text:
If you ask Carlos Valenzuela of West New York how many years he and his wife, Olga, have been married, he will not tell you a number.
"There are no numbers in our marriage," he said with a smile, "because we can't remember."
Still, it's hard to imagine there's a husband and wife who have found more strength in their significant other than the Valenzuelas, who have been married for 78 years.
That's right, 78 years. Carlos, affectionately known as "Carlito," married Olga, or "Olgita" in 1936, the year Hitler reoccupied the Rhineland. The year the Hoover Dam was built. The year Jesse Owens won the 100-meter dash in Berlin.
Carlos was born in 1904. Teddy Roosevelt was the President of the United States. Eleven years later, in 1915, when Olga was born, Alexander Graham Bell had just made the first long-distance phone call from New York City to San Francisco and Babe Ruth had just hit his first career home run.
Carlos, 107, is most likely the oldest man in the state of New Jersey, a title he will strengthen his claim to this September when he celebrates his 108th birthday.
"Dancing, always dancing. That and eating the right things. Seafood and rice with duck." – Carlos Valenzuela, 107, on the secret to living a happy and healthy life.
An Associated Press story than ran on Thursday said the longest married couple in the U.S. lives in Fairfield, Conn., and has been together more than 80 years. But they are not the oldest; they are only 101 and 97.
Birthday coming up
Speaking about his upcoming birthday, Carlos didn't seem to be focused on his age.
"I will celebrate happily with my family," he said through a translator.
Originally from Peru, Carlos and Olga came to the United States about 20 years ago to be closer to their children. They have seven, most of whom live in America. The oldest, who is 76, still lives in Peru.
"Coming to America was an experiment for a new life for them," said Valenzuela's son-in-law, Oscar Roa. "We wanted to complete the family by having them live here."
Roa said he believed the couple's longevity has everything to do with their love for their family.
"There are benefits to having the family altogether," he said.
Near-perfect health
Dr. Jorge Figueroa, the Valenzuelas' personal physician, said that aside from the natural effects of aging, Carlos and Olga are in near perfect health.
"They are essentially defeating age," said Figueroa, who has been seeing them for around 15 years. They used to visit his office on 60th Street, until it became too much of a trek, so Figueroa started making house calls.
During one such call Wednesday morning, Carlos greeted Figueroa with the energy of a much younger man, and conversed with doctor rapidly in Spanish, a smile wide across his face the whole time.
"For his age, the energy he has is amazing," said Figueroa. "It makes me wonder sometimes if he is unique in some way that I cannot see."
During the visit, Figueroa's nurses took blood samples from both Carlos and Olga, a standard procedure, said the doctor.
"Their bloodwork is wonderful, every time," he said.
Figueroa said there is really no medical explanation for why the Valenzuelas have lived so long, but that it could be related to any number of things.
"It could be diet. I know Carlos loves to eat seafood," he said.
Jeanne Calment, a Frenchwoman who lived to be 122, longer than anyone in recorded history, credited her longevity to diet as well. She cited olive oil, port wine and nearly two pounds of chocolate a week. Clearly, conventional wisdom can be wrong sometimes.
"In all seriousness," the doctor said of the couple's longevity, "I think it is happiness. I'm often overwhelmed by Carlos' happiness."
Figueroa said that sometimes even he cannot believe it when he looks at their test results.
"It makes me wonder about how human beings are all the same, but at the same time can be so different," he said. "I think there are questions about why some people live so long that, quite simply, no one has answers to."
Figueroa refused to take credit for the Valenzuelas' health, and said his care for them is very basic.
"I do what any physician would do, basic physical check-ups and things like that," he said. "That said, I am very honored to be their physician."
Living life to the fullest
The Valenzuelas were just waking up when Dr. Figueroa visited on Wednesday, but they aren't bedridden by any stretch. Like any senior citizens, they move a little slower than the rest of us, but the playful spirit is still there.
Asked how it feels to have lived so long, Carlos thought for several seconds before answering.
"Suficientemente bueno para bailar," he said. "It feels good enough to dance."
Dancing, he said, is the secret to staying healthy.
"Dancing, always dancing," he said. "That and eating the right things. Seafood and rice with duck."
But the secrets to staying healthy are not necessarily the same as staying happy.
"You have to live your days to the fullest," he said. "Face life with intensity."
Dean DeChiaro may be reached at firstname.lastname@example.com


text:
Quickly find the information that matters to you most by selecting your favorite sports to appear in your personal menu bar.
Follow your favorite teams and not only will they appear in your menu bar, but they will follow YOU across the site!
Once you've sworn allegiance to your favorite teams, watch how our scoreboards make sure your games are front and center!
By following the sports you care about, in myESPN you'll have instant access to news and analysis that's most important to you.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
5mm Hyperflex AXS Split Toe Wetsuit Boots
The AXS boot brings a refreshing simplicity and efficiency to the surf boot. By keeping seams minimal and having a low-profile design, Hyperflex was able to improve durability and keep costs down. Those key benefits are passed on to you while still being an excellent cold water boot. If you want maximum functionality, comfort and flex, the AXS boot simply does it all without breaking the bank. Features sealed seams, textured soles for grip, and durable nylon laminates.
90 day Warranty


text:
Call Us! +91 98888 87234 | Mail Us! [email protected]
Some kids can't wait to get braces. Others are a little worried about what it will be like or how they will look. It can help to learn more about braces, which straighten your teeth and make your smile even better looking.
Lots of kids don't have perfect teeth, so don't worry if yours aren't straight. Take a look at most of your classmates. Many of them probably don't have straight teeth either. Sometimes teeth just don't grow in evenly.
Your teeth might be crooked, or your upper and lower jaws might not be the same size. If your upper jaw is bigger than your lower jaw, that's called an overbite. If your lower jaw is bigger than your upper jaw, you have an underbite.
Either way it's called malocclusion (say: mal-uh-kloo-zhun), a word that comes from Latin and means "bad bite." Malocclusion is just a word that dentists use to describe the shape of your mouth.
Your dentist might notice one of these problems during a regular visit and recommend that you see an orthodontist (say: or-thoh-dahn-tist). This person, who also might be called a braces specialist, can determine whether you need braces.
If your parents had braces, you may have seen pictures of them with their mouths full of metal. Today, braces are much less noticeable. Metal braces are still used, but you might be able to get clear braces or braces that are the same color as your teeth. There are even braces that go behind your teeth where no one can see them.
The wires that are used in braces today are also smaller and better than they used to be, and they're made of a space-age material that straightens your teeth faster and easier. The rubber bands that go along with braces come in funky colors now, too. So you could have black and orange ones for Halloween!
Braces straighten teeth by putting steady pressure on your teeth and by staying in place for a certain amount of time. Most kids just need regular braces with wires and rubber bands doing their jobs to keep pressure on the teeth. The wires on your braces help to move your teeth, and the rubber bands help to correct the alignment (say: uh-lyne-munt), which is the way your teeth line up.
If your teeth need a little extra help, you may have to wear head- or neckgear with wires attached to your teeth. If you do have to wear headgear, don't panic! You probably will only have to wear it while you sleep or when you're at home in the evening.
Everyone has to wear braces for different lengths of time, but most people usually wear braces for about 2 years. You'll want to take special care of your teeth after the braces come off. You may need to wear a retainer, which is a small, hard piece of plastic with metal wires or a thin piece of plastic shaped like a mouthguard. Retainers make sure your teeth don't go wandering back to their original places. Your retainer will be specially molded to fit your newly straightened teeth.
After you get your retainer, your orthodontist will tell you when you have to wear it and how long — you might have to wear your retainer all day and all night for 2 years; you might have to wear it at night for 6 months; or you might have to wear it every other night for many years. It just depends on your teeth.
Braces act like magnets for food, so you need to keep your teeth especially clean while you have them on. You'll want to brush after meals and be extra careful to get out any food that gets stuck in your braces.
Your orthodontist also may give you a special flosser you can use to floss in and around your braces. When your orthodontist changes your wires, ask if you can do a quick floss (it'll be easier without the wires).
You won't have to go on any special diet when you have braces, but you'll want to avoid some foods that are problems for braces. Stay away from popcorn, hard and sticky candy, and especially gum. Sugary sodas and juices can cause a problem, too, because the sugar stays on your teeth and may cause tooth decay. You can have these drinks, but be sure to brush afterward.
Because braces put pressure on your teeth, you might feel uncomfortable once in a while, especially after the orthodontist makes adjustments. If you have pain, ask your mom or dad to give you a pain reliever.
If you ever have a loose wire or bracket, or a wire that is poking you, you should see the orthodontist right away to get it taken care of. If your orthodontist can't find a problem, he or she may give you some soft wax that you can stick on the bracket that's bothering you. Then it won't rub against your mouth.
So braces can be inconvenient, but lots of kids have them and they are definitely worth the trouble. When will you know for sure? On the day your braces are removed and you can see your new and improved smile!


