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BTW I was referring to the Irish Republic not the Irish Army when I said "George Dillon hates us for some reason". Try and calm down George! What exactly do you do for your country,wherever that is? Have you any profession of your own? There is every reason for the Irish Army and Police to exist in order to protect the citizens of this country. The word "Oirish" was invented by Hollywood and speaks volumes about you. BI BI I'm going on duty now for a few hours to justify my existence. I'm on U.N. peacekeeping duties in a foreign country but for reasons of security I will not say where and some of my colleagus are highy amused at you. Where are you from George, we promise we won't hold it against you. However, you may be greatful for our expertise some day so stop behaving like a spoilt child. Over and Out. Goodnight. Regards to you Niall. Audrey.
BTW I was referring to the Irish Republic not the Irish Army when I said "George Dillon hates us for some reason". Try and calm down George! What exactly do you do for your country,wherever that is? Have you any profession of your own? There is every reason for the Irish Army and Police to exist in order to protect the citizens of this country. The word "Oirish" was invented by Hollywood and speaks volumes about you. BI BI I'm going on duty now for a few hours to justify my existence. I'm on U.N. peacekeeping duties in a foreign country but for reasons of security I will not say where and some of my colleagus are highy amused at you. Where are you from George, we promise we won't hold it against you. However, you may be greatful for our expertise some day so stop behaving like a spoilt child. Over and Out. Regards to Niall. Audrey.
BTW if McGuinness was running for President of America, he would have to answer "awkward" questions from tbhe American public. Why should the Irish public be any different. Regards Audrey.
What a bitter man you are Geroge Dillon. Do you have a skill boyond being scathing about a person's profession? Were you turned down by the Army or Police in Ireland? Are you even Irish I suspect not. The word "Oirish! speaks volumes about you. The Irish State needs an army to defend them against people like you and the IRA supporters do still exist, why are they so angry at McGuinness being asked awkward questions about his record. Intimadating Miriam O'Callaghan and other responsible Irish journalists was a very bad move on Sinn Fein's part. Try and calm down George!
Audreybolton: "I think George Dillon hates us for some reason". Wrong. Not hate--despise. I have nothing but contempt for the Oirish Army. There is no reason for such a body to exist. It's an army that sues the government if its soldiers hear a gunshot or see a dead body. And I am not an "IRA supporter", you dope, in fact the last time I checked no such group existed. But youi invent it in order to justify your useless existence by creating a Bogey Man. Every euro spent on paying you is a euro wasted. Get a real job and stop playing at toy soldiers. I stopped when I was about six. Grow up.
Irish journalists/tv presenters like Miriam O'Callaghan, Eoghan Harris,Fintan O.Toole etc. have been threatened by McGuinness supporters for trying to get at the truth, why does he not like criticsm! Is he afraid! BTW George Dillon I doubt you would pass the rigid tests or the 15 month army training course. Cheers!!
Thank you Niall O'Dowd for printing my comments and perhaps people will learn more about the real opinions of the the Voters of the Irish State. I think George Dillon hates us for some reason known only to himself. BTW McGuinness is down to 13% in today's polls (comes 4th) and Sean Gallagher has come top. Again thanks Niall for printing my comments. Audrey (Captain).
In fact George Dillion we protect the people of the Irish State again illegal armed groups(i.e. the IRA), have performed peace-keeping duties in the Lebonan, Sierra Leone, Eastern Europe etc. and have a very proud record in doing so. Also our loyalty is to the people of the Irish State and as members of the U.N. we do not make war on other nations. You sound like an IRA supporter (which still exists by the way and so does the Army Council)of which McGuinness and Adams are still members, the Government and Defence Forces have plenty of proof that that. We're NOT PAID A GREAT SALARY BUT ARE PROUD TO SERVE OUR COUNTRY so are my brothers in the Garda (police). So Mocking Us! Could you do the same job without whining?
audreybolton: "As an Irish Army Officer married to another one"... Double income -- Your family certainly sucks greedily at the public teat. How much do the two of you make a year? And just what do you do to earn it? In fact, now that you're on line, will you tell us just what is the function of the Irish Army? To let grown adults play toy soldiers? I'm not a supporter of Martin McGuiness, as I oppose his Open Door Mass Immigration policy, but I believe it would be a great day for Ireland if the Irish Army were disbanded and their toys turned into scrap metal. This is the same Irish Army whose soldiers sued successfully for deafness because they had been exposed to hearing gunfire. What the hell did these jerks expect when they signed up? That they'd be firing pancakes at each other ? And some of the ones who were in Lebanon want damages for trauma because they saw some dead bodies there. An army of useless jerks--soldiers who sue if they hear a shot fired or see a dead body. What a waste of space and taxpayer money the Irish Army is. You parasites have nothing to contribute to any debate.
Niall - the fact that Mr. McGuinness even now only retains, according to polls, 16%-19% of the overall Irish vote is indicitive of how far Sinn Fein still have to go to make inroads in the Republic, where they still only retain 10% of the vote. How can this be otherwise when the IRA only ceased in 2005, and only then as a result of the horror at the murder of Robert MacCartney, himself a Sinn Fein voter, Catholic, and Irishman? We've just got rid of one morally bankrupt republican party (Fianna Fail) and should be in no hurry to usher in a new one.
NIALL, As an Irish Army Officer married to another one and with two brothers in the Irish Police, WE WOULD BE HORRIFIED if McGuinness become our President and Commander-in-Chief. The IRA waged a war for many years againt the Irish Republic's Army and Police and Citizens and the Chief of Staff of the Irish Defence Forces Major General McCann will be HONOUR BOUND NOT to raise a toast to the new President and all will remain seated. Sinn Feinn's fury at the Irish people and media proved that Miriam O.Callaghan, Vincent O'Brien and other other well respected and popular journalists were bang on target and all of them have spent more then half their lives learning how to do their jobs as we have in the Defence Forces. As for the Hollywood movie stars who back him, they don't live in the Irish Republic and won't have to live with the consequences. Niall,please print this if you want to be fair to the country of your birth. Regards. Audrey (Captain).
I was in Ireland this week and listened to the debates. Whether you agree or disagree with Martin McGuinness, politics in Ireland has changed in a big way. It will be interesting to see who wins. Ireland needs someone who will promote a positive image worldwide. Most of the candidates appear to have the ability to do just that.
Ha! What an honour! Second most popular political party! And at a time when all Irish politicians are regarded as ratshit by all Irish people who are not yet dead! Makes you want to join the U.K. Sure Good Queen Elizabeth would top the poll now if she wanted to. I may just give her my Number 1- great way to stuff it to our home-grown carpet-baggers. We have the worst bunch of misfits ever to run for President here! It is clear indicatio that the role of President has been shown to be well-beyond its sell-by date. What next, Whitey Bulger for President- more brains in his arse-pimple than this lot! (is he still alive, by the way?)
Boy, the West Briton types are REALLY SCARED of Mr. McGuinness. Perhaps that is because they know he represents more of the Irish electorate than they would like. There are still Irish Men & Women in Ireland who look back with pride and affection to our 1916 rising and the throwing out of british troops from 3/4 of our humble island. They are proud that a tiny group of armed poets was able to overthrow the entire british empire as 1916 was soon followed by britain's loss of India, the jewel of the empire! The Irish are going to elect McGuniness precisely because he is who he is: a man who stood up for his people and fought the brits to a standstill where they sued for peace. God Bless Martin and godspeed his journey to the Presidency.
Maybe we can sit in madigans and chew the fat someday.Is the Laurels still there??
Nay, to your first reason Aye, to your second
Seanie: I have no beef with SF. I feel Martin's ill-concieved caper is opportunistic and profoundly dishonest and will be rumbled by the voters. ~ ~ ~ There are two reasons why I will never have to grin and bear it: first: it's just not going to happen!; second: I will have choked eating my Auld Skillara...!
Towngate me old segosha just grin and bear it. Sinn Fein now the 2nd. most popular party in Ireland now wouldn't that give you nightmares.
upset brit lovers can't abide with the awakening that is underway in old erin. Diaspora will be as proud as punch with Martin Mc as prez.
Perhaps the American media, including IC, should take a lesson and recognize that when they wantonly savage Republicans and call the Tea Party extremist, that they are shooting themselves in the foot.
If the hacks in the Irish Media spent more time talking to the Irish people as opposed to talking among themselves, they would have known all of the above. Ronan Gallagher Leitrim Ireland
CaptainCon. Just for fun! Yes, a picture speaks a thousand words,they say, and this one might be saying that McGuinness is twitching his trigger finger at Mitchell in some sinister secret signal to his shadowy cohorts, but that the equally sly Mitchell is ahead of him and is studying McGuinness' back in order to decide exactly where to pin the target. I wonder did the picture editor not crop the photo deliberately!?! ..........Btw: did you mean "Something of the Night" - first used to describe British MP Michael Howard - about the Gay Draculaean? Slainte!
