourth quarter. Antigua said he just wanted to make it tough for Gill, and Okoro was long enough and quick enough to do the job. It worked early as Gill shot 1 for 10 in the first half. Dingle complimented Okoro's effort after the game when he was speaking to reporters.
"He did a great job. We went over this in practice. He was going to guard Gill when it's crunch time and he delivered today," Dingle said.
Okoro downplayed his big game, saying that he didn't do it alone.
I was just depending on everybody else. I know that when Daniel got the ball in the high post, he's looking for me on the baseline and I was just playing my role" Okoro said.
St. Raymond has been on a roll since playing and beating Lincoln on the road a couple of weeks ago. That's when it seemed to start coming together for St. Ray's. They knocked off the top seeded Cardinal Hayes 81-73 to get to the final in the first place.
Antigua is confident about his team in the upcoming playoffs.
"We're playing great and I think, going forward, I really like our chances in the intersectional," Antigua said.
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text:
Looks better, easier to spot the basket in thick woods, less skips from the top of the basket because you have to miss higher to go over, and it's a great space for course sponsors to put their logos on (which frankly helps with getting sponsors, at least here) to name a few. You can only blame yourself if you're gouging your discs on the band.money 21 wrote:why?
Not saying it couldn't be further improved, if it had rolled edges any gouging would stop.


text:
Smith: Wants to clarify quote in Legacy Camp article
November 25, 2012
Re: Keystone: Legacy Camp gives kids a framework for dealing with loss," by Jessica Smith, Nov. 20
Regarding the article on Legacy Camp at Keystone Science School I would like to clarify that in the last quote I was saying that we have had an overwhelming response to people wanting to volunteer their time! Also I feel it is important that readers understand that Legacy Camp is no cost to the families or children participating, it is a free program for the campers. Thank you.


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text:
Memantine and Constraint-Induced Language Therapy in Chronic Poststroke Aphasia:A Randomized Controlled Trial
The recruitment status of this study is unknown. The completion date has passed and the status has not been verified in more than two years.
Verified March 2005 by Gabinete Berthier y Martínez.
Recruitment status was: Recruiting
Recruitment status was: Recruiting
Gabinete Berthier y Martínez
H. Lundbeck A/S
Information provided by:
Gabinete Berthier y Martínez
ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier:
First received: September 12, 2005
Last updated: NA
Last verified: March 2005
History: No changes posted
- Full Text View
- Tabular View
- No Study Results Posted
- Disclaimer
- How to Read a Study Record
Detailed Description:
- Aphasia, the loss or impairment of language caused by brain damage, is one of the most devastating cognitive impairments of stroke. Aphasia can be treated with combination of speech-language therapy and drugs. Conventional speech-language therapy in chronic aphasic subjects is of little help and several drugs have been studied with limited success. Therefore other therapeutic strategies are warranted.
- Recent data suggest that drugs (memantine) acting on the brain chemical glutamate may help the recovery of cognitive deficits, included language, in subjects with vascular dementia. The present study examines the safety profile and efficacy of memantine paired with intensive language therapy in subjects with stroke-related chronic aphasia (more than 1 yr. of evolution).
|Aphasia Stroke
|Drug: memantine Procedure: constraint-induced language therapy
|Phase 4
|Study Type:
|Study Design:
|Allocation: Randomized
Intervention Model: Parallel Assignment
Masking: Double
Primary Purpose: Treatment
|Official Title:
|A 24-Week Pilot, Double-Blind, Randomized, Parallel, Placebo-Controlled Study of Memantine and Constraint-Induced Language Therapy in Chronic Poststroke Aphasia:Correlation With Cognitive Evoked Potentials During Recovery.
Resource links provided by NLM:
MedlinePlus related topics: Aphasia
Drug Information available for: Memantine Memantine hydrochlorideU.S. FDA Resources
Further study details as provided by Gabinete Berthier y Martínez:
Primary Outcome Measures:
- Language function (overall aphasia severity).
