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Does Israel's claim to be a Jews-only state have any legitimate foundation? Not according to Israeli historian, Shlomo Sand, whose investigative findings suggest that Israel's rationale rests purely on Biblical mythology rather than historical facts. The question is not simply rhetorical, at a time when Netanyahu has recently backtracked on earlier agreements by demanding that Palestinians not only recognize Israel as a state (which the Palestinians did as part of the 1993 Oslo Accords) but specifically as a "Jewish State". With the intrusion of such myths dampening the prospects for finally achieving peace in the region - yet again - one is left wondering whether peace is indeed on Israel's agenda. Wouldn't it be time to deconstruct them once and for all?
The rationale for formally designating Israel a Jewish state – as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu now demands [1] – rests on three religious-political pillars: God's purported covenant with Moses instructing the ancient Israelites to conquer the land, the injustice of the Roman-era Diaspora that supposedly removed them centuries later, and the brutal persecution of European Jews in the Holocaust.
Yet, the first two of these pillars appear to be based on almost no historical reality, the stuff of legend and possibly even lies that crumble under any serious scrutiny.
Normally, such ancient stories might be regarded as harmless tales that some people treasure as part of their Judeo-Christian faiths, except that Netanyahu's new demand means that these myths now threaten peace in the Middle East and conceivably could push the modern world into more bloody warfare. Therefore, they must be given fresh examination.
Ironically, it was the Nazis' drive to exterminate European Jews during World War II that is the one pillar founded on historical reality, although some extreme enemies of Israel insist on making Holocaust denial a central feature of their attacks.
Also, some adversaries, like Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have argued that it is unfair to make the Palestinians pay for a crime against humanity committed by the Germans. [2]
Yet, the Holocaust is not in historical dispute. That horrible reality – an industrial-style extermination campaign that also targeted Gypsies, homosexuals and Communists – was proven after the World War II from a multitude of Nazi records, photographs and eyewitness accounts.
It is the tales of Moses from the Torah (or the first five books of the Old Testament) and the legend of the Roman Diaspora that lack serious historical underpinnings.
The Diaspora myth has been addressed in a new book by Israeli historian Shlomo Sand [3], When and How Was the Jewish People Invented? [4]
It debunks the notion that Rome removed the Jewish people en masse from the Holy Land in the First and Second Centuries A.D. and scattered them across Europe.
Instead, most East European Jews appear to be descendents of converts, principally from the Kingdom of the Khazars in eastern Russia, who embraced Judaism in the Eighth Century, A.D. The descendants of the Khazars then were driven from their native lands by invasions and – through migration – created the Jewish populations of Eastern Europe.
Thus, Sand argues, many of today's Israelis who emigrated from Europe after World War II have little or no genealogical connection to the land. According to Sand, a bitter irony of Israel's founding may be that it displaced Palestinians who could be the actual descendants of the ancient Israelites, who stayed on the land and eventually converted to Islam.
Other descendants of those ancient Israelites maintained Judaism as a strong presence in the Middle East, both in Palestine and in successful communities from Egypt to Iraq and Iran. These Jews faced few religious pressures until after Israel was founded in 1948, when this new European intrusion into Islamic lands was viewed in the context of the Crusades a millennium ago.
The Moses Myth
Yet, while questioning the Diaspora myth is a sensitive topic for many Israelis and their supporters around the world, it is even touchier to challenge the Biblical claim that God, through Moses, struck a covenant with the Israelites to conquer the land and possess it for all time.
Because the Torah is sacred to Jews – and to many Christians as the revealed word of God in the Old Testament – it has been dangerous to examine the factual history behind these texts in an objective manner.
For centuries, the Catholic Church and some Protestant faiths persecuted anyone who questioned Moses's supposed authorship of the chapters even though their internal contradictions and the description of Moses's death at the end of Deuteronomy made that long-held belief untenable.
As Richard Elliott Friedman recounts in his 1987 book, Who Wrote the Bible?, "Religious opposition to the new investigation (into the traditional belief about Moses's authorship) persisted during the 19th Century" and didn't collapse until 1943 when Pope Pius XII "encouraged scholars to pursue knowledge about the biblical writers."
Modern Biblical scholars now agree that Moses was not the author of the Torah, that the stories were passed down orally from the 14th Century B.C. and were put into writing centuries later. But the legendary figure of Moses has remained almost beyond criticism, not only for many Jews but for people of the Christian and Islamic faiths. (He is treated as a holy messenger in the Koran.)
Many Americans think of Moses as the angry but righteous leader as portrayed by Charlton Heston in the 1956 epic "The Ten Commandments", or they think of their feel-good Bible studies as children. Yet, many archaeologists believe that the Moses stories were largely made up.
"This is what archaeologists have learned from their excavations in the Land of Israel: the Israelites were never in Egypt, did not wander in the desert, did not conquer the land in a military campaign and did not pass it on to the 12 tribes of Israel," summed up Professor Ze'ev Herzog, director of the Institute of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University.
"The many Egyptian documents that we have make no mention of the Israelites' presence in Egypt and are also silent about the events of the Exodus."
However, other scholars believe that some did emigrate to Egypt, suffered in servitude there, and may have been led back to Canaan by Moses or a Moses-like leader.
Nevertheless, because of the powerful influence of the Torah (and the Old Testament), the biblical Moses carries extraordinary religious and historical weight, inspiring Israeli settlers to claim Palestinian lands as rightfully theirs and rallying fundamentalist Christians across the American heartland to embrace whatever actions the Israelis take.
