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For over 2,500 years, the art of egg decoration known as pysanky (pronounced "pee-sahn-kee") has been practiced in the Ukraine. Originally, this craft formed an integral part of that culture's religious tradition, since the egg was a pagan symbol for the rebirth of spring. When the Ukrainian people were converted to Christianity, they simply incorporated the new religion's various motifs into their traditional ones and continued to practice this delicate art.
Today the craft is dying out in its home country, but pysanky is still kept alive by small groups of Ukrainians in the United States and Canada. I have always loved the art, and—once I mastered the technique — I discovered that such eggs (which cost me 11¢ to decorate) could sell for anywhere from $2.50 to $15!
The Materials
It only takes about $5.00 worth of materials to get ready to make decorated Easter eggs. All you need are some intact eggs (raw or blown hollow), a few ounces of beeswax, a supply of fairly tall, thin candles, a set of prepared dyes, and a small stylus known as a kistka—the one tool that's essential for this craft.
The kistka is just a tiny funnel set into a hole in the end of a short stick. To make the funnel, simply twist a small piece of brass or copper foil into a hollow cone with a 1/4"-wide base and a minuscule hole at the small end. Remember that, although the funnel doesn't have to be structurally strong, it does have to hold heated wax. Coil it as tightly as possible.
Then, in order to protect the wooden handle while the wax is heated over a candle flame, either wind No. 22 to No. 24 wire just forward and aft of the funnel or cover this area with very thin sheet metal or foil.
As for the other supplies, a pound of beeswax should last through a few dozen eggs, and it is available from beekeepers, fabric shops which sell batik supplies, art and hobby shops, and some candle stores.
Any cold-water dyes will work for pysanky egg decoration. The food-colors of the American Easter egg tradition, however, aren't usually as bright and permanent as you might want. Strong chemical dyes can, of course, be used since the decorated eggs are much too pretty to eat! But if you want the super-intense hues used by many "pysanky people," you'll have to order your dyes—for about 30¢ per color—from the Ukrainian Gift Shop. (You can get their catalog for 25¢, and—for $8.98 plus $1.25 postage and handling—the Gift Shop will send you a pysanky kit which contains three kistkas, beeswax, 12 dyes, and instructions.)
The Process
The principle behind pysanky is akin to the more well-known, wax-resist art of batik.
To begin, place just enough beeswax in the funnel of the kistka to fill it. Then, heat the funnel directly over the candle flame until the wax reaches its melting point. (Be careful not to overdo it. Your beeswax will either boil out of the funnel or expand too much and produce globby lines when you draw on the egg.) Test the kistka on a piece of paper before you begin your first project to be sure that just a thin line of wax flows out the tiny hole in the funnel.
Once you've mapped out your basic design, place the patterned egg in the lightest dye (say, yellow) that you intend to use. As you'll see, the wax lines will resist the dye and leave the area under them white (or whatever the natural egg color happens to be).
Next, wax in those parts of your design that you want to be yellow, then place the egg in the second—somewhat darker—dye. It will cover up all of the yellow that isn't "protected" by the beeswax lines. In other words, you wax out the areas which you want to remain the color they are at the time of the waxing. Another typical color sequence might be yellow, orange, red, and black.
After the final, darkest dye has been applied, you're ready to take off all the wax and reveal the beautiful colors underneath. To do this, just hold the egg close to the side of the candle flame, and the wax will melt and drip off. Alternatively, you can wipe the coating off with a tissue or soft cloth. (Don't hold the egg over the candle, though, or the carbon from the flame will soot up your design.) You can also put the egg in a "low" oven for the few minutes necessary to melt the wax.
Once the egg was clean, the Ukrainians used to rub it with butter, but I apply a coat of varnish because this "finish" offers better protection.
Miscellaneous Notes
Traditionally, pysanky eggs were given raw, and the contents eventually dried up. I prefer to use blown shells, however, since this method allows me to eat the egg whites and yolks that I remove, and the hollow shells are less likely to break if dropped. When using "empty" eggs, however, you have to be sure to plug up the "blow holes" with wax, or the shells will fill with dye. Then, before you melt the wax off, remember to unplug the holes. Otherwise, the air inside the finished egg may expand from the heat and cause your artwork to explode (and that can be a very traumatic experience!).
Some people decorate an egg, varnish it, and then blow it out. The advantage to this method is that the raw egg will be heavy enough to sink into the dye without being weighted down. It's best to practice up a bit on blowing eggs before you try this, however, so you don't crack your artwork in the process. I've found that I can empty an egg quickly and easily if I punch a hole in one end with a tiny drill and then pump out the contents with a syringe.
The Business Angle
Pysanky has several advantages as a means of supplementary income. Aside from the fact that it involves only a tiny capital investment, the business is seasonal ... and egg decorating is a great way to enrich long, winter evenings. As an added bonus, the design possibilities are nearly endless! On top of the beautiful Ukrainian motifs, you can adapt this art to a wide range of decorative styles in order to reach a variety of audiences. And, although pysanky eggs are a "natural" for Easter, folks also use them as gifts, Christmas tree decorations, and casual ornaments.
You can sell these little works of art to stores, of course, but I've made the most money at craft fairs. Also, sales to friends-of-friends have accounted for over half of my trade, especially around the Christmas and Easter "busy seasons".
On the negative side, though, you should know that pysanky is a fairly time-consuming craft, enough so that I average only $2.25 per hour for my labor. Still, with about 25 hours' work a week, I earned $1,700 over a six-month period last year, and the past three Easters brought in between $300 and $400 apiece.
I should point out, too, that your egg market will suffer under a surfeit of competition; if there's another egg-decorator in your area, it's best to be sure that you're better than he or she is. At any rate, the time spent becoming a true pysanky artist is both fun and satisfying. And—if you look into its traditions—there's a lot more to this exquisite craft than pretty eggs.
Traditional Wishes
The word pysanky stems from the verb pysaty (which means "to write") and is translated as "written egg". Therefore, each color and symbol should have a special meaning, and each egg should convey a wish. For example, in the Ukrainian Easter egg tradition, a stag might symbolize leadership; a chicken, fertility; a fish, abundance; and a spider, artistry. As for colors, yellow stands for purity, green can mean bountifulness, orange means strength, black means eternity, and so on.
And, aside from all these mystical meanings, just the act of egg decoration is a part of a greater legend: It's said that should this ancient custom ever cease, a chained monster of evil will burst his bonds and devour the world ... but that the evil on the earth will become less as more beautiful eggs are produced.
I'd say that that's as good a reason as any to decorate an egg!


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Hometown necesitaba un nuevo diseño de banner publicitario y lanzó un concurso de diseño en 99designs.
2 ganadores han sido elegidos entre 28 diseños de 9 diseñadores freelance.
PinoyLD.com is an international long distance provider offering cheap long distance calling to the Philippines from the US, Canada, Australia, and 8 other countries. We offer convenient monthly calling plans and pay as you go calling cards at one low rate to any landline or mobile in the Philippines.
PinoyLD is a new service from Hometown Telecom. We specialize in low cost, high quality international long distance plans. PinoyLD is designed for Filipinos that want to enjoy low rates, no fees, the ability to use their account from multiple phones, and to share their plan with family and friends.
We are targeting Non-Resident Filipinos who make international long distance phone calls to the Philippines. Our customers are typically expat contract workers who are abroad for work, and recent emigrants from the Philippines looking to stay in touch with friends and family back home.
I am attaching some of the banner ads that have worked well for our brands in the past so you can see what we are looking for. We need some fresh looks and messaging to add to our existing creative. Spend some time looking at the site so that you are familiar with our selling points and products.
We are looking for 2 creatives in the following banner sizes: 250x250, 336x280, 728x90, 120x600, 160x600.
Regular old image banners, with a file size of under 49kb.
Take the two creative concepts below and do an initial design for each of them in the 336x280 size. I will give you feedback on what works and what doesn't and if I like what you've turned in, then you can submit designs for the rest of the sizes.
Concept 1: One low rate to all Philippines
Other companies offer low rates to landlines but charge extra to call mobile phones in the Philippines, especially to the largest mobile providers. We charge the same low rate to call any phone in the Philippines. Use this copy:
Call All Philippines For 10.9¢/minute
Call Land, Smart, Globe, & Sun For The Same Cheap Rate.
Concept 2: A general Call the Philippines Cheap ad
Appeal to Filipino expats who are missing home and call the Philippines often. This should be a combination of emotional appeal (use a picture of someone that could be a close family member, girlfriend, friends), and how our pricing and features enable them to call home a lot.
I'm attaching examples of a Concept 2 banner that worked for us in the past (File named IndiaLD_C_336x280), as well as the logo.
Both creatives should include our 10.9c/min and no fees in the ads.

subset: commoncrawl


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For National Cheesecake Day 2012, Eli's was honored by a visit from Megan Ervin, Miss Illinois! She celebrated by putting her culinary skills to the test and decorating her own Eli's Cheesecake with the help of Eli's pastry chefs.
In honor of Megan's great work and commitment to helping our community, Eli's announced that a portion of all proceeds of all sales made on National Cheesecake Day would be donated to Children's Miracle Network.
Eli's was also proud to present a $1,000 donation to Children's Miracle Network on Megan's behalf.
Megan generously donated her time to help the Eli's team and the Eli's slice mascot hand out over 1,000 FREE cheesecake slices around Chicago to celebrate National Cheesecake Day. They rode around town in the Cheesecake Mobile, a 1928 Ford delivery truck modified to store a truckload of cheesecake slices! The group stopped at important landmarks in Chicago like the Seneca Park/Eli Schulman Playground (located across from the new Children's Memorial Hospital), and the Prudential Building. The Eli's team also posted surprise stops on Twitter and Facebook so our fans could get in on the fun and enjoy a free slice of Eli's.
Fans who aren't lucky enough to live in Chicago were able to enjoy free shipping on a different delicious flavor each hour on elicheesecake.com.


