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We had two major updates in rapid succession, so I'll be posting them both here.
Tuesday, February 28, 2017
A rather solid but unremarkable week; I feel this week could aptly be described as a lingering shadow of last week. For both better and worse, last week's "I started on" could basically be replaced with "I finished" or "I almost finished," and the log would be nearly complete. Thus, as has been falsely stated many times now,
PlateMeshes: 90+% complete in the LT core. As discussed last week, I emphasized building a release-quality implementation since they became an invaluable tool in LTC++. I now have a high-quality, fast, C library implementation of all of the old PM functionality with the exception of rotation of individual plates. I will need to spend a bit more time in order to finish that bit efficiently, but the rest of the work was by far the bulk. Frankly it required more time than I would have liked, but all of that time was spent adding supporting functionality to the core in order to efficiently support a good PM implementation. The good thing about this kind of time is that it's "permanent progress," as is all progress of the LT core (which is, as a reminder, designed to be the 'etched in stone' part of the LT engine).
Mesh 'Warps': 20% complete (I figured out how to do them). These are the things that allowed me to distort models in cool ways that added curvature and interesting global features to ships and stations. Unfortunately, their implementation in C++ using all that fancy (and incredibly-nasty) template stuff I used to do made it fairly easy. I had some trouble figuring out how to do the same thing effectively in a clean, C API (i.e., making it easy to build warping functions from LuaJIT). I've designed the implementation, about which I'm pleased. I haven't coded it yet. Interestingly, solving this design problem brought me insights on how to make reference-counting work cleanly across API boundaries (for example, to enable both the core and LuaJIT to hold pointers to the same object and still have all memory management work correctly). I've not had this insight before, but when the time invariably comes that I need to do this (beyond warps, which will require it from the get-go), I now know how to do it painlessly.
Networking & 'Control Panel': 100%/90% complete (server/client), and completely new to any of the LT engines! Yes, this is where about 2.5 days of my time went this week, but it's a technology investment that I'm betting will pay dividends. While working with planets, it occurred to me that I would really like a UI for changing the procedural algorithm parameters in real-time to see exactly how they're affecting the final result (with complex procedural algorithms it can be very difficult to reason about the effect of individual parameters). I didn't want to spend a huge amount of time building something just for this task, though, so, inspired by a friend at LTP who does web development, I decided to use a tool that already exists and is very fast and easy for creating quick UIs: the modern web browser. This necessitated networking functions in the LT core, which I had promised I would provide for modders who want to attempt 'multiplayer LT' mods anyway. So, I implemented a multi-platform TCP & UDP socket API, then used it from LuaJIT to spin up a very simple HTTP server run by in the background by the engine that serves up a simple control panel webpage when connected to via a browser. It can change internal engine variables automatically in response to controls like sliders or buttons being changed in the panel.
Though I'm hoping the ability to connect to and communicate with the engine via networking will pay substantial dividends over the remaining development time, having the control panel available is already really helpful: I have a really easy way to expose real-time-tweakable parameters, and, as a bonus, since it's based on sockets & HTTP, I can even connect remotely so that I can use one machine (like my tablet) exclusively as my 'controller' while I develop on the other. I'm also thinking this will be great for monitoring and managing long-running universe simulations (when I get to that point, ideally sooner rather than later)! I'd even like to explore using this for asynchronous resource generation on the GPU, which is traditionally difficult to do in a single process (due to threaded GL contexts being messy). There are a whole lot of ways I can envision using even this very basic networking tech Also, of course, the tools are now there (in theory) for anyone who wants to give an LT Multiplayer mod a shot at release (in practice, good luck, I recommend putting together a team ).
In the LTASM world, I did exactly what I had mentioned and hoped for last week: basic x87 floating point operations. Quite happy to have that stuff working. I've got enough to, for example, do most if not all of the basic FP math that you might do in the LT logic, although I don't necessarily have all of the opcodes for doing things in the most efficient way. Frankly, though, my first goal in this world of Plan Z is to have a script -> machine code pipeline working at all. That will be amazing enough for me, then we can worry about micro-optimization. My tests this week with FP instructions in simple loops are already blazingly-fast. I am getting a stronger and stronger feeling that this work will play a role in LT even if LuaJIT continues to hold. In fact, I can see it being a beautiful addition to LJ! LJ is basically a dynamic asm generator, why not have a static asm generator for perf-critical code? Man does it make a difference getting down to that raw level (I mean compared to something like Lua, not C/++).
Speaking of which, as usual, I spent some quality time with the Intel manuals this week, covering chapters 10 & 11 (SSE, SSE2), and skimming 12, 14, & 15, (SSE3/4, AVX/AVX2, AVX512). So basically, I learned a whole lot about vector / 'SIMD' instruction sets this week. Fun as always (Can you believe AVX512 has 2KB of register space for FP math?? Insane...)
It's worth mentioning that I spent a good bit of time this week on other, non-coding work. This week saw an abundance of emails, real-life events, and a bit more time spent with the forum than usual. Speaking of which, I assume that most of you have seen the announcement of Talvieno as Community Manager by now, but if not, check it out Although it took a bit of time this week to write that post and get everything squared away, his new role as CM will ensure that the amount of non-coding time spent during future weeks is kept to a minimum! I'm really happy to have Talvieno (officially) on board.
No, I'm not terribly impressed with this week (maybe I'm just tired right now...looking at the log, it seems fairly substantial?), next week should see less clerical work as well as less of having to finish up things, and more of getting to start new things. Seriously, next week I hope to see ships and stations in their full glory: PlateMeshes at 100% (rotations are definitely needed for stations), mesh warps implemented, procedural algorithms 100% ported, mesh ambient occlusion calculations 100% complete. I'd like to see asteroids as well, meaning scalar field extraction in the C core. If I have all of those things in a week, I'll be happy! I'll also have a good-looking, content-filled system, presumably. On the asm side, perhaps basic SSE functionality; let's say scalar operations at first, so that I can do the equivalent operations that the x87 FPU would do, but using the more-modern SSE (interestingly, the SSE instruction set is not just for vector processing, it has scalar (single-element) instructions as well).
Until some time in the next 7±2 days...!
Link to original: http://forums.ltheory.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=5825
Greetings LT forumers!
Those of you who have spent any substantial amount of time here have no doubt encountered Talvieno at some point or another. It's hard not to notice his outstanding and inexhaustible dedication to making the Limit Theory Forums a better place. In fact, it's no secret that a lot of you even wish for him to have more power ('Talv for president!') Well, you've already read the title, so you can guess what's coming Before we get to that part, however, I'd like to take a moment to recognize the myriad ways in which Talvieno has made the (LT)world a better place -- some of you may not know about all of them; indeed, even I had to have an IRC chat with him just to make sure I had everything down right...it's awfully hard to keep up with all the things this guy does! Things like...
- ...building Taiya, our favorite resident Limit Theory forum & IRC RSS feed bot. For those who don't know Taiya, she's not only a sweetheart of an IRC chat bot with a boatload of neat functions, she's also the toughest forum policewoman in existence. We get hit by, on average, 2-3 new bot registrations a day (which is down a bit from previous months, where it peaked around 15/day). A lot of these bots post spam topics. Taiya shuts them down almost instantly, banning those poor bots of lesser intellect than her and moving the spam to a hidden 'trash' sub-forum where mods and I can look at it later. There's no telling how many bans Taiya has issued, nor how many spam threads she's killed. She's made my life so much easier! Thanks Taiya!
...running the Limit Theory Fan Competition, an awesome idea started way back in the day by the legendary Katorone and re-ignited by none other than Talvieno. The current LTFC ends this Saturday, so check it out if you want to participate (there are prizes!)
...conceiving of and running REKT, an incredibly-impressive forum-based RPG whose main thread ran for 181 pages and over 2700 posts. If you've ever wondered just how intense, creative, and amazing roleplaying on a forum can get, you need only take a peek at the REKT wiki, which is both a triumph of creativity and an inspiration to me. Talvieno informed me that most of the wiki is actually attributed to the hard work of Dinosawer, so hats off to him!
...starting a novel based on the Limit Theory Universe, entitled Small Choices. The existing chapters are, in my opinion, very impressive, even though Talvieno has told me that he feels the same way about Small Choices that I feel about code I wrote a long time ago Sadly, he didn't have enough time to devote to the project, so Small Choices has been discontinued in favor of redirecting more effort toward the other three million projects he's got going on
...creating an LT IRC-Based RPG, which is currently under development and whose progress I am keenly interested in following! Talv may just end up creating LT before I do... Seriously, check this one out. It's awesome. Incidentally, the game is played through (and GM'd by) the ever-talented Taiya!
...heading up Hawkspears, an 'LT Community DF Succession Game.' I'll admit that, since I've (regrettably) never sunk time into Dwarf Fortress, I don't really understand what's going on here...but the screenshots are pretty and the whole thing is just one more example of Talvieno starting a creative project that engages and excites the LT community!
...creating and maintaining the Limit Theory Email/RSS News Thread, an aggregation of my 'important' posts since the time when they started to become...scarce. This helpful thread has allowed people to easily track a sometimes-difficult-to-track developer
All of that is on top of his normal moderator duties. Suffice it to say, Talvieno has worked very hard for and has no doubt earned the title of Limit Theory Community Manager. As of a few weeks ago, I offered him the position and he accepted, but we've been keeping it under wraps until I had the chance to make this post. Finally, it's time!
As CM, Talvieno will continue his normal duties as moderator, but will also act as a point-of-contact between me and the LT community & backers, helping me reduce time spent on activities that aren't directly-related to getting Limit Theory out of the door. For example, I was tempted to ask him to write this post and announce his own CMship, as a demonstration of the time that he would be saving me I decided, however, that the least I can do is spend a bit of time on this post considering how much he's already helped. Talvieno has also offered to help with maintaining the website, writing up the aggregation of weekly dev logs for Kickstarter updates, helping handle social media, etc. All of this will result in more time spent on me building LT. It's been said many times before by you guys that I need to get some other hands on-board to help bring Limit Theory to fruition. While I've discussed the difficulties of doing so in the coding department, arguments against hiring an official community manager to help handle the social facets of LT were essentially nonexistent, especially in light of already having the perfect candidate for the job. Well, here you have it!
I wouldn't feel right about this post if I didn't also take a moment to recognize the other LT forum moderators, all of whom have made my life tremendously easier over the course of development. Sincerely, thank you to Bele, DWMagus, Gazz, Grumblesaur, and Just_Ice_Au, our fantastic moderator team. In promoting Talvieno to CM, I absolutely do not want to overlook or belittle the enormous contributions that our other moderators have made to the community! Thank you guys
So, without further hesitation, please give it up for Talvieno, now the official Community Manager for Limit Theory!
Link to original: http://forums.ltheory.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=5824


