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Bruce Parker, Kevin Kelly, Mary Catherine Bateson, Douglas Kenrick, Douglas Rushkoff, Roger Schank, Ed Regis, Gregory Paul, Eiko Ikegami, Rodney Brooks, J. Doyne Farmer, James J. O'Donnell
About a year ago, on Wednesday April 14th, I was on the way to London from JFK, when the pilot announced a slight delay into Heathrow in order to avoid the ash cloud coming out of the Icelandic volcano eruption. This was the first time I paid any attention to the subject. But once in London that is the only subject anybody talked about for a week.
"Something is going on here that requires serious thinking," I wrote on these pages. "We've had earthquakes before, and we've had plane stoppages, but nothing like the continuing effects of the ash cloud." The result was an Edge Special event on "The Ash Cloud". I asked the following question:
It's already clear that the earthquake and tsunami that hit northern Japan is the latest tragic example of our inability to predict when it matters most.
What can the Edge community bring to the table?
"Risks are always interesting," writes George Dyson," especially in this case where you have such a mix of probabilities — the earthquake/tsunami that most agree was unpredictable, if inevitable, and the nuclear power plant that some people think was entirely safe, and some people believe was entirely unsafe. So you need to frame this in terms of risk, without getting bogged down in the debate about nuclear power, that may go on forever, certainly long enough to drive people away from Edge."
"The question of preference for different kinds of fate — death by drowning vs death by radiation; death by enemy fire vs friendly fire, etc; tolerance for automobile fatalities because they are "accidents" — is at the heart of this, and you have a lot of people at hand with something to say about that."
To start things off, Edge asked Bruce Parker, Former Chief Scientist of the National Ocean Service in NOAA, and author of The Power of the Sea, to write the lede essay on risk in light of northern Japan earthquake and tsunami.
John Brockman
Bruce Parker, Kevin Kelly, Mary Catherine Bateson, Douglas Kenrick, Douglas Rushkoff, Roger Schank, Ed Regis, Gregory Paul, Eiko Ikegami, Rodney Brooks, J. Doyne Farmer, James J. O'Donnell
Prediction is the very essence of science. We judge the correctness a scientifictheory by its ability to predict specific events. And from a more real-world practical point of view, the primary purpose of science itself is to achieve a prediction capability which will give us some control over our lives and some protection from the environment around us. To avoid the dangers of the world we must be able to predict where and especially when they will happen.
While the scientific method may lead us to a reasonably thorough understanding of some phenomenon, unfortunately that does not always translate into an accurate practical prediction capability that, for example, might help us avoid being killed by a natural disaster. When that is the case, we then find ourselves talking about risk, the likelihood that some dangerous event will take place, even though we do not know when. Risk assessment is necessitated by an inability to predict. That inability to predict may come from some deficiency in our knowledge, or it may be the result of a great complexity inherent in the phenomenon (for example, we may not have high-enough-resolution data to represent it, or the process may have a chaotic component that keeps us from determining exactly when it will occur). We are then left only with probabilities.
Along the way to understanding a natural phenomenon we, of course, develop and employ various types of technology. Such technology is typically used to measure the phenomenon and thus provide the data that will stimulate the analytical human mind to develop appropriate scientific theories. More data are then used to test those theories. Ultimately technology will also (hopefully) take the form of a warning system, a computer model (representing an accepted scientific theory) that uses real-time data. In the meantime, other technology will improve the methods of protection against such disasters.
The tsunami that struck northern Japan (where the death toll will likely surpass 25,000) is the latest tragic example of our inability to predict when it matters most. The tsunami's arrival at coasts more distant than Japan was accurately predicted by hydrodynamic computer models, once the location of the submarine earthquake was determined and the generation of a tsunami was confirmed by real-time data from DART buoys and tide gauges. (Such a confirmation is required because most submarine earthquakes do not produce tsunamis and the numerous false alarms that would result from warnings based only on the occurrence of a submarine earthquake would make the warnings useless.) But when the epicenter is so close to the coast that the tsunami arrives only 30 minutes after the earthquake, the only possible warning is a receding ocean prior to the tsunami or the earthquake itself (when a coast shakes for a long time, one is wise to play it safe and act as if a tsunami will be coming very soon). The Japanese are the most tsunami aware people on Earth, and they did immediately run to roof tops and inland. But 30 minutes is not a very long time. (It was even worse in northwest Sumatra in 2004, when an even larger tsunami struck only 15 minutes after the initial earthquake.)
The only way that a more advanced tsunami warning could have been given is if the earthquake itself could have been predicted. But we cannot predict when an earthquake will strike, not the day, or the month, or the year, or even the decade. All we can do is assign a risk to particular regions. Japan, with its numerous tectonic plates butting up against each other, is known to be a high risk area; many earthquakes and tsunamis have occurred there before. As a result, some sea walls had been built and some buildings had been made stronger. Technology contributed to those defenses. But they were not enough, and in fact, could never be enough, without huge sums of money being spent to build 40-foot sea walls along almost the entire Japanese coastline and to make all buildings capable of surviving the very rare 9.0 earthquake.More effective would be to pour a small fraction of that cost into additional earthquake prediction research (an earthquake prediction capability would have saved even more lives in Haiti). With the great complexity of the worldwide tectonic environment, understanding what makes two tectonic plates suddenly release each other, much less being able to predict when earthquakes will occur using a detailed geophysical model, is still very far off. But using technology to continuously measure the various signals that the solid Earth provides, until we find signals that only come in advance of an earthquake, may be possible a lot sooner. Based on past accomplishments we can be justified in being optimistic that human intellect will someday find a way to predict when an earthquake will happen. But we need to speed up that process, because in the future more lives will be at stake. Whatever additional funds are required to make that happen would certainly be money well spent.
Passing a Worst-Case Scenario Test
The 2011 Sendai earthquake and tsunami caused great damage to all energy and infrastructure systems.
One irrigation dam ruptured, its flood killing at least four people. Six other dams show signs of cracking.
Two oil refineries was set on fire by the quake, one in Ichihara and one in Sendai. Others were taken offline to check for damage.
Four nuclear power reactors were damaged. No deaths due to radiation have been reported so far.
The failure of a dam and its cost of life have not caused second thoughts about the risks and appropriate use of hydroelectricity. The failure of oil refineries have no elicited second thoughts about power from oil. But the failure of nuclear reactors have caused great anguish and second thoughts about nuclear power, despite its comparable harm.
Nuclear power has real and known risks. Coal has real and known risks. Solar and wind have real and less known risks. The risks of one option have to be weighed, not against nothing, but against the risks of other options. Nuclear is looking pretty good.
"Atomic energy has just been subjected to one of the harshest of possible tests, and the impact on people and the planet has been small. The crisis at Fukushima has converted me to the cause of nuclear power," says George Monbiot in the UK's liberal paper Guardian.
OK, that congratulations of passing the test may yet be a bit premature, but nuclear would have to kill a lot more to catch up to coal. Unfortunately, even smart people are running from nuclear and plunging back into coal and oil as the only other immediately available economic alternative. Mark Lynas notes, "Having shut down its nukes, Germany is already importing much more coal from the US and other countries, as is Japan."
Richard Rhodes one of the foremost experts on nuclear weapons, wrote a Pulitzer Prize-winning history of the effects of atom bomb and nuclear weapons, now in its fourth volume. He notes a curious effect of this re-evaluation of nuclear power:
All Energy Disasters Lead to Coal, Which Is an Energy Disaster
Simply looking at the loss of human life day to day, coal and oil are a disaster.
As per this Swedish report on the health effects of power generation. When tallied as deaths per tera watts per hour (deaths/TWh) coal and oil dominate while nuclear is minimal:
But what about black swan events? Say a 9.0 earthquake and tsunami on the cost demolishing some old nuclear reactors? Might nuclear radiation be so severe that it would wipe off life from the planet, or at least fry thousands, and eliminate its considerable lead in saftey? It is possible, but not likely.
For a better understanding of the relative strength of radiation and its health consequences, this "powers of ten" radiation chart by xkcd is very illuminating. Everyone might want to stop getting x-rays. But we won't because we reckon the costs of not getting x-rays.
What technology wants is a diversity of energy sources. Having passed a harsh worst-case scenario test, nuclear will be part of that mix.
There is a reason to be particularly interested in events that we know with some certainty will occur, but for which we cannot set a date. Other kinds of events, beyond natural disasters, fit this definition. Yes, "the big one" will hit California, although we do not know when. But this is true of human upheavals as well. It was clear in the early 70s that the Pahlavi regime in Iran would eventually be overthrown, but there was no way to predict when that would happen, so no one was ready.
This is not a new kind of problem — on the contrary, it is a problem that has characterized the human condition since we began to recognize sequence and to make predictions, the knowledge that each individual has that he or she will die, and the inability to know when. Except for a few eras such as when Egyptian pharoahs prepared their tombs long before their deaths, or during the middle ages when memento mori was constantly reiterated, we have been skilled at avoidance and denial. Our ability to avoid thinking about predictable events that have no predictable date is based on millennia of practice.
In order to improve prediction we need to see such events as recurrent or cyclical, rather than seeing them as unique How many humanitarian disasters on average occur per year (and is global warming accelerating their incidence)? What rate of nuclear incidents is tolerable? Has anyone noticed how often we go to war — it is no longer an unusual event. How often do revolutions spread from country to country as they did in the nineteenth century and recently in the Middle East? (for each person sees his or her own death as in some sense unique). These questions allow relief agencies to stockpile supplies, but asking these questions depends on moving disasters, even the greatest ones, out of the category of the unique — which in turn may make them more tolerable. We are close to becoming inured to disaster, which may be the cost of prediction.
It's too easy to discount intuition. Pattern recognition. The almost literary sensibility through which we make sense of our world.
The narrative implicit in the nuclear plant disaster in Japan is just too striking for most humans to ignore: the nation that suffered an atomic bombing is now enduring a nuclear crisis. A particular kind of scientific orthodoxy refuses to even entertain such parallels except as evidence of psychological or cultural biases clouding what should be our reliance on the data.
But, as black swan events like this prove, our reliance on the data continually fails us. We just can't get enough data about our decidedly non-linear world to make accurate predictions. There are just too many remote high leverage points in the chaotic systems constructing our reality for us to take all of them into account. Things that seemed not to matter — or that we didn't even notice — iterate enough until they end up mattering a lot. We're better off looking at a fractal and intuiting its relevant patterns than relying on its various pieces to tell us its unfolding story. Science too often divides to understand, incapable of even acknowledging there might be a science in divining to the same ends.