text:
Syrian rebels capture air base, Palestinian training camp
At least 8 children dead after regime's warplanes bombard village outside Damascus
BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian rebels captured a helicopter base just outside Damascus Sunday in what an activist called a "blow to the morale of the regime" near President Bashar Assad's seat of power, while the bombardment of a village near the capital killed at least eight children.
Activists said the children were killed when Syrian warplanes bombed the village of Deir al-Asafir just outside the Damascus. The village is close to suburbs of the capital that has been witnessing clashes, shelling and air raids between troops and rebels over the past months.
The Britain-based Syrian observatory for Human Rights said the bombardment of the village killed eight children. Another activist group, the Revolution Command Council said 10 children were killed when warplanes struck the village as they played outdoors.
An amateur video showed two girls lying dead in a street while the bodies of two bloodied dead boys were in the back seat of a car parked nearby. Several other wounded children were seen rushed for treatment.
Another video showed the bodies of two dead boys inside what appeared to be a makeshift hospital as others received treatment from injuries while lying on the floor.
The activist videos appeared genuine and corresponded to other AP reporting about the events depicted. Syria restricts the access of reporters.
Syria's conflict erupted in March 2011 with an uprising against Assad's regime, inspired by other Arab Spring revolts. It quickly morphed into a civil war that has since killed more than 40,000 people, according to activists. Hundreds of children have been killed since the crisis began, according to activists.
The air base takeover claim showed how rebels are advancing in the area of the capital, though they are badly outgunned, making inroads where Assad's power was once unchallenged. Rebels have also been able to fire mortar rounds into Damascus recently.
The director of the Observatory, Rami Abdul-Rahman, said rebels seized control of the Marj al-Sultan base on the outskirts of Damascus on Sunday morning. He said at least 15 rebels and eight soldiers were killed in the fighting that started a day earlier. The rebels later withdrew from the base.
Rebels appear to be trying to take over air bases and destroy aircraft in order to prevent the regime from using them in attacks against opposition forces around the country.
The rebels have no protection against the attack helicopters and fighter jets that have been blasting their positions.
Rebels have been attacking air bases in different parts of Syria, mostly in the northern regions of Idlib and Aleppo.
In the battle at the base outside Damascus, Abdul-Rahman and Damascus-based activist Maath al-Shami said rebels destroyed two helicopters with rocket propelled grenades and captured a tank. They say the base, which is on the eastern outskirts of Damascus, houses several radar positions.
"This is a blow to the morale of the regime, because it is close to the heart of the capital," said Abdul-Rahman, referring to the base that is about 15 kilometers (10 miles) from Damascus.
Al-Shami said the rebels withdrew from the base after they captured some ammunition. He said they feared counterstrikes by regime aircraft.
An amateur video posted online showed rebels walking next to two destroyed helicopters. At least three other helicopters appeared undamaged. Black smoke billowed in the distance.
Another video showed several radar posts on hills inside the large compound. Parked military trucks stood inside as rebels roamed freely.
The Observatory also reported violence in other parts of Syria, including the country's largest city of Aleppo in the north and the capital itself.
It said rebels on Sunday captured a training base for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command near the Damascus suburb of Douma. The PFLP-GC is one of the Palestinian factions most loyal to Assad.
The PFLP-GC said in a statement late Saturday that the base was under attack. It said that thousands of activists and fighters who fought against Israel were trained at the base over the past 30 years.
Also Sunday, the Observatory said a bomb targeted a bus in the southern village of Othman, killing at least five people and wounding dozens. It said rebels and troops clashed in the southern region of Quneitra on the edge of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
The Local Coordination Committees, another activist group, said residents found 12 bodies in the Damascus suburb of Daraya, scene of heavy clashes between rebels and government troops over the past few days.
State TV said troops clashed with al-Qaeda militants in Daraya, killing some of them and confiscating a mortar that they were using in their attacks.
The station said that troops killed an al-Qaeda affiliated Palestinian militant known as Abu Suhaib in the Damascus suburb of Hajira. It said his group was behind several bombings in Syria that killed and wounded dozens of people.
Assad's regime blames the revolt on a foreign conspiracy. It accuses Saudi Arabia and Qatar, along with the United States, other Western countries and Turkey, of funding, training and arming the rebels, whom it calls terrorists.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.


