text:
|Publication number
|Publication type
|Application number
|Publication date
|May 6, 1997
|Filing date
|Apr 22, 1996
|Priority date
|Jan 11, 1994
|Fee status
|Publication number
|John Lynch, James B. Nichols, Mark Devon
|Original Assignee
|Apple Computer, Inc.
|Export Citation
|BiBTeX, EndNote, RefMan
|Patent Citations (1), Referenced by (25), Classifications (7), Legal Events (4)
|External Links: USPTO, USPTO Assignment, Espacenet
This application is a continuation-in-part of U.S. application Ser. No. 08/078890, entitled Telecom Adapter for Interfacing Computing Devices to the Analog Telephone Network, filed May 10, 1993.
This application is a continuation, of application Ser. No. 08/180,925, filed Jan. 11, 1994 now abandoned.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to data telecommunications and more particularly to data telecommunications over the wide-area analog telephone network.
2. State of the Art
The analog telephone network by its nature uses analog electrical signalling over copper wire between a central office and customer telephone sets. Computer communications, being based on digital signalling, require an analog to digital conversion to be performed in order to support digital communications over the analog phone network. This conversion is typically done by a modem (modulator/demodulator). This approach is adequate for basic digital data communications, and has been employed for the last several decades. A typical modem consists of a digital signal processor (DSP), a hybrid 2/4 wire interlace, a codec, a microcontroller to manage system functions, and a serial interface to the computer, typically using the RS232C signalling approach with ASCII encoding.
There are significant disadvantages to this approach. By embedding the entire communications and signal processing functionality in an external device, a lower bound is placed on the cost of the device. Furthermore, the RS232C/ASCII signalling convention precludes access to non-digital (analog) signals that may be carried on the telephone network. Direct access to a digital representation of the analog channel is required for voice recognition, text-to-speech conversion, proprietary encoding of video signals, and other related technologies. Finally, conventional modems do not allow for adaptation to the various international telephone standards, requiring instead replacement of the entire modem.
The present invention, generally speaking, provides a signalling mechanism for use by a telecom adapter for interfacing a telephone line to a computer so as to exchange signalling information, such as pulse dialing information, ring indication information, or both. In accordance with one embodiment of the invention, the telephone line is sampled to produce a series of data samples. A signal is produced indicative of whether or not a ring signal is currently present on the telephone line, and the signal is combined with at least one of the samples in a single data unit. The single data unit is then transmitted to the computer. In another embodiment, a single data unit is received from the computer and separated into a data sample portion and a pulse dialing control portion. In one mode of operation the data sample portion is converted to an analog signal; in another mode of operation, the pulse dialing control portion of the single data unit is used to perform pulse dialing. By transmitting the single data unit containing the ring indication signal to the computer and contemporaneously receiving the single data unit containing the pulse dialing (on-hook/off-hook) control signal in respective independent data streams, an efficient bidirectional signalling mechanism is achieved, greatly simplifying pulse dialing and ring detection and allowing for relatively easy compliance with international standards and regulations.
The present invention may be further understood from the following description in conjunction with the appended drawings. In the drawings:
FIG. 1 is a simplified block diagram of a computer system in which the present invention may be used;
FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a telecom adapter in accordance with the present invention;
FIG. 3 is a diagram of a typical time-division-multiplex data stream;
FIG. 4 is a diagram of a possible information field data frame of the data stream of FIG. 3;
FIG. 5 is a block diagram of a data stream synchronization arrangement;
FIGS. 6-9 illustrate a procedure used to guarantee time-reference synchronization between the computer system and the telecom adapter;
FIG. 10 is a block diagram showing in greater detail the data flow inside the telecom adapter of FIG. 2;
FIGS. 11a and 11b are diagrams of the format of frames exchanged between the host computer and the telecom adapter in the transmit and receive directions, respectively; and
FIG. 12 is a waveform diagram illustrating a simplified method of ring detection.
The computer system of FIG. 1 is exemplary of a wide variety of computer systems, both large and small, in which serially-connected communications devices may be found and with which the present telecom adapter may be used. An address bus and a data bus connect a central processing unit (CPU) to read-only memory (ROM), and, through bus transceivers, to random-access memory (RAM) and to a UART (universal asynchronous receiver transmitter) or a USART (universal synchronous/asynchronous receiver transmitter) that provides an interface to a serial I/O port(s). A telecom adapter is shown connected to the serial port.
The present telecom adapter provides a versatile, general-purpose interface to the wide-area communications analog telephone network. Referring to FIG. 2, the telecom adapter contains analog to digital conversion facilities (103), electrical and mechanical interface hardware (105), clock generation and/or recovery circuits (104), serial-to-parallel translation hardware (101) to exchange the digital data between the telecom adapter and host computer; and a state machine (microcontroller 102) which manages the synchronization and delivery of digital samples to the host via a time-division-multiplexed data stream. The analog data streams are derived from signals from the telephone channel (106) and a standard telephone desk set (107).
A serial interface protocol and procedure is defined for attaching the telecom adapter through a short cable to a standard communications port, example the serial port, of a computer workstation. The computer workstation is assumed to be equipped with direct memory access (DMA) whereby DMA may be used to service the serial port and off-load the computer's central processing unit (CPU), allowing continuous real time communications to be maintained. A related protocol and procedure, described in U.S. application Ser. No. 08/058,750 filed May 7, 1993, incorporated herein by reference, enables non-DMA capable computers to establish through the serial port a high-speed communications link to digital networks including the Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) and Private Branch Exchanges(PBX) networks, using a more advanced telecom adapter.
Referring still to FIG. 2, the external telephone network connects to the telecom adapter at jack (106). This signal is then conditioned by a suitable electrical interface to provide proper signal amplification and filtering before submission to the codec (digitizer) interface (103). The codec is clocked by an internally generated oscillator (104). This oscillator is also used to derive the telecom sample clock (108) that is delivered to and employed by the host for datastream synchronization as explained hereinafter. Digitized samples are clocked between host and telecom adapter bit-synchronously and in phase with sample generation in the telecom adapter. Thus no buffering of digital data within the telecom adapter is required.
Using full-duplex DMA hardware in the computer, a time-division-multiplexed (TDM) interface may be supported. A transmit handshake line (110) is provided on the serial interface as shown in FIG. 2. When the telecom adapter wishes to exchange a set of data from a continuous bit rate (CBR) real time data stream with the computer, it simply transmits any bytes to be transmitted to the computer and then uses the transmit handshake line (110) to force the computer to transmit the appropriate number of bytes to the telecom adapter. In this way, the constant bit rate stream can be maintained without any intervention by the computer's CPU. Because the telecom adapter is directly servicing the source of the stream, namely the communications line, the telecom adapter is better able than the computer to maintain the timing of the constant bit rate stream.
Control of the telecom adapter through the TDM interface is performed by a software telecom adapter handler routine in the computer. Typically, TDM data streams are broken up into fixed length frames consisting of a control field and a data field as shown in FIG. 3. The control field carries adapter dependent information, and the information field carries the data. These frames are repeated at a fixed period of time, called the frame period. The control field is used by the software handler to set up data buffers for these frames. The specifics of the control field depend on the specific hardware implementation of the telecom adapter.
The information field of the TDM frame consists of an integral number of interleaved sets of data for, in the case of the analog telephone network, each of two data streams. The number bytes in each set for a stream is called the stream's interleave factor (IF). A possible frame for the telecom adapter of FIG. 2 is shown in FIG. 4 in which two streams are interleaved, each with an interleave factor of two.
Each stream in the information field is characterized by three parameters: the interleave factor, or the number of bytes in each occurrence of the stream, the offset, or the number of bytes into the information field that the first byte of the stream occurs, and the repeat factor--the offset between the first byte of one occurrence of the stream and the first byte of the next occurrence of the stream. For example, in FIG. 4, Stream 2's interleave factor is two, its offset is one, and its repeat factor is two.
