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What Shall a Man Give in Exchange for His Soul?
We are to give up all our sins, big or small, for the Father's reward of eternal life.
The Savior once asked His disciples the following question: "What shall a man give in exchange for his soul?"1
This is a question that my father taught me to carefully consider years ago. As I was growing up, my parents assigned me chores around the house and paid me an allowance for that work. I often used that money, a little over 50 cents a week, to go to the movies. Back then a movie ticket cost 25 cents for an 11-year-old. This left me with 25 cents to spend on candy bars, which cost 5 cents apiece. A movie with five candy bars! It couldn't get much better than that.
All was well until I turned 12. Standing in line one afternoon, I realized that the ticket price for a 12-year-old was 35 cents, and that meant two less candy bars. Not quite prepared to make that sacrifice, I reasoned to myself, "You look the same as you did a week ago." I then stepped up and asked for the 25-cent ticket. The cashier did not blink, and I bought my regular five candy bars instead of three.
Elated by my accomplishment, I later rushed home to tell my dad about my big coup. As I poured out the details, he said nothing. When I finished, he simply looked at me and said, "Son, would you sell your soul for a nickel?" His words pierced my 12-year-old heart. It is a lesson I have never forgotten.
Years later I found myself asking this same question to a less-active Melchizedek Priesthood holder. He was a wonderful man who loved his family. He, however, had not been to church for many years. He had a talented son who played on an elite travel sports team that practiced and played games on Sunday. That team had won multiple major championships. As we met, I reminded him that, as a priesthood holder, he was promised that if he magnified his oath and covenant, he would receive "all that [our] Father hath."2 I then asked him, "Is a national championship worth more than all the Father has?" He gently said, "I see your point" and made an appointment to visit with his bishop.
Today it is so easy to get caught up in the noise of the world—despite our good intentions. The world presses us to "[look] beyond the mark."3 Someone recently asked me, "Does one drink really matter?" Can you see that is the adversary's question? Cain asked, "Who is the Lord that I should know him?"4 and then lost his soul. With self-justification of petty sins, Satan triumphs. For a bottle of milk,5 a misspelled name,6 a mess of pottage,7 birthrights and inheritances have been traded.
As we consider the nickel or national-championship exchanges in our lives, we can either self-justify our actions, like Cain, or look to submit to the will of God. The question before us is not whether we are doing things which need correcting, because we always are. Rather, the question is, will we "shrink" or "finish" the call upon our soul to do the will of the Father?8
The Lord loves our righteousness but asks of us continued repentance and submission. In the Bible we read that it was a commandment-keeping, wealthy young man who knelt before the Savior and asked what he needed to do to have eternal life. He turned away grieved when the Savior said, "One thing thou lackest: … sell whatsoever thou hast."9
Yet, it was another wealthy but worldly man, the chief Lamanite king, the father of Lamoni, who also asked the same question about eternal life, saying: "What shall I do that I may be born of God, having this wicked spirit rooted out of my breast, and receive his Spirit[?] … I will forsake my kingdom, that I may receive this great joy."10
Do you remember the response the Lord gave the king through His servant Aaron? "If thou wilt repent of all thy sins, and will bow down before God, and call on his name in faith, believing that ye shall receive, then shalt thou receive the hope which thou desirest."11
When the king understood the sacrifice required, he humbled and prostrated himself and then prayed, "O God, … I will give away all my sins to know thee."12
This is the exchange the Savior is asking of us: we are to give up all our sins, big or small, for the Father's reward of eternal life. We are to forget self-justifying stories, excuses, rationalizations, defense mechanisms, procrastinations, appearances, personal pride, judgmental thoughts, and doing things our way. We are to separate ourselves from all worldliness and take upon us the image of God in our countenances.13
Brothers and sisters, remember that this charge is more than just not doing bad things. With an engaged enemy we must also act and not sit in "thoughtless stupor."14 Taking upon the countenance of God means serving each other. There are sins of commission and sins of omission, and we are to rise above both.
While serving as a mission president in Africa, I was forever taught this great truth. I was on my way to a meeting when I saw a young boy alone, crying hysterically on the side of the road. A voice within me said, "Stop and help that boy." As quick as I heard this voice, in a split second, I rationalized: "You can't stop. You will be late. You're the presiding officer and can't walk in late."
When I arrived at the meetinghouse, I heard the same voice say again: "Go help that boy." I then gave my car keys to a Church member named Afasi and asked him to bring the boy to me. About 20 minutes later, I felt a tap on my shoulder. The young boy was outside.
He was about 10 years of age. We found out his father was dead and his mother was in jail. He lived in the slums of Accra with a caretaker, who gave him food and a place to sleep. To earn his board, he sold dried fish on the streets. But after this day of hawking, when he reached in his pocket, he found a hole in it. He had lost all his earnings. Afasi and I knew immediately that if he returned without the money, he would be called a liar, most likely beaten, and then cast out onto the street. It was in that moment of alarm when I first saw him. We calmed his fears, replaced his loss, and took him back home to his caretaker.
As I went home that evening, I realized two great truths. First, I knew as never before that God is mindful of each of us and will never forsake us; and second, I knew that we must always hearken to the voice of the Spirit within us and go "straightway"15 wherever it takes us, regardless of our fears or any inconvenience.
One day the disciples asked the Savior who was the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. He told them to be converted, humble, and submissive as little children. He then said, "The Son of man is come to save that which [is] lost."16 With that one sentence, He defined our mission. We are to go to the rescue—to the lost, the last, and the least. It is not enough to avoid evil; we must "suffer his cross"17 and "be anxiously engaged,"18 helping others to conversion. With compassion and love we embrace the prodigal,19 answer the cries of orphans in hysteria, the pleas of those in darkness and despair,20 and the distress calls of family in need. "Satan need not get everyone to be like Cain or Judas … ," said Elder Neal A. Maxwell. "He needs only to get able men … to see themselves as sophisticated neutrals."21
After a recent stake conference, a teenage boy approached me and asked, "Does God love me?" May our lives of service always affirm that God forsakes no one.
To the question, "What will a man give in exchange for his soul?" Satan would have us sell our lives for the candy bars and championships of this world. The Savior, however, calls us, without price, to exchange our sins, to take upon us His countenance, and to take that into the hearts of those within our reach. For this we may receive all that God has, which we are told is greater than all the combined treasures of this earth.22 Can you even imagine?
On a recent trip to Nicaragua, I noticed a plaque in the modest home of a family we visited. It read, "My testimony is my most precious possession." So it is with me. My testimony is my soul's treasure, and in the integrity of my heart, I leave you my witness that this church is God's true Church, that our Savior stands at its head and directs it through His chosen prophet. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.


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We are going to continue our conversation about gun violence. We're focusing on Chicago. President Obama is heading there tomorrow and our next guests say it's really about time that the violence in Chicago receives this kind of high level attention and response. They're both young people living in Chicago and they've both been directly affected by violence. They say that voices like theirs are not being heard in the national gun control debates, so we are going to bring them to you now.
Joining us are Aisha Truss-Miller and Chris Buford. They are both part of the Black Youth Project. Welcome to you both. Thank you both so much for joining us.
AISHA TRUSS-MILLER: Thank you for having us.
CHRIS BUFORD: Thank you for having me.
MARTIN: Aisha, you started a petition on Change.org, asking the president to come to Chicago and talk about violence there. Why did you think that was important?
TRUSS-MILLER: Well, I've been doing community work for years and I'm about holding myself, parents, teachers, institutions, politicians, the gamut accountable for creating and sustaining safe spaces for young people and I just felt that it was time that we hold our national leader accountable to highlight the violence in Chicago and the difference between the violence that's going on in Chicago versus the other places that's been getting highlighted.
MARTIN: Is there something specific that you want to hear from him? Is there a particular message that you really feel he needs to bring or is it just really his presence that you think is important?
TRUSS-MILLER: Both. But there is something that I definitely want to hear from him and I hope that he will discuss particularly why our young people seek safety, love and community amongst gangs and cliques and how we have collectively failed our young people of color across the nation. I'm also looking for him to speak about how his administration and their agenda can holistically invest in the development of marginalized youth in communities.
MARTIN: OK. I want to hear more about that in a few minutes, but I want to hear from Chris, too. Chris, you're 26 now, but you told us that you were in and out of juvenile detention, that you saw a lot of violence in the streets and, you know, you could easily have ended up as a victim of violence.
Is there something you think that the president could say to speak to that or that you would want to hear him say to speak to that?