The coincidence of nuclear crises in Japan, combined with our inability to predict the events that precipitated it, forces another kind of predictive apparatus into play. No, it's not one we like to engage — particularly in rational circles — but one we repress at our own peril. Science is free to promote humanity's liberation from superstition or even God, but not from humanity itself. We still have something in common with all those animals who somehow, seemingly magically, know when an earthquake or tsunami is coming and to move to higher ground.
And our access to that long lost sense lies in something closer to story than metrics. A winter bookended by BP's underwater gusher and Japan's radioactive groundwater may be trying to speak to us in ways we are still human enough to hear.
How to Teach Prediction
Prediction is one of the main cognitive processes. Children regularly make predictions.
These three worlds, the social, the physical, and the mental, are at the center of what adults continue to learn to make predictions about. We predict the speed of an oncoming car and decide whether we can cross the street safely. We predict events that will make us happy or sad, such as taking a nice vacation, or playing a game, or a good meal, or establishing a relationship with another person.
To learn to predict well, one needs to be educated about how to predict and one needs to make predictions and to examine what went wrong when those predictions fail. Curiously the schools teach none of this.
How do children learn to predict? They learn as events happen randomly in their lives. If they are lucky enough to have someone helpful to talk with about their experiences they may, in fact, become good at analyzing how the world works and making their predictions conscious. Getting better at prediction is the cornerstone of living one's life in a satisfying way. One can, of course get better at prediction by simply thinking about it, this is how most people do this today of course. But not everyone is capable of doing that and, clearly, most adults are not all that good at making important predictions in their own lives. (This is one reason that there are bad marriages, financial counselors, clinical psychologists, and prisons.)
The idea that kids can make predictions is not a really radical point. My point is that prediction has to be the curriculum and not be ancillary to the curriculum. If we want adults to predict well, we need to help children do it well. As it stands now they are on their own. As adults who have not been taught to predict well, they will make poor life decisions, predicting wrongly about how people and things in their lives (bosses, spouses, children, co-workers, nuclear reactors etc.) will behave towards them after they take certain actions for example.
There are three aspects of prediction: learning a script; functioning without a script because it isn't known; and predicting when there is no script.
How do we teach prediction when there is no script and there are no seemingly relevant prior cases? In some sense you can't. You can teach people how to go about trying to make predictions. This is actually what science is about.
Scientists create theories which make predictions which they then try to verify with evidence. This process — hypotheses verified by evidence can be taught in the sense that it is a way of thinking that can be practiced in various venues and should be practiced in first grade. It is reasonable to start teaching children to think in this way about the world around them. We need to teach children to do scientific reasoning, not to memorize facts about science.
Earthquake Prediction and Tsunami Protection
There is increasing evidence that earthquakes can in fact be predicted. When rocks grind together under pressure, they give rise to a range of electromagnetic phenomena, including so-called "earthquake lights" (EQLs), that can be regarded as precursor phenomena of a forthcoming quake. Empirical data exist showing that such luminous displays often occur before earthquakes; indeed they have been reported since ancient times; in the case of the Saguenay quake in Canada (25 November 1988), such lights were reported 25 days before the event. (The meaning of these lights is controversial among seismologists.)
Another sign of an impending quake is a disturbance to the ultralow frequency radio band, which has been observed weeks before an earthquake. A third precursor signal is a magnetic field change in the vicinity of a forthcoming upheaval. All such phenomena — EQLs, radio disturbances, and magnetic field changes — can be and have been observed by satellite, and for this reason the French government has a earthquake-detection satellite in orbit: DEMETER (Detection of Electro-Magnetic Emissions Transmitted from Earthquake Regions) that has observed such precursor phenomena from space.
Some of these phenomena, furthermore, have been reproduced in the laboratory. For example, researchers have performed experiments in which rocks subjected to high pressures produce bursts of electrical discharges consistent with those observed before and during quakes.
Earthquakes are natural, not supernatural, phenomena. They result from known physical forces, stresses, and fractures within the Earth's crust. Further research on various types of precursor phenomena, together with the emplacement of a range of Earth-based and satellite sensors, might one day enable us to predict earthquakes with enough precision to make an early warning system possible and realistic.
In his essay, Bruce Parker says that technology "could never be enough, without huge sums of money being spent to build 40-foot sea walls along almost the entire Japanese coastline…" Well, societies spend huge sums of money routinely, often for projects that have little if any economic or scientific return or tangible benefit, for instance the building of the Great Pyramids at Giza.
But another large and ancient project, had it been deployed at the Japanese coastline, arguably could have prevented some of the destruction wrought by the Sendai tsunami: the Great Wall of China. The Great Wall extends for a distance of 8,851 km (5,500 mi.), and was built starting in the 5th century BCE. The coastline of the Japanese island of Honshu is some 5,450 km (3,386 mi.) long, with the Atlantic-facing side comprising about half of that distance. This means that the Great Wall could have almost doubled the length of Honshu's Atlantic coastline. If a structure built during ancient times could have provided some protection against a tsunami, it is likely that modern technology is fully up to the task of building a seawall that would be effective against the tsunami at Sendai. Whether or not to build it rests on factors, such as cost, political vision, and tolerance for risk, that are outside and independent of science and technology proper.
Periodic Natural Disasters Bad; Infectious Diseases Far, Far, Far Worse
The intellectual problem with our planet is that it was not intelligently designed. That leads to the physical problem — because Earth is an entirely natural accident it is a badly constructed death trap.
On the chronic level there is the horrific wastage of youth with — until the last couple of centuries — about half of children dying as kids, to the tune of about 50 billion premature deaths, largely from the diseases the wild west that is dumb ass evolution cooked up. On the periodic level there are your plate tectonics. In one sense moving plates are a good thing for people. If not for them constantly building up mountains the continents would have never formed much less still be around. But the system is fatally flawed. Had the plates been designed with any common sense their edges would glide past one another as smooth as silk. No one aside from geologists would notice them. They would not generate earthquakes. But plate boundaries we have to put up with tend to lock up, build up strain, and snap with bad results. When quakes occur on land it is bad architecture that causes most casualties. But underwater quakes can spawn tsunamis that when big enough overwhelm even well prepared coastal peoples. Underwater landslides and big meteorites hitting oceans make big waves too.
The problem with calculating the big periodic risks is that they are not really calculable. Nuclear plants are generally built to resist the maximum quakes and waves at significant risk of happening in its decades long operating span according to known geological and historical evidence. But some quakes don't even bother to occur at plate boundaries. The New Madrid superquake hit the Mississippi valley. That may have been a once in a millennium result of shifting continental buoyancy after the melting of the last Pleistocene ice sheet. Who knows what faults are out there? Or underwater slopes ready to slide. Build a lot of nuclear plants to resist normal local events, and it is inevitable that some of them will be hit by the locally rare and unpredicted local superquake or superwave. If that happens to coal fired or solar plants it is just a regional power loss. But fission plants are hyper-intense concentrations of radiation and heat just waiting to burst out with lots of nasty items that can profoundly disrupt entire regions. To better ensure safety would require that all nukes be built to survive very rare, unpredictable events, driving up their already high costs.
But as bad as quakes and tsunamis have been, they and other short-term disasters are not major people killers. It is estimated that tremblers have dispatched around 10 million in the last thousand years, a drop in the general premature mortality bucket. Expanding this a few fold will cover all the losses over human existence due to quakes, waves, volcanoes, fires, storms, floods, slides and the like. It is disease that has taken tens of billions, with famines making a major contribution.
Three Realities: Cultural Capital, Scientific Measurements, Political Denial
The magnitude of the earthquake that hit North-East Japan was 9.0, the fourth largest on record in modern times. The earthquake and tsunami risk was on the level of once in a thousand years, for this region: the last comparable earthquake in that region occurred in 869, according to historical and archeological evidence. In a shocking and totally unpredictable way, this disaster exhibited the hidden every-day culture of Japanese society. The dignified attitudes of survivors and the efficiency of their mutual help networks indicate the high level of civility instituted in the North-East of Japan. This tangible cultural capital will be an enormously positive asset for the social and economic recovery of the region.
In stark contrast, the very serious problems with the nuclear power plant in Fukushima have unearthed another, more problematic aspect of Japanese culture: their amazing ability of political denial in the face of scientific facts. I am gravely concerned that this disaster reveals the long-term practice of a hidden organizational culture related to the use of nuclear technology with a completely disfunctional regulatory system. It is truly alarming to see the government projecting to the public an imaginary third political reality, in which the first reality of the scientific radiation measurements is covered up in order to highlight the second reality of the social resilience of the Japanese public.
Risk-taking is an integral part of our every day life. Constructing and operating huge public projects involves the issue of appropriate levels of risk and budget considerations. But when combined with an organizational culture of structural secrecy and organizational conformity, it has grave consequences, in spite of all the courage of individual engineers, workers and fire fighters now toiling around the clock in life threatening circumstances at Fukushima Daiichi.
I am writing a longer essay with Junichiro Makino, professor at Tokyo Institute of Technology, who has been expressing his concerns in his Japanese blog on this issue since March 12th. His main point is that the situation is much closer to the Chernobyl disaster than the official understated governmental interpretation lets us believe. After two weeks, the ongoing problems at the Fukushima reactors are in line with Prof. Makino's dire predictions. Here are some salient points.
Already on March 17th, six days after the earthquake, following explosions at Fukushima's Daiichi nuclear power plant, the radiation level in the surroundings were comparable to that of Chernobyl. In one small village, Namie-machi, 30 km the plant, the radiation level was measured to be 170 microsievert/ hour. This value corresponds to an amount of I-131 of 1.3x10^14 Bq/km^2. This probably corresponds to an amount of Cs-131 of 3x10^12 Bq/km^2, roughly the same value as what was observed 30 km from Chernobyl. This measurement was taken by a team, reportedly led by the vice minister Kan Suzuki of Ministry of Education (MEXT).
Thus, already six days after the accident, it should have been clear that the amount of radioactivity released is comparable to that of Chernobyl. Even so, as of March 25, representatives of Tokyo Electric and NISA (Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency) still stick to their estimate that the accident is at INES level 5, corresponding to 10,000 times less release of radioactivity than what was actually measured. This is inexcusable.