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Hotels in Miami
Tourism in Miami
Miami is the fourth largest city in United States after New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. Many of its residents have come here for its warm sunny climate, for its incipient tourism and therefore the market which is produced by it and also for its natural landscapes of mangrove forests with a rich fauna, or even as a place of retreat from other parts of the country.
The name Miami is of indigenous origin, and it was in this area where it was assumed the source of eternal youth lay. Since the late nineteenth century the city suffered a strong increase of population which seemed unstoppable, and the confluence of many nationalities has led it to be one of the cities of United States with the gratest variety of spoken languages. Florida is one of the states with the largest number of Spanish speakers in the country.
Access to Miami has been made easy during the last years by a variety of options for tourists and locals. Miami airport is one of the largest, and therefore receives the highest air traffic from all over the country. Furthermore, it has one of the largest ports in the United States, from where many ocean liners depart, and is also an important export and import city.
The climate in Miami is warm the whole year, making it one of the favorite holiday destinations for Americans and tourists. Miami is distinguished from Miami Beach; they are two different places, but close to each other. Miami Beach is one of the trendiest places in the whole world for its Art Deco style, for its shops or the mansions of the rich people living in this area. The city does not have large buildings for tourists to admire, but this has not been a problem in adapting and creating a multitude of museums and monuments. Close by are also two national parks located, Biscayne and the Everglades. Miami is a place where you can relax but also a place with many things to do. Its activities, sports, cultural events and economic dynamism make it a suitable destination for all seasons.


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maker designer and marketeer Advanced Micro Devices has been forced to sit through all the glowing news about rival Intel's "Nehalem EP" Xeon 5500 chips for the past three weeks, and now that the news has died down a bit, the company will today announce that it has cranked the clocks on its "Shanghai" quad-core Opteron processors while at the same time re-introducing ultra-low voltage and energy efficient parts that can take the fight to Intel.
Today is also the sixth anniversary of the launch of the Opteron processor, a chip that put AMD on the map in the data center and which put Intel on the mat for two years until it got its act together and designed energy-efficient and yet powerful processors. The Nehalem EPs are, in fact, the closest thing to an Opteron that Intel has put in the field, and it is no coincidence that the design approaches pioneered by AMD with the Opteron were ultimately - if somewhat begrudgingly - adopted by Intel so it could compete in the x64 chip space.
First, the clock cranks on the existing Shanghai chips. There are twelve new Shanghai chips: six Opteron 2300 chips for two-socket servers and six Opteron 8300 chips for four-socket and larger servers. The top-end Opteron Special Edition (SE) chip, which runs at 105 watts, has been boosted to 3.1 GHz, up from 2.8 GHz after a speed boost back in late January and the original launch back in November 2008, when the fastest Shanghai topped out at 2.7 GHz - well short of the expected 3 GHz many had expected given the 45 nanometer process shrink AMD had done with the Shanghai chips compared to the 65 nanometer process used in the earlier "Barcelona" quad-core Opterons.
There has been no process change to get slowly increasing clock speeds, just process refinements and bin sorting. In addition to that faster Opteron SE part, the top-end standard Opterons, which run at 75 watts, has been increased from 2.7 GHz to 2.9 GHz, and the Opteron Highly Efficient (HE) parts - which run at a lower voltage and therefore burn less juice and emit less heat (55 watts, in fact) - now have a maximum clock speed of 2.5 GHz, up from 2.3 GHz in January.
As part of today's 6th Opteron birthday celebration, AMD is also bringing back to life the so-called Opteron Extremely Efficient parts, which run at even lower voltage than the HE parts and therefore run at 40 watts at 2.1 GHz and 2.3 GHz clock speeds. The Opteron HE and EE parts came to market almost a year after the initial Opterons were launched in April 2003, and while the HE parts have stayed in the main Opteron product line, the EE parts were relegated to an embedded division during the dual-core Opteron generation, rarely to be heard from again.
Given all the talk about green IT and energy conservation, this seemed pretty stupid. But to be fair, AMD was charging too much of a premium for low and ultra low voltage parts at first, which meant only customers with really tight thermals and energy budgets in their data centers would be able to afford to indulge in Opteron EE parts, even if they did pay for themselves in juice savings over a three-year life of a server. By the way, the new Shanghai EE chips are only available for two-socket servers right now.
"We're finally back to the point where people are asking for the lowest power consumption for performance we can offer," explains Steve Demski, product manager for AMD's Opteron line. That's why the Opteron EE parts are being resurrected. However, says Demski, they will not be available for purchase through normal retail channels and are being manufactured on a build-to-order basis for server partners who are probably going to use them in their hyperscale and cloud computing deals.
Here's how the volts and amps play out on the Shanghai standard, HE, and EE parts. The top-end Opteron 2389 runs at 2.9 GHz and has a minimum voltage of 1.15 volts and a maximum voltage of 1.325 volts. Maximum amps is 73.5. The top-bin Opteron 2381 HE part runs at 2.5 GHz and has the same min and max volts as the standard part, but only burns 51.2 amps. (Thus, the HE is really just a bin sort to get parts that run at lower amps). The faster 2.3 GHz Shanghai EE part runs at 2.3 GHz and has a voltage range of between 1.05 and 1.1 volts and has a max of 39.4 amps. The lower voltage as well as bin sorting brings the watts way down.
Here's the rundown on the new Shanghai Opterons, including their model number, their clock speeds, their wattages, and their single-unit prices for customers who buy 1,000-unit trays:
- 2373 EE, 40 watts, 2.1 GHz, $377
- 2377 EE, 40 watts, 2.3 GHz, $698
- 2379 HE, 55 watts, 2.4 GHz, $450
- 8379 HE, 55 watts, 2.4 GHz, $1,165
- 2381 HE, 55 watts, 2.5 GHz, $575
- 8381 HE, 55 watts, 2.5 GHz,$1,514
- 2387 standard, 75 watts, 2.8 GHz, $873
- 8387 standard, 75 watts, 2.8 GHz, $2,149
- 2389 standard, 75 watts, 2.9 GHz, $989
- 8389 standard, 75 watts, 2.9 GHz, $2,649
- 2393 SE, 105 watts, 3.1 GHz, $1,165
- 8393 SE, 105 watts, 3.1 GHz, $2,649
Demski says that unlike Intel's Nehalem EPs, the HE and EE parts don't make compromises on features, such as interconnect bandwidth, to make the watts go down. While AMD does not have a Turbo Boost mode or HyperThreading for the Shanghais, the lowest-wattage Nehalem parts have Turbo Boost and HyperThreading taken away. The HE and EE parts are full-blown Opterons, and clock for clock, they will give the same performance as standard Shanghai parts. ®
Sponsored: Webcast: Ransomware has gone nuclear