- Communication
Secondary Outcome Measures:
- Depression
- Cognitive evaluation of language function
- Changes in event-related potential
|Estimated Enrollment:
|Study Start Date:
|March 2005
|Estimated Study Completion Date:
|September 2005
- The efficacy of drugs that act on glutamate such as the N-methyl-D-aspartic acid (NMDA) receptor antagonist memantine requires to be explored in this population. The rationale for using memantine in post-stroke aphasia comes from recent studies on vascular dementia. Data extracted from a recent Cochrane review of randomized controlled trials of memantine in different types of dementia (vascular dementia, Alzheimer's disease, mixed dementia) reveal, after 6 weeks of treatment, beneficial effects on cognition (including language), activities of daily living, behavior and global scales as well as in the global impression of change.
- Recovery from aphasia is possible even in severe cases. While speech-language therapy remains as the mainstay treatment of aphasia, its effectiveness has not been conclusively proved. This has motivated the planning of more rational therapies (e.g., constraint-induced language therapy [Pulvermüller et al., 2001; 32: 1621-1626]).
- In addition, the neural correlates of improvement of language function can now be readily detectable with event-related potentials. This is a noninvasive technique that can detect in real time functional brain changes during recovery promoted by the combined action of memantine and constraint-induced language therapy.
- The aim of the present study is to assess the efficacy, safety profile, and functional correlates of memantine paired with massed language therapy in a sample of patients with chronic poststroke aphasia.
|Ages Eligible for Study:
|18 Years to 69 Years (Adult, Senior)
|Sexes Eligible for Study:
|Accepts Healthy Volunteers:
Inclusion Criteria:
- Chronic aphasia of more than one year duration
- Must be able to complete protocol
Exclusion Criteria:
- Dementia
- Major psychiatric illness
- Severe global aphasia (precludes participation in constraint-induced language therapy)
Contacts and Locations
Choosing to participate in a study is an important personal decision. Talk with your doctor and family members or friends about deciding to join a study. To learn more about this study, you or your doctor may contact the study research staff using the Contacts provided below. For general information, see Learn About Clinical Studies.
Please refer to this study by its ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT00196703
Please refer to this study by its ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT00196703
|Contact: Marcelo L. Berthier, M.D., Ph.D.
|(34) 952 22 45 90
|Gabinete Berthier y Martínez and Centro de Investigaciones Médico-Sanitarias (CIMES) University of Malaga
|Malaga, Spain, 29001
|Contact: Marcelo L. Berthier, M.D., Ph.D (34) 952 22 45 90 firstname.lastname@example.com
|Sub-Investigator: Cristina Green, Ph.D.
|Sub-Investigator: Carolina Higueras, Ph.D.
|Sub-Investigator: Pablo Lara, M.D., Ph.D.
|Sub-Investigator: Carmen Montes, M.D., Ph.D
|Principal Investigator: Marcelo L. Berthier, M.D., Ph.D
Sponsors and Collaborators
Gabinete Berthier y Martínez
H. Lundbeck A/S
|Principal Investigator:
|Marcelo L. Berthier, M.D., Ph.D
|Gabinete Berthier y Martínez and Centro de Investigaciones Médico-Sanitarias (CIMES), University of Malaga
More Information
Keywords provided by Gabinete Berthier y Martínez:
Additional relevant MeSH terms:
ClinicalTrials.gov processed this record on September 21, 2017
Orgogozo JM, Rigaud AS, Stöffler A, Möbius HJ, Forette F. Efficacy and safety of memantine in patients with mild to moderate vascular dementia: a randomized, placebo-controlled trial (MMM 300). Stroke. 2002 Jul;33(7):1834-9.
Pantoni L. Treatment of vascular dementia: evidence from trials with non-cholinergic drugs. J Neurol Sci. 2004 Nov 15;226(1-2):67-70. Review.
|ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier:
|NCT00196703 History of Changes
|Other Study ID Numbers:
Gabinete Berthier y Martínez.
Lundbeck, Spain, S.A.
|Study First Received:
|September 12, 2005
|Last Updated:
|September 12, 2005
Keywords provided by Gabinete Berthier y Martínez:
Constraint-induced language therapy
Event-related potentials
Additional relevant MeSH terms:
Speech Disorders
Language Disorders
Communication Disorders
Neurobehavioral Manifestations
Neurologic Manifestations
Nervous System Diseases
Signs and Symptoms
Antiparkinson Agents
Anti-Dyskinesia Agents
Dopamine Agents
Neurotransmitter Agents
Molecular Mechanisms of Pharmacological Action
Physiological Effects of Drugs
Excitatory Amino Acid Antagonists
Excitatory Amino Acid Agents
ClinicalTrials.gov processed this record on September 21, 2017


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TAMPA — Democrats in this part of Florida haven't had much to celebrate in recent years on the local political scene.