On March 22nd, DoE released data recorded from its Aerial Monitoring System, which shows that the heavily polluted area, with more than 125 microSievert/hour, was extended in the North-West direction of Fukushima-Daiichi over more than 30 km. On March 23, MEXT released results of their analysis of soil samples, 40 km North-West from the reactor, which, not surprizingly, was extremely high in both I-131 and Cs-137. According to the MEXT measurements, the amount of Cs-137 is 10-20% of that of I-137. So the level of pollution by Cs-137 might be as high as 2x10^13 Bq/km^2 at 30km distance.
In conclusion, the Japanese public, and the world at large, have been confronted with different realities: MEXT has been reporting a very high level of radioactivity since March 17th, comparable or ever higher than that of Chernobyl, and yet NISA and Tokyo Electric apparently refuse to accept what is going on. The one reality is based on scientific measurements. What can we say about the other "reality"?
It might look very strange to outside observers that there can be this large a discrepancy between what is so obvious and the official view. Unfortunately, in Japanese bureaucratic systems, such a situation is quite usual. For big projects like nuclear plants, there is of course an evaluation committee consisting of both specialists and scientists from wider fields. However, scientists critical to a project are quickly replaced by others who are willing to accept a more cozy relationship with the powers that be, with the result that such committees can easily wind up with a vast majority of dangerously uncritical members. In this unfortunate symbiosis of supportive scientists and bureaucrats, companies tend to lose an objective view of reality. In the case of the Fukushima disaster, it is hard for us to know whether they have really lost their grip on reality, or whether they only pretend to have done so. In the end, though, that does not matter much: the practical result in terms of clinging to an imaginary political reality is the same.
The only surprising thing is that even at this stage they are still behaving as though they have completely lost touch with reality. They continue the illusion of a relatively small accident that can be fixed in "just a few days", totally ignoring the reality of an ongoing Chernobyl-type situation. Yes, it is true that Chernobyl started with one huge explosion that caused the main contamination. But now that the Fukushima plant is producing a similar amount of contamination over a period of two weeks, with no end in sight, it is altogether possible that over the period of March and April the total contamination will significantly exceed that of Chernobyl.
The avian flu outbreaks in 2007, the spike in oil prices in the summer of 2008, the financial system meltdown later that year, the volcanic eruptions of 2009, the oil spill in 2010, and now the earthquake/tsunami/nuclear emergency of 2011, let alone the political upheavals in the middle east, all serve to remind us that we are very poor at making predictions. And we are apparently very poor at assessing risks. But perhaps we can make some observations.
All of these events, one way or another, have shown us how fragile our global supply chain and transportation network really is. There are already reports of how the recent earthquake, never mind the nuclear issues, have slowed down repairs to New York City subway stations, halted production of some GM automobiles in the US (an industry still recovering from the financial meltdown), and even rippled into my own hobby project of building a credible 19th century digital computer.
Our quest for squeezing every efficiency out of our systems of production and supply have lead us to fragility rather than robustness. We have gotten short term margins at the cost of long term stability. Our quest for every last basis point in our financial results have lead us to build a system with countless single points of failure. We are vulnerable to natural disasters, unforeseen economic disasters, or clever exploiters of our systems [such as governments cornering rare earth metals supply chains, or just plain opportunistic hedge traders on rather conventional metals (which is why all nickel based batteries rocketed in price three years ago).
The drumbeat of continued unexpected failures of nature, technology, or economics, will not go away. Perhaps, however, we can take lessons from the disruptions they cause, and find a way to monetize stability over maximum possible short term efficiencies, so that our constructed civilization will be more resilient to these events.
Viewing the Nuclear Accident in Japan Through the Lens of Systemic Risk
Predicting risk might sound like an oxymoron, but it isn't: We do it everyday. Everyone knows, for example, that the risk of a dangerous fall on a steep mountain trail is higher than it is on level ground. Prediction of risks is more difficult, however, when they are systemic. Systemic risks occur when individual components of a system interact and collectively generate new modes of behavior that would never occur for a single component in isolation, amplifying or generating new risks.
The recent financial crisis provides a good example. Banks normally manage risk under the assumption that the financial system will behave in the future more or less as it has in the past. Such estimates are based on historical losses. This is fine under normal circumstances. But in the recent financial crisis a small drop in housing prices triggered a chain reaction that suddenly made the financial system behave completely differently, and extrapolations of risk based on historical losses became irrelevant.
Systemic risks are hard to predict. They are inherently complex phenomena, typically involving nonlinear feedback that couples together the behavior of many individual components. Systemic risks frequently occur in systems where there are neither good models nor good measurements, where theory or simulation is impossible. They often involve modes of interaction that have not been seen before, making past experience of little value. The amplitude of the resulting problem is often far larger than previously imagined possible.
How can we anticipate and minimize systemic risk? The key general principle is stability. Systemic risks occur when bad behaviors feedback on one another, so that small problems are amplified into big problems. When things go topsy-turvy, do the problem behaviors damp out, or are they amplified? In the recent financial crisis, for example, the key problem was leverage, which amplifies both gains and losses. Leverage is good during good times, but during bad times it makes the financial system unstable.
The recent Japanese earthquake/tsunami provides another example of how a normal risk can turn into a systemic risk. For Japan, given the history of the region, an earthquake in tandem with a Tsunami might be called a normal risk. But no one realized in advance that a Tsunami could destroy both the main power and the backup power of a nuclear power plant, while an earthquake could also create cracks causing a loss of coolant. The resulting nuclear catastrophe came on top of all the other damage to the infrastructure, making the nuclear crisis even harder to solve than it would have been otherwise, and the radiation leakage has made it even harder to get the infrastructure functioning again. The risks of both have been amplified.
With hindsight the consequences of a large earthquake and tsunami seem obvious, so why didn't the engineers plan for them properly? This is the usual story with systemic risk: In hindsight the problems are obvious, but somehow no one thinks them through beforehand.
As already explained, from a complex systems engineering perspective, the key principle is stability. Nuclear power generation is intrinsically unstable. If you walk away from a wind generator or a solar cell when a crisis occurs, not much happens. If you walk away from a nuclear reactor under the wrong circumstances, it can melt down. To cope with the systemic risk one needs to think through all possible scenarios. The experts might be able to plan for all the known failure modes, but it is much harder to anticipate the unknown ones.
The prognosis for nuclear accidents based on simple historical extrapolation is disturbing. After roughly 14,000 cumulative years of nuclear plant operation, we have now had three major accidents. If we ramp up nuclear power by a factor of ten, which is necessary to make a significant contribution to mitigate global warming, we will increase from the 442 reactors that we currently have to about 5000. Historical extrapolation predicts that we should then expect an accident of the magnitude of the current Japan disaster about once a year.
But I don't trust the historical method of estimating. Three events are unlikely to properly characterize the tails of the distribution. My personal choice for a really nasty nuclear scenario goes as follows: Assume the developed world decides to ramp up nuclear power. The developing world will then demand energy independence and follow suit. For independence you need both reactors and fuel concentrators. There will be a lot of debate, but in the end the countries with stable governments will get them. With a fuel concentrator the waste products of the reactor can be used to make weapons grade fuel, and from there making a bomb is fairly easy. Thus, if we go down the path of nuclear expansion, we should probably assume that every country in the world will eventually have the bomb. The Chernobyl disaster killed the order of ten thousand people: A nuclear explosion could easily kill a million. So all it will take is for a "stable government" to be taken over by the wrong dictator, and we could have a nuclear disaster.
I'm not an actuary, so you shouldn't trust my estimates. To bring the actuaries into the picture, anyone who seriously advocates nuclear power should lobby to repeal the Price-Anderson Act, which requires U.S. taxpayers to shoulder the costs of a really serious accident. The fact that the industry demanded such an act suggests that they do not have confidence in their own product. If the act were repealed, we would have an idea what nuclear power really costs. As it stands, all we know is that the quoted costs are much too low.
Danger is not the only property that makes nuclear power exceptional. Even neglecting the boost in cost that would be caused by repeal of the Price-Anderson Act, the cost curve for nuclear power is remarkable. My group at the Santa Fe Institute has collected data on the cost and production of more than 100 technologies as a function of time. In contrast to all other technologies, the cost of nuclear power has roughly remained constant for 50 years, despite heavy subsidies. This cannot be blamed entirely on the cost of safety and regulation, and after Japan, is anyone really willing to say we shouldn't pay for safety? In contrast, during the same period solar power has dropped by a factor of roughly a hundred, making its current cost roughly equal to nuclear. Wind power is now significantly cheaper than nuclear. Solar will almost certainly be significantly cheaper than nuclear within a decade, roughly the time it takes to build a nuclear plant.
To properly assess systemic risks, the devil is in the details. We can't debate the risks of a technology without wading through them. But from a complex systems engineering point of view, one should beware of anything that amplifies risk. Systemic risks are difficult to predict, and precautionary principle dictates that one should take care when faced with uncertainty.
"Grande profundum est ipse homo," said Augustine of Hippo. "A human being is a vast oceanic depth" — and just as fearfully and mightily unpredictable. Augustine lived on the Mediterranean's southern shore and feared its rages, while he and his contemporaries knew that worse still lay beyond the "pillars of Hercules" at Gibraltar, out on the trackless ocean they had only heard of but never seen.
The movements of people and peoples are full of surprises. Fifty years ago, the "middle East" was a colonial backwater to many, docile with incidental outbreaks of bad temper. To hear our media voices tell it, the region is now a landscape of religious fervor and simmering unpredictable violence. The journalism of these last weeks has had immense difficulty seeing what really is the case, for all that we think we know already. So in ten years— will it be Islamic fervor or Jeffersonian democracy that takes the lead? Can we tell any story forward with anything like confidence?
The material future offers more certainty. Energy business and energy politics will remain powerful forces; climate change moves on a scale of its own; information networks subvert powers that have flourished by controlling what people can know. But the underlying future narrative of human and social change is the oceanic mystery — so far.
What we cannot know is how far we have yet to go in understanding, predicting, and manipulating human behavior on the large scale. Imagine us all two hundred years into the future, on a planet much hotter and more crowded than we have now. Will we really still be surprised by sudden movements of large populations, great shocks inflicted by minor actors, and widely fluctuating electoral flip-flops?
For now, what we can't predict is ourselves. Augustine, the great churchman, told his God that even he couldn't tell which temptation he would give in to next. That uncertainty is a large part of what it has been to be human. WIll it always be that way?
John Brockman, Editor and Publisher


