text:
Author: Susan Linton
Slax, a Slackware-based modular Linux distribution, released version 6.0 last month. This release brings a new tar install format along with a new donation request, but also includes some noticeable bugs.
One of the new interesting developments with Slax since the 5.x releases is the availability of a 190MB tar image as well as the more traditional ISO install file. The tar file is for use primarily on USB media, but you can use it to perform a hard drive install as well. Installing the archive onto a memory stick was easy. I used a 512MB pen drive with one partition formatted with the VFAT filesystem. I mounted and navigated to the partition and untarred the Slax-6.0.0.tar. Then I changed directory into /boot and ran the bootinst.sh script. I was then able to boot Slax from the pen drive without any trouble, and any changes I made to the pen drive install were retained after I shut down the operating system, just as if Slax were installed onto a hard drive.
The Slax boot menu offers some handy options. The default boot option is Graphics mode into KDE, but others include Copy to Ram, Always Fresh, Vesa Mode, Text Mode, and Run Memtest. In Default Graphics Mode, Slax tries to detect your graphics chip and start with the best configuration. Copy to Ram loads the system into your system memory and provides improved performance, which is most noticeable when you're booting from CD-ROM media. Always Fresh starts the system in read-only mode and doesn't load any previous changes or save any new ones. Vesa Mode can be likened to Safe Video mode, as most any graphics chip will run on Vesa drivers. Memtest tests your system RAM.
The Slax KDE 3.5.8 desktop appearance is unimpressive. The developers have updated the wallpaper, but it's still the same tired pair of sneakers from earlier versions. The remaining theme elements are pretty much KDE default. With the Linux landscape today full of beautiful desktops, Slax does little to compete.
Slax and hardware support
I had mixed feelings about Slax's hardware support at first. Slax booted into the optimal resolution for my Hewlett-Packard Pavilion dv6105us laptop of 1280×800 using the "nv" Xorg driver, but the startup sound was very distorted even at very low volume levels. Fortunately, it only occurred at startup, and I never learned why. Application and system sounds worked as well as expected at all other times.
I soon found that Ndiswrapper wouldn't work for my Broadcom BCM94311MCG wireless Ethernet chip. I checked the logs to see if there was any clue as to why Ndiswrapper wasn't bringing my wireless network card to life and saw the suggestion to use the firmware from linuxwireless.org. Despite reservations, I connected an RJ-45 cable to my machine to visit the site. I found a link to the b43 driver and instructions for utilizing fw-cutter to extract it. After following the instructions, to my surprise, my NIC was activated next boot. Since Slax doesn't come with wpa_supplicant, the component that negotiates passkey authentication for Wi-Fi Protected Access, I had to download and build it from source. Then, finally, I could connect.
You can enable many power-saving features in Slax. I had to load specific modules for my hardware, such as powernow-k8 and cpufreq_ondemand, but once I had done that I could enable power-saving through the included Klaptop program. In the applet menu under Performance Profile I could adjust the CPU Frequency Scaling to lower the processor speed to reduce heat and conserve the battery charge. Suspend was available, but didn't function well for my laptop. It would go to sleep, but couldn't wake back up. Hibernate never did show up in the menu options.
Software with Slax
Under the hood Slax uses Linux 2.6.24, Xorg Server 22.214.171.124, and GCC 4.1.2. Even deeper, the developers have utilized LZMA with squashfs to make Slax and its modules smaller and blocks larger in order to deliver more software in a smaller package. Slax also uses AUFS to allow users to save their changes. However, the higher compression seems to hinder the overall performance of Slax compared to the last release, as evidenced by a delay in opening and navigating the menu, slower startup of system and apps, and some multimedia issues I'll get to in a moment.
The software lineup of Slax hasn't changed much since the 5.x releases. As a 300MB installed KDE system, it comprises almost entirely KDE applications.
Games start the menu and include KBattleship, KBounce, and Patience. The Graphics applications are Kuickshow, KolourPaint, KSnapshot, and KColorChooser. Office applications include KWord, KPresenter, KSpread, KPDF, and Kontact. KCalc, Kjots, KWrite, Ark, KNotes, and Klipper are found in Utilities. It is a bit inconvenient that Slax doesn't include a console editor.
The System menu contains KInfoCenter, KSysGuard, and the KDE Printer configuration module, as well as the Slax Module Manager, which is Slax' package management system. Unfortunately, the Slax site is in flux and there don't seem to be too many modules for it available at this time. If you find one you need, however, you can download it and use the manager to install it.
As an alternative you might be able to "use it online" with Slax's implementation of klik, call slik, though it did not work for me. After clicking the "use it online" link to install Firefox, I received a desktop dialog cloud informing me that it was being installed. Afterwards a link appeared in the menu, but clicking it did nothing, and after the next reboot the menu item was gone. I tried to download and install Firefox through the graphical module manager, but I received an error stating that module was already activated despite it not being listed in Slax Module manager with the other installed modules. Using deactivate firefox-184.108.40.206.lzm and activate firefox-184.108.40.206.lzm at the command line fixed things, and I was able to use Firefox. These commands replace the old uselivemod and unuselivemod commands. As an aside, I was able to install and use several Slackware 12.0 packages using the Slackware package management system, pkgtool, which is retained in Slax.
Like the other menus, the Internet menu is also dominated by KDE apps, such as Konqueror, KMail, Kopete, Akregator, Krdc (for remote desktop connections), Krfb (desktop sharing), and KNetAttach (network folder configuration). This menu also contains entries for Network Configurator, KPPP, and KWiFiManager. The Network Configurator helps you define very basic static settings, and KPPP sets up and executes a dial-up modem connection. KWiFiManager is designed to be used to scan and connect to wireless access points. This tool works well for scanning, but it couldn't establish a connection. The most troubling application in this menu was Konqueror. It would freeze, crash, or be reduced to a phantom window with any ordinary use. At times it would render the entire system unusable. I soon discovered that it had to do with the nspluginviewer bugs that have been plaguing Konqueror for quite a while. Disabling plugins in the Konqueror settings worked around the instability, but made installing Firefox a necessity.
For multimedia tasks Slax includes KPlayer, JuK, KsCD, K3b, KAudioCreator, and KMix. With KPlayer I was able to any view video filetypes I had on hand, including encrypted DVDs, but I experienced too many dropped frames for the experience to be enjoyable. Slax doesn't activate a swap partition, and my doing so didn't help. Neither selecting "performance" for the CPU speed scaling nor adjusting the player settings helped either. Online Flash video in Firefox appeared to have the same playback issue, and the libraries for QuickTime video aren't included. Music files and CDs played as desired.
Slax could be a fun hobby OS, but I can't recommend it to the average user. It has gone through some significant infrastructure changes since 5.x and the project's Web site is still under construction. Hardware support is acceptable but not exceptional, multimedia performance is a big disappointment, and the lack of available add-on modules is limiting. The site has little documentation, but the forum is back online.
Slax 6.0 feels as if it's still in transition. All in all, this release seems more like a beta than a final.
- Slax
- Reviews
- Linux
- Distributions


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The island of Föhr is located in the north-western part of Schleswig-Holstein. The 45-minute mini-cruise from Dagebüll-Mole to Föhr, past the Hallig islands on the glistening Wadden Sea, is the ideal way to slip into holiday mode.
The cruise passes through the Schleswig-Holstein Wadden Sea National Park, a remarkable habitat for 10,000 different species of plant and animal. The national park has had UNESCO World Natural Heritage status since 2009 thanks to the Wadden Sea's unique ecosystem. Holidaymakers can live by the rhythm of the tides, experiencing how this constant ebb and flow magically transforms and reinvents the landscape around them.
Arriving on Föhr, on the southern side of Wyk's ferry terminal, visitors are greeted by a 15-kilometre stretch of sandy beach – sheer paradise for water sports enthusiasts. Wyk is the oldest seaside resort on Schleswig-Holstein's North Sea coast. Föhr itself is Germany's second-largest North Sea island, at 82.82 square kilometres. Its many onshore attractions, suited both to active breaks and relaxation holidays, include wellness, thalassotherapy, golf and tennis. Föhr is a lush island, whose sheltered climate – protected from the wind by the islands of Amrum and Sylt – has enabled a huge diversity of plant species to flourish. In addition to the island's hotels, visitors have the choice of staying in traditional Frisian houses with flower-filled gardens.
For those interested in local history and culture, a visit to the Frisian Museum is a must. The western part of the island belonged to the kingdom of Denmark until as late as 1864. The Biikebrennen bonfires, an early highlight in Föhr's annual events calendar, unite local culture and traditions, both old and new. This ancient Frisian custom sees the islanders welcome in the spring and drive away the winter.
Kaks kasulikku klahvikombinatsiooni brauseris suumimiseks:
Suurendamine: +
Vähendamine: +
Täpsemat teavet saate, kui klõpsate brauseri pakkuja ikoonile:

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Thursday, December 06, 2012Mohammed YusufDecember 06, 2012
Sacks of dark charcoal sit atop one another in Somalia's southern port city of Kismayo, an industry once worth some $25 million dollar a year to al-Qaida-linked insurgents, Oct. 30, 2012.
According to the investigators, the militant group levied taxes at every stage of the charcoal from production to export. Due to that, in February this year the U.N. enacted the ban in a bid to weaken al-Shabab financially.
Hassan Awlibah, the chairman of Kismayo's business community, said Somalis have been working in the charcoal trade even before al-Shabab came to power.
He says the Somali people have been working in the charcoal trade for a long time and he says the situation had forced people to cut down trees when they didn't have a government and they were hungry.
Today the charcoal ban, aimed at weakening al-Shabab, is still in effect and as you drive through Kismayo's southern entrance you see more than four million sacks laying on both sides of the road. The charcoal is worth up to an estimated $40 million.
Awlibah says Somali businessmen have invested heavily in the charcoal trade and he believes the international community is punishing them by not allowing them to export the charcoal. He says we think all these people in the international community have agreed to make the business people, who have invested in charcoal, poor. He says if they are looking for a solution to the charcoal menace they can give us a period of time so that we can export the charcoal. Awlibah says we don't want to see people cutting down trees any more, but what we want first is to help the people that invested in the charcoal trade.
According to Kismayo authorities more than 5,000 people work in the charcoal trade.
A temporary 12-member committee that is operating Kismayo's port notes that dozens of empty ships have been docked waiting for the ban to be lifted so that they can transport the charcoal.
The committee is run by Ahmed Madobe, leader of the Ras Kamboni militia, which helped to liberate Kismayo from al-Shabab, Madobe says if the ban is not lifted, a new wave of violence could break out, and the public could turn against against the African Union (AU) forces that now control Kismayo.
He says the charcoal ban can bring insecurity. He says there is no other life here that the people know and they have poured all their wealth into the charcoal business. Madobe says this can result in problems and insecurity for the people of Kismayo and for the AU forces.
Local official Hassan Ilmi Mooge told VOA the international community has to help to revive other sectors in the area like farming, fishing and the livestock trade. He says since the international community banned the charcoal trade they haven't given us any other other way of surviving. He says there is no farming taking place here and no export of livestock so there is nothing coming to the people. Mooge says they have even cut all the humanitarian assistance they used to provide to us. He says for four years we were under huge pressure from al-Shabab and no aid agency came to help us.
For close to five years al-Shabab controlled the port city and banned the international humanitarian agencies from operating in areas under its control.
Local businessmen in Kismayo now have to convince the international community they don't have ideological links to al-Shabab and above all, that they don't support the group's terror activities in the country.


text:
|Welcome to the Marine 31 Forum.
|Thread Tools
Status: Junior Member
Join Date: Apr 2016
Location: North Texas
Posts: 4
Crownline Express Cruiser Job
In my intro post I indicated that I have been in the process of accumulating supplies to do my boat. I have been in research mode for the last several months and have not previously removed oxidation nor performed a boat detailing project, overall my boat is 29 feet. Now that I have 2.5 days into the job here are some preliminary results and thoughts.
Equipment and Supplies Purchased
· Marine 31 oxidation removal kit http://www.marine31.com/boat-polishing-kit.html
· DeWalt DWP-849X polisher
· How to Detail Boats with Marine 31 book
· Wool cutting and polishing pads
· 3M high performance auto masking tape
· A dozen microfiber towels
· I found the Marine 31 Gel Coat Heavy-Cut Oxidation Cleaner followed by Marine 31 Gel Coat Final Step Polish to be very effective. I have the 16 oz. bottles of each and it appears I will be able to do the whole boat with these quantities.
· Mike indicated in my intro post that the DeWalt machine is a beast. I think I understand what he means between the weight of the machine and the power. Great machine and it is certainly up to the task. Doing small sections at a time allows relief for the fatigue.
· There were some places I had to really lean into the machine to get through some difficult oxidation and in those cases it took 2 or 3 complete runs. Interestingly, I found the wool cutting and polishing pads to be more effective than the foam Lake Country pads. Not saying the foam pads are not good, wool seemed to make the job a whole lot easier.
· I have a 12ft x 40ft boat garage to work in this was immensely helpful to be able to see the oxidation and then the results. This provided the continual feedback to see that I was making good progress and to keep me motivated to continue. Also I treated this as a job, I got up each morning and traveled to where I keep my boat on Lake Texoma. I packed a lunch, plenty of water, some snacks and of course my dog Lexi an American Water Spaniel who enjoys the truck ride and hanging out with me all day.
· Working on a ladder to reach the top part of the boat was slow going. I wonder what others have done to make this process go faster. In my case I dont have a lot of extra room on either side of the boat in the garage even with the boat parked close to the wall on the side I am not working on. Pro suggestions to make the ladder work go faster or some type of scaffolding?
· Working small sections at a time with tape as a visual guide to stay in the area proved to be very helpful and not get lost in where I was working.
· As I got to the second side of the boat I could tell I was moving faster and developed some process improvements in my techniques.
· Having purchased and read Mikes book ahead of time provided additional confidence for me. I was starting with a level of knowledge that prepared me to start the job with confidence.
· Overall I am extremely satisfied with the Marine 31 products and quality. The Marine 31 website, product descriptions and book provided an authoritative source of information to enable me to learn the knowledge to do this job myself.
Next steps
· I have one section left to remove oxidation and polish then I will begin the waxing process
· I will update with some additional pictures as I finish the job
Status: Junior Member
Join Date: Apr 2016
Location: North Texas
Posts: 4
Re: Crownline Express Cruiser Job
I finished the job and was able to get to a consistent finish new pictures are attached although it is cloudy. I hand waxed with Marine 31 Gel Coat Carnauba Wax + Sealant.
What is recommendation for the next wax job to prevent having to go through all of this again? Reading about the Marine 31 Captains Boat Coating with UV50, it appears it would be the best choice.
Status: Director of Training
Join Date: Apr 2013
Posts: 670
Re: Crownline Express Cruiser Job
The Captains Boat Coating will defiantly outlast a wax or sealant but in order to apply it you have to remove any previously applied wax, sealant or polishing oils from the compounds and polishes.
For this reason, the best way to go is to apply the coating after compounding and polishing. You can strip the polishing oils off using an APC or a dedicated surface prep product as there are now a few on the market.
Also you can use Mineral Spirits, a diluted version of IPA or Prep-Sol.
You could even wash the boat with a detergent wash like Dawn dishwashing soap.
The big picture is to remove any polishing oils left behind from the compounding and polishing steps so they don't interfere with the bonding of the coating to the gel-coat.
Now that you've waxed it, if you want to switch over to a coating you'll have to remove the wax and the way to do this best to ensure it's 100% removed is to re-polish the boat and then chemically strip the gel-coat.
You probably don't want to hear this but I cover all of this in my how-to book.
Made by boat people for boat people...
Status: Junior Member
Join Date: Apr 2016
Location: North Texas
Posts: 4
Re: Crownline Express Cruiser Job
Thanks Mike for the additional info. I had not read that section of the book yet but now will go back and review. I am very happy with the guidance in the book to get this point. It made a huge difference in the appearance of the vessel.
Status: Director of Training
Join Date: Apr 2013
Posts: 670
Re: Crownline Express Cruiser Job
Thanks Rob...
I found it a real challenge to write this book.
One thing about writing any "how-to" book is when you publish it you also are putting it out on the world market for peer review.
I'm happy to say that out of the 5 how-to books I've written I've never had anyone come to me and point to any page in any of the books and then say,
"Here! Right here.
You're wrong Mike"
It could happen, I'm only human but I take great care to make sure everything I write is accurate and works in the real world.
Made by boat people for boat people...
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More than two decades ago, Chick Huettel was serving in the Memphis Police Reserves when he joined forces with two others in the unit to produce the public TV show "Behind the Badge."
"It was an innovative show at the time," said Huettel. "We showed where crimes were taking place in town and what to be looking for."
The show was produced at Memphis State University and appeared on Public TV.
Huettel said it was so well received that the show earned a public service award in Tennessee.
The half-hour show ran four or five years, seven days a week.
When Huettel moved to Santa Rosa Beach, he joined the sheriff's auxiliary posse.
At this point in time, however, Huettel said he is getting too old to chase people, but thought another "Behind the Gold Badge" show would be helpful in this growing community. He approached 30A TV owner Paul Vizard eight months ago with the idea, then got the blessing of the sheriff and "Behind the Gold Star" was launched.
In production now for eight months, Huettel, in cooperation with Vizard and 30A TV has produced six "Behind the Gold Star" episodes. During the show, he interviews Walton County Sheriff's Office detectives, those who work in everything from rape crisis to community services.
For the show, the Walton County Sheriff's Office supplies information on where local crimes have been reported.
To help illustrate the various areas, Huettel and Vizard are preparing a large map to show where incidents have occurred throughout Walton County.
"It's in its early stages and eventually a viewer will be able to see exactly where, what kind of crime was committed, when crimes occur in their neighborhood and what to be on the lookout for. It will show areas where people need to be aware of burglaries or break-ins," said Huettel.
The show airs seven days a week around 3 or 4 p.m., and 7 p.m.
However, since there is not a local Public TV station, Huettel said they are dependent on sponsors and more are needed.
"We're not trying to make a profit, just air and make citizens aware," he said.
Contact Huettel through the Walton County Sheriff's Office or 30A TV.