Republicans control the Pinellas and Hillsborough county commissions and dominate the bay area's state legislative delegation.
But a political consultant who once wrestled under the nickname "Jason the Terrible" has delivered a few take-downs that are getting attention.
Mitch Kates notched his third victory in as many elections Nov. 4, cementing a reputation as a budding elephant slayer. He helped propel Democratic newcomer Kevin Beckner to a knockout of another former wrestler, incumbent Hillsborough Commissioner and former "Killer B" Brian Blair.
With the latest victory, Kates has provided a template for Democratic resurgence: Find a candidate willing to work; surround that person with volunteers willing to sweat; get them singing from the same hymnal; then spread the gospel through any media available.
Some Republicans are starting to take notice.
"Those guys were everywhere," said GOP political consultant April Schiff. "Mitch has established a good record. I think he's getting there."
Kates, who is 6 feet 6 and bald, donned a mask and wielded an ax during his pro wrestling career. He lost a bid for Pittsburgh City Council in 2003 before working for Democratic presidential hopeful John Kerry, then long-shot Boston mayor candidate Maura Hennigan in 2005.
He arrived in St. Petersburg soon after, tapped by party leaders to assist Democrat Charlie Justice in a fierce fight for an open state Senate seat against Republican Kim Berfield.
Showing an offbeat sense of humor, Kates rallied volunteers by casting Justice as a superhero and them as his justice league. They won despite being dramatically outspent, with Justice pledging to fight rising property insurance rates, which he said Berfield had not addressed in the state House.
"He works as hard as anyone will work," Justice said of Kates. "If he commits to a race, he commits to a race."
He followed a similar script of relentless door-to-door, grass roots campaigning in helping relative unknown Mary Mulhern beat Shawn Harrison a few months later in a nonpartisan Tampa City Council race. Mulhern pledged fixes for transportation and South Tampa flooding, and ripped her opponent for doing too little on those fronts.
The Beckner-Blair contest illustrates his approach.
"It started with a small group," Kates said. "It grew into a bigger group of people who wanted to help. We were very focused. We created a campaign plan and strategy, and we followed it."
Kates, 44, met Beckner two years ago and immediately liked what he saw: a young, good-looking, well-dressed and well-spoken financial planner eager to make a difference.
They embarked on a two-year campaign, knocking on voters' doors in four regions of the county chosen as fertile ground for persuadable voters.
"Mitch played a great role in the strategy and parts of the community to target," Beckner said. "One thing that was a common effort in all three campaigns is grass roots focus on people."
Beckner delivered a narrowly tailored pitch from which he almost never strayed. He pledged as a commissioner to work on quality-of-life issues like improving transportation and keeping the cost of living affordable, and said his opponent was a radical who had worked on behalf of developers and his own self-interest.
The campaign repeated those themes in a series of distinctive direct mail pieces depicting Beckner meeting with voters.
Kates won't say how he targets either the door-to-door or mail efforts in a race in which nearly 500,000 people cast votes.
"Ancient Chinese secret," said Kates, who once worked in marketing and has a penchant for quoting old television commercials.
The Beckner campaign tapped another, relatively inexpensive, means of reaching voters. While he raised nearly $200,000, the campaign spent none of it on television and little on the radio.
Kates joined forces with Larry Biddle of St. Petersburg, the deputy national financial director for Howard Dean's 2004 presidential campaign, which introduced the power of the Internet to national politics.
Biddle, principal of the communications strategy firm PlanningWorks, has been working in Florida since trying to see if those same online social-networking principles could be applied in local races. He worked on Betty Castor's U.S. Senate campaign and in Alex Sink's successful bid for state chief financial officer.
Along with others, they created a vote-local campaign on the Internet to promote Democratic hopefuls down ticket on social-networking sites such as Facebook. Beckner had his own page there, as well as advertisements with videos and other links to campaign promos pitching the same repetitive message.
"One of Mitch's strengths is he's very rigid and disciplined that the candidates stay on message," Biddle said. "It sounds boring as hell. But the fact of the matter is, if you don't do that, there is no resonance about it."
It's difficult to say how much the Web campaign helped. Democrats enjoyed strong early-voting turnout in the election, which also clearly aided Beckner.