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Fedora Insight (FI) is a website that serves as a place to publish and share news, articles related to Fedora and Fedora marketing materials in various formats. It makes it easy for users, developers, and journalists - people who aren't yet a part of the Fedora contributor community - to keep up with the goings on of the community without following a dozen different blogs and mailing lists.
This wiki page is for people interested in working on and contributing to Fedora Insight itself; the site is a project that requires collaboration between many teams (FWN, Marketing, Websites, Design, Infrastructure, etc.), so this is our central landing spot.
Meeting agenda
See the time for your timezone using this helpful site.
- Review previous action items -- Last week's meeting
- Drupal status
- Theming
- Views & book combo
- Packaging
- Attracting more contributors
Project status
The Insight project plan shows our plan for completing work on Insight. Dates TBA.
A query for the existing Fedora Insight tickets in the Fedora Infrastructure trac instance can be done here. New tickets should be added with the keywords of insight, zikula.
|Mailing list
|IRC Channel
|IRC Freenode, #fedora-mktg
|Testing instance
|Staging instance
|http://publictest4.fedoraproject.org/drupal (testing)
Requires a FakeFAS account, not your regular FAS account. To access via SSH you must be in the sysadmin-test FAS group. To access administration functions via the Web you must be in the FakeFAS cmsadmin group.
|None yet -- this status will change when we're ready for staging.
|Quick links
|Insight customizations to Drupal -- Changes to core, additional modules and settings
Insight content configuration -- Additional customization work such as filters
- October 1 - Staging instance that produces working versions of the Fedora Weekly News with minimal editing required
- October 17 - Production instance ready for Oct. 18 infrastructure freeze that will appear at http://fedoraproject.org/insight
How to help
- Look at the list of #Teams involved and pick the one(s) you're most closely matching your interests and skillset.
- Follow the instructions in the section for your team(s) on finding open tasks to work on and setting up your environment for contributing to Fedora Insight.
- Join the logistics mailing list and introduce yourself. Let us know:
- Your name
- The kind of skills/experiences/interests you have (even if you're active within another Fedora team, there may be people from other teams within Fedora who haven't had the chance to meet you yet, so let them know who you are and that you're around!)
- The first task or ticket you'll be working on, if you know what you'll be helping with already - or a request for help finding a first task, if you'd like some guidance on where to start.
- (optional) Check out any other #Communications channels that you might be interested in.
Our instance is based on Drupal, an open source PHP-based CMS. The Drupal codebase is entirely GPL and is managed in a similar way to Fedora (one previous major version is community-maintained).
If you have experience with Drupal, or are interested in being a Fedora ambassador to the Drupal community, please follow the #How to help instructions to introduce yourself to the logistics mailing list. Mention that you'd like to help associate our project with the Drupal community.
There is a page on this wiki showing Insight customizations to Drupal. That page tracks changes that are made to the site configuration as we go, so it can be reproduced from scratch at any time. There is also a Insight content configuration page. If you are helping, please make sure to log your customizations on these pages.
Teams involved
The Fedora Weekly News (FWN) team serves as the first users and testers of Fedora Insight as a content distribution mechanism.
FWN on Fedora Insight aggregated beats (requires FAS test authentication):
- coming soon
FWN beat page:
Fedora Insight main page:
In order to help with the theme, you'll have to first set up a local copy of Drupal on your computer. Once you have a local copy of Drupal set up, you'll need to check out the current theme files. The repo is located at git://git.fedorahosted.org/git/fedora-insight-theme.git.
You can checkout the theme anonymously using
git clone git://git.fedorahosted.org/git/fedora-insight-theme.git
Alternatively, people who are a part of the (FAS) group gitfedora-insight-theme can check out using the SSH method:
git clone ssh://git.fedorahosted.org/git/fedora-insight-theme.git
Once you have checked out the files for the theme, install the theme as follows:
- Copy the "fedora" folder within the checkout you just downloaded into the /etc/drupal/all/themes folder in your local Drupal sandbox install.
- Log into your local Drupal sandbox instance as the site administrator.
- Go to Administration > Layout > Theme, then select the Fedora theme.
To contribute patches back, you can either email your patches to the logistics mailing list, or you can apply for the git group for the theme in the Fedora Account System to commit to the repository.
If you are fixing a Trac ticket with your patch, you should update that ticket and email the logistics list to let people know what you've worked on. This helps keep everyone informed, but it also lets the list know about your contribution to the team so you can be recognized appropriately for your assistance.
The Infrastructure team is helping us get Fedora Insight up on production (and keep it running there).
The master ticket is at Infrastructure Trac #1615, but if you're looking to help out, it's best to see our the Trac query.
The Marketing team will be publishing its release deliverables on Fedora Insight, and will be the second users of the platform after #FWN.
We're currently figuring out additional content (other than our release deliverables) that would go into the #Content_workflow. Our current thinking is several ideas that have been filed as multiple tickets in the Marketing trac instance.
If you want to help with the Marketing side of things, do the following:
- Join the Marketing team (if you aren't already a member).
- Email the marketing list saying you're interested in helping with Fedora Insight.
- Do this in addition to following the instructions in the #How to help section of this page.
We could always use packaging help for Drupal and related modules. Here are the things we currently need work on:
- Drupal 6 is currently available for EL5 in EPEL 5-Testing. We can now package and ship modules in EPEL to go with the new drupal6 package.
- The modules we need are shown on the Insight customizations to Drupal page. They include our custom theme and authentication modules, but those are packaging efforts that will be specific to Fedora infrastructure since they aren't useful to the rest of the community (although they're still 100% FOSS and available to anyone of course). These modules are standard contributed modules in Drupal 6 and we need them packaged:
- Footnotes (review request: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=642858)
- Advanced Help (review request: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=642857)
- Flexifilter (review request: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=642856)
- The following packages are already in Fedora and only need a branch for EL-5 once Drupal 6 has hit the EL repositories:
- Views (EL branch request: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=359911)
- CCK (EL branch request: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=359921)
Content workflow
This is the current content workflow envisioned for the first version of Fedora Insight.
+-------------------------+ +-----+ +-------+ +-------------+ +-----------+ |Things that automatically| |Press| |The Web| |Fedora Planet| |Original FI| |get sent to the moderator| +-----+ +-------+ +-------------+ |content | |queue for annotation | | | | +-----------+ +-------------------------+ | | | | | * Board meeting minutes | +-------+-----+-----+---------------+ | * FESCo meeting minutes | | | * FAmSCo meeting minutes| | | * etc. | | +-------------------------+ +----------------------------+ | | Discovered by interested | | +----->| person, or submitted by | | | | original author into... | | resent to | +----------------------------+ | submitter | | | with rationale | | | +------------------+ +---------------------+--------->| Moderator Queue | | +------------------+ | | Selects content | <NO>--------| and annotates | | selected content | +-------------------------+ +------------------+ |Things that automatically| | |get published (no mod) |----+ <YES> +-------------------------+ | | | * Fedora Weekly News | | +----------------------------+ | * Fedora-announce-list | +------>| Published in Fedora Insight| | * etc. | +----------------------------+ +-------------------------+ | | (READERS!)
For a history of the project and some of the rationale behind it, see Fedora Insight history.


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Austroflamm Pellet Stove Parts
Innovative design and steady heat emissions, Austroflamm is the "Mercedes Benz" of pellet stoves! Classy and modern designs to suit any décor!
Because the of the large product variety that exists, customers must measure their stove for this custom cut glass to ensure the measurements that we have on file from Austroflamm are accurate. Before you check out with your custom piece, you must realize that this glass is not returnable.
If you don't see your model number listed, not to worry! Just call our experts at 1-888-986-1535 and submit your measurements. We can custom cut a piece of glass to your specifications for an exact fit, or help you find the right gasket or combustor for your heating application!


