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Posted by Steve on Wed 1 Jan 2014 at 19:34
This article is a brief introduction to docker, which is a utility for manipulating lightweight containers, allowing you to quickly spin up multiple isolated environments on a single host-machine.
To get started you need to ensure that you have a "modern kernel". Happily the kernel which is available in the Wheezy release of Debian GNU/Linux is recent enough to contain all the required features.
Because docker uses the LXC container system you need to install that first:
apt-get install lxc
Once you've got lxc installed you should then download the docker command-line tool, which is what you'll use to interact with the container system:
root@shelob:~# wget https://get.docker.io/builds/Linux/x86_64/docker-latest -O /usr/local/bin/docker root@shelob:~# chmod 755 /usr/local/bin/docker
Now that you have the docker tool installed you can start using it. What we're going to do, in brief is:
Because docker works with virtual images we need to find some, or create one. Finding them via the online registry is very simple, and will be a good starting point.
Before any other steps may be completed you need to be running the docker daemon, so in one terminal please run:
root@shelob:~# docker -d 2014/01/01 18:55:32 WARNING: You are running linux kernel version 3.2.0-4-amd64, which might be unstable running docker. Please upgrade your kernel to 3.8.0. [/var/lib/docker|fb570453] +job initapi() [/var/lib/docker|fb570453.initapi()] Creating server ...
Once the daemon is running we can pull down some Ubuntu images via the internet in another terminal:
root@shelob:~# docker pull ubuntu
NOTE: This will pull down approximately 80Mb of data, so it might take a while to complete.
Once you've done that you should find that the images are visible in the output of the "docker images" command:
root@shelob:~# docker images REPOSITORY TAG IMAGE ID CREATED VIRTUAL SIZE ubuntu 12.04 8dbd9e392a96 8 months ago 128 MB ubuntu latest 8dbd9e392a96 8 months ago 128 MB ubuntu precise 8dbd9e392a96 8 months ago 128 MB
Now we have some images we can launch one, interactively:
root@shelob:~# docker run -i -t ubuntu /bin/bash root@6959e0664889:/# id uid=0(root) gid=0(root) groups=0(root) root@6959e0664889:/# df df: cannot read table of mounted file systems: No such file or directory root@6959e0664889:/# uptime 18:57:10 up 2 days, 11 min, 0 users, load average: 0.23, 0.15, 0.26 root@6959e0664889:/# exit root@shelob:~#
Here we've launched a new guest instance, with the name "ubuntu", the two flags we used were :
Because we were running interactively, and then exited, any changes we made to the system would be lost. We can verify that by running the same thing twice - once making changes, and once to look for them:
root@shelob:~# root@shelob:~# # First run root@shelob:~# root@shelob:~# docker run -i -t ubuntu /bin/bash root@1b896de6091c:/# rm /etc/passwd root@1b896de6091c:/# exit root@shelob:~# root@shelob:~# # Second Run root@shelob:~# root@shelob:~# docker run -i -t ubuntu /bin/bash root@6c7b72d5dc21:/# ls /etc/passwd /etc/passwd root@6c7b72d5dc21:/# exit
You'll notice that in both case the prompt changed, this prompt is the ID of the temporary running system.
You can use this ID to create a snapshot of your system, after making any changes which you wish to preserve. For example you might find that the system is missing your favourite editor so you could install it via "apt-get install vim". By default if you exited after running that command the change would be lost.
So let us update our image to contain some additional utiltities:
root@shelob:~# docker run -i -t ubuntu /bin/bash root@96a3ca7208f1:/# apt-get install screen less Reading package lists... Done .. Unpacking less (from .../less_444-1ubuntu1_amd64.deb) ... Selecting previously unselected package screen. Unpacking screen (from .../screen_4.0.3-14ubuntu8_amd64.deb) ... Setting up less (444-1ubuntu1) ... root@96a3ca7208f1:/# apt-get install screen less
At this point we have a running instance which we've installed two extra packages to. We want to keep this as our base for future work, so we'll give this instance a name:
root@shelob:~# docker commit 96a3ca7208f1 myname/base 00a50d7bcac3e905fb5a0c159e13a4a05cdca41378fd5064f0b792716b5e43f5
NOTE: Providing you can still remember the numeric ID you can carry this operation out even when you've exited the session.
At this point we've created a snapshot of our Ubuntu system which contains the extra screen & less packages. This snapshot will be visible in the output of "docker images":
root@shelob:~# docker images | grep myname myname/base latest 00a50d7bcac3 47 seconds ago 141.2 MB
As you'd expect you can now launch that instance by name:
root@shelob:~# docker run -i -t myname/base /bin/bash root@8294c9a0ec40:/# which less /usr/bin/less root@8294c9a0ec40:/# exit
Because the new docker instances are running as containers, via lxc, none of your home directories, or other mount-points, will be available to it. You can fix this via a bind-mount:
root@shelob:~# docker run -v /home:/home -i -t myname/base /bin/bash root@49277c40b630:/# ls /home/ litecoin lost+found skx root@49277c40b630:/# exit
The "-v /home:/home" flag we passed to docker specifies that the /home directory on your host should be mounted at /home within the guest.
At this point we're almost done, having demonstrated how to create named snapshots, mount external directories, and generally have fun with docker.
The remaining example demonstrates how you can use port-forwarding to run services inside a docker-container. In our case we'll demonstrate running memcached instead a container.
As before we'll first launch a container, then configure it, and tag the container with a name. Then we'll enable port-forwarding so that the deamon inside the container can be accessed remotely.
To get started we'll launch another instance, and install the memcached server upon it:
root@shelob:~# docker run -i -t ubuntu /bin/bash root@1871e9964507:/# apt-get install memcached Reading package lists... .. root@1871e9964507:/# sed -i "/127.0.0.1/d" /etc/memcached.conf root@1871e9964507:/# exit
Now we've installed memcached, and removed the configuration-file item which causes it to listen upon 127.0.0.1. Because we've made changes to the system we now need to tag it, so we can launch it again in the future:
root@shelob:~# docker commit 1871e9964507 myname/cache 557f7d1a3a7385a9e031241ca03584a1b51e14ec1cf76e0219841ced087f36f9
Now that we've done that we have a named container with memcached installed upon it, but we need to launch it in order to use it - and to be useful we need to forward a port to the container so that we can actually access it.
Much like the bind-mount example we saw earlier we nominate an external port, and an internal port. In our case we want to forward port 3000 on the local system to port 11211 (which is the port that memcached listens upon) to the guest.
Before we proceed we should ensure that port-forwarding is generally available:
root@shelob:~# sysctl "net.ipv4.ip_forward=1" net.ipv4.ip_forward = 1
With that out of the way we launch docker again, with the port-forwarding option "-p":
root@shelob:~# docker run -d -p 3000:11211 myname/cache /usr/bin/memcached -u memcache be5d23555f200a54f63d9386604955448bb0ba5fb3e60cdb2e639eb72b666259
Now we've launched it we can contact localhost:3000 which will then be forwarded to port 11211 within the container:
root@shelob:~# echo -e "stats\nquit" | nc localhost 3000 | head -n 2 STAT pid 1 STAT uptime 32
This is the first time we've launched a container in the background, so if you do wish to stop it you should run the "docker stop" command, with the ID you were given when you launched it:
root@shelob:~# docker stop be5d23555f200a54f63d9386604955448bb0ba5fb3e60cdb2e639eb72b666259
If you forgot the ID which was printed when the guest was started you can look it up via "docker ps":
root@shelob:~# docker ps CONTAINER ID IMAGE COMMAND CREATED STATUS PORTS NAMES 41a5f4a33720 myname/cache:latest /usr/bin/memcached - 3 seconds ago Up 2 seconds 0.0.0.0:3000->11211/tcp lonely_bardeen
And using that short ID you can stop it:
root@shelob:~# docker stop 41a5f4a3372
Hopefully that introduction was useful, I suspect the only part that needs explanation was the way that we launched memcached - because the container boots under the host system and doesn't run any init-system we had to manually launch the deamon ourselves.
To test your kernel you can run the lxc-checkconfig tool, which was installed when you ran "apt-get install lxc".root@shelob:~# lxc-checkconfig Kernel config /proc/config.gz not found, looking in other places... Found kernel config file /boot/config-3.2.0-4-amd64 --- Namespaces --- Namespaces: enabled Utsname namespace: enabled Ipc namespace: enabled Pid namespace: enabled User namespace: enabled Network namespace: enabled Multiple /dev/pts instances: enabled --- Control groups --- Cgroup: enabled Cgroup clone_children flag: enabled Cgroup device: enabled Cgroup sched: enabled Cgroup cpu account: enabled Cgroup memory controller: enabled Cgroup cpuset: enabled --- Misc --- Veth pair device: enabled Macvlan: enabled Vlan: enabled File capabilities: enabled Note : Before booting a new kernel, you can check its configuration usage : CONFIG=/path/to/config /usr/bin/lxc-checkconfig
If there are any errors these should be displayed as guidance, otherwise if all items show as enabled you're good to proceed.
If you don't trust the images which are available over the internet it is relatively straight-forward to create your own.
The docker tool has two commands for dealing with image and tar files:
- "docker import .." - To import a tar-file to an image.
- "docker export .." - To export an image to a tar-file.
For example here is the process of exporting a guest:root@shelob:~# docker export caafbe5d8f34 > mem.tar root@shelob:~# tar tf mem.tar | head -n 5 ./ ./etc/ ./etc/hosts ./etc/hostname ./etc/resolv.conf
Importing a guest from a debootstrap-created system is almost as easy as you would expect. First of all we create the new system to the temporary location wheezy/:root@shelob:~# debootstrap wheezy wheezy/ I: Retrieving Release I: Retrieving Release.gpg ... I: Configuring tasksel... I: Configuring tasksel-data... I: Base system installed successfully.
Once we have that local chroot we can build a tar-file from it, and then feed it to the import process, giving the new image the name debootstrap/wheezy:root@shelob:~# cd wheezy && tar cf ../wheezy.tar . root@shelob:~# cd ; docker import - debootstrap/wheezy < wheezy.tar
Once that is done you can see the image is present:root@shelob:~# docker images | grep debo debootstrap/wheezy latest fb59cf7301bb 6 seconds ago 218.5 MB
And this can now be used, as you would expect:root@shelob:~# docker run -i -t debootstrap/wheezy /bin/bash
One thing not explicitly mentioned is that you might receive an error about a missing cgroup mount when you try to launch a container. This error will look like this:root@shelob:~# docker run -i -t debootstrap/wheezy /bin/sh lxc-start: No cgroup mounted on the system .. [error] commands.go:2445 Error getting size: bad file descriptor
To solve this you need to ensure you have a cgroup filesystem mounted. You can do this by running:# echo "cgroup /sys/fs/cgroup cgroup defaults 0 0" >> /etc/fstab # mount /sys/fs/cgroup
This wasn't mentioned in the article originally because I already had this mount present upon my host.
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You're right. I'm not sure how I managed to make that mistake, but I've updated things now.
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subset: commoncrawl