Beckner beat Blair by 10 percentage points. Another Kates' candidate, Hillsborough County School Board hopeful Stephen Gorham, lost a challenge to incumbent Carol Kurdell in a nonpartisan race.
"I think there's a lot of different facets and a lot of different elements that go into a great campaign," Beckner said. "In many cases, it's like the elements that go into a great and powerful hurricane."
Bill Varian can be reached at varian @sptimes.com or (813) 226-3387.


text:
Os Signature Perfume
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Os Signature Perfume by Old Spice, This is a clean and fresh update of the best selling classic, a modern fragrance for men with a fresh twist on the original . Os signature is an aromatic/fougere for men, with notes of lime, grapefruit, pine, marine accord, coriander, cedar wood, patchouli. All products are original, authentic name brands. We do not sell knockoffs or imitations. ... Read More
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text:
Diamond out to make good impression
FORT MYERS, Fla. -- Left-hander Scott Diamond remains in the mix for the final spot in the rotation, and said he's looking forward to trying to make an impression in his next outing on Tuesday against the Orioles.
Right-hander Kyle Gibson is slated to start that game against Baltimore, and is now considered the frontrunner for the fifth spot in the rotation. The Twins have not made an official announcement, however.
There were reports on Friday indicating that Gibson had already won the fifth spot, but they were shot down by both Twins manager Ron Gardenhire and assistant general manager Rob Antony.
Diamond said he hasn't heard anything from the Twins about the fifth spot, so he's just going to go about his business as usual on Tuesday.
"It's going to be interesting," Diamond said. "I guess with how that story came out [on Friday], obviously, there's some [idea] that Gibson is the fifth starter. So all I can do is focus on what I'm going to be doing. I'm going to go out and throw strikes. I don't know how much impact it'll have, but I hope it'll have some. I'm just going to go out and pitch."
Diamond, who is out of Minor League options, could be placed on waivers or sent to the bullpen if he doesn't crack the rotation. Diamond said he'll also treat his outing as an audition for other clubs, just in case the Twins try to outright him to Triple-A Rochester and expose him to waivers.
"At this point, I love the Twins -- but I'm also marketing myself for 29 other teams," Diamond said. "So we'll see."
Rhett Bollinger is a reporter for MLB.com. Read his blog, Bollinger Beat, and follow him on Twitter @RhettBollinger. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.


text:
'Adelphia intends to disclose in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing by today that it bought furniture from a company the family owns, allowed personal use of company airplanes and other perks, provided financing of a golf course built for the family, and was somehow involved in the family's purchase of the Buffalo Sabres hockey team, the paper said, citing the people. Adelphia officials couldn't be reached to comment early today.'
You are here: Home / SabresBeat / Adelphia to Describe Rigas Family-Related Activities, NYT Says


text:
To the outside world, Jamie Cheng appeared to be working his dream job.
It was 2005, and Cheng was an AI programmer at Relic, a game design studio based in Vancouver, British Columbia, that had just been acquired by superpublisher THQ. Cheng had designed the artificial intelligence for strategy game Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War, which had become a critical smash. Now he was working on a military action game called The Outfit, which — as one of the first Xbox 360 games — would be Relic's first console title.
But Cheng just wasn't feeling it. "The Outfit was definitely less fulfilling" than Warhammer, he says. "People didn't believe in the game as much as I wanted to. I wanted to work on a product that people really believed in."
In his spare time, Cheng was working on a small game called Eets, a colorful puzzle game with charming characters, and submitting it to the Independent Games Festival. He'd worked on some big-time games, but doing his own thing felt more creatively fulfilling, even if a million people had played against his AI routines in Warhammer.
Cheng was going to stick around until The Outfit launched, but when THQ delayed the game, he split. By July 2005, he'd founded his own game development company, Klei Entertainment, in a basement he was renting from a friend.
Five years later, Klei is 16 people working in a proper office in downtown Vancouver. Klei released its biggest game yet Tuesday: Shank, a gory hard-core action game that looks like a Saturday morning cartoon on steroids. Its fluid, fun gameplay and appealing visuals got it picked up by Electronic Arts. And at Klei, Cheng gets to make the games he imagines in his head, not the ones dictated by marketing weenies.