BUFORD: Very much like Aisha was just saying, I want to hear him talk about investment in young people and investment into the communities that are hardest hit by the violence and I don't just want to hear him say it. I want to see actual action after he leaves. That's what's most important to me. He can come - I mean, he comes here all the time and he does speeches here all the time. I mean, it's his hometown, but what I would actually like to see is, after the speech, I want to see some action. I want to see actual investment, actual results.
MARTIN: Forgive me. What would have made a difference to you? I mean, you were telling us that you, being in and out of the juvenile justice system, it was supposed to rehabilitate you, but it really didn't. What would have made a difference to you?
BUFORD: For me, I would say if I had, you know, more support as far as school was concerned. I mean, going into high school, I was scoring at college level on your standardized tests, but I had all Fs. I was put in honors classes in my freshman year, but I came into high school with all Fs. If I would have had the adequate amount of support at school as far as counseling, tutors, maybe a mentor of some sort, I could have been a successful young man and gone on to college. Who knows what I could have achieved?
And then, as far as in the community, I come from a struggling family, so if I would have had some way to be able to help support my family that was of a legal nature, then I could also turned out to be a very successful young man. I'm at the age of 26 right now, but because of the setbacks I had, I'm playing catch-up now.
MARTIN: We just spoke a few minutes ago with Hadiya Pendleton's mother. Of course she's the young lady who had just been a part of the president's inauguration. She'd been a part of the parade; you know, had performed there and not a week later was killed in the park, in the South Side, just about a mile, you know, from the president's home, and her death is getting a lot of national attention, including from the president. We've got a clip of him talking about this at the State of the Union. I'll just play that.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Just three weeks ago, she was here in Washington with her classmates performing for her country at my inauguration, and a week later she was shot and killed in a Chicago park after school, just a mile away from my house.
MARTIN: Aisha, I'll start with you. What does this bring up for you? I mean, on the one hand, this young lady sounds like a beautiful young lady. I mean, I've seen the pictures of her and she was just a beautiful, happy person, and it's brought up a lot of - really a lot of feelings. But what does it bring up for you?
TRUSS-MILLER: It triggers a lot of trauma, and that's another thing that I would like for the president and others to recognize and speak on. My cousin actually was gunned down July 1, 2012. He was 17 years old. It was a week before his 18th birthday and he was shot in the face and knee with a AR-15 right in front of his home, and this was across from Martin Luther King College Prep, where Hadiya went to school. My niece and my sister also went to school there and it was only a few blocks away from where her life was stolen. And because it was the summertime and the violence, you know - like the day my cousin died, like three to four other people were murdered that day, including a baby, by gun violence.
So for him it was - he was just another statistic. You know, there wasn't a highlight on his story. It's devastating and, you know, I was - I've been involved in community work since I was a youth, so it wasn't like I got involved in this because this happened to my cousin. I was already involved in this kind of movement and, again, creating and sustaining safe spaces for young people. So when this happened to my cousin, I felt like the community that I invested in, that I love, that I learned from, that invested in me - that they kind of stabbed me in the back, but I'm learning to separate my feelings from reality.
MARTIN: Do you feel, Aisha, that - how can I ask this? Do you feel like anybody cares?
TRUSS-MILLER: I do feel that people care, but I feel that the violence happens so much that it's becoming normal to us, that we are desensitized and we don't know what to do and the hopelessness just sets in, so even, you know, when my cousin was murdered, community came out in support, including the Black Youth Project, individuals that invested in my education, people that invested in his development, police officers that - you know, and I never would have pictured that. But the community came together and tried to support and mourn with my family and I was more so concerned with my family, the young people in my family, but the young people he went to school with and his friends and what kind of help that they would be receiving. You know, it was a summer month. They weren't in school. What kind of counseling would they be getting and how would they internalize this pain and then how would they express it? You know, and it's usually with more violence, so...
MARTIN: You know, to that end, Chris, before you became the man you are now, could you have seen yourself in that situation?
BUFORD: I mean in that lifestyle, who doesn't see themselves in that situation? Because it's a part of the life when you're involved in the streets and involved in the street economy, it's a part of living that lifestyle, so you have to take that into account. It's like an on-the-job hazard, as they would say.
MARTIN: So, if somebody hurts you, it's like you feel you have to go and try to hurt them back?
BUFORD: Well, that's - I wouldn't say that that's how I feel now, but at that time, because we live in the world where - punish or be punished - so that's the only thing that I knew, so my - and that's what a lot of - the only thing a lot of young people know, is that if you do something to me, I have to do something back to you, either at the same level or worse.
TRUSS-MILLER: Yeah. I feel Chris. You know, when my cousin was murdered, that's how I felt. I felt like someone had to pay and, you know, being a person of color, I don't trust the justice systems. I don't even know what justice for my cousin would look like. I just know I wanted someone to feel the pain that he felt and I wanted someone to feel the pain my family felt at that particular time, and it took some weeks and some thinking and some talking to my friends and, you know, reading of different faiths and scriptures that made - you know, that helped me realize that I really didn't want that. That's not what I wanted, but that's just how I was feeling.
And a lot of these - and a lot of people, not just young people, operate off of emotion. That's the foundation of this country, you know? It's a culture of violence and, like Chris said, it's either punish or be punished, and I wanted someone to pay with their life for taking my cousin's life.
MARTIN: Aisha, we heard from you about what it is you want to hear from the president, so I'm going to give Chris the final word and ask him and not just of the president. Now that you've got our attention, is there something you particularly want people to know to take away from your experience and what you've been living with?
BUFORD: I think that the biggest thing that I would like to get out there is that the violence is only a symptom of the problem and that what we really need is real investment in these communities. We need investment into our education systems and in the communities that are experiencing this violence. We need jobs for young people. We need mentors. We need skills development. We need community building, building of unity inside of these communities.
But we need things that are going to impact us right now, today, because lives are being lost today.
MARTIN: Well, thank you both so much for joining us. I'm sorry for what's brought us together, but I'm happy that I had a chance to meet you both and to talk with you both and I really wish you all - both - the very best.
Aisha Truss-Miller and Chris Buford are members of Chicago's Black Youth Project and they were kind enough to join us from member station WBEZ in Chicago.
Thank you both so much for joining us. My very best wishes to you both.
TRUSS-MILLER: Thank you.
BUFORD: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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Hanover, NH — On a picture-perfect, warm autumn weekend this September in New Hampshire, Dartmouth celebrated the 75th anniversary of the founding of its men's squash team and the 40th anniversary of the founding of the women's team.
More than a hundred Big Green former players, parents, coaches—and their spouses and kids—came to Hanover for the gala, the first of its kind for Dartmouth squash. Joined by the current men's and women's teams, it made for a vibrant and memory-filled time. There were cocktail parties, lunches and a private tour of the Hood Museum, Dartmouth's art museum; a spirited early morning golf outing at the Hanover Country Club; an afternoon of squash matches; and a fabulous dinner outside the main Dartmouth gym.
Most of the 115 years of combined Dartmouth squash was visible in the former head coaches who attended. Aggie Bixler Kurtz had founded the women's team in 1972 and coached it until 1989. Despite suffering from giaradia and the rigors of more halls of fame inductions (she has her sixth this fall), Kurtz played a great round of golf and attended the many functions with her husband Tom. Kirk Randall (assistant 1974-77, head 1977-80) came up from Massachusetts where he has retired after a post-Dartmouth career at the University Club of Boston and Exeter. Two other locals came: Chuck Kinyon (1980-89), who came over Queechee where he still coaches tennis, and Jim McCracken (1989-93), the first coach to be in charge of both the men's and women's teams. Chris Brownell '87 (1993-98) naturally attended, as she is one of the co-chairs of the Friends of Dartmouth Squash. Former assistants Taylor Thomas '88, Lex Miron '93 and Ken Cucuel were present, as was Dick Hoehn '59, who was Dartmouth's first three-time All American and the son of the Big Green legend, coach Red Hoehn (1938-63).
The Friends of Dartmouth Squash was started in 1980 (it had informally existed before then as an adjunct to the tennis program). For seventeen years in the 1980s and 90s, Jack Herrick chaired the Friends, leading the effort in 1986-87 to build Dartmouth's first new courts since the 1930s and then the retrofitting of the courts to softball in 1994-95. Herrick, just inducted into the U.S. Squash Hall of Fame, was in Hanover as well, even though he was missing the dedication of a 52,000 square-foot academic building that he helped build at the University School in Cleveland.