Great photo and it does encapsulate what a lot of people in Ireland think of two of the candidates. McGuinness has committed to the democratic process and sat down with someone he would have regarded as his worst enemy for a large part of his life. Mitchell has spent a large part of his life and earned far too much money by 'overhearing things' say we say. There is something of the Knight about Mitchell and plenty of people in Ireland are aware that in electing him you'd be electing someone else who may not have Irish interests at heart.
Niall, a chara: Jeeeese! You've got a bad dose of something about this guy McGuinness! he moves a few points in the volatile Irish opinion polls, a quarter of the way through the compaign - and he is being handed a 'Major Victory'! Talk about 'wishful thinking'! Dream on,by all means,a chara, but put your money on him not winning any kind of victory. The people of the country he is currently visiting, have more sense that that! Bet your bottom dollar!
I'm not an expert on this election, but I gotta say that the guy with McGuinness in the pic above looks like a typical sneaky Blueshirt. I would never let a Blueshirt stand behind me. I don't care who wins, but I sure hope that Blueshirt comes in last!


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Returning player looking for new marker.
Posted 29 May 2013 - 09:03 PM
I am wanting to get back into the sport of paintball after not playing for 6 years, and I have been researching for about a month now on what marker I should get for the sub $300 area. After doing a lot of research and watching tons of mikes videos. I've really been leaning towards a 2011 Proto Rail. Although the GoG Extcy gets great reviews It seems like its just a new version of the ion and i owned an ion back when I played and that thing gave me more troubles than I can remember and just remembering all those problems makes me doubt that marker (ill probably get flamed for that, not trying to be rude just my personal thoughts about it). Was also looking at the DP G4 for a bit, but it seems to me you get a better marker with the rail and its $25 cheaper. But I really just wanted to post on here to get input from people that are more in the know with the current paintball products. I thank you all in advance for the input and I hope this is a great PB community that I joined (24 is a bit old for all the flaming that goes on at PbN, lol)
Posted 29 May 2013 - 09:06 PM
Alternatively, you may wish to look at used guns.
I guess I'll do it again.
What do you have as far as a mask, tank, and loader are concerned?
Edited by Dogg3, 29 May 2013 - 09:07 PM.
Oh and in case this isn't unprofessional enough yet.
Fuck, shit, boobs, purple monkey dishwasher.
Posted 29 May 2013 - 09:09 PM
True on both counts.Used Axe and you will hear that a lot for a reason.
You will not get flamed here unless you talk about Disruptive Products.
Sounds like he is in Canadoo, the land of maple syrup and the majestic moose.
Posted 29 May 2013 - 09:25 PM
What do you have as far as a mask, tank, and loader are concerned?
I have a profiler and a proflex for a mask (but my flex is MIA)
My friend in town that actually started me getting back into the game has a empire loader (not sure what one) that he is selling me for $100. But I will be looking at a needing a new tank. But for that I was just going to get a ANSgear tank and throw on a ninja reg down the road.
And as for buying used, I want to but I don't really have a local shop to take my gun to get serviced so I really am looking for a warranty.
Posted 29 May 2013 - 09:29 PM
Posted 29 May 2013 - 09:41 PM
Posted 29 May 2013 - 11:09 PM
trademygun.com can work on your gun if you buy that "bad ass warranty" in all honesty Warranties are pointless because most of the malfunctions you will have in your gun is going to be either lube or o-ring related. It takes a lot more then it used to blow a noid.
See but that's why it draws me away from FST. Because if I buy a gun BNIB I know that I am the first and only owner and I will take care of it properly, getting a "great deal" on a used gun could mean that it looks fine but performs like crap. I know it makes me look like I don't trust people but the really only thing that i have been looking at when it comes to that stuff is a Facebook group made just for dealing paintball gear and it seems like somebody posts about getting ripped off on a daily basis.
Posted 30 May 2013 - 05:53 AM
Posted 30 May 2013 - 09:24 AM
Edited by mattfat31, 30 May 2013 - 09:24 AM.
Posted 30 May 2013 - 12:18 PM
Posted 30 May 2013 - 12:21 PM
Send it in to Kee. You only need to service it after some outrageous number of cases, and IIRC they don't charge for it, you just pay shipping.I was researching the axe and from what I saw you void your warranty by servicing your reg? Is this true or is there a way to keep it maintained without taking it apart?
Just at the beginning of every day, drop a couple drops of synthetic oil in two holes inside the Axe's ASA then air it up.
Edited by Dogg3, 30 May 2013 - 01:54 PM.
Oh and in case this isn't unprofessional enough yet.
Fuck, shit, boobs, purple monkey dishwasher.
Posted 30 May 2013 - 01:26 PM
Edited by mitcholt, 30 May 2013 - 01:27 PM.
Posted 03 June 2013 - 11:28 PM
Posted 04 June 2013 - 10:27 AM
Member of Hooligans D4 Team
Posted 04 June 2013 - 02:26 PM
New - PMR
Really all personal preference.
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subset: commoncrawl


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No it's not just that money. It's the costs going forward and the electorate that just went thru a very difficult time is probably tired of Union people not ever ever ever feeling the same pain that people in the private world do. The time of unions is done in this country, (for govt employees ESP.). Unions like the UMW still function as safety watch dogs and those are the kinds of unions that should be in place we have how many federal agencies that spend billions a year on their infrastructure to deal with employer and employee issues.
You keep skirting the issue of what's down the road if we don't make some changes in our financial house. Govt needs to do withless and unions can't continue using govt to maintain their gravy train fro their votes.


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MELBOURNE, Australia After being sidelined by injuries for nearly six years, Brian Baker was finally back on the court with a second chance at a professional career.
Playing in his first Australian Open at the age of 27, Baker had just won the first set 7-6 (2) in his second-round match against fellow American Sam Querrey when his body gave out on him again.
At 1-1 in the second set Tuesday (PST), Baker crumpled to the court after hitting a shot long and shouted in pain, grasping his right knee. After limping awkwardly and hopping to his chair, he sat down, ripped off his headband and shook his head in frustration.
Baker retired several minutes later and was pushed off the court in a wheelchair. As the crowd applauded, a woman shouted from the stands, "Don't give up, Brian."
"He said he kind of just felt his knee almost buckle and kind of heard like a pop or a snap," the 20th-seeded Querrey said after the match. "He didn't know if it was bones or a tear, but he couldn't straighten it, couldn't walk."
While the severity of the knee injury wasn't immediately known, the setback was no doubt heartbreaking for a player who has undergone five major surgeries but had never had a knee problem.
"He's the last person that deserves anything like that," said Querrey, who has become friends with Baker as both have come back from injuries over the past year. "He does everything right, treats his body great, just trying to come back, and then something like that happens. It's just so unlucky."
Baker started the new year full of promise, closing in on the top 50 in the rankings. He beat Russia's Alex Bogomolov Jr. in the first round at Melbourne Park his first-ever five-set victory.
"He has been so unfortunate in the last six years, seven years," Querrey said. "So, you know, I think if he can heal quickly or if it takes a year, I think he can get right back where he is right now. He's talented; he's good enough."
Meanwhile, fourth-seeded David Ferrer needed five match points before clinching a 6-0, 7-5, 4-6, 6-3 win over American Tim Smyczek, who got into the main draw as a lucky loser from qualifying. Fifth-seeded Tomas Berdych beat Guillaume Rufin of France 6-2, 6-2, 6-4.
On the women's side, Agnieszka Radwanska extended the best winning streak of the year to 11 matches as she reached the third round with a 6-3, 6-3 victory over Romania's Irina-Camelia Begu.
The fourth-ranked Radwanska won leadup tournaments this month in Auckland and Sydney.
"I can play even better," said Radwanska, who lost the Wimbledon final to Serena Williams last year. "I didn't really expect I could win that many matches in a row, and hopefully I can keep going."
Her last two trips to the Australian Open have ended in quarterfinal losses to the eventual champion: Kim Clijsters in 2011 and Victoria Azarenka last year.
With the top-ranked Azarenka and Williams on the other half of the draw, Radwanska's main obstacles to reaching the final are sixth-seeded Li Na, who beat Olga Govortsova of Belarus 6-2, 7-5, and potential semifinal rivals Maria Sharapova and Angelique Kerber.
The fifth-ranked Kerber advanced with a 6-3, 6-1 win over Lucie Hradecka of the Czech Republic, and the second-ranked Sharapova was to face Japan's Misaki Doi.
