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Photo by TheAHL
RFA Zach Redmond was re-signed to a one-year, two-way contract by the Jets yesterday that will pay him $715K in the NHL and $65K in the AHL. Redmond played in 8 games for the Jets last season before missing the rest of the season with a severed artery suffered in practice. The right-handed two-way defender had an impressive NHL debut, scoring a goal and three assists while averaging over 19 minutes of ice time while first Byfuglien and Bogosian and later Enstrom were sidelined.
Below we'll look at the contract and player separately.
The Contract
Redmond is not yet waiver eligible, having played just 8 games under his first professional contract. In other words, it's clear that the Jets intend to begin resolving their log jam on defence by sending Redmond to the IceCaps to start the season. Redmond becomes waiver eligible with another 44 games of NHL play or at the conclusion of the 2013/14 season (whichever comes first), so we can expect him to see spot duty at the NHL level at best. Moreover, a single year contract clearly indicates the team's intention to evaluate Redmond for an NHL job without beind handcuffed in subsequent seasons by his waiver eligibility.
As we discussed the other day, the team made a decision on Redmond with Paul Postma's contract, which does have a second year at higher dollars for a waiver eligible player. Redmond will not only have to impress enough to earn a spot in the lineup and justify a paycheque, he'll also have to impress enough to convince management to cut loose another investment. The team has given Redmond and up-hill battle with this contract.
From Redmond's perspective, the addition of Pardy and Kulda, and Postma's recent deal meant he just didn't have any leverage. His injury was a severe one and proving he can come back and play professional hockey both physically and mentally will be of value to his long term career. He got a chance to play, and no doubt fans and people within the organization alike are cheering for him.
The Player
Photo by TheAHL
The most curious part of Redmond's deal in light of Paul Postma's is that it's entirely possible Redmond is the better player today. Both players have such limited resumes at the NHL level we have too small a sample to say for sure by eye or by advanced stats. Postma has scored more than Redmond on the same AHL team, though Redmond's 50 AHL points in 113AHL games is still impressive. Both players are late round picks and lack pedigree. Redmond is an '88 birthday, Postma an '89, though it seems silly to assign Postma more potential based on that, given he has 226 professional games under his belt compared to Ferris State graduate Zach Redmond's 121. Both are large bodied, smooth skating defencemen, but Redmond has a reputation for being physical and a capable cycle breaker as well as a competent (though not frequent) fighter. Most importantly, if we trust Claude Noel and defensive coach Charlie Huddy at all, Redmond was given significantly more minutes in his debut as an NHL rookie than was Postma in his 3rd season of NHL games, and was played in all three disciplines. He averaged more even strength minutes than Clitsome this past year (16:40) while playing almost 1:30 of short handed and powerplay time each.
A few days shy of his 25th birthday, it's entirely possible that Zach Redmond forever remains a bubble NHL defender. His 19+ minutes a game came during a 2 win, 6 loss stretch of hockey that was among the Jets' worst of the season, including a 6-3 loss to the Panthers followed by an 8-3 loss to the Lightning in Redmond's first two games. (It's worth noting that Redmond was a +1 in those two games combined.) Nevertheless, it's unlikely that Redmond gets a fair look at training camp this year, as the Jets can put off making a permanent decision (such as losing Postma) by putting Redmond in the AHL to start the year.
The Bottom Line
I don't want to sound as though I think Zach Redmond can put the Jets into the playoffs. His extended minutes came while the Jets blueline was paper thin, while the majority of Postma's season came on the third pairing. Postma may still show he's the better NHL player, and certainly the Jets powerplay needs help. The fear is simple: the team protects its replaceable assets by stunting open competition for roster spots. Worse – that by protecting assets in the short term, it loses control of assets in the longer term. Good teams have competition for jobs (or use known NHL quality players) and allow the better players to win those competitions. The Jets may yet prove that's the case. More likely, Trouba and Redmond start the year together in St. John's while Pardy and Postma stay with the big club regardless of what happens in training camp.
It's a good chance for Redmond to get this career back on track after last year's very scary, near-death experience. Hopefully he can pick up where he left off as a multi-tool, two-way defender and continue to develop into an NHL quality player.


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Nova dominant into seventh, Yankees beat Braves
KISSIMMEE, Fla. (AP) Ivan Nova pitched two-hit ball while working into the seventh inning for the first time this spring, and the New York Yankees beat the Atlanta Braves 7-0 Wednesday.
Nova didn't walk a batter and didn't allow a runner past second base. He said he felt like he could have kept going until he was pulled after allowing a double to Ryan Doumit.
"I expected to pitch six, but not into the seventh," Nova said. "I left feeling strong. This was a good day. I felt really comfortable."
Nova struck out five in 6 1-3 innings and lowered his ERA to 3.66 in his fifth start.
Carlos Beltran had three hits and drove in two runs and Adonis Garcia raised his spring batting average to .423 with two RBIs.
David Hale went 4 1-3 innings, allowing three runs and walking three. With injuries to several starters, Hale is in the mix for one of the final two spots in the rotation. He has a spring ERA of 5.11.
Yankees: Nova was asked if he feels like a veteran because he leads the team with five starts. He laughed at that one.
"I guess I've been here a while but do I feel like a veteran? No, no, no," Nova said. "But I have been here long enough to know what I am doing.'
Yankees manager Joe Girardi said he had no problems letting Nova pitch into the seventh inning.
"He was getting batters out. I thought he looked great," Girardi said.
Braves: Hale knows he's under close scrutiny as the Braves try to scrape together a starting rotation. He was excited about facing much of the Yankees regular starting lineup.
"I grew up watching Derek Jeter," Hale said. "That was fun."
What wasn't fun were the walks. Hale had only walked two batters all spring but he was concerned after walking three against the Yankees.
"I know I have to cut down on the walks," Hale said. "I figured out what I was doing wrong and I need to make some corrections. Right now, I am absolutely where I want to be."
With a shot at one of the open spots in the rotation, Hale said he is trying to stay focused.
"You never want to see anyone get hurt, but it has given me an opportunity," Hale said.
Yankees: Outfielder Jacoby Ellsbury was out of the lineup for a second straight day nursing a sore right calf. Girardi said he is still day to day.
Braves: Kris Medlen had Tommy John surgery on Wednesday to repair his ulnar collateral ligament in his right pitching elbow. He is out for the season. … First baseman Freddie Freeman returned to the lineup and went 0 for 3. He has been struggling with a bruised thumb.
McCANN RETURNS
Yankees catcher Brian McCann returned to the Braves' complex at Walt Disney World for the first time since signing a five-year, $85 million deal during the offseason. McCann spent nine years with the Braves, making seven All-Star appearances. He has fond memories of his time in Atlanta.
"I didn't come here for any reason but it was good to see the guys," McCann said. "I came to catch Nova. I am very grateful to the Braves. They made me the player I am today and I loved my time here."
Girardi said McCann is making a difference on and off the field.
"He goes out of his way to help the pitching staff," Girardi said. "He spends time with them off the field. You can learn a lot about a guy that way. He's becoming a leader to that staff."
The Braves signed Erwin Santana to a one-year, $14.1 million deal last week to fill the void in the starting rotation. After pitching several bullpens, Santana will make his first start in a Braves uniform on Thursday in Port St. Lucie against the New York Mets. Santana went 9-10 with a 3.24 ERA for the Kansas City Royals last season.


text: TwinVeil was practically screaming that it was made by elves for elves, and that it was a thief's favorite kind of town to make a living in. There was probably some rather strict laws against thievery here, unless even the rich were stealing. Rhea wasn't fond of things like this city. It really showed the arrogance of people, to build an interconnected city high up in the trees. Elves were a smart, cunning people, but certainly their enemies would be quick to light a match to this city and let gravity do the rest. Rudolph would hate this place.


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Easier DVD patent system
The Fair Trade Commission (FTC) on Thursday approved the formation of a patent alliance submitted by the world's major DVD makers which aims to charge royalties at reasonable prices and not to hamper market competition.
LG Electronics Inc, Pioneer Corp, Koninklijke Philips Electronics NV and Sony Corp will form the DVD patent alliance through a new company, One-Red LLC, with each of the four companies holding a 25 percent stake, a statement issued by the commission said.
Approval is expected to make it easier for local DVD makers to license patents from these companies as they will only have to negotiate with One-Red LLC, rather than separately with all four.
Wind farm subsidies given
Three companies, including the nation's sole electricity supplier Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電), have qualified to receive a government subsidy to build model offshore wind farms, an energy official said on Friday.
Tseng Tseng-tsai (曾增材), a deputy section chief at the Bureau of Energy under the Ministry of Economic Affairs, said Taipower, Fuhai Wind Power (福海風力), and Marine Wind Power (海洋風力) had promised to build four to six wind-power generation units by 2015 and complete their offshore wind farms before 2020.
The windfarms' combined electricity generation capacity will reach 300 megawatts.
The electricity generated will be sold to Taipower at NT$5.5626 per kilowatt hours over the next 20 years. The price was fixed by a panel set up by the government for this purpose exclusively.
Upward trend in electronics
Taiwan's electronics industry will continue its upward trend in the first quarter of the year amid improving indicators, Barclays PLC said on Friday.
The nation's industrial production index stood at 128.57 points last month, up 2.39 percent from the same period a year earlier, marking the sixth consecutive rise, government statistics released on Wednesday showed.
Leading indicators, such as export orders and the purchasing managers' index, suggest that the trend of improvement in the manufacturing sector will continue in the first three months of this year, the bank said in a statement.
As HTC Corp (宏達電) only launched its new series models in November last year, it is likely that another boost in production will follow in the months to come, said Leong Wai Ho (梁偉豪), a Singapore-based economist at Barclays.
TransAsia Air gets new Airbus
Taiwanese carrier TransAsia Airways Corp (復興航空) took delivery of its second Airbus A330-300 on Saturday, in another step forward in its ongoing efforts to expand its presence in Asia.
TransAsia said the new aircraft will first be deployed on the cross-strait route during the Lunar New Year holiday, when demand for air travel rises sharply as people travel home for family gatherings.
TransAsia plans to obtain another six A321-200s, 12 A321-neos, and 12 ATR-600s by 2022.
Not enough investment in IT
Companies should increase their information technology (IT) budgets amid an increasingly digital world, Gartner Inc said in a statement released on Friday.
A survey conducted by Gartner of 2,000 chief information officers around the world shows that enterprises have only realized 43 percent of the business potential of their technology and that their IT budgets have been flat to negative ever since the dot-com bubble burst in 2001 and 2002.