text:
When Richard Lugar, the mayor of Indianapolis, first ran for the Senate, against Democratic incumbent Birch Bayh in 1974, a big part of his problem was that he was a partisan Republican.
In fairness, there was nothing wrong with being a partisan Republican in good GOP years ... in, say, 1972, when President Richard Nixon was on his way to a landslide re-election and Lugar was the keynote speaker at the GOP national convention.
But it became a problem in 1974, a decidedly anti-Republican year, in the midst of the Watergate election cycle. And being known as "Richard Nixon's favorite mayor" didn't help either. He lost by 75,000 votes.
Fast forward 38 years to 2012. If Lugar's problem in his first race was that he was too Republican, one of the problems in what is shaping up as his last race is that he may not be Republican enough. Or, at least that's how his opponent in Tuesday's primary, two-term state Treasurer Richard Mourdock, and Tea Party conservatives see it. According to them, he's "Barack Obama's favorite Republican."
Lugar came to the Senate in 1977 and has been re-elected five times. He has served as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and is widely respected for his work on behalf of preventing the spread of nuclear weapons. In the 1980s he fought behind the scenes against the Marcos dictatorship in the Philippines and apartheid in South Africa. He's conservative, though lately not nearly as much; his "scorecard" by the American Conservative Union, regularly in the 80 or 90 percent range, has fallen into the 60's the past half dozen years or so. He has never shied away from working with Democrats, and counted Obama and Joe Biden as his friends when they all served together in the Senate.
But he remained highly popular at home; he hasn't fallen below 67 percent of the vote since 1982, and six years ago, Democrats didn't even put up a candidate against him. And until now, he's never faced a primary challenge for his seat.
Another way of looking at it is that he hasn't had to fight for his seat in years.
But the Republican Party is in a period of change, especially so since Obama's ascension to the presidency. Sure, the GOP made historic gains in the House in 2010, ousting dozens of Democratic incumbents. But some establishment Republicans, deemed too moderate, paid the price as well; think Robert Bennett in Utah and Mike Castle in Delaware. And the right's number one target for 2012 was Lugar. Outside groups have spent more than $2 million to defeat him.
But to blame Lugar's expected demise in Tuesday's primary solely on the Tea Party, or on Mourdock's appeal, misses the point. Much of Lugar's problems were self-inflicted.
First, he's 80 years old. There's not much he can do about that, but it's a fact of life. Also, he's been in the Senate for 36 years — longer than any Hoosier in history — and to some, it's long enough. Lugar didn't help his cause when it was revealed that he no longer has a residence in Indiana, that when he would come back to the state he would stay in an Indianapolis hotel (and for a long time would bill taxpayers for his stays; he's since reimbursed the government for that). There was even some question about whether he could even vote for himself; he finally registered at a farm his family owns.
And faced with serious opposition, Lugar just didn't seem to know how to deal with it. Unlike Arizona's John McCain in 2010 and Utah's Orrin Hatch this year — who preempted conservative opposition by moving further to the right — Lugar initially dismissed conservative complaints as little more than an irritant. Even by the time he realized he was in trouble, he never made the case for a seventh term. Instead, he decided to run negative ads against Mourdock — a tactic seemingly way out of character for the mild-mannered Lugar. Both approaches failed.
One indication the party establishment seems to realize the depth of Lugar's troubles is that there have been fewer and fewer outward public criticisms of Mourdock. After all, the GOP is going to need to unite behind the primary winner if they are to hold the seat in November against Rep. Joe Donnelly, one of the more conservative Democrats in the House. And that primary winner is looking more and more like Mourdock.
Dick Lugar will be remembered as one of the most respected and revered senators of the past half-century. But, unless something dramatic changes in the next 24-48 hours, that seems likely to come to an end on Tuesday.
Wisconsin Democrats to decide. As everyone knows, Gov. Scott Walker (R) faces a recall election on June 5, retribution from Democrats and labor unions angered by his efforts to limit collective bargaining for public workers.
But first, Democrats are going to have to come up with an opponent in the May 8 primary. While four candidates are running, there are just two to keep your eyes on: Tom Barrett, the mayor of Milwaukee (and a former House member) who lost to Walker in the 2010 election, and Kathleen Falk, the former Dane County (Madison) Executive, who is being backed by the very unions that shepherded the recall against Walker.
(The other Democrats: Secretary of State Doug La Follette and state Sen. Kathleen Vinehout.)
For the longest time, Democrats feared that a Barrett-Falk slugfest would siphon off money that should be going to the effort to defeat Walker. But the battle has been somewhat civil. And not particularly close. Barrett has been endorsed by a virtual who's who in state politics and has a sizable lead in every poll. But his policies as mayor, where he has cut city employees' health and pension benefits, has angered labor, and they see Falk as a far more reliable ally. But she has run statewide twice before, both unsuccessfully. In 2002 she lost the Democratic gubernatorial primary to Jim Doyle. And in 2006, a great Democratic year, she defeated the incumbent attorney general in the primary but narrowly lost the general election to a Republican.
Walker has raised an astounding $13 million to stave off the recall. But organized labor, stung by the governor's policies, will not suffer for money as June 5 approaches. They've already shown how much they want Walker gone in their efforts to help obtain more than 900,000 signatures for the recall.
Republicans love Walker. Democrats despise him. As intense as the feelings are now, it's only going to escalate in the next four weeks.
Political Updates. I post periodic political updates during the week on Twitter. You can follow me at @kenrudin.
Top 5 Running Mates. Last week I offered a subjective list of the top five running mates of the last half-century. Nobody seems to disagree with my top pick, Lyndon Johnson in 1960, but there were other opinions as well. Harry Kennedy of Ann Arbor, Mich., insists that Sarah Palin (R-2008) was an "excellent choice" because "she fired up Republicans who would otherwise have sat out John McCain" because of "his failure to offer a genuine alternative" to Barack Obama.
Whitney Court, a political scientist at the University of Kansas, agrees. In her dissertation, she argues, "McCain actually got more conservatives to come out and vote because of Palin. He lost by less than he would have without Palin." And what about that disastrous interview with Katie Couric? "Although she ran into trouble in news interviews about her knowledge of foreign policy," Court says, "social conservatives liked that she stayed true to her convictions and walked the walk."
Gary Dolan of London, England wishes Republicans in 1996 would have rejected both Jack Kemp, who was Bob Dole's running mate, and Dole as well. "Not only could neither stand the other, but both were ridiculously past their primes."
Mark Greenbaum of Washington, D.C., he of the victorious team that won the "political pursuit" contest (also in last week's column), had this:
"Cheney was definitely a nice pick, but to me it smacked of over-confidence and showed they thought they were going to win and Cheney was just there for governance. But LBJ is definitely first: he covered age, experience, geography, and even plain optics. In terms of the worst pick, Lieberman might be number one. He was just uninspiring, which was a problem when Al Snore is your candidate."
Michael Friedman of NYC also sent in his misgivings about Joe Lieberman as the Democrats' 2000 VP pick: "All Gore had to do was pick [Fla. Sen.] Bob Graham as his running mate and he would have won Florida and thus the election."
And a correction. In listing Walter Mondale (D-1976) at #3, I wrote that Jimmy Carter "got someone who came to the table with ten years' experience in the Senate." David Kuhn of Bethesda, Md., reminds us (well, me) that Mondale had been in the Senate 12 years, not ten, having been appointed in 1964 to replace Vice President-elect Hubert Humphrey, and then elected to the job in '66.
Red it and weep. Two weeks ago (see April 23 Junkie) we entertained Rep. Allen West's (R-Fla.) suggestion, literal or otherwise, that there were some 78 to 81 Communists in the current Congress, which led to the discussion about whether there had ever been a member of Congress who was a (former or otherwise) card-carrying Communist. That prompted this note from Michael Kelly of Flint, Mich., who advised, "don't forget Vito Marcantonio of N.Y.":
"Marcantonio was first elected to Congress as a Republican in 1934, back when the GOP had lots of very liberal members (especially in NYC, such as Fiorello LaGuardia). Marcantonio was part of LaGuardia's leftwing Republican movement in the 30's and 40's.
Marcantonio lost his GOP congressional seat after 1 term then switched to the American Labor Party and won a House seat in 1938 as an ALP candidate and held it for 6 terms. He was defeated by a anti-Communist Democrat after voting against the Korean War.
There are plenty who believed Marcantonio to be a Communist and he certainly participated in Communist-front groups. Of course, as an old George Romney Republican myself, I would be considered a near-Commie by today's GOP."
I actually thought of Marcantonio when writing the column. But while he was long accused of Communist sympathies, I have never seen anything to suggest he was anything more than, well, a leftwinger.
Actually, during his four successful campaigns from 1938 thru 1944, in addition to the ALP nomination, he was also the nominee of the Republican Party — which says something about the GOP back then. (He had also obtained the Democratic nomination in 1942 and 1944.) In 1946, en route to another re-election victory, he lost the GOP primary but narrowly won the Democratic nomination. Two years later, he won again but only with the ALP ballot position, defeating a Democrat and a Republican.
I don't know which specific Korean War vote you are referring to, but after years of controversy, it was clear that both of New York's major parties wanted Marcantonio gone. James Donovan, a Democratic former state senator also running on the GOP line, won a landslide victory over Marcantonio in 1950.
And speaking of Marcantonio and the American Labor Party — which backed Henry Wallace's third-party presidential bid in 1948 — Bob Zecker of Fair Lawn, N.J. (and currently residing in Meadow Green, Nova Scotia) notes that the ALP "allowed ex-Socialists and ex-Communists (Jews, Italians, others) in NYC to pull the lever for something other than a capitalist party, and Marcantonio courted and received votes from many card-carrying 'you-know-whos.'"
OK, so where else but in Political Junkie can you read about Vito Marcantonio to your heart's content?
Here she comes. Last week's column (see April 30 Junkie) also discussed former Miss Americas. A question from a reader asked whether any of them ran for office or were married to politicians. I said I could only think of Bess Myerson (Miss America 1945), who sought the Democratic nomination for the Senate from New York in 1980, and Phyllis George (M.A. 1971), who later married John Y. Brown Jr., elected governor of Kentucky in 1979.
Two Texans, Tom Phillips of Austin and Ed Palmer of Garland, remembered Donna Axum, Miss America 1964, whose second marriage was to Gus Mutscher, later the Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives from 1963 until his conviction in the Sharpstown bank stock fraud scandal. Mutscher's conviction was later overturned but so was his marriage; he and Donna were divorced after his acquittal.
And I confess, apropos of absolutely nothing, I can't get over this incredible video involving a random question to Miss Teen South Carolina. It probably has no business appearing in this column, but I have no choice. It's one of the more amazing things you'll ever see on YouTube.
Political Junkie segment on Talk of the Nation. Each Wednesday at 2 p.m. ET, the Political Junkie segment appears on Talk of the Nation (NPR's call-in program), hosted by Neal Conan with me adding color commentary, where you can, sometimes, hear interesting conversation, useless trivia questions, and sparkling jokes. Last week focused on the Gingrich withdrawal, the perils of Dick Lugar, and the upcoming Wisconsin recall primary. With guest host Jennifer Ludden, we also looked at two more VP hopefuls, Paul Ryan and Chris Christie, with Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel's Craig Gilbert and Newark Star Ledger's Paul Mulshine.
Podcast. There's also a new episode of our weekly podcast, "It's All Politics," up every Thursday. It's hosted by my partner-in-crime, Ron Elving, and me.
And Don't Forget ScuttleButton. ScuttleButton, America's favorite waste-of-time button puzzle, can be found in this spot every Monday. A randomly-selected winner will be announced every Wednesday during the Political Junkie segment on NPR's Talk of the Nation. You still have time to submit your answer to last week's contest, which you can see here. Not only is there incredible joy in deciphering the answer, but the winner gets a TOTN t-shirt!
Previous winner: David Lam of Las Vegas, Nev.
About that cocktail from Idaho. Last week's column revealed the special ingredients of that drink Michael the bartender from the Modern Hotel & Bar in Boise concocted, dubbed "The Political Junkie." Lots of notes of appreciation for the recipe, but Sandy Moran of Santa Rosa, Calif., wants to know if the column's name should be changed to the "Political Drunkie."
May 8 — Primaries in Indiana, North Carolina and West Virginia. GOP Senate primary to watch: incumbent Dick Lugar vs. challenger Richard Mourdock in Indiana. Also: Wisconsin Democratic gov. recall primary.
May 15 — Primaries in Idaho, Nebraska and Oregon.
May 18 — Filing deadline in Washington State. Just in case lame duck Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) is thinking about it.
May 22 — Primaries in Arkansas and Kentucky.
May 29 — Texas primary.
June 5 --Wisconsin gov. recall election. Also: primaries in California, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico and South Dakota.
June 12 — Special election in Arizona's 8th CD to succeed Gabrielle Giffords (D), who resigned. Also: congressional primaries in Nevada, North Dakota, South Carolina and Virginia.
June 26 — Congressional primaries in Colorado, New York, Oklahoma and Utah.
Mailing list. To receive a weekly email alert about the new column and ScuttleButton puzzle, contact me at email@example.com.
******* Don't Forget: If you are sending in a question to be used in this column, please include your city and state. *********
This day in political history: Rep. Stewart McKinney, a moderate Connecticut Republican often at odds with the Reagan Administration over the budget and the plight of the homeless, dies at age 56. He had AIDS, the first member of Congress to succumb to that disease (May 7, 1987).
First elected in 1970 to succeed Senate candidate Lowell Weicker (R), McKinney spent much of his career working across the aisle, often to the consternation of conservatives. But it never hurt him at the ballot box. He also had a history of health problems, suffering two heart attacks while in his 40s and undergoing coronary bypass surgery in 1979. He will be succeeded in an August special election by state Rep. Chris Shays (R).
Got a question? Ask Ken Rudin: email@example.com
Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.


text:
Inboard Boat Motor Repair Manuals
About Inboard
For inboard boat motors we carry Seloc tune-up and repair manuals written for OMC, Mercruiser and Yanmar. The manuals' cover repair and service on all major engine components, including fuel system diagnosis, cooling systems, regular maintenance, electrical and charging systems, transmissions, overhauls, steering and much more. While the inboard manufacturer list is short, the models covered within each manual are not, providing a wide range of Mercrusiers, Yanmar and OMC model coverage. At iboats we ship your repair manual fast so you can have confidence in doing the repairs yourself and saving money. If you have a question about model or component coverage, give us a call, one of our knowledgeable customer service agents will be glad to assist you.


text:
Grief support groups, condolence advice, funeral etiquette and more
Search Forum
View Discussions Replied ToDiscussions Started
dianna replied Jul 19, 2010 to My mother died 6/22/10 and I'm hurting
dianna replied Sep 22, 2009 to feeling lost with no dad........
Welcome toLegacyConnect
Sign Upor Sign In
Please be respectful of others. For more information, read our Community Guidelines.
© 2024 Created by Legacy.com. Powered by
Badges | Report an Issue | Terms of Service
Please check your browser settings or contact your system administrator.