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Lena River Delta: Landsat 7 composite satellite image, 2000 (USGS Eros Data Center Satellite Systems Branch/NASA)
Ganges River Delta, Bangladesh and India, largest inter-tidal delta in the world, with tributaries and distributaries of the Ganges and Brahmaputra Rivers depositing huge amounts of silt and clay that create a shifting maze of waterways and islands in the Bay of Bengal: satellite image by NASA, 1994
Grand Prismatic Spring, Hot Springs, Midway and Lower Geyser Basin, Yellowstone National Park, aerial view showing steam rising from hot and sterile deep azure blue water in the center surrounded by huge mats of brilliant orange algae and bacteria: photo by Jim Peaco, 2001 (US National Park Service)
Detroit, with Windsor, Ontario across the Windsor River: simulated-color satellite image by Landsat 7 (NASA)
Nile River Delta: MISR satellite image, 2001 (NASA)
Nile River Delta from orbit: MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA/GSFCMISR satellite image by Jacques Descloitres, 2003 (NASA)
- (NASA caption: Against the barren desert of northeastern Africa, the fertile valley of the Nile River runs northward through Egypt. In the higher-resolution images, the city of Cairo can be seen as a gray smudge right where the river widens into its broad fan-shaped delta. Other cities are dotted across the green landscape, giving it a speckled appearance. Where the Nile empties into the Mediterranean Sea (top) the waters are swirling with color, likely a mixture of sediment, organic matter, and possibly marine plant life. Farther west, the bright blue color of the water is likely less-organically rich sediment, perhaps sand. East of the delta lies the arid Sinai Peninsula, whose pointed tip is home to rugged mountains, some as high as 8,600 feet. The lattice work of pale lines marks the paths of ephemeral rivers. The Sinai Peninsula intrudes into the Red Sea. Farther east are Israel, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. At top right is the disputed territory of the West Bank. In the false-color image, vegetation is bright green, water is dark blue or black, and clouds are light blue. It's interesting to notice that places that seem essentially arid, or desert-like in the true-color image in fact have a delicate layer of vegetation. For example, the central Sinai Peninsula, and most of Israel have a faint greenish tinge in the false-color images.)
Nile River Delta at night: satellite photo by ISS Expedition 25 crew, 2010
(NASA caption: In this view of Egypt, we see a population almost completely concentrated along the Nile Valley, just a small percentage of the country's land area.The Nile River and its delta look like a brilliant, long-stemmed flower in this astronaut photograph of the south-eastern Mediterranean Sea, as seen from the International Space Station. The Cairo metropolitan area forms a particularly bright base of the flower. The smaller cities and towns within the Nile Delta tend to be hard to see amidst the dense agricultural vegetation during the day. However, these settled areas and the connecting roads between them become clearly visible at night. Likewise, urbanized regions and infrastructure along the Nile River becomes apparent. Another brightly lit region is visible along the eastern coastline of the Mediterranean — the Tel-Aviv metropolitan area in Israel (image right). To the east of Tel-Aviv lies Amman, Jordan. The two major water bodies that define the western and eastern coastlines of the Sinai Peninsula — the Gulf of Suez and the Gulf of Aqaba — are outlined by lights along their coastlines (image lower right). The city lights of Paphos, Limassol, Larnaca and Nicosia are visible on the island of Cyprus (image top). Scattered blue-grey clouds cover the Mediterranean Sea and the Sinai, while much of north-eastern Africa is cloud-free. A thin yellow-brown band tracing the Earth's curvature at image top is air-glow, a faint band of light emission that results from the interaction of atmospheric atoms and molecules with solar radiation at approximately 100 kilometres altitude.)
Topography of Arabian Peninsula, with dust blowing across Persian Gulf: satellite photo by SeaWIFS (mage by John Nevard, 2008)
Australia: composite satellite photo by Terra/MODIS, 2002 (NASA)
Fedchenko Glacier, Pamir Mountains, Tajikstan: natural color satellite image by Landsat 7, 2005 (NASA)
Bahama Banks (submerged carbonate platforms that make up much of the Bahama Archipelago -- the northern one is the Little Bahama Bank, and the southern the Great Bahama Bank; the Cay Sal Bank is also visible) with Cuba in the lower area of the image; Andros island is seen in the center, surrounded by the bright blue halo of the Great Bahama Bank, a limestone platform slowly inundated by rising sea levels between 10,000 and 25,000 years ago, as the last ice age glaciers were melting: satellite image by MODIS, 2002 (NASA)
Atacama desert, northern Chile; covering a 600-mile strip of land on the Pacific coast of South America, the driest desert in the world: World Wind 1.4 satellite image by NASA, 2008 (NASA)
Dendi Caldera (formed by the near-total eruption of magma from beneath the volcano, leading to collapse of the volcanic structure into the now-empty magma chamber), on the Ethiopian Plateau, approx. 86 km. southwest of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: photo by ISS Expedition 16 crew, 2007 (NASA)
Topography of Viti Levu, Fiji's largest island: satellite image by NASA/JPL/NIMA, 2000 (NASA)


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How does the order of choices affect consumer decisions?
Let's say you've got to book a flight, choose a hotel, and rent a car. Does it matter which thing you shop for first? A new study in the Journal of Consumer Research finds that the order of choices does affect consumers' decisions.
"Consumers often shop for multiple products in a single trip. This research looks at whether the order in which consumers shop for the different products influences how they search for each individual product," write authors Jonathan Levav (Stanford University), Nicholas Reinholtz (Columbia Business School), and Claire Lin (formerly Columbia Business School).
The authors tested consumers' reactions to different configurations by looking at a business traveler who had five possible flight options (airlines), 10 possible hotels, and 15 possible car rental options. "When we order a group of decisions by increasing choice-set size, we find that consumers search through more of the possible choice options than when we order the same set of decisions by decreasing choice-set size," the authors write.
In other words, the business traveler in the above example would examine more of the possible hotel options when that choice is preceded by the choice of flights (five options) rather than the choice of rental cars (15 options). "This difference seems to be driven by the consumer's desire to maximize her choice outcome," the authors explain. "If she starts with a choice from a small choice set, she will probably try to choose the best options from that set. This 'choose the best' mindset tends to persist to the later choices." In contrast, if consumers start with a larger choice set, they adopt a "good enough" mindset.
The authors believe that starting consumers with choices from small choice sets can help them become motivated to find their desired products from larger assortments.
"Our result is an interesting counterpoint to the popular research on choice overload," the authors write. "Our results suggest that large choice sets don't have to be demotivating. By positioning a large choice set after smaller choice sets, a retailer may make the large choice set less daunting to the consumer."


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VisualARQ is a fully-integrated Rhino plug-in that adds architectural features to Rhino 3D.
VisualARQ adds parametric 3D architectural objects like walls, columns, doors, windows, and stairs that are suitable for both 3D modeling and 2D documentation.
VisualARQ has an integrated IFC export plug-in within the software, which make it possible to export VisualARQ and Rhino files into other AEC softwares using IFC 2x3 files.
Francesc Salla, AsuniCAD


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'Sandy Loot Crew' plans more heists & violence tonight
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
October 31, 2012
Looters who are taking advantage of the devastation caused by Hurricane Sandy are posting photographs of their stolen goods on Twitter and bragging about how they plan to carry out more thefts and violence.
Shocking images posted to the social networking website depict individuals who appear to be working together boasting about how they have stolen laptops, TV's, and other electronics from both stores and private homes that fell victim to the hurricane.
The gangs appear to be organizing their looting expeditions under the hashtag #SandyLootCrew. Most of the accounts have thousands of previous tweets. Some are obviously fakes being run by trolls – just as some of the threats made against Mitt Romney were fake and some real, but a number of the accounts appeared to be genuine and have substantial tweet histories.
Other Twitter users attempted to report the looters and some of their accounts were suspended. Members of the hacking group 'Anonymous' apparently also got embroiled in an effort to stop the looters.
As we first highlighted on Monday, the looting was planned on Twitter well in advance of the hurricane making landfall. News reports from numerous different areas are now flooding in confirming that widespread looting is taking place.
Twitter user Kyle Newman took screenshots of some of the tweets where he caught gang members organizing which houses they would loot ahead of the storm.
Not only are members of the gang bragging about their stolen loot, they are also openly planning violence.
A user named 'TEVON D'SEAN JACKSON' tweeted "ALRITE, GOT 20 PIPEBOMBS READY FOR TONITE.. TONITE WE B CHECKIN EMPTY HOSPITALS FOR DEY MEDICAL SHIT #SANDY #SANDYLOOTCREW."
Jackson also talked about getting a bigger boat and having already looted 20 Playstation 3's. His original account is https://twitter.com/dutchminati – as you can see he has almost 5,000 previous tweets, confirming that the account is genuine. If the account is a fake, as some have suggested, threatening to pipe bomb hospitals still doesn't go down too well with the authorities.
He also talked about how he allowed his son to beat up old women and rob them.
Other Twitter users expressed their outrage at the looters for exploiting the victims of the hurricane.
Members of the looting gang also posted pictures of signs made by people threatening to shoot looters.
Read more tweets below from members of the 'SandyLootCrew' threatening more violence, some of it racial, as well as threats to rape women and loot more homes and businesses.
Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Infowars.com and Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a host for Infowars Nightly News.
This article was posted: Wednesday, October 31, 2012 at 12:03 pm
Tags: domestic news, weather


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So, I recently upgraded my Xubuntu to 13.04, and afterwards I noticed that there is now a picture of me on the lightdm login screen. I have no idea where this picture came from, I don't remember it being taken.
I guess it was asked for when I set up the account. Long time ago now.
Anyway, I was wondering whether it was possible to change this picture... I don't really like it.


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Neil Patrick Harris Slated to Host the Tony Awards for the Fourth Fabulous Time
Actor, singer, dancer, and all-around awesome dude Neil Patrick Harris is set to host this year's Tony Awards for the fourth time, having previously helmed the show in 2009, 2011 and 2012.
"I'm very excited to be back hosting the Tony Awards at the legendary Radio City Music Hall. It'll be more impressive than ever -- if my math is correct, it will be 267 times bigger than last year," NPH joked.
"Oh, wait. No, that can't … hold on … carry the one … I'm awful at math. But rest assured, the show will rock!"
Trust us, it will. Harris hasn't earned two Emmys for hosting the show for no reason.
Added CBS of its obviously superior choice, "Neil is a multi-talented performer whose showmanship, wit and energy command the stage of live events. He is a master of ceremony who truly loves celebrating the performing arts with the highest level of entertainment, and it's quite obvious to the audience he's having a lot of fun along the way."
Other famous names on hand for the June 9 award show include Tom Hanks, who's up for Best Actor, and Cyndi Lauper, whose play 'Kinky Boots' scored 13 nominations.
Check out NPH in one of his sublime (and viral) Tony openings below.