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OMB sets deadlines for plans on controlling against improper payments.
The White House budget office is proceeding with guidance for federal agencies involved in spending the $50 billion in disaster relief funds appropriated in January for victims of last October's Hurricane Sandy.
Controller Danny Werfel, in a memo to all agency heads dated March 12, described an effort to provide additional controls to protect against improper payments, and to recapture any grant funds that remain unexpended two years after agencies obligate them.
The Office of Management and Budget is working with the recently renewed Recovery Board, major departments, and a special task force created to set performance metrics for programs, to aid individuals and communities victimized by the storm, which inflicted the most damage on New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.
Each federal agency by March 31 is required to submit an internal control plan to OMB, the Government Accountability Office, and its inspector general. OMB is to receive drafts by March 18, and will return comments by March 25.
Beginning on Sept. 30, Werfel wrote, "each agency head shall make an annual certification that the appropriate policies and controls are in place and that any corrective actions have been taken to mitigate the risk of fraud and inappropriate spending practices regarding activities and expenses related to Hurricane Sandy."
The challenge of auditing the funds is being tackled by the Recovery Board. On Tuesday, the board's executive director, Michael Wood, blogged about the need for agencies to share data as the Sandy money is rolled out. "A major challenge will be the lack of a central data system for this spending information," he wrote. "Thus, it's imperative that agencies, IGs, and state and local governments share their data on spending and contracts. … The benefits are easily summarized: Improved government efficiency and decision-making, more transparency in government programs and better oversight of taxpayer funds."
Techniques for unifying software and exploiting data analytics, Wood said, were highlighted at a recent Recovery Board workshop and in a coming publication.
On Thursday, Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, announced a hearing on spending to mitigate Hurricane Sandy for March 20.
(Image via Kobby Dagan / Shutterstock.com)


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Sailing No. 3
Sailing photography fine art print. The image is printed on heavyweight matte fine art paper with inks that last for more than a lifetime. It comes unframed or framed in sizes from small 8"x12" accent prints to large 30"x45" statement wall art pieces, and every order is professionally custom printed.
Available as a print only, or matted and framed in a black, white, brown or warm silver wood frame with a white mat (see images for frame color examples). Large prints (30"x30" and up) are framed without a mat. All framed pieces have UV-filtering plexiglass and come ready to hang with the necessary hardware already installed.
Choose print only or framed print and frame color in the drop down menus.
The image is professionally printed, carefully wrapped and boxed, and delivered to you within 10 days of your order (allow up to 3 weeks for framed prints, and more time for international orders).
CANVAS WALL ART ➤ This image is also available as a canvas gallery wrap.
OTHER PRINTS IN THIS SERIESThis is the third print in a series of three; see also Sailing No. 1 and Sailing No. 2.
MORE SAILING PHOTOGRAPHY ➤ Click here for more sailing photography art prints.
MORE BLACK AND WHITE PHOTOGRAPHY ➤ Click here for more black and white photography art prints.


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A few weeks ago a lady named Elizabeth phoned to tell me she had seen a lizard in her yard on Old Squaw Pass Road. She was delighted to have this new resident sharing her garden but wondered what kind it was and why she had never seen one before.
The answer to what kind of lizard it is: It probably is an eastern fence lizard, since they are the only species likely to be seen here.
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Tell us about your current career position.I am currently at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Janelia Farm Research Campus where I am part of the Transcription Imaging Consortium. We aim to develop new quantitative imaging techniques to probe transcription directly in living eukaryotic cells and with single-molecule sensitivity.In January 2014, I will join the faculty of the Physics department at MIT. My laboratory at MIT will develop and use single molecule in vivo and in vitro techniques to capture weak and transient biomolecular interactions. We'll also study collective behaviors that emerge during the regulation of biological processes in living cells.What are the key experiences and decisions you made that have helped you reach your current position?Growing up in the French speaking system in Niger, I wanted to learn English and go to an American college. So I was fortunate to be able to move to the US right after high-school. I had no family or acquaintances in the US at the time so my host family, my new friends, teachers, and colleagues all played a big part in my trajectory.How did you first become interested in science?I was very curious early on. My parents nurtured and allowed me to develop that curiosity. As a kid, I converted a small storage room at home in Niger into my personal laboratory. It was fun! I put up a sign reading "Laboratoire" (laboratory) on the door so that everyone knew that it was my exploration domain; it meant that I was allowed to break things in there, take them apart, and put them back together. It was the one place I could make things as messy as I wanted to. My parents and relatives knew and accepted that boundary, so they did not stop me or ask me any questions (unless they perceived danger—but I got pretty good at hiding the dangerous stuff). We didn't do any lab work at the K-12 schools I attended in Niger and everything at school was theoretical. I would only read of experiments described in words in expensive textbooks that I would copy from the Franco-Nigerien national library. I think that's one advantage that kids growing up in the 1st world do have: the opportunity to be exposed to experiments and lab work early, sometimes even before high-school. When I got to the US and I was shown a "real" research laboratory in the Physics department at my alma matter, I was hooked! Again, in retrospect, it was a liberal arts college with not quite as much funding and research resources as it should. But there was a laboratory and I was encouraged to continue nurturing my curiosity, figure out how things work, and do "real" scientific research already as an undergraduate.
Were there times when you failed at something you felt was critical to your path? If so, how did you regroup and get back on track?I have had many failures, almost at every step. But I also learned not to dwell on them, as most times I actually learned something new and as a result, I could do things even better than before. I welcome challenges and I have convinced myself of one thing: where I start from is never going to be a limiting factor in getting to where I want to be, so long as I am willing to put in the hard work necessary for me to get there.
What advice would you give to young persons from under-represented backgrounds who want to pursue a career in science similar to yours?If you want it, do it! If you happen to feel isolated and alone, it helps to speak with others who might have gone through it before you. Perhaps most importantly, it helps to find a network of colleagues who are doing it at the same time as you. For example, many scientific societies, including ASBMB, make it part of their mission to help students and young scholars connect with opportunities that will help them make the most of their training and research careers. So find out about resources that could be available to you and take advantage!
What are your hobbies?When I have time (sadly, very rarely now), I enjoy dancing, mostly afro/cuban (salsa, bachata, merengue…). I also enjoy running, and swimming.
What was the last book you read?"Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell. A friend recommended it earlier this summer and I finally got to read it.
Do you have any heroes, heroines, or role models? If so, describe how they have influenced you?I have too many to cite. What these people have in common is that they have talked about an experience in their life that shattered a stereotype or preconceived idea I had about their lives and, in some cases, about their professional achievements. I like it when people, especially scientists, are frank about how they got to where they are. There is value in demystifying our work and allowing a broader range of young talents to feel that they can do it too - and do it better!
What is it that keeps you working hard and studying science every day?I get to figure out how nature works! And I'm doing this while interacting with colleagues that happen to be some of the smartest and most interesting people one can meet. What's more exciting than that!?
To read Ibrahim Cisse's recent research published in Science, go to: www.sciencemag.org/content/341/6146/664.shortTo learn more about Ibrahim Cisse, go to: www.janelia.org/people/scientist/ibrahim-cisse
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John A. Kern
b. Jan 1866, New York
d. 22 May 1948, Kings County, New York
& Julia Koehl
b. Mar 1868, New York
d. 1960
m. ca 1891
|--Julius Henry Kern
|----b. 28 Mar 1895, Brooklyn, Kings, New York
|---& Ida A.
|----b. ca 1898, New York
|----m. ca 1925
This is the family of John A. Kern and Julia Koehl, who was the sister of my husband's great-grandfather Harry Koehl and the daughter of Julius Koehl and Josephine Lochner. I do not know whether John and Julia had any children in addition to Julius Henry. I suspect that John Kern may have been a relative of Philip Kern, who married Julia's sister Augusta M. "Gussie" Koehl. This family was living in Brooklyn at the time of the 1920 census, but by the 1930 census had moved to Bergen County, New Jersey.
I would love to share information with anyone related to/researching this family; you can contact me at my e-mail address, which can be found by going to my profile page (there is a link to that page in the About Me section to the left).
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Surname Saturday: John A. Kern and Julia Koehl
2 comments:
Hello Greta, I hope you don't mind me contacting you but I restore old photographs and I am contacting people who may need this kind of service. Take a look at my blog to get an idea of things I do if you think I may be of use to you or your friends feel free to pass on the link. Good luck with your search Regards KevReplyDelete
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Quasi | 24/07/13
Following the announcement of their new album Mole City - due for release on September 30th - Quasi have released the video for 'You Can Stay But You Gotta Go' and you can watch it below:
Featuring Sam Coomes and Janet Weis raiding the dressing up box whilst blasting out the disorientating and chaotic bliss of 'You Can Stay…', this video comes with a warning for motion sickness sufferers.
Coomes says that the video was "shot in Quasi's basement studio in between tracking sessions, inspired by Kenneth Anger's work with the Monkees."
Mole City will be available on deluxe double heavyweight tip on sleeve vinyl with Quasi 20 year anniversary fanzine, featuring photos, and musings by Sam and Janet, Carrie Brownstein, Jon Raymond, Corin Tucker, Jon Spencer and more plus Bonus CD-R 'Covers' EP features Quasi versions of Dont' Stop Me Now (Queen), War Pigs (Black Sabbath), Let's Get It On (Marvin Gaye), and What's So Funny 'Bout Peace Love & Understanding (Elvis Costello and the Attractions).
The first ten deluxe LP orders will receive a voice mail message from Sam & Janet whom will create a one of a kind outgoing phone message just for you!
All pre-orders come with a copy of Quasi's 'Covers' EP. Mole City will be available on CD (WIGCD312), LP (WIGLP312) and digitally (WIG312D). Pre-order HERE
Below are the tour dates, and you can find the ticket links HERE
05/12/13: The Fleece - Bristol (UK)
06/12/13: Brudenell Social Club - Leeds (UK)
07/12/13: Broadcast - Glasgow (UK)
08/12/13: Deaf Institute - Manchester (UK)
09/12/13: Hare & Hounds - Birmingham (UK)
10/12/13: Colchester Arts Centre - Colchester (UK)
11/12/13: Shepherds Bush Empire - London (UK)
12/12/13: Norwich Arts Centre - Norwich (UK)
13/12/13: Cargo - London (UK)
14/12/13: The Haunt - Brighton (UK)