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Van AmericanCensorship.org
On 11/16, Congress holds hearings on the first American Internet censorship system.Lees meer bij Jeroen en Edwin
This bill can pass. If it does the Internet and free speech will never be the same.
Join all of us on the 16th to stop this bill.
Website Blocking
The government and corporations can order service providers to block websites for infringing links posted by any users.
Risk of Jail for Ordinary Users
It becomes a felony with a potential 5 year sentence to stream a copyrighted work that would cost more than $2,500 to license, even if you are a totally noncommercial user, e.g. singing a pop song on Facebook.
Chaos for the Internet
Thousands of sites that are legal under the DMCA would face new legal threats. People trying to keep the internet more secure wouldn't be able to rely on the integrity of the DNS system.


text:
We believe that nurses are the heart of the healthcare experience; providing compassionate care and thoughtful leadership to patients, their families, and the community every day. We understand that nursing isnt just a job for you, it represents who you are. Now, its time to take control of your career and Sunbelt can help show you the way! Through established relationships with facilities across the country, we can help you find your perfect fit. For those wishing to add some diversity and adventure to their career, our travel program is just what the nurse ordered and can take you from rural Wisconsin to the hustle and bustle of New York City. Sunbelts opportunities include a wide variety of specialties, so no matter what career path you choose we have a position thats right for you.
Showing Jobs 2401-2366 of 2366


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Flight Global's Jon Ostrower posted videos of three different kinds of airplane approaches and landings. The first one is the most spectacular, as a Airbus A320 approaches Bhutan's airport zooming, close to 3,500m mountains. Fast forward to 5:39.
They plane warns "1,000 feet" (300m), but they still can't see the damn airport strip. It's like Top Gun's canyon run but with a 34-wide airplane that weights about 58 tonnes and carries 120 passengers. No pressure! [FlightBlogger]


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Cloud 66: Harnessing Kubernetes expertise to simplify DevOps
About Cloud 66
Cloud 66 offers intuitive, feature-rich integrated management tools to facilitate application development, including Skycap, a container delivery pipeline.
Using Google Kubernetes Engine, Cloud 66 autoscales to meet peaks in demand across time zones, saving 70% in computing costs while serving almost 4,000 customer workloads.
Google Cloud Results
- Operates at a global scale to meet daily peaks in demand across time zones
- Enables powerful proof point for using own container pipeline and operations products to integrate with Google Kubernetes Engine
- Increases efficiency and reduces costs 70% with autoscaling and managed services
Computing costs down 70% with Google Kubernetes
By providing Ops tools for developers to build and deploy applications easily, Cloud 66 has grown to become a leading provider in containers, Rails, and Node. With either a hosted or on-premises model, Cloud 66 tools are ideally suited for hybrid and multicloud environments. In containers, its key products are Skycap, a Git-to-Kubernetes container delivery pipeline, and Maestro, an application lifecycle management service. Founded in 2011, the company now has offices in the United States and the United Kingdom, and its products are used by 12,000 developers in 100 different countries around the world, deploying over 4,000 workloads.
Cloud 66's tools help both small and large enterprises to work with Kubernetes. "What we try to do is to create a solution where developers can focus on the code, but also bring it into production in a way that Ops governance supports," says Udi Nachmany, VP of Business Development at Cloud 66. "Cloud 66 wants to give developers the power of self-service operations, but also still give operations the opportunity to see what's going on. Our mission is to simplify DevOps."
"We're a small company so we don't have our own data center and we needed a way to run our own operations on Kubernetes, both for efficiency and for product proof. Google Cloud Platform offered an opportunity to make efficiency gains, both in terms of cost and time."—Khash Sajadi, Co-Founder and CEO, Cloud 66
As an innovator in the field, Cloud 66 wrote its own orchestrator in 2014, but given its focus on developer tooling, decided to switch to Kubernetes for its own stack in 2016. After 18 months of running on a cloud-based Kubernetes cluster, it looked for a managed Kubernetes solution that would meet its and its customers' strict requirements for performance. Google Cloud Platform was the perfect fit.
"We're a small company, and we don't have our own data center. We needed a way to run our own operations on Kubernetes," says Khash Sajadi, Co-founder and CEO of Cloud 66. "Google Cloud Platform offered an opportunity to make efficiency gains, both in terms of cost and time. It also enabled us to do what we call 'extreme-dogfooding' of our own tools on a highly performant Kubernetes service."
The obvious choice for Kubernetes
In order to stay ahead of the latest innovations, hosted software providers have to keep their own systems up to date. After moving its own stack to Kubernetes, Cloud 66 looked for data storage, logging, and monitoring solutions that would work with Kubernetes. "Previously, we ran on containers in VMs, which brings a lot of latency and overhead, and used a collection of disparate solutions around the cluster," says Khash.
As well as integrating with Kubernetes, Cloud 66 looked for services that were global, reliable, and low maintenance: "We needed managed services with global availability and support we could rely on," says Khash. "We were looking for a database with low maintenance and the integration of tools for logging and reporting."
"Once we made the decision to move to a managed container stack that can meet our customers' strict demands for performance, then Google Kubernetes Engine was an obvious choice."—Khash Sajadi, Co-Founder and CEO, Cloud 66
To answer these requirements, Cloud 66 switched to Google Cloud Platform. With customers in the United States and around the globe, Cloud 66 experiences multiple peaks in demand throughout the day. The autoscaling function in Google Cloud Platform means Cloud 66 now easily scales its capacity relative to these peaks. Working with Google Kubernetes Engine means its data systems integrate seamlessly with its Kubernetes clusters as part of a more consolidated system.
"With our customers' production workloads in mind, since we don't have a data center, once we made the decision we should move to a container stack then Google Kubernetes Engine was an obvious choice," says Khash.
Feeding back improvements
Thanks to switching to Google Kubernetes Engine to manage its Kubernetes clusters, Cloud 66 now has an even greater understanding of its customers' needs, allowing it to improve its products. "It's really useful being integrated with Google Cloud and Google Kubernetes Engine, as we are deploying our own systems using our own products—the same container delivery pipeline and operations tools that our customers use," says Udi. "If we find there is something we can improve or add, then other companies probably also need this functionality—and we can bring it into our platform."
"The benefit is that our tools work around and on top of Kubernetes," says Udi. "It's a feedback loop: we use our own pipeline for the delivery of code into Kubernetes, and our own operations tools to manage the apps on top, which is a circular way to prove the stability and robustness of our own toolset."
"If you're a company using Kubernetes, with the powerful tooling we've developed, as an operations manager you will be able to offer self-service experience to your developers, to make the most out of Google Kubernetes Engine. We see that as something that has the potential to grow our customer base."—Udi Nachmany, VP Sales and Business Development, Cloud 66
Developing new services
By moving its system to a containerized stack using Google Kubernetes Engine, Cloud 66 has seen its computing bills reduced by 70%. In addition, the company is more agile in the way it runs its services, as Khash explains: "Our responses to changes are much quicker. With Google Kubernetes Engine and Google App Engine, you get zero downtime, so pushing new code into production is really easy." Now Cloud 66 hopes to develop new products that will allow more companies to work with Google Kubernetes Engine.
As part of the move to Google Cloud Platform, Cloud 66 built open source projects such as Habitus and Copper, as well as features such as Formations and Stencils into Skycap, its container delivery pipeline. "Once we moved to Google Kubernetes Engine, infrastructure wasn't the problem anymore," Udi said. "It was things like pipeline security and configuration that we had to innovate on for our own stack as well as for our customers. We consider this to be a case of real-world innovation, thanks to using Google Kubernetes Engine." As part of this process, Cloud 66 also decided to join the CNCF as a sponsor.
"If you're a company using Kubernetes, with the powerful tooling we've developed, as an operations manager you will be able to offer self-service experience to developers, to make the most out of Google Kubernetes Engine," says Udi. "We see that as something that has the potential to grow our customer base."
About Cloud 66
Cloud 66 offers intuitive, feature-rich integrated management tools to facilitate application development, including Skycap, a container delivery pipeline.