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NEWARK, Del. - - Down by one goal at the half, the Wilmington University men's soccer team scored a later game-tying goal in the second half and Tommy Quaranta sent the Wildcats home with an overtime win, 4-3, defeating Nyack in Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference action on Saturday afternoon at the WU Athletics Complex.
Wearing pink uniforms for their annual Breast Cancer Awareness game in conjunction with the Delaware Breast Cancer Coalition, the Wildcats (4-6, 2-4 CACC) breathed life into their conference schedule and now have won two straight overall. Nyack remains with 10 points in the CACC with a 4-4-1 overall record in 3-1-1 in the conference. Nyack was ranked 10th in the East Region coming into today's contest.
Trailing 3-2 at the half, the Wildcats got a goal on a set corner piece as freshman Lance berry raised above everyone for his second goal of the season. Kresimir Nurnberger played a short corner to Ray Kuemmer at the corner of the penalty box. Kuemmer took little time with the ball as he one-timed it towards the far post where Berry got a head on the ball, fighting to get to it before the keeper for the tying goal in the 66th minute.
Quaranta had multiple opportunities late in regulation to put the Wildcats ahead once again, but could never find the proper footing to finish the ball, sending the game into overtime. The senior would more than make up for the missed opportunities in regulation with a dramatic finish in overtime.
Playing with a man down since the final 20 minutes of regulation, the Warriors came out in overtime and earned the first corner kick and shot of the extra period, but then it was all Wilmington from there on out.
Pedro Moreira almost won the match with a header off a corner, but the defender on the post headed the ball away as it got by the Nyack goaltender and heading for the net. A couple of shots by Berry and a pair of corners also flooded the Wildcats overtime period, but without a goal through the first nine minutes.
With 45 seconds remaining, Quaranta found himself staring at an open goal and the ball on his foot as Moreira made a solid run down the left side and into the penalty box. As the goalie came out to play Moreira, the sophomore passed off the ball to a wide open Quaranta who redirected the pass into the open net for the game-winner. The senior was then hounded and taken to the ground as the bench cleared and a dog pile in front of the home stands ensued.
The game-winner was Quaranta's second of the match and third of the season, ending the contest after 99:15 of action.
Nyack got on the board first, scoring in the eighth minute of action for the early lead. But the Wildcats responded quickly and often, scoring two goals in under a minute to take their first lead of the match.
Senior Justus Henry took a pass from Nurnberger outside the bow and took a shot over a drawn out goalkeeper, sneaking it under the crossbar for his second goal of the season. Not even a minute later, Quaranta challenged a Nyack pass back to Jodel Wright in goal and blocked his clearing attempt, sending the ball into the back of the net 10:55 into the match.
The Warriors came back and scored consecutive goals to retake the lead in the 33rd minute, heading into the halftime break with a 3-2 lead.
Spyros Stergiotis moved to 3-1 as a starter in goal for the Wildcats, making two saves on the day. Wright needed to make eight saves for the Warriors in the loss.
Wilmington outshot Nyack, 25-10, including a 15-3 mark in the second half. The Wildcats also took four shots to Nyack's one in the overtime period.
The Wildcats have a busy week next week, as they head to Felician for an untraditional goal on Monday afternoon. They also head to Millersville on Wednesday before returning home for a match against Concordia next Saturday. The match at Felician is set for a 4 p.m. start.


text:
room lit by candles
blinds are drawn shut and upwards
but i am not there
room lit by candles
blinds are drawn shut and upwards
but i am not there
giant shopping mall.
loudspeaker music.
half-price american dreams.
she spoke acid jazz.
i spoke wailing wallflower.
birds circled our heads.
Over the last 6 months, I've written roughly four hundred poems, and I feel like I've learned something (God, I hope I learned something; otherwise, I really have wasted a lot of time writing poetry.) I've seen lots of these tips on writing, and some of them are pure bullshit (i.e. "the timer method" or "write a villanelle today, and a sonnet tomorrow")
Let me tell you something, and please, if you disagree, let me know. The villanelle is DEAD. The sonnet is DEAD. Do you know who your audience is if you write one of these poems? Someone who is trying to get you to read their villanelle and/ or sonnet and/ or haiku. Haiku is great as catharsis. Don't get me wrong. Haikus can be lots of fun. But they're just small words.
No one wants to read your nature poem, unless your nature poem says something that's not been said about nature. Don't tell me about how nature's beauty fades. Robert Frost kind of owns that with "Nothing Gold Can Stay."
I don't want to hear how the clouds look like pillows in the sky. Or marshmallows. Even cigarette smoke has been said. Tell me the clouds look like albino mustard gas. Weird, huh? At least it's interesting.
Thou shall not speaketh like this. Poetry has to, has to, has to be honest, so unless you're Shakespeare who somehow caught a hold of a time machine, do not talk like Shakespeare. Talk like Jake, talk like Lucy. Poetry is not pretty words. Poetry is words that you think need to be said. That's about as terse as I can get. If no one cares what you have to say, then it's probably not poetry.
Which brings me to rhyming. Rhyming can be really great. Just know this: your job as a poet is to trick people into reading poetry. This is a general idea of what people think of when they think of poetry:
What sun rises on the east
Tis the eyes of lovers in love
What wretched soul bequeaths the beast
That crushes the soul of fragile little dove
It's cryptic. It's cliche. It's all naturey. I don't think I've ever used the word "bequeath" before. It's overdramatic, and to get back to my main point for now, it rhymes.
If you're gonna rhyme, you're taking on a bigger challenge. Plus-sides of rhyming: it can be catchy, it's is more musical, you can play with putting ideas into the words you rhyme (i.e. mate and hate (contrast or juxtaposition)) What you're not doing is thinking about who is going to read this. This is why people say poetry is dead. Poetry needs to become a part of its times. We get more real as a society, more honest. That's all we've ever done. We break down barriers, and I think when you write like a 16th century poet you lie to your reader. I admire rhyme. I wrote rhyme a long time, but if you want to be heard, talk (or yell) more like you do, and less like Francis McFancypants, Esq.
You have a rhythm. Everything you say has a rhythm. And believe it or not, it is a challenge to write the way you talk. To find the poetry in the words that press down on that god damn keyboard. Think about the way you type even. You type faster and slower. That's one of the reasons I'm an advocate for typing poems. It's rhythmic. It's like playing the alphabet piano. It helps. You find. Your internal rhythm. Your pace – your flow – the way you truly. Speak.
It's a bummer coming on here. Though there are some great poets on wordpress, tumblr, facebook, you have to filter through massive hills of shit to find them.
Read modern day poets. Go to a local poetry slam. Even better, don't find your poetry in poetry; find it in music, on billboards, in other people's words. I can't tell you how much poetry I hear people say everyday of my life. My sister the other day said "We are not infants in business suits, though…" in casual conversation, and I knew there was a poem there. That she meant more than just an obscure reference to an episode of Rugrats we watched when were little kids. It was amazing. It made my day.
More than anything – write. Write shitty poetry. Shitty poetry is warm up rounds for the good poems. Trust me. I can see the patterns in my books. Sometimes it takes a few tries to get at what you're getting at.
Also, before I misguide someone there, think less. If you try to be deep, you are going to sound like you're trying to be deep. I had this idea I written in my phone "Life is the murderer. Death is just waiting for you on the other side." I really like that thought, BUT it's too "profound". It needed to be humanized, rationalized, and a little bit bastardized. I ended up writing a poem on it, two months later, might I add, where it came out:
life. shit, man. life is your friend sometimes. death
is always waiting by the phone for you to call and
hear me, you. when life stabs you in the back. when
she sleeps with your best friend and turns off your
alarm so you're late for work. when life cancels your
insurance before driving your car into the first brick
wall she can find. when she strikes you with sodium
penethol (truth serum) just before your lifetime achievement
speech and calls your mom and tells her you murdered someone
and the cops catch on and they break into your house
in the middle of the night and arrest you for the crime
that life committed, hear you, me, brother. death will be
the friend who takes a taxi to the penitentiary to come
and bail your sorry ass out.
Be down to earth. Every poet is trying to become a god, when the whole point of poetry is to utilize it to become a human being. Consider your audience, and I don't just mean that in a high school English teacher way. I mean that in a "learn to empathize and sympathize and apathize with everyone, so you know how to speak to them" kind of way.
Write everyday. Bring a notebook with you. Send text messages of poem ideas to yourself. Write down advertisements you see. The other day, I was driving to work and on the radio, there came a flash flood warning, at one point the man on the radio said "Do Not Drown." Whoa. There's a poem there. Everyone can hear that flash flood warning in their head. They can hear the baseball announcer's voice; they can hear the preacher at the funeral; they can hear the preacher at the gospel church; they can hear the 1950's ad for Brillo pads; take advantage of your multiple personality disorder.
I have a lot more to say, but I'm gonna stop, thus marking this part one. Please leave me any questions or comments, and I will include good questions in my next post on the subject. In the mean time, I dare you to write who you are, and how you are. Write the whiskey that's burning through your liver, and write the spit that's stuck underneath your tongue.
P.S. I think this poem speaks to this subject a bit, too.


text:
Beekeeper Web Note
Beekeeper Note is internet based note for management and control
of your beehives.
If you register for free, you can manages your bee-gardens.
You can:
- create 9 apiaries (bee-gardens)
- add 100 beehives per each apiary
- you have visual board for every apiary.
You can easy view position and bee mother's year for
every beehive. Every Bee year have different color
- manage every beehive: beemother, type, honey produce
- you have reports section where add produced honey
- also and reviews section to save temporary state of beehive
The best Beekeeper Note!
Add link or banner in your site!


text:
Mario Sports Mix
Mario Sports Mix footage a'spolosion
Nintendo have launched a website for the upcoming Mario Sports Mix, which will presumably shift bazillions of units on release this week. Just see if you can keep your wallet in your pocket after watching this series of videos grabbed from the site.
Mario Sports Mix headlines
Nintendo planning Mario push for 2011
Nintendo's said it has a massive year planned for Mario in the UK.
Mario Sports Mix to reach Australia first
Nintendo has announced the Australian release date for the Square Enix-developed Mario Sports Mix, pipping the UK and US at the post by over a week for a January 27 launch.
3DS gameplay vids: Ocarina, Ridge Racer, Resi Evil, more
Boom. Japanese TV show MXTV has broadcast off-screen gameplay footage of some of the biggest 3DS games, including a decent look at the console's version of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.
Nintendo announces Mario Sports Mix
Nintendo has just announced Mario Sports mix.