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There may be some readers out there who aren't entirely clear just what synchrotrons - enormous, kilometre-wide magnetic doughnuts used to thrash electrons within an inch of their lives - are actually for. Today, the news furnishes us with a partial answer - you can use a synchrotron to see old paintings hidden beneath other paintings.
'Patch of Grass' - or actually just a
particularly vigorous bit of Tippex-ing?
This has now been conclusively demonstrated by boffins from Belgium and the Netherlands, who have used an immense German synchrotron to peer beneath the surface of the noted Van Gogh painting "Patch of Grass". By lighting the pic up with special extra-lively X-rays from "radiation source DORIS at Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY in Hamburg", the spyray art-fancying brainboxes were able to expose a portrait of an unknown woman.
It isn't known what Van Gogh called the underlying painting, or indeed who it depicted, but we suggest that the subject might be codenamed "Doris" after the machinery which brought her to public view after a century of obscurity.
According to the Technical University of Delft, art historian Dr Joris Dik believes that the synchrotron X-ray demo will "pave the way for research into many other concealed paintings". We here on the Reg crypto-pic spyray desk expect to see a strong comeback of some sort from rival T-ray art-sniffer boffins, angered by the new school of synchrotron pic-probe upstarts.
Meanwhile there will no doubt be some grumblers who feel that, while an unknown Van Gogh picture is very nice, it may not quite provide total justification for the costs of building and running synchrotrons. The expenses of the UK's "Diamond" particle-punisher, and similar "big science" projects, have lately been blamed for a funding crisis in British physics and astronomy which has seen swarms of top boffins lose their jobs. ®
Sponsored: How to simplify data protection on Amazon Web Services


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Operators safely shut down LaSalle County Generating Station Unit 2 for a scheduled refueling and maintenance outage shortly after midnight this morning.
MARSEILLES, Ill. (Jan. 19, 2009) - Operators safely shut down LaSalle County Generating Station Unit 2 for a scheduled refueling and maintenance outage shortly after midnight this morning.
This shutdown completes the end of the second consecutive breaker-to-breaker run for LaSalle Unit 2, which means that the unit has operated continuously between 24-month cycles. Both LaSalle Station operating units hold the top two spots worldwide for longest continuous runs of light-water reactors. LaSalle Unit 1 holds the world record (739 days) while Unit 2 is second (711 days).
"We are ready to execute this outage safely and efficiently," said site vice president Dan Enright. "A successful refueling outage will enable us to safely and reliably operate the unit during the next two years. The power we produce will help the environment by reducing dependence on other energy sources that emit air pollution like nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide."
During the outage, workers will perform extensive inspections, testing and maintenance on a wide range of components and equipment in addition to refueling the reactor. Many of the activities performed during the shutdown cannot be performed while the unit is running and all are designed to ensure the safe and reliable production of electricity through its operating cycle.
A LaSalle Station outage brings 1,600 additional talented, skilled workers from other Exelon sites, local union halls, travelers from outside the area and specialized vendors. They all provide a temporary benefit for the local economy during the shutdown.
LaSalle Unit 1 will continue to generate electricity during the Unit 2 shutdown. LaSalle County Generating Station is located approximately 75 miles southwest of Chicago. With both units at full power, the site can produce enough electricity for 2.3 million homes.


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For first time in 17 years most Americans reject government crack down
Steve Watson
April 25, 2013
In two separate polls conducted following the Boston bombings, most Americans have said that they do not support expanded government surveillance or an infringement on civil liberties.
A Fox News poll asked respondents "Would you be willing to give up some of your personal freedom in order to reduce the threat of terrorism?"
In response, 45 percent said they would not be willing to sacrifice some of their liberties, compared to 43 percent of (shee)people who said they would.
That number is down from 54 percent on figures from 2006, and down from a high of 71 percent the month after the 9/11 attacks in 2001.
It also represents the first time since 1996 that more people are unwilling to give up freedoms than those who are willing, indicating that Americans are increasingly rejecting government invasion into their privacy in the name of fighting terrorism.
Only 27 percent of respondents said they feared another terrorist attack, while 58 percent said they were simply angry about the attack. 81 percent said their everyday lives would not be changed after the bombings.
A separate Washington Post poll found that more Americans were concerned that the government would go too far in investigating terrorism than that it would not go far enough, by a margin of 48 percent to 41 percent.
57 percent said that they were not confident in the government's ability to prevent terrorist attacks, with just 15 percent saying they had a "great deal" of confidence in the government.
95 percent said they did not leave work early or stay at home after the attacks, and 92 percent said they were not avoiding crowded or public places because of a risk of terrorism.
Both polls were conducted before Friday's martial law style city wide lockdown.
Steve Watson is the London based writer and editor for Alex Jones' Infowars.com, and Prisonplanet.com. He has a Masters Degree in International Relations from the School of Politics at The University of Nottingham, and a Bachelor Of Arts Degree in Literature and Creative Writing from Nottingham Trent University.
This article was posted: Thursday, April 25, 2013 at 12:17 pm
Tags: police state, terrorism


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Barberio, Mark
N.A. Juniors Game Night 9/20: Jung on the BlockSubmitted by chad on September 21, 2008 - 08:53
Tokarski gets his first shutout ... Courtnall with an OT winner ... and Torrie Jung appears done in Kelowna.
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- 2175 reads
Lightning Prospects Drop Finale In OvertimeSubmitted by pete on September 17, 2008 - 17:53
The Lightning prospects finished 0-3-1 at the Traverse City prospect tournament after falling in overtime this afternoon to the Columbus Blue Jackets prospects 6-5.
Columbus stormed out to a 3-0 first period lead before the Lightning responded with a goal from Matias Sointu off helpers from Luca Cunti and Mitch Fadden early in the second period. Luciano Aquino also scored a goal from Brady Leavold later in the period, but Columbus also notched a pair of goals of their own in the second stanza.
That set the stage for a furious third period comeback by the Lightning, which included an early goal by tryout Brett Parnham off assists from Cunti and Chris Lawrence. The Lightning then brought the game to even with a pair of power play goals midway through the third period from Aquino, off an assist from Mark Barberio, followed by an unassisted tally by Lawrence less than two minutes later.
Unfortunately, Columbus' Ryan Garlock converted a power play chance early in the extra session to finish off the Lightning's comeback hopes for good. Goaltender Dustin Tokarski fell to 0-2-1 after allowing 6 goals on 26 shots in the game. The Lightning prospects outshot Columbus 39-26 in the loss.
Box score from Pointstreak.
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- 2250 reads


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HAYWARD — A fleeing motorist barely missed taking out a gas station pump during a police chase Tuesday afternoon and instead slammed into a pillar at a downtown refilling station, according to the California Highway Patrol.
An officer conducting radar enforcement about 2:30 p.m. on eastbound Interstate 580 clocked a speeding red Ford Mustang, said Sgt. Shawn Morris. When the officer tried to stop the car, the Mustang sped up away.
A chase began and, at one point, the driver of the Mustang exited the interstate onto Foothill Boulevard and tried to make a right hand turn onto Grove Way, Morris said.
The driver missed the turn, he said, and instead crashed into a metal pillar that protected a pump at a Chevron gas station on the corner.
The driver, who was injured, got out of the Mustang and a ran for a short distance. Officers caught up to the driver about a half block away on Grove Way and arrested him.
The driver, whose name was not released, received moderate injuries on his head and his face from the crash. He was transported to a hospital, Morris said.
A preliminary investigation revealed the Mustang had been stolen, and that the driver was in possession of illegal narcotics and a loaded .25 caliber handgun, authorities said.
Contact Natalie Neysa Alund at 510-293-2469. Follow her at Twitter.com/nataliealund.


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We've got a fair amount of stragglers – or perhaps just a few people who missed the original notice – but there are still a few spots left in the Blue Chips Razzball Commenter League. Feel free to re-join if you were a member of the original league (and haven't already e-mailed the new league organizer) or if you haven't had a chance to join up yet, well, here's your chance. The draft will either be Sunday October 24 at noon EST or Sunday October 24 at 8 pm EST. If you're interested in joining (or just need someone to talk to about life and love and stuff) e-mail Justin (mrsploosh [at] hotmail.com) before Sunday.
As you were.