A Tyrannical Leader
But who was Moses?
According to biblical lore, Moses was a Hebrew child raised in the royal Egyptian court before breaking with his protectors and remaking himself into a leader of Hebrew slaves. He guided them out of Egypt and transformed them, as they wandered for decades in the Sinai desert, into an Israelite nation, giving them specific laws and detailed rules of behavior.
During that time, Moses announced a covenant with God that granted the Israelites permanent dominion over the lands across the Jordan River, and he instructed them to destroy other peoples inhabiting those territories. Moses, however, never returned to the Promised Land, dying near the Jordan, before the conquest began.
Though Moses is regarded by many as a great law giver (the Ten Commandants) and as a major force in the formation of monotheism (the belief in one God), the text of the Torah present him as a cruel and tyrannical leader.
From a modern perspective, Moses might be viewed as a "dictator who killed his own people" when they disobeyed him and an advocate of genocide against outsiders. His claims that he spoke with the Lord sound more like a megalomaniac who believed he could scare a primitive people into following his orders by claiming they were edicts from God.
Indeed, over the centuries, many tyrants have used religion (especially monotheism) to justify repression and to eliminate enemies and rivals. The religious wars in Europe during the Middle Ages are a classic example of how kings and popes wrapped their personal power in the bloody cloak of religion, torturing and burning alive "heretics" who wouldn't submit.
The biblical Moses appears to have been such a tyrant, though the Sunday school version often played down this extreme side of his personality.
In Exodus, for instance, there is the famous story of the Israelites, creating a visible idol of their God in the form of a golden calf while Moses is absent on Mount Sinai. When Moses returns with stone tablets conveying laws of behavior, he is furious and smashes the tablets.
According to the Torah, Moses then grinds up the golden calf, mixes it with water and makes the Israelites drink it. Then, Moses recruits what we would today call a "death squad."
The Torah reads: "Moses stood at the gate of the camp and said, 'Whoever is for the Lord, to me!' And the Levites gathered round him. And he said to them, 'Thus said the Lord God of Israel, "Put every man his sword on his thigh, and cross over and back from gate to gate in the camp, and each man kill his brother and each man his fellow and each man his kin"' And the Levites did according to the word of Moses, and about three thousand men of the people fell on that day."
In other words, Moses ordered a massacre of Israelites whom he regarded as his enemies, people who had challenged his authority in the form of dancing around the golden calf.
Robert Alter in his 2004 book, The Five Books of Moses, comments on Moses's instruction: "each man kill his brother," etc.
"This chilling command enjoins the sword-wielding Levites to show no mercy to friend or kin," Alter wrote. "The figure of three thousand dead in the next verse indicates that this is not an indiscriminate massacre but an assault on the ringleaders – or perhaps, those guilty of the most egregious excesses – among the orgiasts."
Higher Authority
It also seemed that whenever Moses was setting some rule, whether as grand as the Ten Commandants or as minor as personal hygiene, he always invoked the Almighty.
In Leviticus, for instance, God supposedly takes a direct interest in dictating how women should be treated after childbirth, with one set of rules for giving birth to sons and another for daughters.
According to this account, the Lord tell Moses, "Speak to the Israelites, saying 'Should a woman quicken with seed and bear a male, she shall be unclean seven days, as in the days of her menstrual unwellness she shall be unclean. And on the eighth day, the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised. And thirty days and three she shall stay in her blood purity. She shall touch no consecrated thing nor shall she come into the sanctuary till the days of her purity are completed.
"And if she bears a female, she shall be unclean two weeks, as in her menstruation, and sixty days and six she shall stay over her blood purity. And when the days of her purity are completed, whether for a son or for a daughter, she shall bring a yearling lamb for a burnt offering and a young pigeon or a turtledove for an offense offering to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting, to the priest. And he shall bring it forward before the Lord and atone for her, and she shall be clean from the flowing of her blood."
If you think that's a lot of unnecessary detail, you should read the Lord's instructions via Moses for how to assess whether a boil is leprosy or not.
In Deuteronomy, Moses explains to the Israelites about their right to reclaim the land of their forefathers, again speaking for God:
"And the Lord your God shall bring you to the land that your fathers took hold of, and you shall take hold of it, and He shall do well with you and make you more multitudinous than your fathers."
Moses also makes clear that God expected the conquest to include massacres and genocide. Again speaking for the Lord, Moses said:
"I will bring back vengeance on My foes and My enemies I will requite. I will make My shafts drunk with blood, and My sword will eat up flesh from the blood of the fallen and captive, from the flesh of the long-haired foe."
In his final blessing to the Israelites, Moses makes the genocide message even more explicit, painfully so. He called on them to "smash the loins of [the Lord's] foes, that His enemies rise no more. … Your enemies cower before you and you on their backs will tread."
So, more than 3,000 years later, should a modern state like Israel be demanding that Palestinians recognize Israel as an explicitly Jewish state, as Netanyahu now says?
The Diaspora Myth
The second pillar – the Roman Diaspora – also comes from ancient times though not as far back as the stories of Moses. If anything, however, the Diaspora has less of a historical basis.
In When and How Was the Jewish People Invented? Dr. Sand, an expert on European history at the University of Tel Aviv, says the Jews were never exiled en masse from the Holy Land and that the myth of the Diaspora was used by Zionists over the past century to buttress their argument for creating Israel.