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Really, is there a more appropriate follow-up to yesterday's featured theorem?
Last night young Quentin, age 4½, went to get some toilet paper to clean toothpaste out of the sink after brushing his teeth (because — get this — he likes to clean up after himself. I can hardly believe it.). As he pulled off a strip of TP, he suddenly held it against himself and got all excited: "This is as big as my belly!" I pointed out that his belly was three squares big, and asked how long his arm was. He measured, and exclaimed, "My arm is three squares long!" When he tried to measure his leg, it fell short so I suggested he might need one more square. He immediately went to the roll, counted off a strip four squares long, and held it against his leg. Yup, four squares worked.
The sink stayed dirty for a while after that while he went around measuring his hand (one square), our arms, etc. The nice thing about toilet paper is that he could take strips of various sizes and just pick the one that seemed best. His measurements weren't exact (I'm not going to hire him to build a bookcase, for example) but he did seem to have the basic idea of measurement and that's a topic that several K-6 teachers I've talked to say is the one that students need the most help with after number sense. (Speaking of which, Denise on Let's Play Math had a great post Tuesday about helping kids learn number sense.) And I think non-standard measurement is one of the NYS math standards. [Quick check — yup, it's 1.M.2, 1.M.11, 2.M.1, 2.M.10, and 3.M.10. I spent a while last year putting all the NYS math standards into Excel worksheets for easy searching and posted them here if anyone would find that useful.]
Thinking about blogging this, I googled "Toilet Paper Math" and found some other interesting ways to use toilet paper to do math. You can determine the least expensive choice of TP at the grocery store. You can fold it in half twelve times. You can find the thickness of a sheet of TP (although it seems like density — aka fluffiness — might make that inexact). You can calculate how much text you can print on a roll of toilet paper.
And finally, you can read about how Sir Roger Penrose sued the Kimberly Clark Corporation back in 1997 because one of the designs that was printed on Kleenex quilted toilet paper looked like Penrose tiles (see Wolfram's Mathworld or this more detailed summary from Professor Richard H. Stern's Computer Law Class at George Washington University.)
Update 5/10: I think these are the kinds of pictures that mbork was referring to below. In the first two examples the triangle has a right angle, but in the third the angle a bit larger.
Tags: measurement, nonstandard units, penrose, toilet paper


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The multiformat VocoPro DVD Duet Karaoke System is just what you need today with so many different disc formats available. VocoPro has combined the Duet, their best-sounding and best-selling 80W semi-pro system with their popular multiformat player, resulting in the new DVD-DUET. It's able to play almost any disc format. You'll be able to sing along with your collection of CD+G and VCD Karaoke CDs, MP3 compilations, or output DVDs to a video monitor. You can even do a slideshow of JPEG photos.
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Pretty in pink! An assorted collection of pink vases.
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Jilly Cup 3" W X 3" H
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Quote from: Crackbrick on May 4, 2011, 01:49 PMIs everything from the previous DVD releases included in this set?Impossible to say for sure without knowing the details of discs seven and eight, but given that Empire of Dreams and The Beginning aren't mentioned anywhere, I'm gonna guess no.
Is everything from the previous DVD releases included in this set?
Dear -----,Thank you for your recent e-mail. We are as excited as you about the release of the Star Wars Saga on Blu-ray Disc! It will be great to be able to watch them at home (or anywhere else for that matter) in high definition with high quality sound to match!While From Star Wars to Jedi: The Making of a Saga and Empire of Dreams won't be included with the BD set, there's a ton of previously unseen material that will featured on the bonus discs; the list the press release is only a top line, bird's eye view of the comprehensive materials that will be included, and isnt necessarily reflective of them in their entirety.Discs seven and eight, in particular, highlight a cornucopia of behind-the-scenes material and footage. Even though the vintage docs aren't included, those two discs alone are steeped in archival goodness.Thanks again for taking to time to write. May the Force be with you!ConniePublicity | Lucasfilm Ltd.
Complete Saga for $65.04 at DVDPlanetBy comparison, it's $89.99 at Amazon.
As teased last August, announced for pre-order at CES and elaborated upon a few months ago, Star Wars The Complete Saga Blu-ray promises to be the hot disc release of 2011 when it drops this September 16th (along with The Original Trilogy and The Prequel Trilogy configurations, something to suit every fan). All that remained--short of final copies for full, in-depth review of course, hint-hint--was a hands-on demo of these long-awaited discs. How would they look and sound? And would these mysterious new extras really live up to the hype?Well, at a private event in New York City last week, our friends at Lucasfilm and Fox pulled back the curtain all too briefly for an exciting peek at the Blu-rays as part of the 2011 Star Wars Media Day. Two clips were played (one from a classic film, one from a prequel) to demonstrate the quality of the brand-new 1080p/DTS-HD Master Audio 6.1 remasters, on a Panasonic plasma and over a Panasonic HTiB system. It was really just enough to whet our appetites (as if we weren't drooling enough already), but I am now very optimistic: the clips that we saw of films both of the original trilogy flavor and the newer prequels were stunning. Release of the older films in particular on Blu-ray will be a real challenge for Fox, owing to the limits of cinematic technology of the era, but Episodes II and III should have the potential to truly amaze.The Complete Saga will contain all six chapters, each with beautiful, elaborate menus designed around the theme of locations relevant to that film. There will also be "new" audio commentaries for all, edited together from archival material amassed over the years, these in addition to the current DVD commentaries. This mega-set will also include three exclusive Blu-rays: Disc Seven will focus specifically on the prequels, Disc Eight on the classic trilogy, while Disc Nine collects both new and vintage documentary material.The highlights will surely be the more than 40 deleted scenes spanning the saga (Tosche Station had better be in there!) and the home video debut of "A Conversation with the Masters" (about 20 minutes, in HD) featuring the last on-camera interview with late Empire Strike Back director Irvin Kershner, created for the 30th anniversary of that film last year. But "The Archive Collection" has us particularly intrigued, now that we've seen up close what it's really about. Imagine if George Lucas was the subject of a very special edition of Hoarders, since he has fastidiously held onto just about everything from every movie. And now we can venture into this rarified domain too, as props and more come alive via 360-degree flyarounds and painstakingly sharp zooms that look terrific on the big high-def screen. If that's not interactive enough, more than 100 HD mini-documentaries (two to five minutes each) are accessible along the way, boasting fascinating new creator interviews combined with behind-the-scenes footage. Apparently, no expense was spared to make these extras rock.The book-type packaging is absolutely gorgeous too (we can debate its practicality some other time), with bold images that might be familiar to fans of last year's coffee table book Star Wars: Visions. I tried to take some photos of it for the enjoyment of Big Picture Big Sound readers, but no lie, there were armed Clone Troopers roaming Media Day looking for uppity journalists trying to leak material early.
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Benchtop Analyzer Reagents - Glucose Reagent Kit F/glu Ana;3246322 : Each For use with ATAC* and Beckman SystemsBeckman Systems include: Benchtop, E2A*, E4A* and CX* analyzers Backed by support services, including a 24-hour technical assistance hotline and training seminars Vital Diagnostics No.:46010
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team4me necesitaba un nuevo diseño de papelería y lanzó un concurso de diseño en 99designs.
Un ganador ha sido elegido entre 38 diseños de 14 diseñadores freelance.
Need business card with logo for a national bakery distribution buying group. Logo and card to be classy, with a presitgious look.
We are a startup buying group, with a big business mentality. Growing quickly. We need a design/style that is professional and classy, but with an edge. Style is important to us. Be creative, but not too out there. We leave the inspiration for the style of our company's business cards (an extremely important part of our business) in your capable hands. We're open to varying styles, within reason for a professional corporate atmosphere.
The logo must be provided in a vector format so we can use it at various sizes.
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The Same Clay
According to a Hopi creation myth, the world was once nothing but water and dry land. The Sun, in his daily travels across the dry land, noticed that he had not seen a single living being. The Sun mentioned this observation to Hurúing Wuhti of the east and Hurúing Wuhti of the west, the deities of all hard substances, and they decided they would make a little bird. Hurúing Wuhti of the east made a wren out of clay and covered it with a piece of native cloth. The deities then sang a song over it and the wren came to life. They sent the wren to fly all over the earth to search for anything living, which it did. When the wren returned and reported that no living being existed anywhere, Hurúing Wuhti of the west shaped the clay to form all kinds of birds and placed these clay birds under the native cloth. The deities sang over the clay birds, bringing them to life, and they taught each of them what sounds they should make and sent them to populate the earth. Hurúing Wuhti of the west then shaped the clay to form all kinds of other animals and placed these clay animals under the native cloth. The deities sang over the clay animals, bringing them to life, and they taught them each what sounds they should make and sent them to populate the earth. Hurúing Wuhti of the east then shaped the clay to form a woman and a man and placed these people under the native cloth. The deities brought them to life with their song, and they taught them language and sent them to populate the earth.
I like this myth; in particular because it illustrates that despite the awesome diversity of the animals on our planet, we are all made of the same stuff and share many similarities. At first glance, we may be amazed by eels that resist eating prey fish who are providing a dental cleaning service (like the one on the left),
or by snakes that eat animals larger than their own heads and toads that save themselves from the jaws of death by puffing up their bodies even larger than the snake can handle (like the snake and toad battling it out on the right),
or by the elaborate displays of male birds in their attempts to woo females (like the golden pheasant below),
or by kangaroo moms that guard their toddler-like young in their own bodies (like the one on the right).
But at closer inspection, we realize that all of these animals are facing similar challenges: All animals are driven to eat and not be eaten, to stay healthy, to make babies, and to keep their babies alive. And animals have developed behavioral tools to achieve these goals, such as ways of finding or making food and a place to live, ways to defend these things, techniques for attracting the opposite sex, and parental methods. The details are extremely diverse across animal groups, but the ultimate goals and many of the strategies are common. And amazingly, the brain systems that regulate these behaviors are common too.
In a new synthesis of decades of research spanning the field of behavioral neuroscience, researchers Lauren O'Connell and Hans Hofmann from the University of Texas at Austin show that despite our impressive diversity, mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish are all molded from the same metaphorical clay. They specifically focus on two brain systems, often called the social behavior network and the mesolimbic reward system.
The social behavior network is a term first described in mammals by neuroscientist Sarah Newman to describe several brain regions that are all sensitive to steroid hormones (such as testosterone and estrogen), connect to each other, and are involved in many types of social behavior (including aggression, sexual behavior and parental behavior). We now know that reptiles, birds and fish also have brain areas that are similar in how they connect to one another and what neurotransmitters and other neurochemicals they use. More importantly, these brain areas seem to relate to the same types of social behaviors in similar ways.
The mesolimbic reward system is primarily a circuit of neurons that interact using the neurotransmitter dopamine. This neural circuit is central to how the brain controls motivation and a sense of desire and reward. This system is also involved in evaluating the importance of what is being perceived in order to behave accordingly. The mesolimbic reward system has been studied most in mammals, but birds, reptiles and fish are known to seek pleasure too and similar brain structures are likely involved.
O'Connell and Hofmann show that the social behavior network and mesolimbic reward system work together as a single social decision-making system. For example, if one animal comes onto the territory of another animal, the brain areas of these two systems will work together to determine if the interloper should be fought, courted, nurtured, or eaten. (Imagine the consequences of getting this decision wrong!) Although mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish have very different lifestyles and brains, most of the brain areas of this social decision-making system are present, identifiable, and most importantly, play similar roles in regulating social behavior across all these animal groups. In the end, we're not all so different after all.
Want to know more? Check these out:
1. O'Connell, L., & Hofmann, H. (2011). The Vertebrate mesolimbic reward system and social behavior network: A comparative synthesis The Journal of Comparative Neurology, 519 (18), 3599-3639 DOI: 10.1002/cne.22735
2. O'Connell, L., & Hofmann, H. (2011). Genes, hormones, and circuits: An integrative approach to study the evolution of social behavior Frontiers in Neuroendocrinology, 32 (3), 320-335 DOI: 10.1016/j.yfrne.2010.12.004