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Report from the freedesktop summit
During the week of 8 April 2013, developers from the KDE, GNOME, Unity and Razor-qt projects met at the SUSE offices in Nürnberg to improve collaboration between the projects by discussing specifications. A wide range of topics was covered.
There was agreement on a specification for a D-Bus interface to be implemented by applications. Pending implementation, applications are now capable of being launched using D-Bus activation instead of executing a binary. Changes were also agreed for the desktop entry specification for applications to advertise this capability.
We reached agreement on a modification to the trash specification to allow for an efficient means of determining the size of all items in the trash (to warn the user when the size is getting too large).
A new file format was defined to cache and index the contents of all .desktop files within a particular directory. This new format will allow efficient full-text search over desktop files as well as efficient lookups of various other kinds (for example, identifying which apps support a given file type) while increasing performance by reducing disk seeks. It will also reduce memory consumption because it can be shared by all processes using mmap.
The in-development kernel D-Bus implementation was presented at the meeting. Representatives from the desktop environments made suggestions to improve the kernel API to facilitate implementation of libraries.
We discussed the future of accountsservice and how, going forward, the project will be sensitive to the needs of desktops other than GNOME. This included specific discussions regarding implementation of storing user locale in the service as well as providing an extension mechanism for structured storage of arbitrary key/value data, without needing to patch the service.
There were initial discussions (with no concrete results) on a wide range of other topics including D-Bus session management APIs, a replacement for X11-based startup notification, application intents and "portals", exporting action groups on D-Bus and adding actions to context menus in the file browser.
Perhaps most importantly we have come to agreement on a plan for improving the maintenance of freedesktop specifications going forward. One representative from each of GNOME, KDE and Unity will form a joint maintainer team. This team will monitor and participate in conversations on the xdg list and decide when consensus has been reached. The intention is to revive the usefulness of the xdg list as the primary point of communication between desktop projects.
It is great that a D-Bus
It is great that a D-Bus standard has finally been agreed on!
By Celeste Lyn Paul at Wed, 2013/04/17 - 8:11pm
Awesome news!
the fact that all groups gathered to talk about ideas and solutions and to collaborate between each other for the same objective. I even find this better than the actual objectives talked about. I hope this will be done more often and create more standards between all Desktop environments.
By Luis Alvarado at Thu, 2013/04/18 - 12:38am
Too much common sense
It seems that way too much common sense is pouring out of this post.
What's next? Single keyring accessible by DBUS? Single thumbnails cache with agreed structure? When will this madness end and everyone goes back to happily reinventing the wheel in their respective platforms?
By Vincent Vega at Thu, 2013/04/18 - 2:33am
Re: Re: Too much common sense
Hmm, don't tell guys from GNOME, that KF5 is going to implement this. Once they see it, they will immediately call it deprecated (even though they were the first to formulate this standard) and a threat to their "product identity".
As for the thumbnail standard. Do both Nautilus and Dolphin use the same cache?
By Vincent Vega at Mon, 2013/04/22 - 2:07am
This should be an annual event..
I think this should be an annual event.. (or 6 months) This is a great thing. Because recently more and more desktop users and companies are reaching to Linux. But they all have to face the incompatibility issues. If all things are compatible, everyone can use their favorite things. So, make this an event. Perhaps this is the most important event held recently.
By Vishwaje at Thu, 2013/04/18 - 4:27am
Secret Storage API specification project
By Anonymous at Thu, 2013/04/18 - 5:31am
How does launching
How does launching applications with D-Bus work, what loads the actual binary at the end?
By teho at Thu, 2013/04/18 - 6:43am
re: dbus autolaunch
Interesting; I don't know if dcop had this but qcop certainly did (in a much simpler form, of course).
By Paul Eggleton at Fri, 2013/04/19 - 10:29am
Is there anywhere I could
Is there anywhere I could read about the new desktop file cache format?
By Kalev at Mon, 2013/04/29 - 11:20pm
Great News
This is the best news I read ever since many years. I hope that sanity can be the common factor, that could be the true "Unity" :)
By sebelk at Sun, 2013/05/05 - 10:35pm


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NEW YORK — In the desert of big-budget summer moviegoing comes, like fresh water, Neill Blomkamp's "Elysium," a dystopic science-fiction thriller bristling with more ideas than all this year's superheros and action films combined.
Like Blomkamp's first and previous film, the South African alien apartheid allegory "District 9," ''Elysium" is a rogue burst of originality — a futuristic popcorn adventure loaded with contemporary themes of wealth discrepancy, immigration and health care. Blomkamp, a 33-year-old South African native with a background in digital effects and a head for sociopolitical tumult, has emerged as a rare thing in today's movies: a maker of science fiction with soul.
"What's somehow gone away from science fiction is that it's meant to represent ideas," says Blomkamp. "It's meant to be this looking glass through which you can look at society a different way."
Whereas most science fiction today is all sleekness and impressive spaceships, metaphor — not exactly the stuff of movie posters — comes first for Blomkamp, who sees his film in the tradition of Fritz Lang's similarly allegorical "Metropolis." Set in the year 2154, "Elysium" finds the Earth a dilapidated slum, with the wealthy living in an orbital space station, a kind of floating Beverly Hills hamster wheel modeled after Syd Mead's Stanford torus design for a space habitat.
Elysium, guarded fiercely by a defense secretary played by Jodie Foster, looms in the sky as an unreachable oasis of high-quality living and limitless health care. (Every home is equipped with beds that immediately cure illness.) The First and Third World divide has gone cosmic.
In dusty Los Angles (shot in a Mexico City slum), Matt Damon stars as a reformed car thief working in a giant factory in grueling conditions, overseen by an infinitely more rewarded CEO (William Fichtner). When a radiation mishap gives Damon's character days to live, he endeavors to reach Elysium at all costs.
"I sit there a lot of the time wrestling with balancing metaphor and also balancing entertainment," says Blomkamp. "Anything I do creatively comes from a place of instinct. I don't wake up one morning and say, 'I want to make a film about wealth discrepancy.' It seems to happen organically."
Los Angles holds particular fascination for Blomkamp, who lives with his wife and frequent writing partner Terri Tatchell in Vancouver. He considers its segregated sprawl, close to the border of Mexico "a milder version" of his hometown of Johannesburg. But his relationship with Hollywood is considerably more at odds.
"I would be as far from the film industry as physically possible as I could," he says.
Blomkamp first caught Hollywood's eye for his commercial work and shorts, including "Alive in Joburg," which he would later expand into "District 9." Peter Jackson and his wife and producing partner Fran Walsh were particularly impressed by Blomkamp and helped get him hired to helm a big-budget adaption of the video game "Halo."
But after months of development, the film was shut down. It was an early lesson for Blomkamp on the loss of control in directing studio films based on material not his own. "I count my lucky stars every day," he says now of the "Halo" fallout, since it led to Jackson and Walsh's suggestion that he turn "Alive in Joburg" — a documentary-styled story about aliens marooned in Johannesburg — into a feature.
Famously made for just around $30 million, "District 9" had the look of a much more expensive film, boasting far more political subtext than often makes it into the multiplexes. It starred Blomkamp's longtime friend Sharlto Copley (the two first met when a teenage Blomkamp began doing 3D animation work for Copley's production company) as an Afrikaner bureaucrat who mutates into one of the interned aliens. Parts of it were shot in Soweto.
"District 9," which received four Oscar nominations including best picture (a rarity for a genre film), made Blomkamp a phenom. In an earlier Time magazine issue on the 100 most influential people, director Ridley Scott wrote: "From time to time, there are people in the film industry who appear on the horizon with a unique vision. South African director Neill Blomkamp is one of those rare people."
The success of the film (it made $210.8 million worldwide) led to numerous studio offers of major franchise movies, including entreaties regarding "Star Wars" and "Star Trek."
"I get offered those kind of films less and less now because I just seem to be saying 'no' so much," says Blomkamp. "What I want to do for the next few films is find exactly my own voice."
"If I get into other people's ideas without fully fleshing that out, there's some of that that I could lose," he adds. "It can become impersonal if you're not careful."
In September, Blomkamp will begin shooting in South Africa the $60 million "Chappie," a sci-fi comedy he wrote with Tatchell. Though he cautions that he could change his mind in the two years it will take to make and release "Chappie," he would like to follow it with "District 10," a sequel to "District 9" for which he's written a treatment.
"He protects his artistic area, and he's been like that since I met him," says Copley, who plays a mercenary in "Elysium" and will star in "Chappie." ''I've noticed in Hollywood, anything that has any kind of political thing, people get terrified. Coming from a place that was as explosively politically as where we came from, those are things that really interest us."
Certainly, some critics will deride "Elysium" as heavy-handed and others will chafe at its liberal politics, seeing advocacy for universal health care. Though President Barack Obama's health care plan didn't specifically figure into Blomkamp's thinking, he says that if a pop culture film like "Elysium" were to get political blowback from talk show pundits: "I think that's cool. Otherwise, what was the film? It just came and went."
Rated R satires about inequality don't typically set the box office on fire. So it will be interesting to see how moviegoers respond to "Elysium," made with financing split between Sony Pictures and Media Rights Capital for more than three times the budget of "District 9."
Blomkamp professes no answers to the issues he raises, rather insisting there are none. Economic disparity, he says, is an age-old problem that's "inherently unsolvable."
Sounding slightly mischievous, he says: "I hope the population likes the movie."