Sand, a European Jew born in 1946 to Holocaust survivors in Austria, argues that until the Zionist movement arose, Jews thought of themselves as Jews because they shared a common religion, not because they possessed a direct lineage to the ancient tribes of Israel.
However, at the turn of the 20th Century, Sand asserts, Zionist Jews began assembling a national history to justify creation of a Jewish state by inventing the idea that Jews existed as a people separate from their religion and that they had primogeniture over the territory that had become known as Palestine.
The Zionist movement also invented the idea that Jews living in exile were obligated to return to the Promised Land, a concept that had been foreign to Judaism, Sand states.
If Sand's thesis is correct – and it has faced no substantive rebuttal – it would suggest that many of the Palestinian Arabs have a far more substantial claim to the lands of Israel than do many European Jews who arrived there asserting a God-given claim.
Indeed, Sand theorizes that many Jews, who remained in Judea after Roman legions crushed the last uprising in 136 A.D., eventually converted to Christianity or Islam, meaning that the Palestinians who have been crowded into Gaza or concentrated in the West Bank might be direct descendants of Jews from the Roman era.
In his book – and in an interview with Haaretz about his book [5] – Sand challenged the myth that the Romans relocated the Jews by force to Europe. In the interview, he said:
"I started looking in research studies about the exile from the land - a constitutive event in Jewish history, almost like the Holocaust. But to my astonishment I discovered that it has no literature. The reason is that no one exiled the people of the country.
"The Romans did not exile peoples and they could not have done so even if they had wanted to. They did not have trains and trucks to deport entire populations. That kind of logistics did not exist until the 20th Century. From this, in effect, the whole book was born: in the realization that Judaic society was not dispersed and was not exiled."
The True Descendants
Asked if he was saying that the true descendants of the inhabitants of the Kingdom of Judah are the Palestinians, Sand responded:
"No population remains pure over a period of thousands of years. But the chances that the Palestinians are descendants of the ancient Judaic people are much greater than the chances that you or I are its descendents.
"The first Zionists, up until the Arab Revolt 1936-1939, knew that there had been no exiling, and that the Palestinians were descended from the inhabitants of the land. They knew that farmers don't leave until they are expelled.
"Even Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, the second president of the State of Israel, wrote in 1929 that, 'the vast majority of the peasant farmers do not have their origins in the Arab conquerors, but rather, before then, in the Jewish farmers who were numerous and a majority in the building of the land.'"
Criticism of Sand's book has focused mostly on his credentials as an expert on European history, not ancient Middle Eastern history, a point that Sand readily acknowledges.
One critic, Israel Bartal, dean of humanities at the Hebrew University, attacked Sand's credentials, but disagreed mostly over Sand's assertion that the Diaspora story was created as an intentional myth by Zionists seeking to fabricate a direct genealogical connection between many of the world's Jews and Israel.
"Although the myth of an exile from the Jewish homeland (Palestine) does exist in popular Israeli culture, it is negligible in serious Jewish historical discussions," Bartal wrote in the newspaper Haaretz. "Important groups in the Jewish national movement expressed reservations regarding this myth or denied it completely."
In other words, Bartal is not so much disputing Sand's historical claims about the Diaspora or the origins of Eastern European Jews, as he is contesting Sand's notion that Zionists concocted a false history for a cynical political purpose.
But there can be no doubt that the story of the Diaspora has played a key role in the founding of Israel and that the appeal of this powerful narrative has helped generate sympathy around the world, especially in the United States.
"After being forcibly exiled from their land, the people remained faithful to it throughout their Dispersion and never ceased to pray and hope for their return to it and for the restoration in it of their political freedom," reads the preamble to the Israeli Declaration of Independence.
As recently as Israeli's bombardment of Gaza [6] in January 2009, the myth of the Diaspora was used to justify the slaughter of some 1,400 Palestinians dead, including many children and other non-combatants. When the Israeli government investigated alleged war crimes by its army, Israeli troops testified that extremist Rabbis had proclaimed the invasion a holy war.
The troops said the Rabbis brought them booklets and articles declaring: "We are the Jewish people. We came to this land by a miracle. God brought us back to this land, and now we need to fight to expel the non-Jews who are interfering with our conquest of this holy land."
Today, with the emergence of a new Likud-led government in Israel, the Diaspora myth and Moses legends are intruding again on the prospects for finally achieving peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
Prime Minister Netanyahu has insisted on a new precondition for talks – that the Palestinians must agree to a "public, binding and unequivocal" recognition that Israel is "the nation state of the Jewish people," [7] not simply the nation state of the people of Israel. Netanyahu is making this demand although Arabs make up about 20 percent of Israel's population.
This appears to be another case of ancient bloody myths contributing to a modern bloody reality.
Source: consortiumnews.com
[1] Netanyahu's Speech; http://www.voltairenet.org/article160637.html#article160637
[2] Excerpt from President Ahmadinejad's statement at the Durban II Conference in Geneva on April 21, 2009: "Following World War II, they resorted to military aggression to make an entire nation homeless under the pretext of Jewish suffering and they sent migrants from Europe, the United States and other parts of the world in order to establish a totally racist government in occupied Palestine. And, in fact, in compensation for the dire consequences of racism in Europe, they helped bring to power the most cruel and repressive racist regime in Palestine." Full text here: http://www.voltairenet.org/article159817.html
[3] Shattering a 'national mythology'; http://www.voltairenet.org/article159284.html
[4] The book was in the best-seller list in Israel for 19 weeks and quickly went to 3 editions when published in French (Comment le people juif fut inventé, Fayard, Paris, 2008). In France it received the "Aujourd'hui Award", a journalists' award for top non-fiction political or historical work. More translations are in progress and the book is scheduled for publication by Verso in English in 2009.
