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I was raised with a profound respect for the fact that we are a nation of laws, not men: That "no one is above the law," that a jury of our peers will decide our guilt or innocence, that we are guaranteed the right to face our accusers, that "our home is our castle," and that we will be protected in our persons and our property.
Does that sound like the America you were taught to love and revere when you were young?
It is promises like these that made our country the inspiration of the world. They are some of the reasons we became the wealthiest nation this planet has ever seen. Even the poorest among us lived better than the majority of citizens in other countries. No wonder people dreamed of becoming Americans — so many, in fact, that we had to establish a lottery to decide who could get in.
Yes, the United States of America that you and I were born into was a very special place. We knew it and were profoundly grateful for it. We gave thanks that we were lucky enough to be born here, because we knew that no other place on earth enjoyed our freedoms, our protections and our prosperity.
So what on earth happened?
Or maybe a better question is: What have we allowed our government to do to these cherished principles?
The God of the Old Testament asked His people to give 10 percent of all they earned to Him and His work. Today, our government takes four times as much from us. In fact, if you add up all of the hidden taxes we pay, the figure is probably closer to 60 percent.
In the Declaration of Independence, our Founding Fathers said one of the reasons for their rebellion against King George is that he had "erected a Multitude of new Offices, and sent hither Swarms of Officers to harass our People, and eat out their Substance."
Those brave gentlemen wouldn't believe how many Swarms of Officers harass us today, or how much of our Substance they consume. Have you flown anywhere lately? How many Transportation Security Administration employees did you see — many of whom were guarding hallways no one was using.
Pity you if you ever do fall afoul of some Federal bureaucrat. Our government has created so many rules and regulations and has so many agents and inspectors to enforce them, there is no way on earth you can obey them all. If they want to get you for something, they can. And worst of all, in many cases you are guilty until you prove yourself innocent.
We have gone from what was once "the land of the free and the home of the brave" to what is rapidly becoming the land of the cowed and the cowardly. Untold millions of our countrymen (some legal, some not) feed at the public trough — and get angry at us producers if we suggest cutting back their goodies by even a penny.
All of that is bad enough. But now our government has decided that it is above the law. That it can listen in on any conversation it wishes; open any mail; snoop on any citizen any time and any where; accuse us of all sorts of crimes and misdemeanors; and incarcerate us at will.
Oh, and murder anyone it says deserves it.
You think I'm exaggerating? Please consider for a moment the fate of one Anwar al-Awlaki. I won't disagree that this demented jihadist was one of the bad guys. I'll even grant that this renegade U.S. citizen did all he could to give "aid and comfort" (the Constitutional definition of treason) to our enemies. But so what?
As far as I know, he was never accused of a crime by any legal authority in this country or abroad. Not only did he never get a chance to face his accusers, there was never a trial or even a hearing by any court, military or civilian.
Yet the President of the United States ordered his death. And an unmanned drone, armed with a Hellfire missile, carried out the execution.
And what an interesting outcry that has produced! Ron Paul probably did his candidacy for the White House no favors when he said that it would be "sad" if "the American people accept this blindly and casually."
The ACLU — an organization that I have never voluntarily gotten in bed with — declared:
This is a program under which American citizens far from any battlefield can be executed by their own government without judicial process and on the basis of standards and evidence that are kept secret not just from the public but from the courts.
Former Vice President Dick Cheney praised the Obama Administration for the attack, then added that Obama owes George Bush an apology for his criticism of the Bush Administration's actions against suspected terrorists.
But the nastiest assault on the libertarian position came from the editors of the Wall Street Journal, who promptly denounced what they called "the caviling" over Awlaki's death. After a lengthy introduction explaining why such anonymous executions are "manifestly legal," the Journal concluded:
For ridding the world of the menace that was Awlaki — even while ignoring the advice of some of its ideological friends — the Administration deserves congratulations and thanks.
I'm sorry, but this is not the America I grew up in. And it is not the America I want to see my children and my children's children inherit.
I'm not saying we've never done anything wrong in the past. Abraham Lincoln suspended the U.S. Constitution for anyone he considered any enemy of the State, whether Northerner or Southerner. Franklin D. Roosevelt, in one of the most shameful moments of a Presidency that did our nation much harm, ordered 110,000 Japanese Americans to be rounded up at gunpoint and herded into concentration camps. During my lifetime, legal authorities in the South often conspired to break the law to deny black citizens their civil rights, and even encouraged (or at the very least did not stop) mob violence.
All of this was bad. And like most Americans who give any of it a moment's thought, I regret it happened.
I feel the same way today about the frightening growth in the cost, the power, and the wicked aggressiveness of our national government. Nobody's called me an enemy of the State ... yet. But I'm worried that that day may not be far off.
When they come for us conservative opponents, how many on the left do you think will rush to our defense? Heck, how many of our colleagues on the right will be what I used to call "foxhole buddies"?
I don't know about you, but I'm becoming more and more frightened by more and more of the actions of our government. As I said, this isn't the America I knew and revered. How about you?
Until the next time, keep some powder dry.
Chip Wood was the first news editor of The Review of the News and also wrote for American Opinion, our two predecessor publications. He is now the geopolitical editor of Personal Liberty Digest, where his Straight Talk column appears weekly. This article first appeared in PersonalLiberty.com and has been reprinted with permission.


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Bake the Book: Bacon Praline
Get the Recipe
Finally, a dessert in which bacon doesn't seem like a last-minute addition. Baking Out Loud: Fun Desserts with Big Flavors presents a bacon praline that is salty, smoky, sweet and rich. And best of all, it teaches you how to candy bacon.
Tips: As with any caramel preparation, make sure your surfaces are liberally greased to prevent sticking. A combination of butter and oil will give good flavor. Candy the bacon the day before to make assembling the praline a breeze; just try not to eat it all beforehand.
Tweaks: If you like, when coating the candied bacon with the caramel, toss in 3/4 cup of oat flake cereal, or puffed rice cereal. It will lighten the texture of the praline and cut the richness. Add a teaspoon of cinnamon or 1/4 teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper to spice it up. Reserve an extra spoonful of candied bacon bits to sprinkle on top with the fleur de sel. Feel free to substitute fleur de sel for a smoked salt.
Get the Recipe
As always with our Bake the Book feature, we have five (5) copies of 'Baking Out Loud' to give away.
All products linked here have been independently selected by our editors. We may earn a commission on purchases, as described in our affiliate policy.