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Review: Crank
Chev Chelios (Jason Statham) is ready to retire from his career as a mob hit man in order to settle down with Eve (Amy Smart), his clueless girlfriend who has no idea about his unseemly line of work. In fact, just last night, this previously-callous contract killer actually proved to himself that he was through with the business when he uncharacteristically allowed his targeted mark to escape unscathed.
But as bad luck would have it, today, a very groggy Chev has received an explanatory wake-up call from Ricky Verona (Jose Pablo Cantillo), a thug from a competing, West Coast crime syndicate. It seems that, while asleep, Chev was injected with a gradually-activating Beijing cocktail comprised of poisons certain to stop his heart in an hour unless he figures out a way to prevent his ticker from grinding to a stop.
The ailing assassin contacts his primary care physician (Dwight Yoakum) who snap diagnoses the condition over the phone and surmises that his patient's only hope rests with keeping adrenaline coursing through his veins by any means necessary. So, with the proverbial Sword of Damocles hanging over his head, Chevy proceeds to ingest whatever stimulants he can get his hands on, while making the most of what might be his last minutes on Earth. Crisscrossing Los Angeles like a madman on a mission, he takes no prisoners, seeking vengeance and an antidote as he tries to save his naïve moll from the clutches of his tormentors.
With a manic sense of urgency most reminiscent of Speed (1994), Crank is a similarly-premised, high-octane, edge-of-your-seat, roller coaster ride. However, instead of a careening bus rigged to explode if allowed to slow down, here we have a human who must maintain a certain pulse-rate or perish. The movie marks the praiseworthy debut of Brian Taylor and Mark Neveldine, creative collaborators who share both the scriptwriting and directing credits.
And it features the stellar stunt work of martial arts maven Jason Statham, who enjoys his best role since The Transporter (202), a flick which made this critic's Ten Best List. Be forewarned, however, this ethically-challenged outing ups the ante not only in terms of outrageously gruesome gore and politically-incorrect antics, but also when it comes to indulging in gratuitous nudity, sexuality, and profanity.
That being said, Crank is nothing if it is not original, compelling and relentless, as it proceeds to assault the senses tirelessly with wave after wave of momentum-building intensity. Whether jabbing himself with an EpiPen, snorting nasal sprays up both nostrils, having sex on a crowded street in Chinatown, or deliberately scalding his own arm in a waffle iron to jumpstart his heart, Chev never runs out of inventive ways to stay alive or to keep the audience riveted.
Plus, the production benefits immeasurably from its constantly clever dialogue and a litany of humorous asides which serve to lighten the more macabre aspects of this attention-deficit adventure designed with the Joystick Generation in mind. For better or worse, the cinematic equivalent of crack.
Excellent (4 stars). Rated R for graphic carnality, frequent female frontal and male posterior nudity, pervasive profanity, ethnic slurs, incessant drug use, gruesome sadism and eroticized violence.
Running time: 83 minutes. Studio: Lions Gate Films.
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Preparing Your Family
Emergencies can happen in an instant with no notice. By taking a few simple steps now you could save yourself precious time if an emergency occurs.
Preparing Your Business
Emergencies can happen anywhere at any time. Even a small disruption such as a power cut can affect normal operation of an organisation.
Preparing Your Community
Community resilience is about communities and individuals harnessing local resources and expertise to help themselves in an emergency, complimentary to the response of the emergency services.
Keeping Informed
Find out about the risks facing the county and find a comprehensive list of partner agencies' links. To keep informed please click below to…
Emergencies can happen in an instant with little or no warning
Many agencies play a part in dealing with a disaster and its aftermath, and the effectiveness of the total response will partially depend on how well the emergency services, local authorities and central government have prepared and exercised their arrangements and emergency procedures.
It goes deeper than this though. The people who are normally affected most are the residents, communities and Businesses.
To have a resilient Gloucestershire we all need to work together to help each other prepare for the unexpected


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Jeremy Piven returns as the flamboyant American entrepreneur Harry Gordon Selfridge, who founded the famous London department store, Selfridges. Pioneering and reckless, with an almost manic energy, Selfridge creates a theater of retail where any topic or trend that is new, exciting, entertaining, or just eccentric, is showcased. In his personal life, as in his business, he is addicted to the sensational, which creates exciting complications for all concerned. Season Four picks up the Selfridge story in 1946.
Part 9 of 9
The press links Harry with Jimmy's demise. Suppliers refuse to sell. Stockholders are up in arms. Meanwhile, the store's 20th anniversary sale approaches. What's Harry to do?