Providing for the exchange of digital real time data streams between various components of the host system and the telephone network enables interworking of the host computer within a larger, possibly global, network of computers. Typical computer subsystems would include, but are not limited to, sound generation, audio recording, video, and so on. In all cases, the host subsystem data stream that exchanges data with the telecom adapter must be phase-synchronized with the telecom data stream.
A procedure for initialization and operation of the telecom adapter by the host computer, to be described presently in relation to FIG. 5, allows wide-area communications data streams obtained from analog telephone lines to be conveniently manipulated and blended into the computer sound facilities, for example. The host computer contains signal processing resources useful for generation and detection of voice-band data signals (modem), speech generation, voice recognition, sound synthesis, and the like. The procedure ensure that a precise integer relationship is maintained between telecom data and the particular subsystem of interest, such that the host interlace subsystem data stream is time-aligned with the telecom adapter data stream.
Referring to FIG. 5, the host computer system typically employs a CISC (complex instruction set) microprocessor as the central processor (213). However, contemporary CISC processors by their nature lack sufficient processing capacity to treat the digital telecom adapter datastream in real-time. For example, a V.32 analog modem signal could not be generated and delivered to the telecom adapter by the CISC CPU. Therefore, a Digital Signal Processor (DSP) (205) is employed as a coprocessor to perform the laborious but requisite signal transformation computations on the telecom data stream.
The DSP is a general purpose resource at the disposal of potentially several host computer clients. The host computer operating system software therefore employs a time-based software scheduling algorithm to ensure its clients of reasonable access to the DSP processing resources. The time-based scheduling concept is based on a list of tasks (206) that are defined by the host processor, and executed in a sequential manner on the DSP. The time-base atomic unit is called a frame. For this reason the time-based scheduling system is also called a frame-based signal processing system.
Operation of the telecom adapter is as follows. The bit-synchronous clock (108) and bidirectional datastreams are delivered to the host computer on the serial interface (213). The serial data is clocked into a serial-to-parallel converter (211) according to the transitions of the bit-synchronous clock. Since the datastream is real-time, continuous, and must be delivered reliably, regardless of tasks that may be running on the central processor (213), a dedicated Direct Memory Access (DMA) channel (212) is used. The DMA circuit moves data between the Telecom Sample Buffers (210) and the telecom adapter.
At the same time, the DSP (205) may be executing a parallel time-based task such as sound synthesis over the system speakers. In this case the speaker (210) is driven by a codec (207) from the sound sample buffers (209) which are filled as a result of computations made by the DSP. Again, since the datastream is real-time synchronous, a DMA channel is dedicated to the sound system to ensure reliable transfer of the sound samples to the speaker.
In order to provide the reliable exchange of sample data between the host computer sound system and the telecom adapter, the sound sample buffer must maintain a fixed phase and time relationship with the telecom sample buffer. Note that, at the same time, the DSP operates according to a time-based scheduling algorithm. Therefore the following procedure is implemented. First, the telecom clock, which was previously shown to be bit-synchronous and in phase with the datastream delivered by the telecom adapter, is delivered to the host computer USART (211) and a Phase-Locked Loop (203). The telecom data clock is used to synchronize the sound clock (201) which nominally operates at an integer multiple of the telecom data clock. Thus the sound clock is phase-aligned with the telecom data clock.
The output of the PLL is then passed to a clock divider (204) which reduces the clock frequency to yield a periodic pulse. This periodic pulse defines the DSP time frame and is used to awaken the DSP and cause it to execute the task list. The tasks are executed repetitively according to the periodic pulse, which has a nominal period of ten milliseconds. Included in the task list are the sound generation task(s), the telecom sample processing task(s), and a sample rate conversion task. The purpose of the sample rate converter (211) is to transform the N samples found in the telecom sample buffer into M samples loaded into the sound sample buffer by the DSP. However, there must be a strict time alignment between the sound buffer and the telecom sample buffer. Therefore, the telecom adapter is initialized in precise reference to the output of the clock divider (204).
The telecom adapter has a reset line (111) which is driven by the host computer. The reset line holds the telecom data and clock lines in a quiescent state, when asserted. The clock line is activated, and sampling commences, when the reset line is de-asserted. A procedure illustrated in FIGS. 6-9 is executed by the System CPU (213) whereby the output of the clock divider is monitored, such that the telecom adapter reset input is asserted and released at the appropriate time to guarantee time-reference synchronization.
After the initialization sequence is executed, data is delivered from the telecom adapter to the host computer with both phase and time alignment. Therefore the DSP, which is time scheduled for frame-based processing, is assured that the N telecom samples, which arrive from the telecom adapter via the system DMA hardware, are entirely coincident with the generation of the M sound samples contained in the sound sample DMA buffer. Although the DSP's primary task is modulation/demodulation, the capabilities of the DSP may be used to further advantage to achieve truly global connectivity over the worldwide analog telephone network using a single design.
The telephone networks in the various countries of the world each have their own different standards and regulations. Telephone equipment for use with the telephone network in a particular country must be certified as complying with network standards. Particularly with respect to ring indication and pulse dialing, the standards of various countries are disparate and in some cases quite stringent.
The conventional response to the need for country-by-country certification has been to create from one core design a multiplicity of different designs, one for each of the different countries, each design having its own peculiar hardware. Such an approach is not only costly but less than satisfactory. Business travelers, for example, are unable to use a single device for digital communications throughout the world, but instead must use different devices depending upon their particular location at a particular time.
Pulse dialing, although no longer prevalent in the U.S., is prevalent in other countries of the world, notably Japan. Most existing analog networks, however, support pulse dialing. Call establishment using pulse dialing requires strict timing conventions to be followed. Pulse dialing has traditionally been implemented using a mechanical apparatus. More recent telephone equipment typically employs a dedicated relay under control of a microcontroller.
Ring detection, on the other hand, is typically performed using analog circuitry. Analog circuitry used to derive the "ring indication" signal typically employs classical analog components to perform the necessary filtering, integration and discrimination functions. A telecom device must perform accurate ring detection in order to detect and reject false ring signals.
The present telecom adapter permits both accurate pulse dialing and precise qualification (discrimination) of the ring indication signal, providing maximum performance and functionality with minimal hardware requirements.
An important recognition is that the dynamic range of an analog telephone system is not compromised by using, instead of 16-bit/sample quantization, 15-bit/sample quantization. In mu-law-to-linear sample conversion, for example, the least significant bit of the mu-law sample typically does not affect the final linear sample value. The least significant bit of the 16-bit word may therefore be used to convey the pulse dial and ring indication signals in a manner illustrated in FIG. 10. The digital ring indication is delivered to the host with high resolution (125 μs sample resolution), allowing the DSP to efficiently detect and reject spurious ring indication signals.
Referring to FIG. 10, the manner in which the least significant bit of the 16-bit word is used to convey pulse dial and ring indication signals may be appreciated in greater detail. In FIG. 10, like reference numerals refer to like elements as in FIG. 1. The serial interface 101 is connected bidirectionally to the microcontroller 102, which is connected bidirectionally to the codec 103. The codec connects to the telephone line through analog conditioning circuits (not shown in FIG. 10). The codec functions to sample the incoming telephone line signal using A/D conversion circuitry 301 and, using D/A conversion circuitry 303, to convert digital samples from the host into an analog signal for transmission over the telephone line. The codec is connected to the telephone line through a relay 311 as explained more fully below.
A/D-converted samples from the codec 103 are input to the microcontroller 102, and samples for D/A conversion in the codec are input from the microcontroller. The analog telephone line is input separately to the microcontroller, to a ring detect circuit 305.
Blocks 306 and 307 and block 308 and 309 represent a manner in which samples are buffered and driven within the microcontroller 102 in the receive and transmit directions, respectively. In the receive direction, sample bits SAD0 -SAD15 are input to the microcontroller 102 from the codec 103. The least significant sample bit SAD0, however, is ignored. Instead of transmitting this bit to the host, an output signal produced by the ring detect circuit 305 is combined with sample bits SAD1 -SAD15 to form two bytes of host serial receive data, HSRCV0 -HSRCV15. These two bytes are input to the serial interface 101, where they are serialized and transmitted to the host.