Williams hurt her ankle in her opening victory, causing speculation that her bid for a third consecutive major title could be in jeopardy. She canceled a practice session Tuesday.
© Copyright The Sacramento Bee. All rights reserved.


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- December 28, 2012
- 3:50 p.m.
- Suggest removal
- Reply to this post
Phooey writes:
By now everyone that isn't in total denial or living under a rock knows that this election was a travesty. A new vote should be set for the May election so as to not cost the city any extra expense.
The only thing that will prevent a new vote is if Chancellor Telford Forgety is one of the many politicians and various people that are in the pocket of the Pigeon Forge city manager and mayor, Sid Blalock, and the rest of the Island developers. Never underestimate the reach of their corruption.
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What are 7 passenger vehicles? Well, this is a popular question among so many people who would like to own their own vehicles. There are so many things that you might want to know about these vehicles, especially before you decide to buy them. The seven passenger vehicles are some of the most comfortable vehicles in the industry, boasting an increasing number of users over the last few years. This therefore means that a lot of people will keep on buying these vehicles in the near future. In the event that you are in need of a vehicle that will go a long way in making sure that you enjoy space and elegance, you can rest assured that there is not vehicle that can do this for you in the same way that the seven passenger vehicles will. As a matter of fact, the seven passenger vehicles are specially designed to offer you comfort on the road all places you go. There are different classifications of the seven passenger vehicles. There are those that are classified as under full size, mid-sized vehicles or the compact vehicles. Whichever of these you decide to buy; you can rest assured that you will never regret your decision.
There are a lot of other things that you should look into before you decide to buy the seven passenger vehicles. These will go a long way in making sure that you make an informed decision before you decide to buy the vehicle. All of these are very important to you and you should really take them into perspective before you make a purchase. Most of the crossover vehicles are for their size and utility designed to be easy on fuel while offering you the best services on the road. However, there are a few of the high end seven passenger vehicles that are also designed for the high end class. These are not exactly what you would call economic on fuel. They do take up a lot of fuel over some minor mileage. For this reason therefore, you have to do your research well enough before you can decide to buy any of these seven passenger vehicles. In terms of steadiness and comfort, you can rest assured that the seven passenger vehicles are among the most endowed in that regard. These vehicles come with ample leg room in the front row seats, the middle row seats and the last row seats. As a matter of fact, the seats are adjustable to any level of comfort. For the front row and the middle row seats, you can as well adjust them into a bed-like design and even take a nap. However, for most of them this kind of adjustment is not possible for the last row seats.
One of the other things that you might want to consider when buying the seven passenger vehicles is the transmission module. There are people who are in love with the manual transmission vehicles and also those who prefer the automatic transmission. Whichever you prefer, it all boils down to the fuel economy in a way, so you make your choice!
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Growing up, it is really difficult to know where you want to go or want you want to do. Some schools and stuff have career videos to help kids out, well, that's all rubbish man, games like Dick Tracy have been helping Australian dudes for years. Today, we'll be checking Dick Tracy out for the Sega Mastersystem, not as flashy as the Megadrive version, but heaps more accessible for the public.
Welcome to the Leftover Culture Review – In Australia things can take a while to get released here, so we get Bruiser, our resident Leftover Culture Review host, to shed some cultural insight and help Australians everywhere keep up with the pack. Check out the videos section to see all the Leftover Culture Reviews. We cover some truly classic gaming systems like the Sega Megadrive, Mastersystem, Saturn, Dreamcast, Atari Lynx, Jaguar with more console and game reviews to come every 3 – 4 weeks.


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- energy2577
- updated 26 days ago
I don't know where to start. It's been...
- 23 Mar 2011
I don't know where to start. It's been about ten months now since my so called brow "lift" and breast implant procedures. Both botched and in need of severe repair. My eyes are still hooded and sagging as if nothing was done. The only change is that my eyes are now cockeyed. Yup, that's right. He said he could do several more operations to correct the deformity he caused, the sagging and hooding of my eyes, but he wouldn't tell us the amount unless we agreed to his terms. I would have to pay a fee each time! Funny, we had a verbal agreement and he straight up lied about just about everything.
The implants are a disaster too. One of my implants has bottomed out and rippling bad. They completely misdiagnosed this and actually instructed me to keep downward pressure on them by wearing a very tight strap. I found out from other doctors that it made the botched surgery worse. I was never saggy before and now one of them hangs over my rib cage.
UPDATE: I found out I have one implant on top of...
- 29 Jan 2013
I found out I have one implant on top of the muscle and one implant below the muscle!!! Both my breasts are pointing in abnormal directions!!!! Th one above the skin sags down very low!! I paid for a brow lift but my eyes ended up still very saggy and my eyesight was still bothering me.People have contacted me with very bad results as well....!!! After writing a review on another website they started stalking and harrassing me through that account name.(one of the names they used is (Bull Orielly) Dr.Russo replied to one of my reviews with even more lies and slander. They write dozens of fake reviews and try to imply you are a drug addict...SLANDER!!
- 12 Nov 2013
Great review?
The best gift you could give yourself is to find another Dr. Fraud does not fully describe this office. After agreeing to lift my brows he has the nerve to admit that he didn't do what I asked for...after the procedure! Once I decided to end it with this guy it took forever to get my medical records. He avoided all of our numerous phone calls and his staff kept making excuses for him. After six weeks of waiting for him to put them in the mail, It wasn't until I told his receptionist that I was not feeling well and needed to see a real doctor that my records magically appeared the next day from Fed-Ex on my doorstep. I had serious concerns from the beginning about the implants and my brows and it went completed ignored. This whole thing cost us over $12,000. I've talked to several other doctors and it's going to cost us at least $10,000 to fix the deformaties and lack of results with my brows. There's much more to this but basically this was a complete waste of time and money. This doctor deserves to lose his license. His staff are the most rude, incompetent, and verbally abusive people we have ever come across. Luckily most people know what is true on the internet. Puleeze. Do yourself a favor and run as fast as you can from here.


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Oh, how special those special teams can be. The third phase of football games can often be overlooked from a schematic standpoint, but they are wildly different and fascinating.
Don't forget impactful. Just ask the Cowboys how big that Jacoby Jones 108-yard kickoff return was on Sunday. Impact like that can happen on any play, but it takes a solid understanding of the fundamentals behind a certain play.
Heading into Mid-County Madness, I thought we should look at both Port Neches-Groves and Nederland from a special teams perspective to highlight areas where they both might stand out Friday. First up, we'll look at PN-G's kick returns this season.
The kickoff and subsequent return is the most dangerous play in football. Guys are hurtling down the field at full speed, trying to stop someone going full speed in the other direction. Which one of Newton's laws governed the equal and opposite reaction? That happens on every single kickoff, with the reaction being people flying all over the place.
That's why teams will sometimes pooch kicks or squib them, to avoid having the other team get a full head of steam. But, there's more to the strategy behind a kickoff than that. Back in the day, kick returns consisted of a "wedge" of players four deep just ahead of the kickoff man, with five or six players in front of them as a first line of blocking.
When the ball is kicked off, that first line drops back 10-15 yards and turns up the field to block the man in their lane high and outside. The second line forms a line that sort of looks like a wedge in front of the returner. Think of the Mighty Ducks "Flying V," except much, much meaner.
Since teams had developed kickoff players called "wedge busters," whose sole job was to run down and give up their body to blow up that wedge formation, anything bigger than a two-man blocking tandem has been outlawed in football.
So, that gives teams more to work with schematically. They can have two players deep to return the kick, two on each side of them as personal blockers and then the front line. Whoever catches it has the two-man wedge working as personal lead blockers while he tries to find a crease.
PN-G's Kaleb Clark excels at this, because of his raw speed. Once Clark gets up to speed, he is very hard to stop, which makes him a natural for kickoff returns, since he gets a 10-15 yard running start before he has to worry about defenders on most kickoffs.
Clark has returned two kickoffs for TDs already this season and had a 90-yard return against West Orange-Stark. He also had a kickoff return for a TD last year against Crosby. His ability to get up to speed and just run past people makes him a great weapon in the third phase of the game for the Indians.
On the Nederland side, what they excel at is a little more unorthodox. The Nederland coaching staff calls it an "offensive punt," but you may recognize it as a "quick kick." It's not exactly a quick kick, like Joe Washington's 75-yard quick kick against Texas that sealed the Red River Shootout victory for his Sooners in 1975.
The reason it's not like that is because it comes out of a formation (shotgun) and down (fourth) that could be interpreted as punting situations. The Bulldogs aren't going for the surprise of a kick when the defense isn't prepared for it.
They are trying to force them into indecision with the play. On a basic setup, quarterback Carson Raines is maybe a yard or two deeper in his shotgun setup than he usually would be for a passing play. Everything else looks exactly like normal, though, with two or three wideouts and the same offensive line on a normal offensive snap.