Some of the most-watched matches on the Saturday afternoon were amongst some of the former All Americans, often joined by Dartmouth's current #1 star, Chris Hanson. They included Beau River '00, Lex Miron, Hamed Anvari '02 and Sasha Greatreaux Proudlove '95
At the gala dinner, Brownell and Jim Zug, the other co-chair, hosted an illustrious group of speakers. Steve Mandell '78, the chair of Dartmouth's board of trustees, spoke about how playing squash at Dartmouth had positively impacted his life. Hansi Wiens, who is entering his fourth season as the Dartmouth squash coach, discussed the present and future of the program. Harry Sheehy, the Dartmouth athletic director, went over the various initiatives aimed at supporting Dartmouth's athletes. Digger Donahue '73 talked about Dartmouth squash and how he loves to play so much that he has sent racquets to all Brown Brothers Harriman offices around the world (he's the managing partner of the financial services giant), so that he doesn't have to bring racquets wherever he goes.
The spectacular news topped off a wonderful weekend of fellowship and renewed friendship.
Editor's Note: James Zug, Squash Magazine's senior writer, is also well known to squash fans. He played collegiate squash at Dartmouth College, and in 2003 he wrote Squash: A History of the Game. He also teamed up with Trinity coach Paul Assaiante to write Run to the Roar: Coaching to Overcome Fear.
Photos courtesy of Stephanie Bambury and Dartmouth College.


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WASHINGTON (AP) — With tax season in full swing, a newly released poll says an overwhelming majority of adults don't believe it is ever OK to cheat on their income taxes, with most citing personal integrity as a reason to be truthful.
When asked how much, if any, is an acceptable amount to cheat on your income taxes, 87 percent of respondents said, "not at all." Only 11 percent said, "a little here and there" or "as much as possible."
Ninety-five percent said personal integrity influences them to honestly report their taxes, while 63 percent said fear of an audit did. Only 41 percent said they are honest because they believe their neighbors are, too.
The telephone poll of 1,500 randomly chosen adults was sponsored by the Internal Revenue Service Oversight Board, which released the findings Tuesday. The findings are in line with previous surveys done by the board.
Board Chairman Paul Cherecwich Jr. noted the importance of honesty in a tax system that asks people to report their own financial information. There are many backstops in the system, with employers and financial institutions also reporting taxpayer information to the IRS. But the IRS only audits 1 percent of individual returns each year, according to agency statistics.
"Personal integrity is at the core of our self-assessment tax system," Cherecwich said. "The overwhelming majority of American taxpayers play by the rules and expect everyone else to do the same."
Forty-three percent said they think the IRS maintains a proper balance between tax enforcement and taxpayer service; 30 percent said they think the agency devotes too many resources to enforcement.
Elizabeth Maresca, a former trial attorney for the IRS, said most taxpayers don't have much of an opportunity to cheat on their taxes.
Two-thirds of individual filers don't itemize their deductions, instead taking the standard deduction. And for those who do itemize, many of their claims are verified by financial institutions that are required to notify the IRS.
For example, if you earn interest on a bank account or pay interest on a home mortgage, financial institutions send forms to both you and the IRS. Employers send wage information to the IRS.
"The vast majority of people, I think, don't even have an opportunity to cheat on their taxes," said Maresca, an associate law professor at Fordham University. "They are so limited in what they can do and take and what breaks they are entitled to. You can't pretend that you have a kid you don't have. You can't claim your dog."
The survey comes as federal agencies, including the IRS, brace for automatic spending cuts known as the sequester, which is scheduled to take effect Friday. In a letter to Congress, the Treasury Department said the IRS won't be able to review as many tax returns if the sequester takes effect, which "could result in billions of dollars in lost revenue and further complicate deficit reduction efforts." The agency didn't offer specifics, but said, "In recent years each dollar spent on the IRS has returned at least $4 in additional enforcement revenue."
In the poll, 62 percent of respondents said the IRS should receive extra funding to enforce tax laws and ensure taxpayers pay what they owe. Sixty-seven percent said the IRS should get more money to assist taxpayers by phone and in person.
The poll was conducted from Aug. 30 to Sep. 17 by GfK Roper Public Affairs and Corporate Communications. It involved landline and cellphone interviews with 1,500 randomly chosen adults and had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.


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Dodgers start Brad Penny, RHP (10-1, 2.04) vs. Jake Peavy, RHP (9-2, 2.14).
Dodgers: 45-35 (3rd place NL West, 1.0 GB, L1)
Padres: 45-33 (1st place NL West, 0.5 GA, W3)
From Dodgers.com, the scouting report on the starters:
Dodgers: Penny took over the National League lead in wins and ERA by beating the D-backs on Monday, allowing one run over seven innings. His fastball was clocked as high as 101 mph on the Chase Field radar gun and was consistently around 95 mph. The Dodgers are 14-2 in Penny's starts this year and he's allowed only two home runs. He has yet to face the Padres this year.Padres: Peavy missed becoming the National League's first 10-game winner in his last start, losing an Interleague matchup with Red Sox ace Josh Beckett. Peavy wasn't hit especially hard in the game, but a shaky third inning, in which he yielded three runs on five hits, led to the 4-2 defeat. He had three strikeouts and one walk in the game and his command wasn't as sharp as it has been recently, as several balls drifted up in the strike zone.
From Inside the Dodgers, the lineup:
Furcal, SS (.324 with RISP) Pierre, CF (on pace for 59 steals, the most since Lopes' 64 in '76)
Martin, C (finds out tomorrow about AS results)
Kent, 2B (was awesome at the WIN clinic today)
Gonzo, LF (must see TV)
Nomar, 3B (hitting .336 at home)
Loney, 1B (eight-game hitting streak)
Ethier, RF (signed autographs for fans today in Whittier)
Penny, P (.241 batting average, 2.04 ERA)


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Best hours to observe: 11:00pm - 04:30am (CET) Peak: Night of Aug 11 to morning of Aug 12 Best:While Perseids peaks on August 12th, we recommend observing starting August 1st, way before August 17th's full moon, for maximum visibility.
Peak: August 11, 12, 13 Shower rate: 15-30 per hour Time Zone: UTC/GMT +1 hour While expected rates in your location may be high, several factors may interfere.
Moon Forecast: Waxing Gibbous
Top recommended viewing locations:
Viewing locations are currently unavailable for this area; feel free to recommend a couple by clicking here.
In 2016, the peak of the Perseids meteor shower will coincide with a Waxing Gibbous Moon. This will not produce favorable viewing circumstances for observers expecting to get the full effect of this yearly summer experience. With upwards of 80 meteors per hour predicted, it may well be worth staying out to catch quite a few impressive bursts of light streaking through the night sky, even though fainter Perseids may not be visible due to moonlight.
On average, under completely clear skies, and in complete darkness, observers may witness 50 to 80 meteors per hour; but these rates can exceed up to 200 meteors per hour in rural locations. Be aware that local conditions such as light pollution, cloud cover, and precipitation will also play a major role in the number of meteors you are likely to see.
For the best viewing experience, find an area unobstructed by a structure that is far away from city lights. Using optical devices such as binoculars or telescopes is not recommended, as your field of view will be greatly restricted, thus making the possibility of missing a "shooting star" more likely.
Once you have settled down at your observation spot, face half-way up toward the northeastern portion of the sky. Looking northeast, you will have the constellation of Perseus, the radiant of the Perseids shower, within your field of view. Not coincidentally, the Perseids meteor shower is named after the constellation Perseus for the reason that they appear to originate from the sparkling Greek "hero."
Looking directly up at the sky or into the radiant is not recommended since this is just the point in which they appear to come from. You are more likely to see a trail when looking slightly away from this point. Looking half-way up into the sky will lead to the best show in the house.
Watching a meteor shower is sometimes takes a great deal of patience, but if you wait long enough, you should be rewarded with a an experience that won't soon be forgotten. Happy gazing!
Europe - Liechtenstein
Perseids Wikipedia Page - Wikipedia
Upcoming sky events
North America - Mexico & United States
North America - Canada
Central America
Try not to look directly up into the skies of the world. Instead, look half-way up into the sky for the best view!
Some Catholics refer to the Perseids as the "tears of St. Lawrence", since the tenth of August is the date of that saint's martyrdom.
Keep in mind that any local light pollution or obstructions like tall trees or buildings will reduce your making a meteor sighting. Give your eyes time to dark-adapt before starting.
Ask us anything!


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Divorce or Separation
Find information about ending a marriage or registered domestic partnership.
Basics of Divorce, Legal Separation, and Annulment
Learn about the different ways to end your marriage or domestic partnership, the requirements for each, and basic information about the court process.
Summary Dissolution
Summary dissolutions are a simpler way to get divorced for married couples and registered domestic partners.