The stereotypical image of an indie gamemaker is an iconoclast who prizes art over commerce, or perhaps a kid with no formal training working in his parents' house, cobbling together a genius new game idea using pirated software and raw talent.
But that's not what the new crop of indies are. They're veterans of the triple-A game biz with decades of experience behind them. They've worked for the biggest companies and had a hand in some of the industry's biggest blockbusters. They could work on anything, but they've found creative fulfillment splitting off into a tiny crew and doing their own thing. They're using everything they've learned working on big-budget epics and applying it to small, downloadable games.
The good news for gamers is that, as the industry's top talents depart the big studios and go into business for themselves, players are being treated to a new class of indie game. They're smaller and carry cheaper price tags, but they're produced by industry veterans instead of thrown together by B teams and interns. Most importantly, unlike big-budget games that need to appeal to the lowest common denominator to turn a profit, these indie gems reveal the undiluted creative vision of their makers.
Gettin' Shanked
"Five years ago was not a good time to start a studio up," says Cheng.
It's not that the economy was bad. No, starting up an indie game studio in the summer of 2005 was a major challenge because you couldn't sell your games on consoles yet. Xbox 360 wouldn't be available for months, and the notion of gamers logging in to Xbox Live to impulse-buy smaller, cheaper downloadable games might have sounded quite appealing but the market was totally unproven.
But as Klei grew, so did digital delivery of games. Before long, Xbox Live Arcade was breaking down the barriers of game distribution. Cheap downloads meant your game didn't need to be made by a hundred people and have state-of-the-art tech to sell on a console anymore.
"A game like Shank would never have been made as a full retail game," says Cheng. "We're not hitting some lowest common denominator, we're not trying to please everybody — we're just trying to do what we're passionate about."
In Shank, you play a guy named Shank who loves to chop people up with knives, guns and chainsaws and gets that opportunity approximately once every five seconds. Cheng says being independent helped the designers really drill down and focus on what made the game important — they didn't need to cram in two dozen different weapons just for the sake of an appealing bullet point on the back of the box, or to pad the game to make it 15 hours long.
"Our philosophy for Shank was all killer, no filler," he says.
Chen's passion for independent, author-driven games attracted more top talent who wanted to work on something smaller. Artist Jeffrey Agala had more than a decade of experience in the animation industry, working on Disney cartoons and directing episodes of Atomic Betty. Marianne Krawczyk, who won a BAFTA award for her work on Sony's God of War, penned the game's story.
And to top it all off, Klei scored a publishing deal with Electronic Arts' Partners division, which usually handles games from big players like Valve and Harmonix.
It's not just about the final product, Cheng says, it's about the process. Working in a smaller group brings out the best in creative people, he says, because "you wear more hats, you get to do more things."
"Everyone's more involved," he says. "When the company gets larger, there's pressure to put people into boxes. That's not fulfilling for people. That's not how they're going to eventually do their best."
My Goofy Little Samurai Game
Two years ago, Jake Kazdal was hard at work drawing concept art for one of the biggest games that never was.
"I've never been accused of being overly intelligent when it comes to rash decisions," Kazdal says. As a young man he moved to Japan, even though he barely knew the language. He became the only non-Japanese artist at Sega, where he helped create the eye-popping visual style of cult classics Rez and Space Channel 5. After four years at Sega, he moved back to the United States and eventually ended up at Electronic Arts' Los Angeles design studio.
In 2005, Steven Spielberg had inked a deal with Electronic Arts to produce three games created around the film director's visions. Of these, only one ever saw release — a Wii action game titled Boom Blox.
Meanwhile, Kazdal was part of the team creating a game code-named "LMNO," which, unlike Boom Blox, was the sort of videogame you'd expect to come out of a partnership between Spielberg — a "quadruple-A big-budget sci-fi action-adventure summer blockbuster," he says.
Kazdal got busy sketching out characters, locations and concepts of what the game's first few levels would look like. But LMNO never got out of the preliminary stage: The decision was made to create only a vertical slice of the game, just using the designs for the first level.
"Instead of jumping forward into production, we decided to really stick with that one small area and really flesh out as much of the game's mechanics and concepts as possible in that one little spot and not commit to making any other areas," he said.
Kazdal, "running out of stuff to do," left the project and moved to the Command & Conquer 4 team. It turned out to be a good decision, because Electronic Arts soon scrapped LMNO and laid off the team.