text:
DragonFly Projects
This page shall serve as a common place to look if you're in search of a DragonFly related project. It's also the place to check if someone else is already working on it (to prevent project collision) or should be contacted.
Projects that can be clearly used for Google Code-In are marked with their category, where applicable. Some unmarked items may be eligible; it depends on how the student wants to tackle the project.
- Documentation projects
- Userland projects
- Kernel projects
- One-liners
- Code to port/sync from FreeBSD
- Code to port/sync from OpenBSD
- CPU scheduler
- Implement boot cache
- Improve kernel boot speed
- Modify firmware framework
- Work relating to LWKT (LightWeightKernelThreading)
- Filesystem extended attributes
- Capabilities
- Hardware virtualization extensions
- Remove zalloc
- Convert kprintf-enabling sysctl's to KTR's
- Tear out C/H/S disk reporting
- Change vm_map lookup algorithm
- Trampoline Code Page instead of direct syscalls
- Compressed in-memory swap device
- mmap MAP_ALIGN
- vnode dumps
- vnode swap
- Kernel allocator feature enhancements
- Tear out serializers
- Tear out condvars
- Partially rewrite buffer cache
- Sync wireless infrastructure / drivers from FreeBSD
- Add informational hardware-related sysctl's
Documentation projects
Write manpages
- sysref (GCI:Documentation or Research)
Userland projects
- Bring in smbfs changes from FreeBSD (GCI:Code)
- rpc.lockd and rpc.statd sync with FreeBSD (GCI:Code)
- Add extended slice support to
- C99 Standards Conformance. The todo list is on StandardsConformanceProject (GCI:Code)
- Add lwp support to ptrace/gdb/core dumps.
- UTF8 support in the console
Scalability (algorithmic performance) (GCI:Research)
Clean our code to make it style(9) compatible. (GCI:Code)
- Compile and test your changes.
- Verify that the checksum (sha(1)) of the unmodified object matches the checksum of the cleaned object. Check also with strip(1)+sha(1)
Port BSD-licensed tools (ex: diff
and sort
) (GCI:Code)
- The OpenBSD guys already did some work related to that.
- If you manage to bring the tools to DragonFly, check if everything works as expected (e.g. rc.d scripts, make world runs, ...).
- ptrace/gdb follow-fork-mode support and more (peek at linux)
- Change the build to create one libbfd for gdb and binutils
- Separate RPC code from NFS into separate library.
I/O diagnostic utilities
- A utility similar to top which displays I/O usage on a per-process basis
- Network, Disk
SMART capabilities
- Add to camcontrol
- Add to natacontrol (see NetBSD's atactl?)
Disk scheduling rc scripts (GCI:Code)
- Create a rc script to manage the disk/io scheduling system
- Perhaps 1 entry to "enable" it, and all disks will have mode set to "auto", in auto mode smart inquiries and other heuristics could attempt to determine the best i/o scheduler
- Per-device and device class or similar defaults should be definable in rc.conf also
- The bulk of this functionality could be implemented in a resurrected "dschedctl" utility and exposed through the rc interface using just a thin wrapper, allowing hotplug scripts and etc. an easier option to use the same facilities.
- HAMMER has the capability to expose very rich information to userland through ioctl's.
- Currently the hammer(8) utility makes use of this information in an ad-hoc manner.
- Port this core functionality into a public libhammer library so that other base and third party utilities may take advantage of it.
- See commit: cb7575e6a89409a2041a37fcfc22ce9e41297ab8 -- libHAMMER already exists, port functionality into it!
Live images enhancement
The live images could be made easier to use by not assuming a QWERTY keyboard layout.
Not beeing able to choose a localized keyboard layout before having to type 'installer' or 'root' may be a deal breaker for some users. A simple menu replacing login(1) and displaying the following three choices could be a good solution:
- Set keyboard layout
- Launch the installer
- Login as root
Kernel projects
- Port the BSDL OSS code to DragonFly
- Complete Path MTU Discovery by adding a host route to remember the Path MTU and setting a timer to expire old host routes. See netinet/if_ether.c for an example of this mechanism as used by ARP. Periodically increase MTU of hosts that have had its MTU decreased.
- Port or update drivers from other systems.
- Port Linux emulation to x86-64
Code to port/sync from FreeBSD
- PCI code (to take advantage of power saving features)
- Bring in support for UFS2, just the changes to extend the width of some fields from 32 bits to 64 bits. (GCI:Code)
- hardware drivers.
- ext2fs
Code to port/sync from OpenBSD
- Add support for the NoExecute bit as described in http://www.openbsd.org/papers/auug04/index.html.
- After that, make user stacks and data heaps non-executable. (W^X)
- hardware drivers, specially wireless.
CPU scheduler
- A scheduler API supporting multiple scheduler implementations already exists
- Add a Solaris-like dispatcher framework that can handle more than one installed scheduling policy
Implement boot cache
- Effectively a smart readahead.
- Store the pattern of incoming read requests of the boot disk.
Improve kernel boot speed
- Research source of delays in boot process, keyboard init, scsi?
- Better thread some hardware init, for example USB?
- Perhaps look to see how Linux can boot in one second, better pci scan code?
- "Some kernel work made it possible to do asynchronous initialization of some subsystems. For example, the modified kernel starts the Advanced Host Controller Interface (AHCI) initialization, to handle storage, at the same time as the Universal Host Controller Interface (UHCI), in order to handle USB" - http://lwn.net/Articles/299483/
Modify firmware framework
- We currently use the firmware(9) FreeBSD also uses
- It would be more appropriate to avoid future problems with redistribution problems, etc, to adapt the wifi firmware stuff to use the firmware(9) we used to have before, which was able to load firmware files from userland (/etc/firmware).
- See "firmware discussion" thread on kernel@ mailing list, March-May 2010.
- Since it's not desired to just add another way of doing it, this project should include getting rid of loading firmwares as modules
Work relating to LWKT (LightWeightKernelThreading)
- Implement lazy IPI cross-processor lwkt message passing.
- Add timeout functionality to lwkt_waitmsg().
Filesystem extended attributes
- Generic VFS attributes layer
- Emulate attributes ala Darwin
- Allow filesystems to define their own attribute vop ops
- QUESTIONS: Attributes or subfiles? The consensus is that subfiles are better?
- Implement something resembling or inspired by POSIX.1e
- This implementation could possibly exist in userland and interlock with the kernel via a VFS Journal or HAMMER mirroring ioctl's.
- These should be capable of supporting NFSv4 capabilities.
- References: 1
Hardware virtualization extensions
- Increase performance of virtual kernels
- Make use of hardware virtualization extensions, if supported, to manage vmspaces
- Implement a KVM-compatible virtualization device to support qemu
- Hardware IOMMU support is not a priority and if implemented must be strictly optional.
Remove zalloc
- zalloc is a deprecated kernel interface and all current consumers can be ported to objcache, with varying levels of difficulty.
- zlib, pv entries
- Once all consumers are ported, zalloc can be removed.
Convert kprintf-enabling sysctl's to KTR's
- Many sysctl's simply enable one or more kernel kprintf's
- This can be very easy, or can be very unwieldy
- Convert all of these cases to ktr's, while slightly less easy they are far easier to wield in all cases.
Tear out C/H/S disk reporting
- Cylinders/Heads/Sectors are an outdated concept and the system doesn't rely on them anymore.
- Verify the assumption that we don't rely on them in any way, shape or form.
- Tear the reporting out of the kernel/installer/etc.
Change vm_map lookup algorithm
- The vm_map lookups currently use a Red-Black tree, since 2005.
- It has been decided that using an array'ized bucket'ized hash table is probably a better approach.
- References: 1 2
Trampoline Code Page instead of direct syscalls
- Map a read/execute trampoline page into every process, which has a syscall table, i.e. is used instead of "int" to enter the kernel. This way we can easily change the kernel enter method from "int" to e.g. "sysenter" without having to recompile userland applications, or even implement some syscalls in userspace.
Compressed in-memory swap device
- A device that uses physical memory as swap space, but compresses it.
- Do we support stacking of swap space? For example, one would have this compressed in-memory swap device with highest priority. Replaced objects will be put into the next priority swap device (e.g. a SSD), and so on.
mmap MAP_ALIGN
- Solaris's mmap support a flag, MAP_ALIGN, where the address to mmap acts as an alignment hint
- Our backing VM calls support an alignment parameter, but our public mmap does not
- This would allow nmalloc to allocate slabs (64k, 64k-aligned) without wastage
vnode dumps
- It may be beneficial to be able to have crash dumps written to an ordinary file in configurations where swap is not configured.
vnode swap
- Add a vnode-backed swap pager that respects a file size limit, to allow paging to a "swap file" on a filesystem.
Kernel allocator feature enhancements
- Enhance objcache in a manner that will allow the initialization to specify allocation functions which will allocate and free entire slabs of memory, not just single objects.
- Rework the kmalloc allocator to sit on top of objcache (there are various dependencies to making this work).
- Create or sort out a metric for vnode/other cache object cycling rate that can indicate realistic memory pressure.
- Clear out free objcache slabs under memory pressure.
- Add reclaim functionality to objcache, such that it may ask consumers to free objects back into it under memory pressure.
Tear out serializers
- Serializers could be carefully replaced with MTX locks?
Tear out condvars
- Conditional vars -- condvar(9), could be replaced with other locking primitives and our tsleep/wakeup interlock.
Partially rewrite buffer cache
- Buffer cache buffers map VM pages from the filesystems VM-backed vnodes, the "buffer space" is the maximum amount of virtual space to allocate to these buffers.
- When the buffer_map KVA space gets fragmented it caused very expensive defrag operations, the buffer_map KVA was recently increased to double the actual buffer space to allow full space utilization in the face of fragmentation and reduce the frequency of defrag operations.
- Rewrite the buffer cache to have separate spaces or separate buffer pools for different sizes (16, 32, 64, 128, 256... up to max).
- The vm_map API is used to allocate kvm out of the buffer_map. If the buffer's KVAs are preallocated then things can basically just be setup linearly at boot time.
Sync wireless infrastructure / drivers from FreeBSD
- Rui Paulo ported the wireless infrastructure and ath drivers to DragonFly from FreeBSD in recent history. A lot has changed in the intervening time, the infrastructure should be synchronized/updated to match the state-of-the-art in FreeBSD. At a minimum the drivers that currently work in DragonFly should be tested to ensure functionality and updates as well or improved.
Add informational hardware-related sysctl's
- MacOS X exports a bunch of cpu-specific sysctl's detailing sizes, layout, features, etc. Most/all of this could be detected by a userspace program, but exporting these makes the barrier of entry to cpu-conditional code lower.
- Research which of these sysctl's is the most useful and add them, using the same node names as OSX.
- hw.vectorunit = 1
- hw.busfrequency = 100000000
- hw.cpufrequency = 3062000000
- hw.cachelinesize = 64
- hw.l1icachesize = 32768
- hw.l1dcachesize = 32768
- hw.l2settings = 1
- hw.l2cachesize = 262144
- hw.l3settings = 1
- hw.l3cachesize = 6291456
- hw.tbfrequency = 1000000000
- hw.activecpu: 2
- hw.physicalcpu: 2
- hw.physicalcpu_max: 2
- hw.logicalcpu: 2
- hw.logicalcpu_max: 2
- hw.cputype: 7
- hw.cpusubtype: 4
- hw.cpu64bit_capable: 1
- hw.cpufamily: 1418770316
- hw.cacheconfig: 2 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
- hw.cachesize: 2147483648 32768 262144 6291456 0 0 0 0 0 0
- hw.busfrequency: 100000000
- hw.busfrequency_min: 100000000
- hw.busfrequency_max: 100000000
- hw.cpufrequency: 3062000000
- hw.cpufrequency_min: 3062000000
- hw.cpufrequency_max: 3062000000
- hw.cachelinesize: 64
- hw.l1icachesize: 32768
- hw.l1dcachesize: 32768
- hw.l2cachesize: 262144
- hw.l3cachesize: 6291456
- hw.tbfrequency: 1000000000
- hw.packages: 2
- hw.optional.floatingpoint: 1
- hw.optional.mmx: 1
- hw.optional.sse: 1
- hw.optional.sse2: 1
- hw.optional.sse3: 1
- hw.optional.supplementalsse3: 1
- hw.optional.sse4_1: 1
- hw.optional.sse4_2: 1
- hw.optional.x86_64: 1
- hw.optional.aes: 1
- hw.optional.avx1_0: 1
- hw.optional.rdrand: 0
- hw.optional.f16c: 0
- hw.optional.enfstrg: 0
- machdep.cpu.max_basic: 13
- machdep.cpu.max_ext: 2147483656
- machdep.cpu.vendor: GenuineIntel
- machdep.cpu.brand_string: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-3470 CPU @ 3.20GHz
- machdep.cpu.family: 6
- machdep.cpu.model: 42
- machdep.cpu.extmodel: 2
- machdep.cpu.extfamily: 0
- machdep.cpu.stepping: 7
- machdep.cpu.feature_bits: 262929407 2660770315
- machdep.cpu.extfeature_bits: 672139520 1
- machdep.cpu.signature: 132775
- machdep.cpu.brand: 0
- machdep.cpu.features: FPU VME DE PSE TSC MSR PAE MCE CX8 APIC SEP MTRR PGE MCA CMOV PAT PSE36 CLFSH DS MMX FXSR SSE SSE2 SS SSE3 PCLMULQDQ MON SSSE3 CX16 SSE4.1 SSE4.2 POPCNT AES VMM XSAVE OSXSAVE AVX1.0
- machdep.cpu.extfeatures: SYSCALL XD EM64T LAHF RDTSCP TSCI
- machdep.cpu.cores_per_package: 1
- machdep.cpu.microcode_version: 16
- machdep.cpu.processor_flag: 0
- machdep.cpu.mwait.linesize_min: 4096
- machdep.cpu.mwait.linesize_max: 4096
- machdep.cpu.mwait.extensions: 3
- machdep.cpu.mwait.sub_Cstates: 4384
- machdep.cpu.xsave.extended_state: 7 832 832 0
- machdep.cpu.arch_perf.version: 1
- machdep.cpu.arch_perf.number: 8
- machdep.cpu.arch_perf.width: 48
- machdep.cpu.arch_perf.events_number: 7
- machdep.cpu.arch_perf.events: 127
- machdep.cpu.arch_perf.fixed_number: 0
- machdep.cpu.arch_perf.fixed_width: 0
- machdep.cpu.cache.linesize: 64
- machdep.cpu.cache.L2_associativity: 8
- machdep.cpu.cache.size: 256
- machdep.cpu.tlb.inst.small: 128
- machdep.cpu.tlb.data.small: 64
- machdep.cpu.tlb.data.large: 32
- machdep.cpu.tlb.shared: 512
- machdep.cpu.address_bits.physical: 40
- machdep.cpu.address_bits.virtual: 48
- machdep.cpu.core_count: 1
- machdep.cpu.thread_count: 1
For more theoretical projects and project concepts see ResearchProjects