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Will Venable homered and hit a bases-loaded triple for the San Diego Padres, who rebounded from a dreadful six-game trip to win their home opener 9-3 against the rival Los Angeles Dodgers on Tuesday at reconfigured Petco Park.
Venable tied his career-high with four RBIs. He homered in the first and his two-out triple highlighted a five-run eighth against three Dodgers relievers. The Padres sent 11 batters to the plate that inning, five of whom walked.
Nick Hundley also homered off Josh Beckett for the Padres, who were outhomered 10-1 and outscored 40-14 in going 1-5 in a swing through New York and Colorado.
Venable's homer in the first landed in the first row behind the Jack Daniel's Old No. 7 Deck on top of Petco Park's new right-field fence, which was brought in 11 feet. It would have been a homer under the old configuration.
Hundley homered leading off the fifth off the facade of the balcony on the second level of the Western Metal Supply Co. brick warehouse in the left-field corner.
Juan Uribe of the Dodgers was the first player to benefit from the closer fences. He hit a two-run shot that landed on top of the new fence in the fourth, tying the game at 2. Adrian Gonzalez was aboard on a leadoff single.
The Padres spent between $2.5 million and $3.5 million to bring in the fences from the home run porch in the right-field corner to the right-center gap, and in left-center, in an attempt to make the spacious downtown park play a little fairer.
After Venable homered, Yonder Alonso doubled to right-center with two outs in the first and scored on rookie Jedd Gyorko's single.
Hundley's homer gave San Diego a 3-2 lead.
The Dodgers tied it in the seventh when Carl Crawford hit a leadoff single against Andrew Cashner, advanced on two groundouts and scored on Adrian Gonzalez's single.
San Diego regained the lead in the bottom half on pinch-hitter Mark Kotsay's RBI double. Cameron Maybin reached on a leadoff infield single and was sacrificed along by Hundley, setting up Kotsay.
Venable was intentionally walked with two outs to get to Carlos Quentin, who was hit on the right wrist by a pitch from Ronald Belisario (0-1).
Quentin, who's been slow to recover after offseason surgery on his right knee, immediately signaled for trainer Todd Hutcheson. After speaking for a few minutes with Hutcheson and manager Bud Black, Quentin came out. Yonder Alonso flied out to right to end the threat.
Luke Gregerson (1-0) got the last out of the seventh, the only batter he faced, for the win.
Beckett allowed three runs and six hits in five innings, struck out four and walked one. Padres starter Clayton Richard also went five, allowing two runs and eight hits, with three strikeouts and three walks.
NOTES: Black used Eric Stults, who's scheduled to start Wednesday night, to pinch-hit for Richard in the fifth. Stults flied out. Black used Tyson Ross, who's scheduled to start Friday against Colorado, to pinch-run for Quentin in the in the seventh. ... Padres 3B Chase Headley, who broke his left thumb in a spring game, hit balls off a tee and in soft toss, and took grounders. Black says there's no ETA for the return of Headley, whose breakout season of 2012 included 31 homers, an NL-high 115 RBIS, plus his first Gold Glove and Silver Slugger awards. Black said Headley probably will go on a rehab assignment before being activated. "It's healing like it's supposed to," Headley said. "It feels good. They said that I can do as much or little as I want without pain." ... With the fences in right and right-center moved in, Black thinks Petco Park will surrender a total of 20 to 30 more homers this year. ... TaylorMade, which erected an 80-foot replica of a driver shaft along the right-field foul pole at in 2011 as part of a three-year sponsorship agreement with the Padres, has updated the graphics to a RocketBallz Stage 2 3-wood.


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In the winter of 1969, the Neiman Marcus Christmas catalog offered to computerize your kitchen.
Cooking up a gourmet holiday meal will be a snap, the department store promised. Push a few buttons, and – presto! – a shiny orange-red, white, and black machine will compute the perfect five-course meal. No more silly culinary errors. The days of your wife slaving away in her Chanel apron will vanish into memory, and all those blinking lights will add to your holiday cheer.
All you needed was space for this 100-pound machine. And about $10,000. And a teletype. And a paper tape reader. And some serious engineering skills.
Needless to say, Neiman Marcus' male-topian fantasy never materialized. The department store didn't sell a single Honeywell Kitchen Computer, and it may never have intended to. The ad was no more than a publicity stunt, just like the store's ads for your very own Noah's Ark and His-and-Hers airplanes in Christmas catalogs past.
The computer did exist. It was based on one of the Series 16 minicomputers from Honeywell, an early computer maker that would later help power the Arpanet, the forerunner to the modern internet. It's just that this machine didn't quite live up to the image of the modern computer that so often turned up in the popular imagination in the late '60s and '70s. It's a bit like the talking Honeywell that appeared two years earlier in the Michael Caine spy flick The Billion Dollar Brain.
The Neiman Marcus ad was "a brilliant idea" and "wonderful publicity," says Gardner Hendrie, who served as program manager for the Honeywell machine at the heart of the Kitchen Computer and is now a trustee of the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California. "But I thought the packaging was probably a waste of time and wouldn't sell."
The Honeywell Kitchen Computer was really a 16-bit business machine called the H316 minicomputer. The H316 was available as a table-top machine or a machine you could mount on a rack, but the Kitchen Computer was based on a version that was shoehorned into a futuristic, Jetsons-like pedestal. People did actually buy this machine, but not very many people.
"I don't think it was a very popular style. Ninety-five percent of people wanted to build it into a [larger] system.... They were sticking them in racks," says Dag Spicer, curator of the Computer History Museum, which is home to the only Kitchen Computer in existence. "The people buying these are engineers. They don't care what it looks like."
What they cared about were machines that could manage industrial, military, aerospace, research, and scientific projects – not sleek ines and a built-in writing desk. They wanted a minicomputer that could connect to a teletype and a paper tape reader.
An engineer would type a program in human-readable form, and the teletype would spit out the program on paper tape, translating the code into a series of punched holes and spaces. The paper tape reader could then read the holes and spaces as ones and zeros. The paper tape was "like a floppy disk, circa 1960. It's a personal means of data storage," Spicer says.
Without a teletype, a programmer would need to enter software into the Honeywell using the 16 buttons on the front panel, each of which corresponds to a bit. A pressed button represented a one, and un-pushed button signaled a zero. "The chances that you would get a program right doing it one bit at a time like that were so low," Spicer said. "The first peripheral people bought for [the Honeywell] was a teletype so they could speak to it."
Now try to imagine all that in late 1960s kitchen. A full H316 system wouldn't have fit in most kitchens, says design historian Paul Atkinson of Britain's Sheffield Halam University. Plus, it would have looked entirely out of place. The thought that an average person, like a housewife, could have used it to streamline chores like cooking or bookkeeping was ridiculous, even if she aced the two-week programming course included in the $10,600 price tag.
If the lady of the house wanted to build her family's dinner around broccoli, she'd have to code in the green veggie as 0001101000. The kitchen computer would then suggest foods to pair with broccoli from its database by "speaking" its recommendations as a series of flashing lights. Think of a primitive version of KITT, without the sexy voice.
"What that means is you have to be able to decode the lights in your brain," says Spicer of the Computer History Museum. Or at least remember the pattern and look up what it meant. At that rate, dinner might be ready next week. "The reason this is such a joke, a gag item, was that there was no real human-readable I/O [input/output] for it."
It may not have worked in a practical sense, but at least it got people thinking about computers as consumer products. The concept of kitchen and home computers had already been circulating in popular culture by the time Neiman Marcus' kitchen computer graced its Christmas catalog. In The Jetsons, which aired in the early 1960s, humans lived in a tech-happy world alongside robots and computers. In 1966, Westinghouse Corporation engineer Jim Sutherland built the Electronic Computing Home Operator (ECHO IV) to automate storing recipes, controlling home temperature, keeping track of household inventory, and conserving energy.
A year later, Philco-Ford Corporation released A.D. 1999, a short film that portrayed what life would be like at the end of the century. A scene in the kitchen of the future shows a family teleconferencing while mom plans dinner with the help of a flat-screen computer that knows how many calories dad is allowed to have. And after seeing the Neiman Marcus Kitchen Computer, Gordon Bell of Digital Equipment Corporation, a leading company in the minicomputer industry, sent out a congeries on the computer-in-the-home market in which he called the trend "inevitable." And he was right.
The dedicated kitchen computer never quite happened. Since the Honeywell, there have been several attempts to revive the idea, like Electrolux's Screenfridge and the HP Touch Smart, but none have really caught on. "In a way, the technology is in search of a problem," said Spicer. "There is just this persistent meme of having computers in the kitchen, and somehow that's going to create more leisure time."
That said, this holiday season, so many of you will cook our meals with the help of iPads and laptops and smartphones, as you told us just last week. They're smaller than the Honeywell. They're cheaper. They don't require a teletype. They're not attached to your fridge. And you can take them outside the kitchen and use them for so many other things. Sometimes the future isn't what a catalog tells us it will be. Sometimes, it's better.