Meanwhile, Kazdal had another major life change coming up: His wife was about to have a baby, and they didn't want to live in expensive Santa Monica, California, on just one paycheck. So Kazdal took a job offer in Seattle, where his parents lived. Spending a lot of time at home hanging out with his newborn son, he started playing around with an iPhone development kit.
"I needed to get that creative itch out of me," he says. The game he was creating would eventually be called Skulls of the Shogun, a 2-D strategy game starring armies of undead Japanese warriors. Kazdal called a friend, the senior AI programmer from LMNO, and they started working on it together.
"The two of us started this little goofy samurai game, just worked nights and weekends for a long time. I had no intention of quitting my job or anything — it was just a hobby, it was a lot of fun to play with when I was stuck at home with a newborn kid for a long time," Kazdal says.
As the hobby project continued along, they switched over to Microsoft's XNA development environment, allowing them to create the game for Xbox 360 and PC. A third former LMNO member joined them. "Pretty soon we were like, 'Wow, we gotta go with this. This is too much fun,'" says Kazdal. "So we all quit our jobs and moved into it full time."
The team secured angel funding for the new company, called Haunted Temple Studios. Some "big" publishing deals are on the table, so Skulls will probably benefit from serious backing when it is released next year. Kazdal works from his home in Seattle, videoconferencing most of the day with his co-designers in Los Angeles.
The best part, he says, is getting to spend time with his son. "I have lunch with him, I have dinner with him, I usually spend an hour a day just kind of hanging out with him," he says. "If I'm tired I'll literally go take a nap. If you're at an office, you have to just suck down more coffee and suck it up."
As tempting as the indie life might be, Kazdal brings up the catch: It wouldn't be possible for three people to create a game of such high quality without spending decades in the trenches first.
"I definitely wouldn't be in this situation if it wasn't for the 10 or 15 years that I've been doing game design," he says. "We're all veterans at this point and we've learned the hard lessons of game development at the big companies. I wouldn't say to you just coming out of college that you shouldn't go get a job at a real studio."
Still, just as Jamie Cheng found, Kazdal is a much happier artist when he's in total control. "There's no bleeding of the vision. It's very discrete; it's very distinct. I make all the executive decisions. When we want to try some crazy new gameplay mechanic, we just do it."
"It's the three of us moving forward, and it's really strange and we love it."
Everything Is Better With Lion-O
Sean Murray made his first computer game when he was 5. It was a text adventure modeled after games like Zork, and it was terrible.
"It was of that ilk where it's like, 'You're in a room, there's an exit to the north and the south. Which way do you go?' And you would say, 'Go north.' And then it would say, 'You're dead. Maybe you should have gone south.'"
Still, he quickly became addicted after some friends tried out his early work. "That feeling of seeing someone playing your game was amazing," Murray says. "That's what it was always about for me."
Murray made games throughout his childhood and soon landed a programming gig at Criterion, the Guildford, England, creator of the Burnout racing games.
"That was a dream job, that was a life ambition," he says. "I was the biggest fanboy going around that studio." Murray was technical lead on Burnout 3, and he and his friends were generally happy at Criterion. But something was missing.
"I had lost that thing that I had started out making games to do, which was that I never really got to see people playing games that I made. Burnout 3 sold millions but I've never actually seen somebody play it, which is really weird."
Meanwhile, Murray had formed a core group of friends at Criterion, all gamemakers with a passion. "We just talked about games all the time, things that we'd done as kids or things that were really exciting to us. And it was almost implied that we were just going to go off and do something of our own."
Making the decision to quit the rat race and set up shop was easy for the four founding members of Hello Games. But unlike Jamie Cheng and Jake Kazdal, who started their companies with a game prototype already up and running, Hello Games didn't have a product.
They knew they wanted to make a game that felt like the old-school Nintendo and Sega games they'd grown up with. So they started an unusual brainstorming session.
"Our artist brought in this big box of toys that he had at his parents' house, and we just sat and played with them," Murray says. "We started mocking out game ideas. Except you'd have Optimus Prime in your hands, or Lion-O or whatever. Any game idea that you have is instantly made ten times better by having Lion-O in your hand."
The toy that the team kept coming back to, though, was an Evel Knievel stunt cycle. "We just sat and played with it properly. We'd set up routes over books and dishes of water and fired it out of windows and down corridors and into other people's offices. It was genuinely fun."