In the opposite direction, in a pulse-dialing mode, the DSP sets the least significant bit of each sample transmitted from the host to the telecom adapter appropriately so as to control the relay 311 in accordance with a specified timing convention. Two bytes of host serial transmit data, HSTX0 -HSTX15, are input to the microcontroller 102 from the serial interface 101. The least significant bit HSTX0, however, is connected so as to directly control the relay 311, bypassing the codec 103.
The number in which "off-hook" signals for pulse dialing and ring indication signals for ring detection are incorporated into the communication streams exchanged between the host and the telecom adapter may be appreciated with reference to FIGS. 11a and 11b. FIG. 11a shows the format of a transmit frame containing samples for D/A conversion. The frame is transmitted across the serial interface as a sequence of 8-bit bytes and contains 80 samples for each of two channels, a telephone line channel and a handset channel. The samples are prefaced by two control bytes. The duration of the frame is approximately 10 ms.
Beginning with the third byte, every four bytes contains two bytes (together forming one 16-bit sample) for the telephone line and two bytes for the handset. In pulse-dialing mode, the least significant bit of the low byte of each telephone sample (TELLB) is set by the DSP to control the off-hook status (OH) of the telecom device so as to perform pulse dialing. In other types of platforms, the bit may be set by the host processor, for example, a RISC processor having real-time multitasking capabilities. Pulse dialing mode is indicated by a bit (PD) in one of the two control bytes, such as CONTROLLB.
When a call has been established and there is no further need for pulse dialing, the DSP is busy calculating transmit samples, the least significant bit of which may be one or zero. To avoid the necessity of setting the least significant bit of each sample to the appropriate state in order to maintain off-hook status, pulse dialing mode is exited by setting the pulse dialing control bit PD to the appropriate state. This effectively "disconnects" the least significant bit from the off-hook relay control line. Off-hook status is then controlled on a per-frame basis using a bit of one of the control bytes. In the illustrated embodiment, the least significant bit of the second control byte is used for this purpose.
FIG. 11b shows the format of a receive frame containing A/D-converted samples to be input to the host for further processing. The frame structure is analogous to that of the transmit frame of FIG. 11a. The first two bytes contain, instead of control information, status information returned from the telecom adapter to the host. Thereafter, every four bytes contains a sample from the telephone line and a sample from the handset. The least significant bit of each telephone line sample is set in accordance with the ring indication (RI) signal from the ring detect circuit 305. The DSP processes the ring indication bits so as to efficiently detect and reject spurious ring indication signals.
Because of the capability of the DSP to process the ring indication signal, the ring detect circuitry 305 may be extremely simple. Referring to FIG. 12, a valid ring signal is specified as a signal having a specified low frequency and a specified duration. The function of the ring detector 205 in the present telecom adapter is simply to allow the DSP to determine the frequency of a periodic signal occurring on the telephone line. This function may be accomplished using a simple voltage comparator or Schmidtt-trigger device. When the signal on the telephone line rises above a first predetermined threshold, the ring indication signal is caused to go high. When the signal on the telephone low falls below a second predetermined threshold, the ring indication signal is caused to go low. The ring indication signal therefore takes the form of a pulse train. To determine whether the signal on the line is of the correct frequency to constitute a ring signal, the DSP determines the period of the pulse train and uses this period to determine whether the signal is within a narrow frequency range specified for a ring signal, in accordance with the following relation: 1/ƒmax ≦PERIOD ≦1/ƒmin.
Using the bidirectional signalling method described, a high degree of time-resolution (125 μs) is achieved, more than sufficient to ensure conformance with the standards established by international telecom regulatory bodies. Furthermore, the digital nature of the interface allows very simple hardware to be used to implement the dialing function. Since control and status information is blended with the codec (digitizer) datastream, additional control circuits are not required. Finally, the availability of the high-resolution ring-indication signal to the control processor allows highly reliable discrimination to be performed. Minimal cost analog circuitry may be used in the telecom adapter, achieving a universal, low-cost telecommunications port.
The foregoing has described the principles, preferred embodiments and modes of operation of the present invention. However, the invention should not be construed as limited to the particular embodiments discussed. Instead, the above-described embodiments should be regarded as illustrative rather than restrictive, and it should be appreciated that variations may be made in those embodiments by workers skilled in the art without departing from the scope of the invention as defined by the following claims.
|Cited Patent
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|David Callele
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|Citing Patent
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|Sep 25, 1998
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|Intel Corporation
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|Intel Corporation
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|U.S. Classification
|International Classification
|Cooperative Classification
|European Classification
|Oct 30, 2000
|Fee payment
Year of fee payment: 4
|Sep 22, 2004
|Fee payment
Year of fee payment: 8
|Apr 24, 2007
Owner name: APPLE INC., CALIFORNIA
Free format text: CHANGE OF NAME;ASSIGNOR:APPLE COMPUTER, INC.;REEL/FRAME:019235/0583
Effective date: 20070109
Owner name: APPLE INC.,CALIFORNIA
Free format text: CHANGE OF NAME;ASSIGNOR:APPLE COMPUTER, INC.;REEL/FRAME:019235/0583
Effective date: 20070109
|Sep 30, 2008
|Fee payment
Year of fee payment: 12


text:
'Dexter' stars have a bloody good time
A few castmates from Showtime's Dexter feted the release Saturday night of the Season 4 DVD.
A few castmates from Showtime's Dexter feted the release Saturday night of the Season 4 DVD.
The actors on the show about a serial- killer cop chatted outside the National Hotel, on a white carpet splattered with blood stains. Ha!
Star Michael C. Hall was a no-show (his lymphoma is in remission), but his "Miami Metro Police Department'' colleagues Lauren Vélez, C.S. Lee and David Zayas led the charge.
Zayas said he feels a kinship with his character, detective Angel Batista.
"Angel is kind of like an average guy that's loyal, [but] he has flaws just like me," he said.
Zayas recently branched out from the small screen, currently starring in The Expendables, as a dictator of a South American country.
"Working with Sylvester Stallone was pretty cool and to share the screen with all of them was very special," said the Puerto Rican native. "A lot of testosterone!''
Vélez, who plays Lt. Maria LaGuerta, has a lot of input as to what goes on with her alter ego.
"I'll read the script and tell them you missed this particular quality about her because you're not taking into account she came from Cuba and all these things," said the Brooklyn native. "There are so many layers to it."
More Information
Season 5 airs Sept 26.
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subset: commoncrawl


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Everyone watch out, here comes grandma!
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Dairy Queen
Ice Cream · $
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"The pecan mudslide is an awesome combination of rich pecans, chocolate, caramel and of course vanilla ice cream! Must try if you like pecans"
313 S Market St (Between E. Keller and E. Coover)
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Maggie's Italian Ice
Desserts · $
Gettysburg Pike
"Pina Colada Italian Ice!"
6416 Carlisle Pike
"Best sushi. Try the spicy shrimp roll"
Digiplex Cinemas
4950 Carlisle Pike
"Very nice. Clean. Friendly staff. Comfy reclining seats."
Big Box Store
"This store is 'backwards' (I get lost in here every time) but it's the best Target in the area. The shelves are always neat & the employees are helpful & friendly. Also, key lime cookie straws = yum."
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Cook it light: It's like lemon curd on shortbread: Reduced fat and calorie lemon bars
Dear Jeanne: This recipe is a favorite wherever I go. Can you reduce the fat and calories? Thank you.
— Emily, Flint, Mich.
Dear Emily: These really are good. They are like a lemon curd on a shortbread crust if you bake them correctly. Do not overbake the filling, or you will not get the best result.
Jeanne Jones is the author of 33 cookbooks, most recently "Cooking From the Cupboard" (Rodale Press). For more information, you can go to her website, jeannejones.com.
Send your recipe for revision to:
Cook It Light
Deseret News
P.O. Box 1212
La Jolla, CA 92038
Please include a stamped (61 cents), self-addressed envelope.
© King Features Syndicate Inc.