At that point, the team would decide how the defense is playing it. If the defense drops a man deep and the corners play off, Raines may just take the snap and throw a quick pass to Michael Shaw for the first down. But, if the defense is tucked in close to the line, playing the offensive formation, Raines can quickly kick the ball over the defense and his receivers turn into gunners as they race to down the ball inside the 20.
Usually, the Bulldogs only use that formation between the 40-yard lines, but it could be effective in any punting situation with a makeable fourth down conversion. It's the pressure to decide which way to play it that makes it so dangerous.
That indecision can virtually erase the chance of a return, since the Nederland coverage has a big advantage on getting down the field to the ball. Raines has been great on this play, with nice touch to get the ball inside the 10 consistently.
With the Nederland defense being so stout the past two seasons, having a QB able to deliver those kicks in those situations means the Bulldogs can control the game's field position, putting them in a great situation to start drives.
Neither PN-G's kick return or Nederland' s offensive punt are groundbreaking scheme-wise. But, they both provide excellent value to their team and help to control field position in different ways. On Friday night, in a rivalry game that usually goes down to the wire, field position and special teams could take center stage.
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October 15, 2012
Special team to watch in Mid-County Madness
- Sports
- West golf notepad: Big hitters not necessarily big winners on PGA Tour
- Local coaches play realignment waiting game
- Realignment means big changes in Orange County
- Woodard to return as LU football coach
- Basketball season takes center stage for area high schools
- Northern Illinois overwhelms Lady Cardinals
- West column: Firing Woodard would be big mistake for Lamar
- Janice Todora bowling column: Williford, Williams roll 300 games
- Chester Moore column: Migration, salinity important factors in catching big trout
Titans hold Paige to 10; beat Mustangs, 64-51
Maybe Friday's sloppy play between Port Arthur Memorial and West Orange-Stark can be blamed on all the turkey and dressing.
- More Sports Headlines


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Concert of worship
PRINCETON — The Judson University Choir will present a concert of worship at 6 p.m. Nov. 3 at Christ Community Church, 1719 S. Euclid Ave., Princeton. The choir is a ministry of the Center for Worship in the Performing Arts at Judson. A love offering will be taken in support of the choir and its ministry.
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Coats, Walorski to address Elkhart County GOP event
Click here to view in a gallery.
U.S. Rep. Jackie Walorski.
(Photo Supplied)
U.S. Sen. Dan Coats talks with a reporter 8/17/2011. (Truth Photo By J Tyler Klassen)
The event is to start at 7 p.m. at the Matterhorn Restaurant, 2041 Cassopolis St., Elkhart. A private reception with Coats and Walorski, both Republicans, will be held before that, from 6 to 7 p.m., and they are also the featured speakers during the main program.
Individual tickets for the dinner are $50, with a cash bar. �Priority seating� at a table for eight with program recognition and complimentary wine is available for $500 per table. The entry fee for the private reception starting at 6 p.m. is $20 per person or $30 per couple.
Cally Prudy Holzhausen at 264-7172 for more information. Reservations should be made by Thursday March 21.


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Software updates, changing databases, and poor documentation of computational methods all mean that it may be impossible for anyone to go back and reproduce the results of a scientific paper published just a couple of years ago. Researchers are now starting to look into improving the tools we use, rather than ditching a key component of the scientific method.
Read the whole story
If a result is that sensitive to a particular implementation of an algorithm, the result is not science. You should be able to publish your code and data, and somebody 20 years from now should be able to re implement the process in whatever tools are available then and get similar results. So what if their new tool implements a statistical algorithm slightly differently - the results should be similar. If not, it was not a robust result to begin with.
The code/comments/paper should make abundantly clear the reasons and expected results of every processing step of whatever programs you use - sufficient to allow re-implementation on any other platform with similar processing capabilities. |
This sounds like someone saying, "I need you to mail me the original beaker you used to do this, it might have some different dirt on it than mine have."
If someone else can't reproduce similar results from the same input, you're trusting your tools too much. And if someone can't reproduce it with similar data, you're trusting your data too much. |
I think this is a particularly big problem in mathematics.
Nowadays, many proofs are being done with the help of computer algebra software to solve systems of equations that would simply be impossible for humans to solve by hand (time/accuracy), but it is very difficult to break into a new field if you don't have code and scripts handed down from one researcher to another. It's like if you had to compile "Linux From Scratch" to start each project, but there were no Makefiles or autotools and gcc barely worked. Maple, in particular, keep making incompatible changes from version to version, so old code simply won't run anymore. Sage exists as a possible open-source option, but whenever I mention it to anyone, they say "oh yeah, I saw that. It looks neat, but I haven't tried it yet". [This applies to me, too!] |
Thats about what I wanted to say. An algorithm's results should not be dependent on a particular implementation. If two implementations of the same algorithm give you different results, one or maybe both of them are broken. The only way that there should be confusion if it is unknown precisely what algorithm was used (and it sounds like this might be the case), which is just bad science. |
Philippe23, it's like saying "You used a beaker for this experiment, now I need a beaker to reproduce it" If beakers have become obsolete and no-one is around with the know-how to recreate them, then it's nearly impossible to reproduce the experiment without the necessary tools.
When a beaker can be stored in the space of 1"x0.5" flash drive, it seems kind of ridiculous that a beaker cannot be found anywhere. |
Agreed, but Stodden pointed out that this is also an argument for sharing code and data. Without the sharing aspect, you can't tell either how similar the data and approach are, or where the problems entered the analysis. All you get is confusion. |
While I like this story and agree with the overall point it makes, I think the topic is somewhat sensationalistic and "crying wolf". An equation can be solved and the solution can be reproduced on other machines with different compilers and the difference between the two solutions is typically one or two orders of machine error which is meaningless in a 32 bit calculation. Simulations on the other hand, are solving these equations in multi-dimensional space which the math often fails to address- what may be well-posed in a single equation or a set of coupled equations, becomes unknown in multi-dimensions. This leads to the time tested review of "does the result make sense". I consider simulations to be numerical experiments analogous to laboratory experiments and exact reproducibility does not exist in the same sense as reproducing a well-posed math solution. Because of the unknown of the well-posedness and the grid resolution, skewness, and spatial and temporal solution order, there will always be tweaks and constraints and these are too numerous to document in a journal article.
If the code is placed in a open repository where people can sift through it with a fine tooth comb they can go about tweaking all same things the authors did that were necessary to get to the final result. This is a huge waste of time unless there are large discrepancies which are truly attributed to new physics being revealed by the simulation. The reason I consider this to be a waste of time is that there are numerous other simulation codes that are meant to capture the same physics, so it is rather trivial to reproduce the results on a completely different platform. Trivial in the sense it is much cheaper than, for example, building another LHC just to reproduce results. Any bold new physics discoveries made with a simulation are going to be simulated again and again on different systems, and if the results are far different, then the scientific system works by refuting the original claims. A couple of underlying problems with the current publication system are: 1) you don't get published for verifying a result. This is a huge problem both numerically and experimentally as I feel that doing the experiment in a separate laboratory and getting a similar results is just as important as the discovery but reviewers don't see it this way. 2) you don't get published for conducting benchmarks. I think NSF should devote a fair chunk of their computational grant money to benchmark development of multi-physics, multi-dimensional codes. The ones code writers use now are good enough to get us out of the gate but what is really lacking, and is needed to show the difference all the tweaks make on those really large codes, is the large-scale, complicated bench mark. |
It's also worth noting that the compiler used and the hardware it is run on can have significant numerical implications. Think pentium bug, and compare something like intel fortran compiler to the gfortran compiler.
Compiler options are yet another can of worms when dealing with this issue, as there are a whole class of optimizations that can be "unsafe." Not to mention those that toss IEEE floating point compliance out the window. And hardware vs. software computations can be an issue as well, especially for floating point numbers. Identical code, compiled with identical options with the identical compiler (itself compiled with the same options), on identical machines, right down to the chipset, should produce identical results with identical input. Change any one of these slightly, and especially in floating point computations, errors can stack up quite rapidly. As an example, until GCC 4.4, using doubles to calculate something as simple as 100! resulted in an error after about the tenth digit (and there are a lot of digits in 100!). It was rather ridiculous how quickly the errors added up. Same code, same machine, using the 10.0.015 version of the intel compiler, and the value matched the correct value to all digits. The latest GCC gives the correct value. So, basically what I'm trying to say is, the compiler can play a huge role in computational methods, and unfortunately, it is very poorly understood by most scientists. And since numerical computations are the bread and butter of scientific codes, this role can be significantly magnified, especially if a long chain of computations is executed on a floating point value that has already started to skew. |
True, it can be stored, but when you want to use it couple of years later it turns out that it requires a proprietary library X, made by company Y, only available on platform Z. We had this problem with old code written 10 years ago to run on SGI. |
i too feel this is a huge issue. That is why i walked away from Matlab and the like and started implementing my algorithms in Python using SciPy/NumPy and other libraries. Also, i plan to release all of my code under GPL and keep it in a public repository in the exact versions used in my simulations.