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When I visit various antique stores, flea markets or thrift stores I try to make mental note of any upcoming special occasions that I may need to be buying for. Gifting, for me, is an opportunity to search out something unique to convey my love or appreciation to the receiver. Presents don't have to be expensive to express a sentiment. Some of the most treasured gifts I've received are ones that have very little monetary value ~ but indeed are some of the most meaningful. And might I add ~ it doesn't hurt one little bit that I enjoy the adventure and challenge of finding that special something to give.
A few months ago, when I was on an excursion to The Red Shed, I stumbled across these old metal plates with numbers on them. They sparked some interest with me because the numbers represented Nate's birth date. I snatched them up and tucked them away. This past Sunday, I pulled them out and packaged them up as a small token of affection for my hubby on his birthday.
I also like to collect random little boxes or containers to package the gifts in. This worn wooden box was gingerly decoupaged by someone many years ago.
I nestled the metal plates on a pile of crinkle cut shredded paper.
Oh ~ and just to ease any concern, Nate was properly honored on his special day and it played out just as he had hoped. He began the day enjoying a good cup of Joe while devouring every section of the newspaper ~ uninterrupted. Golfing and lunch with some buddies was next on his agenda and finally we ended the day with a nice dinner at the restaurant of his choice. He also appreciated the numbers ~ 26 ~ that I gave him. They will most likely be used for paperweights or they may just sit on a shelf in his office.


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This week's PNAS sees a trio of papers that all touch on one of the big science issues of our time: climate change. Although there still remain some pockets of skeptics and denialists, just about everyone else on the planet has looked at the data and come to the conclusion that our use of fossil fuels is having a profound effect on the climate.
A pair of papers both seek to understand the changes we are experiencing by examining past data. The first1 examines the rates of change of radiative forcing by looking at the changing concentrations of several greenhouse gases (CO2, N2O, CH4) over the past 20,000 years, along with proxy solar data. The results are pretty damning, with almost flat rates of change from 20,000 years ago until about 200 years ago. The end of this period coincides with the industrial revolution and our massive increase in fossil fuel consumption.
The second paper2 also looks at the past 20,000 years, but this time in the oceans, and at the effects of rapid climate change on deep-water ecosystems. Using fossilized ostracodes (a small bivalve that lives in deep sea communities along with copepods and nematodes), the authors show that rapid climate change in this ecosystem (caused by the ending of the ice age and the changes to ocean circulation that the sudden influx of cold, fresh water had) caused a widespread disruption of the local ecosystem that took over 4000 years to recover.
Although some level of climactic disturbance is now inevitable, most experts agree that there is still some time remaining to head off the worst, assuming that we as a species can implement a multilayered approach to the problem. Reduction of fossil fuel usage, along with a massive increase in renewable energy production is one step, as is carbon sequestration, most likely in the form of plant growth (this has the added benefit of increasing biodiversity, never a bad thing in and of itself).
The final paper3 looks at the role of Canada's managed forests as a carbon sink. At the time of the Kyoto Protocol, it was assumed that these large areas of forest would sequester carbon from the atmosphere, but new data shows that forest fires and insect outbreaks have meant that the forests have actually acted as a net carbon source. The authors make the point that future international agreements, such as those proposed at the Bali summit, will need to carefully take into account the realities of natural disturbances when it comes to evaluating roles of forests and other ecosystems in climate change mitigation.
If that all seems rather bleak, take heart in the fact that there is still time to act. To that end, watch this space for a future announcement on the subject.
1: PNAS, 2008. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0707386105
2: PNAS, 2008. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0705486105
3: PNAS, 2008. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0708133105


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Oshkosh Airshow July 29 – August 4 & calendar of Events
Host to the world's largest airshow AirVenture 2013 with calendr. Continue reading
Commemorate the Korean War 60th with a "Pancakes for Patriots" breakfast July 27
All Korean War veterans are invited to attend the ceremony at the Korean War Veterans Memorial. Age and distance, unfortunately, will prevent most from attending, but you can still help commemorate their day by hosting a "Pancakes for Patriots"-type event at your VFW Post to honor and educate local communities about the service and sacrifices made by so many of our VFW members and their families. Continue reading
Membership Campaign Landing
Posts to get updated contact information on their members to include email addresses. This will help on each and every level of the organization Continue reading
Big 10 Conference Oct. 18 – 20, 2013
Everything needed to register for the Big 10 Conference in Illinios Continue reading


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Google has just announced the launch of themes for Gmail. Some are crazy fun, others offer an actual valid alternative to the current theme. Like the fact that some designs even change the Gmail logo. Takes a secure brand to allow that.
Gmail adds themes
Article No :397 | November 20, 2008 | by Alex Schleifer
November 20, 2008
At last my Gmail looks designed as opposed to what it used to look like by default. I like the Shiny theme – it's pretty minimal with colors, but still readable and easy to use. The idea with background images is just crazy, and some themes look even worse than the old default theme. A very welcome change.


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This song is rated M for mature!
[Hook: Ludacris]
Yeah, press the start button (woo!)
Tell these hoes to press the start button (what!)
Punch in your code and press the start button
And let the muh'fuckin games begin, biatch!
For any ONE of these flows just press the start button
Yea, tell my foes to press the start button
For a Ludacris show, just press the start button
And let the muh'fuckin games begin, biatch!
Hey, look here
Picture perfect, I paint a perfect picture
Eyes low cause Igloo done rolled the perfect swisha
Hit you with the weaponry, tell your soldiers to back down
I'm Raw like W.E., you'll get SmackDown!
How you want it? I'll clobber my opponents like Blanka
Boy, you Street Fightin with a monster
A-Town mobster, blowin smoke like rastas
Pullin out guns like in Contra, mo' toys than Tonka
I'm a fuckin problem, rob 'em
It's Grand Theft Auto, his burner's right beside him
Hollow points headed to your dome
Hollow points headed to your home
Your head of lettuce shredded from the chrome
It's ludicrous, parents think I'm a weirdo
I'm a God of War, you a Guitar Hero
So let's box like Tyson, you'll get Punched Out
Welcome to Luda's world, now bring the blunts out!
[Hook] w/ ad libs
I'm Liver than NBA, Luda's Super like Mario
That Playstation 4 shit, you older than Atari ho!
Flows that'll make MC's Go! like Diego
Call me the Master Chief, my life is like Halo
Fightin off haters, I'm the best, ask Khaled
I'm at the Call of Duty, plus my Metal Gear is Solid
My Resident is Evil, full of Southside riders
I hope you're packed, man, I got six Virtua Fighters
That'll blitz ya like Madden '09
Or hit you with the Mac and .49s
Then later sit back and blow pine
Like it's somethin to do, it ain't pretty
The Final Fantasy, they think they live in SimCity
But I'm a MechWarrior, try me and I'll damage ya
Holdin a Soul Calibur, or shoot you like Galaga
And my Creed Assassins ya, so clear the room
Before the shotgun helps you meet your Ultimate Doom, boyyyyy
[Hook] w/ ad libs
Whether 25 thousand or 25 mil'
Survival of the fittest, either kill or be killed
Get ya game on playa, get ya game on (what?!)
Get ya game on playa, get ya game on
Doesn't matter if it's 25 bricks or it's 25 bucks
Survival of the fittest, either stick or get stuck
Get ya game on playa, get ya game on (what?!)
Get ya game on playa, get ya game on
[Hook] w/ ad libs