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With an arched panel headboard, beveled block posts, turned finals and bun feet, this youth trundle bed looks great in any room decor. Headboard and footboard feature recessed panel moldings for dimension, as does the underbed trundle unit. The trundle drawer can be used for underbed storage space or as an additional mattress box for sleepovers. This bed is available in twin and full sizes, and is also available for order without the trundle unit.
The Abbott Ridge Youth Bedroom Full Panel Bed with Trundle by Liberty Furniture at AHFA in the area. Product availability may vary. Contact us for the most current availability on this product.
The Abbott Ridge Youth Bedroom collection presents versatile transitional style perfect for a girl's bedroom or a boy's bedroom. It draws on classic elements of the turned bun feet, crown undertop molding, and warm cinnamon finish are appealing at any age - from child to teen to even adult. Quality construction features include poplar solids and birch veneer construction, drawers built with French and English dovetail construction for lasting strength and felt-lined top drawers. For safety, all items are CSPC compliant, include anti-tip restraints, and softened edges to protect against soft corners.
The Abbott Ridge Youth Bedroom collection is a great option if you are looking for Transitional furniture in the area.
These images are representative of this group as a whole and may differ from this item.
This item has been tagged as: Bed, Bedroom Furniture, Twin Size Bed, Full Size Bed, Queen Size Bed, King Size Bed, California King Size Bed, Bookcase Bed, Book Case Bed, Canopy Bed, Bed with Canopy, Captain's Bed, Daybed, Headboard and Footboard Bed, Headboard, Footboard, Headboard & Footboard, Pier Bed, Poster Bed, Sleigh Bed, Upholstered Bed, Wall Unit Bed, Double Bed, Day Bed, Storage Bed, Home Furnishings, Furniture, Bed frame, Furnishing For Bedroom, Bedroom Furniture Set
Nothing on this page may be copied or reproduced without explicit permission.


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At school, while very young, I heard of the word 'Womanizer.' I had no idea what that means, so I took the dictionary and read " A man who likes many women and has short sexual relationships with them." I said to myself, that's not the way I would like to live, especially in those days when Gonorrhea is very common.
At 19, I was still a celibate and hadn't tasted the 'golden apple,' yet, surprisingly, I had no desire to find out how 'delicious or sour it may be.' I often hear some of my friends, talking about their girlfriends, and wonder how they had them.
Without even searching for a girlfriend, I had one during school athletics competition. Extremely beautiful dark complexioned girl called Esther. Any time she puts her hand around my neck, I feel something in my breast pocket. It was money.
I was just proud to have a girlfriend and I spoke about her to my classmates, but very green, I didn't give her what often happens when a door is closed behind a man and a woman. After Esther, came Lydia. She was actually the first girl who thought me how to do it at the age of twenty. The contents of her love letters made me to believe that she graduated from a 'Love School.'
When I saw her naked body, I gazed at her like Adam gazing at 'The Apple of Temptation' on the tree. She laid down and I took my position. But inexperienced Joe was just on top of her motionless, waiting for a miracle to take place . She then asked me to jerk my body up and down.
After following her instructions, I started feeling something unusual flowing through my body like electric current. This unusual feeling is hard to describe. Like one under a trance, I don't think I would have got the energy to escape if a charged elephant or a wild lion is coming my way. After some few minutes, I felt like I'm in a perfect place of happiness, paradise. I wasn't aware that this inexperienced love life is going to help me one day.
From there on, struggling to be a man was my priority, than having a girlfriend, until I got married in my thirties. After marriage, I realized the importance, gem and quality of a woman. The long years without a woman moulded me to treasure my wife, making it totally impossible to love any woman apart from her.
To many, cheating is the best part of relationship, because it's nice to taste different kinds of food. But just as a man gets food poisoning and diarrhea after eating contaminated food, the same way a man can expose himself to sexually transmitted diseases, then wished you had never done, but it's too late.
There are many ways to adore your girlfriend or partner for ever. Whenever you're watching an interesting film or program on the television, don't lose all your interest to the program. Steal a minute to look at your man or woman. He or she will ask you: Why are you looking at me like that? "I love you," say to him or her.
Little things in life improve relationship than being rich. There are many domestic activities. Share those responsibilities with your partner. If she does the laundry, do the pressing and if she does the shopping, surprise her with a delicious breakfast preparations. Above all try to maintain respect and remain faithful to each other, even though to err is human.


text:
BetStars is the online betting service from PokerStars. Join today for the exclusive chance to Spin & Bet up to 10 times on the biggest matches and sporting events around the World. Quick links: football betting, tennis betting, formula one betting.
Copyright © 2001-2020, Rational Intellectual Holdings Limited. All rights reserved. Stars Interactive Limited, Douglas Bay Complex, King Edward Road, Onchan, Isle of Man, IM3 1DZ. Licence 000-039108-R-319334-021 issued January 7, 2020. Licensed and regulated by the UK Gambling Commission. 18+, www.begambleaware.org. Play responsibly.
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text:
On January 17, Gran Turismo 5 owners will get two news pieces of DLC to purchase, one of them a pack with six new cars, the other a new test track.
The car pack, which costs $US6, includes the Lamborghini Aventador, Jaguar XJR-9 LM, Aston Martin V12 Vantage, 1966 Volkswagen 1200, the Mini Cooper S Countryman and the Nissan Leaf. Because, you know. All kids grow up dreaming of hitting the race track in a Nissan Leaf.
The second piece of DLC is the Route X test track.
New Gran Turismo 5 DLC This Tuesday: Car Pack 3, Speed Test Course [PlayStation]