subset: commoncrawl


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My Dear Fellow Americans,
It's absolutely wonderful for Glenn to use his popularity and influence to bring us all together to focus… not on an election campaign or a political cause, but to focus on honor, and on the content of our charter and not the color of our skin. God bless you Glenn.
47 years ago my uncle, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., stood here and proclaimed, "I have a dream." My parents, Rev. A. D. King and Mother Naomi were here to support Uncle Martin. I was at home with my grandparents and all of the younger children. We all knew that August 28 would be a very special day. It was an incredible moment in history; the descendent of Irish and African ancestors speaking to the entire nation about freedom, about justice, and ultimately, about love.
Uncle Martin was a man of God and he had a servant's heart. He marveled not at awards he received for what he did. He rather stood in awe at what the Lord did.
He took to heart the words of Jesus in John 12:26, "If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there shall My servant also be; if anyone serves Me, the Father will honor him."
So it is with those we come to honor today. They seek to honor God, they seek to serve. The Book of Proverbs teaches us that before honor comes humility, and we celebrate and honor their lives today.
I can only imagine what these heroes today have experienced in their own trials, even as my Uncle Martin did in his lifetime. We know how Uncle Martin labored from a cramped, roach infested jail cell; writing on the margins of an old newspaper the beginnings of his famous Letter from a Birmingham Jail. It was there, in the darkest of times that he concentrated not on his surroundings, but his service. It was there that he wrote, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
It's been decades now since Uncle Martin's assassination. When we think of him, we think of a bold visionary, a prophetic leader. But he was also a man who was jailed 17 times, whose home was bombed, and who suffered taunts and threats on a daily basis. Uncle Martin was a humble servant -- a man who was not afraid to give his life for the cause of a greater, freer America.
Today, we are here to honor special men and women who like my Uncle Martin are blessed with servants' hearts. Though they give their service in ways very different from Martin Luther King, Jr., like him, they are people who are not afraid to give their lives for the freedom of others.
To use an expression of my Uncle Martin's, these are men and women who don't give lip service to our nation's ideals -- they give life service.
If Uncle Martin could be here today, he would surely commend us for giving honor where honor is due. He would surely remind us that as brothers and sisters united by "one blood" in one single race, the human race, where we are called to honor God and to love each other. He would encourage us to lay aside the divisive lies that cause us to think that we are members of separate races. We are one human family. We must not oppress each other and we must help those being oppressed.
Forty-seven years ago, Uncle Martin compared our nation's promise of equal protection to a check marked insufficient funds. Today, in more than one sense, America is nearly bankrupt.
Our material gains seem to be going the way of our moral losses. We are still suffering from the great evil divide of racism. Our children are suffering in failing school systems. Our sons and daughters are being incarcerated at astronomical rates. Sickness, disease and poverty of the spirit, soul and body are plaguing our communities. The procreative foundation of marriage is being threatened, and the wombs of our mothers have become places where the blood of our children is shed in a "womb war" that threatens the fabric of our society. And the economy reflects the dearth of our nation's moral poverty.
Yet, we are not without hope. Faith, hope and love are not dead in America. We still trust in God!
Our honored heroes here today bear witness that there is yet hope for the human heart. It is time to enlist in a certain cause. Just as each individual man and woman in our military enlisted, we must commit ourselves to service – to each other and to our nation.
Oh, that the fountain can be refilled, that Heaven's unlimited bank account can flow back to our lives here on earth. When will we know that the check Uncle Martin spoke of is good?
We will know when prayer is once again welcome in the public squares of America. We will know when our children are no longer in mortal peril on our streets and in our classrooms, and in the wombs of our mothers. We will know when righteousness rolls down like waters, and justice like a mighty stream.
Yes, I too have a dream, I have a dream that one day soon, God's Agape love will transcend skin color and economic status, and cause us to turn from moral turpitude. I have a dream that America will repent of the sin of racism and return to honor. I have a dream that white privilege will become human privilege and that people of every ethnic blend will receive everyone as brothers and sisters in the Love of God. I have a dream that America will pray, and God will forgive us our sins and revive our land.
On that day, we will all be able to lift every voice and sing of the love and honor that God desires for all of his children. God bless America, and let us march on together until victory is won!


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In addition to catching the band live during CMJ 2011
(all photos here and another video below from that performance)
I was fortunate to conduct an interview with the bands long time frontman
and motivating force, Andrew Prinz
On 'Dream' there was an overall superstructure established. The double album of our singles and EPs, "Memory Column," was concepted as a linear progression. The sound has evolved immeasurably, and sometimes very quickly — I reckon the listener's journey in 'Connectivity!' is quite a bit different than the writer's. There's perhaps a lot more of it that has been pragmatic or practical than any conscious directive, but the songwriting has always been the focus.
You self-describe the Genre of music you play as Nüdisco, Vltrarock and Echo Deco. Could you please explain a bit more what this actually defines?
In the film we've been working for the new songs, Mahogany is sort of an imagined city-state/canton-town. These self-made genres are keyword concepts for our 'city's' collective dance music, rock 'n' roll, and luxuriant sound scenes that are the 'city's' 'local music.' Within our songwriting, these keywords and others synchronize with the things we're aiming to touch on or speak about with the music, whether it's emotional, spiritual, tactile, logical.
Your band is listed as being located in both New York and Philadelphia – or using a word you have coined – Newphilyorkadelphia. Are there any advantages to be in two separate locations like this? Wouldn't it be simpler to be consolidated in one place?
'Newphilyorkadelphia' is a keyword we created to illustrate a rail-based lifestyle many live today. Since the band moved to New York in 1999, myself and other members are often commuting by rail to and from New York, Philadelphia and beyond. There are many advantages afforded by multiple locations. We enjoy many music scenes and traveling by train holds a different timetable and a different approach — more pastoral and romantic. There is a certain glamor about trains; there is also great opportunity for the rail passenger to absorb the meditative possibilities in train travel.
Guitarist Jaclyn Slimm
One version of your song "My Bed Is My Castle" boasts the vocal debut of Lucy Belle Guthrie (daughter of Cocteau Twins' Robin Guthrie and Liz Frasier). How did all that come about? How was it working with Robin, Liz and Lucy?
Robin was signed to our old label as 'Connectivity!' was being finished. We were ecstatic. We were always fans of Cocteau Twins — of course we said "yes" to the label's offer for him to remix some of our songs. His involvement was minimal but warm; the atmosphere during the final mixing of the record in March and April of 2006 was electric, and a hero coming by to say hello made it feel all the more magical. We loved his remix of 'Supervitesse.' Lucy Belle sang on a track. It was an honor to suddenly be gifted this relationship at the time. All the work was done via email. It was like 'Dad' was giving us a big sonic hug and a high five as we completed something that we'd been crafting for years; 'Connectivity!' was an album we'd begun developing even before the first album was finished.
Talk about the advantages (if there are any) or problems associated with music listeners ease of access to recording artists content via internet downloads. Do you yourself engage in music downloads?
Perhaps along with downloads we've seen the proliferation of 'earbuds,' which aren't all that great for your ears. Please do yourself a favor — invest in real headphones. Anyway, there are many advantages to downloads. But I do find myself in places sometimes where the streaming music that is playing has so much digital artefact and aliasing that it hides the articulation and detail of the recording. I don't use downloads often. It can feel anticlimactic, aside from issues of quality and fidelity. The context provided by the physical record sleeve, the artwork, and the aura of mystique is just too rich and deep for me to pass up entirely. Having said that, I find online film and video an incredibly valuable resource — I suppose what I'd like to see is the dawn of an acknowledgment of music's real place within multimedia or mixed media. Music often feels embattled and isolated lately, as something that most people think they should get for free. Perhaps more listeners can explore performance tradition as well — for example, buying and learning the sheet music of a favorite song for guitar or piano. Far more fun than 'earbuds.'
What artists do you feel had a significant influence on the musicians you've become today?
When I was playing upright jazz bass in high school, I had the opportunity to sit in classes and rehearsals with Dizzy Gillespie, Maynard Ferguson, Jon Faddis; those were direct experiences that taught everyone in the room about being a real star, and about endurance, poise, and longevity. My family have always been a huge influence on me, they are gifted in their own right.
As previously mentioned, Mahogany played live at The Delancey on the lower east (east) side of New York City on October 18, 2011 as part of The Deli Magazine CMJ "Dream Pop" Showcase.
Here they roll out a brilliant over 7 minute epic titled "Nite Time in Silk City"
Switching to equipment and recording questions, the interview continued:
How much of your recording is done at home versus in the studio?
We've worked in professional studios and also in completely ad hoc circumstances in remote locations. Both scenarios feel important.
If you use a studio, what do you record there and what do you record by yourself and why?
Studios can be great crucibles of creativity and can really help a project come together. The band's work is done less often alone than as a group; perhaps the work I find myself doing by myself is usually preparatory.
What are the pieces of equipment that you find particularly inspiring when recording at home?
I think we all share a healthy amount of enthusiasm for tools!
What one piece of hardware/software would you most like to add to your recording setup (cost not an issue)? Why?
Well-built recording tools are always a joy to behold. I read once in Tape Op about Pink Floyd's studio located on a ship. That sounds amazing.
Do you expect your next record to be self-produced, or would you like to work with a producer? If it's the latter, who would you most like to produce your band?
We would very much like to work with Jeff Lynne
Do you use rack effects or guitar pedals to forge your own sound?
There are obvious advantages to both. There's been a great deal of diversity and expansion in the boutique pedal market, which is great to see. Again, there's no one set way of doing things — we have an abiding respect for a wide variety of hardware.
Do you have a particular recording style that you aim for? What techniques do you employ to recreate it?
I feel recording people could perhaps agree: our predilections and aims are really just happily engrained in our souls. I reckon I learned to record from listening, watching and participating — there's always something new to try.
What other artists would you say have had the biggest influence in your approach to recording? Why?
I was invited to work on a recording at Warren Defever's studio in 1996, and it was great to see how music-focused it could be. I do enjoy the work of producers like Martin Hannett, Phil Spector, and Jack Nitsche.
What do you find to be the most challenging aspects of the recording process? On the flipside, what aspects are the most rewarding?
There are certainly many challenging aspects, I'll agree with that! However, it is those challenges which are probably what make the recording process so poignant, interesting and full of possibilities.
Additional Info and Links:
Twitter: @MahoganyIntl
For those who like: Broadcast, Metric, Lali Puna
Mahogany's new EP 'Electric Prisms' sees a deluxe vinyl 12" release on
BLVD Records in late 2011.