1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon powdered sugar, divided use
11/4 cups plus 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour, divided use
2/3 cup butter
3 eggs
11/2 cups sugar
Juice and grated rind of 1 lemon
Mix together the powdered sugar and 11/4 cups of the flour. Mix the butter into the sugar-flour mixture. Pat into a 9-inch square baking pan. Bake for 20 minutes at 350 F. Mix together the eggs, sugar, remaining flour and the juice and rind of the lemon. Pour over the hot crust. Return to the oven and bake 15 to 20 minutes more. Cool, then sprinkle with the remaining powdered sugar and cut into bars.
Makes 16 servings.
1?3 cup powdered sugar
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup butter, softened
3 eggs, slightly beaten
1 cup sugar
1?3 cup fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon fresh lemon zest
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon powdered sugar
1. Preheat the oven to 350 F.
2. For the crust, mix together the powdered sugar and flour. Mix in the butter until no large pieces remain. Pat in the bottom of a 9-inch square pan. Bake for 12 minutes, until it turns a creamy tan color.
3. While the crust is baking, beat the eggs lightly with a fork. Add the sugar, lemon juice, lemon zest and flour. Mix until smooth. Pour over the hot crust and bake for another 12 to 15 minutes, just until set. The center should have a slight wobble when shaken, which will firm up after removing it from the oven. When cooled, sprinkle with the remaining powdered sugar.
Makes 16 servings.
Each serving contains approximately: Original Recipe: 211 calories; 9 gm fat; 60 mg cholesterol; 92 mg sodium; 32 gm carbohydrates; 2 gm protein; negligible fiber. Revised Recipe: 132 calories; 4 gm fat; 48 mg cholesterol; 43 mg sodium; 22 gm carbohydrates; 2 gm protein; negligible fiber.
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Mickey Rourke: Rugby star Gareth Thomas had great courage to come out as gay
Post your comment
Comments on this article are now closed.
Reader comments
Not gonna lie, I laughed at his refusal to apologise. Smooth.
Anyway, but he looks nothing like Gareth Thomas. He would have to shave his entire head.
Well, if he thinks that ´faggot´ can be applied to someone as an insult, and that it isnt even worth apologizing for, then no doubt he can easily understand the courage shown by Gareth in Mr Rourke´s favorite macho-sport in coming out as gay.
Thats what its about for this Hollywood ´star´ really. A film about a rugby player who showed great courage. Not specifically about being gay and being considered a worthy human being.
Yeah, I agree that it would make a good film, but Mr ´you faggot´ Rourke playing Gareth? No thanks Mr Rourke. Plenty of ´macho´ straight parts around for you to take!
See the article in Pink News yesterday about the difficulty in Hollywood for out gay actors? Well, lets see an out gay actor, someone who has shown a similar level of courage in his own profession play Gareth!
Mickey Rourke playing Gareth Thomas? I wouldnt go see it!
How is Gareth Johnston a gay role model he got married stayed in the closet and cheated on his wife..Gareth may be out but its too soon to put so much pressure on him. Let GAreth find his true identitiy before these money grabbers start tearing strips off him. The film will not be made if it will not make money Hollywood is not know for its charity
I hope Mickey isn't planning on playing Gareth Thomas in a film. He'ss 22 tears older than Thomas. At 58 he would simply look ridiculous (moreso than he already does with his horrific, melted face.)
I don't see why he should Apologise. If anyone should apologise, it should be the 'Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation' for being such whiney little assholes who view everything remotely negative as 'ZOMG EXTREME HOMOPHOBIA!!!!111' and make us all look like a bunch of twatty little Queens.
As much as I like Rourke, I don't think he'd suit the roll very well. As people say, he's just to old for it.
Nathan – is homophobic abuse less serious than racist abuse?
Wow, he REALLY wants an Oscar
No Dave, but what Rourke said wasn't homophobic abuse.
Nathan – I don't understand why you don't consider Rourke's words as homophobic abuse. Would it, in your view, be acceptable for Rourke to have called the reporter the racist n-word?
No matter how good an actor MR is, common sense should tell Gareth that another actor would be best suited for the role.
How do we get this message across to him?
I will not spend $10 plus popcorn/Coke cost to see this movie, unless someone sexier plays the role.
Philippe in Anchorage
Dave – No, but the N-word only has one definition. When you say it, you mean one thing and one thing alone. Faggot, gay, and other such words have lots of different connotations and are absolutely fine to use as a general way of expressing dislike without automatically implying that there's something homosexual involved. Just like you can call someone a bitch without implying that they have the characteristics of a female dog or bastard without implying anything about their parents marital status. They're just words.
Nathan – the word "faggot" has only one commonly understood meaning, and that is a derogatory term for a gay man. If you call someone who is not gay a "faggot" you are attempting to denigrate them by comparing them to a gay man, with the implication usually being that they are somehow not "manly" enough. The connection to homosexuality isn't magically removed just because you say it is.
Actually, yes it is. That is in fact exactly the way language works. Words mean what you want them to mean and if someone else misinterprets you because of their pathetic sensitivities, that's their problem, not yours.
(Disclaimer, this statement does not cover speaking complete gibberish and expecting people to understand or any other such sarcastic suggestion you may be thinking of making at this point, so don't bother trying)
I can't see this film being made. The script is being "worked on" and finance not yet secured. The Americans and Hollywood know nothing of and couldn't care less about rugby and probably care even less for homosexuality (especially in movies). "Invictus" struggled to get finance because of the rugby theme and that film featured Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon. It was a critical success but a commerical flop. Mickey Rourke is not a big enough star to get this started. Studios look at demographics. The average movie going age is somewhere in the teens in the US. No major studio will fund it; to them, its a case of a coming out story of a rugby player no one has heard of.
These comments are un-moderated and do not necessarily represent the views of PinkNews. If you believe that a comment is inappropriate or libellous, please contact us.
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Awww, things will get better giiirl! I've been okay for the most part, but when school starts again it's all gonna go downhill again haha. Fire Emblem is amaaazing *~~~~* I beat all the chapters but still gotta work on getting the kids.
Hahaha, FE is one of the games in my to-be-played and purchased-eventually list xP
I heard it's really great and has a amazing story, I'm assuming you're enjoying it a lot lol.
That Mareep sprite really suits you lmao :3
I'm in between good and bad, y'know how life is right? =/
I am doing good~ :3 Enjoying my addiction to Fire Emblem, haha. XD; You?
Nm, just on the server as per usual and finding something to do to kill thy anxiousness
How are you doing bb?
sup bby
Noes! Twi is ultimate spammer!
whatchu gonna do miss sheep? xD
spam spam spam


text:
Independence Day: Resurgence
It's just dull and hollow—a massive waste of time and money.
It's just dull and hollow—a massive waste of time and money.
Nicolas Winding Refn's latest provocation is often productively brash, even if it is ultimately more preposterous than it is satisfying.
"The Ballad of Narayama" is a Japanese film of great beauty and elegant artifice, telling a story of startling cruelty. What a space it opens…
Patrice Leconte's "Monsieur Hire" is a tragedy about loneliness and erotomania, told about two solitary people who have nothing else in common. It involves a…
Ken Loach's "I, Daniel Blake" wins the Palme d'Or at the 69th Cannes Film Festival.
Barbara Scharres on the cats of Cannes 2016.
An article about Roger Ebert's reviews getting republished in the Chicago Sun-Times.
Chaz Ebert remembers the late Paul Cox and shares an article about Cox speaking with students at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival.
A report by FFC Seongyong Cho about Andrew Ahn's "Spa Night," which recently played the Jeonju International Film Festival.
FFC Gerardo Valero returns to "The Shawshank Redemption" to investigate how it remains the #1 film on IMDb.
Christine Swanson on "The Miki Howard Story"; Who's afraid of female Ghostbusters; Trump is wrong on Muslims; Remembering Anton Yelchin; How "Silicon Valley" nails Silicon…
A recap of Wednesday night's open of AFI Docs with Alex Gibney's "Zero Days" and highlights of what's to come.