text:
Time Considerations
Financial Considerations
Distribution Requirements
Course Load for Students
Planning Your Actual Schedule
Agreement: Currently Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Benjamin Cardozo School of Law have agreed on a joint-degree pathway for law students to obtain the JD and MBE. Law students who follow this path will be able to complete requirements for both degrees in 3 to 4 years, at significantly reduced tuition. This makes for a significant courseload, so our most successful students are both careful and proactive in scheduling work for both curricula. Each student should not only plan in advance, but also work closely with faculty advisors at both the School of Law and Center for Bioethics, as well as with the Registrars for both programs.
Standard Timeline: Completing requirements for both the JD and MBE will take a minimum of three (3) years and possibly an extra summer, semester or year. Time to completion depends on the student's success at coordinating coursework that counts separately and jointly toward the JD and MBE.
Reduced Tuition Agreement (2014-2015): Students interested in the JD+MBE should contact Cardozo's and Einstein's Student Finance Offices very early, as certain decisions can impact their financial aid packages both negatively and positively.
The full-time tuition Cardozo students pay may cover registration for courses at Einstein, though only during the six full-time semesters of the JD, and only up to the per-semester credit cap set by the ABA, which Cardozo's Registrar will monitor. Students may verify the current limit with Cardozo's Registrar andadvising Dean.In addition, Cardozo's JD/MBE students will be asked to pay a fixed tuition fee of $6,000 upon official admission into the MBE program. The above fee covers tuition for BIOE courses taken at Einstein during the student's three full-time years at the Cardozo program andduring one additional term (summer, fall or spring). Additional courses beyond that framework will be charged at the per credit rate.
What You Must Take, What You Can Choose: 32 credits are needed to earn the MBE, with half of these (16) completed via BIOE courses offered through Einstein.
There are two required BIOE courses: Bioethics and Medical Humanities I and II (6 credits), to be taken consecutively, in the fall and spring semesters of a specific academic year. Also required is work for the Capstone/Thesis project (4 credits). The remaining 22 credits may be completed via a tailored combination of elective courses on offer at Einstein and Cardozo. A list of applicable courses can be found in the Range of Courses section of this website.
Note: students should have clear discussions and approvals via the appropriate Dean at Cardozo regarding the range of BIOE courses at Einstein that may count toward the JD. Increasing this number allows for a doable course load during the second and third years (see below).
Standard Load: The first year of the JD at Cardozo is set and typically does not offer opportunities for coursework toward the MBE. After the first year, students should consult with the appropriate Dean at Cardozo to design their more flexible second and third years so that coursework may progress toward the MBE as well as the JD.
Do remember that half of the MBE's 32 credits must be met via BIOE courses offered through Einstein. JD/MBE students therefore typically make one of two choices: (a) to spend their second year focusing on Cardozo courses that meet MBE requirements and wait till their third year to take BIOE courses; OR (b) to begin incorporating BIOE courses during their second year.
For example, one key decision for a JD/MBE student will be to take the two-semester course requirement, Bioethics and Medical Humanities I and II, during their second OR third year.
Note:As stated earlier,there is an ABA-mandated cap onthe number of credits a JD student may take during each semester. The Cardozo Registrar will ensure that the cap is not exceeded. Please verify the current limit with the Cardozo Registrar andadvising dean. Because of the per-semester credit cap, students have in the past been very proactive in getting Cardozo approval to have more BIOE courses count toward the JD. Still, they have often needed an extra term for the Capstone/Thesis project.
If advanced planning reveals the need for an extra term, it is highly recommended that the student schedule that term as the summer between 2nd and 3rd year. Students deciding to complete their capstone/thesis during that summer do need to carefully balance work with their project advisor alongside work for their law internships.
Guiding Examples: Below are examples of what students' course loads could look like during the 3-4 years. Both examples incorporate Cardozo Dean approval to apply BIOE courses toward the JD, resulting in course loads that do not exceed per-semester credit caps. JD/MBE students will have to discuss, revise and submit their own equivalent plans soon after acceptance into the MBE program, upon meeting with their faculty advisors.
Note: Numbers in parentheses (#) represent possible credits completed toward just the MBE.
Applications for the Master's in Bioethics and the Bioethics Certificate Program are being accepted for the Fall 2019 semester.
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Intermountain Life Flight is more than a red helicopter landing on the freeway. We are Utah's leading air ambulance service offering highly specialized medical transport using helicopters, airplanes, and ambulances.
Since starting the program in 1978, we've stayed true to our commitment to exceptional patient care. Life Flight staffs our communication center with trained operational controllers and communications specialists 24-hours a day, every day of the year. The center works with flight crews and specialized medical teams to ensure the proper equipment and staff are mobilized quickly for the best possible experience.
You can count on Life Flight for quality care with specialized medical staff in:
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Our transfer specialists facilitate all types of patient transfers into all Intermountain Healthcare facilities. They are experienced in Stroke, STEMI, and Trauma Protocols to ensure patients are transported quickly and safety to the right physician at the right hospital every time.
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text:
A man died and eight others were wounded in shootings across the city since Sunday afternoon, police said.
The attacks were as far north as Rogers Park and as far south as Roseland, police said.
The Cook County medical examiner's office identified the man killed as Eulises Grandos, 22, of the 2400 block of South Central Park Avenue in Chicago. Grandos was one of two men shot about 2:05 a.m. Monday in the 1300 block of West Cermak Road in the Pilsen neighborhood. He was taken to John H. Stroger, Jr. Hospital of Cook County in critical condition but later died, according to police.
Another man, 21, was shot in the head in the same incident, which followed an "altercation" at a bar. He was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital though his condition wasn't available from police. The two were in a car when an SUV pulled alongside and someone opened fire; two other people were inside the car but were not wounded, police said. The car tried to flee the shooters in the SUV but hit a tree about a block west, near 1400 West Cermak Road.
In another attack, a 34-year-old man was wounded about 1:50 a.m. in the Rogers Park neighborhood on the Far North Side. He was in the 6900 block of North Sheridan Road when shot and was taken to St. Francis Hospital, where he's in good condition with a leg wound.
Just after midnight, a 20-year-old man walked into Roseland Hospital with gunshot wounds to his armpit and elbow, police said. He was shot about 12:05 a.m. in the 11300 block of South Carpenter Street in the Morgan Park neighborhood. Police said he was sitting in a parked car with a few other people when someone stepped out of a nearby car, walked up and opened fire. The shooter fled and the wounded man drove to Roseland Hospital.
About 9:35 p.m. in the 2400 block of South Harding Avenue in the Little Village neighborhood, a 22-year-old man was shot in the buttocks and is in stable condition at Mount Sinai Hospital. Police said he was outside when someone fired shots from inside a dark van.
Another man was shot about 8:20 p.m. near 47th Street and Western Avenue in the Brighton Park neighborhood. He drove to Holy Cross Hospital where he was treated for a leg wound. Police said the 20-year-old was in a parked car when someone in a passing dark vehicle opened fire.
Earlier, a 19-year-old man suffered a graze wound to the cheek about 6:15 p.m. in the 1500 block of North LeClaire Avenue in the North Austin neighborhood, said Chicago Police Department News Affairs Officer Daniel O'Brien. The man was treated on the scene, police said.
About 5:11 p.m., a 20-year-old man was shot in the finger in the 6000 block of South Carpenter Street in the Englewood neighborhood, O'Brien said. The man was in good condition at St. Bernard Hospital and Healthcare Center.
Earlier, a 30-year-old man was attacked about 3:55 p.m. in the first block of East 101st Place in the Roseland neighborhood, said News Affairs Sgt. Antoinette Ursitti. The man suffered gunshot wounds to the leg, groin and arm and was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn. News Affairs did not have information on his condition.
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text:
A port of the SLIB character plotting library. For documentation see:
This extension uses numbers internally, so plot accepts numeric values of all types.
Aubrey Jaffer
Version history
- 0.5
- test suite fix: don't run tests when the output port is not connected to a terminal
- 0.2
- uses terminal-size for value of default dimensions
- 0.1
- Initial release as egg
Copyright (C) 1992, 1993, 2001, 2003 Aubrey Jaffer
Permission to copy this software, to modify it, to redistribute it, to distribute modified versions, and to use it for any purpose is granted, subject to the following restrictions and understandings.
1. Any copy made of this software must include this copyright notice in full.
2. I have made no warranty or representation that the operation of this software will be error-free, and I am under no obligation to provide any services, by way of maintenance, update, or otherwise.
3. In conjunction with products arising from the use of this material, there shall be no use of my name in any advertising, promotional, or sales literature without prior written consent in each case.