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The purpose of the Hurst Institute is to advance the approach to legal scholarship fostered by J. Willard Hurst in his teaching, mentoring, and scholarship. The "Hurstian perspective" emphasizes the importance of understanding law in context; it is less concerned with the characteristics of law as developed by formal legal institutions than with the way in which positive law manifests itself as the "law in action." The Hurst Institute assists scholars from law, history, and other disciplines in pursuing research in legal history.Follow the link for more information on how to apply. Applications will be accepted from December 1, 2012 to January 15, 2013.
The previous Hurst Institute sessions were led by distinguished legal history scholars Lawrence M. Friedman (Stanford University), Robert W. Gordon (Yale and Stanford) and Barbara Young Welke (University of Minnesota). The 2013 Hurst Institute will be chaired by Hendrik Hartog, Class of 1921 Bicentennial Professor in the History of American Law and Liberty, Professor of History, and Director of the Program in American Studies at Princeton University. More information about guest scholars will be provided at a later date.
The two-week program is structured but informal, and features presentations by guest scholars, discussions of core readings in legal history, and analysis of the work of the participants in the Institute. The general format includes intensive daily sessions Monday-Friday that run through mid-afternoon, a few scheduled social events, and some free time for additional discussion, reading and research. Fellows will have the opportunity to conduct archival work at the Wisconsin Historical Society. (The Society holds a vast array of primary documents and is particularly strong in areas involving nineteenth and twentieth century social movements and labor activism. In addition, the Library possesses an excellent collection of federal and state government material which is largely un-cataloged.)
The ASLH Hurst Selection Committee will select twelve Fellows to participate in this event.
Programs from previous sessions of the Institute are available here, along with lists of previous Hurst Fellows.


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Community Alternatives Program for
Disabled Adults (CAP/DA)
The Community Alternatives Program for Disabled Adults (CAP/DA) is a special Medicaid program under the Community Care Section of the Division of Medical Assistance. The program makes care at home a real possibility for many people who face nursing home placement. CAP/DA exists to supplement rather than replace the formal and informal services and support already available to an individual. With good case management, a complete package of services and reliable informal support from family and friends, many individuals may remain safely at home at lower Medicaid cost than nursing facility care. The CAP/DA program is now available in all 100 counties.
Eligibility Requirements
Person must be 18 years of age or older
Eligible for Medicaid (MAA-Blue Card)
Person who live in a private residence and who are at risk for intermediate or skilled nursing home placement
Resident of Harnett County
Who CAP/DA serves
Person who lives in a private resident and is at risk of placement in a nursing facility, or lives in a nursing facility and desires to return to a private resident.
Person who needs CAP/DA services to remain safely at home
Person whose health, safety, and well-being can be maintained at home within the Medicaid cost limits
Person who desires CAP/DA services instead of institutional care
Services provided by CAP/DA
Case Management
In-Home Aide Service
Wavier supplies
Home Mobility Aids
Telephone Alert
Respite Care
Adult Day Health Care
For more information contact:
Marsha Johnson, CAP/DA Director
910-893-7596 ext. 6079 e-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com


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SAS® OLAP Server
Quickly access presummarized data from a multidimensional data store
This multidimensional data store provides quick access to presummarized data generated from vast amounts of detailed data. OLAP cubes can be surfaced via the web, through Microsoft Excel and through SAS or other standards-based browsers.
Build consistent OLAP cubes using an integrated ETL process.
Using a simplified ETL process, SAS OLAP Server makes it easy to build consistent OLAP cubes from disparate systems. Integrated metadata ensures that consistent information is delivered across the enterprise and enables IT to quickly justify data integrity.
Quickly populate your BI applications with stable, summarized data.
SAS OLAP Server quickly delivers information to business intelligence applications, irrespective of the amount of underlying data. Summarizing data at several levels of detail before storing provides the summarized data that business intelligence applications require without the need for additional "on-the-fly" processing.
Free IT from constantly creating ad hoc reports and data summaries.
Because summarized data is organized along business lines, users can get the reports they need without involving IT, freeing IT from the constant work of creating reports and data summaries.
- Industrial-strength, multidimensional database
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- Multiple-language support
- Powerful interfaces for OLAP server monitoring
Contact Us
Call us or e-mail for more information and personal advice:
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Steve Statlinx necesitaba un nuevo diseño de papelería y lanzó un concurso de diseño en 99designs.
Un ganador ha sido elegido entre 120 diseños de 30 diseñadores freelance.
For starters, my name is Steve and it's great to meet you! I'm sure you are a kick ass designer and you are going to make us look good! We are going to have a few other design projects in the near future, so I am hoping you can grab our vibe and flow and we can build a relationship.
About Statlinx - we provide several services to medical faciliies and doctors all over the US, the main one being Answering Service. Other services we offer are Billing and Claims Processing, Appointment Scheduling, Appointment Verification, Patient Registration, Data Backup.
With all of those services under one brand, we are afraid that people might actually forget what we do. Because of that, the design on the back of the card is really important to us.
Our audience are people in healthcare. The main people we deal with are hospital administrators, doctors and their business managers. We want our look to be very professional and clean cut.
We have had a problem with people remembering what we do. I would the services we perform worked into the design of the back of the card.
Answering Service is our primary service, so it should have prominence. Our services include:
- Answering Service
- Billing and Claims Processing
- Collections
- Data Backup
- Appointment Scheduling
- Appointment Confirmation
- Patient Registration.
Our colors are:
Pantone 123 (Yellow)
Pantone 2757 (Blue)
Our card is 2 sided, made up of three pieces of stock laminated together. The center piece is a heavy card stock, which will have the effect of making the cards very heavy weight.
The Front of the cards is printed on white stock. Existing card is attached with logo and art. I would like to move more to a traditional card, versus the slash you will see.
- I don't like names/titles to be crowded. If I could, I would remove the address completely to make more space, but that is frowned upon professionally.
- The print is Pantone blue, but be creative. I am not opposed to using variations of our colors. I do not want to go crazy or outside of our color scheme.
The middle piece of stock will be heavy card stock in the Pantone Yellow 123. It will give weight and a yellow border around the edge of the card.
The Back of the card is printed on white stock. I am leaning towards the primary color to be a full bleed of the Pantone Blue. (open to creativity)
- within the blue, incorporate design listing our services from above
We want a "professional look", but please use your talent and inspiration.
Files should be delivered for print in ai format. Please leave all copy live and attach fonts.
Thanks ahead of time for your creativity and hard work! Looking forward to working with you and Best of Luck!