[5] Shattering a 'national mythology'; http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/966952.html
[6] Israel's War Crimes; http://www.voltairenet.org/article159517.html
[7] Ibid.


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Think Biblically, Discover Globally, Impact Eternally
- Dr. Paul Dean
- Updated Aug 06, 2007
These issues are on my mind almost constantly and God's providence is not lost on me as they've been brought to my attention once again in the context of some work our church is doing at Boston Baptist College in Boston, Massachusetts. Boston has more universities than any other city in the United States and is a world renowned cultural center for that reason and many others. In the midst of the Boston culture of liberalism, multi-cuturalism, elitism, and worldly power, I was once again confronted with my (and indeed all Christians) raison d'etre: to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. How to live it out is always the question and that question takes on new dimensions in the midst of a pluralistic and powerful culture. The mission statement of the aforementioned college provides a properly oriented guide: "Think Biblically, Discover Globally, and Impact Eternally." Let me offer some brief observations under each of these headings.
First, Christians must think biblically. We live in a culture committed to thinking that is independent from God. The reality is that all knowledge and thinking is dependent on God for in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Col. 2:3). But this fact did not stop Satan from deceiving Eve into believing that she could "know good and evil" and "be as God." She believed that she could know truth apart from God even as do all lost people.
A practical upshot of such a dynamic is what Michael Kissel, student at Boston Baptist and church planter, points out in regard to the mindset of our culture: it is committed to thinking about self. Further, the focal point of our thinking must not be ourselves but God if we are to see the world rightly. He goes on to note that the first question to ask in terms of this world and our service in it is not "What would Jesus do" but "How does God see this?" Only when we are committed to thinking that is dependent on God and to getting His perspective will we glorify Him and truly serve others.
Second, Christians must discover globally. God has given us a special and potentially saving revelation of Himself through the Scriptures. He has also given us a general revelation of Himself though creation, conscience, history, culture, etc. The believer can see the glory of God on display in these things to a certain degree by virtue of a renewed mind. Part of what it means to think biblically is not only to take every thought captive in obedience to Christ (2 Cor. 10:5) by virtue of a submission to God's special revelation, but to investigate God's ways in the world through the lens of that special revelation.
Christians who are committed to discovering globally are world Christians. As Joe Sawyer, Financial Aid Officer and Communications Director at Boston Baptist points out, through world study via travel or other means, one obtains a world perspective. Kissel explains that one gets a sense of the world, oneself in the larger world, and what God is doing in His world. He avers that misconceptions of the world are stripped away as one experiences it first hand in light of God's redemptive purpose. Misconceptions about self are stripped away as the larger issue of human sin is highlighted in the historical context of suffering, war, and brutality. That dynamic is brought to bear upon one's own sinfulness and the result is a fresh recognition that each one of us needs the Redeemer.
Standing in front of the Holocaust Memorial in Boston, my thought was that we must not let the scourge of abortion in America horrify us any less than the scourge of Nazi tyranny in Germany. Talking with Kissel and Sawyer about global discovery before God, my thought was that I must not let the scourge of my own sinful heart horrify me any less than the referenced brutality in our world. There but for the grace of God go I.
In the wake of such discovery combined with a fresh understanding of the apostle Paul's world, for example, as one visits Ephesus, Corinth, or Rome, etc., there is new boldness for Christian witness. As Sawyer noted, one cannot help but be impacted for the better when he comes face to face with the Roman or Greek pantheon, the cultural and power centers, the urban settings, and indeed the kings in the midst of which Paul stood to proclaim Christ as the only way to salvation. He further noted that we need not be so intimidated by Boston any more knowing that we have the truth.
Third, Christians must impact eternally. The faithful would agree with that assertion, but the real question is, "what does it mean to have eternal impact?" As Sawyer and Kissel point out, it means living for God's glory. It means being ministers of God's grace in every moment. One can minister grace to the waitress who does not deserve it because she had a rough night and rendered poor service. A tip and a thank you in the name of Christ can go a long way to open the door for future conversation about the things of God. Kissel cited Francis Schaeffer who noted that we are always having an eternal impact: we are either sowing life or we are sowing death. We are impacting someone somehow for eternity with each exchange. Which will it be for you?
Pluralism is alive and well in Boston. Pluralism is alive and well in your city. Are you thinking biblically, that you might discover globally, that you might impact eternally? Be God-centered, be a world-Christian, and be one who has eternal impact in every moment.
Dr. Paul J. Dean is the pastor of Providence Baptist Church in Greer, SC, and hosts a daily, live, call-in radio talk show: "Calling for Truth." He serves as the Director of Applied Ministry at the Greenville, SC extension of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
Sign up free for "Christian News and Views," a weekly e-mail newsletter highlighting relevant news stories affecting Christians. An editorial by Dr. Dean is included as well as a link to his comments on selected stories. The e-newsletter goes out each Friday and is sponsored by "Calling for Truth," a daily, live, call-in radio program co-hosted by Dr. Dean and Kevin Boling. Simply e-mail us at email@example.com to receive your first issue this Friday. To listen live to "Calling for Truth" each day from 1:00 pm to 2:00 pm Eastern Time, go to www.callingfortruth.org and click on the "Listen online" button. You may listen to archived shows as well. They are uploaded each day after the broadcast.