Spousal or Partner Support
Learn about spousal or partner support, how to ask for it, how to respond to a request, how to change or end an order, how to pay an order, or how to collect on a court order.
Learn how to end a marriage or domestic partnership by asking for an annulment.
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text:
Improve Your Credit
Get the Mortgage You Deserve
Having a bad credit rating doesn't mean you can't get mortgage financing
I see all kinds of credit ratings every day and there are strategies to help improve and even heal damaged credit. You may be surprised to know that you can still obtain a mortgage. Whether you've had a bankruptcy or your credit is only slightly bruised, you can still obtain financing.
I have access to non-traditional lenders who offer financing solutions to individuals who have some credit challenges that cannot be addressed by the major financial institutions. Together I can quickly assess your situation and decide on the best way to move forward. The worst you can do is do nothing.
Call or email today for full details and a FAST mortgage pre-approval!
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Boot Time
Boot Time includes topics such as measurement, analysis, human factors, initialization techniques, and reduction techniques. The time that a product takes to boot directly impacts the first perception an end user has of the product. Regardless of how attractive or well designed a consumer electronic device is, the time required to move the device from off to an interactive, usable state is critical to obtaining a positive end user experience. Turning on a device is Use Case #1.
Booting up a device involves numerous steps and sequences of events. In order to use consistent terminology, the Bootup Time Working Group of the CE Linux Forum came up with a list of terms and their widely accepted definitions for this functionality area. See the following page for these terms:
Technology/Project Pages
The following are individual pages with information about various technologies relevant to improving Boot Time for Linux. Some of these describe local patches available on this site. Others point to projects or patches maintained elsewhere.
Measuring Boot-up Time
- Printk Times - simple system for showing timing information for each printk.
- Kernel Function Trace - system for reporting function timings in the kernel.
- Linux Trace Toolkit - system for reporting timing data for certain kernel and process events.
- Oprofile - system-wide profiler for Linux.
- Bootchart - a tool for performance analysis and visualization of the Linux boot process. Resource utilization and process information are collected during the user-space portion of the boot process and are later rendered in a PNG, SVG or EPS encoded chart.
- Bootprobe - a set of System Tap scripts for analyzing system bootup.
- and, let us not forget: "cat /proc/uptime"
- grabserial - a nice utility from Tim Bird to log and timestamp console output
- process trace - a simple patch from Tim Bird to log exec, fork and exit system calls.
- ninja-ts - wsa's TimeStamper: A small filter prepending timestamps to STDOUT; a bit similar to grabserial but not limited to serial ports
- Initcall Debug - a kernel command line option to show time taken for initcalls.
- See also: Kernel Instrumentation which lists some known kernel instrumentation tools. These are of interest for measuring kernel startup time.
Technologies and Techniques for Reducing Boot Time
Bootloader speedups
- Kernel XIP - Allow kernel to be executed in-place in ROM or FLASH.
- DMA Copy Of Kernel On Startup - Copy kernel from Flash to RAM using DMA
- Uncompressed kernel - An uncompressed kernel might boot faster
- Fast Kernel Decompression
Kernel speedups
- Disable Console - Avoid overhead of console output during system startup.
- Disable bug and printk - Avoid the overhead of bug and printk. Disadvantage is that you lose a lot of info.
- RTC No Sync - Avoid delay to synchronize system time with RTC clock edge on startup.
- Short IDE Delays - Reduce duration of IDE startup delays (this is effective but possibly dangerous).
- Hardcode kernel module info - Reduce the overhead of loading a module, by hardcoding some information used for loading the relocation information
- IDE No Probe - Force kernel to observe the ide<x>=noprobe option.
- Preset LPJ - Allow the use of a preset loops_per_jiffy value.
- Asynchronous function calls - Allow probing or other functions to proceed in parallel, to overlap time-consuming boot-up activities.
- Threaded Device Probing - Allow drivers to probe devices in parallel. (not mainlined, now deprecated?)
- Reordering of driver initialization - Allow driver bus probing to start as soon as possible.
- Deferred Initcalls - defer non-essential module initialization routines to after primary boot
- NAND ECC improvement - The pre 2.6.28 nand_ecc.c has room for improvement. You can find an improved version in the mtd git at http://git.infradead.org/mtd-2.6.git?a=blob_plain;f=drivers/mtd/nand/nand_ecc.c;hb=HEAD. Documentation for this is in http://git.infradead.org/mtd-2.6.git?a=blob_plain;f=Documentation/mtd/nand_ecc.txt;hb=HEAD. This is only interesting if your system uses software ECC correction.
- Check what kernel memory allocator you use. Slob or slub might be better than slab (which is the default in older kernels)
- If your system does not need it, you can remove SYSFS and even PROCFS from the kernel. In one test removing sysfs saved 20 ms.
- Carefully investigate all kernel configuration options on whether they are applicable or not. Even if you select an option that is not used in the end, it contributes to the kernel size and therefore to the kernel load time (assuming you are not doing kernel XIP). Often this will require some trial and measure! E.g. selecting CONFIG_CC_OPTIMIZE_FOR_SIZE (found under general setup) gave in one case a boot improvement of 20 ms. Not dramatic, but when reducing boot time every penny counts!
- Moving to a different compiler version might lead to shorter and/or faster code. Most often newer compilers produce better code. You might also want to play with compiler options to see what works best.
- If you use initramfs in your kernel and a compressed kernel it is better to have an uncompressed initramfs image. This is to avoid having to uncompress data twice. A patch for this has been submitted to LKML. See http://lkml.org/lkml/2008/11/22/112
File System issues
Different file systems have different initialization (mounting) times, for the same data sets. This is a function of whether meta-data must be read from storage into RAM or not, and what algorithms are used during the mount procedure.
- Filesystem Information - has information about boot-up times of various file systems
- File Systems - has information on various file systems that are interesting for embedded systems. Also includes some improvement suggestions.
- Avoid Initramfs - explains on why initramfs should be avoided if you want to minimize boot time
- Split partitions. If mounting a file system takes long, you can consider splitting that filesystem in two parts, one with the info that is needed during or immediately after boot, and one which can be mounted later on.
- Ramdisks demasked - explains why using a ram disk generally results in a longer boot time, not a shorter one.
User-space and application speedups
- Optimize RC Scripts - Reduce overhead of running RC scripts
- Parallel RC Scripts - Run RC scripts in parallel instead of sequentially
- Application XIP - Allow programs and libraries to be executed in-place in ROM or FLASH
- Pre Linking - Avoid cost of runtime linking on first program load
- Statically link applications. This avoids the costs of runtime linking. Useful if you have only a few applications. In that case it could also reduce the size of your image as no dynamic libraries are needed
- GNU_HASH: ~ 50% speed improvement in dynamic linking
- Application Init Optimizations - Improvements in program load and init time via:
- use of mmap vs. read
- control over page mapping characteristics.
- Include modules in kernel image - Avoid extra overhead of module loading by adding the modules to the kernel image
- Speed up module loading - Use Alessio Igor Bogani's kernel patches to improve module loading time by "Speed up the symbols' resolution process" (Patch 1, Patch 2, Patch 3, Patch 4, Patch 5).
- Avoid udev, it takes quite some time to populate the /dev directory. In an embedded system it is often known what devices are present and in any case you know what drivers are available, so you know what device entries might be needed in /dev. These should be created statically, not dynamically. mknod is your friend, udev is your enemy.
- If you still like udev and also like fast boot-up's, you might go this way: start your system with udev enabled and make kind of a backup of the created device nodes. Now, modify your init script like this: instead running udev, copy the device nodes that you just made a backup of into the device tree. Now, install the hotplug-daemon like you always do. That trick avoids the device node creation at startup but stills lets your system create device nodes later on.
- If your device has a network connection, preferably use static IP addresses. Getting an address from a DHCP server takes additional time and has extra overhead associated with it.
- Moving to a different compiler version might lead to shorter and/or faster code. Most often newer compilers produce better code. You might also want to play with compiler options to see what works best.
- If possible move from glibc to uClibc. This leads to smaller executables and hence to faster load times.
- library optimiser tool: http://libraryopt.sourceforge.net/
This will allow you to create an optimised library. As unneeded functions are removed this should lead to a performance gain. Normally there will be library pages which contain unused code (adjacent to code that is used). After optimizing the library this does not occur any more, so less pages are needed and hence less page loads, so some time can be saved. - Function reordering: http://www.celinux.org/elc08_presentations/DDLink%20FunctionReorder%2008%2004.pdf
This is a technique to rearrange the functions within an executable so they appear in the order they are needed. This improves the load time of the application as all initialization code is grouped into a set of pages, instead of being scattered over a number of pages.