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Battery technology is advancing fast—just compare the Watt-hours you can stuff into current devices to what was on the market a few decades ago (the Powerbook 140 had a 4200 mAh battery, while the current iPad has nearly three times that capacity). Research is continuing to advance at a rapid pace, which is why it sometimes seems like we cover a new miracle battery every month. We try to make it clear that most of these are still years away from commercialization, and some technologies will just never get there.
It's with that caution in mind that we turn to a battery development that was even picked up by the BBC earlier this week. In a new paper, researchers have reported that they are developing a microscopic battery that's suitable for integrating directly into electronics, just as capacitors now are. Compared to existing capacitors, its performance is impressive. That announcement doesn't mean, however, that these things can be scaled up to work as full-sized batteries that can power gadgets or cars. There are also a few hitches, like rapidly degrading performance, that need to be worked out.
That said, making the batteries is a pretty impressive process. In general, the batteries we buy are made from bulk processes, where materials self-organize into the different parts necessary to get the battery to work. This self-organization can be directed to a greater or lesser degree, but it's still dependent upon the material properties of the battery components.
When thinking about a battery that's small enough to integrate with current electronics, however, those sorts of considerations don't really apply. The electronics are already subject to step-by-step manufacturing processes, and the size of the battery means that bulk processes won't apply. So the researchers behind the new battery focused on structuring its parts on microscopic scales and made them to optimize performance. As a result, the batteries were built with a lot of active material relative to their volume and very short transport distances for the electrons and ions in the battery itself.
To build these microbatteries, the authors started out by laying out a series of tightly packed gold electrodes. They then layered tiny polystyrene pellets on top, which were packed down tightly. With the beads in place, the gold electrodes were used to electrodeposit nickel around the polystyrene beads, which created a metal foam precisely located above the gold electrodes. Once that was in place, the beads were etched away, leaving the metal scaffolding in place.
At this point, a second round of electrodepositing was done to create the anodes and cathodes at alternating electrodes. First, half the electrodes were charged to deposit a nickel-tin mixture at the anode; next, manganese dioxide was deposited at the other half to form the cathode. Lithium ions were then integrated into the resulting battery, and an electrolyte solution was layered on top. The end result was a series of alternating stripes, each about 30 micrometers wide, consisting of metal foams that allowed the rapid transport of ions in and out, and a direct connection to the gold electrodes below to transfer electrons.
Performance-wise, the result was pretty impressive. Like a battery, it stored far more energy than a supercapacitor. But because the ions and electrons could move so quickly, it had the power profile of a supercapacitor (power is the energy transferred per time), meaning that charging and discharging could occur at incredibly high rates. If you scaled this up to the size of a conventional lithium ion battery, the microbattery held about seven times the energy.
Those upsides are the good parts; unfortunately, there are a few downsides. One of them is that the battery loses about five percent of its capacity with each charge/discharge cycle. By 15 cycles, it was down to only two-thirds of its original capacity, and things were even worse at high charge/discharge rates. The authors think that this was a necessary part of the electrodes breaking in, and there may be a longer-term stability once that point is reached. But they didn't actually go on to demonstrate that hypothesis.
Other issues have to do with manufacturing and scaling. The demonstration system had a total volume of 0.03 cubic millimeters, so there's a lot of scaling up to do. And any scaling up will require that the multi-step production process has to happen very efficiently and very cheaply.
This is a nice paper with some interesting ideas, but there's definitely some work to do before the technology could be ready for widespread use, and there are some problems that still need to be overcome before it's worth doing that work.
Nature Communications, 2013. DOI: 10.1038/ncomms2747 (About DOIs).

subset: commoncrawl


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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Shares of Fusion-io Inc. jumped in after-hours trading Thursday after the maker of chip-based computer server memory drives reported fiscal fourth-quarter results well above Wall Street's expectations
Along with the release of its financial results, the company offered an upbeat outlook.
Fusion-io booked a loss of $2.4 million, or 3 cents per share, in the April-June period. That's down from earnings of $5.8 million, or 6 cents per share, in the same period a year earlier. Fusion-io went public last June.
Revenue rose 49 percent to $106.6 million from $71. 7 million.
Adjusted earnings, which excluded stock compensation expenses and other items, were $9.8 million, or 9 cents per share, in the latest quarter.
Analysts, on average, were expecting earnings of 3 cents per share on revenue of $96 million, according to a poll by FactSet.
Fusion-io makes flash memory products that allow companies to store lots of data and access it quickly.
For the current quarter, the company said it expects revenue to "modestly increase" from the fourth quarter, but it did not give a number. Analysts are forecasting $104.4 million, a small decline from the fourth quarter.
The company's shares rose $5.18, or 24.6 percent, to $26.20 in after-hours trading. The stock had closed down 44 cents, or 2.1 percent, at $21.02 in Thursday's regular trading session.