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Orabell Barfield is 94 years old and suffers from dementia. She was placed in Spring Arbor more than a year ago when her only son, Henry Barfield, couldn�t care for her anymore.
Orabell Barfield is 94 years old and suffers from dementia. She was placed in Spring Arbor more than a year ago when her only son, Henry Barfield, couldn�t care for her anymore.
Henry Barfield has a blood disease and leukemia and is receiving chemotherapy. He lives on a meager disability check, yet he buys supplies for his mother and pays what her insurance won�t pay. As the only child, he would check on her when he could, but he has been in and out of the hospital with his own medical problems. Her house is located in an unsafe area, Henry Barfield said.
�She was walking around the house with a .32 pistol in her pocket,� he said about his mother before she moved into Spring Arbor.
David Ask, 76, has Parkinson�s disease and dementia and resides at Spring Arbor. He gets up in the middle of the night and wanders. He�s fallen numerous times. His wife cared for him until she just couldn�t do it anymore. His only child, Kristen Eckenwiler, has a family and home schools her children.
Both Barfield and Ask are two of many patients with severe dementia or Alzheimer�s disease who, on Jan. 1, will lose hours of care they critically need because the state won�t pay for it.
To comply with changes in federal Medicaid standards earlier this year, the General Assembly provided $39.7 million for people in adult care facilities, but left out group homes and special care units.
Appeals process
Many of the group home residents have started an appeal process. For those who haven�t appealed, Gov. Beverly Perdue allocated, on Dec. 18, $1 million from the budget of the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services. Those funds are expected to cover Medicaid costs to prevent group home residents from being ousted until the General Assemble meets again in January to resolve the issue.
Perdue also proposed the $39.7 million designated for adult care facilities to continue through 2013-2014 and be expanded to include group homes, as well.
But people living in special care units who suffer from dementia and related diseases stand to lose care or may have to leave their facility. Medicaid will no longer fully fund special care services for qualified residents. Facilities with special care units � such as Spring Arbor � stand to lose millions of dollars by either taking the cuts or losing residents.
Randy Jackson, executive director of Spring Arbor in Kinston, said he has seven residents who may be affected by the legislative changes.
�Every one of the Alzheimer�s resident�s that received a letter (to appeal) has been approved for 80 hours of personal care services,� he said.
They�ve been approved based on meeting three of five qualifiers � bathing, dressing, eating, ambulation and toiletry. Through Dec. 31, they would only have to qualify for one.
But they are currently receiving 161 hours of special care services, and the difference in hours will be about $1,000 a month per resident that Spring Arbor stands to lose, Jackson said.
For smaller facilities, the Medicaid dollars cut in half could put them out of business.
�I don�t think this is something nobody saw coming,� he said. �Now, they�re having to ask for adjustments.�
Life-changing decisions
And families such as Henry Barfield and his wife and the Eckenwilers face life-changing decisions. Although their loved ones qualify for the services, neither family has the money to pay the difference for the hours of care their loved ones currently receive through Dec. 31.
Barfield said he had been helping his mother for a couple of years since his father died three years ago, but her situation worsened, as did his. He got a microwave for her because she was confused when using the stove and he was afraid she would burn the house down. But she had trouble using the microwave and couldn�t read the tiny print on it. He tried cooking for her but he couldn�t get to her house every day.
She couldn�t figure out how to work the television remote control or the heating and air conditioning controls and would call him at all hours saying it was too hot or too cold. He would set out her medications for each day.
�I would come back the next day,� he said, �and the pills would be shuffled around everywhere and she wouldn�t know anything about it.�
Orabell Barfield doesn�t qualify for Medicaid because she owns a house � a house Henry Barfield can�t sell as long as his mother is alive.
Eckenwiler, who resides in Wilson, said her father was placed in an adult home in Cary because he frequently fell. And she was one of the first to sign him up for a new Spring Arbor facility to be built in Wilson. Later, he was transferred to Kinston so he would be in the same company, and the ride on N.C. 58, although further, was easier for her mother than driving to Cary.
When August came and the facility was built, Ask couldn�t be transferred to Wilson because of the funding issues that loom � the new facility isn�t currently taking Medicaid patients.
Ask has stage four dementia. He has frequent episodes of forgetfulness, can�t dress himself or use the bathroom by himself and has to live in a locked unit so he can�t wander away.
When Ask has a doctor�s appointment, his daughter drives from Wilson to Kinston and then to Durham. The round trip is about 300 miles, she said.
Eckenwiler takes her mother to visit him as often as she is able, but she and her husband are raising their children. Their house has stairs, which isn�t accommodating for her father.
With the funding reducing and, thereby, the hours being cut, she had hoped her father would be closer to home so she could assist with his care.
Eckenwiler said her mother, who lives in Nashville, can�t take care of her husband, and she�s not sure how she could either unless they had someone come in to care for him � which would be an added expense.
�I haven�t thought about what to do,� she said. �I just keep telling my mother we�re going to take it one step at a time.�
Jackson said Spring Arbor in Kinston will not be asking residents to leave when January rolls around.
Margaret Fisher can be reached at 252-559-1082 or email@example.com.


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News from the world of Maths
Interested in the connections between art and science? Then come to this free public lecture at the Isaac Newton Institute in Cambridge on March 14, 2012 to hear theoretical physicist David Berman and artist Grenville Davey talk about string theory as an inspiration to art.
Struggling with that new year's resolution to lose a few pounds? Weight not dropping off as fast as you'd expected? A new mathematical model has some good news and some bad news for you. Which would you like to hear first?
How many people died? It's one of the first questions asked in a war or violent conflict, but it's one of the hardest to answer. In the chaos of war many deaths go unrecorded and all sides have an interest in distorting the figures. The best we can do is come up with estimates, but the trouble is that different statistical methods for doing this can produce vastly different results . So how do we know how different methods compare?
From jelly fish, to biomass, to topology and speeding neutrinos, we've had a busy first two days at the AAAS meeting in Vancouver.
Yesterday's refusal by the UK government to posthumously pardon Alan Turing makes sad news for maths, computer science and the fight against discrimination. But even if symbolic gestures are, symbolically, being rebuffed, at least Turing's most important legacy — the scientific one — is going stronger than ever. An example is this week's announcement that scientists have devised a biological computer, based on an idea first described by Turing in the 1930s.
Another postcard from Plus' temporary Cambridge/Boston office!


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What if there were a way for 32,000 of the 160,000 lives lost each year related to cigarette smoking to be saved? There may just be. Findings from a recent study show the risk of dying from lung cancer could be reduced by 20 percent by use of a low-dose helical computed tomography (CT) scan. In other words, this type of CT screening could save over 30,000 lives a year.
Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related deaths, and as such, cancer research and treatment experts are constantly looking for ways to reduce the pervasive nature of the disease. The National Cancer Institute (NCI) launched the multi-center National Lung Screening Trial (NLST) in 2002. The trial compared two ways of detecting lung cancer using low dose helical (spiral) CT vs a standard chest X-Ray. Part of this research study was actually led at Emory by radiologist and researcher Dr. Kay Vydareny.
The trial aimed to determine the effects of low-dose helical CT scans vs chest X-Rays on lung cancer death rates in high-risk populations. Both chest X-rays and helical CT scans have been used as a means to find lung cancer early, but the effects of these screening techniques on lung cancer mortality rates had not been determined.
Over a 20-month period, more than 53,000 current or former heavy smokers ages 55 to 74 joined NLST at 33 study sites across the United States. In November 2010, the initial findings from NLST were released. The conclusion? Clinical trial participants who received low-dose helical CT scans had a 20 percent lower risk of dying from lung cancer than participants who received standard chest X-rays.
While the benefits of low-dose helical CT scans in the reduction of lung cancer deaths are obvious, not every diagnostic option comes completely risk free. The CT scans can occasionally detect suspicious abnormalities that do not turn out to be lung cancer – known as false positives. Many of these abnormalities are scars from smoking, areas of inflammation or other noncancerous conditions that may require additional testing to determine that they are not harmful. These tests have been known to cause undue anxiety for patients and may sometimes lead to biopsies or surgeries.
"It is certainly an individual's choice whether they want to be screened for lung cancer with a CT scan if they have no symptoms. However, it is important to make certain that such individuals have complete information and be well-informed before having such a scan. If a patient has symptoms, such as a persistent cough, weight loss, persistent hoarseness or trouble breathing, he or she should see a physician as soon as possible. Often these symptoms are due to something other than lung cancer, but more tests should be performed to make certain," says Vydareny.
What should a person at high-risk for lung cancer do? The answer that all physicians agree on is to stop smoking right now, the sooner the better. Or even better … don't start smoking ever, further reducing the chances of getting cancer or suffering from a stroke or heart attack as well.
"All physicians hope that there will be a test that can screen for early lung cancer and that the dismal prognosis of those with lung cancer will improve. Perhaps it will be screening with CT scans. Perhaps it will be a blood test," says Vydareny. "That day hopefully will come, but it has not yet arrived. But if you are or have been a heavy smoker, your first step should be to consult your primary care physician to discuss all possible screening options."
For more information, check out the lung cancer screening clinical trial video below:
Tags: cancer research, chest X-Ray, clinical trial, clinical trials, CT Scan, lung cancer, lung cancer screening