text:
Clueless Special |
On this page you will find a unique type of puzzle. The sudoku you need to solve is made up of all center boxes of these sudokus, in the formation you see in this picture. As a reminder, they are highlighted with a light blue color. As you can see, this Sudoku is completely clueless. To get aquainted with this format, check the Clueless Guide, which has a few solving tips and an easy starter puzzle. If you have trouble handling this puzzle format, you can download the Clueless Helper, a program that can open these puzzles directly from this website. To check your results, go to the list of submissions. This is Clueless Special number 962, dated 2024-03-03, rated 41 and requires N2,H2,SK.
000065130000004060800000000300000002002000058000000000070050000001000907900043000 Show me the printer-friendly version of this page.
Submit Answer
Was the answer correct? Were you the first? Check the list of submissions From last week's Clueless Special archive
© 2005-2021, Ruud ~ Sitemap ~ Contact ~ Privacy policy ~ | Views: 472152 |


text:
Microsoft is changing its corporate logo for the first time in 25 years. As the Metro-ification of the company continues, Microsoft has revealed a new logo that reflects its new approach to visual design.
For the first time in its history, Microsoft has a graphical symbol as part of its logo. Four colored squares sit to the left of the company name written in its Segoe typeface. Segoe is the font family of choice for Metro applications.
The new logo is extremely simple. The old logo had some nuance, with the way the 's' takes a notch out of the 'o'. This is now gone, though the ligature of the 'f' and 't' is retained.
This is Microsoft's fifth corporate logo. Its very earliest logo, used between 1975 and 1979, was a product of its time, a disco logo for the disco generation. Back then, the company called itself "Micro-Soft," a feature reflected in the split name.
In 1980 the company sold consumer-oriented products with a short-lived logo that was just a spurious umlaut away from being a heavy metal band.
In 1982, Redmond rolled out a new logo, all upper case with a weird patterned 'o' that came to be known as the 'blibbet'.
To the chagrin of many blibbet fans, that logo too was replaced. In 1987, the company switched to its longest-lived logo, the one it used until today. This was a much simpler, less ornate logo than any of the predecessors. It was the first to use mixed case type, with only the notched Pac-Man-like 'o' offering anything unusual.
The design of the newest logo, or specifically its symbol part, is more than a little surprising. Earlier in the year, Microsoft revealed a new Windows logo. Office 2013 also has a new logo. Both of these logos share some design cues, in particular, the use of a perspective effect on their symbols.
This perspective effect is a little odd in the context of the Metro transition, because it implies a kind of fake depth—precisely the kind of fakery that Metro eschews.
The new symbol, however, is flat; a square of squares. While this makes it a better match for Metro aesthetics, it also means that it has no visual connection or association with the other new symbols. The Office and Windows symbols are clearly related; the Microsoft one is not.
Also strange is the use of color. The colors and their positioning are more than a little reminiscent of the old Windows symbol. It's as if Microsoft has taken the old Windows branding and decided to use it as part of the new corporate branding.
To those familiar with the company's old branding, the new logo looks strangely mismatched: the symbol says "Windows" but the logotype says "Microsoft."
The company says that the squares of color are "intended to express the company's diverse portfolio of products." A more cynical view might be that they're intended to reestablish the immediate name recognition that was lost when the new monochrome Windows logo was revealed.
The new logo is already being used on the microsoft.com site and three of the company's stores. It will be rolled out more widely over the coming months.


text:
GREENETHORPE Rockinghorse Restorations
Libby Bailey has been a FEI Dressage Rider and past member of the NSW State Advance Dressage Squad. Libby had shown thoroughbred horses for many years through out the Riverina always ensuring they would step out into the arenas with excellent presentation when competing. She now restores [keyword] with the same level of attention to detail and finish as those she competed with in the show rings and dressage arenas. Libby services the GREENETHORPE area. Please contact Libby now below.
Contact us TODAY
Telephone (02) 6955 2235
Mobile 0427607737
Postal Address: Murrami NSW 2705