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Over the objections of hundreds of gun rights supporters, a Colorado House Committee passed a bill requiring background checks for private gun sales Tuesday afternoon and a measure that would ban high-capacity ammunition magazines late Tuesday night.
Passage in each case was split along party lines, with seven Democrats voting yes and four Republicans no.
The vote on the high-capacity magazine came after Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee voted to amend a bill that would ban high-capacity ammunition magazines of more than 10-rounds to increase that limit to 15 rounds.
State Rep. Mike McLachlan, D-Durango, who sits on the committee, said he offered the amendment to allow citizens to protect themselves.
"Fifteen is a reasonable number and this is what I'm going to ask in my amendment," McLachlan said.
The vote on the amendment came after a long recess in a day that's seen several hours of impassioned testimony from proponents and opponents of tougher gun legislation.
State Rep. Rhonda Fields, D-Aurora, the sponsored the legislation, said she was against the amendment.
"It's not what I want and not what I had in mind," Fields said.
Fields, who also sponsored the background checks, said a major reason for her presenting the bill that bans high-capacity magazines of more than 10 rounds is because of last July's Aurora theater shooting.
"Many of those people are critically injured for life because of their wounds," Fields said. "These high-capacity magazines allow a gun to fire large amounts of bullets to kill people as fast as possible."
Many of the hundreds that packed the Capitol earlier on Tuesday departed as the testimony on the high-capacity ammunition bill convened.
Arapahoe County Coroner Michael Dobersen, whose office received the bodies of victims killed in the Aurora theater shooting , said in testimony that firearms with these appendages produce some of the most gruesome wounds he's ever seen.
"These rounds have a devastating effect on the body," Dobersen said. "Can you imagine seeing multiple wounds from this? Even one bullet wound is devastating, but those from high-capacity magazines are especially bad."
State Rep. Mike McLachlan, D-Durango, who sits on the committee, said he will offer the amendment and says that number allows citizens to protect themselves.
"Fifteen is a reasonable number and this is what I'm going to ask in my amendment," McLachlan said.
In its current form, a person who already owns a magazine that could hold more than 10 rounds or five shells when the bill becomes effective July 1 could still legally own it but would have to maintain continuous possession of it .
The first bill before the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, House Bill 1229, would require a background check for any transfer of a firearm except in certain instances such as those involving antique firearms or gifts between immediate family members. Critics of the bill say it is unenforceable without gun registration.
Rep. Daniel Kagan, D-Cherry Hills Village, asked the hundreds of people crammed into the Old Supreme Court Chambers at the Capitol to please refrain from applause or other public displays.
"This is a policy-making procedure," Kagan said. "It's not a political rally."
But that admonition was quickly violated when Rep. Beth McCann, D-Denver, a co-sponsor of the background checks bill, said "reasonable restrictions" could be placed on Second Amendment rights.
Many in the crowd jeered, prompting Kagan to bang his gavel and ask that the hearing not be turned into a "theatrical" event.
Fields pointed to a Denver Post poll done in January that showed 83 percent of Coloradans supported background checks for all gun sales.
While purchasers must undergo a background check when buying from a gun dealer, private sales between individuals do not have this requirement. Fields said only 40 percent of all gun sales undergo background checks, and pointed to a survey of prison inmates in which 80 percent who used handguns in a crime said they acquired them through private sales.
"The private sale loophole is just a way for criminals to skirt around our current background check," Fields said.
Testimony also came from David Chipman, a former agent with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms who helped with rescue efforts in the 9/11 and Oklahoma City bombing events.
"Background checks work," Chipman said. "They will strengthen our shield."
Testimony also included the personal experiences of several victims of gun violence, including Karina Vargas, 18, who was a student at Aurora Central High School in 2010 when she was paralyzed from the waist down after being hit by a stray bullet during a gang altercation.
"I feel like with speaking out, it might make someone think twice before they try and buy a gun if they have to have a background check," Vargas said following her testimony. "Maybe if the guy who shot me had to have a background check, then he would not have had a gun."
But there were far more opponents in the hearing room than supporters of the bill.
They included Daniel Carey, a state lobbyist for the National Rifle Association, who said the bill wouldn't stop any illegal gun sales but would put an unjust burden on law-abiding citizens.
"Criminals don't abide by the law," Carey said. "That's what makes them criminals."
Supporters of the bill pointed out that the NRA had once supported the universal checks.
Opponents who testified against the bill included those who blamed gun violence on video games and movies to psychiatric medications.
James Winchester, former vice president of the Colorado State Shooting Association and who helped write the original law setting up background checks, also testified against the bill. He said the Colorado Bureau of Investigation is not honoring the current three-day requirement in law for the checks.
The committee passed the bill on a 7-4, party line vote.
Kagan set a time limit of two hours for proponents and opponents of both bills, theoretically limiting the hearing to eight hours. But some witnesses early on got to speak for much longer, and some observers thought the hearing could stretch on much longer.
Tim Hoover: 303-954-1626, email@example.com or twitter.com/timhoover


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The New York Times' man-about-the-global-village returned to his op-ed spot yesterday with a grisly timeline of how genocide might play out in Sudan over the coming months. Kristof sets the scene:
The place is southern Sudan, and the timetable is the next few months. The South, which holds more than 75 percent of Sudan's oil, is scheduled to hold a referendum on Jan. 9 on seceding from the rest of Sudan. Here's how one more [it] might unfold.
You can imagine what follows—it begins as "word trickles out of massacres and widespread rapes by tribal militias from the North in the boiling borderlands between North and South," picks up steam when "the South issues a unilateral declaration of independence," and really gets going as "tribal militias from the North," respond by "sweep[ing] through South Sudan villages, killing and raping inhabitants and driving them south." Kristof's ghastly fantasy reaches a cinematic climax as Sudanese president Omar Bashir, seeing the raw chaos spreading throughout the south, wonders aloud "How can those people think that they can run a country?" Soon, "he calls for 'peaceful negotiation with our brothers to resolve these problems and restore unity,'" but not before "warfare ripples through the Nuba Mountains and then Darfur as well," leaving the world, and specifically Barack Obama, with a world-class mess to clean up.
Despite Kristof's disclaimer that his only confident prediction is that events won't unfold exactly as he describes, something similar may very well be in the cards for the Sudanese in coming months. Then again, it may not. But Kristof isn't concerned with weighing alternatives, and where he goes next is more disturbing still. Kristof points out that while Obama's recent focus on Sudan is to be applauded ("That's terrific"!), "there's a fatal flaw" in his approach: "The carrots being offered to Khartoum by Mr. Obama are juicy and smart," but "I see no evidence of serious sticks."
Fair enough, but what makes for a compelling model of tough-minded seriousness? Apparently, George W. Bush:
The Bush administration mapped out exactly what would happen to Sudan if it did not share intelligence on Osama bin Laden. C.I.A. officers met in a London hotel with two top Sudanese leaders. An excellent new book from Yale University Press, "Sudan," reports that the C.I.A. officers explained that America would use bombers or cruise missiles to destroy the oil refinery at Port Sudan, the port itself and the pipeline carrying oil to the port Sudan decided to cooperate…Why shouldn't we privately make it clear to Mr. Bashir that if he initiates genocide, his oil pipeline will be destroyed and he will not be exporting any oil?
Sorry, what?
There are plenty of reasons, moral and pragmatic, that the prospect of military strikes against Sudan is too stupid a notion to contemplate. Here are just a few.
In the first place, the idea that macho chest-thumping and threats of military violence should be central to Obama's foreign policy constitutes either distressing naiveté or willful cynicism. We saw this movie on constant re-run over the last decade or so in the United States, and the ending was rarely positive. What good comes of American bellicosity in a situation that demands peaceful resolve above all else? Nothing as far as I can see, and yet it's curious to note that Kristof is silent on what might be done before any genocidal violence breaks out other than threaten to contribute further to what would be an after-the-fact bloodbath.
But even if you believed that military intervention was the way to go…bombing pipelines? My unfailingly perceptive friend Nomvuyo Nolutshungu points out that depriving Bashir of oil revenue would hardly bring the violence to an end, and certainly not in the short term. If anything, we would likely see an uptick in fighting.
American intervention solely from the skies might just lead Bashir to ratchet up state aggression, not scale it back. Bashir demonstrates considerable cunning at testing other countries' stomachs for confrontation. Igniting greater levels of violence would force the White House to decide just how far it's willing to go prevent genocide from taking place on its watch. Needless to say, boots on the ground is all but out of the question, especially in the midst of withdrawal from two deeply unpopular wars and an economic depression at home.
At the same time, as Oscar Blayton argues in his smart analysis on the Social Science Research Council's Sudan blog, American military intervention, in threat or deed, could very easily encourage the Southern Sudanese to engage the north in violent conflict with the understanding that the United States had its back. Neither of these scenarios auger well for peace. And we haven't even discussed the effects that disrupting Sudan's oil production might have on international oil markets, nor the US relationship with China.
Of all these things, I suspect Kristof is fully aware. Why, then, the repackaging of arguments for Iraq for sale in North Africa?
Again, Blayton: "These drumbeats of doom seem to be coming from those most interested in regime change in Sudan. Like snipers in the bush, many Westerners…are taking a page out of the playbook for the Iraq invasion, with the hopes that history will repeat itself." Blayton pins the majority of blame on those "with an interest in a divided and weakened Sudan." It's not clear that Kristof should be pegged with membership in that category: his arguments derive instead from a misplaced, arrogant, and unexamined morality. Yet good intentions are hardly permission for the Times to allow their op-ed pages to become a launching pad for arguments justifying unprovoked American military aggression abroad…again.
Kristof seems to recognize this himself, but appears too intellectually exhausted to think through the issue any further. "Yes, [this] would be a dangerous and uncertain game. But the present strategy appears to be failing, and the result may be yet another preventable genocide that we did not prevent." Hardly the clinching conclusion to a defense of the use of force.
If Kristof is taxed out from meditating on Sudan, perhaps he should silence his pen. Perhaps he should relinquish the bully pulpit of the Times' editorial spread and make room for other writers on the subject: writers who refuse to shrink in the face of complexity, writers who reject abdicating their commitment to values and peace in a world that privileges violence.


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text: NEW TEEN VERSION AVAILABLE HERE: https://www.coursera.org/learn/the-science-of-well-being-for-teens In this course you will engage in a series of challenges designed to increase your own happiness and build more productive habits. As preparation for these tasks, Professor Laurie Santos reveals misconceptions about happiness, annoying features of the mind that lead us to think the way we do, and the research that can help us change. You will ultimately be prepared to successfully incorporate a specific wellness activity into your life. THE SCIENCE OF WELL BEING WAS PRODUCED IN PART DUE TO THE GENEROUS FUNDING OF THE DAVID F. SWENSEN FUND FOR INNOVATION IN TEACHING.