Another approach to improve boot time is to use a suspend related mechanism. Two approaches are known.
- Using the standard hibernate/resume approach. This is what has been demonstrated by Chan Ju, Park, from Samsung. See sheet 23 and onwards from this PPT and section 2.7 of this paper.
Issue with this approach is that flash write is much slower than flash read, so the actual creation of the hibernate image might take quite a while. - Implementing snapshot boot. This is done by Hiroki Kaminaga from Sony and is described at snapshot boot for ARM and http://elinux.org/upload/3/37/Snapshot-boot-final.pdf
This is similar to hibernate and resume, but the hibernate file is retained and used upon every boot. Disadvantage is that no writable partitions should be mounted at the time of making the snapshot. Otherwise inconsistencies will occur if a partition is modified, while applications in the hibernate file might have information in the snapshot related to the unmodified partition.
Miscellaneous topics
About Compression discusses the effects of compression on boot time. This can affect both the kernel boot time as well as user-space startup.
Uninvestigated speedups
This section is a holding pen for ideas for improvement that are not implemented yet but that could result in a boot time gain. Please leave a note here if you are working on one of these items to avoid duplicate work.
- Prepopulated buffer cache - As initramfs performs an additional copy of the data the idea is to have a prepopulated buffer cache. A simplistic scenario would allow dumping the buffer cache when the booting is completed and the user applications have initialised. This data then could be used in a subsequent boot to initialize the buffer cache (of course without copying). A possible approach would be to have those data to reside into the kernel image and use them directly. Alternately they could be loaded separately.
Unfortunately my knowledge of the internals in this section is not yet good enough to do a trial implementation.
Caveats:- is it possible to have the buffer cache split into two different parts, one which is statically allocated, one which is dynamically allocated?
- the pages in the prepopulated buffer cache probably cannot be discarded, so they should be pinned
- apart from the buffer cache data itself also some other variables might need restoring
- a similar approach could also be used for the cached file data.
- Dedicated fs - currently a lot of abstraction is done in fs to make a nice abstraction allowing easy addition of new filesystems and creating a unified view of those filesystem. While this is pretty neat, the abstraction layers also introduce some overhead. A solution could be to create a dedicated fs system, which supports only one (or maybe 2) filesystems, and eliminates the abstraction overhead. This will give some benefit, but the chance of getting this into the mainline is zero.
Articles and Presentations
- Embedded Linux boot time reduction workshop materials
- By Free Electrons
- Presentation on boot time reduction techniques - Practical labs on Atmel SAMA5 hardware.
- "Boot Time Optimizations" - (Slides | Video)
- Alexandre Belloni has presented at ELC Europe on Nov 6, 2012
- Main link at Free-Electrons
- "The Right Approach to Boot Time Reduction" - (Slides | YouTube Video)
- Andrew Murray has presented at ELC Europe on October 28, 2010 (Free Electrons video here)
- This included a < 1 second QT cold Linux boot case study for an SH7724 with some additional information about 'function re-ordering' in user-space
- Similar slides with < 1 second case study for OMAP3530EVM can be found here
- "One Second Linux Boot Demonstration (new version)" (Youtube video by MontaVista)
- "Tools and Techniques for Reducing Bootup Time" (PPT | ODP | PDF | video)
- Tim Bird has presented at ELC Europe, on November 7, 2008, his latest collection of tips and tricks for reducing bootup time
- Tims Fastboot Tools has online materials in support of this presentation
- Christopher Hallinan has done a presentation at the MontaVista Vision conference 2008 on the topic of reducing boot time. Slides available here
- Optimizing Linker Load Times
- (introducing various kinds of bootuptime reduction, prelinking, etc.)
- Benchmarking boot latency on x86
- By Gilad Ben-Yossef, July 2008
- A tutorial on using TSC register and the kernel PRINTK_TIMES feature to measure x86 system boot time, including BIOS, bootloader, kernel and time to first user program.
- Fast Booting of Embedded Linux
- By HoJoon Park, Electrons and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI), Korea, Presented at the CELF 3rd Korean Technical Jamboree, July 2008
- Explains several different reduction techniques used for different phases of bootup time
- Tim Bird's (Sony) survey of boot-up time reduction techniques:
- Methods to Improve Boot-up Time in Linux - Paper prepared for 2004 Ottawa Linux Symposium
- https://elinux.org/images//8/83/Pdf.gif Reducing Startup Time in Embedded Linux Systems https://elinux.org/images/d/da/Info_circle.png - December 2003 Presentation describing some existing boot-up time reduction techniques and strategies.
- Parallelizing Linux Boot on CE Devices
- Parallelize Applications for Faster Linux Boot
- Authored by M. Tim Jones for IBM Developer Works
- This article shows you options to increase the speed with which Linux boots, including two options for parallelizing the initialization process. It also shows you how to visualize graphically the performance of the boot process.
- Android Boot Time Optimization
- Authored by Kan-Ru Chen, 0xlab
- This presentation covers Android boot time measurement and analysis, the proposed reduction approaches, hibernation-based technologies, and potential Android user-space optimizations.
- Texas Instruments Embedded Processors Wiki provides the procedure to optimize Linux/Android boot time:
- Implement Checkpointing for Android
- Authored by Kito Cheng and Jim Huang, 0xlab
- Reasons to Implement Checkpointing for Android
- Resume to stored state for faster Android boot time
- Better product field trial experience due to regular checkpointing
Case Studies
- 300 milliseconds from boot loader to shell on ARM with NAND
- Samsung proof-of-acceptability study for digital still camera: see Boot Up Time Reduction PPT and the paper describing this.
- Boot Linux from Processor Reset into user space in less than 1 Second
- In this white paper, Robin Getz describes the techniques used to fast-boot a blackfin development board.
- Booting Linux dm365 Network Camera in 3.2 seconds
- Boot of kernel and shell in 0.5 sec (not including u-boot and decompression)
Additional Projects/Mailing Lists/Resources
Replacements for SysV 'init'
The traditional method of starting a Linux system is to use /sbin/init, which processes the file /etc/inittab. This is an init program which processes a series of actions for different run-levels and system events (key-combinations and power events).
See the init(8) man page and the the inittab(5) man page.
busybox init
An 'init' applet is often included in BusyBox
There used to be (as of 2000) some slight differences in the supported features of the 'inittab' file between busybox init and full-blown init. However, I don't know (as of 2010) if that's still the case. (See http://spblinux.de/2.0/doc/init.html for some details)
Denys Vlasenko, one of the maintainers of busybox has suggested a replacement for traditional init for that tool called runsv. See http://busybox.net/~vda/init_vs_runsv.html
upstart is the name of a newer Linux desktop systems that provides the program /sbin/init, but with different operational semantics.
- Home page: http://upstart.ubuntu.com/
- Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upstart
Android init
Android 'init' is a custom program for booting the Android system.
See Android 'init'
systemd is a new project (as of May 2010) for starting daemons and services on a Linux desktop system
See http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html
- Kexec is a system which allows a system to be rebooted without going through BIOS. That is, a Linux kernel can directly boot into another Linux kernel, without going through firmware. See the white paper at: kexec.pdf
- 2004 Kernel Summit presentation: fastboot.pdf
- here's another Kexec white paper:Reboot Fast
Splash Screen projects
- Splashy - Technology to put up a splash screen early in the boot sequence. This is user-space code.
- This seems to be the most current splash screen technology, for major distributions. A framebuffer driver for the kernel is required.
- Gentoo Splashscreen - newer technology to put a splash screen early in the boot sequence
- See the HOWTO at: HOWTO FBSplash
- PSplash - PSplash is a userspace graphical boot splash screen for mainly embedded Linux devices supporting a 16bpp or 32bpp framebuffer.
- bootsplash.org - put up a splash screen early in boot sequence
- This project requires kernel patches
- This project is now abandoned, and work is being done on Splashy.
- FSMLabs Fastboot - press release by FSMLabs about fast booting of their product. Is any of this published?
- snapshot boot - a technology uses software resume to boot up the system quickly.
Apparently obsolete or abandoned material
- in progress - Boot-up Time Reduction Howto - this is a project to catalog existing boot-up time reduction techniques.
- Was originally intended to be the authoritative source for bootup time reduction information.
- No one maintains it any more (as of Aug, 2008)
- no content yet - Boot-up Time Delay Taxonomy - list of delays categorized by boot phase, type and magnitude
- Was to be a survey of common bootup delays found in embedded devices.
- Was never really written.