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In Nature -- And Maybe The Corner Office -- Scientists Find That Generalists Can Thrive
COLUMBUS, Ohio – The assignment of duties in a single cell, ocean life or even a small business does not have to be defined by a division of labor where every individual has a specific role, according to biologists at Ohio State University.
The scientists have designed a mathematical model to describe circumstances that would allow generalists to endure in what is typically expected to be a specialist-only society, according to theory.
Existing biological theories about the division of labor suggest that individual members of a group gravitate to specialization to perform specific tasks toward a common goal.
According to this new model, which tweaks two assumptions of the existing theory, there is a place in small groups for generalists to exist and possibly even to thrive.
"What this modeling showed me is that there are conditions under which it actually helps to have some generalists, especially for fairly small groups, some individuals that you might think of as Jacks- or Jills-of-all-trades or multitaskers."
Because the model they designed pertains to biological systems with just a few individuals, the researchers caution against reading too much into its potential application to humans. But in a socially and economically complex world, they admit they find comfort in the model's implications about humankind nonetheless.
"What this modeling showed me is that there are conditions under which it actually helps to have some generalists, especially for fairly small groups, some individuals that you might think of as Jacks- or Jills-of-all-trades or multitaskers," said Tom Waite, associate professor of evolution, ecology and organismal biology at Ohio State and co-author of the study.
"You might actually have to pay them more and they might often do the wrong task, but if you don't have them, this whole notion of specialization leading to greater economic productivity might actually be wrong."
The research appears online in the Journal of Theoretical Biology.
Waite and doctoral candidate Anthony D'Orazio, lead author of the study, started with an established mathematical model in current biology literature that leads to complete division of labor. In their design, they relaxed two assumptions, making inefficiency less costly and allowing generalists to make mistakes.
The researchers determined the worth of generalists to small systems by designing mathematical equations and creating a computer program to run the equations with various values for different generalist and specialist behaviors. They carried the computation out to the point at which the system had completely evolved.
Waite and D'Orazio realized they were wading into treacherous theoretical waters. The notion of division of labor among humans dates to the Greek philosopher Plato, who argued that societies require specialization to be productive and efficient. Later intellectuals expressed concern that the inflexibility associated with division of labor would destroy the human spirit.
In ecology, the literature is comparatively thin. But theoreticians agree that no perfect mathematical model exists, Waite said. A model is either too broad to provide useful insights for any given system or too specific to apply beyond a single defined system.
"We wanted to define a fair model that isn't too biased toward one group or one outcome," D'Orazio said.
D'Orazio initiated the development of a new model with the hopes of determining what he can expect in his study of sea anemones. He was surprised to find that even using a simple model, he is unable to clarify why these marine animals behave as they do.
The species D'Orazio studies are members of a clonal aggregation, meaning they are all genetically identical. But these sea anemones exhibit two distinct types of roles: warriors or reproducers. Warriors tend to congregate on the outer edges of their groups to protect the masses, while within the group, others focus on reproducing.
D'Orazio hoped to create a model that would help determine the optimal allocation of these two types of specialists to ensure the group's survival. And yet, even these brainless creatures confounded his plan.
"Sea anemones are simple, and yet we see complex behavior with them. If you put them in a lab, sometimes they attack, sometimes they don't. Sometimes they attack and run away. Sometimes they do nothing but attack. Sometimes they get attacked and don't defend themselves. For something that you would think would be so simple, it's much more complex. Behavior can't be predicted even in this one group," he said.
And that's why it's attractive to apply this concept of incomplete division of labor to humans, Waite said. Humans are, after all, animals that might be driven mainly by biological urges. But the superimposed culture, rules, laws, race, class and gender make it hard to know for sure.
D'Orazio and Waite use a small cookie business to illustrate their findings. If three individuals work in a group and all are specialists, two members make cookies and the other sells cookies. If the seller is out sick, the whole operation must shut down under previous assumptions about division of labor.
The business could hire a fourth person who can bake and sell, but that's an expensive option. Another possibility is sticking with three employees but training one of them to do two tasks.
"So now you have a generalist," Waite said. "You've lost something in terms of time and profit initially because you have to invest in training this person. You might even train all three people. But if you have even just one generalist, then you're safeguarded against the possibility that the specialists don't complement each other."
For Waite, the findings reinforce his broader world view. "We should value each other much more. We should value people who have a diversity of skills and interests. They might not have really recognizable specific skills but they might be good at doing lots of things," he said.
For biological purposes, the new model will set a standard for future work, D'Orazio noted.
"We were trying to clarify confusion in the literature. We're not saying any system should strive for incomplete division of labor, but that it exists and this is an example of it."
Contacts: Tom Waite, (614) 292-5549; firstname.lastname@example.com (Waite will be traveling during portions of winter and spring quarters; if he does not respond to phone or e-mail messages, contact Emily Caldwell at (614) 292-8310 or email@example.com to reach him while he is traveling) or Anthony D'Orazio, (440) 821-3298; firstname.lastname@example.com
Written by Emily Caldwell, (614) 292-8310; firstname.lastname@example.com


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Since upgrading to iTunes 11 with it's wonderful interface I've run into an issue. I have several TV shows with multiple seasons. It's great that the interface now groups the seasons all into one icon for the show. However, if I select a later season (eg. 2) and watch an episode, when it finishes and iTunes goes back to it's window, I'm back on Season 1.
Quite an irritation to have to scroll back up to the top of the show, go back to the season I'm watching, and then scroll back down to find the episode I was on.
Is this just a bug, or am I missing a setting somewhere?