John Lennon wrote the song "Julia" about his mother, and it is a strangely objective love song, as if about a real girlfriend and not a mom. Perhaps that's how he thought of her. When he was very young, he came under the care of his Aunt Mimi, whom he regarded as his mother, and in the telling of "Nowhere Boy," he didn't see Julia again until the day of his uncle's funeral. The film is co-written by Julia Baird, his half-sister, who must be presumed to have good information.
"Julia" is a song of longing and regret, written some years after Julia's sudden death. Their relationship was close and did not have the time to grow old. There's a video online of Sean Lennon singing it, in front of back-projected photographs of his father and Julia, and also of his mother, Yoko Ono. "This song is for my mother," he says, and as he sings it, he sounds eerily like his father, in intonation, arrangement, emotion. Perhaps it is for both his parents. He was young when he lost John, and John was young when he lost Julia. Both memories are of interrupted love.
The young Lennon (Aaron Johnson) in "Nowhere Boy" is cocky and vulnerable. He was raised in an ordinary lower-working-class home, not far from Strawberry Fields in Liverpool, by an aunt (Kristin Scott Thomas) who loved him but was reserved and cool. She and her husband had taken the child in after her younger, prettier sister proved incapable of caring for him; John learns the details of his adoption late in the film. He knew Mimi was not his mother, but had no idea that all during his childhood, Julia lived only a few blocks away.
She must have seen him often, if he had only known it. Did she stay away out of respect for Mimi? He glimpses her at the funeral of his uncle and instinctively knows who she is. When he discovers where she lives, he knocks on her door, and she greets him with instant, embracing love; we get the sense that she was a woman quick to love, impulsive, more spontaneous than the responsible Mimi. Because John and Julia are essentially strangers, their relationship has elements of unrealized romance. There is the tension between joy and sadness we often feel in Lennon's songs, and perhaps we see some of the origins of his place in the flow of British Romanticism.
"Nowhere Boy" is deliberately not about the future John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison, nor about the birth of the Beatles. The cataclysm of their future global fame is nowhere on the horizon. It is about a not remarkable childhood and youth in Liverpool, marred by the sudden death of his Uncle George (David Threlfall), also warm and playful, more spontaneous than Mimi. The two males must have formed a club of their own in the Mimi-ordered household.
There are times when I would have liked a little more detail about the gestation of the future musicians. The only actual Beatles note in the film is its opening chord, from the distinctive first sound of "A Hard Day's Night." We see John meeting Paul, and through Paul, George, in the ways that teenage boys meet. No heartfelt conversations, no elaborate daydreams; music seems to have been a natural way of expression for them.
The seminal Beatles moment in the film may be when John goes to the cinema and sees Elvis Presley singing in a newsreel. Later generations can hardly comprehend how, or perhaps even why, Elvis represented a moment of decisive social change.
What do we really learn from "Nowhere Boy"? We don't really learn much about the actual early days of the Beatles as a band. Of course there is no Ringo Starr, who may deserve his own film. What we do learn is that it could be said of the teenage John Lennon that he:
Doesn't have a point of view,
Knows not where he's going to,
Isn't he a bit like you and me?
I think we also learn something more important. We learn that the emotional roller coaster of his formative years probably contributed to the complexity of his lyrics. We learn why there's so often in his music the top level of what seems clear, and then, below, echoes of ... something else. We feel elation and sadness as simultaneous possibilities. We arrive at the possibility that if Julia had always been there for him, he might not have been there for us. We reflect that even if all you need is love, that isn't always all you get.
This message came to me from a reader named Peter Svensland. He and a fr...
The new "Ghostbusters" film brings a battle between distorted nostalgia and the power of a child's imagination.
A tribute to the life of a great young actor gone too soon.


text:
GRAPEVINE (CBSDFW.COM) – There have not been very many flight delays caused by icy weather at DFW International Airport on Monday morning, but American Airlines has had a couple unusual problems to tackle. First, they had a jet somehow end up in the mud, just off of a taxiway. Then, an arriving flight clipped a concrete pillar.
The incident happened just after 8:30 a.m. at Gate D40 in Terminal D.
According to American Airlines spokesman Matt Miller, the flight was inbound from Leone, Mexico. As it was being towed to the gate, the jet's left wing struck a concrete pillar that supports the terminal. Douglas Thompson was a passenger on the flight, and captured a photograph after the incident occurred.
"As they made the turn to the gate, the wing clipped the concrete pillar," Thompson said afterward. "Passengers had to wait until they got someone out, pull it out, and they moved all of us to another gate."
No injuries were reported during this incident.
Miller said that the aircraft was scheduled to continue flying after its stop in DFW on Monday, but that has now changed. The plane is being taken out of service for an inspection and any required maintenance.
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text:
objective c jobs
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Senior IC Design Engineer
Fairchild Semiconductor Incorporated - Irvine, CA
This job is located in Irvine, CAPerformance Objectives*. We are looking for a talented analog/mixed-signal design engineer who will contribute to the...
Lead Java Programmer Analyst
McLane - Carrollton, TX
Server Faces, Struts, JMS using WebSphere MQ, XML processing using XSLT, SAX or DOM, Unix Scripting, J2ME, C/C++, Objective C....
Executive Director
Muscular Dystrophy Assoc - Richmond, VA
Provide direction and leadership toward the achievement ofMDAs philosophy, mission, strategy and our annual objectives and budget....
[DAES - DST] Program Wide Senior Software Engineer - Development Support Team (SSES NG LC SWE-S)
Sotera Defense Solutions, Inc. - Fort Huachuca, AZ
The primary objective of the Program Wide Senior Software Engineer is to help the system specific lead in building self-organizing, self-managing teams to...
[DAES – POR] Program of Record (POR) Sustainment Operations Web Developer
Sotera Defense Solutions, Inc. - Fort Huachuca, AZ
PERL, PYHTON, RUBY, POWERSHELL, PHP, Objective C, C++. As a Web Developer supporting the DCGS-A Sustainment effort, you will be responsible for the direct...
Data Management Manager
S&T Bank - Indiana, PA
(Additional hours as needed to carryout the objectives of the department.). Work Days and Hours:....
Sales Capture Lead-Applications Services - Products- West Coast
Accenture - San Francisco, CA
Sales Execution professionals involve multiple activities like target the right clients, grow quality pipeline, win profitable deals and manage sales activities...
Sales General Manager
Quad/Graphics - Richmond, VA
Uses objective financial and business analysis to evaluate the returns and risks of business choices. Focus is on driving new sales and meeting personal annual...
Lead Electrician
AECNarrowFabrics - Boykins, VA
Quality Policy and Objectives. Follow the Cleanliness of Premises Policy and understand the Maintenance Objectives as it pertains to the work place....
phone application developer , swift , objective c, iOS , android
Virtual Computer Union inc. - Richmond, VA
Web , iOS and android front end and backend professional developers in need for a hybrid applications development to develop inventory system for our company.


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Now there are seven (or maybe nine): Bugatti... Classic Cars
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For most Porsche fans, Walter Röhrl is instantly recognizable as the man vital to the development of some of the sports car marque's greatest models. The rally legend, now 68, is currently the brand's ambassador and key test driver. Recently, he was behind the wheel of... read more
In 1987, Walter Röhrl climbed behind the wheel of an Audi Sport quattro S1 on the unpaved road to the summit of Pike's Peak. From the time Röhrl launched the... read more March 29, 2012 by Kurt Ernst
Porsche brand ambassador and test driver Walter Röhrl has taken the new 2013 Panamera GTS for a hot-lap around the Ascari race track near Ronda, in southern Spain... read more February 14, 2012 by Viknesh Vijayenthiran


text:
|By Marketwired .
Article Rating:
|December 13, 2012 03:00 PM EST
SAN MATEO, CA -- (Marketwire) -- 12/13/12 -- Selectica, Inc. (NASDAQ: SLTC), provider of software that accelerates sales cycles and streamlines contract processes, today announced the appointment of Mike Mothersbaugh as its new Executive Vice President of Worldwide Sales.