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Sofia is Bulgaria's capital and its largest city. Founded thousands of years ago, today the city continues to develop as the country's cultural and economic center. At present, the city has a population of 1,250,000.
Sofia is located in the western part of the country, on The Sofia Plain and on the lower slopes of Mount Vitosha. The city's average altitude is 550 meters above sea level, the climate is moderate and continental, characterized by cold winters and relatively cool summers. The average temperature in January is 1 degree below zero Centigrade, and the average July temperature is 20 degrees Centigrade.
The city is located at a strategic crossroads. The route from Western Europe to Istanbul passes through Sofia via Beograd and Skopje, then through Plovdiv to Turkey. Sofia also connects The Near East and The Middle East, lying between the banks of The Danube and the shores of The White Sea on the one hand, and between The Black Sea and The Adriatic on the other.
Sofia is relatively close to the capitals of most Balkan countries: Ankara is 1,012 km; Athens is 837 km; Beograd is 374 km; Bucharest is 395 km; Zagreb is 762 km; Ljubljana is 897 km; Sarajevo is 549 km; Skopje is 239 km; Tirana is 553 km.
Three freeways begin in Sofia: Trakia, Lyulin, and Hemus. The Sofia Airport provides travelers with convenient connections to all major European cities, and from the central train station and bus station passengers can reach every destination in the country.
Sofia has been settled for many millennia. In honor of its hot springs, in the 8th century BCE the Thracian tribes settled here gave the city its first name – Serdika or Serdonpolis.In the 1st century BCE, Serdika was captured by the Romans, who transformed it into a Roman city. During the reign of Emperor Marcus Ulpius Trajan (reign 98-117 CE), the city took his name, Ulpia Serdika, and became the administrative center of the region. Serdika was the favorite city of Constantine the Great (reign 306-337), who said "Serdika is my Rome." In roughly 175, massive fortified walls, with four watchtowers were built to protect the city , and a second outer fortified wall was added during the 5th-6th centuries. The city's flourished for a second time under Justinian the Great (reign 527-565). At the beginning of the 9th century, the Bulgarian Han Krum (reign 803-814) invaded Serdika. The city became an inseparable part of The First Bulgarian Empire (7th-9th centuries) under Han Omurtag (reign 814-831). At this time the city was renamed Sredets (The Center), because of its central strategic location. From 1018-1094, Sredets was under Byzantine rule, but still remained an important strategic, economic, and cultural center. During the time of The Second Bulgarian Empire (1185-1393), Sredets took on the appearance of a large Medieval city – its narrow, crowded streets witnessed the construction of more and more small churches and monasteries, which later became Sofia's Holy Mountain. The city gained its present name at the end of the 14th century, in honor of the city's major symbol, The Saint Sofia Basilica.
In 1382, the city fell to the Ottomans. It was liberated five centuries later, in 1878, and on April 3, 1879 it was declared the capital of the newly-liberated Bulgarian nation.
Sofia preserves many valuable monuments to its long and storied past. Visitors exploring the city's streets can see remnants of The Eastern Gate from the days when Sofia was Serdika and Sredets, dating from the 2nd-4th centuries CE. These remains are exhibited in the underpass connecting the Presidential Palace and The Ministerial Council, surrounded by shops selling traditional Bulgarian souvenirs and rosewater.
The Saint Sofia Basilica, founded during the reign of Justinian (reign 527-565), is one of the oldest churches in the capital. It was the city's major church during the Middle Ages, and under the Ottomans it was used as a mosque. Very close to Saint Sofia is The Memorial Church Saint Alexander Nevsky, now one of the city's most recognizable symbols. This church was built in 1912, and was designed by the Russian architect Alexander Pomerantsev. Its bell tower rises to a height of 53 meters, and houses 53 bells, the heaviest weighing 10 tons. One of the most popular tourist destinations in Sofia, the church can hold roughly 5,000 people, and on important Christian holidays it is filled with believers. In the church's crypt, there is an exhibit of Orthodox Christian art. Directly across from the church is The National Gallery of Art, which often exhibits works by world-famous artists.
The oldest church in Sofia is the Saint George Rotunda. It is thought that the church was built in the 6th century, during the reign of Constantine the Great. In the rotunda's immediate proximity, in the underpass leading to the Serdika metro station, is The Saint.
Petka Samardzhiyska Church, built in the 11th century. Another Christian monument in the region is the Saint Joseph Catholic Cathedral. While walking in the area, visitors will also see the Banya Bashi Mosque, built in the 16th century. Not far from the mosque is a synagogue, which houses a museum. There is hardly another city in all of Europe that has so many noteworthy Christian, Islamic, and Jewish monuments so close together. In the immediate vicinity, other historical remains are preserved, such as the municipal baths, the marketplace, and The Holy Sunday Church. Adjacent to this church is the Theological Seminary, which houses The National Historical and Archeological Museum. Other points of interest in the city include The Lion Bridge, The Eagle Bridge, The Russian Monument, and the monument to Vasil Levski (a Bulgarian revolutionary hero who gave has life in the struggle to free Bulgaria from the Ottomans in the 19th century).
In the midst of the city's religious landmarks, directly across from The Presidential Palace, is The National Archeological Museum, which has in its collection some of the most valuable treasures discovered in Bulgaria.
Masterpieces of Bulgarian painting are on display at The National Art Gallery, located in what was formerly the Bulgarian Royal Palace. The National Museum of Ethnography is also located here, and The Museum of Natural History is a very short distance away, with exhibits of plants and animals that are very valuable, and even some that can no longer be seen in the wild. Right in front of this museum if The Saint Nikolai Church, which is an architectural landmark. The Parliament Building, Monument to the Liberator (in honor of the Russian Tsar Alexander II, who was instrumental in freeing Bulgaria from Ottoman rule), and the campus of Sofia University "Saint Kliment Ohradski" are three more of the city's major symbols. Without a doubt, one of the most beautiful buildings in Sofia is The Ivan Vazov National Theater.
On the lower slopes of Mount Vitosha, in the Boyana District, is located The National Museum of History, with its collection from prehistoric times to the present day. The museum has one of the largest collections anywhere, with over 700,000 items of cultural importance. Close to the museum is The Boyana Church, one of the Bulgarian monuments that is listed among the UNESCO World Heritage sites.
There are many more capitals in the city, such as The Polytechnical Museum, The Museum of Anthropology, and The Sports Museum. Since it is the nation's capital, Sofia constantly plays host to important cultural and musical events, conferences, and sports competitions. The National Palace of Culture, the city's football stadiums, and the city's large halls are venues for concerts and performances by famous individuals and groups.
During the months of May and June, The Palace of Culture will welcome performers participating in the festival "Sofia Music Weeks." The capital's many theaters and galleries offer a wide range of interesting exhibits and shows.
The city is a preferred destination for international congresses, and there are a great many halls and centers offering possibilites for every need. For example, one of the city's most popular venues for business forums and trade fairs is The National Palace of Culture.
Sofia is also home to Bulgaria's most prestigious and larges educational institutions – universities, colleges, and middle schools that offer solidly-grounded, up-to-date instruction in such disciplines as Architecture, Medicine, The Humanities, Engineering, Music and Choreography, and Fine Arts.
Near Sofia, in the Vitosha, Lozen, and Stara Planina (Central Balkan) Mountains, over the centuries so many monasteries have been founded that they came to be known as Sofia's Holy Mountains. They can be considered as a single complex, and played an important role in preserving the Bulgarian spiritual heritage during the centuries of Ottoman occupation. Still standing are The Dragalevski, Lozen, Germanski, Kremikovski, Cherepishki, and Osenovlashki Monasteries, among others.
Opportunities for sport and recreation in the capital are many and varied – outdoor swimming pools, tennis courts, modern gymnasiums and sports halls, and parks. The city's stadiums draw thousands of fans for matches between major football teams.
Sofia's parks are a favorite place for rest and recreation. Borisov Park is right in the center of the city, and South Park is next to the National Palace of Culture. There are two golf courses within an hour's drive of the city, in the city of Ihtiman and the village of Ravno Polye, both offering excellent facilities to play and practice this sport that is becoming more and more popular in Bulgaria. During the winter, the ski resort on Mount Vitosha is a favorite with skiers and snowboarders alike, and during the summer it is a favorite place for hikers and picnickers. Mount Vitosha borders on The Vitosha Natural Park, which is the oldest nature reserve on the Balkan Peninsula. The species of flora in the park are particularly rich and varied. Ten of the peaks in the Vitosha Range are over 2,000 meters; the highest is Cherni Vrah (Black Peak), in the center of the park, at 2,290 meters. Since Mount Vitosha is a preferred destination for the capital's residents, its fields and paths are alive with nature lovers. For more information about the park, please contact the Vitosha Nature Preservation Information Center, located roughly 1 km from the Dragolevtsi Quarter, close to the Dragolevtsi Monastery.
There are two ski centers on Mount Vitosha to accommodate visitors to this very popular sports destination. They are Aleko and Konyarnika. Aleko is at an altitude of 1,800 meters, and its slopes face north. It also has facilities for night skiing. The Konyarnika Center is 1,507 meters high. There are a total of 29 km of ski runs on Vitosha, and the longest is 5 km. The maximum vertical dro is 780 meters. The slopes are suitable for both experienced skiers beginners.
The Sofia Zoological Garden in the southern part of the city is the country's larges zoo. It is a favorite place for a day's outing for young and old alike.
Sofia offers many places for its children to play. The parks are equipped with safe, modern, playground equipment, and there are both children's playgrounds and indoor recreational facilities for children.
Like every big city, Sofia has something for every taste. There are a great many luxury hotels, including those that are part of international hotel chains. There is also a wide variety of hostels and smaller family guesthouses. There are a multitude of discotheques, restaurants, bars, piano bars, folk clubs, taverns, soda fountains, fast food outlets and many other kinds of entertainment.
Sofia and the immediate vicinity also boast a great many spa complexes. The hot springs at Bankya, a nearby resort offer wonderful facilities for rest, recreation, and wellness. There are ten spa centers within the capital's city limits offering peace and relaxation, along with therapeutic and beauty treatments.
One of Sofia's favorite spots for both visitors and residents is Vitosha Boulevard. Here thee are shops carrying world-famous brands, and since it s a pedestrian zone, it a very pleasant place for strolling and relaxation. In general, the capital is a shoppers delight, since Sofia is still one of the major crossroads on the Balkan Peninsula for trade of all kinds
The city's annual celebration is observed on September 17, in honor of the martyrdom of Saint Sofia and her three daughters Vyara (Faith), Nadezhda (Hope), and Lyubov (Love).
The National Museum of History Opening Hours:
November – March:
9.00 am 5.30 pm
(last admission at 4.45 pm)
April – October:
9.30 – 6.00 pm
(last admission at 5.15 pm)
The museum is closed for the official holidays on January 1, March 3, and December 24 and 25
Adults – BGN 10
students – BGN 1
visitors who come from locations where museum exhibits were discovered (partners of the National Museum of History) – 50% reduction
Guided tours are given in Bulgarian, English, French, Spanish, German, Japanese, and Russian. Price for the general tour, which lasts 1½ hours, is BGN 15 in Bulgarian and BGN 30 for all other languages.
The price for guided tours for persons with special needs, which last one hour, is BGN 10 in Bulgarian and BGN 30 in all other languages. Guided tours for students of pre-school age, for elementary and high school students, and for university students are BGN 10 in Bulgarian and BGN 30 for all other languages.
Preference is given to groups of up to 25 people with advance reservations. Reservations remain valid up to 20 minutes after the time of the reservation.
There is no admission charge to the museum on the last Monday of every month. Admission is also free for military personnel in uniform, persons with disabilities, and children of pre-school age.
On September 17, the day of the city's annual celebration, and on November 1, The Day of National Awakening, participants in the celebrations enter free of charge, and for all other visitors the admission fee is BGN 1.
Charge for the use of a camera to take still photographs – BGN 10. charge for the use of a video camera – BGN 80.
Admission to the museum's film projections – BGN 0.30
The National Art Gallery and Crypt at The Memorial Church Saint Alexander Nevsky Opening Hours:
10.00 am – 6.00 pm
closed Monday
To each site – BGN 6
combined admission to both sites – BGN 10
students and seniors – BGN 3 to each site
Free admission for students enrolled in schools of the arts and for people who have written proof of disabilities
Guided tours of the museum by advance arrangement are offered in Bulgarian, English, French, Spanish, German, Japanese, and Russian.
Price for a group up to 5 people – BGN 20; for a group over 5 people – BGN 30.
The Saint Sofia Church Opening Hours:
March – September
7.00 am – 7.00 pm
October – February
7.00 am – 6 pm
The Memorial Church Saint Alexander Nevsky Opening Hours:
Monday – Sunday
7.00 am – 7.00 pm
Guided tours in Bulgarian:
BGN 50 (regardless of the number of people in the group).
Tours need to be arranged in advance, since the priest who gives the tours needs to be informed of the day and hour.
The Saint George Rotunda Opening Hours:
8.00 am – 6.00 pm
every day
Visiting hours:
11.00 am – 5.00 pm
The Saint Petka Samardzhiyska Church
Monday – Sunday
7.30 am – 7.30 pm
There is a fee of BGN 10 to take pictures in the church.
A church attendant is prepared to provide information about the history of the church in Bulgarian and German, free of charge, to interested visitors.
The Sofia Mosque Opening Hours:
March – October
10.am – 8.00 pm
every day
November – February
10.00 am – 6.00 pm
every day
Both men and women are welcome to visit the mosque.
Adults – BGN 4
students – BGN 2
Group guided tours – BGN 10
Use of a camera to take photographs – BGN 3
Use of a video camera – BGN 5
Tours of the mosque are offered in Bulgarian, Russian, English, and Turkish.
The Bulgarian Academy of Sciences Ethnographic Institute
Tuesday – Sunday
10.00 am 5.30 pm
closed Monday
Adults – BGN 3
students and seniors – BGN 1
Guided tours (in Bulgarian and English)
for groups up to 5 persons – BGN 10 per group
for groups over 5 persons – BGN 15 per group.
The Russian church "Saint Nikolai" Opening Hours:
8.00 am – 6.30 pm
all year round
The Bulgarian Academy of Sciences Museum of Natural History
Monday – Sunday
10.00 am – 6.00 pm
The museum is closed on January 1, March 3, and December 25.
Adults – BGN 4
students and seniors – BGN 2
children under 7 years of age and persons with disabilities – BGN 1.
Last admission – 5.00 pm.
Guided tours by advance arrangement.
Tours in Bulgarian – BGN 20
Tours in English – BGN 40
The Boyana Church, affiliated with the National Museum of History Opening Hours:
November – March
9.00 am – 5.30 pm
every day
(last admission – 5.00 pm)
Closed December 24 and 25 and January 1.
Group visits must be arranged in advance.
Adults – BGN 10
students – BGN 2
Combined admission to Boyana Church and The National Museum of History – BGN 12
Combined admission to Boyana Church and The Zemen Monastery – BGN 14
Groups over 10 visitors – BGN 8 per person
Free admission for persons with disabilities and children under 7 years of age.
Guided tours are in Bulgarian, English, German, French, and Russian – BGN 10.
The Holy Synod National Historical and Archeological Ecclesiastical Museum
Monday – Friday
9.00 am – 5.00 pm
closed Saturday and Sunday
Admission: BGN 5
Free guided tours in Bulgarian and German for groups of more than 10 persons.
The city's Tourist Information Center offers a free guided walking tour of landmarks in the center of Sofia – The Memorial Church Saint Alexander Nevsky, The Saint Nikolai Russian Orthodox Church, and The Saint Sofia Church.
The tour is given on Wednesday and Saturday at 9.30 am, by prior arrangement for groups of more than 10 persons.
To make a group reservations for the tour, please call
Tel: +359 2 4918344
Tel: +359 2 4918345
e-mail: [email protected]
The National Museum of History
16 Vitoshka Lale (Vitosha Tulip), Sofia
Tel: +359 2 955 42 80
Tel: +359 2 955 76 04
e-mail: [email protected]
Website: www.historymuseum.org
The National Art Gallery
1 Knyaz Alexander Street, 1000 Sofia
Tel: +359 2 9800093
Website: www.nationalartgallerybg.org
The Crypt at The Memorial Church Saint Alexander Nevsky
1 Alexander Nevsky Street, Sofia
Tel: +359 2 981 5775
The Saint Sofia Church
2 Parizh (Paris) Street, Sofia
Tel: +359 29870971
Tel: +359 2 9809460
The Memorial Church Saint Alexander Nevsky
1 Alexander Nevsky Street, Sofia
Tel: +359 2 9881704
The Saint George Rotunda
2 Knyaz Dondukov Street, Sofia
Tel: +359 2 9809216
Website: www.svgeorgi-rotonda.com
The Saint Petka Samardzhiyska Church
2 Maria Luiza (Louisa) Street, Sofia
Tel: +359 2 9807 899
The Sofia Mosque
14 Maria Luiza (Louisa) Street, Sofia
Tel: +359 2 9816001
Tel: +359 894 446233
The Bulgarian Academy of Sciences Ethnographic Institute
1 Alexander Batenberg Street
Tel: +359 2 805 26 21
e-mail: [email protected]
Website: www.ethnography.cc.bas.bg
The Russian church Saint Nikolai
3 Tsar Osvoboditel Street, Sofia
Tel: +359 2 986 2715
Tel: +359 339 25 66 125
[email protected]
[email protected]
Website: www.podvorie-sofia.org
The Bulgarian Academy of Sciences Museum of Natural History
1 Tsar Osvoboditel Street, Sofia
Tel: +359 2 987 41 95
Tel: +359 2 988 51 15
e-mail: [email protected]
Website: www.nmnhs.com
The Boyana Church, affiliated with the National Museum of History
1-3 Boyansko Ezero (Lake Boyana) Street, 1616 Sofia
Tel: +359 2 959 0939
Tel: +359 2 959 2963
e-mail: [email protected]
Website: www.boyanachurch.org
The Holy Synod National Historical and Archeological Ecclesiastical Museum
19 Holy Sunday Square, Sofia
Tel: +359 2 959 0939
Tel: +359 2 959 2963
e-mail: [email protected]
Website: www.boyanachurch.org
University Botanical Garden
The University Botanical Garden in Balchik was established in 1955 by Acad. Prof. Daki Jordanov on the territory of the park of the former ...
Cathedral "The Assumption of Holy Mother"
The cathedral in Varna is one of the symbols of the city. It is situated on "St. Cyril and St. Methodius" square in the center of Varna. ...
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The Antique Theater in Plovdiv is situated in the Old Town, in the saddle between the two hills – Dzhambaz and Taksim Tepe. It was built in ...
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Top 10 Most Redneck Cities Rating Upsets NASCAR Fans
Top cities on the list include Sacramento, Tulsa and Atlanta.
May 13, 2013 -- You know those folks who ride lawn motors, decorate their trailers with taxidermied raccoons and think NASCAR is the greatest thing since Skoal chewing tobacco? According to Movoto, a real estate brokerage firm in San Mateo, Calif., they're most likely to live in one of 10 cities across the United States, which Movoto has dubbed the "Most Redneck."
The top cities on the list include Sacramento, Calif. ( No. 8); Tulsa, Okla. (No. 5); and Kansas City (No. 2). Atlanta took top honors.
The site judged the cities based on an array of criteria, including nearby gun and ammo stores, cowboy boot stores, local taxidermists, Walmart locations, NASCAR tracks, country radio stations and the percent of the population that didn't complete high school.
According to the report, Atlanta has 81 shops that repair riding lawn mowers; 55 gun and ammo stores; 34 boot stores; 14 taxidermy shops; five Walmart locations; one country radio station in the city proper, and one NASCAR track.
"Add it all up and Atlanta just beat out Kansas City, Mo., for tops on the list," Movoto spokesman Nick Johnson told ABC News. "So, if I were to try and quantify everything, I'd say that Atlanta didn't stand out too much, but it was right about in the middle, overall, for everything, while other cities were up and down enough that middle of the road won out."
Mesa, Ariz. -- ranked No. 10 -- had the highest number of gun and ammo stores per capita, with 132 for a population of about 446,000, according to the report. Mesa also ranked in the top three for the number of NASCAR tracks, taxidermists, and Walmart locations. Of course, one person's redneck capital is another person's refuge; Forbes counted Mesa among the best 25 places to retire in 2013.
Despite the obvious levity of the ranking, some readers were not amused.
"This is a totally useless, elitist article," a reader named Steve posted on the Movoto blog. "It's written about on the level of Brian the dog on 'Family Guy.' It's almost impossible to believe that not only is someone getting paid for this, but that it's published at all."
"Cat In The ATL" had this to say: "I live in the city of Atlanta, and it's many things, but redneck is not one of them. There are only 4 or 5 Walmarts in the entire city, not that the number of Walmarts determines 'redneckness.' High school graduations rates are not a good indicator either."
Others were also offended, though not for the reasons you'd think. An op-ed in the Kansas City Star, for example, fumed because the town ranked second and not first.
"Movoto also should have considered the number of widely publicized barbecue contests a city might have, the huge attendance for such events, the obesity rate of the area, country restaurants, country nightclubs and big events in town such as the American Royal, parade, rodeo and livestock shows," wrote Lewis W. Diguid. "Kansas City should have ranked No. 1 instead of that prize going to Atlanta."
Johnson claims to be puzzled by the pushback.
"There were a lot of pretty upset people," he said. "We thought we'd get a lot of people saying, 'Heck yeah, I'm proud to be a redneck!' But I talked to a guy in Atlanta, and he felt it was insulting. He said, 'What do you know about rednecks and how are you going to determine that NASCAR, Walmart and country music are what rednecks are about'?"
"The post is funny," Johnson continued. "The person who wrote it said, 'I'm a redneck myself.' We weren't trying to say there's anything wrong with being a redneck. We were trying to generate a discussion in a lighthearted way."
The company was also, not surprisingly, trying to generate publicity.
"We started out as a real estate blog which talked about real estate news, but we've evolved into a blog which talks about cities/quality of life, and this story was a spinoff of that," Johnson said. "So, while the blog started as a way to grow awareness about Movoto, it's become a way for us to stay top of mind and create discussions/awareness of city life and to start conversations about different metro areas and what it's like to 'live' there."
The company has also aggregated the top 10 least hip cities to live in (El Paso took tops); the top ten worst dressed cities (Wichita); and the top ten cities for gamers. Number one on that list? Atlanta.