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Inventing "Eco-Arthistory"
Location: Hynson Lounge
CHESTERTOWN, MD—University of California-Berkeley professor Gregory Levine will talk about the role of art historians in responding to ecological collapse when he lectures at Washington College on Thursday, April 11. His talk, "Silenced by Aesthetics? A Tentative Poetics of Art History and Ecology," will take place at 7:30 p.m. in Hynson Lounge, Hodson Hall, on campus.
Among the questions he will address are: How might art history contribute to ecological thinking, perhaps in ways that the natural sciences cannot? Should we make "art objects" "ecological subjects"? What would "eco-arthistory" look like?
Levine teaches the art and architecture of Japan and Buddhist visual cultures in U.C. Berkeley's Department of the History of Art. He co-teaches a seminar on "Socially Engaged Art and the Future of the Public University." A recipient of both a Guggenheim and a Fulbright Hayes Fellowship, he has edited or contributed chapters to numerous books and journals. His book Daitokuji: The Visual Cultures of a Zen Monastery was a 2007 finalist for the Charles Rufus Morey Prize for distinguished books in art history.
The April 11 talk is co-sponsored by the Department of Art and Art History and the Center for Environment and Society.


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This week, March 21-26, Iowa State University Extension is celebrating Extension Week. Check out their website for activities taking place on campus and throughout the state, such as here in Story County.
Perry Holden in the fields at Iowa State in 1905, one year before he was appointed first director of the Agricultural and Home Economics Extension Service
The Extension Service first began here at Iowa State, even before a national extension program was established. As a land grant college, one of Iowa State's founding principles was that higher education should be accessible to all. In the 19th and early 20th century, the Extension Service grew out of early activities such as Iowa State's short courses for farmers and Perry Holden's corn train. These were created from the need and desire to bring the ideas and research here at Iowa State out to the citizens of Iowa.
In 1906 the Iowa General Assembly appropriated funds to create a Department of Extension at Iowa State College. The National Cooperative Extension Program was a result of the Smith-Lever Act (passed in 1914), which brought together the federal government, the states, and participating county governments as partners in a three-tiered organization to serve the nation's farm population.
Holden presenting during one of his corn train classes in a train's passenger car. Holden's short courses on corn were so popular that he decided to bring the course to farmers instead of having them flock to the Iowa State campus – and he did this on trains, nonetheless!
To learn more about the history of the Extension Service, take a look at a video we recently uploaded to our YouTube channel. The video, Extension Heritage: Commemorating 50 Years of Extension Work in Iowa, was made in 1956 to celebrate Extension's 50 year anniversary. The video includes reminiscences of one of the founders of the Extension Service, Iowa State Professor Perry Holden.
Holden laid the groundwork for the Extension Service (first called the Agricultural and Home Economics Extension Service), and was appointed its first director in 1906. In the video, Holden tells about giving 50 speeches in 3 days on his "corn train." Holden also reminisces about these courses with a reverend who was on one of the trains on which Holden spoke. Among a variety of other topics, they discuss early extension work and past and future problems agriculture would face.
The video was made in a different documentary style than we may be used to now, but it contains interesting conversations and bits of history throughout:
We have a variety of collections here at Iowa State documenting the history of Extension, such as the Iowa State University Extension Service Records. Other Extension related records and papers are listed here on our website. The collections listed include our Perry G. Holden Papers.


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Wednesday, June 19, 2013
2013 Italian National Championships, Men's Road Race
The road race for the men's Italian national championship will be held this Saturday, June 22nd, under the banner of the 22° TROFEO MELINDA . It will be a very tough 229 km race with a nary a flat section from Malè (Val di Sole) to Fondo (Val di Non); the final circuit of 30.5 km will be ridden four times. The finish is Fondo in expected at about 1645.
Franco Pellizotti is the defending champion and one of the favorites. Moreno Moser is another favorite but both Pellizotti and Moser will have to overcome the Lampre-Merida block of Michele Scarponi, Diego Ulissi, Filippo Pozzato and Damiano Cunego. Outside favorites are Ivan Basso and Domenico Pozzovivo. Three time champion Giovanni Visconti will not race due to injuries from a crash in the Tour of Switzerland.
Follow on Twitter: ITALIANCYCJOURN or receive an email when new content is added using the "Follow by Email" button on the right side column. With more than 2,900 stories in this blog the custom search feature (right column) works best for finding subjects in the blog. There is also a translate button underneath the search button.
Stories for the Italian Cycling Journal about rides, granfondos, touring, having a good time cycling in Italy, Italian cycling history, racing, etc. are always welcome. Contact me at firstname.lastname@example.com.
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13 October, 2010
the first u2 gig of my lifeThese days after the show in Rome, I remember the first night with my 4 best friends... It was 17 years ago.... unforgettable. October 8, 2010 I was there! "Bad" + "All I want is you" ... what a beautiful moment... my "Proust's madeleins"!


text: Friday, June 24, 2011 Deadlines Approach for Specialist Certification Applications The deadline to submit applications for specialist certification in Cardiovascular & Pulmonary, Clinical Electrophysiology, and Women's Health is July 1. Application forms and information are available at www.abpts.org. For additional information, contact the Specialist Certification Program at 800/999-2782, ext 8520, or email@example.com. Applications for specialist certification in Geriatrics, Neurology, Orthopaedics, Pediatrics, and Sports are due July 31. Physical therapists who successfully achieve board certification in 2012 will be recognized at APTA's 2013 Combined Sections Meeting in Nashville, Tennessee. Comments When will the applications for the Sports Board certifications be avaialble for 2013? I only see the 2012 applications, and it looks like the 2013 applications are due July 1st (next month), very soon....Can you please direct me or send me a current application? Thank you. Posted by Mimi Racicot on 6/5/2012 1:07 PM