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Day 1: ARRIVAL IN BOGOTÁ
Today your Colombian adventure finally kicks off! You will land in the international airport of Bogotá and so it begins.
A driver will welcome you at arrivals and bring you straight to your boutique hotel in the historic center of Bogotá. Depending on your arrival time, you will have some free time to acclimatize, get used to the altitude, relax, and maybe discover already a little bit of the colonial center.
Accommodation: Hotel Casa Deco

subset: commoncrawl


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Gabrielle Union teased her husband, Dwyane Wade, and the rest of the Heat about their poor rebounding effort on Monday.
Get breaking news and SI's biggest stories instantly. Download the new Sports Illustrated app (iOS or Android) and personalize your experience by following your favorite teams and SI writers.
The Hornets defeated the Heat on Monday night to even their first-round series at two games each, and they were able to seal the victory thanks to some crucial offensive rebounds from Courtney Lee late in the game.
The inability to corral the ball for a chance to tie the game was disappointing to all Miami fans, including Gabrielle Union, who said she was going to work on her rebounding immediately after the loss, and implied her husband, Dwyane Wade, and the rest of the squad should do the same.
In other news... I'll be outside working on rebounding if anyone needs me #2ndchancereboundsareakillah— Gabrielle Union (@itsgabrielleu) April 26, 2016
• NBA Fashion Tinder: Playoff edition
The Heat will get a chance to avenge the loss when they head back to Miami for Game 5 on Wednesday.
– Brendan Maloy


text:
Computing on the go comes down to convenience as much as it does performance. You don't want lots of wires and devices to have to remember, weight can be an issue, and connectivity is becoming ever more important.
Wireless devices help a lot as it removes the wires that so easily get tangled in a bag. But you still have to remember the receivers that allow those wireless devices to work. Even the nano receivers you can plug in and forget about do go missing.
HP has a solution to that issue when it comes to using a mouse. It has managed to remove the need for a receiver while allowing the mouse to remain wireless. The solution: send the signal over WiFi and take advantage of the wireless receiver already built into your laptop.
It's a clever idea and manages to remove yet another piece of kit from your bag while freeing up a USB port at the same time. HP also guarantees the mouse won't interfere with other signals on the same WiFi connection meaning you can use it alongside an Internet connection.
The battery in the mouse is meant to last 9 months which is claimed to be double that of most Bluetooth mice. There's 5 customizable buttons to configure, a four-way tilt scroll wheel, and it works up to 30 feet away from your laptop meaning easy navigation for presentations from a distance. The price isn't bad either at just $49.99.
If you want one there isn't long to wait as HP expects to have them with retailers at some point in June.
Another announcemnt made today by HP was regarding the introduction of Link-5 technology. Much like Logitech has the Unifying Receiver, HP's Link-5 allows up to five wireless devices to use a single USB dongle connection. The supported peripherals include three keyboards (Mini, Ultrathin, and Elite v2) and three mice (Optical Comfort, Laser Comfort, and Mobile Mouse). All will be available in June with prices ranging from $24.99 to $59.99.


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Nobody seems to speak about the mountain "YES" voters will need to climb – we are up against the most hated Westminster government since the turn of the century – it does not take a genius to work out that they will use every dirty trick and con they can play with to win that "NO" vote, their gravy train will take some stopping and the more "NO" voters they can con the better – it should be noted they are not after "YES" voters – they know they have already lost them.
It's more important to remember that not so many years ago a Scottish vote lost xxx,xxx number of votes which did not get counted, do you really think that was an accident or an error?
Ever since the BBC started covering this independence it has been bios against the "YES" voters – for example; BBC Radio 4 gave a news bullitin at around 5 -00 pm and in that news it was reported that the government had made a mistake quoting the experts figures by twelve times the figure.
In the BBC news one hour later that exact same night at 6-00 pm on the main TV news they quoted the inflated 12 times figure with no interview or apology that what they were reporting was total hogwash – I wrote to them complaining and have yet to receive any response – millions heard these blatant lies so some must have believed it, enough to vote "NO".
The welfare state was made Law, not as an act of charity, but to actively protect and support every Woman, Child and Man since after the second World War which ended in 1945.
Our hero's died for this Law and it was probably the best Law the U.K. ever had – it was all encompassing and our NHS was like no other including being named the "Best in the World", as recently as 2010 by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
As suggested before Scotland's people are up against it ; – and why you ask, well this Westminster government has killed that Law which so ably supported us all through thick and thin – it took them only four (4) days to remove a Law which has been going strong for approx. 70 years – what was the hurry? why was this implimented so quickly?.
Todays government, no longer has a legal obligation to provide for the people. In two years time all those people who are voting "NO", will swear that they never voted "NO", but if they have any sense they will change that damning vote before the 18th of September 2014.
For "YES" to win we need more and more websites giving their honest opinions – including "YES" Scotland!
We reached this idea and decision because of the Westminster government giving Scotland the worst of times – we need to fight back now before it's too late!
Thank you for the chance to give my free opinion – free speech is going to be another NO, NO, soon!
Do you like this post? then use it or borrow it – the message needs to get out there.


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EMC Pocket Guide: Key EMC Facts, Equations and Data
IET Digital Library
This title is available electronically through the IET Digital Library
Author: Kenneth Wyatt & Randy J. Jost
Year: 2013
Format: Wire bound
Product Code: SBEW5190
Pagination: 60 pp.
Stock Status: In stock
£9.75 Member price
£15.00 Full price
Every electric product designed and manufactured worldwide must meet electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) regulations. Therefore if you are a working engineer or technician, this pocket guide is the first place to look while designing for EMC.
Addressing the most common reasons for compliance failure, EMC Pocket Guide: Key EMC Facts, Equations and Data, is both concise and easy to use. By referring to this guide, the reader can access the answers to key EMC issues quickly and efficiently.
The authors use the Fourier analysis as a key tool in understanding the signals that are encountered in EMC problems and solution.
Topics covered include:
- Radiated emissions (RE)
- Frequency versus Time Domain
- Common PC Board Issues
- Effects of ESD / Preventing ESD Problems
- Common Basic EMC Standards
- Ohms Law (formula wheel)
- Common symbols
About the author
Kenneth Wyatt has worked as an EMC engineer for over 20 years for Hewlett-Packard and Agilent Technologies in Colorado Springs. A prolific author and presenter, he has generated extensive content on: design of comb generators; DIY near-field and current probes; and the EMC design of products.
Randy J. Jost has worked at Wright-Patterson AFB, SRI, International in Rosslyn, Virginia and Ball Aerospace and Technologies Incorporated. His areas of research interests include radar and microwave engineering, remote sensing, electromagnetic compatibility, computational electromagnetics, and electromagnetic measurement range characterization.
Book readership
This pocket guide would be ideal for use by electronic equipment/system designers, printed circuit board designers, power distribution engineers, project managers, EMC consultants, and students/lecturers/researchers in electrical engineering.
Book contents
- EMC Fundamentals
- EMC Design
- EMC Measurements
- EMC Standards
- Using Decibels
- Frequency vs. Wavelength
- Commonly Used Equations
- Miscellaneous Information
- Useful Software


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Specifically I am interested in having you come visit me and we can have a Kansas City* adventure together! I have a free ticket for [you]! One lucky winner, chosen at random (if more than one person responds to this), will fly to KC on Southwest airlines courtesy of me/Southwest/work trip generosity letting me keep my own frequent flier miles/you get the idea...
Here are the details:
- You must be able to travel from a city that Southwest airlines services.
- You need to be able to come before February 11th (which is when the ticket expires).
- You must be up for an adventure when you get here - who knows what we will do!
- We'll discuss details - length of stay, dates, cat allergies, etc. - once you are chosen.
- Leave a comment on this post to enter (I will leave it open until September 25)!
*Hopefully K.C. doesn't seem too lame to any of you out there but it was easier than buying an extra ticket, getting a hotel, etc. and besides K.C. is a pretty fun place!


text: Oracle's Primavera is focused exclusively on helping project-intensive businesses manage their entire project portfolio lifecycle, including projects of all calibers. It is estimated that projects totaling more than $6 trillion in value have been managed with Primavera products. Companies turn to Oracle's Primavera project portfolio management solutions to help them make better portfolio management decisions, evaluate the risks and rewards associated with projects, and determine if they are sufficient resources with the correct skill set to accomplish the work. These best-in-class solutions provide the project execution and control capabilities needed to successfully deliver projects on time, within budget and with the intended quality, and design.