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Hassan El Hadary
- Certified
- Twitter: @hassan_hadary
Hassan is an expert in application security. He performed application security assessments, secure code reviews and penetration tests for security critical applications. He started his career as a programmer, during which he developed his passion for Information Security. Hassan received his Master's degree in Computer Science from the American University in Cairo with a thesis in the field of Secure Software Engineering.
Hassan is an active security researcher in bug bounty programs. He was acknowledged and rewarded by several vendors such as Google, Apple, Facebook, Yahoo, Oracle, Twitter, PayPal, eBay, Etsy, AT&T, Gift Cards, Cisco Meraki, and Groupon. Published vulnerabilities are available on the blog�http://hassanhadary.blogspot.com.eg/�
Hassan has publications and talks in several events such as SANS @Night talks,�OWASP Chapter,��US- Egypt Cyber Security Workshop, Middle East Info Security Summit, ADPoly Cyber Security Bootcamp, CSCAMP
Student Endorsements:
"Great class. Clearly Hassan knows his stuff!"-�Adam Stiller,�Bloomberg
"I love Hassan's real-world examples!" -�Daniel Marquardt,�ETAS GmbH
"Hassan is very knowledgeable�and does an excellent job of explaining the material. He is one of the most enjoyable instructors at SANS. He genuinely enjoys what he does and it shows in how he teaches." -�Jamy Klein,�Kaiser Permanente
"Hassan is a very knowledgeable and engaging instructor!" -�Lee Remolador,�Boyd Gaming
"Awesome class; love the extra challenges & how it builds on other classes. Hassan is a great instructor who is passionate about the subject. His real-life examples help�drill in topics/impact." �Deb Snyder,�Booz Allen Hamilton
Hassan El Hadary Will Be Teaching the Following Course:
|SEC542: Web App Penetration Testing and Ethical Hacking