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subset: commoncrawl


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I spent a lot of time during the last few days searching, compiling, and fixing some emulators for some old classic platforms on my computer. One thing that I thought was interesting was that I found an emulator for all the video games platform, and some old computers I looked for available under Linux.
So, I decided to share with the rest of you a small list of links with the emulators I found this week. The emulators I have found were a Sega Genesis Emulator, an Atari Emulator, a Sega Master System Emulator, a MSX Emulator, and TRS80 Emulators all for Linux.
I just want to explain one thing, many of you probably already know that these emulators exist, but a lot of you don't. So, if you do know them, I appreciate you bearing with me, and if I say anything that you don't agree, please feel free to email me.
Here are the list of sites:
Sega Genesis (Mega Drive) - http://www.humboldt1.com/~ognir/dgen-sdl.html
dgen is the emulator for the Sega Genesis, and I have to tell you that I was pretty impressed with its speed and sound performance (it kicked MS Windows butt). Don't think I had any problems compiling it, and running it.
Sega Master System - http://www.komkon.org/fms/MG/
mg is the emulator for the Sega Master System, and you may only download the binary for its latest version. It works like a charm though.
Stella - http://www4.ncsu.edu/~bwmott/2600/
xstella is the emulator for the Atari System, it is also a very nice piece of software.
MSX - http://www.komkon.org/fms/fMSX/
fmsx is an emulator for the MSX Computer. The MSX computer was really big in Brazil in the 80's, and it was actually my first computer.... It brought back some memories. If you have never heard of it here in America (it did not do very well here, as far as I know), I am sure that there are people all over the world that had one of them. Anyway, fmsx is working fine, but I did have some problems compiling it. I had to disable sound to get a working binary.
TRS80 - http://members.aol.com/trs80emul/
xtrs is the emulator for TRS80 Model I and III, but I have not been able to run it successfully on my computer. I have tried both the RPMs, and compiling from my computer, and all it does it freezes my Xwindow. If you do get this baby to compile, please let me know, I would like to get it running sometime.
These emulators were very fun to find, compile and play with it a little, but I would strongly suggest you would read the warnings on some of the sites, since some of their parts, and games are copyrighted. I also want to thank every single programmer that was involved in the development of each emulator for Linux.
Just for a last point of reference, I am running these emulators on a AMD K6-2 400 Mhz, with 256 MB RAM and running RH Linux 6.1.


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In 1830, Michael Faraday submitted his most famous piece of scientific legislation' and this bit of genius described the physics that allows guitar pickups to exist.
In 1830, Michael Faraday submitted his most famous piece of scientific legislation' and this bit of genius described the physics that allows guitar pickups to exist. After ratification, it became formally known as the Faraday-Maxwell equation, and it's part of the four coolest of Maxwell's Equations. Here it is (don't worry, there won't be a test):
The basic idea is that if you have a loop of wire, and you can get a magnetic field inside the loop to change, the changing magnetic field will create a changing voltage across the ends of the wire. In a guitar pickup, a permanent magnet creates a static field that is modulated (changed) by the movement of a steel string. The steel part is important: The string has to be magnetic to disturb the field created by the magnet. That's why you don't see traditional pickups for nylon-string guitars. You may have also noticed that pickups (or at least the single-coil variety) provide equal opportunity to stray magnetic fields from transformers, fluorescent lights, and such.
In the case of a typical guitar pickup, a single loop of wire will only provide a very tiny voltage but, as shown below, we can keep wrapping more turns around the magnet to increase the signal level. (See Fig. 1)
A typical pickup has thousands of turns of very thin, insulated wire. Increasing the number of turns allows us to get a larger signal for our amplifier to work with, but as with everything, there can be too much of a good thing. As the turns pile on layer after layer, it becomes like placing a capacitor in parallel with the pickup. You will hear people talk about vintage handwound pickups and how they differ from the modern machine-wound counterparts. One difference is that the machine is able to lay down more even layers, while handwound pickups tend to be more "scramble wound." The two different methods will have a different capacitance. Winding capacitance also explains why low-output pickups are typically brighter than the high-output variety.
In addition to the winding capacitance, the loops of wire create an inductor, and the resistance of the wire creates (you guessed it) a resistor. So, our little pickup is a resonant RLC circuit "all by itself." Resonant circuits have a center frequency and Q associated with them. In general, low-output pickups will have a high Q at a high frequency, and as you move to high-output pickups, the Q and center frequency both are reduced. In the middle of the output range is where you get different midrange "honk." The honk occurs when the Q is still high, but the frequency is reduced to the midrange band.
So what does all this mean to our quest for tone? Every signal source has something called output impedance. Sources with a low output impedance don't really care what you hang on the output. But a pickup has a high output impedance and thus is sensitive to loading by pots, cables, and input stages. This means if we want to hear exactly what our pickup sounds like, we would need to take the volume and tone controls out of our guitar and place a high-input impedance buffer (10 Meg or more) a few inches away from the pickup. Chances are you wouldn't like the unmolested sound of the pickup because we're accustomed to hearing the effect of all the stuff hanging on the output. You probably want a little bit of "tone suck," whether you know it or not.