Cool coverage. I didn't see this one coming! But in my experience (i work with scientists but I'm not one... yet), it's true that a lot of computing is of the lazy/rushed, "hey grad student, just f-ing make it work NOW" variety.
So yes, it would be a huge boon to scientific reproducibility to have: 1. standardized tools to document the software parameters, 2. thorough repositories of old software versions, 3. emulators/VMs to run software that was designed for outdated or customized hardware, and 4. institutionalized rules for source code licensing. Hopefully some good rules can be developed for making deadlines on when this information has to be published, to balance the need for openness with the "right" of a research team to not get "beaten to the punch" by someone else using their data. |
vibedog is right about the "no honor in reproducing" aspect.
Also, in the bio-sciences, a HUGE problem is that the NIH generally refuses to pay for computers, so labs (that are also not CS or computer admin experts) cobble together old junk to make barely-workable ad-hoc storage and processing capacity with the simplest or most immediate software they can find. |
Dr. Jay,
I suggest you take a look at the work of Coombes and Baggerly at MD Anderson - they've been dealing with reproducibility issues for years. Their findings include errors such as off-by-one indexing into an array. See: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18309960 and http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17987014 |
Exactly. This article makes it seem as if science is done in magical mythical towers of black boxes of which we'll never be able to see inside. The truth of the matter is: the raw data should dictate the result, not the analysis of the data. The same statistical conclusion should be drawn from the raw data, as long as all parameter inputs are reasonable. It should not matter which version of software you use. Sure, the numbers won't be exactly the same. But the same general process should be done. On the flip side, one should always be aware of what parameters do what on your analysis. One should never be 'plugging numbers in,' without an understanding of what one is doing. Unfortunately, for most science, those doing the work [grad students, research assistants] don't know what the parameters are doing, and then one gets the scientific meltdown described here. |
Another issue that was briefly touched on was licensing. Our University won't allow anything to be published under the GPL, period. I tried a few years ago and got roundly smacked down. They wanted to keep the option of commercialization, but still let me publish. In the end, I was able to use the OSL (Open Software License), which is very similar.
A copy-left license like this is the most compatible license with the way that science is done in academia. Another alternative would be the original MIT license (the one with the attribution requirement). If code is going to be published (in a journal), there needs to be an attribution requirement, just like any other citation. Another problem that I see everyday is in a field like bioinformatics. Right now it's a lot of manual work. Pulling data from database A, putting that in to Excel, calculating a number, comparing that with database B, etc... Most people in this field don't treat it like scientific process at all. There is no equivalent of the lab notebook for bioinformatics. If you had to go back and reconstruct what happened, it's impossible. I come from a web-lab background, so I find myself writing little one off bash scripts to do almost everything so that I can always look back at what I did to get my results. |
I think that the problem being raised in the article isn't so much, 'the result doesn't match!' but 'Why the fsck don't the results match?' Since a failed attempt at reproduction, or the generation of inconsistent results implies that something isn't right, but doesn't tell us what it is, scientists need to be able to look for errors, hidden dependencies, or what have you everywhere in the experimental system. If the software version, hardware, and parameters used in the original result are long gone, then checking up on that result becomes much, much more difficult. At least, that's how I read the story, and particularly in light of Dr. Jay's comments above. |
Exactly. My office-mates know when I'm working on computations, because I start cursing, muttering under my breath, and banging the desk with my fist. This is not just the normal frustration of programming, it is having a set of (usually very expensive) software tools that also have piss-poor documentation and no transparency. |
I've gone back and added another sentence to really make this explicit, since it's clear from the comments here that it wasn't obvious enough as i originally wrote it. It's actually touched on in several places, but it's always tough to translate a story with a few interwoven concepts into a linear medium without scattering at least one of the concepts and diluting its impact accordingly. This is the one that got stuck being scattered in this case. Which is somewhat ironic, since it's actually something i discussed with Stodden in detail, and she had a significant influence on my thoughts here. |
First, I'll echo the comments of everyone else here, science shouldn't rely on the numerics you are using. If you are dealing with a chaotic system (e.g. the 10th digit in 100 matters) then you had better not be reliant on the exact result, you should be reliant on the statistics of the system, and those shouldn't change from on compiler/chip/OS to the next.
That said, I think the issue is as much about makeing science easier. I used to have problems when I revisited old work *I* had done. I had since modified some of the code I had written to work with a different set of files. As a result it was a nightmare to find all of the changes and revert back to them. I don't use version control... I know I should... but I don't. For now I'm making a copy of my entire script library (it's only a few MB) whenever I "finish" a project, so that when I go back to it I know I can re-run everything. One of the problems with the approach listed (clicking on a table to pull up and re-run all of the analysis) is that to generate that 5 line table you might require 100GB of data... it hardly seems justifiable to transfer all 100GB of data around anytime you want to make a copy of that table, so you are stuck not being able to just click and re-run anyway. You certainly can't publish a 100GB paper in most academic journals, though it would be good to have an enormous data repository for this sort of archiving. |
From the perspective of a chemist, I have two comments:
First off, the first thing that pops in my head when reading this article is the frustration around using something like Gaussian. It's a software package for modeling molecules, and depending on how you work it --- it does a very good job of it. The logarithms, however, are locked down and unknown for the most part to the scientist user. It's very hard to comment on the code when you don't know exactly how it works. Even the method nomenclature is nonsensical, all we're left with are black boxes. A lot of computational chemists have their hands tied, and can't really do anything about it. Even trying to look at the computer code itself is fruitless, b/c it is written to be purposefully confusing. Mind you, these scientists spend their career studying quantum mechanics, so it's not like they're too dumb to get the core concepts. The company simply refuses to go public with the code. As such, scientists can not improve on it at all. It really does blow. On the flip side, even when dealing with code that is known (like X-ray crystallography), it requires a lot of user input/manipulation during the process of analysis. And those steps are almost never tracked and never published. For the most part though, you can get similar results, albeit not exactly the same results. This has always been odd to me considering how inductive the theory behind crystallography is. And I'm not even talking about proteins or other macro structures, even when working with tiny molecules the results will vary with the user despite the identical raw data sets... If it's in the same ball park, it's generally fine and hand waved away. But there are instances where you are comparing first base to the outer left field, and that's when the eyebrows go up and more raw data is collected in a hope to either rule out of the possibilities or merge them both down to second base. (it's a bad analogy, but I couldn't come up with anything better) M |
And the scientific method will say that is not repeatable. 2 + 2 is always four, and if your compiler/hardware says otherwise, then it is at fault, not the scientific method. There is no reason to change the scientific method, as the article states. What sentence did you add? It complete escaped me and I read the article after you did the update. At first I thought you were arguing for preserving programs and hardware into antiquity, rather than arguing for transparency into what the programs and hardware did. |
"Perhaps most significantly, without a way of determining precisely what was done, it's impossible to identify the differences that sometimes cause similar analyses to produce different results." |
The issue in the case of some of the climate papers has been refusal to release the code or even the algorithm, or in some cases even the raw data. In fact, the CRU temperature series are still not reproducible, nor has anyone ever exactly reproduced the MBH98 results, and Mann has always refused to reveal the algorithm.
So its not just a technical issue, its a debate about what should count as publication. In the climate wars you have one side saying they want to see the raw data and the code applied to it, as it was used. Partly they do not trust the code to be correct and bug free, partly they may not even trust that this was the code and this was the data used. The other side says a bunch of things. One is, go make your own code if you want to check our results, go get your own raw data. Another is, we are too busy doing science to make our code into turnkey packages. The problem is, back in the days when you were applying well known algorithms from the public domain to your data, all you had to do was say which, and then supply the data and reproduction of results was possible. However, now you are saying (for instance) that I wrote my own Fortran (yes, they really did write the stuff in Fortran) and what it shows, when applied to my raw data, is the following principal components. How are you to assess this claim if you cannot see the raw data and the code. Its a complicated one. Consider Lonnie Thompson's raw data. Allegedly those ice core readings show various things. But their raw values have never been published or documented. How much weight should we place on them? As the Polar Urals stuff showed when they were finally all recently released, things may look very different when examined by outsiders from the way they looked to the original author. |
I'm not sure what you are getting at here. Fortran is the norm in many sciences. Just as scientists don't have time to make all of their work turn-key (and I think that is in some ways doing a disservice to themselves as well as everyone else), they don't have time to constantly be learning the latest and greatest computer language. Fortran still has some nice features for certain tasks (mind you I hate the stuff, but I use it occasionally, and I don't begrudge others using it). I agree that data should be public, but there are cases where that may not be possible. |
I think the current situation is far worse than most of you are assuming. We're not talking about differences on the level of compiler flags or linear algebra libraries. After you run the code and get numbers, you have to perform analysis to answer questions such as: "Are these two molecules bonded?" , "How much gas is adsorbed on this surface?" , or "Which of these crystal structures/protein conformations/etc are most likely to occur?" In order to answer these type of questions, you must often make a chain of assumptions in performing the analysis. Currently, this type of information may or may not be published, which can allow systematic blunders such as those at CRU. This lackadaisical attitude also hinders criticism of others' work. For example, people may accept the simple argument that an alternative configuration may be more stable, but there may not be an energetically favorable pathway from any known configuration to the supposed configuration.