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Dept. of Word Lists
Les West Side Misérables
Once again award-winning writer and educator Bob Greenman takes us on a journey through words selected from More Words That Make a Difference, a delightful book illustrating word usage with passages from the Atlantic Monthly. Here Bob finds himself navigating the seamy underbelly of Manhattan parking.
It was a warm, cozy Tuesday morning in our Manhattan apartment. Outside, on January 3, it was this winter's coldest day so far, in the mid-20s, with the wind chill factor 11 degrees. We would stay in today. My wife Carol and I had had our breakfast (she oatmeal, I Raisin Bran, if you must know), and done our initial reading of The New York Times. We'd read more later.
I work at home, and at 1:45 p.m., an unusually late start for our day, I said to Carol, "I'm going into the office to work."
To which she replied, "Bob, didn't the car have to be moved today?"
At those words, terror struck — a singular New York terror.
singular SING yuh ler
one of a kind; unique; remarkable ("singularly" is the adverb)
Mencken's gifts were singularly varied. He was surely one of the great newspapermen of his generation, and of his books probably those dealing with the American language will be longest remembered. He took on the professional philologists and beat them at their own game. He knew more about medicine and the law than any other layman who has passed my way.
— Alfred A. Knopf, May 1959
verboten ver BOH tuhn
forbidden; prohibited
On July 20 thirty years ago my family — like millions of other South African families — was huddled around a crackling radio, listening to the moonwalk. Nobody in the entire country could watch it on TV. Television was verboten — a criminal technology under apartheid. Not until 1976 did South Africa's first TV sets flicker into life.
— Rob Nixon, July 1999
I grabbed my coat, but rushing was useless, for whatever damage was done would have been done hours ago; the on-their-toes traffic agents begin ticketing cars on that proscribed side of the street at 11:01.
My car was gone. And at 1:45 p.m. the side of the street from which it had been mercilessly, callously and cruelly towed was filled again with newly parked cars.
A day that opened warm and cheerful had turned bleak.
bleak bleek
harsh; grim
The Greek historian Polybius, of the second century B.C., interpreted what we consider the Golden Age of Athens as the beginning of its decline. To Thucydides, the very security and satisfactory life that the Athenians enjoyed under Pericles blinded them to the bleak forces of human nature that were gradually to be their undoing in the Peloponnesian War.
— Robert D. Kaplan, December 1997
But what do the drivers who move their cars do during those 90 minutes in limbo? Lots of luck finding a parking spot on a legal side of the street elsewhere in the neighborhood; they're filled the night before and their drivers aren't going anywhere. What about at a meter on a business street? They're even rare at midnight where I live. Or they can do what most residents I know do: double park their car against a car legally parked on the opposite side of the street, leave it there and do whatever they want to do until 12:30, at which time they repark it on the once-again legal side of the street, often in the very spot they occupied before.
It's part of the Upper West Side culture. The owners of hemmed-in cars parked them knowing they'd be unable to move them for that hour and a half. Legal double parking in New York City? No — well, sort of. This species of double parking is magnanimously overlooked by traffic officers who know it's virtually impossible to find street parking during those 90 minutes, when half the parking spaces in one of the world's most densely populated urban areas are off limits. But leave your car past 12:30 and you'll be ticketed for double parking. In a wink.
magnanimous mag NA nuh muhs
noble and generous in spirit and conduct; above petty resentment or jealousy; forgiving ("magnanimously" is the adverb)
A better definition of education than Milton's has never been given: "I call a complete and generous education that which fits a man to perform justly, skillfully, and magnanimously, all the offices, both private and public, of peace and war."
— George A. Gordon, January 1909
After the warm #1 subway ride to West 34th Street and Seventh Avenue, I waited 10 minutes in the frigid street for a crosstown bus that took me to its last stop, Twelfth Avenue, a pedestrian-empty street that parallels the Hudson River, whose icy wind made me contemplate all the more my need for a failure-free modus operandi to remind me to move my car twice a week. My handwritten reminder, "Move Car," which I'd forgotten to write the night before, had failed me again. (Again? Please don't ask me to go into it.) How about a note on my night table, on my computer screen, on my fridge. How about a neighbor knocking on my door at 10:45? The doorman buzzing me? An early-rising cousin in California calling me? How about all of these?
modus operandi MOH dus ah puh RAN dee
a way of doing something; mode of operation
From my late adolescence through my early twenties my weekend modus operandi was to come in at around five in the morning and sleep heavily till three or so inthe afternoon.
— Joseph Epstein, February 2002
As I approached the pound — a cavernous garage the size of a football field and until the 1980s a United States Lines cargo pier — I stepped inside a gated entryway and drew from my pocket the camera I carry with me wherever I go in Manhattan. I had already decided I would write about this day for the Visual Thesaurus.
"No pictures," a guard in a booth called out.
"O.K.," I said. No questions, no argument. I'll just take it from another spot. A cardinal rule of news photographers and reporters: If you are barred from one location, try another. Near the entrance to the violations office I took the camera out again, and seeing a guard in a booth there, too, snapped a fast photo.
cardinal KAHR duh nuhl
principal; chief
The cardinal fact about Emily Dickinson is that she was a product of her time and place. Her connection with Amherst was closer than that of any other American author with the spot where his life was passed. She was born of the stock that originally settled the Connecticut Valley. Her mind was shaped by church, school, and college, which in her time expressed with dynamic vigor the intellectual and spiritual energies of the Puritan tradition. It was in her father's house on Main Street that she was able to achieve the seclusion which her nature more and more insistently required as she turned to poetry as her only means of personal fulfillment. It was there that she died.
— George F. Whicher, February 1946
"No pictures." said the woman in the booth, unthreateningly. As I approached her window, she said, "You can't take pictures here. You have to erase it."
"Can I take one from the sidewalk?"
"Thanks," I said, and held the camera up to her. "I'll erase the one I took." My car was in bondage; I was very agreeable.
"What's it for?"
"An article about New York City."
"O.K. You can keep it."
It turned out to be a most drab and dreary image in a city of great pictures. Enjoy.
A clerk behind one of the windows in the tow redemption office took my driver's license, registration and insurance card, asked me the make and color of my car, said my name would be called when my paperwork was done, and invited me to take a seat among the half-dozen other towees.
I wanted to talk to the people sitting on either side of me, to learn why they were towed, but towees retrieving cars from a New York City car pound, my street-smart acumen tells me, are unlikely to be in a conversational mood, especially as they sit facing signs that say "Towing Fee $185." And that's not counting the cost of the parking ticket still on their windshield — up to $165 and payable online or by mail, depending on the type of parking violation. That is, unless they want to contest their citation and its attendant towing fee.
acumen A kyuh min
quickness to perceive and understand a situation
I have just returned from Hannibal, Missouri, and I should like to report that it is a success. It is a success beyond anything Mark Twain ever dreamed of for the Paige typesetting machine, and it is my guess that Twain had the business acumen to see that this would one day be so and invested heavily in Hannibal real estate — else how do you account for the Mark Twain Chinchilla Ranch and Mark Twain Frozen Custard? It seems obvious to me that the genius of Mark Twain has been enormously underestimated; a man who could foresee frozen custard was an American Nostradamus; can you buy Thoreau Balsam Pillows at Concord, or Emily Dickinson African Violets at Amherst?
— Charles Boewe, March 1953
A Double-Parking Digression
Recently, I attempted to do just that, going to traffic court — a nondescript office building in the Wall Street area — to contest not a towing but a citation for double parking on 114th Street during the restricted hours. Bringing with me photos of where I had double parked, I envisaged a complete vindication, Then I met the judge, a natty-suited man in a small office who swore me in, then went to work on me like a fusion of Porfiry Petrovich, the shrewd detective in "Crime and Punishment," and the relentless Inspector Javert of "Les Miserables."
envisage en VI zij
to conceive an image or a picture of as a future possibility
No world government of the character envisaged by Professor Einstein could function unless it possessed the power to exercise complete control over the armaments of each constituent state, and unless every nation was willing to open up every inch of its territory and every one of its laboratories and factories to a continuing international inspection.
— Sumner Welles, January 1946
"Did you double park?"
"Yes, but we always double park on 115th and 114th during those hours. It's understood that — "
Is double parking illegal?"
"Yes, but — "
"Is double parking always illegal?"
"Yes, but — "
"You just told me double parking is always illegal."
"And you double parked."
"Yes. But I have photos here that — "
"Thank you," said Judge W_____, " as Dostoevsky or Hugo might have called him, having demolished my defense, pulverized it to smithereens, and browbeaten from me any expectation I had of an amicable hearing, or of fairness or justice, for crying out loud.
"The clerk will have the judgment," my interrogator said, pointing to the door.
browbeat BROW beet
to intimidate with harsh words or threats; bully
In the typical case, FBI agents do not initially take a man into custody for questioning, but interview him at his home or place of work. They ask him casually about the offense, not probing too deeply on the first try. The agents do not bully or browbeat the suspect into incriminating himself. They operate on precisely the opposite theory, that the suspect's normal reaction will be to try to exculpate himself. Rarely will the suspect refuse to talk at all, for he fears that this will be taken by the agents as an admission of guilt.
— Robert Cipes, September 1966
It took only a minute for the clerk's printer to issue my fate. "Motion to vacate judgment denied. Guilty. Respondent unpersuasively claims...."
Dispirited and disheartened — not to mention vexed, irked, and yes, miffed — at the way I'd been treated, I sat in a waiting room chair, hoping a man who had earlier directed me to Judge W's office, would appear. He had seemed a kindly fellow and even if it led to nothing, I wanted to tell my story to someone besides Judge W____. It wasn't so much his decision but the manner in which he had dealt with me. Judge W____, I hope you can sleep at night.
An austere looking middle-aged woman in a gray business suit approached me and asked if she could help. I stood and told her who I was waiting for and why.
austere aw STEER
severe in manner or appearance ("austerely" is the adverb)
There is something austerely impersonal, as though emotionally tentative, in Auden's readings. One hears it in the way he adheres so strictly — at times almost woodenly — to the meter of the verses. Quite often he will come to a full stop even at the end of an enjambed line — one in which the punctuation and syntax do not call for so much as a pause.
— Wen Stephenson, April 2000
"Tell me," she said, in a kindly tone, her face softening." I'm the chief of the department."
She listened, then explained that while I might have disapproved of his manner, Judge W___ had correctly decided my claim. But she spoke to me civilly and understandingly, explaining that it was a traffic agent's prerogative to ticket double parkers anywhere in the city, regardless of time-honored alternate-side customs. I wasn't persuaded, but her amiable attempt to explain the city's side sent me home a bit more satisfied with my day in court.
prerogative pruh RAH guh tiv
an exclusive right or privilege
The Second Amendment presumes (as did the framers) that private citizens will possess private arms; Madison referred offhandedly to "the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess." But Madison also implied that the right to bear arms is based in the obligation of citizens to band together as a militia to defend the common good, as opposed to the prerogative of citizens to take up arms individually in pursuit of self-interest and happiness
— Wendy Kaminer, March 1996
Digression Done: Back to the Auto Pound
As I waited for my paperwork to be done, I listened to a discomfited tourist tell the clerk that he didn't know why his rental car had been towed. "I'm not from around here," he said. "I'm from Virginia."
discomfited dis KUHM fi tid
to have one's plans thrown into upset; confused or frustrated
The hazards faced by those attempting to shoot close-up video footage of tornadoes cannot be overstated. Tornadoes can form suddenly and with little warning, and photographers who turn down the wrong road at the wrong time can find themselves discomfited by 200-mph winds containing jagged bits of automobiles, sheets of razor-sharp aluminum siding, and lancelike sections of splintered fence posts.
— Wayne Curtis, October 2001
"Greenman," a clerk called after 20 minutes. I paid by credit card, took the receipt and joined the Virginia man in another room to wait for the van that would carry us to our cars.
"I hate this city," he grumbled to me and to the clerks who checked our receipts. "I'm never coming back."
The van dropped me off at my car, I took the $45 ticket from my windshield, and at the exit to the pound stopped at a booth and handed the receipt for my car to the agent. He gave it back to me stamped "Redeemed." I felt so clean and pure.
As I drove out of this gargantuan repository of parking transgressions, an ironically beautiful view of the midtown Manhattan skyline greeted me — the perfect-picture ending for this New York parking epic.
repository ruh PAH zuh taw ree
something serving as a center of accumulation or storage
The National Archives in Washington now has about five billion documents in storage. Nationwide, federal repositories have another 19 million cubic feet of them, which in boxes set end to end would stretch from coast to coast.
— Cullen Murphy, May 1996
I reached across the seat for my camera and looked for a place to park to take the picture. Did I find one? Do you see a picture here?