One thing to keep in mind is that once our signal path hits a buffer, all of the cables and input stages from that point on don't interact with our pickup. This is the source of a lot of confusion and attribution of magic to certain combinations of guitars, cables, pedals, and amps. The permutations and resulting confusion escalates when you throw in true bypass pedals. Assuming that your signal is unbuffered, true bypass removes the pedal from the signal path but exposes your pickup to more cables and a different input stage. See Fig. 2.
Everything we connect to our guitar alters the tone—sometimes for better and sometimes for worse. The better and worse may flip-flop for different guitars or even different pickup combinations on the same guitar. This is why you will get more consistent results by connecting your guitar to a buffer as the first pedal or by putting all of your effects in the effect loop of an amp. But consistent isn't necessarily better— you may miss that magic combination. Don't be afraid to experiment, as there are only a few things you can do that will actually damage your gear. And there are no wrong answers.
Gregg Stock is Senior Analog Guru and Engineer at Strymon.


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On this day in 1993, Frasier, a spin-off of the long-running mega-hit sitcom Cheers, makes its debut on NBC…and it will go on to air for 11 seasons and win multiple Emmy Awards.
Frasier starred Kelsey Grammer as the erudite, snobbish Dr. Frasier Crane, a radio psychiatrist who relocates from Boston to his hometown of Seattle following the breakup of his marriage. The main characters in Frasier's life are his father Martin (John Mahoney), a down-to-earth retired cop; his younger brother, Niles (David Hyde Pierce), a psychiatrist who shares Frasier's taste for the finer things in life; his father's kooky caretaker, Daphne Moon (Jane Leeves); his radio show producer, Roz Doyle (Peri Gilpin) and his father's dog, Eddie.
Kelsey Grammer, who was born on February 21, 1955, studied drama at New York City's Juilliard School and began his professional acting career in theater. In 1984, he made his first appearance on Cheers as the fiance of one of the main characters, Diane (Shelley Long). Although Frasier Crane was originally only supposed to appear on Cheers for a few episodes, the popular character became a permanent member of the show. Set in a Boston-based bar called Cheers, the show debuted on September 30, 1982. Dr. Frasier Crane was one of the regulars who, along with Norm Peterson (George Wendt) and Cliff Clavin (John Ratzenberger) drank at Cheers, which was run by Sam Malone (Ted Danson). When the final episode of Cheers aired on May 20, 1993, more than 80 million viewers tuned in, making it one of the most-watched last episodes in TV history.
Grammer went on to star in Frasier from September 1993 to May 13, 2004. After making an Emmy Award-nominated guest appearance as Crane on the 1990s sitcom Wings, Grammer became the only actor in TV history to earn Emmy nominations for playing the same character on three separate shows.
Grammer's other acting credits include a recurring role as the voice of Sideshow Bob on Fox's hit animated series The Simpsons. More recently, he and Patricia Heaton (Everybody Loves Raymond) co-starred as a pair of news anchors at a Pittsburgh TV station on the short-lived sitcom Back to You, which aired from 2007 to 2008 and was directed by Cheers co-creator James Burrows.


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SHANGHAI (REUTERS) - China will impose tough penalties on people making false terrorist threats against airlines and airports, after a stream of bogus calls grounded flights and piled pressure on an already strained air traffic control system, state media reported.
Flights and domestic airports have been disrupted by 80 fake threats this year, the official Xinhua news service said.
Between May 15 and 18 alone, six bomb threats were reported, forcing 22 flights to turn back, land elsewhere or be delayed, a separate China Daily report noted.
The media reports come a day before China embarks on a week-long national holiday which will see transportation channels jammed with tourists and people returning home.
China's top court is planning to make false calls a criminal offence and offenders could be jailed for more than five years if there is economic damage of more than 500,000 yuan (S$102,067), or even longer if the damage is more severe.
Fake threats were sometimes made out of curiosity or for a joke, or even by irate boyfriends trying to prevent girlfriends leaving town, media reports have said.
Chinese airlines are already struggling to handle increasing traffic in a timely manner given heavy restrictions on the usage of civilian airspace.
Only 18.3 percent of flights departing from Beijing left on time in June, and only 28.7 percent of flights leaving Shanghai made it on time, making them the two poorest performing major airports in the world, according to FlightStats.com.
The new laws will also apply to threats made against trains, ferries as well as other public facilities like shopping malls, the China Daily said. It also warned people from disseminating rumours about such threats via text messages or social media, saying they could be criminally charged.


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Grant should help Bridge Park get framed up in summer 2008
A foundation started by a deceased Cherokee County native has provided a large boost to Sylva's Bridge Park Project.
The Downtown Sylva Association was recently awarded an $8,530 grant by the Percee B. Ferebee Endowment to help finance the Bridge Park Project.
The Bridge Park Project is a collaborative community effort to build a new Town of Sylva park in a portion of the municipal parking lot off Mill Street in downtown Sylva. The park will be adjacent to a new footbridge over Scott's Creek to Poteet Park, scheduled for construction this winter. The Downtown Sylva Association is the project's financial sponsor.
With the addition of the Ferebee funds, the drive to finance Bridge Park has gathered $76,000 in just over one year's time. All of these funds are earmarked for the performance pavilion, a timber frame structure that will sit creek-side. The pavilion will be used for outdoor music concerts, performances and community gatherings of all types. A separate fund, started by the Sylva Garden Club, contains more than $5,000 for the landscaping of the new park. Further enhancements of the adjacent municipal parking lot and the pedestrian corridor to Main Street are planned.