text:
Information Technology Services provides a wide range of technology consultation and development services to the university. Please contact the ITS Service Desk at 617.373.4357 (xHELP), email email@example.com or initiate a chat session to engage ITS in a consultation.
- Audio/Visual Technology Design and Installation – Consulting on the design and installation of A/V technology in classrooms, conference rooms and event sites.
- Business Analysis – Consulting to understand your organization and objective, and assist in defining requirements and selecting a solution.
- Business Application and Integration – Consultation and development services to help the university community develop enterprise applications and integrations.
- Educational Technology – Consulting on various educational technologies and instructional design.
- General System Design – Consulting to translate business requirements into technical specifications for server or database solutions, best practices, vendor recommendations, compatibility with existing Northeastern systems, and ITS standards.
- Network Design and Structured Cabling Services – Consulting to translate business needs into technical requirements for network components and networking designs
- Research Computing – Consulting on computing needs, including grant proposals, grant work, research computing hosting, storage recommendations, and software related to research computing to meet the needs of researchers.
- Security – Consulting on security services to maintain secure access to critical assets, data sanitization and destruction, and information security risk management and assessment.
- Software Acquisition and Distribution – Consulting to coordinate centralized software purchasing services, including financial considerations, institutional responsibilities, software licensing issues, and copyright law.
Audio/Visual Technology Design and Installation
Faculty and staff who would like to purchase and install technology in classrooms, conference rooms, event sites, or other departmental spaces, can contact ITS to request an Audio/Visual Design and Installation consultation. ITS staff evaluates the latest trends in equipment appropriate for university environments, and can assist with both new installations and the integration of new or replacement technology into existing configurations.
Consultation is usually provided at no charge except in cases where vendors are contracted to participate in the design and planning process. When vendors are involved, if they charge a consulting fee, you are responsible for that cost. ITS does oversee AV vendor installations and coordinates with the requester and other departments involved in the project. In all cases, funding for the equipment purchased based on this consultation must be provided by a department, a physical plant project, or a grant.
Because work of this type requires significant lead time, you are encouraged to consult with ITS at least six months in advance. If you have any questions or need help, contact the ITS Service Desk at 617.373.4357 (xHELP), email firstname.lastname@example.com or initiate a chat session.
Business Analysis
Faculty and staff who are seeking advice on how technology can help them reach new, or refine current, organization objectives should request a consultation with Information Technology Services Business Analysis personnel.
In consultation with you, the Business Analysis team gains an understanding of your organization to help you define your business, technology and security requirements. They then recommend the processes and technology needed to reach your goals, serve as liaison between you and the relevant ITS development staff by translating your functional requirements into technical specifications. They also assist with testing, and in developing user training and associated documentation.
If you have any questions or need help, contact the ITS Service Desk at 617.373.4357 (xHELP), email email@example.com or initiate a chat session.
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Faculty and staff who would like to create a custom application or integrate with existing services to meet a business need, automate an existing process, increase efficiency, or better serve the needs of the university community should request a consultation with Information Technology Services Application Development and Integration personnel.
The Application Development and Integration staff can assist you with determining the best applications and architecture for your needs. ITS-supported applications can be auto-populated with information from the university's core information systems and/or other databases, and workflow can be automated, allowing for more efficient and accurate processing between various individuals or departments.
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Academic Technology Services assists faculty to choose and implement technological solutions for a wide range of classroom goals using effective and flexible technology solutions to support digital-age teaching and learning. ATS researches and tests new tools and technologies and makes recommendations in support of the strategic direction of teaching and learning.
To schedule an appointment, email email@example.com. If you have any questions or need help, contact the ITS Service Desk at 617.373.4357 (xHELP), email firstname.lastname@example.com or initiate a chat session.
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Business units, departments and colleges may contact Information Technology Services for a System Design Consultation to define their technical requirements for server, database and other technology solutions needed to support university business.
ITS evaluates best practices, vendor requirements and compatibility with existing Northeastern systems to provide you with a customized, cost-effective technical solution recommendation. By taking a holistic approach to your technology needs, you will be provided with the best solution.
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Faculty and staff interested in network design or installation or modification of a Local Area Network (LAN), should contact Information Technology Services for information and recommendations. The network design staff provides information regarding networking design solutions and installations that meet or exceed industry standards. Consultation may include the technical translation of business/IT requirements into network components, analysis of the need for non-standard networks, or the design of cabling solutions to enable the transport of voice, data, and video over copper and fiber optic media for construction projects or other renovations. The staff also provides and coordinates qualified vendors to install and test a structured cabling infrastructure.
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For assistance, submit a general request through the ServiceNow portal (sign-in may be required), or contact the ITS Service Desk at 617.373.4357 (xHELP), email firstname.lastname@example.com or initiate a chat session.
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Departments hiring researchers are urged to contact Information Technology Services during the hiring process to better meet the computing needs of the researcher. Faculty who would like assistance to define their requirements for research computing or to author proposals for research grants should also contact ITS and schedule a Research Computing Consultation. ITS will also assist in the design and implementation of new systems as necessary to support research initiatives.
The Office of the Provost, in partnership with ITS, has expanded the high-performance computational resources available to the university research community by establishing the Discovery Research Computing Environment. This high-performance and environmentally conscious cluster is intended to support the broad and diverse areas of research conducted at Northeastern in the physical, social, life and health sciences, bioinformatics and nanotechnology. The Discovery cluster provides access to many well-known applications, including Matlab, Mathematica, Maple, SAS, Stata, and various Intel and GNU compilers.
For assistance or to request access to the Discovery cluster, visit the Research Computing website, or contact them at email@example.com.
Information Technology Services provides assistance with a range of information security issues, including risk assessment and mitigation recommendations for the use and handling of university and student-owned information; regulatory and university policy compliance; and data handling procedures. Upon request of faculty or staff, the ITS Security staff performs vulnerability and risk assessments for departments and data managers around all aspects of business process.
Contact ITS Security at firstname.lastname@example.com or contact the ITS Service Desk at 617.373.4357 (xHELP), email firstname.lastname@example.com or initiate a chat session.
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Faculty and staff can request a software consultation with Information Technology Services when planning to purchase software or to modify software currently being used. This service includes an evaluation of your needs, and product/pricing/upgrade research and recommendations to enable faculty, staff and students to access applications. It also provides expertise related to costs, compliance with software licensing agreements, and copyright laws. Software Licensing staff negotiate and manage contracts, frequently working with multiple departments to share costs or acquire additional services. They also work with other ITS staff to review software for viability in the NUnet environment prior to purchase and advise on the best mechanism(s) for distributing the software.
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You can request this service by submitting a Software Licensing and Distribution request through the ServiceNow portal (sign-in may be required)


text:
The Large 1983 Check Link Bum Bag
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Size Guide
Use the Size Guide to choose the best fit for your measurements.
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- A large bum bag with link detailing and a bold leather border, presented in our 1983 check – an archive plaid updated with subtle Equestrian Knight motifs. Carry it crossbody, by the strap or around the waist.
- 31 x 6.5 x 15cm/12.2 x 2.6 x 5.9in
- Outer: 100% cotton
- Trims: 100% calf leather; 100% polyamide
- Lining: 71% cotton, 29% polyamide
- One exterior zip pocket, one interior slip pocket
- Zip closure
- Hand-painted edges
- Polished metal hardware
- Adjustable clip belt
- Made in Italy
Item 80055151
Recommended Products