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I put together this blog in order to show my animation and "commercial" art...
http://okgrillo.blogspot.com/ organised by my good friend Rubén González remains online for my more personal work.
posted by Oscar Grillo at 2:22 pm
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I've been working professionally as an artist since 1960.
My avatar has been drawn by Matt Cruickshank.
View my complete profile


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Historically, newspapers have relied on print advertising and paid circulation as main sources of revenue. Since the birth of the internet in the 90's, the industry has been faced with a challenging future. The internet quickly deflated the value of print and created little reason for people to pay for newspaper subscriptions. While demand for news has remained constant, readership patterns have changed over time. When polled, just 23% say they read a print newspaper yesterday, down only slightly since 2010 (26%), but off by about half since 2000 (47%). Online and digital news consumption, meanwhile, continues to increase, with many more people now getting news on cell phones, tablets and websites. A recent study by PEW Research Center found that nearly half of all Americans are getting news digitally, topping newspapers, radio.
According to Forbes, U.S. spending on online advertising will exceed spending on print advertising for the first time in 2012, and the trend will continue as advertisers find more value online. Online advertising in 2012 is predicted to reach $39.5 billion, as marketers realize and invest in online advertising's ability to build long-term value for brands. By 2016, the projection is $62 billion for online vs. $32.3 billion for print. The web and now mobile has opened up a world of non-traditional advertising solutions and it's time for the news industry to latch onto these new technologies.
While some analysts have all but pronounced the death of newspapers, many are optimistic about the industry's future. In order remain in existence and thrive, newspapers must focus on diversification in revenue streams and adopt change. This will involve creating some distance between the newspapers and traditional advertising. Many newspapers are already doing this effectively, but the industry as a whole has a long way to go.
Here's a look at some revenue streams the news industry can and should utilize to the fullest.
Non-Traditional Revenue Streams for Newspapers
● eCommerce/mCommerce – More than 33.3 million U.S. consumers already engage in shopping-related activities on their mobile phones, and online shoppers in the United States are expected to spend $327 billion in 2016, up 45% from $226 billion this year. The future of the news industry will rely heavily on electronic and mobile commerce for revenue. In the U.S. alone, 50% of cell phone users have smartphones and 62% of shoppers search for deals digitally for at least half of their shopping trips. News outlets have taken notice and begun to develop relationships with online commerce sites like Groupon and Living Social as an alternative revenue source. 88.1% of U.S. internet users ages 14+ will browse or research products online in 2012. The idea here is to come up with a digital equivalent of a Sunday paper insert.
● Video – Video advertising is yet another medium where newspapers can see significant revenue growth in the years ahead. Video advertising enables advertisers to connect their message to a massive, engaged audience. In 2012, 53.5% of the population and 70.8% of internet users (up 7.1% from 2011) will watch online videos. Online video ads outperform other types of online ads, increase brand awareness, brand favorability, and purchasing intent. Over 80% of U.S. brands and agencies are currently leveraging videos for their content marketing programs due to its 'dynamic, visual content format'. While growth in the space is slow, advertisers are finding their audiences respond better to digital video advertising, with consumers showing a higher engagement rate with online video.
● Social Media – Perhaps the most dramatic change in the news environment has been the rise of social networking sites. Over 62% of adults worldwide are now using social media on a regular basis. Social networking is the most popular online activity, with 22% of time online spent on channels like Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. It's clear that social media is a traffic builder and the potential as a revenue builder looks promising. Social media advertising is expected to grow from $3 billion in 2011 to $3.6 billion in 2012, $4.4 billion in 2013 and $5 billion by 2014. Social media sites are competing with major search engines as premier organic traffic drivers. Last month Pinterest surpassed Yahoo in driving more organic traffic and Facebook just announced they reached one billion global users. This is great for newspapers, since they now have access to the largest audience in news history.
More and more people are going online to find news and information. On average, U.S. internet users spend 32 hours online every month. Think about how much time you spend online for work, research, news and social media, compared to the amount of time you spend on print media like newspapers and magazines.
While the future of the news industry is faced with challenges, there are a variety of things that can be adjusted or improved to better position it for success. Currently, 55% of regular New York Times readers say they read the paper mostly on a computer or mobile device. Publishers need to invest in non-traditional advertising, as the effectiveness of print continues to decline and more value is being found in targeted digital marketing. The good news is that many news outlets are moving in that direction aggressively, and seeing positive results. Let's hope this trend continues to grow and spread throughout the industry.
(Ben T. Smith IV is Chief Executive Officer of Wanderful Media. Bob Clark is Vice President of Technology at Wanderful Media. They are focused on reinventing the local shopping experience through mobile, web and tablets. Ben Smith can also be found on twitter @bentsmithfour and Bob Clark can be found on twitter @justbobchico.


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Thanks to everyone who posted a question(s) on our Facebook and Google+ pages! Because of your brilliant curiosity, we learned more about Anderson's interests and got to the bottom of that "feud" with Wolf Blitzer. And yes, there was a fair amount of giggling involved in this interview. Watch the video we recorded a few weeks ago, hosted by 360 producer Jack Gray, and inspired by your submissions. Then, check out the recap:
Anderson's reaction to Jack's follow up question:
Another reaction to an excellent follow up question from Jack:
Watch Anderson's KEEPING THEM HONEST reports.
This is the picture of Gordon Parks on Anderson's desk:
Check out Anderson's photos on Instagram. Follow AndersonCooper (and the show AndersonCooper360)
Here's the music video Jack mentions:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3m-XH1Kij0?rel=0%5D
Watch Wolf take control of the RidicuList and get even with Anderson
(Artist's rendering)
Do YOU have a question for Anderson? Post it in a comment!
Post by: Ella Chick
Filed under: AC360° Staff • AC361°
I often wonder this about journalists... when you travel around, either in other countries or even to Katrina-torn or Sandy-torn areas lately, and you see terrible things, how do you keep from wanting to save/help each person? How do you not get drawn into the story? Especially when the need is so great. How do you not adopt that orphaned kid, or send that village the food that's just sitting in your pantry at home? Maybe many of you do, and we just don't know it.
I'm a Caribbean native who watches international news on cable television. I have come to the conclusion that NONE of America's television stations seem to be the least bit inclined to report anything sympathetic/fair towards the Palestinians. Houses in the West Bank are routinely destroyed, farms and property vandalised by Israeli settlers, yet nothing of this nature is every reported in the US. Is there a tacit agreement among media houses, in regards to this silence?? There seems to be only two valued nations on earth.....Israel and America.
When are you going to get your buddy Jon to dual report a story? I think you guys would do great!
Why slam the President, He won get over it. And ridiculist Waste of time.Come on out of real news?
Why isn't the media making more out of the fact that union utility workers turning away non-union utility workers in the Northeast? Why hasn't the President addressed this issue?
You had a challenging upbringing with difficult times, like the death of your brother. How and when did you come out to your family? Were they understanding?
What was the catalyst that help you come out?
Given the effectiveness and reputation of our millitary leaders has come into question do you think Condoleezza Rice should be considered to take over the CIA? To me she is an ideal choice given her background, diplomacy, credibility and strong rapport with leaders in many countries. The US needs a leader that can quickly step into the CIA director role and readily reestablish trust among americans and other countries of our top intelligence agency. DR Rice could lead our CIA back in the right direction. Thanks for your thoughts!
What is the connection between Kelley and Broadwell? Why was Broadwell sending threats to Kelley? Was Kelly a friend of Mrs. Petraeus and acting on her behalf? What kind of threats were made?
The day after the electio when I found out we would have to endure 4 more years I a small business owner
closed down my business the last 4 years were hell and I could'nt see going down hill for 4 more years.
How come Unions and Big bailed out businesses are meeting at the white house where are the small businesses
that should be invited to the white house same old same old.
I understand that utility people who came to help out with the power crisis in N.Y. from another state but weren't unionized, were sent home at the state line! Interesting I thought, since Lipa can't seem to get power on for it's people, it c'd turn down good will from another state in an emergency situation!
Anderson Cooper goes beyond the headlines to tell stories from many points of view, so you can make up your own mind about the news. Tune in weeknights at 8 and 10 ET on CNN.
Questions or comments? Send an email
Want to know more? Go behind the scenes with AC361°


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What to Watch: Will 'Cult' become a cult classic?
On TV
In the CW's new show "Cult," premiering tonight, "Vampire Diaries" alum Matt Davis plays journalist Jeff Sefton. When his brother, Nate, disappears, Jeff investigates and begins to suspect that rabid fans of a "cult" TV show may be reenacting the show's murders in real life. Hopefully, this won't spark any cases of life imitating art about life imitating art. The CW 9 p.m. EST.
Trending topic
Fergie and Josh Duhamel confirmed yesterday that they are expecting their first child, Yahoo News reports. The confirmation ended weeks of speculation that the singer, who has been married to Duhamel since 2009, was pregnant. Duhamel recently starred in "Safe Haven" with Juliannie Hough.
Hot video: Rihanna and Chris Brown reportedly break up again
GateHouse News Service