"Mike has firsthand insight into the rapidly increasing market potential for configure-price-quote (CPQ) software across companies of all sizes," said Selectica President and CEO Jason Stern. "His extensive industry knowledge and sales expertise will be a huge asset as we continue to penetrate new markets and expand our sales configuration and contract management product offerings to a broader range of companies. I'm thrilled to welcome such an accomplished sales leader to the Selectica team."
Prior to joining Selectica, Mothersbaugh served as Global Account Director at salesforce.com, where he managed a global team's activity for one of Salesforce's largest accounts and had an up-close view of the importance of CPQ in the broader customer relationship management (CRM) landscape. Previous sales leadership roles at Oracle and Siebel also immersed Mothersbaugh deeply in the CPQ space, providing him with the precise combination of industry expertise and functional skills that position him well to lead sales efforts at Selectica.
At Selectica, Mothersbaugh will be responsible for all North American field sales, global sales, strategic accounts, and sales operations. One specific objective will be to increase the understanding of the value of patented Selectica configuration and contract management technology among several key segments. Those segments include a number of companies within the Salesforce ecosystem as well as organizations in 20+ targeted industries that could benefit from implementing a system that not only streamlines the configure-price-quote process, but also closes the loop on deals by managing and connecting ensuing contract processes.
"You'd be amazed at the number of Fortune 100 companies that have multiple, standalone CPQ systems or rely strictly on spreadsheets or other antiquated methods to do their quoting, so you can only imagine what's happening in companies without as many resources," said Mothersbaugh. "In my opinion, the rock-solid technology behind Selectica Guided Selling, which combines our patented CPQ and contract management solutions, is the 'secret sauce' that can help these companies bridge the gap between quote to cash. I'm excited to get started communicating this value to all the businesses out there that are missing out on the revenue potential."
About Selectica
Selectica (NASDAQ: SLTC) develops innovative software that the world's most successful companies rely on to improve the effectiveness of their sales and contracting processes. Our guided selling, sales configuration, and contract lifecycle management solutions support the Global 2000 and growing mid-size firms in closing billions of dollars' worth of business each year. Our patented technology, delivered through the cloud, makes it easy for customers in industries like high-tech, telecommunications, manufacturing, healthcare, financial services, and government contracting to overcome product and channel complexity, increase deal value, and accelerate time to revenue.
For more information:
- Visit the Selectica website to learn more about the company and its products and customers (http://www.selectica.com)
- Follow @Selectica_Inc on Twitter to stay up to date with industry news and updates (http://twitter.com/Selectica_Inc)
- Visit "Done Deal," the Selectica blog, to read articles, advice, and commentary on how to optimize deal processes (http://www.selectica.com/blog)
- Watch Selectica videos on YouTube to see what Selectica and its products can do (http://www.youtube.com/user/SelecticaVideos)
- Browse the Selectica resource center to find guides and resources on how to improve sales and contracting processes (http://www.selectica.com/resources)
Forward-Looking Statements
Certain statements in this release and elsewhere by Selectica are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws and the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements may include, without limitation, statements regarding business outlook, assessment of market conditions, anticipated financial and operating results, strategies, future plans, contingencies and contemplated transactions of the company. Such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause or contribute to actual results of company operations, or the performance or achievements of the company or industry results, to differ materially from those expressed, or implied by the forward-looking statements. In addition to any such risks, uncertainties and other factors discussed elsewhere herein, risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause or contribute to actual results differing materially from those expressed or implied for the forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to the on-going global recession; fluctuations in demand for Selectica's products and services; government policies and regulations, including, but not limited to those affecting the company's industry; and risks related to the company's past stock granting policies and related restatement of financial statements. Selectica undertakes no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Additional risk factors concerning the company can be found in the company's most recent Form 10-K, filed by the company with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
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Basho Technologies has announced the latest release of Basho Riak TS, version 1.3. Riak TS is an enterprise-grade NoSQL database optimized for Internet of Things (IoT). The open source version enables developers to download the software for free and use it in production as well as make contributions to the code and develop applications around Riak TS. Enhancements to Riak TS make it quick, easy and cost-effective to spin up an instance to test new ideas and build IoT applications. In addition to...
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When people aren't talking about VMs and containers, they're talking about serverless architecture. Serverless is about no maintenance. It means you are not worried about low-level infrastructural and operational details. An event-driven serverless platform is a great use case for IoT. In his session at @ThingsExpo, Animesh Singh, an STSM and Lead for IBM Cloud Platform and Infrastructure, will detail how to build a distributed serverless, polyglot, microservices framework using open source tec...
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Apixio Inc. has raised $19.3 million in Series D venture capital funding led by SSM Partners with participation from First Analysis, Bain Capital Ventures and Apixio's largest angel investor. Apixio will dedicate the proceeds toward advancing and scaling products powered by its cognitive computing platform, further enabling insights for optimal patient care. The Series D funding comes as Apixio experiences strong momentum and increasing demand for its HCC Profiler solution, which mines unstruc...
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IoT offers a value of almost $4 trillion to the manufacturing industry through platforms that can improve margins, optimize operations & drive high performance work teams. By using IoT technologies as a foundation, manufacturing customers are integrating worker safety with manufacturing systems, driving deep collaboration and utilizing analytics to exponentially increased per-unit margins. However, as Benoit Lheureux, the VP for Research at Gartner points out, "IoT project implementers often ...
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It is one thing to build single industrial IoT applications, but what will it take to build the Smart Cities and truly society changing applications of the future? The technology won't be the problem, it will be the number of parties that need to work together and be aligned in their motivation to succeed. In his Day 2 Keynote at @ThingsExpo, Henrik Kenani Dahlgren, Portfolio Marketing Manager at Ericsson, discussed how to plan to cooperate, partner, and form lasting all-star teams to change t...
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In his general session at 18th Cloud Expo, Lee Atchison, Principal Cloud Architect and Advocate at New Relic, discussed cloud as a 'better data center' and how it adds new capacity (faster) and improves application availability (redundancy). The cloud is a 'Dynamic Tool for Dynamic Apps' and resource allocation is an integral part of your application architecture, so use only the resources you need and allocate /de-allocate resources on the fly.
Jun. 28, 2016 08:30 AM EDT Reads: 1,200
In his keynote at 18th Cloud Expo, Andrew Keys, Co-Founder of ConsenSys Enterprise, provided an overview of the evolution of the Internet and the Database and the future of their combination – the Blockchain. Andrew Keys is Co-Founder of ConsenSys Enterprise. He comes to ConsenSys Enterprise with capital markets, technology and entrepreneurial experience. Previously, he worked for UBS investment bank in equities analysis. Later, he was responsible for the creation and distribution of life sett...
Jun. 28, 2016 08:00 AM EDT Reads: 1,301
Presidio has received the 2015 EMC Partner Services Quality Award from EMC Corporation for achieving outstanding service excellence and customer satisfaction as measured by the EMC Partner Services Quality (PSQ) program. Presidio was also honored as the 2015 EMC Americas Marketing Excellence Partner of the Year and 2015 Mid-Market East Partner of the Year. The EMC PSQ program is a project-specific survey program designed for partners with Service Partner designations to solicit customer feedbac...
Jun. 28, 2016 08:00 AM EDT Reads: 433
Machine Learning helps make complex systems more efficient. By applying advanced Machine Learning techniques such as Cognitive Fingerprinting, wind project operators can utilize these tools to learn from collected data, detect regular patterns, and optimize their own operations. In his session at 18th Cloud Expo, Stuart Gillen, Director of Business Development at SparkCognition, discussed how research has demonstrated the value of Machine Learning in delivering next generation analytics to imp...
Jun. 27, 2016 03:00 PM EDT Reads: 782
There are several IoTs: the Industrial Internet, Consumer Wearables, Wearables and Healthcare, Supply Chains, and the movement toward Smart Grids, Cities, Regions, and Nations. There are competing communications standards every step of the way, a bewildering array of sensors and devices, and an entire world of competing data analytics platforms. To some this appears to be chaos. In this power panel at @ThingsExpo, moderated by Conference Chair Roger Strukhoff, Bradley Holt, Developer Advocate a...