text:
Friday, 20 April 2007
Haskell for GUI Programing
Programing on Haskell offers many benefits; and i have found it gives a good combination of simplicity and robustness for the graphical user interface development model.
Simplicity: it's very easy to program graphical user interfaces on Haskell; you can get a window and a very useful widget inside it with few lines of code. Haskell as a declarative language takes to the extreme the rapid application development cycle, I'd dare to say that it perfectly can compete with the so called scripting languages in this regard.
GUI programing using gtk2hs is just a big IO monad; and though many Haskell'ers can find this 'ugly' , don't fool yourself, monadic programing and the 'do' notation offers a concise and clean way of writing easy-to-read imperative-like code, and it's when the code becomes bigger and bigger when you realize of its beauty; graphical interfaces can gradually grow very much, so i see this like an advantage and good reason for using Haskell too.
Robustness: I think we pretty much know the main difference and advantages of Haskell over other traditional programing languages here (laziness, purely functional, type inference, etc) and how all these features make a perfect combination to keep your program bug-free and easy to change/fix ; for example, it's amazing to see how you can design and develop a whole graphical user interface without mutable variables or global variables (i admit i found this a bit difficult to believe before using Haskell) ,but it's possible! , and it offers so _many_ advantages, the more significant for me has been the lack of bugs coming from these imperative features, it also helps you to reason about the layout design from other perspective, which is very interesting and benefits a more modular approach instead of an ad-hoc design where you just keep updating bunch of global data structures in-place through signals and events.
Other definitive characteristic that makes robustness possible is the static typing and type system. Haskell helps you to reason about 'types' all the way down along your code, and that's not less true for GUI programming. Many dynamic and weakly typed languages have tried to show to the programming community they are the best way of getting GUI stuff done right and they usually strength the fact of rapid development cycles in opposition to lower-level approaches; really, i can understand this position a bit, most of the first GUI systems came from these kind of languages, nevertheless, i think most of them are in disadvantage with Haskell due to the type system.
Types help both to the machine and to our human brain to think in terms of a common abstraction as an interface for an universe of different values. We can reason 'in harmony' with our computer in an easier way through these abstractions than with a dynamic, typeless language. This kind of reasoning, evidently, will help to the programmer to get more robust programs (and i think i don't need to explain here why that's important for GUIs) and at the same time i have realized this reasoning fits well into the different GUI components representations too; what i am saying here, is that types are practically (and conceptually) a better representation than the objects offered by most of the object-oriented programing languages to work and manipulate graphical elements, and i highly think this is going to contribute to the popularity of Haskell in the future, as a possible replacement or improvement for many aspects of the OOP approach.
And if those aren't enough reasons to use Haskell for GUIs; here is the third one: it's fun.
Since Haskell gives you so many features to make simplicity and robustness of code a reality without too much effort, you pretty much can enjoy coding without worrying about low-level details or possibles unwanted side-effects behaviours, what else could you ask for? :-)
Ok, too much keyboarding for now ... if you still aren't convinced, there is only one way of knowing for sure, just give it a try!
16 comments:
- Malte said...
»... and develop a whole graphical user interface without mutable variables ...«
The gtk2hs examples I've seen so far all used IORefs for state. Is there better/cleaner general approach?
- 21 April 2007 at 01:26
- araujo said...
Let's say, there are just different approaches, and they pretty much depend on the whole design of your code.
Himerge doesn't use any mutable state, and i assume is because of two visible characteristics on its global design:
1 - Small functions with well defined behaviours.
2 - A coherent data flow passing through the arguments of each functions.
If not all, i think these two points are fundamental to omit possible mutable states on the code.
One of the effects of this design, is that functions can contain many arguments (5~6), nevertheless, using the Haskell type signature, i have found this even easier to maintain than using mutable states.
- 21 April 2007 at 14:23
- Malte said...
Alright, that makes some sense to me. Thank you for clarifying this to me.
- 22 April 2007 at 01:09
- Davve said...
There's a problem.
Say your program maintains a pretty deep data structure that consists of nested records. What do you do if you need to update a field somewhere deep down in
this structure in response to an event? You can't just poke at the field like in Java/any other imperative language. You need to reconstruct the entire thing.
*Very* inconvenient.
Yes, you can solve this by putting every field inside an IORef, but then you can't apply pure processing functions to the structure anymore, so you loose the functional approach.
This makes IO monad based GUI programming in Haskell very clumsy, for all but the smallest programs.
Sadly, functional reactive libraries in Haskell doesn't support more than a few of the basic widgets. Maybe this will change.
I'd rather program a GUI intensive program with a large "model" structure in Scala, than in Haskell, if it weren't for the fact that I love all other aspects of Haskell so much ;)
- 27 April 2007 at 09:40
- araujo said...
... Yes, you can solve this by putting every field inside an IORef, but then you can't apply pure processing functions to the structure anymore, so you loose the functional approach. ...
An IORef is just a mutable reference inside the IO monad, so i don't get what you mean you can't use 'pure processing' functions.
As the IO monad, you can perfectly use pure functions inside it, if that's what you mean, and that's pretty much the way the IORef data type works, so, the purity of the approach is preserved.
This makes IO monad based GUI programming in Haskell very clumsy, for all but the smallest programs. ...
I don't agree. Haskell is a perfect language for prototyping and rapid development, so the programs tend to be smaller than other approaches (it can even compete with scripting languages); even if you are using monadic code, or a big IO monad, it will more likely keep smaller than an equivalent program in an imperative language. And considering the Brook law of "the time it takes to write a program depends mostly on its length" , i think Haskell can actually be less clumsy than most languages out there.
... Sadly, functional reactive libraries in Haskell doesn't support more than a few of the basic widgets. Maybe this will change. ...
Let's hope it changes, but, that doesn't stop anyone of getting GUI stuff done in Haskell. Right now there are several popular bindings for graphical interfaces in Haskell, and it is amazing to see how (for example) gtk2hs supports many of the gtk-2.8 library options, and it is actually one of the few languages with support for this version of the API, according to the languages bindings list of the gtk site. So, the thing isn't that bad as many people might believe.
I do think you can get a "serious" GUI application on Haskell with the current toolkits available. It will very much depend upon thinking 'less' imperatively and more 'functional' at the end ;-)
- 27 April 2007 at 11:10
- Davve said...
I think you missed the point, so I'll take an example:
In an imperative language you can do:
onSomeEvent(model) {
forAll(x <- model.stuff, pred(x))
x.someField.someOtherField := y
To do that in Haskell someOtherField needs to be an IORef, or you'd have to write lots of code to reconstruct the entire model type. So, the easiest and most practical thing to do is to let it be an IORef, which is what you like to do, right?
But then how do you apply the pure function f :: Model -> Model to gui.model?
You can't, because if the function is supposed to do something with the value *inside* someOtherField, it has to have the type Model -> IO Model.
But isn't the point of Haskell to do pure processing on your data?
- 27 April 2007 at 12:31
- araujo said...
In an imperative language...
Your code example is _very_ imperative , so it makes more sense in an imperative design, and probably much more from an imperative language. That's why i ended up my last comment considering that it is important to think functional while using a functional language, many things are very evident when you do so.
I see you also imply many mis-conceptions in your posts, for example, that IO functions aren't pure or .. not _so_ pure like other functions, if that can make sense at all, so i really don't get what you mean.
A function of type , f :: Model -> IO Model would be as pure as f :: Model -> Model , making the IORef solution pretty valid, nevertheless, i still think there are better ways , or if you want to call it like this, more functional ways of solving this:
onSomeEvent(model) {
forAll(x <- model.stuff, pred(x))
x.someField.someOtherField := y
If i got your pseudo-code right:
data Model = ... // describe it whatever way you want
onSomeEvent :: [Model] -> IO [Model]
onSomeEvent = return . map f where { f :: Model -> Model; f model = ... }
Notice how your code is omitting many obvious concepts here, for example, mapping and returning a value of the same data type that is received, plus, practically all the representation comes from the ADT, and not a mutable global structure, even, the behaviour of the function is itself determined by the representation you want to give to the ADT, and it does it in a perfectly pure way.
This kind of code and design is so common in Haskell (and functional programing), that the language itself even offers a class, called Functor, that helps to do precisely that, to delegate the behaviour of a function to a specific data type.
You can't, because if the function is supposed to do something with the value *inside* someOtherField, it has to have the type Model -> IO Model.
That's an 'imperative' perception. There is no need to do anything *inside*. Not in this case.
But isn't the point of Haskell to do pure processing on your data?
Always, that's what you do even using IO monads.
You keep assuming an IO function is 'impure' or introduces some impurity to the program. I recommend you to check some documentation about it, because it isn't so.
- 27 April 2007 at 14:14
- Davve said...
Okay, I'm sorry, perhaps I should try to write less cryptic posts.
The pure function I'm talking about is an entirely different function. It doesn't have anything to do with the event handler.
I want to be able to write both the event handler, that does direct updating of fields, AND the pure function that processes the data structure. Imagine a program that both responds to events AND does some kind of core program functionality that is entirely purely functional. The problem is that you would need two different data structures for this, an imperative one that contains references, and a more "functional" one without references.
Here's an example of the problem:
data Gui = Gui {
widgetA :: Widget,
widgetB :: Widget,
model :: IORef IdeModel
data IdeModel = IdeModel {
packages :: [IORef Package],
documents :: [Document],
.. etc
data Package = Package {
rootDir :: FilePath,
descr :: PackageDescription,
lbi :: Maybe LocalBuildInfo
Now, say you have a preference panel where the user can configure local settings for a selected package, like what arguments to pass to "configure". When the user press "Apply" for this panel, the lbi field needs to be set to Nothing, to indicate that the configure step needs to be re-run (say a background thread handles building the package).
I have one IORef to the whole model, because I want to be able to update the model. But I also have an IORef for each package, because it is convenient to be able to directly poke at a package. Like in the apply button event:
onApply gui packageName settings = do
-- local settings changed,
-- need to set lbi field of package
-- to Nothing.
pkgRef <- lookupPackage gui packageName
modifyIORef pkgRef (\p -> p { lbi = Nothing })
-- do other things with the settings
If I didn't have an IORef around each package, I'd have to write more code here. I'd have to write a function that has the type Model -> Model, that just changes the particular field inside the particular package inside the model. Then update the model using the "global" IORef. That's pretty inconvenient, and thanks to the per-package IORef I don't have to do that. And this, wrapping a field inside an IORef, is something you'd do for every specific field/data structure that you want to directly update, to avoid the incovenience of reconstructing the whole model.
So far so good, but what if I want to apply this function to the model:
show :: Show a => a -> String
I can't because I can't instantiate the IdeModel structure in the Show class. Atleast not if I want to show the packages, since they are wrapped in IORef's.
Do you see the problem? You choose between the direct-updating feature,
and being able to apply normal pure Haskell functions in various ways to the data you are working with.
You don't really choose between that when programming in an imperative language because the distinction between references and values is not that strong.
Note that, in my opinion, you NEED the direct-updating feature if you are arguing that GUI programming in the IO monad using gtk2hs is as easy as doing the same style of GUI programming in an imperative language.
To point this out was the reason for my original comments.
Btw, all of this only applies if you really do any fundamental processing of your data structure that best can be done in a pure way. Otherwise it's of course fine to have references everywhere.
Hopefully I've ranted enough and made myself a bit more clear now :)
I should also say that I like Haskell and am using gtk2hs currently.
- 27 April 2007 at 16:09
- araujo said...
If I didn't have an IORef around each package, I'd have to write more code here. ...
You probably will, but it might still be less code than in an imperative language.
I'd have to write a function that has the type Model -> Model, that just changes the particular field inside the particular package inside the model. Then update the model using the "global" IORef.
That was one of the point of my comment , that is _actually_ possible and convenient to avoid mutable state in GUI programming using Haskell, you keep thinking in terms of _updating_ , because that's the 'imperative' way of doing it.
I precisely believe that designing your program with a coherent data flow passing through functions arguments avoid the mutable state approach (among other design patterns). If that's the way you want to do it, it's up to you, but i have personally found it easier to reason about it instead of global or local mutable structures.
Do you see the problem?
Seriously, i don't see it. Either the IORef and the non-usage of mutable state is a valid pure approach in Haskell.
And i really find the example of the Show class irrelevant for the subject. If a data type can belong or not to a class doesn't necessarily make a function more pure than other.
Note that, in my opinion, you NEED the direct-updating feature if you are arguing that GUI programming in the IO monad using gtk2hs is as easy as doing the same style of GUI programming in an imperative language.
It's precisely my point, that Haskell programming without mutable references can be as easy or even easier to develop than the imperatives approaches.
But you need to design your _whole_ program functionally. And that might require a mind-change too.
All your points, though valid at some degree, are still coming from an imperative perspective, for example, you keep insisting in monadic code being impure (or at least, what i have understood so far) , or that you _need_ a mutable data structure because you need to change a specific model.
Let's see if i try to explain myself better.
You have to treat your _whole_ program as a function, instead of some parts of it; if you start looking at it from that perspective, you will realize, that mutable states can be omitted, or might be unnecessary to accomplish a similar functionality.
My main point is that, encapsulating, or packaging possible mutable variables around your code, though it might give you a smaller code, i have found that a design, where you can access _all_ the possible model state through the normal variable declarations and along with well defined data types (and i mean, data types designed with the whole program as a function in mind) can offer more advantages instead of the common approach of a global structure , or even a local one to update in-place; some them: easier to track variable's life and contents, less functions inside the IO monad (Show available), it can avoid the creation of ADT with mutable state, and many more.
And with all this, the code will more likely be smaller than in an imperative language. I know it's difficult to believe it, i myself couldn't believe it either, until i started trying it by myself, and i invite you to do it too.
- 27 April 2007 at 17:46
- Davve said...
Ok, I think you might have misunderstood some things about Haskell.
A function f :: a -> I0 a is not a pure (referentially transparent) function, hence the IO type. Okay, you can argue that the whole program is a function that transforms the world, but that's not the usual view of programs.
I took a look at hImerge just to see if there's something I'm missing, but it turns out that you are using mutable state all over the place AFAICS, by storing and manipulating it in the widgets directly. This is not different to using IORefs to capture mutable state. This approach doesn't solve the problem I mention.
- 27 April 2007 at 18:43
- araujo said...
You are slightly confused there.
f :: a -> IO a is a perfectly pure function, it just happen to contain code with side-effect. That's why monads are usually explained as containers, since they just encapsulate this code, but preserves the purity of the function.
gtk2hs takes care of the mutable state, i myself didn't have to explicitly create and manipulate such a references (like using IORef types) on my code; as opposed to the common practice of including such a behaviour and design on GUI programing. I probably had to be clearer about it though.
- 27 April 2007 at 19:44
- Thomas Girod said...
Say your program maintains a pretty deep data structure that consists of nested records. What do you do if you need to update a field somewhere deep down in this structure in response to an event? You can't just poke at the field like in Java/any other imperative language. You need to reconstruct the entire thing.
*Very* inconvenient.
(I didn't read all the comments so I hope this is not a dupe but anyway ...)
This problem is not especially linked to GUI design, but more generally to any haskell program manipulating complicated and deep datatypes.
I'm currently developing a program of that sort, so I stumbled on this problem : how can I modify one field lost deep into my complicated datatype ? haskell offers syntactic sugar for the simple case :
> myData {myField = newValue}
but it doesn't work when you want to change a field wiithin "myField".
Well, there is an elegant solution : "functional references". Basically, it allows you to build getters and setters functions for all your datatypes, with the huge advantage of being composable. That way, you can do things that looks like :
> let myNewData = set (firstField . innerField) myData newValue
There is a very good example here :
- 25 April 2008 at 03:59
- Thomas Girod said...
damn link.
Just type "overloading functional references" in google and feel lucky.
- 25 April 2008 at 04:03
- Paczesiowa said...
it is interesting, that you stay away from IORefs (I can't do that). Could you tell me how do you achieve this: two buttons, one when clicked, prints number of times it has been clicked to stdout, seconed button resets to 0 on click.
- 25 April 2008 at 10:33
- araujo said...
This problem is not especially linked to GUI design, but more generally to any haskell program manipulating complicated and deep datatypes.
Functional references are definitely a good approach for this issue.
Thanks for your post,
- 28 April 2008 at 20:09
- araujo said...
it is interesting, that you stay away from IORefs (I can't do that). Could you tell me how do you achieve this: two buttons, one when clicked, prints number of times it has been clicked to stdout, seconed button resets to 0 on click.
As explained in some previous comments , there _exist_ IORefs , but they are internal to the gtk2hs library ; so I just use them 'implicitly' if you want to call it so.
It's just a matter of how you design your own application , from my second post on this thread:
1 - Small functions with well defined behaviours.
2 - A coherent data flow passing through the arguments of each functions.
These are two factors that really helps to reduce or even remove the need for explicit IORefs in your application code.
Following a more pragmatic explanation of your button example; one way that comes from the top of my head right now to avoid explicit IORefs would be to encapsulate the count into one of the object components of gtk2hs ; for example you could save the value inside a widget container.
This will evidently be using mutable state , but underneath your code , and it won't bring out any unnecessary IORef to the application explicitly. This approach have been substantially productive for me , in any case, IORefs are (in my opinion) more a way to address internal behaviour inside an application (library bindings in this case) , than a common user level construct, and it's the way I am using them so far.
Thanks and Regards,
- 28 April 2008 at 20:25