The game that resulted was Joe Danger, a cartoonish game about pulling off crazier and crazier stunts with a motorbike on a variety of challenging linear courses. Hello Games self-published the game on PlayStation 3 in June, and it was a surprise critical smash. Game Informer magazine gave it the Game of the Month award over big-budget releases like Tiger Woods and Blur.
Murray and crew had to go through a lot to keep their creative vision together, though. "We went through a really difficult phase," he says. "We took our game as it is now around to pretty much every publisher in the world and showed it to them, [but] we were unable to find somebody to publish the game." Publishers, he said, either didn't trust that the team of four could make a solid product — there wasn't even a game designer on the team, just four programmers and an artist — or wanted to change the game from Hello's original vision.
One night about a year ago, the team met at the pub with the intention of calling it quits. But alcohol-fueled confidence won the day, and they decided instead to double down and self-publish. To fund the rest of the development, Murray sold his house.
Hello Games was helped out by Sony's Pub Fund," which offers indie developers guaranteed royalties and marketing assistance in exchange for PlayStation 3 exclusivity. This gave the Hello Games team the support it needed — plus complete freedom — to make the game of its members' dreams. Joe Danger earned its development cost back on the first day of sales.
"Indies will quite often paint a bad picture of working in the industry, or maybe that you're tainted for doing it or whatever. For us, I got to work with some amazingly talented people at Criterion. That's such a beneficial thing," Murray says.
But Murray has some words of caution for those working on big-budget games.
"You get into this mentality that it takes 50 people to do anything. When people say, 'Should I work in the industry first?,' I say they should. But if you want to do your own thing, you need to keep that alive, because it can become very hard to break away."
See Also:
- Penny Arcade Hand-Picks 10 Indie Games For PAX
- Name Your Own Price for World of Goo, Other Indie Games
- Independent Games Festival Calls for 2011 Submissions


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LAKE COUNTY -- Beginning Monday the Lake County Community Development Department will reduce the amount of time planners will be available for public inquires at the counter or over the phone.
Planners will be available to the public from 10 a.m. to noon and 1 to 5 p.m.
All, including Building Division and Code Enforcement activities, will remain available to the public from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
The reduction in availability of planning division staff to the public is being initiated in order to integrate part of the code enforcement program work into the planning division, as well as to allow the existing staff to be able to expedite projects that will contribute to job creation and economic development.
Availability will be regularly evaluated based on staffing resources and increasing demand for services.
For additional information, visit www.co.lake.ca.us/cdd or contact the Lake County Community
Development Department at 263-2221.
The department is on the third floor of the Lake County Courthouse, located at 255 N. Forbes St. in Lakeport.


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Wycombe Museum
Friendly local museum set in an 18th century house with attractive grounds. Displays include interactive exhibits and childrens activities. Events are held throughout the year for children, families and adults.
Venue Type:
Mon-Sat 1000-1630
Sun 1400-1700
Closed: Bank Holidays
Entry to the museum is free
Charges do apply to some events
Collections include historic Windsor chairs from the Chilterns traditional furniture industry, local history objects from Wycombe District and an art collection including oils, watercolours and sculpture.
Collection details
Social History, Photography, Industry, Fine Art, Decorative and Applied Art, Costume and Textiles, Archives
Key artists and exhibits
- Joshua Reynolds
- Peter Lely
- Alfred Oakley
- Jack Goodchild
- John Pitt
- Lorna Cassidy
Tiny Talk Time
A special time at Wycombe Museum for children aged 0-5 years. Enjoy stories, trails and craft activities inspired by the Museum collection and gardens. Come along on the 2nd and 4th Friday at 10.30-11.30.
How to obtain
Sessions are free but advance booking is necessary. Contact firstname.lastname@example.com or call 01494 421895 for more details or to book a place.
Wycombe Museum
Priory Avenue
High Wycombe
Front Desk & General Information
01494 957210
- About
- | Collections
- | Resources
- | Map


text:
What's your toddler's personality type?
Knowing this could impact your parenting style more than you realise. more
Download our BUMPWATCH Pregnancy Tracker. Everything there is to know week by week. FREE
Just like your skin and body, your hair can also be affected by your pregnancy. While some women report that their hair has never looked so lustrous and thick, others experience some hair loss.