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111 Sussex Street, Sydney NSW 2000http://www.merivale.com
Slip Inn to Winter
If you're a lover of free drinks and food with a party atmosphere then you'll probably love this event. Merivale always seem to know how to put on a party and with free flowing drinks it'll surely help the crowd relax and unwind. Apparently the garden will be transformed into a Winter Wonderland and there'll be a spit roast to fill the bellies with what I hope will include pork crackling.
When: From 5:30 pm
Complimentary drinks from 5:30 pm - 7 pm & Spit Roast.
Other free events at Slip Inn:
• 18 Nov 2010 -
Slip Inn to Summer
• 12 Nov 2010 - Slip Inn to Summer (promotion)
• 23 June 2010 - End of Financial Year Drinks (promotion)
• 10 June 2010 - Winter Wonderland
• 3 June 2010 - Winter Wonderland (promotion)
• 27 May 2010 - Singha Beer Full Moon Party
• 11 Feb 2010 - Anti Valentine's Day Party
• 11 Feb 2010 - Anti Valentine's Day Party
PROS: Free drinks, spit roast, music and party atmosphere
CONS: Wet weather permitting, It's a Thursday
MUST TRY: Checking it out as early as possible before it gets too crowded
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Quick C#
Desktop-as-a-Service Designed for Any Cloud ? Nutanix Frame
C# is a language with the features of C++, programming style like Java, and the rapid application model of Basic. If you already know the C++ language, it will take you less than an hour to quickly go through the syntax of C#. Familiarity with Java will be a plus because the Java program structure, the concept of packages, and garbage collection will definitely help you learn C# more quickly. So while discussing C# language constructs, I will assume that you know C++.
This article dicusses the C# language constructs and features, using code examples in a brief and comrehensive way so that you can, just by having a glance at the code, understand the concepts.
The following topics of the C# langauge are discussed:
- Program Structure
- Namespaces
- Data Types
- Variables
- Operators and Expressions
- Enumerations
- Statements
- Classes and Structs
- Modifiers
- Properties
- Interfaces
- Function Parameters
- Arrays
- Indexers
- Boxing and Unboxing
- Delegates
- Inheritance and Polymorphism
The following topics are not discussed:
- Things that are common in C++ and C#
- Concepts such as garbage collection, threading, file processing, and so forth
- Data type conversions
- Exception handling
- .NET library
Program Structure
Like C++, C# is case-sensitive. The semicolon, ;, is the statement separator. Unlike C++, there are no separate declaration (header) and implementation(cpp) files in C#. All code (class declaration and implementation) is placed in one file with a cs extention.
Have a look at this Hello world program in C#.
using System; namespace MyNameSpace { class HelloWorld { static void Main(string[] args) { Console.WriteLine ("Hello World"); } } }
Everything in C# is packed into a class and classes in C# are packed into namespaces (just like files in a folder). Like C++, a main method is the entry point of your program. C++'s main function is called "main", whereas C#'s main function starts with a capital M and is named "Main".
There is no need to put a semicolon after a class block or struct definition. It was required in C++, but not in C#.
Every class is packaged into a namespace. Namespaces are exactly the same concept as in C++, but in C# we use namespaces more frequently than in C++. You can access a class in a namespace using dot . qualifier. MyNameSpace is the namespace in the hello world program above.
Now, consider that you want to access the HelloWorld class from some other class in some other namespace.
using System; namespace AnotherNameSpace { class AnotherClass { public void Func() { Console.WriteLine ("Hello World"); } } }
Now, from your HelloWorld class, you can access it as:
using System;
using AnotherNameSpace; // you will add this using statement
namespace MyNameSpace
class HelloWorld
static void Main(string[] args)
AnotherClass obj = new AnotherClass();
In the .NET library, System is the top-level namespace in which other namespaces exist. By default, there exists a global namespace, so a class defined outside a namespace goes directly into this global namespace; hence, you can access this class without any qualifier.
you can also define nested namespaces.
The #include directive is replaced with the "using" keyword, which is followed by a namespace name. Just as in "using System", above. "System" is the base-level namespace in which all other namespaces and classes are packed. The base class for all object is Object in the System namespace.
Variables in C# are almost the same as in C++, except for these differences:
- Variables in C# (unlike C++) always need to be initialized before you access them; otherwise, you will get a compile time error. Hence, it's impossible to access an uninitialized variable.
- You can't access a .dangling. pointer in C#.
- An expression that indexes an array beyond its bounds is also not accessible.
- There are no global variables or functions in C# and the behavior of globals is acheived through static functions and static variables.
Data Types
All types of C# are derived from a base-class object. There are two types of data types:
- Basic/Built-in types
- User-defined types
Following is a table that lists built-in C# types:
|unsigned byte
|signed byte
|signed short
|unsigned short
|signed integer
|unsigned integer
|signed long
|unsigned long
|floating point number
|double precision number
|fixed precision number
|unicode string
|unicode char
|true, false
Note: Type range in C# and C++ are different; for example, long in C++ is 4 bytes, and in C# it is 8 bytes. Also, the bool type and string types are different than those in C++. Bool accepts only true and false and not any integer.
User-defined types include:
- Classes
- Structs
- Interfaces
Memory allocation of the data types divides them into two types:
- Value Types
- Reference Types
Value types
Value types are those data types that are allocated in the stack. They include:
- All basic or built-in types except strings
- Structs
- Enum types
Reference type
Reference types are allocated on the heap and are garbage collected when they are no longer being used. They are created using the new operator, and there is no delete operator for these types, unlike in C++, where the user has to explicitely delete the types created using the delete operator. In C#, they are automatically collected by the garbage collector.
Reference types include:
- Classes
- Interfaces
- Collection types such as arrays
- String
Enumerations in C# are exactly like C++. They are defined through a enum keyword.
enum Weekdays { Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday }
Classes and Structs
Classes and structs are same as in C++, except in the difference of their memory allocation. Objects of classes are allocated in the heap, and are created using new, where as structs are allocated in the stack. Structs in C# are very light and fast datatypes. For heavy datatypes, you should create classes.
struct Date { int day; int month; int year; } class Date { int day; int month; int year; string weekday; string monthName; public int GetDay() { return day; } public int GetMonth() { return month; } public int GetYear() { return year; } public void SetDay(int Day) { day = Day ; } public void SetMonth(int Month) { month = Month; } public void SetYear(int Year) { year = Year; } public bool IsLeapYear() { return (year/4 == 0); } public void SetDate (int day, int month, int year) { } ... }
If you familiar with the object-oriented way of C++, you must have an idea of properties. Properties in the above example of the Date class are day, month, and year for which in C++, you write Get and Set methods. C# provides a more convinient, simple, and straightforward way of accessing properties.
So, the above class can be written as:
using System; class Date { public int Day{ get { return day; } set { day = value; } } int day; public int Month{ get { return month; } set { month = value; } } int month; public int Year{ get { return year; } set { year = value; } } int year; public bool IsLeapYear(int year) { return year%4== 0 ? true: false; } public void SetDate (int day, int month, int year) { this.day = day; this.month = month; this.year = year; } }
Here is the way you will get and set these properties:
class User { public static void Main() { Date date = new Date(); date.Day = 27; date.Month = 6; date.Year = 2003; Console.WriteLine("Date: {0}/{1}/{2}", date.Day, date.Month, date.Year); } }
You must be aware of public, private, and protected modifers that are commonly used in C++. Here, I will discuss some new modifiers introduced by C#.
The readonly modifier is used only for the class data members. As the name indicates, the readonly data members can only be read once they are written either directly initializing them or assigning values to them in constructor. The difference between the readonly and const data members is that const requires you to initialize with the declaration, that is directly. See this example code:
class MyClass { const int constInt = 100; //directly readonly int myInt = 5; //directly readonly int myInt2; public MyClass() { myInt2 = 8; //Indirectly } public Func() { myInt = 7; //Illegal Console.WriteLine(myInt2.ToString()); } }
the sealed modifier with a class doesn't let you derive any class from it. So, you use this sealed keyword for the classes that you don't want to be inherited from.
sealed class CanNotbeTheParent { int a = 5; }
You can define an unsafe context in C# by using an unsafe modifier. In the unsafe context, you can write an unsafe code; for example, C++ pointers and so forth. See the following code:
public unsafe MyFunction( int * pInt, double* pDouble) { int* pAnotherInt = new int; *pAnotherInt = 10; pInt = pAnotherInt; ... *pDouble = 8.9; }
If you have an idea of the COM, you will immediately know what I am talking about. An interface is the abstract base class containing only the function signatures whose implementation is provided by the child class. In C#, you define such classes as interfaces using the interface keyword. .NET is based on such interfaces. In C#, where you can't use multiple class inheritance, which was previously allowed in C++, the essence of multiple inheritance is acheived through interfaces. That's how your child class may implement multiple interfaces.
using System; interface myDrawing { int originx { get; set; } int originy { get; set; } void Draw(object shape); } class Shape: myDrawing { int OriX; int OriY; public int originx { get{ return OriX; } set{ OriX = value; } } public int originy { get{ return OriY; } set{ OriY = value; } } public void Draw(object shape) { ... // do something } // class's own method public void MoveShape(int newX, int newY) { ..... } }
Arrays in C# are much better than in C++. Arrays are allocated in the heap and thus are of the reference type. You can't access an out-of-bound element in an array. So, C# prevents you from that type of bug. Also, some helper functions to iterate array elements are provided. foreach is the statement for such an iteration. The difference between the syntax of the C++ and C# array is:
- The square brackets are placed after the type and not after the variable name.
- You create element locations using new operator.
C# supports single dimensional, multi dimensional, and jagged array (array of an array).
int[] array = new int[10]; // single-dimensional // array of int for (int i = 0; i < array.Length; i++) array[i] = i; int[,] array2 = new int[5,10]; // 2-dimensional array // of int array2[1,2] = 5; int[,,] array3 = new int[5,10,5]; // 3-dimensional array // of int array3[0,2,4] = 9; int[][] arrayOfarray = = new int[2]; // Jagged array - // array of array of // int arrayOfarray[0] = new int[4]; arrayOfarray[0] = new int[] {1,2,15};
An indexer is used to write a method to access an element from a collection using the straight way of using [], like an array. All you need is to specify the index to access an instance or element. The syntax of an indexer is same as that of class properties, except they take the input parameter, that is the index of the element.
Note: CollectionBase is the library class used for making collections. List is the protected member of CollectionBase, which stores the collection list.
class Shapes: CollectionBase
public void add(Shape shp)
public Shape this[int index]
get {
return (Shape) List[index];
set {
List[index] = value ;
The idea of boxing is new in C#. As mentioned above, all data types, built-in or user defined, are derived from a base class object in the System namespace. So, the packing of basic or primitive types into an object is called boxing, whereas the reverse of this known as unboxing.
class Test { static void Main() { int myInt = 12; object obj = myInt ; // boxing int myInt2 = (int) obj; // unboxing } }
The example shows both boxing and unboxing. An
int value can be converted to an object and back again to an int. When a variable of a value type needs to be converted to a reference type, an object box is allocated to hold the value, and the value is copied into the box. Unboxing is just the opposite. When an object box is cast back to its original value type, the value is copied out of the box and into the appropriate storage location.
Function Parameters
Parameters in C# are of three types:
- By-Value/In parameters
- By-Reference/In-Out parameters
- Out pParameters
If you have an idea of the COM interface and its parameters types, you will easily understand the C# parameter types.
By-Value/In parameters
The concept of value parameters is the same as in C++. The value of the passed value is copied into a location and is passed to the function.
SetDay(5); ... void SetDay(int day) { .... }
By-Reference/In-Out Parameters
The reference parameters in C++ are passed either through pointers or a reference operator, &. In C#, reference parameters are less error prone. Reference parameters are also called In-Out parameters because you pass a reference address of the location, so you pass an input value and get an output value from that function.
You cannot pass an uninitialized reference parameter into a function. C# uses a keyword ref for the reference parameters. You also have to use keyword ref with an argument while passing it to a function-demanding reference parameter.
int a= 5; FunctionA(ref a); // use ref with argument or you will // get a compiler error Console.WriteLine(a); // prints 20 void FunctionA(ref int Val) { int x= Val; Val = x* 4; }
Out parameter
The Out parameter is the parameter that only returns a value from the function. The input value is not required. C# uses the keyword out for the out parameters
int Val; GetNodeValue(Val); bool GetNodeValue(out int Val) { Val = value; return true; }
Variable number of parameters and arrays
Arrays in C# are passed through a keyword params. An array-type parameter should always be the right-most argument of the function. Only one parameter can be of the array type. You can pass any number of elements as an argument of type of that array. You can better understand it from the following example.
void Func(params int[] array) { Console.WriteLine("number of elements {0}", array.Length); } Func(); // prints 0 Func(5); // prints 1 Func(7,9); // prints 2 Func(new int[] {3,8,10}); // prints 3 int[] array = new int[8] {1,3,4,5,5,6,7,5}; Func(array); // prints 8
Operators and Expressions
Operators are exactly the same as om C++ and thus the expression, also. However, some new and useful operators have been added. Some of them are discussed here.
is operator
The is operator is used to check whether the operand types are equal or convertable. The is operator is particularly useful in the polymorphism scenarios. The is operator takes two operands and the result is a boolean. See the example:
void function(object param) { if(param is ClassA) //do something else if(param is MyStruct) //do something } }
as operator
The as operator checks whether the type of the operands are convertable or equal (as is done by is operator) and if it is, the result is a converted or boxed object (if the operand can be boxed into the target type, see boxing/unboxing). If the objects are not convertable or boxable, the return is a null. Have a look at the example below to better understand the concept.
Shape shp = new Shape(); Vehicle veh = shp as Vehicle; // result is null, types are not // convertable Circle cir = new Circle(); Shape shp = cir; Circle cir2 = shp as Circle; //will be converted object[] objects = new object[2]; objects[0] = "Aisha"; object[1] = new Shape(); string str; for(int i=0; i&< objects.Length; i++) { str = objects[i] as string; if(str == null) Console.WriteLine("can not be converted"); else Console.WriteLine("{0}",str); } Output: Aisha can not be converted
Statements in C# are just like in C++ except some additions of new statements and modifications in some statements.
The following are new statements:
For iteration of collections, such as arrays, and so forth.
foreach (string s in array) Console.WriteLine(s);
Used in threads for locking a block of code, making it a critical section.
The statements are for overflow checking in numeric operations.
int x = Int32.MaxValue; x++; // Overflow checked { x++; // Exception } unchecked { x++; // Overflow} }
The following statements are modified:
The Switch statement is modified in C#.
- Now, after executing a case statement, program flow cannot jump to the next case, which was previously allowed in C++.
int var = 100; switch (var) { case 100: Console.WriteLine("<Value is 100>"); // No break here case 200: Console.WriteLine("<Value is 200>"); break; } Output in C++: <Value is 100><Value is 200>
In C#, you get a compile time error:
error CS0163: Control cannot fall through from one case label ('case 100:') to another
- However, you can do this similarly to the way you do it in C++:
switch (var) { case 100: case 200: Console.WriteLine("100 or 200<VALUE is 200>"); break; }
- You also can use constant variables for case values:
const string WeekEnd = "Sunday"; const string WeekDay1 = "Monday"; .... string WeekDay = Console.ReadLine(); switch (WeekDay ) { case WeekEnd: Console.WriteLine("It's weekend!!"); break; case WeekDay1: Console.WriteLine("It's Monday"); break; }
Delegates let us store function references into a variable. In C++, this is like using and storing a function pointer for which we usually use typedef.
Delegates are declared using a keyword delegate. Have a look at this example, and you will understand what delegates are:
delegate int Operation(int val1, int val2); public int Add(int val1, int val2) { return val1 + val2; } public int Subtract (int val1, int val2) { return val1- val2; } public void Perform() { Operation Oper; Console.WriteLine("Enter + or - "); string optor = Console.ReadLine(); Console.WriteLine("Enter 2 operands"); string opnd1 = Console.ReadLine(); string opnd2 = Console.ReadLine(); int val1 = Convert.ToInt32 (opnd1); int val2 = Convert.ToInt32 (opnd2); if (optor == "+") Oper = new Operation(Add); else Oper = new Operation(Subtract); Console.WriteLine(" Result = {0}", Oper(val1, val2)); }
Inheritance and Polymorphism
Only single inheritance is allowed in C#. Mutiple inheritance can be acheived by using interfaces.
class Parent{ } class Child : Parent
Virtual Functions
Virtual functions implement the concept of polymorphism are the same as in C#, except that you use the override keyword with the virtual function implementaion in the child class. The parent class uses the same virtual keyword. Every class that overrides the virtual method will use the override keyword.
class Shape { public virtual void Draw() { Console.WriteLine("Shape.Draw") ; } } class Rectangle : Shape { public override void Draw() { Console.WriteLine("Rectangle.Draw"); } } class Square : Rectangle { public override void Draw() { Console.WriteLine("Square.Draw"); } } class MainClass { static void Main(string[] args) { Shape[] shp = new Shape[3]; Rectangle rect = new Rectangle(); shp[0] = new Shape(); shp[1] = rect; shp[2] = new Square(); shp[0].Draw(); shp[1].Draw(); shp[2].Draw(); } } Output: Shape.Draw Rectangle.Draw Square.Draw
Hiding parent functions using "new"
You can define in a child class a new version of a function, hiding the one which is in base class. A new keyword is used to define a new version. Consider the example below, which is a modified version of the above example and note the output this time, when I replace the override keyword with a new keyword in the Rectangle class.
class Shape
public virtual void Draw()
Console.WriteLine("Shape.Draw") ;
class Rectangle : Shape
public new void Draw()
class Square : Rectangle
//wouldn't let you override it here
public new void Draw()
class MainClass
static void Main(string[] args)
Console.WriteLine("Using Polymorphism:");
Shape[] shp = new Shape[3];
Rectangle rect = new Rectangle();
shp[0] = new Shape();
shp[1] = rect;
shp[2] = new Square();
Console.WriteLine("Using without Polymorphism:");
Square sqr = new Square();
Using Polymorphism
Using without Polymorphism:
The polymorphism doesn't take the Rectangle class's Draw method as a polymorphic form of the Shape's Draw method. Instead, it considers it a different method. So, to avoid the naming conflict between parent and child, we have used the new modifier.
Note: You cannot use the two version of a method in the same class, one with new modifier and other with override or virtual. As in the above example, I cannot add another method named Draw in the Rectangle class which is a virtual or override method. Also, in the Square class, I can't override the virtual Draw method of the Shape class.
Calling base class members
If the child class has the data members with same name as that of base class, to avoid naming conflicts, base class data members and functions are accessed using a keyword base. See in the examples how the base class constructors are called and how the data members are used.
public Child(int val) :base(val) { myVar = 5; base.myVar; } OR public Child(int val) { base(val); myVar = 5 ; base.myVar; }
Future Additions:
This article is just a quick overwiew of the C# language so that you can just become familiar with the langauge features. Although I have tried to discuss almost all the major concepts in C# in a brief and comprehensive way with code examples, I think there is lot much to be added and discussed.
In the future, I would like to add more commands and concepts not yet discussed including events and so forth. I would also like to write about Windows programming using C# for beginners.
- our most commonly known MSDN
- Inside C# by Tom Archer
- A Programmer's Introduction to C# by Eric Gunnerson
- Beginning C# by Karli Watson
- Programming C# (O'Reilly)
About the Author
Aisha is a Master of Science in Computer Science from Quaid-i-Azam Univeristy. She has worked in VC++ 6, MFC, ATL, COM/DCOM, ActiveX, C++, SQL, and so forth. These days she is working on .NET framework and C#. Inspired with nature, she loves to seek knowledge. She is also fond of travelling. She keeps a free source code and articles Web site at http://aishai.netfirms.com.