Construction on the park's pavilion began in October with the completion of the foundation. The DSA expects to contract with the Timber Frame Guild, a national non-profit group that instructs in the art of timber framing, for a June 2008 workshop in Sylva. The end result of the workshop will be the frame of the Bridge Park pavilion.
Percy B. Ferebee was a resident of Cherokee County. He established the Percy B. Ferebee Endowment as part of his will and grants are awarded to support charitable, scientific and literary projects, and in particular, governmental and civic projects designed to further the cultural, social, economic and physical well-being of residents of Cherokee, Clay, Graham, Jackson, Macon and Swain counties of North Carolina and the Cherokee Indian Reservation.
For more information about the Bridge Park Project visit the Web site at bridgepark.org or call 828.586.1577.


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This is an interesting destination, with dedicated parking – and handy to The Outlet retail park.
Open since September 2008, the Gallery and Studio is dedicated to the memory of Banbridge born sculptor Frederick Edward McWilliam, one of Britain and Ireland's most influential and successful artists. This impressive gallery houses a collection of the contents of the sculptor's studio in an exhibition facility consisting of a main gallery, sculpture garden and reconstructed studio.
There's also a Tourist Information Centre and a craft shop showcasing beautiful handcrafted products, as well as the café (see below). Banbridge District Council works in partnership with Highlanes Municipal Art Gallery and the café Quails at the Gallery is worth visiting.
Here you can enjoy a pleasant lunch looking out through big glass walls into the sculpture garden. The franchise is operated by Joe Quail, who has a butcher's shop and café in Banbridge town, and everyone who visits the gallery praises the café – it has even been visited by Queen Elizabeth, in May 2009.
Menus offered begin with breakfast (until noon), then there's an appealing general menu including Panini with Quail's Great Taste Gold Medal honey roast ham, mozzarella & relish; kids meals (under 12s) including an option with Quails own sausages and more grown-up choices such as Atlantic prawn open sandwich with homemade wheaten bread – and, Northern Ireland being the baking capital of Ireland, lots of scones, muffins, tray bakes and luscious desserts.
A more formal 2/3 course Sunday lunch menus also offered.
Purveyors of fine foods for over 100 years', this excellent family-run food hall and delicatessen evolved from a small butchers shop, and dry-aged 28 day matured Limousin heifer beef is among the many special foods available from the shop and online.


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Create a Website Account - Manage notification subscriptions, save form progress and more.
The City of Fayetteville obtains water from two different sources. Approximately fifty % of the water is supplied by two deep water wells, and the remaining water supply is provided via the Fayette County Water System.
Show All Answers
The Finance Department 770-460-4237 has an excellent staff of Customer Service Representatives that will be glad to discuss any and all of your concerns with your water bill. The Finance Billing offices are open Monday through Friday from 8 am to 5 pm. If you think that your bill might be incorrect or you think that you might have a leak they will send out the appropriate work orders for our Field Personnel to check.
The Water Department has an after hours office that is open 24 hours a day seven days a week to assist in getting the right personnel to respond to your concerns. The after hours office number is 770-997-5189.
A water meter can be defective. A water meter has an internal disc or paddles that move when water passes through them which in turn moves the wheels on the register to record the water that passes through it. When the disc or paddles wear down due to environment or from a defect inside of the meter it will not register correctly. Since we use meters that record only the water that passes through it the defect will actually cause a lower water bill. A water meter will never turn unless water is passed through it to record.
The Water Department is responsible for the water main, the line that goes to the meter, the meter and meter box. The service line, which starts at the meter and goes to the house, is the customer's responsibility, even if the leak is in the meter box but is on the service line. If you have a leak on the service line you will have to contact a plumber for repairs.
Service lines are made of different materials ranging from plastic to copper to galvanized. The technology for leak detection on a service line is very expensive and not very effective. Some plumbers do have the resources available to locate leaks in slabs or in basements but the technology has not been proven effective in locating leaks in a yard. The technology requires its placement to be on a concrete surface.
If you have a problem with a sewer back-up you can call our Finance Billing Office 770-460-4237 Monday through Friday from 8 am until 5 pm and they will radio our Distribution Crew for the quickest response. Call the Water Department 770-460-4660 first in order for us to assess the problem to see if a plumber would have to be called. A sewer jet machine will be used to get the sewer flowing freely again. If the problem is found to be on the service line between the house and the Right-of-Way we will do our very best to unblock the problem but a plumber will have to repair the line if necessary. If the problem were found to be internal then a plumber would have to be called for repairs. If there is a sewer like smell in the area that you live in we will document the complaint on a work order and will be looked into as quickly as possible. Sewer smell complaints are the hardest to detect the source of the problem so we ask for patience for us to locate and correct the problem.
The City operates and maintains an extensive sanitary sewage collection system with many miles of underground pipes and pump stations. The sewage is transported to our Waste Water Treatment Plant, where all solids are removed. The water is then disinfected and returned to White Water Creek.
No, the total amount of the bill is due on the due date.
Application for New Services or Transfer of Services may be obtained by fax or City Website along with instructions to complete the required process for establishing utilities with the City of Fayetteville.
Any account set up as a joint account will require both persons to make any change to or termination of service with the City. In the event that both persons cannot be present, a notarized affidavit must be presented for the absent person.
Yes, you may pay your bill over the phone by calling our office or online. Fees are associated with paying your bill over the phone and online.
Accounts are subject to disconnect any time after missing payment due date.