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In a showdown at close quarters, President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney sparred aggressively in their first campaign debate Wednesday night over taxes, deficits and strong steps needed to create jobs in a sputtering national economy. "The status quo is not going to cut it," declared the challenger.
Obama in turn accused his rival of seeking to "double down" on economic policies that actually led to the devastating national downturn four years ago — and of evasiveness when it came to prescriptions for tax changes, health care, Wall Street regulation and more.
As planned, the economy dominated the evening, as it has the race for the White House all year. Pre-debate opinion pollsshowed Obama with a slight advantage in key battleground states and nationally.
With early voting already under way in dozens of states, Romney was particularly aggressive in the 90-minute event that drew a television audience likely to be counted in the tens of millions — like a man looking to shake up the campaign with a little less than five weeks to run.
By the time the debate was over, the Intrade prediction website had Romney up 26.64 percent on the day and Obama down 9.2 percent. Obama was still seen as a strong favorite to win with a 67.8 percent chance to Romney's 32.3 percent.
Polite but pointed, the two men agreed about little if anything.
Moderator Jim Lehrer was pressed at times to enforce time limits on the two rivals. The president occasionally shook his head as Romney talked over Lehrer.
And Romney virtually lectured Obama at one point after the president accused him of seeking to cut education funds. "Mr. President, you're entitled to your own airplane and your own house, but not your own facts."
Romney said he had plans to fix the economy, overhaul the tax code, repeal Obama's health care plan and replace with a better alternative, remake Medicare, pass a substitute for the legislation designed to prevent another financial crash and reduce deficits — but he provided no new specifics despite Obama's prodding.
Said Obama: "At some point the American people have to ask themselves: Is the reason Governor Romney is keeping all these plans secret, is it because they're going to be too good? Because middle class families benefit too much? No."
The two men debate twice more this month, but they were first going their separate ways on Thursday. Obama had campaign stops in Colorado and then Madison, Wis., while Romney was booked into Virginia. All three states are among the nine battlegrounds likely to settle the race.
At times the debate turned into rapid-fire charges and retorts that drew on dense facts and figures that were difficult to follow. The men argued over oil industry subsidies, federal spending as a percentage of the GDP, Medicare cuts, taxes and small businesses and the size of the federal deficit and how it grew.
Obama sometimes seemed somewhat professorial. Romney was more assertive and didn't hesitate to interrupt the president or Lehrer.
Despite the wonky tone of the debate, Romney managed to make some points by personalizing his comments with recollections of people he said he had met on the campaign trail. In another folksy reference, Romney told Lehrer, a veteran of the Public Broadcasting Service, that he would stop the federal subsidy to PBS even though "I love Big Bird." And Obama said he was fond of the term "Obamacare."
Generally polite but pointed, the two men agreed about little if anything.
Obama said his opponent's plan to reduce all tax rates by 20 percent would cost $5 trillion and benefit the wealthy at the expense of middle income taxpayers.
Shot back Romney: "Virtually everything he just said about my tax plan is inaccurate."
The former Massachusetts governor and businessman added that Obama's proposal to allow the expiration of tax cuts on upper-level income would mean tax increases on small businesses that create jobs by the hundreds of thousands.
The two campaign rivals clasped hands and smiled as they strode onto the debate stage at the University of Denver, then waved to the audience before taking their places behind identical lecterns.
There was a quick moment of laughter, when Obama referred to first lady Michelle Obama as "sweetie" and noted it was their 20th anniversary.
Romney added best wishes, and said to the first couple, "I'm sure this is the most romantic place you could imagine, here with me."
Both candidates' wives were in the audience.
Without saying so, the two rivals quickly got to the crux of their race — Romney's eagerness to turn the contest into a referendum on the past four years while the incumbent desires for voters to choose between his plan for the next four years and the one his rival backs.
Romney ticked off the dreary economic facts of life — a sharp spike in food stamps, economic growth "lower this year than last" and "23 million people out of work or stropped looking for work."
But Obama criticized Romney's prescriptions and his refusal to raise taxes and said, "if you take such an unbalanced approach then that means you are going to be gutting our investment in schools and education ... health care for seniors in nursing homes (and) for kids with disabilities."
Not surprisingly, the two men disagreed over Medicare, a flash point since Romney placed Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan on his ticket.
The president repeatedly described Romney's plan as a "voucher program" that would raise out-of-pocket costs on seniors.
He continued, directly addressing the voters at home: "If you're 54 or 55 you might want to listen because this will affect you."
Romney said he doesn't support any changes for current retirees or those close to retirement.
"If you're 60 or 60 and older you don't need to listen further," he said, but he contended that fundamental changes are needed to prevent the system from becoming insolvent as millions of baby boom generation Americans become eligible.
Romney also made a detailed case for repealing Obamacare, the name attached to the health care plan that Obama pushed through Congress in 2010. "It has killed jobs," he said, and argued that the best approach is to "do what we did in my state."
Though he didn't say so, when he was governor Massachusetts passed legislation that required residents to purchase coverage — the so-called individual mandate that conservatives and he oppose on a national level.
Romney also said that Obamacare would cut $716 billion from Medicare over the next decade.
The president said the changes were part of a plan to lengthen the program's life, and he added that AARP, the seniors lobby, supports it.
With a two-minute closing statement, Obama said he had spent his first four years in office fighting for those in the emiddle class and those seeking to make it there. "If you'll vote for me, I'll fight just as hard in my second term," he said.
Romney was as critical of Obama's tenure as he was the moment the two men walked onto the stage.
If the president is re-elected, he predicted continued economic trouble for the middle class, chronic unemployment, higher costs for health insurance and "dramatic cuts to the military."
Obama took office in the shadow of an economic crisis but promised a turnaround that hasn't materialized. Economic growth has been sluggish throughout his term, with unemployment above 8 percent since before he took office.
The customary security blended with a festival-like atmosphere in the surrounding area on a warm and sunny day. The Lumineers performed for free, and Black Eyed Peas frontman will.i.am delivered a pep talk of sorts to Obama's supporters. School officials arranged to show the debate on monitors outside the hall for those without tickets.
There was local political theater, too, including female Romney supporters wearing short shorts and holding signs that said, "What War On Women?" — a rebuttal to claims by Obama and the Democrats.
The two presidential rivals also are scheduled to debate on Oct. 16 in Hempstead, N.Y., and Oct. 22 in Boca Raton, Fla.
Vice President Joe Biden and Ryan have one debate, Oct. 11 in Danville, Ky. Both men have already begun holding practice sessions.
Recent national polls show the two candidates in a tight race among likely voters. But Obama has the advantage in many of the battlegrounds, including Colorado. Romney pulled statistically even in crucial Florida, according to an NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll out Wednesday.
An NBC/Wall Street Journal Poll/Telemundo poll published Wednesday found that Obama had a full 50-point lead over Romney among Hispanic voters.


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"All Gods were immortal."
— Stanislaw Lec
And also brands, the gods of the marketplace. Earthquakes may strike, dynasties may fall and locusts may devour the crops, but Oldsmobile and Pan Am are forever. Never mind.
But about the death of Twinkies: Write obituaries in the subjunctive mood. Like Lazarus, but for a reason more mundane than miraculous, this confection may be resurrected. In any case, the crisis of Hostess Brands Inc., the maker of Twinkies, involves two potent lessons. First, market forces will have their way. Second, never underestimate baby boomer nostalgia, which is acute narcissism. The Twinkies melodrama has the boomers thinking — as usual, about themselves: If an 82-year-old brand can die, so can we. Is that even legal?
The late Daniel Boorstin, historian and Librarian of Congress, said Americans belong to "consumption communities." Are you a Ford or Chevy person? Sears Roebuck or Montgomery Ward? Camels or Chesterfields? Wooed by advertising, people plight their troths to brands in marriages that often are more durable than boomers' actual marriages.
Hostess, which had 18,500 employees making and distributing more than 30 brands made in 36 plants, had been in and out of bankruptcy several times since 2004. Its terminal crisis began on Nov. 9 when thousands of members of the bakers union went out on strike to protest wage, health care and pension cuts imposed by a court. The bakers objected to a 17 percent increase in their contribution for their health care benefits.
Amazingly, Washington did not offer Hostess a bailout. This discriminatory policy may be a constitutional violation — denial of equal protection of the laws. Since the onset of the financial crisis, the government has decided that some SIFIs are TBTF — some systemically important financial institutions are too big to fail. Why, any fair-minded person will ask, was Hostess not TBTF?
Granted, it was not big in the technical, crabbed, hairsplitting, narrow-minded way that "big" is normally understood, as a boring matter of mere size. It was, however, big in what matters most — in boomers' minds. They fondly remember opening their Roy Rogers or Hopalong Cassidy or Davy Crockett lunchboxes at school and finding Twinkies nestled next to peanut butter and jelly sandwiches made of Wonder Bread (another endangered Hostess species).
Anyway, why GM and not Hostess? The Troubled Asset Relief Program, aka TARP, was passed to rescue financial institutions. But Washington reasoned: "What's legality among cronies?" So soon TARP was succoring GM, which was not a financial institution. It was not even a car company. It was a health care provider unsuccessfully trying to sell cars fast enough to generate enough revenue to pay health benefits for its employees and approximately twice as many retirees.
Hostess had in its far-flung operations 372 collective bargaining agreements with various unions that had sought and received — shed no tears for complicit management — some interesting benefits. The Teamsters liked the rule that bread and pastries might be going to the same place but must go in different trucks.
The bakers rejected management's final offer by a voice vote. The Teamsters, who favored a compromise, wanted there to be a secret ballot. This is insouciant insolence by the Teamsters, who are situational ethicists. The union's leadership has lobbied Congress for the Employee Free Choice Act. That is the Orwellian title of legislation that would effectively abolish employees' right to secret ballots in unionization elections, replacing them with "card check," whereby individuals confronted by union organizers sign a card indicating support for the union.
The market said that Hostess as configured made no sense. If, however, Twinkies and perhaps other Hostess brands retain value, the market will say so, and someone will produce them. Probably in a "right to work" state, which is how "entrepreneurial federalism" (another Boorstin phrase) should work: Business moves to states that make it welcome.
Whatever else a hospital ought to do, supposedly said Florence Nightingale, it ought not to spread disease. And whatever else unions should do, they should not put employers out of business.
George F. Will is a syndicated writer in Washington. His email address is firstname.lastname@example.com.