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Kenilworth is a delightful town with some of the most magnificent castle ruins in the country, a good selection of small local shops and superb choice of places to eat and drink.
Discover the ruined glory of Elizabethan England amid the red sandstone ruins of Kenilworth Castle. Hear of lovers' trysts, bloody battles and water pageants. Visit Leicester's Gatehouse, closed since 1958 but now reopened, following a £2.5m restoration project. The gatehouse includes a major exhibition exploring the connections between Kenilworth and Elizabeth I. In 2008 be sure to visit the restored gardens at Kenilworth Castle.
From the castle, stroll through Abbey Fields with its lake, remains of an historic abbey, swimming pool (both indoors and outdoors) and children's play area. See the cottages of 'Little Virginia' where Sir Walter Raleigh planted England's first potatoes.
Around the town, castle and abbey ruins there are a number of gentle walks. And plenty of places to stop for refreshment. Kenilworth is a favourite for locals and visitors alike with its restaurants and pubs. Its excellent selection of restaurants offers something different for every night of the week!
A calendar of events attract locals and visitors throughout the year. Enjoy local, farmers and French markets. Kenilworth Carnival is one of the few still held in the area and the Kenilworth Lions Show in Abbey Fields and Kenilworth Round Table's Fireworks at the Castle are popular with both locals and visitors. The Boxing Day duck race in Abbey Fields is also a great opportunity to get some fresh air during the festive season!
Zoe Court Town Centre Manager
Jubilee House,
Smalley Place,
with charge