Beyond reproducibility, there seems to be little concern for statistical significance in many computational papers. This is particularly unforgivable because running another simulation should be a one-click process. I think (the technical portion of) both of these problems could be solved by vastly increasing automation, which would practically necessitate a move away from languages such as C and Fortran. |
Greg Wilson (University of Toronto and http://www.third-bit.com) has been writing and working on this issue for some years now. He's the creator of the Software Carpentry course (http://software-carpentry.org) for scientists, which I thoroughly recommend.
He's also currently looking for sponsorship to continue developing the courses, so if you feel that this subject is important, you may want to read his blog entry at http://pyre.third-bit.com/blog/archives/3400.html ~Matt |
I'm curious why you don't make use of GAMESS? For those who aren't aware of it, while not FOSS, it is a free program with nonclosed source(they retain distribution rights and in order to get it from their site they want an email address, but as far as I know it's so that the group can get usage numbers for funding). As far as I know it possesses all of the functionality of Gaussian, and is of comparable speed(although those who try and publish benchmarks are banned by Gaussian from using their code). It's pretty well documented too, with literature references for the methods, etc. Get it here: GAMESS Also for people interested in solid state calculations, abinit *is* GPL, and you can get it here: abinit |
See previous posts on this subject. This is just the most basic of issues. The next comes from the use of statistics instead of scientific method to test drugs, global warming and all kinds of other things instead of putting in the effort to do it right and actually understand what's happening instead of side effects that they likely haven't controlled because they're using statistics to smooth the data instead of controlling variables. The point is that in most of these cases the ultimate goal should still be to control all of the variables. Yes, it's very very hard, but we won't know for sure that our science is right until they do. |
@ Geminiman
I think what you're describing can't even rightly be called statistics, but sadly, it's pretty common. Anyway, on a more positive note, some tools for people who use the stats package R for reproducible research: http://www.stat.umn.edu/~charlie/Sweave/ It's similar to Genepattern in a way in that it allows you to write your processing code alongside the rest of your publication/notes and have all of it directed into a unified LaTeX document. Every time you rebuild the document, the charts, data, etc. can be rebuilt before being inserted. (Obviously you run into problems for huge simulations and very large datasets in terms of processing time, but it's otherwise priceless for documentation). There's a whole family of similarly aimed tools called noweb, from the literate programming movement. |
I think the previous thread where you posted this showed pretty clearly that you don't know much about science or statistics. The way you have it, Boltzmann was a fraud, QM is magic, and don't even touch population genetics, it's a waste of time. But Geminiman is sure that there's 'real' science out there somewhere, somewhen. We just haven't done any since at least the 20th century, perhaps earlier.
Then we'll never know for sure that our science is right, because there's no way to know that you've identified (never mind controlled) all the variables (nor even only the relevant ones) unless you already know everything. There's a reason Popper's work was so influential (even if ultimately misguided, IMO). I suggest you read it sometime. |
I think the The history of SAGE ( http://sagemath.blogspot.com/2...are-and-me-very.html ) is relevant as an anecdote here. It went a long way in justifying to me the critical importance of open source in scientific computing. Not only does the source provide a means of auditing the means take to achieve results, it makes it possible for researchers to extend the system to incorporate their own work, and as part of the spirit of science, share not only the knowledge gained from their research, but the means to reproduce it and extend it.
At the moment you write your paper, you have all your code and data that you used. Zip it up, and submit it with the paper. If the journal you're submitting to doesn't make a bit of data space available, then *that's where the problem is*.
The Royal Society, for example, provides a fair bit of data space (which is made publicly available with the paper) with every submission. This is the only way of doing it. Then, the only issues you'll encounter are those of potentially porting it to a different platform, but that is at least possible with some effort (I used to work in a bioengineering lab at UCSD doing exactly that for biological models of the heart), whereas if the data and code is not available, then it is utterly unreproducible. And if you wait until after publication to request the data, then it might already be too late (data gets lost all the time). |
This article doesn't understand the scientific method, or science, or the natural world very well. Reproducibility isn't, as the first two commenters say, all about getting identical results. It's about getting good enough results. If you get identical results, you would have more than enough reason to be suspicious. And the point of bringing in computing to the analysis of results is to collate massive amounts of data to produce easily digested trends: you absolutely *should* get a variety of samples to analyze from which trends may be generated. These are the results: not the samples.
And similarly, if you have to use identical equipment in order to achieve reproducibility, then it would be appropriate to question the conditions of testing. |
There is a whole range of topics dedicated to robustness in numerical computing. Any serious computation experiment will include safeguards, checks and other forms of verification to account for numerical instability in their algorithms. Hell, even some non-mission critical applications such as games include employ these techniques. |
That's not so easy. The "code" might include big libraries and software packages installed on the supercomputer by system administrators. It's not just a file I can burn to a disc. It's a whole package and I'm not the one who installed it or knows where all the important bits live in the computer system. The "code" might also be proprietary. I have a license to use Mathematica. I don't have a license to publish copies of the Mathematica installation disc. I also have licenses to use niche software packages for my research. I can't publish them myself, and even if I tell you the name of the publisher they might be out of business by the time you read my paper. The "code" can also require a lot of manual intervention. In between my raw data and my manuscript, I do a lot of manipulations to convert formats, perform regressions, and adjust plots. The save files have the final states of the data, but not scripts to automate all the steps that I did manually. The solution is to tell you what I did with reasonable detail so that somebody skilled in the art could reproduce my results within the variability of the data and methods themselves. The legitimate problem is that even I, with my data and memories of what I did before, can't necessarily run all of my old simulations again because libraries change, compilers change, and even languages change. So after a few years I'm at the same disadvantage as a stranger reading my papers. I'd have to rebuild the infrastructure to perform my simulations from scratch. |
So, how much do you want the world to bet that your results are legit? This is the climate science problem, we are being asked to spend trillions, but it seems to be too difficult or somehow wrong to release the data and the code that justify this spending. |
No, it's not "the climate science problem." For starters, you can't extrapolate from the HAD-CRUT to all of climate science. The folks who do the GISS-TEMP analysis tell you precisely how to replicate their analysis - all the code and data are publicly available. The source for a number of climate models are also available; same for many of the millennial scale climate reconstructions. Does climate science face the same versioning and documentation problems as other fields? Of course. But climatologists are probably in better shape than genomics researchers, at least in regards to the amount of data they need to cope with. In any case, we're going to have to spend trillions to continue extracting resources at our current rate (oil fields and power plants don't build themselves), so it's more a matter of prioritizing than spending. |
Dr. Jay, another thing I would add to Ally's comment about global warming - even IF the GW scientists are doing something questionably repeatable, what the anti-GW people are doing is not science from the very start. They take their conclusion as correct - that there either isn't any, or it isn't man-caused, and then fit their data to support it. If you do this, you will ALWAYS come up with support - just reject anything NOT on the basis of identified problems, but on the basis that is doesn't support the conclusion.
Portability and Archivability - I didn't see either of these concepts mentioned. But these should be factored into the issue of scientific reproducibility of experiments. If at all possible, your peers should require no special platform-specific tools to reproduce your results. Likewise, you yourself should consider the likelihood that your own tools could become irrelevant in say 20 years. Plan accordingly.
Published data (input and output) should be in a plain-text "export" format. If source code is included, it should be clearly written and commented in a high-order procedural language, e.g. - Fortran, C, Perl. And "black box" applications and functions should definitely be avoided. But if such tools are unavoidable, the algorithmic assumptions should at least be clearly stated in the paper. Unix and its built-in tool set will be around for a very long time, and should be your platform of choice. Avoid using object-oriented languages as your source code unless you eschew the libraries and methods that are the major rationale for OOP. Do your peers have those same libraries, and will you 20 years hence? You wouldn't dream of archiving your most precious documents in MS Word, or you tax records in TurboTax format. In 20 years, both types would be unreadable on a future platform. Why treat scientific reproducibility any differently? |


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Yes Misslove, lets sympathize with the criminals.