- Bootup Time Spec
- Bootup Time Things To Investigate
- Bootup Time Working Group
- Bootup Time Task List
- Bootup Time Howto Task List
- Fast Booting Translation
Companies, individuals or projects working on fast booting
- Intel - Arjan van de Ven - see http://lwn.net/Articles/299483/
- Tripeaks - see http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS8282586707.html
- Lineo Solutions - see http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS5185504436.html
- Monta Vista - see http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS2560585344.html
- fastboot git tree - see http://lwn.net/Articles/299591/
- MPC Data SwiftBoot services - http://www.swiftboot.com/
- Free Electrons - http://free-electrons.com/services/boot-time/
Boot time check list
From an August 2009 discussion about boot time on ARM devices, several hints and advice regarding boot time optimization are available. While it may repeat a lot of above, below is a check list extracted from this discussion:
- Is CPU's clock switched to maximum? If the kernel, bootloader or hardware is in charge of setting CPU power and speed scaling, then you should check that it boots with the CPU set at maximum speed instead of slowest.
- Is your hardware (register) timing configuration of your SoC's memory interfaces (e.g. RAM and NOR/NAND timing) optimized? A lot of vendors ship their hardware with "well, it works, optimize later" settings. What you want is "as fast as possible, but sill stable and reliable" configuration. This might need some hardware knowledge and has to be customized to the individual memory devices used.
- Does your boot loader uses I- and D-Cache? E.g. U-Boot doesn't enable D-Cache by default on ARM devices, as it needs customized MMU tables to do so.
- Does kernel copy from permanent storage (e.g. NOR or NAND) to RAM use optimized functions? E.g. DMA, or on ARM at least load/store multiple commands (ldm/stm)?
- If you use U-Boot's uImage, set "verify=no" in U-Boot to avoid checksum verification.
- Optimize size of your kernel.
- You might even try some of the embedded system kernel config options that, for example, eliminate all the printk strings, reduce data structures, or eliminate unneeded functionality.
- How often is kernel (image) data copied? First by boot loader from storage to RAM, then by kernel's uncompressor to it's final destination? Once more? If you use compressed kernel and NOR flash, consider running the uncompressor XIP in NOR flash.
- If you use compressed kernel, check compression algorithm. zlib is slow on decompression, and lzo is much faster. So if you implement lzo compression, you'll probably speed things up a little as well (check LKML for this). Having no compression at all may also be a good thing to try (see next topic).
- Check to use uncompressed kernel (depends on your system configuration). Using an uncompressed kernel on a flash-based system may improve boot time. The reason is that compressed kernels are faster only when the throughput to the persistent storage is lower than the decompression throughput, and on typical embedded systems with DMA the throughput to memory outperforms the CPU-based decompression. Of course it depends on a lot of stuff like performance of flash controller, kernel storage filesystem performance, DMA controller performance, cache architecture etc. So it's individual per-system. Example: With using an uncompressed kernel (~2.8MB) uncompressing (running the uncompressor XIP in NOR flash) took ~0.5s longer than copying 2.8MB from flash to RAM.
- Enable precalculated loops-per-jiffy
- Enable kernel quiet option
- If you use UBI: UBI is rather slow in attaching MTD devices. Everything is explained at MTD's UBI scalability and UBI fs scalability sections. There is not very much you can do to speed it up but implement UBI2. UBIFS would stay intact. There were discussions about this and it does not seem to be impossibly difficult to do UBI2 (few ideas).
- In a follow-up e-mail, Sascha Hauer wrote:
"What's interesting about this is that the kernel NAND driver is much slower
than the one in U-Boot. Looking at it it turned out that the kernel driver uses interrupts to wait for the controller to get ready. Switching this to polling nearly doubles the NAND performance. UBI mounts much faster now and this cuts off another few seconds from the boot process :) "
- Use static device nodes during boot, and later setup busybox mdev for hotplug.
- If you have network enabled, there might be some very long timeouts in the network code paths, which appear to be used whether you specify a static address or not. See the definitions of CONF_PRE_OPEN and CON_POST_OPEN in net/ipv4/ipconfig.c. Check ipdelay configuration patch.
- Parallelize boot process.
- Disable the option "Set system time from RTC on startup and resume", you can use the command hwclock -s at the of the init instead of slowing down the kernel.


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The picnic was hosted by David Ansel of The Soup Peddler, and the food was incredible. We're still talking about that smoked, stuffed chicken, and we're sure it was the best chicken we've ever had. And, those pea shoot and strawberry sandwiches were a fresh and delicious flavor combination. Kurt loved the fried pork ribs, and I couldn't stop eating the spicy potato salad. Then, there was dessert. We filled dessert plates three times and were still looking longingly at things we hadn't tried. Next time, we'll need to prepare for a day like this. Maybe a few days of fasting prior to future potlucks will help.
So, I brought along a box of these sugar cookies and a strawberry raspberry tart. The cookies are from my Mom's 1960 version of the Betty Crocker Cookbook which she received as a wedding gift. In the book, they are called Ethel's sugar cookies, and we have no idea who Ethel was. She made a fine sugar cookie though. Mom and I used to make these for Christmas or Easter, and I think we even made them for Thanksgiving one year. Mom used to show me how thick to roll out the dough and how to tap the cookie out of the cutter if it got suck. She has a thing about sugar cookies being baked until just done. If they brown on the bottoms or on any corners at all, they won't make the cut. I still watch the oven and timer like a hawk and stand ready to pull the sheet out at just the right moment. It takes a little patience to mix the dough, let it chill overnight, roll it out, cut out cookies, bake them, let them cool, and then decorate them. But, these cookies always make me happy. I just checked my Betty Crocker 40th Anniversary Cookbook, and the sugar cookie recipe in that version of the book is completely different, and I'm sure it's no good at all. Ethel's recipe is the best, and this is it:
2 1/2 c flour
1 t baking powder
1 t salt
3/4 c butter
1 c sugar
2 eggs
1/2 t vanilla
-sift flour, baking powder, and salt into a medium mixing bowl
-cream together butter and sugar, add eggs and vanilla and mix until light and fluffy
-add dry ingredients a little at a time and mix until combined
-wrap dough in plastic or place in an airtight container and refrigerate overnight
-pre-heat oven to 400 degrees F
-roll out dough to 1/8" thickness and cut cookies
-bake for 6 minutes for medium-sized cookies
Note: I always double this recipe and make a lot of cookies at once. A doubled recipe yielded about five dozen three and a half inch wide Texas cookies.
I was asked about the royal icing used on the cookies, and I always follow a recipe found in The Martha Stewart Cookbook.
1 c confectioners' sugar
1 egg white (I use meringue powder when serving the cookies to a crowd.)
3 or 4 drops of freshly squeezed lemon juice
-mix all ingredients in a small bowl until smooth and creamy. add more sugar if the consistency is not thick enough to hold its shape on a cookie.


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The Super Mario Brothers make their HD debut as traditional Mario side-scrolling gameplay get a massive visual boost, some great new features and the chance to bring your Mii into the fun for the very first time!
In New Super Luigi U take control of Mario's Brother Luigi as the 80+ stages from New Super Mario Bros U gets a re-shuffle and a revamp.
Mario and Luigi bounce onto Wii U in New Super Mario Bros. U!
The Super Mario Brothers make their HD debut as traditional Mario side-scrolling gameplay get a massive visual boost, some great new features and the chance to bring your Mii into the fun for the very first time!
Key Features of New Super Mario Bros. U on Wii U
Mario, Luigi and Toad are back in a brand new adventure – in a brand new land! Bowser has changed his usual plans of kidnapping Princess Peach, and instead invades her castle, using a giant mechanical arm to toss our heroes far, far away. It's up to them to make their way home through this strange land in order to save the Princess.
This new land features a large, seamless world map, the first time such a map has appeared in a side-scrolling Mario Title in over 20 years! This map houses all the interconnected courses and worlds, letting you play them in the order you choose and offering the chance to find the hidden exits and shortcuts that can change the layout of the map!
The worlds may be new, but there are plenty of features that will be familiar to long-time players of Super Mario Bros, each with new and exciting twists! Power-Ups make a return, with some older ones offering new abilities – mini-mushrooms now let you run up walls! – while all-new Power-Ups include the Flying Squirrel Suit, giving Mario limited flight as he floats through the air.
Baby Yoshis of varying colours also return, with each different colour offering a different treat! Blue Yoshi spits bubbles that can trap your enemies, Yellow Yoshi can help light-up dark area, and Purple Yoshi will expand like a balloon and let you take to the air!