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Just two weeks after the International Trade Commission voted to investigate Apple on patent infringement claims brought by the Google-owned Motorola Mobility, Motorola has dropped its complaint.
Motorola had asked for import bans on just about every notable Apple hardware product, including all Macs, iPads, and most iPhones. But the company completely dropped its complaint in a very short filing made with the ITC on Monday night.
"Complainants Motorola Mobility LLC, Motorola Mobility Ireland, and Motorola Mobility International Limited (collectively, 'Motorola') hereby move to terminate all claims in this investigation without prejudice based on Motorola's withdrawal of the complaint, with Motorola and Apple each bearing their own costs and attorneys' fees," the filing states.
Apple and Motorola are pursuing various lawsuits against each other, including another suit Motorola filed against Apple in the ITC in 2010. That one is still active. While an administrative law judge ruled a Motorola patent is invalid, the full ITC disagreed. The case was sent back to the judge, and he wrote in a filing yesterday that he is targeting an April 2013 finish date.
Neither of the latest filings make reference to the other case, so Motorola dropping its newer complaint remains unexplained. Earlier in the day, Apple made its own filing asking for a 30-day extension on a deadline for responding to Motorola's complaint due to "the complexity of this matter." Motorola's filing to drop the whole case was received by the ITC just a half hour later. Motorola did not specify why it's dropping the complaint, but it did say there's no settlement. "There are no agreements between Motorola and Apple, written or oral, express or implied, concerning the subject matter of this investigation," Motorola said.
Not surprisingly, Apple confirmed to Motorola that it does not oppose the motion to drop the case. We've contacted Google, Motorola, and Apple to find out what spurred this latest move, and will provide an update if we receive one.


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With Covid-19 still with us, minimal flu last year and more social mixing, it's more important than ever to get your flu jab and help your community stay healthy.
We offer a flu vaccination, in-store, for anyone over the age of 18. If you're 50 and over, have a medical condition or are pregnant, catching flu can be more serious and therefore your vaccination is FREE on the NHS
Fill in the email form below and we will be in touch to schedule your jab a soon as we get confirmation on when our supplies will arrive.
The flu vaccine is given free on the NHS to people who:
Get Your Flu Jab with Chagford Pharmacy
Let us know if you would like to get your flu vaccination with us and we will organise your booking. Free on the NHS for anyone over 50 (before 31.03.2022) and for people who are pregnant or have certain medical conditions.
Private flu jabs for those who do not qualify for a free NHS jab are available at £15


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Off The Grid readers,
We would like to thank you for your support of Off The Grid. We have had a great 2 years, learned a lot and read a lot of great blogs! Currently, we are in a transition period where we plan to incorporate blogger content into other Grid properties. That said, Off The Grid will be taken off the grid.
Thanks again for your interest and support. Please check out our other content offerings.


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Uc sampdoria 2021/22 home infant kit
uc sampdoria 2021/22 home infant kit
- 3 matt black buttons
- Knitwear round-neck collar
- OFFICIAL LICENSED PRODUCT | This official, certified product has been designed and made by Macron for and in close conjunction with the Club. It conforms to the strictest standards of authenticity and traceability in the supply chain.
High-tech fabric specially designed for match kits. It's light, very malleable and tear resistant. Guaranteed to dry super fast.
For garments: Machine wash cold (30° C) - Do not bleach - Do not tumble dry - Do not use softener - Iron at low temperature - Do not iron on prints or logos - Do not dry clean
For Padel Rackets: Dry rackets off if they come into contact with water - Keep away from heat sources - Store in a Macron Padel bag, with pockets lined with waterproof material.
The FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) label indicates that the material belongs to the 'forest management and chain of custody' chain. Macron will use FSC Mixed, which contains FSC-certified materials (at least 70%), 'controlled wood' and/or post-consumer recycled materials
- 3 new polybags in different sizes made from recycled material.
- Use of GRS - Global Recycled Standard certified recycled materials
- 100% recycled low density polyethylene.
- One hole for breathability and airtight closure.
- New monochrome graphics.
The packaging process will begin 24 hours after the order has been registered. Delivery is carried out within 3 or more working days in no-EU countries. You will be able to see the total amount to be paid directly in checkout before confirming the order. Duties need to be payed upon receipt of the goods. Please be aware that our warehouse is based in Italy.
You may return the purchased products within 60 days of receipt of the shipment. Items must be in an undamaged condition and with original labels not removed.


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Located in the Hammer Building, the LACMA Store recently re-opened after a dramatic remodel. Unframed's Scott Tennent spoke to Grant Breding, AVP of retail and merchandising, about the store's new look and new products.
What are some of the defining characteristics of the remodel?
With the renovations, the goal was to bring this space back to the 1960s and pretend that the '80s didn't happen—taking it back to the bones but also trying to evoke the feeling that the building had originally, which was simple but glamorous. We restored the columns back to their original form, and we restored a window that was covered over, opening the space up so that all this beautiful natural light comes in. Really it was just about simplifying the space so that you see the product. It's not about the design of the space—it's about what's in the space.
Tell me about some of the products you've brought in.
I really like to draw on what's special about Los Angeles and California. Arts and Crafts pottery is major. First of all, LACMA has the largest collection of Arts and Crafts materials out there, so it seems natural to me. And a lot of the stuff is still made—we have beautiful Arts and Crafts pottery vases and there are Batchelder tiles on display in the Art of the Americas Building [that are still being made today]. People love it. They get that this is about Los Angeles and that it happened in this county.
What was your approach for making the store reflect the museum's encyclopedic collection?
There are certain elements that happen in all periods of time. For instance, there are stools from all different time periods, tiles from all different time periods. That was a fun way to approach it because it was like I was doing research. I would see all the different cultures and what they represented. The challenge is to find good quality items that are still made today that reflect an older time. Besides the Arts and Crafts, a couple things I'm very proud of would be finding hand-made, high-quality things like these hand-painted Turkish bowls. First of all, they're stunning, but in addition to that they're made by hand. It's a traditional finely detailed painting method. It perfectly highlights Islamic art.
We also carry bags made by Dosa, a Los Angeles company. They're very environmentally friendly and very creative. They are all made from fabrics from places like Mexico, India, and Africa, often using recycled materials, sewn and made by hand in Los Angeles. Every bag is unique. To me, it makes a perfect fit for what we're trying to do. Another is the African stools. They're elegant and sculptural. People seem to really respond to them. Again, these are made by hand. We're supporting the original craftsmen who made it, which is very important to do.
The LACMA Store is right next to the Boone Children's Gallery—what will kids and parents find in the store?
For children, my attitude is this: you teach kids skills like language and math, and you can teach them aesthetics as well. If you have really interesting design-oriented items that they can play with, they're learning just because they're handling them. Charles and Ray Eames were very concerned about getting beautiful things into people's frame of reference, so that they knew it and could recognize it when they saw it. The Eames House of Cards is perfect for doing that. I also love the new Lego line of Frank Lloyd Wright houses. That's a driving force for me when I'm finding things: it's teaching along the way. We also have a large section on children's books. This is a natural way for kids to learn about a really diverse collection because the selection spans all the time periods and artists. I would want parents to be able to come here and find a really good-quality book on art that they can use to teach their children more about something they found interesting in the museum that day.
Let's go from the kids' bookshelf to the other side of the store: the newsstand. A good art newsstand is not always easy to come by. You've got a variety here—not just the typical art magazines but harder-to-find titles like Outpost Journal, A Magazine, Garage, and Condiment, as well as zines.
What's great about magazines and periodicals is that they're current and ever-changing. Every month or two you get a fresh outlook. Again, it's a great way to articulate the entire collection. There are niche magazines on all the different areas that the museum addresses. It's something that I really take a lot of interest in: finding the great magazines that address a certain topic. It keeps us fresh—it's constantly changing, constantly relevant. I expect it to grow and grow. We'll always be adding new magazines, always looking for the unique, individual magazines that you don't always find everywhere. I want to have the hard-to-find magazines here. And zines are not only fun, they're someone's artistic vision. It's a great way for people to get their art out into the world. They're low-cost—$5 or $10. People collect them. And they're endless. It's an area that's really exploded. A lot of people are working in this area, not just contemporary but all different types of art are addressed in these zines.
How does this store relate to the Art Catalogues store in the Ahmanson Building?
They perfectly complement each other in the sense that Art Catalogues' focus is on specialized, rare, and out-of-print books as well as a finely curated selection of in-print titles. Dagny [Corcoran, who runs Art Catalogues] also goes deeper into topics and subjects in contemporary art with her offerings, which is great because she is an authority and has the ability to really find rare and special items. Whereas the plaza store is a more traditional museum store but customized to reflect LACMA's entire collection through unique and special art products and books with a broader scope and a more general tone. I want this store to be an interesting experience for people when they walk in here. It's relatable—something they know and expect—but they're going to find something unexpected as well.
Scott Tennent