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As a rookie for the Steelers in 1988, Dermontti Dawson played guard alongside center Mike Webster. A year later, Webster left Pittsburgh and Dawson took Webster's place as the Steelers' center. And tonight, Dawson joined Webster in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
At his enshrinement ceremony, Dawson paid tribute to the late, great Webster, the Hall of Fame center who took another Hall of Fame center under his wing.
"I used to observe Mike each day, and saw how he approached every aspect of his game. Mike used to be the first one to the weight room every morning, the first one in the meetings," Dawson said. "Mike was a leader, whether he wanted to be or not, because he led by example. I tried to emulate everything Mike did. Mike had a profound impact on my life, and even to this day, I try to be like Mike."
Dawson also credited other Steelers teammates, and the two Super Bowl-winning head coaches he played for.
"Very few things in life are the work of one person, and this is no exception," Dawson said. "I had the pleasure of being coached by Hall of Famer Chuck Noll and soon-to-be Hall of Famer Bill Cowher."
It was a classy speech from Dawson, who wanted to make it clear that he doesn't believe he got to the Hall of Fame on his own. He got there with plenty of help from others, starting with the man whose shoes he filled, Mike Webster.


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Finally, running pants made for Montreal winters
Let's face it, winter running is a challenge – especially in Montreal where our streets and sidewalks are notorious for their snow and slush. So hats off to lululemon for meeting the challenge head on and making some cool running gear suitable for Canadian winters.
Their Clear As Mud pants combine the warmth needed for running in the cold with water resistant panels from the knees down. You'll also like the reflective detail on the pants, which makes then suitable for our short winter days.
If the pants, priced at $108.00, are beyond your budget consider the running gaiters, that fit over your favourite pair of winter tights. At $42.00 they offer the same protection from the elements as the Clear as Mud pants but at a fraction of the price.
Both pieces of winter gear are also practical choices for all-weather bike commuters and cross country ski buffs who need extra protection from the elements.
Christmas gifts anyone?


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Whitaker Chambers's Witness is the fourth of the four books that John V. Fleming covers in The Anti-Communist Manifestos. It is also a book that figures prominently in Andrew Ferguson's Weekly Standard cover story on David Mamet's turn away from the left. Of Witness Professor Fleming writes that "by any just canon of literary history [it] should claim its place within the great tradition of American autobiography."
One passage from Witness that has stayed with me over the years comes when Hiss and Chambers were brought together face to face before Richard Nixon and John McDowell. Nixon and McDowell were meeting at the Commodore Hotel in New York on August 17, 1948, in an executive session of the the House committee investigating Chamber's allegation that Hiss was a Communist. Hiss admitted that he knew Chambers while denying everything else Chambers had testified to about him before Congress. This is what Chambers had to say about that day in 1948:
Until we faced each other in the hotel room, I had been testifying about HIss as a memory and a name. Now I saw again the man himself. In the circumstances it was shocking.
Until then I had wondered how he could be so arrogant or so stupid as to suppose he could deceive the nation into believing that he had never known me. (I did not know that Hiss had already tentatively identified me, with infinite qualifications, as George Crosley.)
But when I saw him in person, that feeling, too, fell away, and I was swept by a sense of pity for all trapped men of which the pathos of this man was the center. For the man I saw before me was a trapped man.
Chambers adds: "I felt what any humane man must feel when, pursuing an end that he is convinced is right, he finds himself an instrument of another man's disaster, even though that disaster is being invited by the man who suffers it."
Hiss kept right on lying about his relationship with Chambers til the day he died in 1996, nearly fifty years later.


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Posting ID : A1068538679
Date Posted : 2015-08-19
Category : Skilled Trades Artisan
We are a Major Pre-Engineered and Structural Steel Building manufacturer, and we are looking to team up with a General Contractor to expand our market in the greater Syracuse, NY, region. We are the pre-eminent leader in manufacturing pre-engineered and structural steel buildings---and we are growing like crazy.
We are looking to expand in Syracuse and surrounding areas we are looking for a contractor who is capable of providing turnkey construction on pre-engineered buildings. This is a GREAT OPPORTUNITY for the right builder. Must be a General Contractor.
For further info, call Rod at Investment required.


text:
TAREEQ AL-JANNAH TRAVEL & EDUCATION SDN. BHD. (TAJ Travel) is a licensed travel agent registered with the Ministry of Tourism and Culture Malaysia, an accredited agent with the International Air Transport Association (IATA), a member of the Malaysian Association of Tour & Travel Agents (MATTA), Bumiputra Travel & Tour Agents Association of Malaysia (BUMITRA), Persatuan Pengguna Islam Malaysia (PPIM) and a registered supplier to the Government of Malaysia.
Established in 2007, TAJ Travel has been diligently serving the community's travel needs with integrity and dedication, while always putting our customers' needs in the forefront of everything we aspire to achieve.
From our modest beginnings, TAJ Travel has grown and is now operating from our new premises in Shah Alam, Selangor Darul Ehsan, where we continue to focus on our core strengths and our sole objective of becoming your preferred travel advisor and service provider.
TAJ Travel promises a dedicated and committed personalised level of service and attention to detail in fulfilling your travel arrangements to ensure an unforgettable travel experience which will keep you coming back to us in the future.
To be your preferred travel advisor through personalised customer service excellence.
To provide innovative, exciting and affordable products and services to fulfil your personal or business travel requirements and expectations.
Our commitment is to serve you with professionalism, trustworthiness, dedication and reliability at all times.
TAJ Travel is a full service agency that serves the spiritual pilgrim, individual/family/group holidaymaker or business/corporate traveller and focuses on the following main activities:-
- Worldwide airline ticketing and hotel reservations
- Ground Transportation and Airport Transfers
- Umrah & Ziarah Pakages
- Corporate travel
- International Inbound Tours
- Outbound Holiday Packages / Muslim Tours
- Car/Van/Tour Bus Rental
- Group/Company/School Outings