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Located in historic downtown Ipswich, MA, we offer delicious food in a comfortable, friendly environment. Our menu includes such favorites as fresh seafood, pizza, grilled steaks, burgers and salads. In addition, we have a wide variety of beers on tap.
Most importantly, you'll always find a great group of people, from local regulars to international tourists, mingling together at the bar. Stop by and give us a try. We look forward to serving you.
Website by Community Communications


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Save Time, Build Confidence and Extend Capability
Celebrating the 50th Release of Instron's Fatigue Testing Software with All-New Functionality
Available Now for New and Existing Instron Test Systems
We use cookies to improve your browsing experience. By continuing to use our site, you accept our cookie policy.
Celebrating the 50th Release of Instron's Fatigue Testing Software with All-New Functionality
Available Now for New and Existing Instron Test Systems
First introduced in 2007, the WaveMatrix platform has consistently evolved to meet the needs of our customers and their applications. Through regular releases and updates, there have been hundreds of small enhancements and improvements over the years. However, after 10 years and reaching a milestone 50th release, we wanted to celebrate with more than just an evolution and add some revolutionary new features.
WaveMatrix was originally built on three key principles and has since become renowned for its intuitive user experience.
The most significant improvement over existing tools was the way that the test sequence is visualized. Users were able to understand their methods at a glance instead of reading tables of commands or using overwhelmingly complex multi-axis software for material testing.
Maximum data acquisition provides the best possible peak accuracy, but these high data rates are not needed to record every single point throughout a fatigue test. WaveMatrix introduced configurable tools for intelligently recording and optimizing data and made it easy for users to view, store and access the results they need.
Whether you simply want to monitor peak stress, plot hysteresis loops or understand complex and changing material properties, the WaveMatrix platform provided the ultimate flexibility in real-time visualization of data. Driven by smart data acquisition and enhanced by the use of calculated virtual channels, this remains one of the most powerful tools for gaining insight into the fatigue behavior of your products and materials.
Introducing All New Functionality For WaveMatrix 2.
A Step Change for Your Users and Your Laboratory.
Save Time, Reduce Human Error and Improve the Consistency of Your Test Results.
It is widely accepted that WaveMatrix has significant usability advantages over more complicated solutions offered by other suppliers. So why does Instron continue to focus on usability? In reality, the bar set by the material testing industry is fairly low and while many customers and suppliers have learned to accept complexity, steep learning curves and lengthy training periods - Instron have certainly not.
A universal system that can be configured for almost any test will have extensive functionality that is simply not needed for the majority of applications. For even a simple test there can be countless configuration steps and sequences to remember. Each of these setup steps is, in reality, something for users to learn, something to forget and a source of variance between operators.
QuickTest is automated test setup for common applications which takes care of everything, from machine control to graphs and data recording. No shortcuts - high-quality test methods automatically prepared for you with just a few simple inputs.
Start Common Tests in 4 Easy Steps
Select one of three common test types: Static Ramp, Gripped Fatigue or Compressive Fatigue.
Input specimen details to add Stress Control to your test and record Stress Data.
Simply choose your maximum and minimum targets, test frequency and number of cycles.
Expert methods are set up automatically, and you are ready to test with a single click.
Application Training Videos to Build Operator Confidence, Reduce Training Time.
Just press "F1" anywhere in the software to be instantly taken to relevant, context-specific help pages developed over the last 15 years by experts. Help files include technical drawings to explain both simple and complex material testing concepts and software features.
WaveMatrix 2 adds a wide variety of new Tutorial Videos to the support resources. More than just WaveMatrix - there are also videos that cover machine setup, tuning and console training. Learn the basics and improve your every day use of the machine by learning about the small things that make a big difference. Furthermore, find out more about what is possible with advanced techniques like frequency sweep and advanced control. Search the video library using keywords to find relevant tutorials.
The content is installed directly to the PC, and no internet connection is required at any point. It is intentionally designed so that you can easily update your media library as new content becomes available, without changing software versions, removing the need to revalidate software in controlled laboratories.
Discover New Functionality with the All-New Ready-To-Run Example Method Library
Most customers recognize that they only use a small fraction of their system's functionality. The main reason they have never done more than just a simple cyclic test is because they don't have the time to learn about what is really possible. WaveMatrix 2 unlocks new capability by providing a comprehensive Example Method library.
You can view and edit each Example Method in the library. See first hand how methods are set up to demonstrate a wide variety of software features. Either go straight to test to see them in action or modify and save the method to meet your specific testing needs.
All Example Methods are optimized to run on your system without requiring special fixtures. Most tests can be run without a specimen and require no setup to show the capability of the software and your test system. Try something new, enhance your capability, and unlock more insightful data from your material testing.
As part of Instron's commitment to backward compatibility, all 8800 and 8800MT systems are fully compatible with WaveMatrix 2. Methods designed for WaveMatrix can be directly opened, edited and run within WaveMatrix 2 without any modification.
In addition to these headline features, we have made a lot of other smaller usability and functional improvements as part of WaveMatrix 2. To discuss all of the new features please contact your Instron representative.
WaveMatrix 2 offers users the access to ultimate power and flexibility when you need it and revolutionary simplicity when you don't.