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Chocolate-filled baked French toast sandwiches
Makes 6 sandwiches (6 servings)
These sweet sandwiches are a bit too substantial for dessert after a full meal, but just right for a hearty snack. The combination of melted dark chocolate and crispy bread makes it a late-night favorite at my home. Try the jam variation for brunch. Be sure to plan ahead to allow time for the dish to stand before baking.
Six diagonally cut 1-inch-thick slices of French bread 4 ounces semi-sweet chocolate, broken into large chunks 3 eggs 1 cup milk 3 tablespoons sugar 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon ¼ teaspoon salt 2 tablespoons unsalted butter Confectioners' sugar and 6 strawberry fans for garnish.
To assemble the sandwiches, horizontally cut through each slice of bread with a serrated knife to within ¼ inch of the bottom crust, forming a pocket. Stuff each pocket with chocolate chunks, then press the slices closed. Arrange the filled bread slices in a 9- by 9-inch buttered baking dish.
Whisk the eggs lightly in a medium bowl; then whisk in the milk, sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, and salt. Pour this mixture over the bread; let it soak in for about 10 minutes. Turn the sandwiches over. Cover the dish with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours or overnight. The egg mixture will be totally absorbed into the bread.
When you are ready to bake the dish for serving, preheat the oven to 425° F. Remove the dish from the refrigerator and allow it to warm slightly before baking. Melt the butter; pour it over the sandwiches. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until the sandwiches are golden brown and set.
To serve, transfer the warm sandwiches to individual plates. Dust them with confectioners' sugar that is stirred through a fine strainer; top each with a strawberry fan and serve immediately.
Advance preparation
The assembled sandwiches must be refrigerated for at least 2 hours or overnight; bake just before serving.
Cut the bread into twelve diagonally cut ½-inch-thick slices. Spread 6 of the slices with about 2 teaspoons of jam (I like strawberry, raspberry, or apricot); close the sandwiches. For the 1 cup milk, substitute ¾ cup milk plus ¼ cup fruit-flavored liqueur, such as Grand Marnier or Triple Sec.


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January 4th, 2011
Walking speed may predict survival in seniors
Walking is probably an activity you take for granted, but scientists say it could have something to say about the survival of older people.
A large study in the Journal of the American Medical Association finds that walking speed may be a good predictor of the life expectancy of senior citizens. Slowing down, it seems, may actually mean the end is nearer.
"This gives us another way to monitor our health and explore ways to age as well as possible," said Dr. Stephanie Studenski, researcher at the University of Pittsburgh and lead study author.
This does not mean, however, that you should try to change your walking speed, she said. The point of the research is that many systems in your body - cardiovascular, musculoskeletal, nervous and others - contribute to the way that you walk, and the health of those systems may be reflected in your natural pace.
Researchers analyzed data from nine different studies, collectively looking at nearly 35,000 adults aged 65 and older. Participants lived in the community - not in nursing homes or other institutions - at the time of the research and included members of both sexes and various ethnic groups. The various studies had looked at how fast participants walked over a fixed distance at a usual pace, beginning with them standing still.
They found that the higher the walking speed, the longer a person is expected to live. This appears to be as good an indicator of longevity as age, sex, chronic conditions, smoking history, blood pressure, body mass index, and hospitalization history in the last year.
For example, researchers found that for a 70-year-old man, the difference between walking 3 mi/hr and 3.5 mi/hr was four years of life on average; for a woman, it's six to seven years. A 70-year-old man who walks at 2.5 mi/hr would expected to live an average of eight years longer than if he walks at 1 mi/hr; for a woman, that difference is about 10 years.
"If you have a natural walking speed that's pretty brisk, that's a good sign of how you're doing," Studenski said.
The study found that walking speed was the strongest predictor of lifespan in older people who were independent or only had trouble with non-instrumental functions such as shopping, housework and cooking. For those who cannot do basic activities such as feeding and dressing themselves on their own, walking speed may be less relevant.
"If you're already having a lot of trouble, gait speed doesn't help as much," she said.
Of course, this is all based on probabilities, and it's by no means a death sentence. There are some elderly people who walk slowly and will live many more years, just as there are certain people who have high blood cholesterol and never have a heart attack.
One important potential application of this research is helping older people decide whether certain preventive tests, such as prostate cancer screenings, are worth their while. If their walking speed suggests that they are expected to live 10 more years at age 70, that might be an important factor in making decisions about such tests.
Walking speed might one day become as relevant as blood pressure as an indicator of overall health, she said. But, it will take time to see how useful it is to doctors and patients.
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Moving from season to season through the sections in the book, Mullen repeatedly mentions the provenance of ingredients. He refers to "good eggs," "good fish," etc., and that means they've been well-raised, are sustainable, and are environmentally safe foods. Regarding good fish, choices like sardines, trout, salmon, and anchovies are both environmentally safe and high in omega-3s, and that's why they are hero foods. As for choosing fruits, for him, it's not enough that berries are good for you. He's more interested in berries when they're in season and picked at the height of ripeness. When fruits are picked fully ripe, they have a chance to develop more nutrient density than when picked early for distant shipping. Of course, these well-chosen, fresh ingredients also happen to taste better than others. In keeping with the theme of the book, I wanted to use some locally grown blueberries I had just received from my CSA. In the berries chapter, there's a pretty stacked cake made with crepes, layered with sweetened yogurt, and topped with berries. It's shown with raspberries, but any fresh berries would be great here. It has tangy flavor from buttermilk in the crepe batter, and the yogurt spread between stacked crepes was sweet from honey and spiced with freshly ground black pepper. You can taste as you add the pepper to decide how much you prefer, and it's a surprisingly good match with berries.
I know I'll be flipping back through this book often for recipes like the Five-Minute Eggs with Romesco, the Salt-Baked Carrots and Beets, the Salbitxada sauce for grilled vegetables, the Pickled Plums, the Line-Caught Atlantic Cod with Picada, and the Autumn Squash Salad. I'll be eating lots of healthy things with these dishes, and I know it will be great-tasting food.
Blueberries and Yogurt with Buttermilk Crepes
Recipe re-printed from Seamus Mullen's Hero Food by Seamus Mullen/Andrews McMeel Publishing.
(Note: this is Raspberries and Yogurt with Buttermilk Crepes in the book.)
Serves 4
Most people think of crepes as breakfast food, but I prefer a savory breakfast. The tart yogurt filling and the buttermilk in the batter balance really well with the sweet raspberries (or blueberries).
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 1/4 cups milk
1/4 cup buttermilk
4 tablespoons clarified butter
Zest of 3 lemons
1 1/2 cups plain unsweetened yogurt
2 tablespoons honey
Freshly ground black pepper
1 cup fresh blueberries
Sprinkle of confectioners' sugar
Mix together the flour, granulated sugar, and salt. In another bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, buttermilk, 3 tablespoons of the clarified butter, and the zest of 1 lemon. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and whisk into a nice, thin batter. If the batter seems too thick, add a bit more buttermilk.
Heat a crepe pan or 10-inch nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Brush the pan with butter. Add about 2 tablespoons batter, lift the pan and roll the batter around to create a thin, even layer. Once the crepe starts to form little holes, bubble a bit, and begins to turn golden brown, it's ready to turn. With a spatula, carefully flip the crepe over and cook another 30 seconds. Remove the crêpe to a large plate and repeat until you've used all the batter, making about 10 crepes.
In a small bowl mix together the remaining zest, yogurt, honey, and pepper. Place one crepe on a large plate, smear on a thin layer of yogurt, and top with another crepe. Repeat until you've layered all the crepes into a beautiful cake. Top with raspberries and confectioners' sugar.