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Oslo, how you've changed, all for the better
As a newly minted travel writer, one of the first trips I took was to Norway, a Land of the Midnight Sun, whose magnificent scenery leaves even the most jaded traveler awestruck.
I was far from jaded, and the mountain peaks, tranquil fjords and meadows carpeted with wildflowers made a lasting impression.
While this beautiful country resonated with me, I felt something of a disconnect to its capital, Oslo. Granted, it was ideally situated on its namesake fjord and suitably historic (founded in 1048 by King Harald Hardrada, it is the oldest of Scandinavia's capitals).
It had a walkable central core, whose dignified architecture was mostly late 19th and early 20th century, and a bevy of attractions — from authentic Viking ships to a renowned sculpture park to the building where the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded annually.
Yet, compared to the other Scandinavian capitals, it seemed colorless. Where was the grandeur of Stockholm, the joie de vivre of Copenhagen?
Fast forward two decades to my second visit. What a difference 20 years and a burst of creative energy has made.
This time, Oslo overwhelmed me. True, some of it had to do with sticker shock — it's the most expensive city in Europe, and you easily can pay $25 for a sandwich or several hundred dollars for a dinner (more if you want wine).
But most of it had to do with the buzz surrounding Oslo's hippest neighborhood, Tjuvholmen. During the 18th century, the area, whose name is translated as "islet of thieves," was a gathering place for robbers, prostitutes and other unsavory characters.
Today, as a result of thoughtful development, Tjuvholmen — with once-derelict buildings transformed into million- dollar lofts, high-end boutiques, gourmet restaurants and jazz clubs — is the city's show place. Laced by a mosaic of canals, it somehow manages to be bustling and serene.
At one end of the reconfigured waterfront is the city's iconic opera house, with its sloping white marble roof; at the other, the glass and wood Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, designed by acclaimed Italian architect Renzo Piano and home to the world's largest private collection of modern American art.
Just steps from the museum is the hipper-than-hip boutique hotel The Thief, which in the summer offers guests a curated art and architecture boat tour along the fjord and free access to the Astrup Fearnley year-round.
Beyond Tjuvholmen
As tempting as it is to stick around Tjuvholmen, Oslo has much more to offer.
The Vigeland Park, in Frogner Park is the world's largest sculpture park that showcasing the work of a single artist, Gustav Vigeland. Although it has 212 sculptures in bronze, granite and iron, the park's centerpiece is the 60-foot-tall monolith featuring, on one colossal piece of stone, 121 intertwined human figures engaged in various activities from making love to waging war.
The sculpture, depicting the cycle of life, took Vigeland 14 years to complete, and, as a result of the subject matter, was controversial when it was unveiled.
Vigeland might be Oslo's most famous sculpture park, but as of September, it isn't the only one. Ekeburgparken, the city's newest attraction, is high in the hills overlooking Oslo Fjord, with the trail wending through a magnificent spruce forest.
The park's pieces range from Salvador Dali's Venus de Milo to Louise Bourgeois' The Couple, but the area is best known for an artist who worked in oils rather than stone. It was here, on an overlook above the fjord, that Edvard Munch had the inspiration for his most famous painting, The Scream.
One interpretation has it that on his nightly strolls Munch looked out over the asylum where his bipolar sister was a patient and imagined the forlorn wails of those inside, but he told a different tale.
In an 1895 diary entry, Munch wrote that he was walking along the path, the city on one side, the forest on the other and the fjord below. The sun was setting, and clouds were turning blood red. He wrote that he sensed a primal scream passing through nature, so that's what he painted, with the clouds as actual blood and the color shrieking.
The asylum is long gone, but remaining is the tumultuous weather that causes the sky to flare with red and orange tongues of fire before unleashing silver sheets of rain that lash the blue-black fjord.
I had occasion to witness its wrath during a dinner at the Art Deco Ekeberg Restaurant, nestled among the hills at the edge of the forest. I'd barely taken my seat before the heavens opened. The floor-to-ceiling glass windows made for great viewing of nature's temper tantrum.
Be warned: This is the place to go for great food but not for a bargain. My three-course dinner with two glasses of wine came to about $100.
Boats afloat, on display
For those who love watercraft of all kinds, a boat trip to Bygdøy Peninsula is in order. Not only will you get the best view of Oslo from the water, but the peninsula has two museums chronicling the lure of the sea from Viking days to the mid-20th century.
At the Viking Ship Museum, part of the University of Oslo's Museum of Cultural History, visitors may admire the graceful contours of two 9th-century Viking ships, and see a re-creation of a Viking burial chamber.
Not far from the Viking Museum is the Kon-Tiki Museum, housing the legendary (and may I say, too fragile-looking for my comfort) raft that, in 1947, took Norwegian adventurer and ethnographer Thor Heyerdahl on a 100-day, 5,000-mile voyage from the western coast of South America to the Tuamoto Islands in Polynesia.
If you're more into skiing than sailing, take a jaunt just outside town to see the world's most modern ski jump — at least in its current incarnation. Re-opened on its present site in 2010, Holmenkollen Ski Jump, Norway's most-visited attraction, looms 200 feet above the landscape like a shimmering silver snake, courtesy of 100 tons of steel.
Although the current ski jump is the epitome of 21st-century technology, skiing at Holmenkollen dates back 121 years, with the first ski jumping competition taking place in 1892. Inside the base of the jump is the informative Ski Museum, offering a look at the sport's history and Norway's hosting of two Winter Olympics — in Oslo in 1952 and Lillehammer in 1994.
On my last night in Oslo, I sat in the bar at The Thief, nursing a Star of Manhattan, the mixologist's signature bourbon cocktail (they're very big on bourbon here). The bourbon was smooth; the crowd was chic, and the vibe was of a city that had reinvented itself.
Oslo, Norway
Where to stay: The Thief. This member of Design Hotels has 118 rooms with features including floor-to-ceiling windows, private balconies, rainforest showers, 42-inch plasma TVs and specially designed blankets, robes and slippers. There is an emphasis on public art and unique architecture. Thethief.com/en.
Tip: The Oslo Pass provides free entry to 30 museums and attractions, free travel on public transport, and discounts at selected restaurants and shops. Passes are available for one, two or three days.
Learn more: Visitoslo.com, Visitnorway.com


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Linda J. Baker has studied art at the University of Wisconsin, Palette and
Chisel Academy of Fine Arts (Chicago), and Scottsdale Artists School. She
has won numerous awards for her art, including Best in Show , People's
Choice, Mayor's Award and Wisconsin Regional Artist's Award, amongst
others. Her work is shown in galleries and in individual and group shows.
After spending many years developing her painting style in the Midwest, she
moved to Portland, Oregon. In the Pacific Northwest she has served as
president of Painter's Showcase of Portland, and is a member of Lake Area
Artists. Her paintings hang in private collections and are shown in
galleries and shows nationally.
Member of:
• Oil Painters of America
• The Portrait Society of America
• Lake Area Artists and Painter's Showcase of Portland
My art is an attempt to use my skill as a painter to capture and illuminate truths about the world around me. I want to communicate what I see when I stop looking at the world in a casual and remote way and instead see things intensely and immediately. When I paint, I try to create an emotional experience that comes from seeing some elusive or unrecognized beauty in an object or person or scene. Art for me is finding the beauty of everyday things.
I love to paint from life, whether in the studio or plein air. This gives me an immediacy of experience… of form, light and color… that I can translate into paint on a canvas. Expressing a 3-dimensional world on a 2-dimensional canvas with paint, provides a challenge and never-ending source of occupation.
Art on Broadway Gallery
12570 SW Broadway
Beaverton, OR 97005
Millward & Farrell Fine Art Gallery
2701 Monroe Street, Suite 200
Madison, Wisconsin 53711


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Hello friends and I guess strangers too (I guess that's possible although, who are you weirdoes?!). I had the idea to archive my daily musical improvisations a long time ago. A long time ago I started to archive but I got distracted from it pretty quick. My primary motivation for this blog is to just keep myself going. If people watch-cool. If not-cool. It is mostly just for me. I am not trying to display technical precision as much as I am trying to have fun and improvise something different every day. So I will be posting things where I play a lot of wrong notes- um, although that is sort of a relative statement when you are making it up as you go. Part of my motivation is to get myself to not fall in the habit of improvising the same kind of song every time and when I try changing things I don't always get it right (by my own relative standards) but this is more about the experiment in improvisation than anything else.
-Stephen Crone


text:
For the vinaigrette:
In a bowl, whisk together the onion, mustard, 2 tablespoons of the red wine vinegar, salt and pepper. Gradually whisk in the olive oil and then add the tarragon.
Put the potatoes in a large pot of cold, well-salted water to cover. Bring to a boil, adjust the heat to maintain a gentle simmer, and cook until tender when pierced, about 15 minutes. Drain well and transfer to a large bowl or sheet pan to cool slightly. Sprinkle with 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar.
Add some of the vinaigrette to the potatoes and toss; you may not need it all. Add the tomato and toss again. Taste and adjust the seasoning. The salad may need more salt.
Recipe courtesy Michael Chiarello


text:
Much like it did with Translate, Google has been gradually incorporating its various services straight into search results for easy access – and the latest one to make the cut is its dedicated URL submission feature.
As spotted by Search Engine Land, the tech giant has updated Search to include an easy-to-access URL submission form at the top anytime you search for 'Submit URL to Google.'
We're not sure when the company added the feature, but the new addition essentially works exactly like the regular submission form – with the exception that it shows directly in search results now.
All you have to do to submit a link is fill in the blank space with the page you want to index and pass the 'I'm not a robot' reCAPTCHA safety measure.
The Big G will then review the page and see whether it wants to index the URL so other people can easily find it in their search results.
Read Also : Search Engine Marketing tips for Small Businesses.


text:
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Dear Drivers,
After three thrilling seasons of the Mitsubishi Evolution World Championship Series, we are moving onto new challenges. One of ours latest releases - Subaru Impreza WRX STI S206 has proven to be a great car to race in numerous occasions and also makes a great pair with the Mitsubishi Evolution X. Therefore it joins it in the competition and we have All Wheel Drive Championship underway!
All of you, Mitsubishi Evolution X, Subaru Impreza WRX STI and AWD cars fans, good luck!
It will consist of four Rounds, which will span the next eight weeks (from 3rd of April, untill 18th of May, 2014) using the following combinations:
- Round 1, Subaru Impreza WRX STI S206 at Edmonton (Indy)
- Round 2, Mitsubishi Evolution X at Area 51 (Short)
- Round 3, Subaru Impreza WRX STI S206 at TBA
- Round 4, Mitsubishi Evolution X at TBA
Each Round (1, 2, 3 and 4) will include:
- Hot Lap, qualifying top 8 finishers directly to the Live Race
- Two Heat Races, with top 3 finishers from each (6 total) qualifying directly to the Live Race
- Live Race, where 14 participants score the Championship points
The final Championship placings will be based on the number of points scored in three best, out of four Rounds.
Prize pool is over $300. Please check the distribution below:
1st - $51
2nd - $43
3rd - $36
4th - $30
5th - $25
6th - $21
7th - $18
8th - $16
9th - $13
10th - $12
11th - $10
12th - $9
13th - $8
14th - $7
- Every second week, for 8 weeks
- Open for everyone
- Top 8 qualify directly to the Live Race
- Every second Satrday, for 8 weeks, first at 11:05PM PST (7:05PM BST / 20:05 CET) and second at 12:05PM PST (8:05PM BST / 21:05 CET)
- Both open for everyone
- Top 3 from each (total 6) qualify directly to the Live Race
- Every second Sunday, for 8 weeks, at 10:25PM PST (6:25PM GMT / 19:25 CET)
- For top 8 of Hot Lap, top 3 from first Heat Race and top 3 from second Heat Race
- Each participant will score between 20 and 2 points
For additional details regarding each Round, like Hot Lap or Race specifications and results, please see the posts below.