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Matthias Ettrich On Universal Components
Matthias Ettrich's talk on Universal Components at LinuxForum (also given at LinuxTag) is finally now online. You can view the slides
Intrigued, I thought I'd take a closer look at QCom. Unfortunately, qcom.h
Finally, another useful thing you may learn from this presentation
Re: COM inherently flawed??
grep is not dawn handy. It is only useful for line-oriented text files. As soon as you have to handle structured data, it completely fails. For example, for xml data, sgrep is much more useful. For searching in a database, the respective database APIs are more useful.
So your example is flawed, and so is your argumentation.
For a better example for extensibility of GUI programs, compare Konqueror or Nautilus with classical Unix programs like netscape, the CDE file manager or similar stuff. Then come back and repeat your myth about loose coupling.
By Bernd Gehrmann at Tue, 2001/08/07 - 5:00am
Re: COM inherently flawed??
For more structured data use awk.
By David O'Connell at Wed, 2001/08/08 - 5:00am
Re: COM inherently flawed??
Get a grip, awk is line oriented as well.
Ok, I will byte: are you unfamiliar with the concept of structured data, or are you unfamiliar with awk?
By Roberto Alsina at Wed, 2001/08/08 - 5:00am
Re: COM inherently flawed??
Awk is record oriented, not line oriented. Furthermore, awk deals with tabular data, not just lines of text. And structured data can be encoded very easily and conveniently in tabular data, and awk is very efficient at processing it.
But your response is indicative of a general disease in the industry: people don't learn to know how to use their general purpose tools anymore. Instead, we get an awful profusion of special purpose tools and overly complex standards.
By Mike at Thu, 2001/08/09 - 5:00am
Re: COM inherently flawed??
"Normally, records are separated by newline characters. You can control how records
This is exactly the same as being line-oriented.
It can be called record-oriented, sure. But it can not handle nested data structures very naturally. And the given example was XML, which is nothing but nested structures.
Ok, anything can be encoded to be easily handled by AWK? Yes.
But XML is already encoded. If you need to encode it so AWK can handle it, then it is not AWK that can handle XML, is it?
By Roberto Alsina at Thu, 2001/08/09 - 5:00am
Re: COM inherently flawed??
"But it can not handle nested data structures very naturally."
Of course it can, in the same way systems like Prolog or SQL can represent structured data easily and conveniently.
"But XML is already encoded. If you need to encode it so AWK can handle it, then it is not AWK that can handle XML, is it?"
I did not claim that AWK could handle XML easily, I claimed that it could handle structured data easily (not to be misunderstood: AWK has its limitations as a language, but its tabular parser is fine). Nothing really can handle XML easily because XML is not a particularly convenient representation of structured data; what XML has going for it is that it makes the structure blatantly obvious to even the most uneducated user--XML, after all, has its roots in document formats.
As I said before, the analogy between AWK and XML is a good one because it is indicative of what's wrong with a lot of software being designed in industry these days: people build unwieldy special purpose solutions (like XML) because they simply don't understand how to use more general purpose tools effectively.
"This is exactly the same as being line-oriented."
Line are lines and arbitrary records are arbitrary records. The two are different. The built-in awk parser is record oriented and assumes a tabular data model. Using that data model, you can easily represent nested data structures in a variety of ways.
By Mike at Fri, 2001/08/10 - 5:00am
Re: COM inherently flawed??
Line are lines and arbitrary records are arbitrary records.
They are, however, functionally identical in AWK case.
All AWK does is use a record separator. Turning the record separator into newlines is a 1 line command (use sed or AWk, at will ;-), and it will convert any file AWK can parse into a "a record is a line" thingy.
I did not claim that AWK could handle XML easily, I claimed that it could handle structured data easily
Ok, just read the thread and see where things came from, then ;-)
David O'Connell started babbling about how handy grep is because of its data driven design, and Bernd Gehrmann mentioned that grep sucks when you have to, for example, parse XML, since it is line-oriented.
Then David said that for more structured data (XML being the only one mentioned), AWK should be used.
I simply replied that AWK is line-oriented (ok, I admit it ain't, I still say it is pretty much the same thing, functionally), and that it takes ungodly coercion to make it handle the XML example.
So, you see, AWK was only brought up as a way to handle XML-like data, and when you later started talking about how AWK can handle structured data, if it is encoded in a way that AWK can handle (doesn't that ring a tautological bell? ;-)
So, yes, you didn't say AWK could handle XML. David O'Connell did. And I replied to him about that. And that is what you replied to.
I'd say, let's give it a rest. I am pretty convinced David O'Connell is just a troll, and honestly, I don't give a damn about AWK.
By Roberto Alsina at Fri, 2001/08/10 - 5:00am
Re: COM inherently flawed??
David O'Connell wasn't babbling about grep being data driven. It was me, Bud Millwood, trying to spur a discussion on GUI design. And I was not trolling, I was stating something that I think is very important to the future design of KDE. My post was extremely terse, but if you'll read the reply by Chris Kohlhepp, you'll get a broader picture of what I was driving at.
By Bud Millwood at Mon, 2001/08/13 - 5:00am
Re: COM inherently flawed??
I would like to elaborate on my colleague's posting "COM inherently flawed". Also, if you have not already done so, please read David O'Connell's reply to "go away troll" at
He has some valuable insights.
I would like to look at how COM came into being, why Microsoft chose this path, and why many of us where disillusioned by it. But before I do, I would like to discuss three basic system analysis concepts.
Firstly: orthogonality. Loosely defined orthogonality within a system refers to the ability to arbitrarily combine system components regardless of their nature and design. Consider the architecture of Lego blocks. Each block has an indentation on the bottom and a corresponding knob on the top. In this fashion I can fasten a Lego propeller to the top of a Lego head and make - a propeller head. The peculiar thing here is that the propeller was designed to work with a Lego aircraft, not the top of a Lego head. Unix operates much in the same fashion and owes this to the universal nature of its design in which processes interact with one another through an interface that exchanges text based parameters through simple interprocess mechanisms such as standard-in and standard-out. Example : a TCP data stream may be redirected to a script by the Inetd super daemon and then fed to an X-based GUI component by said script. The Inetd super daemon need not have any knowledge of the specifics of the data, the inner workings of the script, or the GUI.
Secondly: Loose Coupling. Loose coupling refers to the degree to which a component is independent of the characteristics of another component. Our Lego head only interacts with the attached propeller through its little knob. It is not allowed to manipulate the specifics of the propeller. For example, if our little Lego man - or woman - was alive he/she would not be allowed to change the pitch of the propeller blades as the knob/indentation paradigm does not provide for this. While this is a limitation on the use of the propeller, our Lego head won't be impacted by any design changes to the propeller blades.
Thirdly: Data Driven Design. In a data driven design, the nature of the data dominates the architecture of a system, i.e. how components of the system interact and what components are conceived in the first place is a function of the data. UNIX has traditionally favored a straightforward data oriented design in which processes exchange textual data via pipes, sockets, and other interprocess mechanisms. The nature of this interface paradigm is both universal and non-specific. To briefly refer to our first example, this design is responsible for the fact that the developer of Inetd need not be aware of the script and ultimately the GUI with which it is to interact. This paradigm stands in stark contrast to object oriented methodologies in which objects or entities manipulate specific states and attributes of other entities in the system. Such objects gain the advantage of being able to exploit the specific characteristics of the entities with which they interact. Example: If our Lego man/woman could manipulate a "ChangeBladePitch(Degrees Clockwise)" API on the propeller, he/she might be able to make more efficient use of said propeller, but the interaction would have ceased to be universal and non-specific. If ever a new propeller is fitted to the same Lego head, a propeller which uses radians to set the blade pitch instead of degrees, then the interaction between head and propeller is broken. Thus once the interface to the propeller has been published, it must never be altered. The very use of representation specific data ( here angles in degrees ) across subsystem boundaries has rendered the interaction non-universal.
The decision when to use which methodology largely hinges on one factor: change and the ability to predict change across subsystem boundaries. The designers of "Awk" didn't know that the output of their program might years later be piped into a 256 color KDE window. They therefore had to design to a universal interface. Analogously, the engineer designing the propeller and fitting blades and drive shafts must concern himself with the specifics of each component within the context and scope of the subsystem in question.