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Lei Sun Hong
Contemporary dance / Artist
Hong Lei commenced her training at The Shenyang Conservatory of Music and Dance School in China and graduated in 2006. A year later, she furthered her studies for a Diploma in Dance with the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, in Singapore, under a scholarship awarded by Singapore's Ministry Of Education. While she was with the academy, she was involved in numerous productions such as Don Quixote, Coppélia and La Bayadère. In between, she was also recruited in some of SDT's productions, such as The Nutcracker, Giselle and Serenade.
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- Singapore Dance Theatre


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Warrior Sleep - 9ml
Warrior Sleep™ is an innovative and extremely effective all-natural, topical relaxation and sleep aid having no drug-like side effects.
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Warrior Sleep™ is an innovative and extremely effective all-natural, topical relaxation and sleep aid having no drug-like side effects.
Warrior Sleep™ is one of the most advanced topical sleep and relaxation formulas available today. Warrior Sleep™ introduces an innovative new approach in the search for a good night's sleep. This highly effective formula is designed by Dr. Hank Liers, the internationally renowned formulator known for developing Warrior Mist™, as well as the popular Rejuvenate!™ line of superfoods.
What are Benefits of Warrior Sleep™?
Warrior Sleep™ promotes deep relaxation, a feeling of well-being, and deep restful sleep. It is a naturally sourced, topically applied formula that works with your body to produce the highest-quality rest possible without the side-effects of prescripion drugs. Best of all, there is no drowsiness the next day.
Warrior Sleep™ is an ultra low dose transdermal formula. Transdermal application means the ingredients go directly where they need to go in your body. Unlike capsules or tablets, the ingredients avoid dilution in the digestive tract and processing by the liver, and immediately go to work. Because of the effectiveness of the carrier ingredients and active ingredients, you need just a few (2–4) drops per use. This means over a months worth of applications per bottle. This means no toxicity, effectiveness, and cost effectiveness!
Why is Warrior Sleep™ So Effective?
Warrior Sleep™ incorporates four natural powerhouses of sleep: lavender oil, roman chamomile, magnesium, and melatonin. The formula uses DMSO and natural oils to carry these four promoters of rest directly into the bloodstream. DMSO is one of the most effective and safe solvents in the world. Other natural carriers (including organic extra virgin olive oil and organic coconut oil) ensure rapid and safe delivery all four active ingredients into the body. This unique, one-of-a-kind combination of synergistic ingredients and effective carriers means the formula acts fast, so you can sleep soundly!
Does Warrior Sleep™ Work Rapidly? Can I Avoid Next-Day Drowsiness?
Warrior Sleep™ quickly brings on deep relaxation, a feeling of well-being, and restful sleep! Best of all, there is no drowsiness the next day (when used as directed), unlike most pharmaceutical sleep aids, such as Benadryl (or similar generic prescription drugs).
How Do I Use Warror Sleep™?
Apply a few drops to your neck 30 minutes before bedtime, lie back and enjoy the soft scent of the lavender and chamomile, and sleep deeply.
What are the Ingredients in Warrior Sleep™?
DMSO (99.999% pure), organic olive oil, distilled water, MSM, magnesium oil, lavender oil, lecithin, roman chamomile oil, organic coconut oil, and melatonin.
DMSO (Dimethyl sulfoxide): in use as a commercial solvent since 1953. It has been used to promote healing both in animals and humans for pain, inflammation, and burns. DMSO is one of the safest ingredients known with a toxicity close to that of water.
Olive Oil (Olea europea): Used as a base/carrier and mixed with other oils to enhance skin health.
MSM (Methylsulfonylmethane): Actions include pain control, reducing inflammation, increasing blood flow, reducing muscle spasm, antiparasitic action, and immune normalizing effects.
Magnesium Chloride (Hexahydrate) (MgCl2): When applied to the skin, magnesium chloride simultaneously provides energy and relaxes muscles. Users have reported deeper, more restful sleep, reduced stress, and greater well-being.
Lavender Oil (Lavandula angustifolia): Lavender oil is known to induce sleep and has been used for insomnia. It helps with migraines, headaches, anxiety, depression, nervous tension, and emotional stress.
Lecithin: Used in Warrior Sleep™ as an emulsifier that allows the ingredients to act together synergistically. Also, helps to support proper cell and nerve function.
Roman Chamomile Oil (Anthemis nobilis): This oil has remarkable calming effects even in very small concentrations. It has a reputation as a natural non-habit forming sedative that can relieve minor pains, calm the nerves, and initiate a good night's sleep.
Coconut Oil (Cocos nucifera): Coconut oil nourishes the skin and is naturally antibacterial, antiviral, and antifungal.
Melatonin: Melatonin is a hormone made by the pineal gland, a small gland in the brain. Melatonin helps control your sleep and wake cycles. Melatonin has been used to treat sleep problems (insomnia) and jet lag.
DIRECTIONS: Shake bottle before applying. Wash hands before and after use. Apply 2–4 drops to clean, dry, and lotion-free area around temple and neck. Gently massage the area of application to assist absorption. Reapply as needed. Contains DMSO, a known solvent. Use at your own discretion.
For external use only. May cause temporary (up to 45 minutes) skin irritation, heating, or flushing upon use. Discontinue use if temporary skin conditions persist. Do not use on wounds or severely damaged skin. Do not bandage tightly. Avoid contact with eyes. Flush eyes with cool water if exposed. Do not use if allergic to any ingredients. Stop use and visit a health care professional if reason for use continues for more than one month. If swallowed get medical help or call a Poison Control Center. Consult a health care professional before use if pregnant.


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I was working in my sketchbook last night on some new designs, and I came across something I had written in it a few months ago. On the very first page of my sketchbook, I wrote the following:
Be Bold
Be Thankful
Be Quiet
Be Original
Be Spontaneous
Be Punctual
Be a Star
Be Young
Be Loving
Be Crazy
Be Loud
Be Random
Be Adorable
Be Unique
Be Daring
Be Obnoxious
Be Yourself
I don't know who the author is. I even did some googling last night to see if I could find who the quote is attributed to, but no such luck. I happened to come across the quote in (of all places) one of those airline catalogs while I was on my way to NYC for the Quilters Take Manhattan event back in August. It was on some sort of plaque as I recall, and as soon as I read it, I grabbed my brand-new-at-the-time sketchbook and scribbled all of it down. Jeff thought I was crazy, but I'm glad I did it.
I've looked at those words a few times since then, but when I saw them again last night, they just struck me for some reason.
They are definitely, for me, words to live by.