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The husband of a woman who died of cancer but was denied free NHS treatment because the couple chose to pay privately from their savings for a drug to prolong her life yesterday urged the government to change its guidelines.
Linda O'Boyle, 64, who had bowel cancer, is believed to be the first person to die after fighting for the right for top-up NHS treatment alongside privately purchased cancer medicine - so-called co-payment. Six other patients are launching a legal action to allow NHS patients to top up their care with private drugs. Three of the cases, involving women with liver and bowel cancer, are expected to prompt a judicial review of the government's ban on co-payment.
The health secretary, Alan Johnson, claims co-payment would create a two-tier NHS with preferential treatment for patients who could afford the extra drugs. Last year he issued guidance to NHS trusts, ordering them not to permit patients to pay for additional medicines. Yesterday Brian O'Boyle urged the government to alter guidelines which state that patients who buy drugs privately should pay for NHS treatment. The couple paid £11,000 for an eight-week course of the drug Cetuximab after NHS consultants told them they had run out of options. Linda O'Boyle died on March 26.
Brian O'Boyle, 74, of Billericay, Essex, said: "It's not the NHS, it is the government guidelines that are restrictive and the PCTs [primary care trusts] interpret these in various ways - it is a lottery. I think every drug should be available to all of us if there's a need for that drug."
His wife, who had worked for the NHS as an assistant occupational therapist, was diagnosed with cancer in December 2006. She was operated on in January 2007 for bowel cancer, which had spread to her stomach lining. A mother of three children and four grandchildren, she had six weeks of chemotherapy and further treatment until September, when doctors told her there was little more they could do.
However, her consultant suggested a new drug called Cetuximab which could extend her life. He applied for permission to try the drug, which has not received approval from the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, but was turned down. Her husband said: "I said to the consultant, I wanted to pay for this ... She knew and I knew she was not going to get better but if there was the possibility of spending more time with her four young grandchildren, to see them grow up a bit more, we wanted to take it."
The couple spent £11,000 on the course of drugs as well as the treatment she was previously receiving free from Southend University Hospital NHS foundation trust, which withdrew its funding. The trust said in a statement: "A patient can choose whether to continue with the treatment available under the NHS or opt to go privately for a different treatment regime. It is explained to the patient that they can either have their treatment under the NHS or privately, but not both or in parallel."


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Digital Journalism Literacy and Community
Welcome to the Uganda group. This group is designed to share resources, idea, experiences and contacts.
Please invite collegues
Location: Uganda
Members: 6
Latest Activity: May 15, 2014
Uganda launches live webinar on ""I am Africa. This is my story..." And Community Development Digital Literacy.
Here are the presentations:
Can you help us with a grass roots program to educate Uganda teachers on how to leverage the Internet for content from the Internet and empower their students with global resources? Please help…Continue
Tags: framework, Richard, C, Close, learning
Started by Richard C Close Nov 9, 2012.
In this forum will be the training materials for the "I am Africa. This is my story..." Training the trainer workshop run by Organisation of African Youth - Cameroon "I am the story..."…Continue
Tags: my, is, story...", Chrysalis, Campaign
Started by Richard C Close Aug 1, 2012.
More Background on Pastor Hassan Open Heart Ministry
Here is the information about the projects we are working on
a. Child Education in Five schools
c. HIV /AIDS
d. Church Leadership
e. Child Home care
f. Piggery and general farming
With Child education we work with five schools for needy/orphaned kids on our enrollment today these schools provide education to
1000 pupils in primary level education (from Nursery to Primary level seven).
With HIV/AIDS, we have monthly ground visit to HIV/AIDS infected people and really we have visited many but as of now we are working on improving the living standards
of the needy homes of people with HIV/AIDS ten families in number every week we make sure we place at least one kilogram of maize flour to each family as God provides and this has helped these infected people to take the medicines they could not take due to the instructions on the ARVS drugs that you should first eat before taking them.
With Church leadership i can list many challenges in the lives of the church leaders themselves and the churches in remote areas for example some churches are renting the space where the temporary structure was built they pay monthly has been very difficult to most of these churches still with a struggle to change win and change their communities for the glory of Jesus Christ, many of them live where there's no electricity which makes hard for them and their communities to have enough information on anything that would benefit the community. And only 20 churches of these are the ones having schools. And 10 percent of all the church leaders are the ones who at least ounce a month can visit the internet when they come to the town and the most of them they don't know how to use a computer.
And with Child home care Now we have ten kids and these live with me in my house who can go no where each one them has a different story from very dangerous life with out parents and with a place to call a home.
The biggest challenge now as we are pressing on hard to find teacher's salaries in these five schools and other school maintenance requirements, we have a bigger challenge of which has made it hard for us now is feeding these 1000 kids comes at school at 7:00am and they should live at 5:00pm and having them without feeding causes lots of trouble from not getting well what the teachers teaches to get sick all the time. This is due to limited source of funds and upraising food prices in our nation right now.
We have came up with a document about piggery project and a land for general farming this document is attached here. we hope that through farming we can generate some money while offering farming skills to kids and produce food that is needed for feeding the kids now and in the future.
If you have any question concerning anything in this mail I will be glad to answer
God bless you so much
Pastor Hassan Mubiru
Plot 75 Mityana Kampala Road
P.o.Box 117 Mityana Uganda-East Africa
Email: email@example.com
Website: www.dcfuganda.org , www.openheartorphanage.cfsites.org
twitter: https://twitter.com/OpenOrphanage
Facebook: www.facebook.com/openheart.npv
Charity Registered non profit Organization CR / 223 /03/0001 Plot 75
we had a great webinar today


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SALON - Jan 9 - According to SeekingArrangement.com lates press release, their sugar babies make more money than prostitutes. Seeking Arrangement makes the following calculations: "The average Sugar Baby dates 1-3 men annually, receiving an average yearly allowance of ~$36K. If a prostitute makes on average $250 per transaction, she would have to have sex with presumably 100 men, performing over 144 sexual transactions."
by Tracy Clark-Flory
See full article at Salon


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Not your Dzia-Dzia's Polka
They won the BBC 2004 World Music Award! The Warsaw Village Band.
It's easy to get stuck into thinking of Poland and it's culture the way it was in the early and mid 20th century. Our grandparents and great-grandparents immigrated a hundred years ago and brought with them the culture and traditions of their generation. Some things were meant to never change – like sharing oplatek on Wigilia and other patently fixed observances of our heritage. But, culture is not a static thing. It is dynamic.
While the skeletal structure of tradition remains a rigid foundation, the appendages have over time mutated. We still recognize the leg as a "noga" but its function no longer is just for running and dancing – today it also kicks a soccer ball. And, instead of letting the limb atrophy after the long partitions and Nazi and Communist eras, it became through steadfast determination powerful enough to kick Soviet influence the hell out of our beloved Poland keeping true the covenant "God Saving Poland."
Among the various Christmas presents I gave to my favorite Polish Radio Program hostess this year was a CD of the Warsaw Village Band. In the Global context of Polonia there has been resurgence, a renaissance if you will, of the really traditional Polish Folk music. The revival is steadfastly based from the authentic rhythms and sounds of folk music, but some traditionalists might find it hard to embrace in its modern form of expression. I however find it not so hard to accept. Even the theater has modernized over time with stage lights, sound systems and comfortable seating. So why would we expect homeostasis in music performance?
Warsaw Village Band is a result of response against narrow-mindness and surrounding mass-culture, which in fact leads to destruction of human dignity. The band is a radical turn to sources in search of musical inspirations and immemorial virtues. It is also an exploration of folklore and archaic sounds of our ancestors and our instincts.
Warsaw Village Band was founded in 1997 by six young people who are playing violin, suka ( unique polish fiddle coming from XVIth century), cello and various traditional polish drums.
Their repertoire consists of folk dance melodies, ballads and rural songs, which are performed in a special way - using a special, old technique of singing, that consists in using so called white voices. However it's not only a simple imitation of Polish folk music, but rather adduction to the concept of folk music, giving the style of folk performance which is closer to modern aesthetic conventions.
Here is a clip of one of the Warsaw Village Band's music videos.
See the Clip
Look at it now, who knows how long it will be posted on the Internet! The form is modern, but the substance is of drama as ancient as the Greek Tragedy in classic theater. Yes, it looks MTVish, it should – today we have television, cable, satellite, and DVDs. What? You expect to play the Warsaw Village Band on your crank up Victrola? HELLO! We pay Edison for electric power… snuff out those candles and get with it. Now, you're cookin' with gas!


text: > I had some success with a recipe for a tofu "egg" salad sandwich a few > weeks ago, and now wanted to try a scrambled "egg" tofu. This is my families favorite scrambled tofu recipe. 1 block tofu (I use Mori Nu) 1/4 tsp turmeric 1 tsp chicken-like seasoning 1/8 tsp onion powder 1/8 tsp garlic powder Squeeze liquid from tofu. Mash in skillet. Add seasonings and stir. Cook on medium heat until all the liquid is absorbed. I have found that when adding vegetables it takes a very long time for the liquid to absorb, so I bake at 350 for 30 minutes when adding vegetables to this recipe. I have used several different kinds of tofu and they all work well. Gina ------------------------------