text:
Thursday, May 9, 2013
Does Christ "look down" upon us from heaven?
31 comments:
Why do we insist that heaven cannot be a place in the universe? Is it because we fear that this would conflict with the physical sciences, or is there a real theological / philosophical reason?
I often suspected that the recent Popes insistence that heaven was not a physical place in the universe was only to "modernize" the faith for a skeptical unbelieving materialistic scientific age, and was therefore perhaps misguided. This is a serious question. I hope you will answer. Thank you. - May 9, 2013 at 3:43 AM
- Father Ryan Erlenbush said...
Please have the decency to use at least a pseudonym. I have requested this many times, including right under the words "post a comment" and just above the comment box.
To answer your question ... no serious thinker and certainly no catholic theologian has ever thought that heaven was a place in the universe. God is not contained within the confines of our universe. Further, the glorified body of Jesus must not remain in our not yet glorified universe.
Please read the articles I linked to in this post.
You will see that this point is very ancient, and is expressly affirmed also by St. Thomas. Nothing modernist about it. - May 9, 2013 at 9:54 AM
- Marko Ivančičević said...
Father Ryan, i will pray that you become a saint and a doctor of Church.
Excellent article as always. - May 9, 2013 at 10:55 AM
Dear Father, please comment on the following quotation: "We must not, as some do, picture to ourselves heaven as a purely spiritual realm. For heaven is a definite place, where not only God is, and the angels now are, but where Christ is also in His sacred humanity, and Our Lady with her human body. There, too, all the blessed will dwell with their glorified bodies after the Last Judgment. If heaven is a definite locality, it must accordingly be a visible, not a spiritual kingdom; for a place must in its nature be to some extent conformable to those who abide in it." P. 179 of Fr. Martin Von Cochem's "The Four Last Things" from TAN pub.
- May 9, 2013 at 11:44 AM
- Father Ryan Erlenbush said...
It looks mostly accurate to me ... I would pretty much hold it all ... except insofar as I do not believe that we should speak to strongly about angels being in a "place", however they certainly are properly said to be localized when they act on the matter in a particular place ... but the only matter in heaven right now are the bodies of Jesus and of Mary.
@Marko, Thank you for the prayers! Blessings to you! + - May 9, 2013 at 4:48 PM
I am surprised that you can agree with Fr. van Cochem. I would have thought you would have rejected his statements based on your article above.
- May 9, 2013 at 6:34 PM
- Father Ryan Erlenbush said...
Well, I guess I don't see the conflict.
Heaven is a place, but it is not a place in our universe ... therefore, it is simply necessary to conclude that this place has no local relation to earth -- because local relation can be had only by two places contained within the one universe. - May 9, 2013 at 6:43 PM
But what the contemporary popes seem to be insisting is that heaven is not a place (at all).
This is very disturbing to me personally. The implications are theologically horrifying in terms of the resurrection, the eucharist, the final advent, the incarnation, etc. Heaven, in some sense, MUST be a place (of some kind). - May 10, 2013 at 3:45 AM
- Mick Jagger Gathers No Mosque said...
Dear Father. And He bears with Him always the wounds of His Passion and so do the martyrs; they will have, as it were, bright markings where their flesh and bones were mortally wounded.
Knowing that, what man would not desire the death of a martyr knowing that such a reward would be borne by them throughout eternity? - May 10, 2013 at 5:40 AM
A very thought provoking article. Just one question. Since Jesus is God,wouldn't his glorified eyes be able to see without constraints of time and space?
Happy Easter! - May 10, 2013 at 8:41 AM
- Chatto said...
Father, great to 'have you back', as it were!
A priest I'm friends with seems to insist that, since heaven isn't "up there", that Christ wasn't physically 'lifted up' from the earth at His Ascension. Rather, the language of being lifted up is the way the Apostles described the indescribable. Something about the insistence on this interpretation bothers me - what do you think? - May 10, 2013 at 8:42 AM
Thank you for the beautiful article - one question came to me, though. Where are Elijah, Enoch, and possibly Moses' bodies? I am new to Catholic teaching.
- May 10, 2013 at 10:25 AM
The glorified body of Jesus is present in our universe, in each and every consecrated host, as well as in Heaven.
Andy - May 10, 2013 at 11:11 AM
All very interesting, and thank you Fr. for all your work.
Jesus ascended into the clouds and disappeared from sight. If your interpretation is correct, His choosing to enter the Heavens in this manner seems a trifle misleading. He could have, for instance, simply vanished in the sight of all, after announcing that He was now going to Heaven, if Heaven bears no relation to any locality in the universe.
I am also curious as to how the experience of angelic and divine presences by human beings can be reconciled with the Heaven-is-no-location idea. Assuming that these presences are intuited through some sensory means on our part [and please correct me if I am mistaken in that assumption] [and I think animals too may have some ability in this regard at least at certain times], one would be led to believe, based on the inference that what we sense, has some kind of physical existence, that when these presences go to Heaven, they go to a place that corresponds to some kind of physical location.
Must we believe, as a matter of faith, that angelic beings are entirely other than matter?
Yan - May 10, 2013 at 12:48 PM
- deepoctave said...
Were the saints whose bodies were raised at the death of Jesus, and who appeared in Jerusalem after his resurrection, raised in a manner like Lazarus or in a glorified body? (Mt. 27:52)
- May 11, 2013 at 2:48 AM
- Father Ryan Erlenbush said...
The body of Christ is present in the host according to his sacramental species (a real, true and substantial presence), but you do no help to the Catholic faith if you act as though this in some way means that he has not ascended to heaven and is no longer physically present among us in his proper and natural species. - May 11, 2013 at 8:59 AM
- Father Ryan Erlenbush said...
I think that the words of that priest could be a bit misleading ... Jesus really was "lifted up" in their sight. It says so in the Bible.
However, he is correct insofar as this being "taken up" is more a sign for his departure than a directional indicator of his current location.
Peace and good! + - May 11, 2013 at 9:01 AM
"It says so in the bible". Because everything in the bible is scientifically and historically correct? Taken up sounds much better than he imploded to be reassembled in another dimension.
Jonathon - May 11, 2013 at 12:49 PM
- Father Ryan Erlenbush said...
Luke is relating history in that passage ... the context makes it clear that he is stating these things as historical facts (not mere metaphors or parables).
Of course not everything is historically accurate, excepting those things which are relates as being historical -- because the Bible is without error.
As to you "reassembled in another dimension" comment ... perhaps you should read more of the Church Fathers, and watch a little less star trek. - May 11, 2013 at 3:43 PM
- Howard said...
What about Enoch and Elijah? I suspect that they, too, are in a place outside our physical universe, but not the same place where Jesus and Mary are.
- May 12, 2013 at 3:37 PM
Hi, I would love to have seen an answer regarding the bodily presence of Elijah and Enoch who are in heaven. Elijah and Moses are mentioned in the transfiguration of Jesus in Mark and Matthew's gospel, so I would like to think that Moses is there too!
The Son of God that I know personally and love, loved me before the foundation of the world, (Ephesians 1 v 4), not after the incarnation, as you appear to have stated!
Sent with warm Christian love,
Robert Glass. - May 12, 2013 at 4:09 PM
Elijah and Enoch are waiting in Paradise(of Adam & Eve)which exists above the Earth and out of human sight.
- May 13, 2013 at 9:40 PM
Look Father, Heaven must be a physical place, and you will not face it. It is an error to deny that heaven is a physical place. You have not responded to me above. I hope you are hunched over scholastic theology manuals trying to figure it out and have not move on to something else.
- May 21, 2013 at 3:07 PM
- Father Ryan Erlenbush said...
You are being ridiculous, and looking for a fight.
I have already said that heaven is a place, insofar as there are two bodies present there.
But, if you think that the angels or the divine essence take up space, then you are quite wrong.
What, besides the bodies of Jesus and Mary, in heaven is physical? What other corporeal realities are there? None.
This is the teaching of St. Thomas and the classical Thomists ... it is explained very well by Garrigou-Lagrange, certainly the great tradionalist theologian of the pre-Vatican II era.
- May 22, 2013 at 2:13 PM
Please cite Garrigou-Langrange on this. Look at Von Cochem's book from TAN, according to which there are many other physical things in heaven.
I am not looking for a fight, I am looking for information, education, but you don't seem to be able to provide it. - June 11, 2013 at 11:53 AM
- Father Ryan Erlenbush said...
I wish you would take the time to read the other articles which are cited and linked through this article ... you would find the answer there...
"The words of Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange (who taught Bl. John Paul II and oversaw his doctoral work) are most helpful: "Heaven means this place, and especially this condition, of supreme beatitude. Had God created no bodies, but only pure spirits, heaven would not need to be a place; it would signify merely the state of the angels who rejoice in the possession of God. But in fact heaven is also a place. There we find the humanity of Jesus, the Blessed Virgin Mary, the angels, and the souls of the saints. Though we cannot say with certitude where this place is to be found, or what its relation is to the whole universe, revelation does not allow us to doubt of its existence." (From Life Everlasting)"
And, From St Thomas: "In ST III, q.57, a.4, ad 2 (which is not in the oldest and best manuscripts) we read: "A place implies the notion of containing; hence the first container has the formality of first place, and such is the first heaven. Therefore, bodies need themselves to be in a place, insofar as they are contained by a heavenly body. But glorified bodies, Christ's especially, do not stand in need of being so contained, because they draw nothing from the heavenly bodies, but from God through the soul. So there is nothing to prevent Christ's body from being beyond the containing radius of the heavenly bodies, and not in a containing place. Nor is there need for a vacuum to exist outside heaven, since there is no place there, nor is there any potentiality susceptive of a body, but the potentiality of reaching thither lies in Christ.""
Note the words: "THERE IS NO PLACE THERE" from the Summa, and Garrigou-Lagrange specifies that the only physical realities in heaven are the bodies of Jesus and Mary ... pure spirits do not take up space, and so heaven need not be material for their sake -- but the only spacial reality in heaven are the two glorified bodies... - June 11, 2013 at 12:03 PM
WRONG! That is not what either of the quotations above say. Garrigou-Lagrange clearly says that revelation DOES NOT ALLOW US TO DOUBT the existence of the place of heaven. Please read what you've cited a few times. It does not say what you say that it says, not at all. As for the possibly spurious citation from Saint Thomas, it is rather unclear what precisely is being said, and the "there is no place there" is not clearly a denial that heaven is in fact a place.
- June 16, 2013 at 3:33 PM
- Father Ryan Erlenbush said...
Your point isn't made any more reasonable by putting it in CAPITAL LETTERS!!!
Are you suggesting that there is material in heaven (such as land, space, etc) such that there are bodies in heaven other than those of Jesus and Mary?
(you do realize that a "body" means a piece of matter, and not just a human corpus, yes?) - June 16, 2013 at 8:34 PM
Fr. Martin Von Cochem's "The Four Last Things" from TAN pub. was published in 1899 and has a nihil obstat and imprimatur. Fr. Von Cochem clearly indicates in the section on heaven that there are real trees, fruit, flowers, buildings in heaven. He also clearly says that heaven is a visible place. "If heaven is a definite locality, it must accordingly be a visible, not a spiritual kingdom; for a place must in its nature be to some extent conformable to those who abide in it." You may be to advance and enlightened to accept such a claim, but certainly it is no error or heresy to teach this. I suppose you also deny that in hell there is a material fire?
- June 17, 2013 at 11:42 AM
- Father Ryan Erlenbush said...
you are a buffoon, i have defended the existence of material fire in both hell and in purgatory on this blog ...
I don't think I'm in disagreement with Von Cochem ... I think you are misreading... - June 17, 2013 at 5:34 PM
- Father Ryan Erlenbush said...
Do you notice the pathetic irony of citing a nihil obstat when you began this debate by disagreeing with the recent Papal magisterium, stating that the recent papal teaching is "deeply troubling"?
As I say, you miss-read Von Cochem, AND you miss-read the Popes.
Good day! - June 17, 2013 at 5:43 PM
Post a Comment
When commenting, please leave a name or pseudonym at the end of your comment so as to facilitate communication and responses.
Comments must be approved by the moderator before being published.