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It's been a little over a year since I reviewed the first Peppermint OS, and while I liked the first effort on this new project, I've been really looking forward to Peppermint Two. Well, my wait was over as of last week, so I was able to kick the tires and get a good feel for it after installing and using it for a few days.
And it didn't disappoint!
Peppermint Two overview
In this review, I'm going to go over the basic stuff first, and cover the things Peppermint Two comes with and how it is out of the box, and then I'll go into what I think of things with respect to stuff I didn't like, stuff I did, my overall opinion of the OS, and finally I'll have a bunch of screenshots at the end, so they're all in one place (well, with one exception, which is just below). I took a lot of screenshots this time, and you'll find shots of a lot of what I'm talking about in this review, so be sure to browse through them and have a look. Peppermint Two is nice to look at, so give them a glance or two!
Now, down to business.
Like Peppermint One, Peppermint Two is a "hybrid" OS… that is, it's cloud-oriented, lightweight, and slim with respect to overhead, resources, and pre-installed apps, but it's built on a solid Lubuntu core that allows the user to install whatever they need via the repositories and still be a full-featured OS if that's what one needs.
Where to get it
It's available as a free download on the Peppermint OS website, or, if desired, you can buy a CD for a pretty reasonable price.
Live CD and installation
I downloaded the 32-bit ISO that the Peppermint team was kind enough to share with me last week, and burned it to CD normally. The ISO was smallish, being only 442 MB, so it fit easily on a CD after a swift download.
This is where I encountered my first issue: the Live CD didn't work on my test laptop. The boot screen would come up, giving me a number of options, including "Install Peppermint OS" and "Try Peppermint OS live" and "check disc".
But when I selected the "Try Peppermint OS live" option so I could test it out without installing, it cranked away for a good 5 minutes or so, and eventually dumped me to a command line interface and not a lot to do from there.
I tried running "startx" to see if I could get X running manually, but that didn't work.
After a couple more tries, I determined that the Live CD portion was just not going to work on this laptop. I found this to be odd, because I've never had any other Live CD — including Peppermint One — not work on this laptop before.
I tried the Live CD option out on my newer laptop, and got the exact same results. Again, I've never had any Linux Live CD of any sort not work on this laptop either, so I thought maybe there was something wrong with my burn.
I ran the "check disc" option from the Peppermint Two CD and it didn't seem to find any problems, and in checking around the web I've seen a few other reports of almost the exact same problem, so I think there must just be an issue with how the "Try Peppermint OS live" portion works or loads.
At any rate, I have been planning on wiping my old test laptop for some time anyway, so I figured I'd bite the bullet and try installing anyway. In my experience, I have on occasion found stuff that didn't work right on the Live CD but worked fine on installation, and vise versa, so I figured worst case scenario, I would end up with a non-working system and I'd just install Peppermint One on it again.
When I tried the installation option, the installer loaded fine, presenting me with what appeared to be a pretty standard Ubuntu-esque installer. I selected my language, keyboard layout, partitioning options (I blew everything away and let it do a default, clean install) and then let it do its thing while I watched.
The installer had a nice, interactive slideshow with good info about featured applications, where to find help in the community, and what the Peppermint Two OS is really about.
The installation finished in about 15 minutes and kicked out the CD and performed a reboot.
Booting up and looking at the basics
The first bootup was just as fast as Peppermint One booted on this same laptop, and as I had suspected, the installation (unlike the Live CD) actually worked just fine.
Just to see if Peppermint Two was comparable to its predecessor, I immediately shut it down and did a cold boot to time how long it takes to come up, and I wasn't disappointed. Peppermint Two on this old laptop takes 33 seconds from the point that I press the power button to the point where I can log in. Snappy!
Shutdowns still take about four seconds on this laptop, which is something else I really like. Nobody likes waiting around for a machine to shut down after they've finished doing their thing. Four seconds is a great time for this process, no complaints there.
And as a bonus, from login, the time to a usable desktop is practically instant. It's responsive right away.
And there's this. Like Peppermint One, this version is remarkably light on resources out of the box. Check out this screenshot. I installed htop because I like it better than top.
After a cold boot, htop shows only 90 MB of system memory in use after logging in with no other applications running!!!
Wireless worked out of the box with no problems at all finding and connecting to my home wireless router.
Installed applications and defaults
Peppermint Two, like Peppermint One, uses LXDE as its desktop environment. Fast, simple, and easy to use, LXDE is one to watch these days, as it makes pretty intuitive sense to even non-technical or non-Linux users — my wife has been using this laptop regularly with Peppermint One on it for the past year and she's had no problems whatsoever with the LXDE environment. Plus, with its resource-friendliness, LXDE was a good choice for Peppermint's default desktop.
As such, PCManFM 0.9.9 is the default file manager, which, like LXDE itself, is fast, lightweight, and simple. It doesn't have a lot of configuration options, but if all you're looking for is the basics, PCManFM delivers better than most in my opinion.
Unlike Peppermint One, which shipped with Mozilla Firefox as the default browser, and Mozilla Prism for the "site specific browser" webapps that worked so well, Peppermint Two is based completely around the Chromium browser, and a custom Chromium-based app called "Ice" that is basically the Chromium equivalent of Mozilla Prism.
With respect to installed applications, again like its predecessor, Peppermint Two is pretty light, relying largely on these Ice-based site specific browser "webapps" for a lot of things.
So instead of an office suite of any kind, there's a Google Docs webapp. Instead of an installed local mail client, there's a Gmail webapp, and instead of a locally installed Twitter client, there's a Seesmic webapp.
In addition to these, there is also an Ice-based webapp that goes straight to the Peppermint OS forums, which is nice (especially for someone looking for help with something, or just interested in being a part of that great community of other Peppermint OS users), and there's a webapp for Pixlr (which I used to crop and resize and thumbnail all of the screenshots I made for this review) and webapps for Last.fm, Youtube, and The Cloud Player.
All of these work surprisingly well in my playing around with them. A lot of this stuff is Flash-based, and I had no issues whatsoever with any of the Flash content in these Ice-based webapps.
There are other, locally installed applications, however — this is still a "hybrid" approach, combining the cloud and local apps, remember?
So, we have Gedit for text editing, which is pretty familiar to any GNOME users out there. XChat is also installed by default, which auto-connects to the Peppermint IRC server when launched. I thought this was a nice hand extended for support and community for users new to Peppermint OS.
Speaking of the cloud, Dropbox is installed, so if you have an account, you're only a few clicks away from configuring it to pull and sync your data. If you don't have a Dropbox account, you should make one. It's free, you get a couple of gigs of storage space for free to begin with, and they give you bonus space if you refer others. I've been using it for over a year now and I find it tremendously useful and easy to manage.
I discovered that Guayadeque is installed as a music player, and I found it surprisingly full-featured for a lightweight OS such as Peppermint.
GNOME-mplayer is also installed by default, for playing local video content.
There is no instant messaging client installed out of the box in Peppermint Two, but there is an Ice webapp called eBuddy Web Messenger, which I found kind of novel, because I'd never heard of it before this test run of Peppermint Two. I don't do IMing, but it appears from eBuddy you can sign into a variety of instant messaging services if you have an account, which I think is pretty cool (as compared to running a local IM client like Pidgin or something). I didn't play around with it much, but I thought it was a nice option.
Next page: what I think of all of this
14 thoughts on "Peppermint Two: Faster, slicker, and easier than ever"
I have the exact same problem with the live cd, both on my new thinkpad and an old FSC. it's inherited from lubuntu because the latest version of that distro would not boot into live cd either. and i can't seem to figure out how to fix it. it's a pity, i meant to give it a spin.
just install it into VirtualBox to give Peppermint a test run. that's what VirtualBox was made for!
I found that of you choose install, go through a step or two and cancel, you can boot in to the live CD.
I had the same problem, but I did another download ot the ISO a couple of days after the first download, and finally it worked.
Live CD worked fine for me!
Good distro!
Live CV worked on eee 904HD, eee 900a and an old Dell Inspiron 1150 when I was testing / playing around!
DVD issue is a non issue if you install VLC…….
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how to install apps in peppermint os..
I had the same problem with the lubuntu 11.04 live CD. After four coasters and a little searching online, it turns out that you need to burn the CD at a slow speed. I used Brasero, chose the lowest speed and got a working live CD.
Live CD worked for me. This is a fast OS. I tweaked mine for autologin and removed some autostart programs as I don't have bluetooth or a printer and such. Also removed thosed corresponding services from startup. Seemed to speed everything up slightly. Only defect I have been having is if I do a reboot it renders my os useless and I am forces to do a hard shutdown. As long as I do a regular startup and shutdown everything is amazing.
So far I am the only one with the f'd graphics when selecting reboot as far as I know. Hope a fix comes out for it.
I also suggest opening terminal and running this sudo:
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras
ditch your audio and video players and get VLC and Rhythmbox
make your taskbar semi-transparent and change your wallpaper and you are good to go. Email me if you need some advice.
For those not enjoying peppermint,
You can always get Bodhi Linux, but it is not as user friendly but it compares to peppermints speed.
WattOS is slower but user friendly. Still faster than Ubuntu or Linux Mint.
MacPup is also very fast, but confusing for noobs trying to learn. Also a difficult install if you don't know what your doing.
Those are my top 4 at the moment. Peppermint still wins. I think I am going to try Peppermint Ice and see if I still have the graphics issue.
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Peppermint OS is nice and reliable to use. Although is does not have as many applications like Microsoft, but performance is better.