text:
A collection of personal thoughts and experiences - mostly centered around running.
Friday, May 7, 2010
4 comments:
I also will be watching from afar and will be volunteering at a new trail half marathon being directed by Nick Whited in Damascus, VA. I wish everyone good luck. I hope everyone enjoys the new course.ReplyDelete
Andrish, Kulak, Knipling. Best to all.ReplyDelete
I guess I shouldn't be so spineless and make some picks. . .ReplyDelete
I'll go with Reed, Walker, Knipling. With no Meltzer this year, I'm thinking 20 hrs and change will win it.
I was right about the time it would take to win, but not the picks.ReplyDelete
1) Dan Barger 20:25
2) Chris Reed 20:56
3) Aaron Schwartzbard 20:57
Looks like it was an exciting finish for second. Solid as always, Walker slipped into 4th; so I wasn't too far off on the call. Good stuff!


text:
***REGISTERED USERS: please be advised that all existing account information was lost in EMLoT's recent upgrade; in order to access your account, you will need to re-register. We apologise for the inconvenience.***
Early Modern London Theatres (EMLoT) is a research database and educational resource that grew out of a collaboration between the Records of Early English Drama (REED) at the University of Toronto, the Department of Digital Humanities (DDH) at King's College London, and the Department of English at the University of Southampton. EMLoT and its associated Learning Zone have been funded by the UK's Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), the British Academy (BA), and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) (for further details, please see see Project Information: Version 1 Team and Sponsors).
EMLoT, version 1, introduced records pertaining to the eight theatres north of the Thames: the Red Lion (1567), the Theatre (1576), the Curtain (1577), the Fortune (1600), the Red Bull (1604), the Boar's Head (1602), the Phoenix or Cockpit (1616), and Salisbury Court (1629). Version 2 of the database incorporates the theatres south of the Thames in the historic county of Surrey: Newington Butts (1570s), the Rose (1587), the Swan (1595), Globe I and II (1599, 1614), and the Hope (1614), as well as the bearbaiting arena(s) in the same area.
EMLoT lets you see what direct use has been made, over the last four centuries, of pre-1642 documents related to professional performance in purpose-built theatres and other permanent structures in the London area. It is not a comprehensive collection of those pre-1642 documents; rather, it charts the copies (or 'transcriptions') which were subsequently made of them. It thus gives you access to the varied and long 'after-life' of those documents. It tells you who used them, and when, and where you can find evidence of that use. It also gives you some access to what was used, because it includes a brief account (or 'abstract') of the transcription's contents, together with a reference to the location of the original document.
This database does not include play texts, and if your main interest is in the pre-1642 evidence for actual performances, ceremonies, and the playing of secular music in London, you should go first to the London, Middlesex and Surrey collections of the REED series. They are currently being edited — Ecclesiastical London (2008), the Inns of Court (2010), and Civic London to 1558 (2015) are published — and, when they are completed, will be made available online, ultimately being interoperable with this site.
Banner image: Frontispiece to Robert Dodsley's A Select Collection of Old Plays (1744). Image courtesy of the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto.