Jun. 27, 2016 12:00 PM EDT Reads: 874
Connected devices and the industrial internet are growing exponentially every year with Cisco expecting 50 billion devices to be in operation by 2020. In this period of growth, location-based insights are becoming invaluable to many businesses as they adopt new connected technologies. Knowing when and where these devices connect from is critical for a number of scenarios in supply chain management, disaster management, emergency response, M2M, location marketing and more. In his session at @Th...
Jun. 27, 2016 10:00 AM EDT Reads: 1,078
The cloud market growth today is largely in public clouds. While there is a lot of spend in IT departments in virtualization, these aren't yet translating into a true "cloud" experience within the enterprise. What is stopping the growth of the "private cloud" market? In his general session at 18th Cloud Expo, Nara Rajagopalan, CEO of Accelerite, explored the challenges in deploying, managing, and getting adoption for a private cloud within an enterprise. What are the key differences between wh...
Jun. 27, 2016 09:30 AM EDT Reads: 918
A strange thing is happening along the way to the Internet of Things, namely far too many devices to work with and manage. It has become clear that we'll need much higher efficiency user experiences that can allow us to more easily and scalably work with the thousands of devices that will soon be in each of our lives. Enter the conversational interface revolution, combining bots we can literally talk with, gesture to, and even direct with our thoughts, with embedded artificial intelligence, wh...
Jun. 27, 2016 07:30 AM EDT Reads: 1,097
Cloud computing is being adopted in one form or another by 94% of enterprises today. Tens of billions of new devices are being connected to The Internet of Things. And Big Data is driving this bus. An exponential increase is expected in the amount of information being processed, managed, analyzed, and acted upon by enterprise IT. This amazing is not part of some distant future - it is happening today. One report shows a 650% increase in enterprise data by 2020. Other estimates are even higher....
Jun. 26, 2016 05:00 PM EDT Reads: 1,341
SYS-CON Events announced today that Bsquare has been named "Silver Sponsor" of SYS-CON's @ThingsExpo, which will take place on November 1–3, 2016, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA. For more than two decades, Bsquare has helped its customers extract business value from a broad array of physical assets by making them intelligent, connecting them, and using the data they generate to optimize business processes.
Jun. 26, 2016 05:00 PM EDT Reads: 1,251
Internet of @ThingsExpo, taking place November 1-3, 2016, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA, is co-located with 19th Cloud Expo and will feature technical sessions from a rock star conference faculty and the leading industry players in the world. The Internet of Things (IoT) is the most profound change in personal and enterprise IT since the creation of the Worldwide Web more than 20 years ago. All major researchers estimate there will be tens of billions devices - comp...
Jun. 26, 2016 04:00 PM EDT Reads: 1,306
19th Cloud Expo, taking place November 1-3, 2016, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA, will feature technical sessions from a rock star conference faculty and the leading industry players in the world. Cloud computing is now being embraced by a majority of enterprises of all sizes. Yesterday's debate about public vs. private has transformed into the reality of hybrid cloud: a recent survey shows that 74% of enterprises have a hybrid cloud strategy. Meanwhile, 94% of enterpri...
Jun. 26, 2016 04:00 PM EDT Reads: 1,382
The 19th International Cloud Expo has announced that its Call for Papers is open. Cloud Expo, to be held November 1-3, 2016, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA, brings together Cloud Computing, Big Data, Internet of Things, DevOps, Digital Transformation, Microservices and WebRTC to one location. With cloud computing driving a higher percentage of enterprise IT budgets every year, it becomes increasingly important to plant your flag in this fast-expanding business opportuni...
Jun. 26, 2016 12:00 PM EDT Reads: 1,328
Internet of @ThingsExpo, taking place November 1-3, 2016, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA, is co-located with the 19th International Cloud Expo and will feature technical sessions from a rock star conference faculty and the leading industry players in the world and ThingsExpo Silicon Valley Call for Papers is now open.
Jun. 26, 2016 12:00 PM EDT Reads: 1,162
There is little doubt that Big Data solutions will have an increasing role in the Enterprise IT mainstream over time. Big Data at Cloud Expo - to be held November 1-3, 2016, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA - has announced its Call for Papers is open. Cloud computing is being adopted in one form or another by 94% of enterprises today. Tens of billions of new devices are being connected to The Internet of Things. And Big Data is driving this bus. An exponential increase is...
Jun. 26, 2016 12:00 PM EDT Reads: 1,383


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The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) and MassDOT Registry of Motor Vehicles Division today issued a two-year contract extension beginning in October 2013 for the enhanced vehicle emissions testing and safety inspection program, the Massachusetts Vehicle Check Program.
Parsons Commercial Technology Group Inc. will continue to manage the day-to-day operations of Massachusetts Vehicle Check for MassDEP and MassDOT/RMV, supporting a statewide network of more than 1,900 inspection stations and 300 registered emissions repair shops. Parsons will also continue operating 12 conveniently located Motorist Assistance Centers to provide advice to motorists, technical assistance to repair technicians, help with getting vehicles "ready" for testing after emissions repairs, vehicle evaluations for repair waivers and economic hardship extensions, and vehicle testing quality assurance.
"Customer service is number one at the Registry," said Registrar of Motor Vehicles Rachel Kaprielian. "In this case, customers will benefit from the extension of the Massachusetts Vehicle Check Program because it allows vehicle owners the continued convenience of taking their vehicles to familiar neighborhood inspection stations."
Passenger cars, trucks and SUVs 15 years old and newer, as well as model year 2008 and newer medium-duty vehicles, will continue to undergo annual on-board diagnostic (OBD) emissions testing. Diesel-powered vehicles over 10,000 pounds Gross Vehicle Weight Rating not equipped with OBD systems will continue to undergo annual opacity emissions testing. All motorized vehicles – including passenger vehicles, commercial vehicles and trailers, and motorcycles – will continue to undergo annual safety inspections.
Visit the Massachusetts Vehicle Check web site to learn more.
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Articles tagged rosamund pike
13 Jul 2011 // 10:00 PM
This is not a romantic comedy as its trailer misleads; rather, it's a drama that carries us through the defining moments that occur within nearly 40 years of the eponymous character's life.READ more
26 Apr 2007 // 3:38 AM
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23 Apr 2007 // 2:00 AM
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20 Apr 2007 // 6:32 AM
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20 Apr 2007 // 3:04 AM
Ted is all wit, charm and ruthlessness. He is Hannibal Lecter without the menu, a creep we can love.READ more
22 Aug 2006 // 12:00 AM
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29 Nov 2002 // 1:00 AM
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All humor, according to McGraw's hypothesis, is based on moral violations…
I didn't realize everyone thought of puns that way.
What makes the difference between successful satire or dark comedy, and jokes that make everybody hate you?
Obviously, some of this has to do with the personality and internal culture of the person or group you're talking to. For instance, some families use humor to deal with tragedy. For others, jokes at a funeral would be offensive. But there do seem to be some across-the-board rules of thumb at play, too.
At the University of Colorado Boulder, where the Humor Research Lab is a real thing (with a hilariously deadpan website and a strong commitment to punny acronyms), a team of scientists under the direction of psychologist/marketing researcher Peter McGraw have been studying human behavior to build a working theory of why we think stuff is funny.
All humor, according to McGraw's hypothesis, is based on moral violations — upending the social order or behavior we expect and think is "right". Humor happens when those violations are simultaneously noticed, but judged to be really not be that big of a deal. So when you're talking about inappropriate humor, the question becomes: How do you get your audience to see the moral violation as benign?
McGraw's team recently published a paper documenting the results of five different tests of inappropriate humor. Here's a clip from the Smithsonian news blog explaining how a couple of them worked:
First, they looked into the effect of psychological distance in terms of time by asking participants to describe events in their lives that either became more or less funny as time passed. Participants rated the event's severity, and the researchers found that the more severe events became funnier over time compared to the more minor violations.
In a second experiment, participants reported a severe violation, like being hit by a car, as funnier if it happened several years go, while a mild violation, like stubbing a toe, was funnier if it happened very recently.