Hairdressers advise that chemical treatments - best avoided in the first trimester - can cause hair to react differently, making results from perm or relaxing solutions unpredictable.
Although the research into the effects of hair colour on an unborn baby is limited, many health professionals do recommend avoiding colour treatments in the first trimester - when your baby is going through important neurological developments.
If you do usually colour your hair at home, consider chemical-free alternatives and always work in a well-ventilated room, making sure to wear gloves when handling the colouring mixture.
Plenty of salons these days advertise their product ranges as chemical-free or organic, so with a little bit of research (the internet can help) find a salon close to you and give it a try. You might find you're happy enough with the results to continue chemical-free for your post-pregnancy future.
This article was written by Claire Halliday for Australia's leading parenting resource, Kidspot.
This article was created for Kidspot - Australia's parenting resource for during your pregnancy


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Nannette M. Bowler Appointed Department of Family Services Director
Sept. 8, 2008
News Highlights
- Bowler has been chief judge of the Family Division for the 8th Judicial Circuit, Ionia County, Mich., director of Michigan's Family Independence Agency and a member of the Michigan governor's Cabinet.
- Bowler's start date is Sept. 27.
More Information
The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors today appointed Nannette M. Bowler as director of the Department of Family Services (DFS). She will begin on Sept. 27.
Previously, Bowler was chief judge of the Family Division for the 8th Judicial Circuit, Ionia County, Mich. She presided over cases including guardianships of incapacitated and developmentally disabled individuals; mental incompetency hearings; child abuse and neglect cases; juvenile delinquency cases; and adoptions. She also has served as department head on the Ionia County Collaborative Board, a multi-disciplinary board serving children and families. In conjunction with other area agency directors the incoming DFS director developed a blended-funding model to improve the delivery of services to multi-system families in Ionia County.
As head of the Michigan Family Independence Agency and a member of the governor's Cabinet, Bowler directed 22 programs, including child welfare, juvenile delinquency, adult protective services, adoptions and disabilities. She previously served as executive director of the Chance at Childhood: Law and Social Work Initiative at Michigan State University. She has also been co-founder and executive director of the Children's Law Center and legal counsel/executive director to the Michigan lieutenant governor's Commission on Children.
Most recently, Bowler was president of Conceivex, in Saranac, Mich., an international medical device company focusing on new ideas in reproductive health care.
In 2003, Bowler received the National Leadership Award from the Institute for Educational Leadership, in Washington, D.C. She is a member of numerous legal and child welfare-related organizations, boards, committees and associations.
Currently, Bowler is completing a master of laws program in intellectual property at Thomas Cooley Law School, Lansing, Mich., where she also received her law degree. She received a bachelor's degree in psychology from Aquinas College, Grand Rapids, Mich.
Bowler will receive an annual salary of $150,000.
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Making The Film
Blues Houseparty: Music, Dance and Stories by Masters of the Piedmont Blues
Some of America's greatest traditional blues masters get together at home to swap songs from the old days and stories of waht those days were like, when blues flourished 'back down home' at country breakdowns, corn-shuckings and houseparties. These musicians and their friends create the lively spirit of houseparty blues, while conveying the values, the history, the good and bad times, and the sense of community that gave form to their music and dance (Blurb by Dick Spottswood)
Featuring: John Cephas, Phil Wiggins, Archie Edwards, John Jackson, James Jackson, Cora Jackson, Flora Molton, Larry Wise, John Dee Holeman, and Quentin 'Fris' Holloway.
Order DVD. Or contact Eleanor Ellis -- eleanordellis(at)yahoo.com.
Producer Eleanor Ellis offers Piedmont blues fans a rare front-row seat to a private house party that is as down home and authentic as they come on this 57-minute DVD Blues Houseparty. Filmed in 1989 at the late John Jackson's home in Fairfax Station, Virginia, Blues Houseparty includes performances by Jackson and his son James, John Cephas and Phil Wiggins, Archie Edwards, Cora Jackson, Flora Molton and Larry Wise, John Dee Holeman, and Quentin "Fris" Holloway. Between songs, performers talk about the history of country breakdowns, demonstrate traditional dances and swap hilarious stories. The atmosphere is natural and relaxed. The audio and video quality are good. One small criticism: Performers could have been identified earlier in the film. But that's a small price to pay for admission to this rip-roarin' good time.