The fundamental design of Windows and Windows NT in particular is essentially object oriented. Applications manipulate the state of the operating system and the computer through a set of API calls to OS components. This is in stark contrast to Unix where sometimes the line between operating system components and application components is very blurred. Is "Awk" an application or part of the OS ? The line between application components and OS components is drawn very clearly under Windows. Until the introduction of COM, the basic issue of application interaction, simply was not addressed at all. If you wrote a network application and I wrote a printer tool, the mode in which our applications might possibly interact and perhaps enhance the overall functionality of the operating system was - NOT. We both invariably had to turn to the API furnished by Microsoft to communicate at all. Further, because the interaction with the operating system is highly specific and non-universal, he who controls the operating system API layer ultimately controls the application layer also.
The design inherently does not scale well. As this became apparent to the software industry, a "patch" was needed. I call it a patch because I regard COM as poor fix to a bad design - albeit purposeful, but bad nonetheless.
COM purported to give applications and components the ability to interact universally but its very object oriented design and highly representation specific ( say binary ) interface ensured that universal interaction never happened. In fact the only application suite to achieve a high level of integration between individual components and the operating system is Microsoft Office. Microsoft sold the software industry the illusion of universal component interaction at the application level while ultimately retaining control over the application level by controlling the operating system API layer. Surprised ?
Of course today's applications require complexity beyond line-based standard-output redirection that we have concerned ourselves with so far in our simple "Awk" example. A comprehensive component framework must address issues such as application embedding, concurrency, synchronization, etc. Nonetheless, the design goals of universal data representation, loose coupling, and orthogonality are imperative if the framework is to be scalable.
Some years ago I worked on a project which utilized a component framework designed for VME backplane systems which housed multiple processor cards, each card running its own flavor of UNIX. The component framework in question was both scalable as well as platform independent, provided for synchronous and asynchronous message propagation, and achieved this seamlessly across process boundaries as well as across different hosts on the same VME backplane. At the time, I lacked the systems analysis background to fully appreciate the depth of the design the framework had to offer.
The framework in question is called SigMA ( Signaal Modular Architecture) and is fielded on large scale national defense systems. It is listed in Jane's Defense Glossary :
Unfortunately public links to the framework are limited.
By Chris Kohlhepp at Wed, 2001/08/08 - 5:00am
Not sure
I think that your comparison is a bit fuzzy.
Take the ChangeBladePitch(Degrees Clockwise) example: you add additional control in one case, and you say that it adds additional coupling, well duh!
Modifying Degrees to Radian breaks the coupling and what's your point ?
Let's say you use the Unix POV with the same capabilities otherwise the comparison is absurd.
So you have one program A which output Degrees number in ASCII, and another program B which parse the number from its standard output.
I fail to see what is your point, practically I mean..
In fact I have some difficulties comparing Unix-style pipes and Windows-style components: for me the "Unix-style pipes" is usefull mainly for text processing/script whereas Windows-style components is aimed at for example embedding a spreadsheet inside a word processor (I know COM is more than OLE).
I don't really how you could do the "embedding" style with pipes,redirection, etc..
But maybe I don't have enough imagination :-), I heard that Plan9 push even further the traditional Unix-concept: the filesystem can now "contain" windows much-like /proc contain processes.
Does someone more knowledgeable with Plan9 knows if they have something "similar" to COM?
By renox at Mon, 2001/08/13 - 5:00am
Re: Not sure
>Does someone more knowledgeable with Plan9 knows if they have something "similar" to COM?
No way. The Plan 9 way of exposing a interface is to just export a filesystem. They try to make every system service look like a filesystem with files in a tree hierarchy. Rather elegant I must admit.
By nap at Tue, 2001/08/14 - 5:00am
Hello "Duh"
> well duh!
Glad to see you can articulate your thoughts !
> You add additional control in one case, and
The point is not in the details of this example.
Please look at it the context of the systems analysis principles illustrated. I'm not arguing against binary representation in general. I am contrasting the use of specific interfaces with the use of universal interfaces and where to use which. The more universal the interface, the less efficient it is at manipulating the object in question, but the more readily it will interact with other objects, even those that were not designed for it.
The more specific the interface, the more efficient it is at manipulating particular aspects of the object in question. Specific interfaces are necessary for the operation of any system, but when you cannot predict with whom you will interact with - as is invariably the case when embedding a component "x" in application "y" - you will want to make your interface as universal as absolutely possible. The less specifics you make use of in your interface, the more universally usable it will be.
But lets dive into the details of the example anyway. Since we got off onto that tangent
> So you have one program A which output
I like your style. So cynical :-)
> I fail to see what is your point,
But at least you admit to missing the point. Let's keep this professional, shall we ?
Ok, yes, you are a right about the application being broken by changing the parameters from Degrees to Radians regardless of whether you encode the values in ASCII or binary. The use of Degrees or Radians makes the interface specific, a binary representation would merely render it even more specific. For example, if you represent the value in binary on an Intel platform and sent the value over a socket to a machine with different byte ordering or alternatively from an 32bit platform to a 16 bit platform, then the interaction is broken even if both ends speak Degrees. Of course you can do the necessary translations (network byte ordering, etc.) provided you know who you talk to on the other end - if you don't you can't. The other practical problem with most binary interfaces, be it a simple LIB or a COM object is that they are not readily extensible. For example you will need to publish an altogether new COM interface if you wanted to add a Radians based function to an existing Degree based function on your object. This impacts every user of your object. Text based interfaces tend to be more readily scalable.
By Chris Kohlhepp at Wed, 2001/08/22 - 5:00am
Missing point?
I'm not a KDE developer, but I am planning a QT app, because it's nice to program and I want it cross-platform. Some of you people are missing the point when you say "why should QT do this when KDE already does?" Maybe KDE does but that doesn't help me a whole lot.
Wouldn't it be nice if a lot of Windows developers started doing QT? Then when people compare OS's, they can discover that outside of Microsoft apps, they can run the same software on whatever platform they choose. Don't you think that would help break Microsoft's monopoly on the desktop?
(Incidentally, I'm planning to GPL on the Linux version, and on other platforms work out the closest thing to GPL that I can.)
By Outsider at Thu, 2001/08/09 - 5:00am
For Help : QT/Embedded on StrongARM
Dear All:
I am going to porting a internet browser into StrongARM assabet.
Do you have such expierence ?
I will appreciate if you can provide some infomation to me.
Best Regards.
Bingqi Zhao.
By Tim Zhao at Sat, 2001/08/18 - 5:00am
COM, VB and ease of coding
I haven't used COM myself, only talked at length with someone who has, but...
I have the impression that a COM component on Windows isn't easy to code in C++. However, its saving grace is that a COM component is easy to use from VB. Thus, the hard work of a C++ coder makes life easy for VB coders thus encouraging code reuse. Can anybody confirm this?
If so, doesn't this mean QCOM is not right for KDE ON ITS OWN? ie there needs to be something in the role of VB (python? kscript?) which takes advantage of the QCOM components and is easy to use.
By Ignorant non-co... at Fri, 2001/08/17 - 5:00am
Re: COM, VB and ease of coding
This is mostly correct. Only "mostly" because there is a template library which makes it much easier to write COM components in C++, so complexisty is not that much of an issue.
COM really shines when you are using (as opposed to writing) components and get to just click on the method you want. This can be done in C++ now too, I believe (someone using the latest VC++ please fill us in).
To return to the topic at hand, QCOM *can* be the right thing for KDE on its own if the tools (KDevelop?) are updated to take advantage of the QCOM components. This is true for C++, and it's also true of the script languages. (Q)COM creates a new abstraction of a "component", and one of the ways to leverage this is to make the tools aware of this new abstraction.
Hope this helps.
By Anonymous Coward at Wed, 2001/08/29 - 5:00am
Re: COM, VB and ease of coding
Actually, it is really easy if you stick to the basics of COM (like DirectX). In essence, COM is just a C++ object that exports virtual methods. (In VisualC++, that is actually the implementation, a C++ object and its vtable). I think all the arguements going on about COM being flawed are crap. The stuff that was built around COM (DCOM, OLE, etc) may be crap, but the internals are pretty elegant. Mozilla uses something like COM for a large part of its architecture, and it works pretty nicely.
By Rayiner Hashem at Tue, 2001/10/02 - 5:00am