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On November 4, 2008 I woke up slightly hungover at six a.m. in a Hyatt hotel overlooking the Chicago River. It was the morning of Election Day, and even at that small hour e-mails jammed my in-box. As a blogger for Politico I occupied a niche at the center of the information storm on that historic day for our nation. Democratic operatives were texting surreptitiously on their BlackBerrys from Obama campaign headquarters down the street; GOP poll watchers checked in from obscure outposts in Georgia. Tips, chatter, electoral-vote predictions and readers demanding to know what I had just heard. Where are you? Are you dead? I didn't put on pants until noon.
Voters from Harlem to Lubbock, Texas sent me words and pictures: people standing in long lines, weeping or shaking their heads as they cast their ballots. A friend wrote that he'd overheard Charlie Rangel in Harlem: "Those Europeans never thought the slaves would be in charge." I felt wired in to history, a staticky digital connection I could see in the software that tracked visitors to my blog.
Journalism had already been disrupted by the internet—its business model murdered by Craigslist, its immediacy stolen by websites. In 2008 blogs were at the peak of their influence. Simple web pages arrayed in reverse chronological order, blogs had emerged four years earlier as ideological vehicles for rallying Howard Dean supporters or organizing a defense of President George W. Bush against the hated mainstream media. I watched with envy as openly ideological bloggers such as Josh Marshall and Andrew Sullivan commandeered the national conversation with the speed, immediacy and humor that were hallmarks of blogs in the hands of smart, obsessive writers.
Twitter, which launched in 2006, was then merely a diversion for people whose overlapping obsessions included technology and politics. On Twitter, 140-character conversations were made public—instantly. The most popular man on Twitter, @barackobama, tweeted just once that day, a simple reminder to vote. I tweeted zero times that day and once the next: the single word vertigo. If only I had known how prescient that tweet was.
Twitter's simplicity meant it would beat the blogs. Friends and enemies knew the @ symbol solved the problem of conversations between unwieldy websites. As the haze of the election faded and the next fights (health care in particular) started up, many of the key writers—policy blogger Ezra Klein and his Washington crowd, Capitol Hill reporters who could pass on the best tidbits—were using Twitter to organize the conversation. And by the time President Obama was at drawn daggers with Republicans over health care the next fall, Twitter had totally sucked the life out of the blogosphere. Blogs were history. If you wanted to be part of the national conversation, you wrote your blog post, then tweeted the link and hoped it would go viral.
Political reporters and politicians who could sense the change—and many could, because political reporting is a kind of politics, and politics is the media business—dove in with little hesitation. Political writers weren't alone. Other tribes—tech writers, music critics—were also early adopters. The shift from an old, website-based internet to a new social platform was happening all around me, though I for one didn't see the broader trend. Family members who used to go to AOL now spent their time on Facebook. Friends hung around, for a moment at least, on MySpace. The seers who had been warning us that Google News would soon be the only news source began to pipe down. A new media age, centered on what is now called "the social web," had arrived.
And it came to me as a huge relief. Politico and I had prevailed at first simply by typing faster and posting more than anybody else. That, though, is a boring, grinding kind of victory. Twitter and its siblings favored speed, but they really loved scoops. The stories that won on Twitter were the ones that brought revelatory information, lucid argument or riveting narrative. They were the kind of stories reporters got into this business to write.
When Jonah Peretti, who had created a hard-to-figure web phenomenon called BuzzFeed out of widely shared cat pictures and remixed images and text called memes, pitched me the notion of joining his "social news organization," I had no idea what he was talking about. Political scoops plus cats seemed unintelligible. Then I thought about it more and realized it sounded like my Facebook feed. BuzzFeed had been perfecting the answer to the question of what people share in the warm, emotional medium of Facebook, while I had been racing to win in the cooler, smaller and elite-driven Twittersphere. And so I left Politico to become BuzzFeed's editor in chief.
The social web—Facebook, Twitter and their siblings, including Pinterest and Reddit—now drives more traffic to publishers than Google or any of the old portals such as Drudge and Yahoo do. For many of us they drive a lot more traffic to our stories than our own front pages do. Our readers open their computers or, mostly now, their phones, start up the Facebook or Twitter apps and find the stories their friends and the people they respect are reading. Some of the forms are new or renewed—lists, you may have noticed, are big—but the values are the same: Speed, accuracy, grace and intelligence are all more prized than ever, in an ecosystem so intensely competitive that a story that is slightly faster or slightly better will go viral while the second best goes unread.
Across the new media—and as some of the great old institutions, the British Guardian and The New York Times first among them, move online—success is often defined by the old values. Scoops, great writing, original insight and hilarity win the day, though they often take unfamiliar forms—GIFs and short videos, essays longer than would fit in a newspaper and, of course, lists. In the spirit of the times, here is a list of five ways social media will save journalism, plus one reason to stay skeptical.
1. Distribution is dirt cheap.News reporters spent little time thinking about how much the medium shaped their message, but the form newspapers had wedged them into had long since grown stale. The pyramidal structure of a news story—designed for space-conscious editors to cut from the bottom to make room for ads—is a kind of formal code, almost incomprehensible to outsiders and with no internal logic. The crowded first sentence, the paragraph that tells you something you already know, the random quotes restating the author's words—these are what we were trained to do. But they are as hard for young Americans to read as, say, French newspaper articles are for me: stilted and strange, full of conventions more and more readers don't understand.
The new distribution networks spent a decade growing, and they are now bigger than the biggest of the old networks. In the 1980s, when the evening broadcast news was at the height of its reach, 55 million people tuned in to the three networks. Today 128 million Americans will use Facebook, the biggest of the new networks; tens of millions will use its smaller siblings, and millions will use e-mail to share stories they love with friends. This is the network of people bored at work or bored on the couch at home.
This new distribution network doesn't require a broadcast tower or a printing press, but it can reach more people than those expensive old mechanisms can. There's only one catch: To reach these people, you have to write an article so funny, so revelatory or so trenchant that they will actively share it with their friends. To go viral, you have to do something excellent—whether it's creating the most penetrating list of owls to date or a 10,000-word exposé of false family legends attributed to Mitt Romney.
2. Sharing beats keywords. Reader-to-reader sharing has displaced that scourge of journalism in the late 2000s, search engine optimization. A band of technical wizards realized that a clever set of keywords could trick the algorithms Google had developed in its efforts to bring readers the best information. Headlines had to contain every relevant search term: "Noun Noun Noun Noun Noun Noun Noun!" Tags had to be fixed just right: "Kardashian-diet-sex-baby-divorce-Obama-flat-belly."
Journalists like me sat through SEO seminars with glazed eyes and a mounting sense of panic: This wasn't why we'd gotten into the business, and we were pretty sure we weren't organized enough to trick machines. But while this uninteresting technical crap bore no relation to journalism, it drove big traffic to the outlets that understood it—the Huffington Post first among them. Its victims were readers, who were often served junk they didn't want, and reporters, whose jobs became increasingly focused on feeding a mechanical beast.
3. Long-form journalism is back. A common calumny from people who don't understand the social web is that kids these days have short attention spans. The reality is the reverse: Social-media sites regularly publish features far longer than any that appear in newspapers or even in most magazines since Tina Brown stopped publishing 50,000-word essays on zinc in The New Yorker. This goes for silly content—"108 Reasons Corgis Really Are That Great" is not for short attention spans—as well as for serious stuff. One of BuzzFeed's most popular political stories in 2012 was an 11,000-word reevaluation of Mitt Romney's father. A broad embryonic movement, an informal network organized in part around sites such as Longform.org and Longreads.com, is offering a vast new audience for what used to be considered magazine journalism.
4. So are journalism jobs. Things are finally getting better for that other class of newspaper employees, reporters. A University of Georgia survey released in August found that more journalism graduates—66 percent—got full-time jobs in 2012 than in previous years. New outlets such as BuzzFeed, Politico and Business Insider have hired hundreds of reporters to beat the incumbents at their own game. This isn't to sugarcoat a glum fact: A generation of great journalists got screwed. Reporters who were cubs in, say, the late 1980s mastered a game that suddenly ceased being played. They rose to second- and third-rank jobs in newsrooms with an obvious promise that they would rise to the top—only to be faced with endless cuts and buyouts aimed at forcing the old and well paid to leave. This created a harrowing gap in the profession's institutional knowledge.
5. New business models are emerging. The grim counterpart to SEO-driven journalism is revenue driven by banner ads. As readers learned to ignore those ugly, irrelevant rectangles, publications made them ever more aggressive—jumping across your screen, blinking and dodging, impossible to close—in a kind of lunatic arms race against their own audience. The ads get worse and worse—and they pay publishers less and less each year.
The businesses that have begun to succeed in the social-media ecosystem are taking different paths. First there is sponsored content—high-quality original advertisements that readers like or dislike on their merits. They're controversial in some quarters, but they're not unlike the advertising that runs in women's magazines such as Vogue. Beautiful, well-produced ads are simply an additional reason to buy the magazine, not a reason to scorn it.
Meanwhile, another set of publications has finally made subscriptions work. When The New York Times reported it was nearing $400 million a year in digital revenue—enough to operate even the most ambitious newsroom in America—Business Insider's Henry Blodget declared that "we never have to worry about the future of journalism again."
Finally, a vibrant new world of nonprofit journalism has emerged on the web, with Pro Publica leading large journalistic investigations and emerging as a trusted partner in important collaborations. The Guardian handed off a portion of Edward Snowden's leaked documents to Pro Publica reporters and analysts. And this summer, an investigation that resulted in an exposé of the 50 worst charities in America was led by the Center for Investigative Reporting, a nonprofit newsroom that employs 50 journalists.
And one reason to be skeptical. I'm not a utopian, though I think this is a wonderful moment to be a journalist. The new distribution model is based on psychology, not on ink or radio waves. Its flaws are human flaws, and they have to do with what people share and don't share. People are not sharing the worst of the old journalism. "If it bleeds, it leads" was the rule of thumb for tabloids, and it motivated the New York Post and your local TV news.
But the social web has its own vices, one of which is that it favors inspiration, warmth and a kind of happy talk that doesn't always match reality. At its best, this means sharing something like "I gave $100 to help the victims of Hurricane Sandy—I hope you will too." At its worst, it spreads a false impression that problems can be easily solved if only you'll share more. The best example of this kind of bad viral news is the "Stop Kony" video, which rocketed around the internet in 2012 with an inspiring narrative calling on Americans of all ages to press our representatives to go after a Ugandan warlord—and, of course, to share the video.
After 100 million views, the U.S. government responded. It sent a military task force to the Central African jungle, and to sharpen the point of the mission its commander kept a stop Kony poster on his door. The problem: The Ugandan government believed it had the warlord contained and had been working on a nonmilitary solution to his rampages. Many policy experts think Americans' hunger for inspiration drove terrible policy in Uganda. And Kony is still at large.
But in the end this is a small-bore complaint. There are plenty more reasons to be deeply glad about the state of journalism. I spent this past summer hiring a foreign editor and bureau reporters in Eastern Europe, Istanbul and Cairo; I spent the fall putting together an investigations team. And the market for great reporters, I'm finding, is pretty competitive.
This article was originally published in the 60th Anniversary Issue of Playboy. Check out more from the issue at and from every issue in Playboy's complete archive, visit iplayboy.com.
Illustration by Bary Taxali


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Getting back on track
I've been trying to get back on track lately. I have fallen way behind on things like this. The good news is I have THREE new podcast episodes coming up. All recorded and waiting to publish.
Here's the first one.
I am having a riddle contest, too. E-mail me at firstname.lastname@example.com to answer this riddle:
What has the head of a goat, the body of a tree, and the voice of the Earth?
Send me your guesses for a chance to win some great prizes.
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