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In partnership with the St.Vincent Breast Center and a grant from the Susan G. Komen Foundation, St.Vincent Mercy Hospital hosts visits by the St.Vincent mobile mammography van.
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About JuneAnn
I have been a psychic medium and have enjoyed writing all my life. I have written a book entitled Angels, ghosts and spirit guides: Connect, Empower and Protect Yourself, which you can find on amazon kindle website.
I have worked in nursing for over thirty-five years and live on a farm in Oregon City, OR.
My website is angels-ghosts-spiritguides.com
I have just released a childrens book ent... More
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I am a writer and psychic medium
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The invasion and spread of cancer cells to other parts of the body, known as metastasis, is a principal cause of death in patients diagnosed with breast cancer. Although patients with early stage, small, breast tumours have an excellent short term prognosis, more than 15 to 20 per cent of them will eventually develop distant metastases, and die from the disease. Vascular invasion - through lymphatic and blood vessels - is the major route for cancer spreading to regional lymph nodes and to the rest of the body. Dr Stewart Martin, Professor Ian Ellis and their colleagues at The University of Nottingham, and worldwide, are combining a number of approaches in a dynamic effort to improve our understanding of cell behaviour in breast cancer. Discovering how these cells operate is vital in improving diagnosis and treatment for the cancer patient in the longer term, and in identifying therapeutic targets.
Already the results of their work have been excellent - with findings in relation to the spread of cancer through the lymphatic vessels prompting a much larger study funded by Cancer Research UK.
A research student within the Nottingham team, Rabab Mohammed, showed recently that specific factors that regulate the growth of blood and lymphatic vessels can identify a subset of tumours which have a high probability of recurring or spreading. The team subsequently identified the crucial importance of assessing both the level of blood and lymph vessel invasion by cancer cells at the earliest stages of detection. It has, until recently, been very difficult to distinguish between the two. With advances in immunohistochemical techniques, blood vessels can today be reliably identified and differentiated from lymphatics. Currently clinical approaches for the assessment of vascular invasion are insufficiently robust and can result in a failure to detect some lesions accurately, or fail to differentiate adequately between blood and lymph vessels. The Nottingham team has shown - using tumour sections from 177 patients "€" that 96 per cent of vascular invasion in primary invasive breast cancer is predominantly of the lymph vessels. This is significant. It is important that this finding is verified in a larger cohort of patients. The researchers are now working to accomplish this, through funding recently obtained from Cancer Research UK, using specimens from more than a thousand women with early stage breast cancer. Results from this study will also allow them to determine whether Lymphatic Vascular Invasion can be incorporated into an improved prognostic index for early stage breast cancer. This work is being combined with gene expression studies, with bioinformatic approaches and using in vitro (cells in culture) models to identify novel therapeutic targets. It is being conducted in collaboration with a number of groups, industrial and academic, from both the UK and overseas. - Ends -
References: 1. Mohammed RAA, Green A, El-Sheikh S, Paish EC, Ellis IO, Martin SG (2007) Prognostic significance of vascular endothelial cell growth factors -A, -C and -D in breast cancer and their relationship with angio- and lymphangiogenesis. British Journal of Cancer 96, 1092-1100. 2. Mohammed RAA, Martin SG, El-Sheikh S, Ellis IO (2007) Improved methods of detection of lymphovascular invasion demonstrate that it is the predominant method of vascular invasion in breast cancer and has important clinical consequences. American Journal of Surgical Pathology 31(12):1825-33 Additional References of Relevance: Mohammed RAA, Ellis IO, Elsheikh S, Paish EC, Martin SG. (2008) Lymphatic and angiogenic characteristics in breast cancer: morphometric analysis and prognostic implications. Breast Cancer Research and Treatment. Feb 22. [Epub ahead of print]
Mohammed RAA, Ellis IO, Lee AHS, Martin SG (2008) Vascular invasion in breast cancer; an overview of recent prognostic developments and molecular pathophysiological mechanisms. Histopathology (in press). Notes to editors: The University of Nottingham is ranked in the UK's Top 10 and the World's Top 70 universities by the Shanghai Jiao Tong (SJTU) and Times Higher (THE) World University Rankings. It provides innovative and top quality teaching, undertakes world-changing research, and attracts talented staff and students from 150 nations. Described by The Times as Britain's "only truly global university", it has invested continuously in award-winning campuses in the United Kingdom, China and Malaysia. Twice since 2003 its research and teaching academics have won Nobel Prizes. The University has won the Queen's Award for Enterprise in both 2006 (International Trade) and 2007 (Innovation - School of Pharmacy). Its students are much in demand from 'blue-chip' employers. Winners of Students in Free Enterprise for four years in succession, and current holder of UK Graduate of the Year, they are accomplished artists, scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, innovators and fundraisers. Nottingham graduates consistently excel in business, the media, the arts and sport. Undergraduate and postgraduate degree completion rates are amongst the highest in the United Kingdom.
More information is available from Dr Stewart Martin, Division of Clinical Oncology, University of Nottingham, on +44 (0)115 8231847, firstname.lastname@example.com; Professor Ian Ellis, on +44 (0)115 9691169 ext 46875, firstname.lastname@example.com.
The University of NottinghamC Floor, Pope Building (Room C4)University Park Nottingham, NG7 2RD
telephone: +44 (0) 115 951 5765 email: firstname.lastname@example.com


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Mile Meter likes to think of itself as the "anti-insurance insurance company." It sells auto insurance by the mile — which means that the→
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According to the Nova Scotia Association of Realtors, the Halifax real estate market has more houses for sale and fewer buyers than last year, and many realtors have been forced to seek part-time jobs. A change in rules for first-time buyers, and a subsiding of the initial activity upon the announcement of the Irving Shipbuilding contract are factors in the slowdown.
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Show off your holiday lights and you could win an iPad! Enter your photo by December 13. Winner will be selected by popular vote.
Cathy Turpin will spend a year in prison for tampering with Alvin Turpin's food and sending him to the hospital.
Cathy Turpin
Friday, June 7, 2013
RADFORD – He made a ham sandwich out of ingredients from his fridge, and about an hour after eating it, Alvin Turpin said he became extremely ill.
Turpin's former wife, whom he was married to for 32 years, pleaded guilty Friday in Radford Circuit Court to putting "itching powder" in Alvin Turpin's mayonnaise and ham in September 2008, sending him to the hospital.
Cathy Turpin, 56, of Dublin was convicted of adulteration of food and sentenced to 10 years in prison, suspended after she serves one year. She'll also be responsible for paying her ex-husband's medical bill.
Radford Commonwealth's Attorney Chris Rehak said Cathy Turpin later told police that the two had been fighting and she was "very, very mad." Alvin Turpin said after the hearing that he and Cathy Turpin have been divorced since March 2010 and were separated and living apart at the time of the incident.
Alvin Turpin said he came back to his Radford house one day in September 2008 and discovered that it had been broken into. Though nothing major had been stolen, he called police.
He later noticed that the wires to his refrigerator had been cut, but because his food was still cold, he said he was not concerned about making a sandwich with the ham and mayonnaise inside.
He said he became so ill after eating the sandwich that he went to the Carilion New River Valley Medical Center, where he was kept overnight in the intensive care unit, with IVs in both of his arms.
But the thought of someone deliberately poisoning him didn't cross his mind, Turpin said.
"I didn't think anything about it," he said. "But then I came back from the hospital and found the emails."
Turpin said that his sister, posing online as a man, had started communicating with Cathy Turpin on a dating site. It started as a joke, Alvin Turpin said, but Cathy Turpin began opening up to the online user, telling her sister-in-law — whom she believed was a potential romantic interest — that she had poisoned her husband.
Rehak said Friday that Cathy Turpin wrote in an email that she at first found it funny that Alvin Turpin had to go to the hospital but that if she had seriously hurt him, she would be "devastated."
Rehak said that Cathy Turpin told police that she "wanted to make him sick and vomit out of spite." No specifics about why she used the powder were disclosed during Friday's hearing.
Cathy Turpin was originally charged with administering poison, but the charge was amended as part of a plea agreement. She also faced one count of malicious wounding and charges of burglary, forgery and credit card larceny, but those charges were dismissed Friday.
Alvin Turpin said he and Cathy Turpin had lived together in Dublin, but after separating, he moved back to his childhood home in Radford. It was there that he had to change his locks three times because of break-ins, he said.