text:
Order History & Tracking
Please use the forms below to look up your order status and tracking information. Please note: Online tracking is only available for orders made on our website. Orders made via telephone are not updated on our website. It may take up to 24 hours for your tracking information to update on our site. If you are unable to locate your tracking information more than 24 hours after making your online purchase, please contact us.
Don't Have an Account? Lookup Your Order Here:


text:
Hyun-Jin Ryu (5-2, 3.30) vs Joe Blanton (1-7, 6.19).
In the concluding game of this two-game series (which continues tomorrow in Anaheim for two more games; WTF, MLB schedulers?!), the Dodgers look for a series sweep of sorts. Fresh off their biggest come-from-behind victory this season (five runs), the Dodgers face the Angels' version of Josh Beckett: Joe Blanton, who just lucked into his first win of the season last outing, against Kansas City.
Can the Dodgers beat Bizarro Beckett? Possibly, if Adrian Gonzalez (9-for-11 in his last three games, with 7 RBI, 6 R and 2 HR) can bat third, fourth, and fifth in the lineup. Other than that, even with Dee Gordon down in the minors, it may be another error-filled (for us), high-scoring (for them, and maybe even us) evening.
This GT is late, by the way, courtesy of gogo inflight, which is slower than fucking molasses in January. My apologies; blogging from the plane. Sorry about that (and I do hope the SoSG accounting crew reimburses this expense...).


text:
kmote asks: I am newly employed as the sole "SW Engineer" in a fairly small shop of scientists who have spent the last 10-20 years cobbling together a vast code base. (It was written in a virtually obsolete language: G2—think Pascal with graphics). The program itself is a physical model of a complex chemical processing plant; the team that wrote it has incredibly deep domain knowledge but little or no formal training in programming fundamentals. They've recently learned some hard lessons about the consequences of nonexistent configuration management. Their maintenance efforts are also greatly hampered by the vast accumulation of undocumented "sludge" in the code itself. I will spare you the "politics" of the situation (there's always politics!), but suffice it to say, there is not a consensus of opinion about what is needed for the path ahead.
They have asked me to begin presenting to the team some of the principles of modern software development. They want me to introduce some of the industry-standard practices and strategies regarding coding conventions, lifecycle management, high-level design patterns, and source control. Frankly, it's a fairly daunting task and I'm not sure where to begin.
Initially, I'm inclined to tutor them in some of the central concepts of The Pragmatic Programmer, or Fowler's Refactoring ("Code Smells", etc). I also hope to introduce a number of Agile methodologies. But ultimately, to be effective, I think I'm going to need to hone in on 5-7 core fundamentals; in other words, what are the most important principles or practices that they can realistically start implementing that will give them the most "bang for the buck."
So that's my question: What would you include in your list of the most effective strategies to help straighten out the spaghetti (and prevent it in the future)? Related: When is code "legacy"?
Answer: The (very) long answer (237 Votes)
haylem replies:
This is a daunting task indeed, and there's a lot of ground to cover. So I'm humbly suggesting this as somewhat comprehensive guide for your team, with pointers to appropriate tools and educational material. Remember: These are guidelines, and as such are meant to be adopted, adapted, or dropped based on circumstances. Beware: Dumping all this on a team at once would most likely fail. You should try to cherry-pick elements that would give you the best bang-for-sweat, and introduce them slowly, one at a time. Note: Not all of this applies directly to Visual Programming Systems like G2. For more specific details on how to deal with these, see the Addendum section at the end.
Executive summary for the impatient
Define a rigid project structure, with: project templates coding conventions familiar build systems and sets of usage guidelines for your infrastructure and tools. Install a good SCM and make sure they know how to use it. Point them to good IDEs for their technology, and make sure they know how to use them. Implement code quality checkers and automatic reporting in the build system. Couple the build system to continuous integration and continuous inspection systems. With the help of the above, identify code quality "hotspots" and refactor. Now for the long version... Caution, brace yourselves!
Rigidity is (often) good
This is a controversial opinion, as rigidity is often seen as a force working against you. It's true for some phases of some projects. But once you see it as a structural support, a framework that takes away the guesswork, it greatly reduces the amount of wasted time and effort. Make it work for you, not against you. Rigidity = Process / Procedure. Software development needs good processes and procedures for exactly the same reasons that chemical plants or factories have manuals, procedures, drills, and emergency guidelines: preventing bad outcomes, increasing predictability, maximizing productivity... Rigidity comes in moderation, though!!
Rigidity of the project structure If each project comes with its own structure, you (and newcomers) are lost and need to pick up from scratch every time you open them. You don't want this in a professional software shop, and you don't want this in a lab either.
Rigidity of the build systems If each project looks different, there's a good chance they also build differently. A build shouldn't require too much research or too much guesswork. You want to be able to do the canonical thing and not need to worry about specifics: configure; make install, ant, mvn install, etc. Re-using the same build system and making it evolve over the time also ensures a consistent level of quality. You do need a quick READMEto point to the project's specifics, and gracefully guide any user/developer/researcher. This also greatly facilitates other parts of your build infrastructure, namely:
Continuous integration Continuous inspection So keep your build (like your projects) up to date, but make it stricter over time, and more efficient at reporting violations and bad practices. Do not reinvent the wheel, and reuse what you have already done. Recommended Reading:
Continuous Integration: Improving Software Quality and Reducing Risk (Duval, Matyas, Glover, 2007) Continuous Delivery: Release Software Releases through Build, Test and Deployment Automation (Humble, Farley, 2010) Rigidity in the choice of programming languages You can't expect, especially in a research environment, to have all teams (and even less all developers) use the same language and technology stack. However, you can identify a set of "officially supported" tools and encourage their use. The rest, without a good rationale, shouldn't be permitted (beyond prototyping). Keep your tech stack simple, and the maintenance and breadth of required skills to a bare minimum: a strong core.
Rigidity of the coding conventions and guidelines Coding conventions and guidelines are what allow you to develop both an identity as a team, and a shared lingo. You don't want to err into terra incognitaevery time you open a source file. Nonsensical rules that make life harder or forbid actions explicitly to the extent that commits are refused based on single simple violations are a burden. However:
a well thought-out ground ruleset takes away a lot of the whining and thinking: nobody should break under any circumstances a set of recommended rules provide additional guidance Personal Approach: I am aggressive when it comes to coding conventions, because I do believe in having a lingua franca for my team. When crap code gets checked-in, it stands out like a cold sore on the face of a Hollywood star: it triggers a review and an action automatically. In fact, I've sometimes gone as far as to advocate the use of pre-commit hooks to reject non-conforming commits. As mentioned, it shouldn't be overly crazy and get in the way of productivity: it should drive it. Introduce these slowly, especially at the beginning. But it's way preferable over spending so much time fixing faulty code that you can't work on real issues. Some languages even enforce this by design:
Java was meant to reduce the amount of dull crap you can write with it (though no doubt many manage to do it). Python's block structure by indentation is another idea in this sense. Go, with its gofmt tool, which completely takes away any debate and effort (and ego!!) inherent to style: run gofmt before you commit. Make sure that code rot cannot slip through. Code conventions, continuous integration and continuous inspection, pair programming, and code reviews are your arsenal against this demon. Plus, as you'll see below, code is documentation, and that's another area where conventions encourage readability and clarity.
Rigidity of the documentation Documentation goes hand in hand with code. Code itself is documentation. But there must be clear-cut instructions on how to build, use, and maintain things. Using a single point of control for documentation (like a WikiWiki or DMS) is a good thing. Create spaces for projects, spaces for more random banter and experimentation. Have all spaces reuse common rules and conventions. Try to make it part of the team spirit. Most of the advice applying to code and tooling also applies to documentation.
Rigidity in code comments Code comments, as mentioned above, are also documentation. Developers like to express their feelings about their code (mostly pride and frustration, if you ask me). So it's not unusual for them to express these in no uncertain terms in comments (or even code), when a more formal piece of text could have conveyed the same meaning with less expletives or drama. It's OK to let a few slip through for fun and historical reasons: it's also part of developing a team culture. But it's very important that everybody knows what is acceptable and what isn't, and that comment noise is just that: noise.
Rigidity in commit logs Commit logs are not an annoying and useless "step" of your SCM's lifecycle: you DON'T skip it to get home on time or get on with the next task, or to catch up with the buddies who left for lunch. They matter, and, like (most) good wine, the more time passes, the more valuable they become. So DO them right. I'm flabbergasted when I see co-workers writing one-liners for giant commits, or for non-obvious hacks. Commits are done for a reason, and that reason ISN'T always clearly expressed by your code and the one line of commit log you entered. There's more to it than that. Each line of code has a story and a history.The diffs can tell its history, but you have to write its story.
Why did I update this line? -> Because the interface changed. Why did the interface change? -> Because the library L1 defining it was updated. Why was the library updated? -> Because library L2, that we need for feature F, depended on library L1. And what's feature X? -> See task 3456 in issue tracker. It's not my SCM choice, and may not be the best one for your lab either; but Git gets this right, and tries to force you to write good logs more than most other SCMs systems, by using short logs and long logs. Link the task ID (yes, you need one) and a leave a generic summary for the shortlog, and expand in the long log: write the changeset's story. It is a log:It's here to keep track and record updates.
Rule of thumb: If you were searching for something about this change later, is your log likely to answer your question? Projects, documentation, and code are alive. Keep them in sync, otherwise they do not form that symbiotic entity anymore. It works wonders when you have:
Clear commits logs in your SCM, with links to task IDs in your issue tracker Where this tracker's tickets themselves link to the changesets in your SCM (and possibly to the builds in your CI system) A documentation system that links to all of these Code and documentation need to be cohesive.
Rigidity in testing
Rules of thumb:
Any new code shall come with (at least) unit tests. Any refactored legacy code shall come with unit tests. Of course, these need:
to actually test something valuable (or they are a waste of time and energy) to be well written and commented (just like any other code you check in) They are documentation as well, and they help to outline the contract of your code. Especially if you use TDD. Even if you don't, you need them for your peace of mind. They are your safety net when you incorporate new code (maintenance or feature) and your watchtower to guard against code rot and environmental failures. Of course, you should go further and have integration tests, and regression tests for each reproducible bug you fix.
Rigidity in the use of the tools It's OK for the occasional developer/scientist to want to try some new static checker on the source, generate a graph or model using another, or implement a new module using a DSL. But it's best if there's a canonical set of tools that allteam members are expected to know and use. Beyond that, let members use what they want, as long as they are ALL:
Productive NOT regularly requiring assistance NOT regularly adjusting to your general infrastructure In areas like code, build system, or documentation NOT affecting others' work ABLE to timely perform any task requested If that's not the case, then enforce that they fallback to defaults.
Rigidity vs. versatility, adaptability, prototyping, and emergencies Flexibility can be good. Letting someone occasionally use a hack, a quick-n-dirty approach, or a favorite pet tool to get the job done is fine. Never let it become a habit, and neverlet this code become the actual codebase to support.
Team spirit matters
Develop a sense of pride in your codebase
Develop a sense of Pride in Code Use wallboards Leaderboard for a continuous integration game Wallboards for issue management and defect counting Use an issue tracker / bug tracker Avoid blame games
DO use Continuous Integration / Continuous Inspection games: it fosters good-mannered and productive competition. DO keep track defects: it's just good house-keeping. DO identify root causes: it's just future-proofing processes. BUT DO NOT assign blame: it's counter productive. It's about the code, not about the developers Make developers conscious of the quality of their code, But make them see the code as a detached entity and not an extension of themselves, which cannot be criticized. It's a paradox: you need to encourage ego-less programmingfor a healthy workplace but to rely on ego for motivational purposes.
From scientist to programmer
People who do not value and take pride in code do not produce good code. For this property to emerge, they need to discover how valuable and fun it can be. Sheer professionalism and desire to do good is not enough: it needs passion. So you need to turn your scientists into programmers(in the large sense). Someone argued in comments that after 10 to 20 years on a project and its code, anyone would feel attachment. Maybe I'm wrong, but I assume they're proud of the code's outcomes and of the work and its legacy, not of the code itself or of the act of writing it. From experience, most researchers regard coding as a necessity, or at best as a fun distraction. They just want it to work. The ones who are already pretty versed in it and who have an interest in programming are a lot easier to persuade to adopt best practices and switch technologies. You need to get them halfway there.
Code maintenance is part of research work
Nobody reads crappy research papers. That's why they are peer-reviewed, proofread, refined, rewritten, and approved time and time again until deemed ready for publication. The same applies to a thesis and a codebase! Make it clear that constant refactoring and refreshing of a codebase prevents code rot and reduces technical debt, and facilitates future re-use and adaptation of the work for other projects.
Why all this??!
Why do we bother with all of the above? For code quality. Or is it quality code...? These guidelines aim at driving your team toward this goal. Some of these points help by simply showing your team the way and letting them do it (which is much better) and others take them by the hand (but that's how you educate people and develop habits). How do you know when the goal is within reach?
Quality is measurable Not always quantitatively, but it is measurable. As mentioned, you need to develop a sense of pride in your team, and showing progress and good results is key. Measure code quality regularly and show progress between intervals, and how it matters. Do retrospectives to reflect on what has been done, and how it made things better or worse. There are great tools for continuous inspection. Sonar being a popular one in the Java world, but it can adapt to any technologies; and there are many others. Keep your code under the microscope and look for these pesky annoying bugs and microbes.
But what if my code is already crap?
All of the above is fun and cute like a trip to Never Land, but it's not that easy to do when you already have (a pile of steamy and smelly) crap code, and a team reluctant to change.