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SHEFFIELD STEELERS' hopes of finally landing the Challenge Cup in the Elite League era were ended for another year after they were hammered 7-1 by Cardiff Devils - the result securing a 9-7 aggregate victory for the defending champions.
The Steelers - missing the suspended Andreas Jamtin and injured defenceman Mikka Franssila in Cardiff, in addition to injured forwards Rob Dowd, Colton Fretter and John Armstrong - enjoyed a 6-2 triumph in last week's first leg of the semi-final clash in Sheffield, but they could not hold back a rampant Devils determined to overturn the four-goal deficit.
Eric Neiley was the only Steelers' player to get on the scoreboard, his eighth-minute powerplay effort cancelling out Matthew Myers' opener a minute earlier, which had also come on the man advantage - the first of four powerplay goals on the night for the hosts
Layne Ulmer, Matt Pope - both on the powerplay - and Justin Faryna then scored past Ervins Mustukovs. The game-tying goal came just 45 seconds into the third and final period from the stick of Paul Crowder, the Devils going ahead overall through Patrick Asselin just 20 seconds later.
Only another 81 seconds had passed before the Devils bagged an insurance powerplay strike from Sean Bentivoglio, sealing the Steelers' fate.
Afterwards, Steelers' head coach Paul Thompson struggled to contain his frustration.
"Our club was humiliated tonight and I was embarrassed by our performance," said Thompson. "And I expected way, way more. We went there with a four-goal lead and it is always tough playing a second leg on the road - we all know that.
But to capitulate like we did in the second and the third period isn't good enough. You've got to do whatever it takes against Cardiff. We had three or four gilt-edged chances which we didn't take (in Cardiff).
"We were sloppy on Sunday (in defeat to Manchester Storm) and I gave them the benefit of the doubt because of the type of games and the intensity of the games we've been playing. But that performance against Cardiff wasn't good enough and I'm deeply, deeply disappointed."


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If your rights have been violated, had personal injury or victim of threats. Get Legal Help Today! Take Immediate Action! As a first step, Submit your Question.
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Those who serve our nation in the military, whether during wartime or peace, sometimes need help reintegrating into civilian society. Over the years, RHD has assisted veterans with issues of homelessness, drug or alcohol abuse, incarceration, trauma, mental illness and anxiety in its human-services programs throughout the country.
In 2009, alarmed at the nation's lack of capacity to help them, RHD began a nationwide program for Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans – and their families – aimed at easing the difficult transition stateside. Called Healing Ajax, the project is based on veterans who've made the transition successfully guiding those who haven't yet done so, using a trauma-recovery group support model especially modified for combat veterans. Stigma-free and solidly confidential, Healing Ajax aims to serve tens of thousands of veterans and family members.
RHD created a Veterans Interest Group made up of veterans, family members of veterans, and others who serve or care about veterans. These RHD employees from across the country are looking for ways to recruit more veterans to work at RHD, as well as to expand our programs that serve veterans.
At RHD, you can be part of a new mission
RHD helps people realize their hopes by fostering a values-based culture of respect for the dignity and worth of individuals in need, but it's also a national corporation that offers rewarding careers in budgeting, billing, clinical and case management, and much more. RHD is growing nationally and frequently has openings for full- and part-time positions, with an emphasis on hiring veterans. See how veterans have put their skills and experience to good use at RHD.
America's fighting men and women deserve America's care upon their return to civilian life. RHD respects the sacrifices our veterans and their families have made to the country and is committed to help them successfully manage their reintegration. All the programs listed below assist veterans. Please click on the links for more information.
'There with you then. Here for you now.'
No one understands the transition from the battlefield to the homefront like someone who has endured it and managed it. That's why RHD's Healing Ajax program for veterans battling issues from PTSD to depression relies upon peer support groups led by trained veterans.
Veterans are always welcome at the multitude of RHD programs throughout the nation. As veterans' issues accelerate as a result of the growing number of men and women sent into combat situations and returning home, RHD specializes in services directly addressing veterans needs.
- Connecticut
- Delaware
- Florida
- Iowa
- Louisiana
- Massachusetts
- Missouri
- Nebraska
- New Jersey
- North Carolina
- Pennsylvania
- Rhode Island
- South Dakota
- Tennessee
Healing Ajax
Healing Ajax is an innovative, brothers-in-arms approach to helping Iraq, Afghanistan and other war veterans reintegrate into society. It's possible that only a fellow veteran can truly understand the transition …Learn More
New Start I
New Start I is a Level 2B residential treatment program that provides new and innovative ways to service men in the Journey of Hope Program with co-occurring mental health and …Learn More


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You just write your post, answering the featured question and linking to the hosts' sites and the featured bloggers' sites (this week it's The Darling Bookworm). Then put your link in the Linky tools thingy. Then hop around the linked sites making friends with as many other book bloggers as you like.
This week's question is: How would you pitch to the biz to make your favourite book into a movie?
Submitted by Girl of 1000 Wonders.
This is a tough one, because I'm generally not a fan of movie/TV adaptations of books. I guess it all stems from the fact that different people 'see' characters and places in their heads differently, so the way I see a character may differ wildly from the way the producer sees them. Also, the movie industry has this annoying thing where they change scenes for no apparent reason and cast thirty-year-olds as seventeen-year-olds.
So if I had to pitch a book (for example, Cinder by Marissa Meyer), I'd pitch it as a mini-series rather than a film, as I really think that all the scenes and characters are essential to the story as a whole and I'd hate for any to be cut out. Then I'd them all about the awesome characters, setting and plot and that's probably where things would start going wrong, because I'd start ranting about how they're not allowed to change anything and how they've got to cast believable actors as the characters and make sure that the actors read the damn book before they start filming, because if I have to watch another episode of Graham Norton where the actor rocks up for their interview and Graham starts asking them about how they found playing such a beloved literary character and the actor just kind of glazes over and says, 'Was it a book before it was a film then?' I will probably put my fist through the screen of the TV.
So yeah, I don't think I'm going to be ditching my day job to become a movie pitcher person any time soon.
How about you? Can you do a better job of pitching a book to movie execs than I can? (It wouldn't be hard!)
For those new to my blog and who don't already follow me, I'd love it if you followed me via bloglovin' or Twitter or both!


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After a week of games, I finally had some time to sit and watch the Red Sox play on Sunday. The eye test can be a powerful tool in evaluating players because stats in the spring can lie (see my thoughts on spring stats here). It is still very early in spring training, but I have some quick observations and predictions.
Kyle Kendrick – Mark my words, before the All-Star break the Red Sox will be leaning on Kyle Kendrick in their starting rotation. With David Price's status uncertain at best, the Red Sox are already thinning out in the rotation. The three starters at the end of the rotation, Steven Wright, Eduardo Rodriguez, and Drew Pomeranz, have all had injury issues and raise serious concerns around durability. If one of them goes down, then the Red Sox will be looking at the likes of Brian Johnson, Henry Owens, and Roenis Elias to fill the role; or Kyle Kendrick. The Red Sox took a low-risk flyer on him, but with a strong spring training, he may be the next in line to stabilize the rotation.
Mookie Betts – It never gets old watching Mookie Betts swing the bat. He cleans out the inside fastball like very few can and just looks smooth, whether it's March or September. Betts had an excellent breakout 2016 campaign and I don't expect him to fall off in 2017. He hit .318 with 31 HRs last year and finished 2nd in the AL MVP race. Betts is poised to be the next in a long line of superstar outfielders for the Red Sox.
Mitch Moreland – When the Red Sox signed Moreland, I thought he was a low-risk bench player. Unfortunately, Moreland is going to play more than he should in 2017. He's a mid-.200 hitter at best and frankly, my early impression of his defense is disappointing at best. He feels like a roster-filler for a shitty team that just needs bodies, like the Red Sox opponent on Sunday the Atlanta Braves. Instead, a team that is a legitimate contender has him playing first base several times a week.
Deven Marrero – For a few years now Marrero has looked like an excellent prospect waiting for his chance in the big leagues. My prediction: he will be in the Red Sox lineup by mid-season and never look back. For everyone's sake, I hope he is playing 1st or 3rd base and not SS. Marrero made a few sensational diving catches and showed off his cannon of an arm on Sunday while playing SS. Given the big question marks at the corner infield spots, this might be Marrero's best chance to break into the majors.


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Doing a bit of housekeeping on the homepage I noticed that last year I put a copy of the script for the festival on the Corbyn Island post. So if you want to download this year's Musset translation click A Door (Should Be Open Or Shut).
If you're interested in producing the play please contact me at firstname.lastname@example.com


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Determining internal vs. external email
I've been trying to get a good Outlook filter to determine internal from external mail. You'd almost think this is a standard request, but it's actually pretty difficult, especially at a large organization like Intel. After some time trying to figure it out and following some bad advice from Microsoft, I ran across Ray Jezek's Blog : Outlook Rules with Exchange.
The idea is fairly sound, but alas, does not work at Intel, where we have many Exchange servers. When a message moves from one server to another, the message gets Internet headers, so the idea of filtering a message header for the word "Received" doesn't work.
I tried other variations on this theme, though, and finally came up with the solution. My rule now matches any message with a message header containing the text of one of the servers listed in Intel.com's MX records. Internally, our mail will not use one of these hosts, so that's the only sure-fire way to catch external, and only external email that I've found. I suppose if the sender listed the IP address of the mail host my rule would fail, but that's a risk I'm willing to take. ;-)
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This entry was posted on 6:57 PM You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
4 comments:
- Anonymous said...
this is interesting. Would an Outlook rule to check to see if the sender's email address has intel.com work?
- Emil said...
Unfortunately not. If you're on the same exchange server as the sender, there are no Internet headers, and no Intel.com on the sender's address (the sender is only listed as "Doe, John"). If you're on a different exchange server, the message gets headers and the filter would work, though. So, only partial success. This is one of the many attempts I made.
- Steve Smith said...
Great and Useful Article.
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