Alvin Turpin said he called police each time, and he informed his lawyer. Cathy Turpin was using a Capitol One card in his name without his knowledge and spent more than $3,000, he said. But his lawyer at the time "did nothing," Alvin Turpin said.
Police have said the investigation into the September 2008 break-in didn't go anywhere because authorities were unclear about the marital status of the couple, which might have complicated a burglary charge. The police did not hear about the attempted poisoning accusation until this year, Radford police Lt. Andy Wilburn has said. The new piece of information led to the reopening of the case.
Alvin Turpin said that after the last break in, a police officer advised him to meet with Rehak, which led to Cathy Turpin's indictments in March.
Cathy Turpin's lawyer, Mark Hicks, said his client will pay $1,860 in restitution to Alvin Turpin if he can provide documentation of his hospital bills. Cathy Turpin will also be placed on two years of active supervised probation upon her release.
The maximum punishment for an adulteration of food charge is 20 years, and when asked by Judge Joey Showalter why there was a downward departure in Cathy Turpin's sentence, Rehak said Turpin is older, has a medical condition and has never been convicted of a felony.
Alvin Turpin said he first met Cathy Turpin at a furniture company where they both worked. They married in 1977 and had two children together, who are now grown and have children of their own.
"They have nothing to do with her," Alvin Turpin said of his children. He added that his newest grandchild will most likely never see Cathy Turpin in person.
"She should have gotten the 20 years," Alvin Turpin said. "But there was a little justice."
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Heron rescued after getting caught in fishing line (From Sutton Guardian)
Contact us: Got a photo? Text SLPICS to 80360, click to upload your story or call 020 8722 6355
Heron caught in fishing line rescued from Beddington lake
7:30am Saturday 21st July 2012 in News By Matt Watts, Assistant Editor
An injured heron was rescued from a lake in Beddington Park after it got tangled in fishing wire.
The struggling bird was spotted on floating debris in the middle of the lake at 5pm on Monday, July 9.
It was snagged on branches by a fishing line which had become tightly wound around its legs.
A Riverside Animal Centre volunteer entered the heavily silted water in chest waders to rescue the bird.
It was taken to the organisation's centre in Park.
The fishing line was unravelled and a hook at end of the line that had become embedded in the side of the bird's face was removed.
Ted Burden ,the centre's founder, said: "After a couple of hours the bird appeared bright and lively and so it was released back onto the lake."
He added: "Fishing does not occur on Park lake so the bird probably acquired the line and hook elsewhere.
"For the hook to become embedded as and where it did, it must have hit the bird at the point at which it was being cast by an angler. This is not uncommon where anglers fish on ponds and lakes which are populated by waterfowl."
"Fishing tackle remains one of the most significant pollution and injury problems affecting waterfowl at thousands of locations in the UK and dealing with the resultant injuries costs animal rescue charities tens of thousands of pounds every year.
"More importantly, it causes hundreds of cases of severe suffering and even death to and other animals who are simply trying to exist in their own environment."


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CHSBeer.org is a one-stop shop for locals and visitors to get a handle on all things beery in the Lowcountry.
Content is especially geared towards local beer, but includes all aspects of beer culture in the area. Information is available in a smooth, easy-to-navigate format, in which users can interact with their own comments. We tried to get beer to shoot out of the screen too, but we ruined our keyboards. Beyond our site, we've built, hosted, and written copy for Holy City Brewing, the South Carolina Brewers Association, Charleston Beer Week, and Brewvival, with more to come.
Timmons Pettigrew has lived in Charleston since the year 2000, and got active in the local beer scene around 2007. He started writing about beer for TheDigitel Charleston on a whim in 2009, with tons of enthusiasm and no qualifications. Several thousand coincidences later, he wrote a book. Charleston Beer: A High-Gravity History of Lowcountry Brewing was published by The History Press in October of 2011. His freelance work has extended to Eat This! Charleston, Charleston City Paper, Private Clubs Magazine, and elsewhere. He's educated folks on local beer (IRL) at The Powder Magazine, Charleston Wine + Food's Brew Hop, the South Carolina Book Festival, and elsewhere. He co-founded CHSBeer.org in early 2012 with Chrys, and is the site's iron-fisted, slave-driving, monocle-wearing Editor & Tweetsman.
Favorite styles: IPA, American Pale Ale & Gueuze
Chrys Rynearson moved to Charleston by way of Germany, where he was stationed as a Project Engineer for the U.S. Navy. During his six year visit, he was lucky enough to travel to roughly 20 countries and made it a point to seek out and sample many a European brew. On the side, he's a freelance photographer, videographer, web developer, and a beer geek's geek, often helping out local breweries and other beery organizations. His photos have appeared in Beer Advocate, Charleston Home + Design Magazine, Where Magazine, Charleston City Paper, Penthouse Magazine, and Charleston Beer: A High-Gravity History of Lowcountry Brewing. He has built and currently maintains websites for Brewvival, Charleston Beer Week, South Carolina Brewers' Association, Rafa Distributing, and Holy City Brewing.
Favorite styles: Imperial Stout, DIPA, CDA
Brandon "Old Time" Plyler - Guest writer
Brandon's big dreams of being a Master Sommelier were thwarted by the gift of Garrett Oliver's The Brewmaster's Table. After reading everything he could get his hands on, he began (officially) teaching class at The Culinary Institute at Trident Technical College along with several other classroom ventures, both public and private. In 2012 he became a Certified Cicerone®, one of three in the state of SC. He continues to bore people with obscure beer information that he pontificates purely to bolster his own ego. Currently he manages The Charleston Beer Exchange, and loves to answer questions in person, all the while despising the word "expert." He has lived in Charleston since 2008 and marvels at how far beer has come in a region not known for fast changes.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed on this site are those of the site owners only. We laud commitment to serving high-quality beer in a high-quality fashion. If you disagree, you may, in fact, be wrong.


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Editors' note: In this review, we'll focus more on the HTC Trophy's design, performance, and differentiating features. For more on its operating system and core functions, please read our full review of Windows Phone 7.
The HTC Trophy is one of many Windows Phone 7 devices available in international markets. Since Asia and Europe are often the recipients of cool phones, while we usually get the safe options, we decided to get one in to see if we were missing out on anything. The answer is: not really. Don't get us wrong. The Trophy is a solid smartphone and offers a sleek design and good performance. It's also one of the more-affordable models if you happen to live in one of those markets. However, here in the States, it will run you about $400 to purchase the phone unlocked and you can definitely get more for less from the Samsung Focus or the HTC HD7, so unless you're in the market for an unlocked phone, we'd say go with one of the other two.
Compared with the HTC Surround with its slide-out speaker and the HTC HD7 with its extra-large display, the HTC Trophy might seem a bit plain, but we don't see that as a bad thing. At 4.67 inches tall by 2.42 inches wide by 0.47 inch thick, and 4.94 ounces, the Trophy is sleek and simple, which is attractive in its own right. The slim profile makes it easy to slip into a pants pocket, and it feels light yet solid in the hand. The aluminum-like bezel and soft-touch finish on back are also nice touches, as is the yellow interior behind the battery door.
The Trophy's display measures 3.8 inches diagonally and has a WVGA (480X800 pixels) resolution. Images and text looked sharp and bright. That said, the display washes out a bit in direct sunlight, and it's a fingerprint and smudge magnet. The touch screen itself is responsive, as it registered all our taps, smoothly scrolled through lists, and easily zoomed in on pages using the pinch-to-zoom gesture. There is also a proximity sensor and built-in accelerometer, but as we noted in past reviews, Windows Phone 7 currently has limited landscape support.
Microsoft did a really nice job with the onscreen keyboard, however. Despite looking small and cramped, it's easy to use and accurate. It's almost on par with the iPhone's keyboard and certainly better than Android's stock keyboard. When we were switching between the Trophy and other Android devices, we found the latter to be slightly slower and more prone to mispresses.
Below the display are touch-sensitive back, Start, and search buttons. There's a volume rocker and a Micro-USB port on the left; on the right side, you'll find a dedicated camera key. The top of the device features a power button and a 3.5mm headphone jack, and the back of the device houses the camera, LED flash, and speaker.
Our HTC Trophy review unit came packaged with an AC adapter, a USB cable, and a wired stereo headset.
The HTC Trophy is a quad-band world phone, offering a speakerphone, call waiting, call forwarding, conference calling, voice dialing, and text and multimedia messaging. Stereo Bluetooth support, Wi-Fi, and GPS are also onboard, but since the Trophy is designed for the international markets, it's not compatible with the North American 3G bands. That means if you purchase the phone unlocked and pop in a T-Mobile or AT&T SIM card, you'll only be operating on EDGE, so keep that in mind.