There's a new creature on the prowl, too – the Nabbit! The Nabbit has stolen things from Toad and it's up to you to, well, Nab him when you see him! He'll appear randomly throughout the game, and if you do manage to Nab him you'll also earn a powerful P-Acom which will fly you continuously through the rest of the stage.
The Wii U Game Pad brings something new to multiplayer games. Boost Mode is fun for up to five players – four using Wii Remotes to leap around as normal, and the fifth using the Game Pad to assist them by killing enemies, and moving blocks and creating platforms to get through tricky areas or grab hard to reach items. You can also switch game play from the TV to the Game Pad at any time and continue playing even when others are watching the TV.
New Super Mario Bros. U also offers host of new game modes. Some are single player, some multiplayer, and each adds a fun and exciting new twist to the traditional Mario gameplay. First up is Challenge Mode, which dares you to fulfil specific objectives like completing a level without touching the ground, without collecting a single coin, or within a certain time. There are four single-player Challenges – Time Attack, coin Collection, 1-Up Rally and Special, which offers all kinds of other challenges.
There are also Boost Mode Challenges for two players, one using the Game Pad, the other a Wii remote, introducing co-operative speed runs for the first time in the series. The player using the Game Pad can manipulate enemies and objects in real-time to find the fast route through any level.
Boost Rush is another new feature where speed is of the essence. The level will scroll automatically, getting faster as you collect your coins and pushing you to complete it as quickly as possible. Coin Battle is a fun mode for up to five players (one on the Game Pad, the others using Wii Remotes) competing to collect the most coins. The Game Pad can be used like in Boost Mode to get harder to reach coins and even block the paths of other players. It can also be used to customise the coin layout in these courses.
During the multiplayer modes, you can play as your Mii for the first time in a side-scrolling Mario adventure, but that's not the end of your Mii's interaction with the game. Through the Miiverse you can connect with other players, see their comments and accomplishments and leave your own feedback for others.
New Super Luigi U
In New Super Luigi U take control of Mario's Brother Luigi as the 80+ stages from New Super Mario Bros U gets a re-shuffle and a revamp.
As in Super Mario Bros: The Lost Levels, Luigi keeps his higher jumping abilities and his looser traction as he runs for the flag post at the end of each stage. Also to add an extra element of speed each level begins with only 100 seconds on the clock.
In addition to the Luigi and the Yellow and Blue Toads, a fourth character will be available for Multiplayer, Nabbit. Already seen in New Super Mario Bros U, Nabbit was the thieving character that would steal power-ups when met on the world map. Nabbit is invincible to damage from enemies and world dangers such as lava, but you'll still need to look out for those long drops.


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Version 4 (modified by 10 years ago) (diff) | ,
InstaGENI Aggregate
Naval Post Graduate School
This InstaGENI aggregate supports the GENI Aggregate Provider Agreement (07/11/2014). Recording agreement date based on an email correspondence with site contact.
InstaGENI Aggregate Overview
Aggregate Manager URL | https://instageni.nps.edu:12369/protogeni/xmlrpc/am |
Aggregate Manager URN | urn:publicid:IDN+instageni.nps.edu+authority+cm |
Aggregate Manager Common Name | nps-ig |
Aggregate Resources | An InstaGENI aggregate includes 5 Hosts (3 VM Servers and 2 dedicated PCs) that can load experimenter specified OS images. Racks also support OpenFlow topologies, usually including extensions onto campus OpenFlow networks. Rack servers are HP ProLiant DL380p Gen8. |
Typical Experiments | InstaGENI provides a controllable, predictable, and repeatable network environment. Experimenters can get virtual machines or dedicated PCs on which they have full "root" access, run available operating systems of their choice, and connect nodes in an arbitrary topology that can support OpenFlow. |
Sample RSpecs | |
Aggregate Status | Operational monitoring not widely available, restricted access to monitoring at GMOC |
Slice Authorities Recognized | GENI Portal (https://portal.geni.net), ProtoGENI (http://www.emulab.net) |
Usage Policies | A GENI Recommended Use Policy is available. Site should also add links here to their own usage policies. |
Layer 2 Connectivity | Internet2 via CENIC's OF Regional Network |
Aggregate Management
Aggregate Operator | Michael Monahan (firstname.lastname@example.com), Naval Post Graduate School |
Resource Owner | Michael Monahan |
Technical POC | firstname.lastname@example.com |
Developer Links | Software pages: InstaGENI, FOAM, and FlowVisor; Project page: InstaGENI Racks Project; Developer mailing list: firstname.lastname@example.com |
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1 Year Warranty
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Asus Zenfone 10 8GB/256GB Dual Sim 5G Midnight Black AI2302 – Global Version
Oneplus 10 Pro 12GB/256GB 5G Dual Sim Black NE2213 – Global Version
Narre Warren East Mobile Solution – Your One-Stop Cell Phone Shop
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Computer Glitch Blamed For Nationwide EBT System Shutdown On Saturday
BOSTON (CBS/AP) - People in Ohio, Michigan and 15 other states found themselves unable to use their food stamp debit-style cards on Saturday, after a routine test of backup systems by vendor Xerox Corp. resulted in a system failure.
At about 9 a.m. Saturday, reports from across the country began pouring in that customers' EBT cards were not working in stores.
At 2 p.m., an EBT customer service representative told CBS Boston that the system was currently down for a computer system upgrade.
Xerox spokeswoman Jennifer Wasmer released further details later in the afternoon in an emailed statement.
"While the electronic benefits system is now up and running, beneficiaries in the 17 affected states continue to experience connectivity issues to access their benefits. Technical staff is addressing the issue and expect the system to be restored soon," Wasmer said. "Beneficiaries requiring access to their benefits can work with their local retailers who can activate an emergency voucher system where available. We appreciate our clients' patience while we work through this outage as quickly as possible."
Update: EBT Cards Back In Service Nationwide
Wasmer said the affected states also included Alabama, California, Georgia, Iowa, Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Maryland, Mississippi, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas and Virginia.
U.S. Department of Agriculture spokeswoman Courtney Rowe said the outage is not related to the government shutdown.
Shoppers left carts of groceries behind at a packed Market Basket grocery store in Biddeford, Maine, because they couldn't get their benefits, said fellow shopper Barbara Colman, of Saco, Maine. The manager put up a sign saying the EBT system was not in use. Colman, who receives the benefits, called an 800 telephone line for the program and it said the EBT system was down due to maintenance, she said.
"That's a problem. There are a lot of families who are not going to be able to feed children because the system is being maintenanced," Colman said. She planned to reach out to local officials. "You don't want children going hungry tonight because of stupidity," she said.
Colman said the store manager promised her that he would honor the day's store flyer discounts next week.
Ohio's cash and food assistance card payment systems went down at 11 a.m., said Benjamin Johnson, a spokesman for the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services. Ohio's cash system has been fixed, but he said that its electronic benefits transfer card system is still down. Johnson said Xerox is notifying retailers to revert to the manual system, meaning customers can spend up to $50 until the system is back online. Recipients of the state's supplemental nutrition assistance program, or SNAP, should call the 800 number on the back of their card, and Xerox will guide them through the purchase process.
Illinois residents began reporting problems with their cards — known as LINK in that state — on Saturday morning, said Januari Smith, spokeswoman for the Illinois Department of Human Services.
Smith said that typically when the cards aren't working retailers can call a backup phone number to find out how much money customers have available in their account. But that information also was unavailable because of the outage, so customers weren't able to use their cards.
"It really is a bad situation but they are working to get it fixed as soon as possible," Smith said. "We hope it will be back up later today."
In Clarksdale, Miss. — one of the poorest parts of one of the poorest states in the nation — cashier Eliza Shook said dozens of customers at Corner Grocery had to put back groceries when the cards failed Saturday because they couldn't afford to pay for the food. After several hours, she put a sign on the front door to tell people about the problem.
"It's been terrible," Shook said in a phone interview. "It's just been some angry folks. That's what a lot of folks depend on."
Mississippi Department of Human Services director Rickey Berry confirmed that Xerox, the state's EBT vendor, had computer problems. He said he had been told by midafternoon that the problems were being fixed.
"I know there are a lot of mad people," Berry said.
Sheree Powell, a spokeswoman for the Oklahoma Department of Human Services, started receiving calls around 11:30 a.m. about problems with the state's card systems. More than 600,000 Oklahomans receive SNAP benefits, and money is dispersed to the cards on the first, fifth and 10th days of every month, so the disruption came at what is typically a high-use time for the cards.
Oklahoma also runs a separate debit card system for other state benefits like unemployment payments. Those cards can be used at ATMs to withdraw cash. Powell said Xerox administers both the EBT and debit card systems, and they both were down initially.