text:
ABC's late-night host conducted what's becoming an annual prank during the past week, encouraging parents to tell their children they had eaten all of their Halloween candy, film the response and upload the video so he could show it on his TV show and on YouTube.
Predictably, many of the fooled children were quite upset.
"Pranking your own children is not harmless fun, but is cruel and potentially damaging," said Mark Barnett, a professor and graduate program coordinator at Kansas State University's department of psychological sciences. A child's trust in his parents shouldn't be trifled with, he said.
"A parent who would violate this trust for a big laugh or 15 minutes of fame is, in my opinion, acting irresponsibly and not looking out for the best interests of the child," Barnett said.
No one from Kimmel's show, broadcast on a network owned by the traditionally kid-friendly Walt Disney Co., was available to comment, representatives said Wednesday. A YouTube posting of Kimmel's on-air highlights was viewed more than 7 million times through late Wednesday, with more than 45,000 giving it a "thumbs up" and 2,191 offering a "thumbs down."
Since starting the feature in 2011, Kimmel's show said the post-Halloween videos have been viewed more than 106 million times online.
Kimmel said this year he received an "avalanche" of great responses and it took much of last weekend to work through them all.
This year's videos include two blond boys who break out in uncontrolled tears when their father tells them, "it's all gone." An empty candy wrapper is on the table in front of them.
One girl, still in costume, tells her mother that "you ruined my whole day."
Children throw stomping tantrums, one so vigorous the toddler's pants fall down. One angry girl throws an envelope at her parents. Another bawling child is hardly mollified by news that it's a prank: "Well, that's not very kind," the boy said.
Kimmel's studio audience laughs at most of the reactions.
Jane Annunziata, a McLean, Va.-based psychologist who deals with family issues and is the author of the book, "Sometimes I'm Scared...," said she thought the prank was inappropriate parental behavior.
"Parents should always serve as role models for their children, role modeling most appropriate behaviors and the most constructive ways to express feelings," Annunziata said.
Kimmel, 46, said on the air two years ago when introducing the first round of stolen candy videos that "I guess I didn't expect so much crying" in response.
"To the children whose fears are about to be immortalized on television, I apologize in advance," he said.


text:
Seeing Stars Choker
- Silver: Brass Base w/ Rhodium Plating
- Rose Gold: Brass Base w/ Rose Gold Plating
- Chain: 14" with 3" Extension
- Stars: 4-5mm
- Want to make your plated jewelry last longer? Check out these tips!
- Because jewelry products are handcrafted by artisans, dimensions may vary from piece to piece
Founded in Costa Rica, Pura Vida Bracelets provides sustainable jobs to artisans worldwide and raises awareness for charities with products that give back. We're also passionate about protecting the environment. That's why we ship all of our products in eco-friendly recyclable packaging and offer the option for plastic free shipping.
Free standard shipping on orders over $40. Full shipping policy
This product is final sale - no returns or exchanges. Full returns policy
Why Shop with Us?
Million to Charity
on Instagram


text:
Hatsune Miku Figures & Merchandise
Hatsune Miku, whose name means "the first sound from the future," is the 16-year-old Vocaloid pop sensation with eye-catching turquoise twin tails! The android diva's legions of devoted fans love her for her beautiful voice, trendy style, and cute and captivating appearance.
We're proud to offer an exciting lineup of Hatsune Miku items, including figures, Hatsune Miku inspired fashion and accessories, art books, magazines, CDs and DVDs, plus loads more!
Page 1 of 1


text:
» large gazebo for sale
We constantly believe that one's character decides products' high quality, the details decides products' high-quality ,together with the REALISTIC,EFFICIENT AND INNOVATIVE crew spirit for life size bronze statues for sale, , , , We look forward to establish a long-term business relationship with your esteem co-operation. Our products are widely recognized and trusted by users and can meet continuously changing economic and social needs for life size bronze statues for sale, The quality of our merchandise is equal to OEM's quality, because our core parts are the same with OEM supplier. The above items have passed professional certification, and we not only can produce OEM-standard items but we also accept Customized Merchandise order.