text:
By now you are probably suffering from opinion poll overload. I decided months ago not to sign up for automatic opinion poll updates and twitter feeds, for fear of jamming my mailbox. There seems to be a new poll about every 15 minutes; certainly several a day. As recently at the 1980 election the major polls came out only every few days, and one of the small details that made that election so dramatic was that the major polling outfits stopped polling on the Friday or Saturday before the election, and missed the large shift to Reagan that occurred over the last 48 hours. (And if memory serves, the few polls like Gallup that existed in 1948 stopped polling weeks ahead of the election, because everyone knew Tom Dewey had it in the bag, and as polls were very expensive then, why waste the money.)
With that in mind, let's visit Sir Winston's views on opinion polls, from 1953:
We have a deep respect for public opinion but we do not let our course be influenced from day to day by Gallup Polls, favourable though they may be. It is not a good thing always to be feeling your pulse and taking your temperature; although one has to do it sometimes, you do not want to make a habit of it. I have heard it said that a Government should keep its ear to the ground, but they should also remember that this is not a very dignified attitude.
On an earlier occasion he put the matter more colorfully:
I see it said that leaders should keep their ears to the ground. All I can say is that the British nation will find it very hard to look up to leaders who are detected in that somewhat ungainly posture.


text:
Being a Heat hater, this was one of my favorite games of the year. This wasn't as great as the 2nd Heat victory (more on that later) but this was one of the better games all season. It was the first time this season that the Knicks knocked off the new look Heat and the fact that they did it in front of a loud, celebrity filled MSG crowd made it an awesome game.
It was a competitive game throughout that saw the Knicks make an epic late game comeback. The first half was close as Miami won each quarter by 1 point and lead by 2 at halftime. Wade suffered from his migraine that caused him to wear orange goggles. He had 34 points but missed all 7 shots he took in the 4th and was 6/14 from the free throw line. Amare kept the Knicks in the game with 24 points but the Knicks trailed by 9 to start the 4th. Fields had his best game of the season with 19 points and Gallo had 20. Gallo was the man in the 4th quarter. Shawne Williams and Gallo led the Knicks on a great comeback. Gallinari's 3 with 5 minutes to go gave the Knicks a 77-76 lead. Fields then hit a 3 followed by STAT getting to the line. The Knicks led 86-84 when Gallinari and Fields hit back to back 3's to ice the game. 4 Raymond Felton free throws later the game was over, Knicks 93 Heat 88.
It was a great win for the old Knicks, they once again showed great heart, passion and effort. This was my favorite game of the old team, it personified their teamwork in that Fields, Shawne Williams and Gallinari all played just as big of a role as STAT did in winning this game. This was the 8th best Knick game of this season and it was beautiful to see our boys take out the big 3 in front of a passionate Madison Square Garden crowd.Follow @tarmosino


text:
This story was updated at 10:35 a.m. 2/23/13 to clarify Judy Garvey's opinion of Corrections Commissioner Joseph Ponte work.
The arrest this week of a captain at the Maine State Prison who allegedly assaulted an inmate and last month's dismissal of the prison warden are indicative of larger problems, say people who are familiar with the workings of the facility in Warren.
Current and former employees, advocates for inmates and even prisoners say the culture at the prison is toxic. Guards are afraid to do their jobs. Inmates are concerned about treatment that is more punitive than rehabilitative. The number of incidents involving prisoners, including assaults, has increased dramatically in the last two months.
Corrections Commissioner Joseph Ponte has brought in new people in an effort to change the culture, but some say Ponte is part of the problem.
"No one wants to work in corrections," said Jim Mackie, who represents the local chapter of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the union that includes prison workers. "If (Ponte) is not firing them, they are quitting. Our feeling is that he's trying to collapse the system."
Two former employees have filed complaints claiming they were dismissed for expressing concerns about what they saw in the prison.
James O'Farrell, whose position as deputy warden was eliminated in 2011, filed a lawsuit last month in which he claims that understaffing led directly to the killing of an inmate in May 2011.
Lloyd Millett reportedly was beaten to death by another inmate, Franklin Higgins, in the prison's woodshop. Higgins is scheduled to stand trial for murder next month.
O'Farrell said Warden Patricia Barnhart told him at one point to stop complaining to Ponte or his job might be at risk. Months later, O'Farrell's job was eliminated.
"I don't want to be the guy that saw and heard all these things and never did anything," he said in an interview.
The prison now has 825 prisoners and a staff of 410, including guards and other staffers such as social workers.
According to information provided to the Portland Press Herald in response to a Freedom of Access request, the number of inmates who were disciplined increased significantly in the last two months.
In December, 119 disciplinary actions were reported, ranging from assault and self-injuries to drug or weapon seizures. In January, there were 152 infractions. The monthly average is about 75, according to the department.
In both January and December, the number of assaults by inmates on inmates was above average, as was the number of cases of self-abuse.
Ponte, who was appointed two years ago by Gov. Paul LePage, is a reform-minded leader with a background in private, for-profit prisons. He has been aggressive in making changes and has been lauded by the governor, among others, for finding budget efficiencies in his department.
Ponte dismissed Barnhart on Jan. 10 for failing to do enough to change things in her three years as warden. She was replaced by Rodney Bouffard, who, like Ponte, has a history of reform. He helped to turn around the former Augusta Mental Health Institute and did the same at the Long Creek Youth Development Center in South Portland.
"We've done an assessment and have come up with some things that need to change," Bouffard said. "With change, people get nervous. I would be surprised if they weren't. But talk to them in a year and I guarantee they will feel better."
Mackie, however, said Ponte's focus on the bottom line is creating problems that he is either ignoring or not taking seriously.
He said Ponte rarely allows overtime, and that has created staffing shortfalls, dangerous working conditions and an increase in incidents at the prison.
In an email response to questions from the Press Herald, Ponte said he would not comment on personnel matters but addressed the staff's concerns.
"We encourage staff to attend our monthly administrator's meetings. I hold quarterly round table meetings where line staff can talk about any topic they wish or ask any question about anything," he wrote. "I guess I would like to know what has been a secret?"
Ponte said his staffing plan for the prison was developed and approved by the prison staff and follows industry standards.
He said he does not make decisions about daily use of overtime but "I do believe we are spending the public's money, tax dollars, and we should do everything we can to be efficient."
He praised the staff for doing "very dangerous and difficult work."
Most incidents at the prison are logged by the staff but aren't reported publicly. The incident involving Capt. David Cutler, who is now charged with assaulting an inmate, Renardo Williams, on Christmas Eve last year, came to light only after Cutler was arrested Wednesday.
Rachel Talbot Ross, president of the Portland chapter of the NAACP, said the Department of Corrections wanted to avoid charging Cutler with assault but was forced to do so after the NAACP met with Williams, who is black, and indicated that it was prepared to take action if Cutler was not charged.
In an affidavit supporting Cutler's arrest, Joseph Fagone, an investigator with the Department of Corrections, quotes a prison employee, Sgt. John Howlett, who said he witnessed the assault.
Howlett says in the affidavit that Cutler handcuffed Williams and told him to sit. When Williams said he would prefer to stand, Cutler knocked his legs out from under him. Cutler then raised his voice and said, "You'll do what I tell you when I tell you," the affidavit says.
Howlett told the investigator, "I couldn't believe it."
Talbot Ross said she plans to meet with Ponte next week to discuss a trend of guards at the prison mistreating black inmates.
Lawrence Tardiff, a former guard who has filed a whistleblower complaint, said he knows of at least eight inmates who were assaulted by Cutler in the last two years. He said reports were made to the warden and the commissioner but nothing was done.
According to Tardiff:
• One inmate was handcuffed so tightly that the handcuffs left marks on his wrists for days.
• Cutler used Mace on inmates in two separate incidents.
• In two instances, Cutler improperly touched inmates during pat-down searches.
• And in two instances, Cutler raked an inmate's face across a chain link fence.
The Press Herald requested reports of staff members assaulting inmates. Jody Breton, a deputy corrections commissioner, initially said she did not have that information, then said she would have to check with her human resources department. Breton did not provide any reports by Friday evening.
About two years ago, Warden Barnhart oversaw a change in the way the prison staff deals with violent or disruptive inmates.
Captains had been authorized to decide when to send an inmate to the prison's segregation unit, but now the unit manager and the housing manager where the inmate is stationed must sign off first.
The segregation unit, which can hold 139 inmates, was filled to capacity less than two years ago. It now houses 35 to 50 inmates on any given day.
Ponte and Barnhart said last year that guards didn't like the policy shift.
Bouffard said such a shift has worked elsewhere, and will work at Maine State Prison if the staff embraces it.
"Most of these people are going to be released at some point," he said. "How we treat them in here directly affects how they will act out there, and we need the public to feel safe about that."
Ponte said the changes come down to a "return on investment."
"Can we improve the chances of an inmate becoming a responsible citizen in our state?" he wrote in his email. "In order to do that we have to measure outcomes and make adjustments when we do not see the results we had hoped for."
The Rev. Stan Moody, a former prison chaplain who still does outreach with inmates, said he has been frustrated about the atmosphere at the prison since before Ponte took over as commissioner. He said many of the problems stem from a "good old boys network" of guards.
Moody said Cutler's conduct was exposed because of the assault charge but it was not an isolated incident.
Judy Garvey with the Maine Prisoner Advocacy Coalition said Ponte has good intentions and her group is generally supportive of reform efforts.
"The commissioner is trying to clean house, but he cannot micromanage each prison," Garvey said. "We've been hoping that change would happen, because there has been a lot going on at that prison in terms of drug use, inappropriate sexual contact and other things that don't make it into the news."
Eric Russell can be contacted at 791-6344 or at:
Twitter: @PPHEricRussell
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