Like Ohio's Johnson, Powell said that Oklahoma's cash debit card system has since been restored, but the EBT cards for the SNAP program were still down. Powell said Oklahoma's Xerox representative told them that the problems stemmed from a power failure at a data center, and power had been restored quickly.
"It just takes a while to reboot these systems," she said, adding that she did not know where the data center was located.
The federal EBT website was unavailable due to the government shutdown.
(TM and © Copyright 2013 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2013 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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text: Space | 04. January 2012 SpaceTweetup - a new format for spaceflight communication On 18 September 2011, German Aerospace Day, DLR and ESA staged the first European SpaceTweetup. A tweetup is an event in which users of the social media platform Twitter meet up. Together with ESA, we invited our Twitter followers to come and find out more about the European aerospace industry, meet scientists and astronauts and have a look at our research facilities and aircraft. My ESA colleague Andreas Schepers and I had jointly planned and organised the programme for this (update from 5.1.12) SpaceTweetup together, so, for me, alongside the success of the Raumzeit podcasts, this was one of the highlights of 2011 that I wanted to reflect on again today (even though we have already made a few comments on the SpaceTweetup in this blog). The idea of using a tweetup as a new genre of social media communication comes from NASA. Veronica McGregor held the first NASA Tweetup in January 2009. Since then, NASA has regularly staged tweetups, especially for mission launches. My boss Marco Trovatello agreed with our ESA colleagues (Fulvio Drigani, Erica Rolfe, Maria Bennett, Daniel Scuka, update from 5.1.12), to hold the first SpaceTweetup in Europe on our Open Day – the first tweetup ever for this type of event in Europe as far as we know. Marco Trovatello had already written about our interest in tweetups as a communications strategy in this blog (update from 5.1.12). Group photo of the 60 participants in the first European SpaceTweetup (Credit: Stefan Meiners) A view of the Tweetup marquee – participants are sitting at their tables – Alois Himmes is on stage (Credit: Stefan Meiners) Crowds at the DLR site during German Aerospace Day 2011 (Credit: DLR) The SpaceTweetup was part of the 2011 German Aerospace Day, which attracted 80,000 visitors from all over Germany. However, the tweetup itself was conceived as an international event to be conducted only in English. Two months before the big day, we sent invitations for the event to our Twitter followers. We were overwhelmed by the interest; 418 people from 29 countries registered for the 60 places available. Some were even prepared to travel from the USA and Canada. Ultimately we distributed the 60 places among participants from the following 13 countries: Belgium, Germany, France, Greece, Great Britain, Italy, Canada, Macedonia, the Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland, Spain and the USA. The group made a colourful mixture: one third were women; many were still students; some were what you might call official space geeks – and others we turned into geeks. On 'Zulu Stand', visitors to German Aerospace Day could view some unusual aircraft. In the foreground, an Airbus A380 faces an Airbus A340 from the Special Air Mission Wing of the Bundeswehr (German armed forces). At the rear and to the left is the Zero-G parabolic aircraft; to the right, the SOFIA airborne observatory SOFIA. (Credit: DLR) SpaceTweetup participants toured the Airbus A380: "Awesome!" (Credit: Stefan Meiners) On 18 September 2011, we gave the participants exclusive access to our research facilities and provided them with a VIP programme of talks, tours and face-to-face contact with researchers and astronauts. Even before the doors had actually opened, we took the participants to the Zulu Stand, on which DLR research aircraft and a number of other special aircraft were parked on German Aerospace Day. The SpaceTweeps were able to take an exclusive look at the Airbus A380 and the SOFIA airborne observatory. SOFIA had been brought to Europe for the first time on the occasion of German Aerospace Day. On this unusual transfer flight, I accompanied a number of journalists who were able to follow the work of the scientists. The SOFIA project leader at DLR, Alois Himmes, gave a presentation on SOFIA and answered questions asked by the tweetup participants. Alexander Soucek delivering his inspiring lecture on Earth observation (Credit: Simon Bierwald) Above: The European Space Agency astronauts Samantha Cristoferetti and Alexander Gerst (Credit: Simona Forti). Below, right: SpaceTweetup presenter Andreas Schepers (Credit: Simon Bierwald) The main event of the SpaceTweetup took place in a marquee. The recipe for a tweetup marquee for 60 participants is: 10 round tables, a large number of power strips, a password-protected WLAN with very large bandwidth, a small stage with a screen and sound equipment, a moderator (my ESA colleague Andreas Schepers did a magnificent job), a catering service and 60 motivated SpaceTweeps. Besides SOFIA, the programme covered subjects such as the International Space Station (ISS), the Rosetta comet mission and Earth observation. We made sure that there was enough time for questions during the presentations by researchers and project managers. As we are trying to nurture open, transparent communications, we were pleased that there were also apparently critical questions from some participants, regarding, for example, delays in projects. The highlight of the SpaceTweetup was probably the repeated visits by astronauts to the Tweetup marquee. In total we had 11 European and American astronauts on site; both the crews of ISS Expedition 26/27 and STS-134, as well as other ESA astronauts, joined in. The SpaceTweeps' euphoria reached a peak during the group photo with all 60 participants and the SpaceTweetup organisers, when a large number of the astronauts unexpectedly came to the marquee and spontaneously joined in with the group photo. Euphoric mood during the group photo as more and more astronauts entered the SpaceTweetup marquee and spontaneously joined the participants (Video: Arvid Bux) Astronauts up close (Credit: ESA) However, my personal favourite moment of the SpaceTweetup came shortly after this. The astronauts had just 30 minutes or so for the SpaceTweetup on their 'post mission tour'. While preparing for this, I had the idea of abandoning the standard question-and-answer session between the stage and the audience in this part of the programme, since a maximum of one participant and one astronaut could take part at a time. Instead, we used a format that was better suited to the eye-to-eye communication of social media. We spread the astronauts around the tables so that the SpaceTweeps could talk to the astronauts in person, with a ratio of about 1:6. The atmosphere in the marquee at the time was quite special. Above: autograph for the youngest SpaceTweetup guest. Below, right: Beth Beck and Stephanie Schierholz discuss social media communication at NASA. (Credit: ESA) Special thanks go to Beth Beck and Stephanie Schierholz. The two NASA social media managers made a special trip to Europe for the SpaceTweetup to help us out and report on their experiences with social media in spaceflight communication. The conclusion of the SpaceTweetup consisted of excursions to DLR's human centrifuge and ESA's European Astronaut Centre. I found the participants' self-organisation noteworthy. Once we had set up a SpaceTweetup Wiki prior to the event, some participants were immediately struck with the idea of meeting up beforehand to visit an observatory together. Many of the SpaceTweeps who had travelled a long way took part in this. The 60 participants even organised a gift for the organisers – a poster that they all signed – for which we once again offer our thanks! The SpaceTweetup is documented in numerous photos, for example on @Unkreativnet, @SimSullen, @DanielScuka and in the Flickr SpaceTweetup Pool. There are also many many (Blog) reports in German: ZDF Hyperland, Rhein-Zeitung, by Andreas Schepers, @Unkreativnet, Daniel Fischer and Karl Urban, and in English by @akanel auf Space Tweetup Society, @mfrissen, Beth Beck, @unkreativnet, @olidax im OEWF-Blog, Camilla SDO and Marco Trovatello. There's also a 4 hour video available on the ESA blog. Live streaming the SpaceTweetup programme (Credit: Simon Bierwald) 'Space Barbies' at the SpaceTweetup (Credit: Simon Bierwald) The DLR / ESA SpaceTweetup team (Credit: Simon Bierwald) We consider the first European SpaceTweetup to have been a complete success. The tweetup is a great new format for science communication; an enormous reach can be achieved through the multiplying effect of the followers. Marco Trovatello will be blogging a few details about this shortly. Our experience leads us to believe that we would do almost everything in exactly the same way next time. However, at the start of the event we would include a round of introductions for all the participants and collaborators. We would also cut out one or two subjects to make more room for interaction between the participants. In addition, an even higher proportion of participants would prefer that there was not so much focus on the subject of spaceflight. Therefore, in the next round of invitations we hope to meet an even wider circle of interested parties – because a next SpaceTweetup is a certainty! The lesson I personally learnt was to always have Gaffer tape handy. Furthermore, I would ask all interested parties for feedback following my appeal for ideas and suggestions on new formats of online / social media communication for science and spaceflight, since this is something we are very interested in. "Awesome!" - Group photo with astronauts (Credit: ESA) Image sources: Simon Bierwald, Stefan Meiners, Simona Forti, DLR, ESA.