Basically, bad things become funny things when we find a balance between how bad the bad thing was, how long ago the bad thing happened, and how distant — physically, emotionally, and socially — the audience was from the event. Of course, that's where the subjectivity comes in. If you know your audience well, you're likely to do a better job of figuring out what will hit the sweet spot with them and what won't.
Read about all the experiments at Smithsonian.com
Read a full research paper explaining the McGraw group's basic hypothesis of humor
Via Colin Schultz
In a new scientific study, McGill University researcher Jay Olson combined stage magic with psychology to make people think that an fMRI machine (actually a fake) could read their minds and implant thoughts in their heads. Essentially, Olson and his colleagues used "mentalist" gimmicks to do the ESP and "thought insertion" but convinced the subjects […]
Radiolab's Jad Abumrad riffs on "The Function of Music" in this spectacular cut-up video by Mac Premo.
Dip your dollar into liquid anhydrous ammonia, dry it, and repeat. The surface tension of the boiling and evaporating ammonia shrinks the bill. Caveat: It could prove difficult to use a mini-dollar and mutilating a bill may even be illegal. (Applied Science via Weird Universe)
The realm of web development is constantly evolving. New platforms, languages, and processes materialize all the time, so staying on top of all that innovation is a tall order.Whether you're brushing up on new tricks, starting from scratch, or just looking to make your own website a little jazzier, Rob Percival's new Complete Web Developer Course 2.0 (now […]
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All humor, according to McGraw's hypothesis, is based on moral violations…
I didn't realize everyone thought of puns that way.
Mark Twain said, "Humor is tragedy plus time."
'Humor happens when those violations are simultaneously noticed, but judged to be really not be that big of a deal.
Ah,the tricky part. What I'm finding increasingly difficult, is to keep company with people who find much if anything funny.
That would be awfully depressing. Humor is important.
I have friends and family from different walks of life with vastly differing sensitivities and philosophies, but I find that most people with whom I associate still laugh at farts. If we couldn't at least share a giggle when Nana cuts one at the dinner table, Thanksgiving would be a dreary prospect indeed.
A while back I mentioned an ancestor who had the misfortune to fall through the rotten wooden seat of her outhouse and drown. At the remove of two or three generations, her fate is hysterically funny to me, but I greatly fear that if I were present on the occasion of her discovery, I still would not be able to keep myself from laughing myself to death, no matter how beloved she may have been.
Something may be broken inside me. Maybe poop shouldn't strike me as quite that funny.
I was sitting on a couch in a condo in Lincoln City, when the Toshiba suddenly posted my comment before I could finish my thought. Since we had 45 minutes till check-out time, I decided to not try to fix it by replying to myself and go gaze wistfully instead at the ocean for a few minutes before driving back toward the Portland airport.
One of my favorite scenes in 'Shipping News' is Judy Dench taking the ashes of her dead brother to the outhouse, dumping them down the hole and sitting down to crap on them. I laughed and laughed. Both of my parents wish to have their ashes spread out on the ocean. If I get to those ashes before my brother, not all of dearly departed will be joining with the Pacific Ocean.
My in-laws have accumulated a few jugs of ashes that need spreading somewhere-or-other. (At a certain point in the familial cycle you really gotta keep on top of these things lest they accumulate like wire coathangers, it seems.) At least two jugs contain the mortal remains of kinfolk who may yet, if they're real lucky, escape the fate to which you darkly allude. Not everyone ends up being welcome to join the shifting sands at the family beach. But man, I for one seriously hope I never leave this world tempting my survivors to crap on my ashes!
I used to threaten to have my mother stuffed. I was dead serious and started telling her that when I was ~ eight years old.
I went back to Massachusetts when she was dying. I got a call in the morning that she had died. By one in the afternoon, the funeral home that she had contracted with let me know that she was already cremated and the obituary which she had written was already sent to the paper.
Now to me that's funny. First, that you were completely serious in telling maw you planned to have her stuffed ('Harcourt Fenton Mudder!'). Oh, the fun you could have had! Second, that she believed you and made sure you couldn't follow through. Did you get custody of the ashes?
What I wanted to say about humor is that it often starts with pain, or basic human suffering. I'm seeing a failure of empathy in my community for each other's pain, whether we share that particular circumstance of pain or not.
Did you get custody of the ashes?
No. Straight into the plot where my grandparents are buried.
Maybe poop shouldn't strike me as quite that funny.
It probably wasn't funny then because it was everywhere.
On the other hand, a real joke from 1918:
I had a little bird; her name was Enza. I opened the window and in flew Enza.
A quarter of the world's population was sickened with the flu that year and between 50,000,000 and 130,000,000 died.
22.3 years
I'm like 99.99999% certain not all humor works this way. Last time I got a belly laugh out of people this was the joke:
Bill: Well, there's the project I need to get out in like two weeks.
Boss: No, that's not due until October.
Me: And as we watch the sweat sucks back into Bill's forehead.
In fact, I go out of my way to make sure my humor is (mostly) non-offensive and not at anyone's expense. I can't think of many Jim Gaffigan or Mitch Hedburg routines that use moral taboos this way either.
I agree–the hypothesis that all humour stems from moral violations isn't consistent with my experience, either.
For example, take this quote from Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
"It must be Thursday. I could never get the hang of Thursdays."
I'm fairly certainly I lol'd when I first read this line, but I see no moral violation here. It's just absurd that Arthur Dent would consistently find Thursdays harder than any other day of the week.
I'm unsure about one of my favorite jokes about jokes: "Her idea of wit is nothing more than an incisive observation humorously phrased and delivered with impeccable timing."
Speaking as an authority – an internet celebrity once called a tweet I wrote 'funny' – I hope they don't just mean moral 'rightness' in the generally-used sense. If they do I suspect confirmation bias. That kind of humour does work more or less as described, but that's not all humour.
For mine the essense of a gag ('jokes' being just one kind of gag) is surprising whatever any kind of expectations in the audience (in a non-distressing way). I know a guy who teaches clowning in terms of setting up a rhythmn and breaking it (even with something as basic as breathing). It starts that simple.
I can see how that response to undangerous surprises could be adaptive in a number of ways. (I also heard someone chatting about the idea of laughter as a group 'danger over' signal, which would explain the rules and, being an evolutionary psychology explanation, is also inherently amusing.)
I'm 99.9999999999999999999% sure you aren't sure to that degree of accuracy.
McGraw was recently on Mary Lynn Rajskub's podcast talking about his book, "The Humor Code"
Why can't we delete our own comments?
Fuck if I know.
When somebody dies.
"Someone walked in on Michael Hutchence masturbating and choking himself."
"Oh, that's sad; he's lost his mind"
"Somebody found Michael Hutchence dead. He's hung himself while masturbating."
"Oh, that's sad. He must have lost…wait, what was he doing?"
What's with all these researchers (not comedians) who think humour is only based on the darkest of instincts? I'm a professional comedian (and PhD), the two elements found in all comedy are SURPRISE and/or ABSURDITY. What moral violation is there in the joke "Why did the chicken cross the road?" We laugh because it's absurd. As adults we laugh because finding that joke funny is absurd as well.
I've often wondered how many centuries will have to pass before people make Hitler jokes with the same equanimity with which we would now make Attila-the-Hun or Genghis Khan jokes.
Years ago I started a graduate seminar called "Humor in Art." I didn't have the answers, but thought that the collective effort of similarly-attuned people could make some headway. There was precious little info in the library on that subject at the time, and almost none of it tried to
get a handle on what humor actually IS or how it works. E.g., how can a thing be funny to the same person more than once (i.e., when the element of surprise is missing)? But it can happen. I had noticed that all humor seemed to involve misfortune on somebody's part (even puns have victims).
Freud thought of humor as an "adaptive regression," and though he may not have been entirely right, I don't think he was entirely wrong either. At this point I have the intuition (admittedly vague, but intuition is often vague by its nature) that whatever definitions and understandings we manage to find about humor will just obsolesce and take some other form we don't quite understand. Incomplete or mistaken understanding seems to be present in most humor-response I can presently think of. – – KP
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