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Exotic Wine-growing
How about vacationing at a vineyard? More recent wine-growing regions in India, Canada and Thailand have joined classic destinations in Bourgogne, Rioja and Piedmont and offer fascinating holidays for connoisseurs
India is one of the oldest wine-growing countries in the world; people were fermenting grapes here 2500 years ago. But commercial wine production only came into its own in the 1990s. India now even has its own wine capital, Nashik, located northeast of Mumbai.
Vinland – in other words, wineland – is what the Vikings once called the east coast of North America. The Okanagan Valley on Canada's west coast is regarded as the equivalent of California's Napa Valley. Guess what Vinland's roughly 120 vineyards produce – yep, ice wine!
So you thought good wines could only be grown between the 30th and 50th parallels? The vintages grown in Thai wine-growing areas, such as the mountains surrounding Hua Hin, provide tasty proof that you would be wrong.


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The Department has calculated persistence, graduation and efficiency measures based upon the 2005-06 annual performance reports submitted by grantees.
Like the 2004-05 results, the 2005-06 results include grantee-level persistence and graduation rates. The grantee-level efficiency measures for 2005-06 and 2004-05 are not comparable to the 2003-04 efficiency measures because of changes in the measure and improvements in the methodology used to calculate the efficiency measures.
Grantee Performance and Efficiency Measures: Background; Introduction; Selected Findings; Data Limitations; and Methodology MS Word (92K) | PDF (48K)
Grantee Performance and Efficiency Tables: Persistence; Graduation Rates at Two- and Four-Year Institutions; and Efficiency Measures MS Excel (600K)


text:
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June 20, 2006 - Forensics
by Dominique Brezinski
I am so relieved. It has finally happened: the forensic field is transitioning from techniques that satisfy the needs of law enforcement to techniques that satisfy the needs of everyone else. We are now seeing a focus on post-intrusion incident response versus seizure and disk analysis. The two areas are very different, and post-intrusion incident response actually has many more difficult technical problems by a large margin.
The forensic track this year is pretty exciting. We have everything from a sophisticated overview of where incident response is going, advances in memory analysis, and incident response for web-based application compromises; non-traditional ways of digitally identifying people; and Johnny Long's whimsical Death by a 1000 cuts look at all the places evidence can reside.
There are a lot of really cool and hard problems to be solved in the space of incident response and adversary identification. The presentations this year cover some important ones, and we hope a few of you walk away inspired to take a crack at few others.
Web Application Incident Response and Forensics- A Whole New Ball Game
by Chuck Willis
In almost every attack that we have responded to in the last year, the attacker's modus operandi involved web application compromises. Security teams are normally well-versed in network and host-based forensics but application level attacks—not too sure about that! In fact, most application attacks go undetected and are uncovered due to some other activity such as maintenance or upgrades. We have tried to put together guidelines and techniques for developers to incorporate in their code to help detect such attacks and security folks to respond to such attacks when detected.
You are What You Type: No Classical Computer Forensics
by Dr. Neal Krawetz
My talk, "You Are What You Type", covers some of my research on anti-anonymity technologies. I'll show you techniques for telling if two documents are likely written by the same person, how to better guess gender and nationality, and even how to determine physical attributes like left/right handed, if someone is sitting too close to the monitor, and where their mouse is located. I'm including many real examples that cover the gambit from spammers and phishers to computer viruses and online dating.
Death By 1000 Cuts
by Johnny Long
In this day and age, forensics evidence lurks everywhere. The task presented to modern forensics investigators is a daunting one. During this talk, you'll slip into the shoes of an uber-agent hot on the trail of the illustrious Knuth from the Stealing the Network series. Haven't read the latest installation? You should. How would YOU catch a guy that MELTED his hard drive platters and sanded down all his CDs? Where's the evidence? That's the question of the hour. Answer it correctly and you could win any number of cool prizes.
Now that the talk description you can show you boss is out of the way, what's this really about? Think of it as the hacker's version of "Where's Waldo?". You'll laugh. You'll learn. You'll cry when you realize the answer was staring you right in the face. You'll scream when you're caught in the mosh pit of the full-on frenzy of the bonus prize rounds. Forget Waldo. This is HALO 2 meets hacking. Get your game on. Got no coordination, no reflexes, no skillz, and no eye for detail? Come anyway.
Come have some fun, and learn how the feds put the smack down on even the most paranoid among us.
The State of Incidence Response
by Kevin Mandia
If Bruce Springsteen did computer security, he would definitely excel at performing Incident Response. Choicepoint, Lexis-Nexis, Bank of America, and then several thousand unnamed victims. I am curious, how many companies in the Fortune 500 are currently hosting a digital cocktail party for foreign intruders?
They say:
Every major financial institution has been exploited by attackers. All outsourced software is being made with backdoors. Every developed nation is creating cyber-warfare capabilities. Firewalls, IDS, and anti-virus are not as effective as consumers thought. There are hundreds of non-publicly available exploits in use right now. 5% of all people are innately evil. Hmmm.
How do we confirm any of these if our incident response skills are not as advanced as the adversary?
There are too many safe harbors for attackers to launch attacks without regards to their own well-being. As long as these safe harbors exist, bad things will happen. Paying for remediation is like buying a very expensive candle. You light it, it looks pretty, you are glad you have it. But when it burns out, you have nothing. At the end of 90% of the remediation efforts companies implement, the attackers regain their foothold.
Hey Uncle Sam—please spend less brain power trying to legislate and regulate information security, and more time using diplomatic channels to alleviate the onslaught of the attacks coming from the safe harbors of the world. Could you at least send an official "time out" request to attackers in Russia and China during Christmas and Easter?
Attribution for online incidents is getting more difficult. We are having more difficulty determining who is perpetrating intrusions into US firms, primarily because of self propagating intrusions.
We need international cooperation to solve international problems. Russia, Romania, China - feel like pitching in?
Recently, I saw a situation where a company had outsourced their customer service application at a web-hosting facility and it was compromised by the W32.Spybot.Worm. Disaster ensued. I am witnessing very costly responses, with the loss of client data being of critical concern.
I have responded to over 50 computer intrusions in the last 4 years. Anti-virus warned of eight of these events. I think the technology that tries to protect us from an infinite amount of signatures may have to change its marketing to "We do the best we can, and protect you from being low-hanging fruit." I cannot wait to hear the AV companies say they have functional flow signatures as well. Then we will not be able to remotely administer our systems.
In September of 2005, an attacker had 11 portable executable files in his grab bag arsenal. Guess how well anti-virus did detecting this malicious code. 0-11. Why? Well, it will be a long time before AV products flag Microsoft tools as viruses or malware.
After review of the system time/date stamps, we noticed anomalous activity potentially accessing 50 credit card files. The indicators of compromise were all originating from foreign domains. Are we storing anything encrypted nowadays? And if so, in how many locations is the encrypted data stored on the same media in an unencrypted manner?
I think it's time for companies to continue their proactive stance on security, but couple it with a reactive approach and even be "proactively reactive" (some strange way, that makes sense to me)
I've witnessed a number of panicked customers when they find out they've been compromised. Plan first, to include planning your reaction to incidents.
Wouldn't it be cool to develop an automated technique for companies to capture necessary data immediately following an incident before the audit trail is unintentionally/intentionally corrupted by poor incident response techniques?
VoIP Security
In 2000 a co-worker brought an early Cisco VoIP phone into my office. He was tasked with doing a security review prior to a potential deployment in the company. His summation after five minutes with the docs, "It uses bootp and tftp to retrieve its operating image and unencrypted UDP to carry the audio stream." We immediately thought of our CEO and CFO's calls being recorded by anybody with access to the network infrastructure and ubiquitous bugging by patching the operating image. No way were we going to deploy the horrid little things.... read more
Enterprise Networks vs. Cisco Vulnerabilities
First, some context. I've been in security for 20 years and started my career as a kernel programmer. However, at Gartner, my job is to serve large enterprise clients (revenue $1B and up). It's fun to play both sides with technical knowledge and the big, strategic business context but let me be up front about one thing; I gave up my hands on technical skills long ago and now I talk for a living... read more
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