All applicants wishing to apply for water, sewer, sanitation, and stormwater services will need to apply in person at the City of Fayetteville City Hall, 210 Stonewall Avenue West, Fayetteville, GA 30214, Water and Sewer Customer Service Department between the hours of 8 am and 4:30 pm.
The Application for New Service or Transfer Service form must be completed along with the following documents:
Yes, there are fees associated with paying in person with Credit Card. You will need to provide us with your ID. The name on your ID must match that on your credit card.
There is a mandatory payment for either a processing fee of $35 (new service) or a transfer fee of $20 required at the time of application.
Our hours of operation are 8 am to 5 pm, Monday through Friday. We are closed on weekends and holidays.
You will need to contact our Water and Sewer Customer Service Department as soon as possible at 770-460-4237. Please provide your name, location and phone number. Our after-hours number for emergencies is 770-997-5189.
If you did not receive your bill, you may contact our office at 770-460-4237 for your balance. Not receiving a bill does not eliminate your responsibility to pay.
No, you are required to fill out a termination agreement to terminate your old service.
Your bill is due monthly. Payment is due and payable on or before the due date printed on the bill.
We are located inside the City Hall Building at 210 Stonewall Avenue West, Fayetteville, GA 30214.
If you live inside the city limits of Fayetteville, you will need to apply in person with the City of Fayetteville Water and Sewer Department at City Hall, 210 Stonewall Avenue West, Fayetteville, GA 30214 between the hours of 8 am and 4:30 pm.
If you live outside the city limits of Fayetteville, you can choose any Sanitation company of your choice.
You will need to contact Waste Industries at 770-474-9273.
You will need to contact the City of Fayetteville Water and Sewer customer service department at 770-460-4237.
To be in compliance with the Red Flag Rule, when the customer is paying over the phone we have to submit the payment online and the fees are to cover various administrative costs associated with billing and accepting payment.


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BillboardIn its 114th year, Billboard remains the world's premier weekly music publication and a diverse digital, events, brand, content and data licensing platform. Billboard publishes the most trusted charts and offers unrivaled reporting about the latest music, video, gaming, media, digital and mobile entertainment issues and trends. |
Common terms and phrases
4-channel 8-track cartridges 8-track recorder album American Song Festival Ampex artists Audio Magnetics automatic BASF Billboard blank cassette blank tape booth broadcast buying Canada catalog changer Consumer Electronics Show Continued Corp cost customers dealers designed director discrete disk display distributors Dolby Electrola Elektra Records equipment fair trade feature firm German going hardware headphone label LP's machine major manufacturers matrix matrix decoder Maxell McCormick Place Memorex ment merchandise million music industry musicassette offer operations Orig.Publ package Panasonic payola percent player Polydor promotion quadra quadrasonic RCA Records recently record company reel-to-reel release retail Sansui sell single sound speakers stereo studio sumer tape sales Telex tion tour track tridge units vending vice president videotape week York


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Start of topic | Skip to actions
Dragon SkinTWiki:Plugins.DragonSkinDev has development-related information. Dragon skin (named after the logo on the site it was developed for) is intended to provide a prosaic but relatively organized look-and-feel, while providing easy access to TWiki tools (topic lists, web changes, etc). Some features of this skin:
Browser supportDragonSkin has been tested on IE6, IE5.2/Mac, and fairly recent versions of Firefox, Mozilla, Opera, Safari, Camino, and Netscape, and appears to work on those browsers (Firefox and IE6 have been used the most). It has not been tested at all on IE5/Win, and may have display problems with that browser. Netscape 4.x should see the skin without any CSS formatting.Screen ShotsThe screen shot below is of the "tabstyle" theme. The "gray" theme has a rather drab solid gray left menu. The "monchrome" theme has a solid white left menu with a few other minor changes.Topics included with the Dragon skin distribution
InstallationSee DragonSkinInstall for detailed installation instructions and administrator customization tips. Note: You do not need to install anything on the browser to use this skin. The following instructions are for the administrator who installs the skin on the server where TWiki is running.
Skin Info


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Fermentation Containers
The Importance of Fermentation Containers in the Winemaking Process
Depending on where and how they were made, oak barrels
will impart certain characteristics into wine. Oak has an affinity for certain varietals, but new barrels are very expensive. Most oak barrels used in California are either from France or America.
Stainless Steel
The major benefit of stainless steel tanks is controlling the fermentation temperature. They are also easy to sterilize and fit with additional equipment. Stainless steel tanks are used when the winemaker wants to retain the grapes' natural characteristics.
Wooden Vats
Either out of preference or necessity, some wineries use large wooden vats for fermentation. Though more difficult to control their temperature than metal, the small amount of oxygen that seeps through the wood is thought to be beneficial by many winemakers. They are also less expensive than stainless steel tanks.
Concrete Tanks
Although they were once much more widespread, many California wineries still use concrete tanks for fermentation. Concrete is very inexpensive and can be line with other materials to help prevent corrosion and to make sterilization more effective.
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I send/receive (over 1,000) an embarrassing amount of texts a month (I'm on Sprint's inexpensive "all you can eat" plan). But wait, before you gasp in horror, read this study that finds people who get more texts are happier. As one of the "texting pioneers" (I started texting in the summer of 2003), I feel part of the texting movement and it's new language. Acronyms like "OMG," "WTH," and ones that didn't catch on that my mom friends and I thought up on the spot such as "SMN" (shoot me now) and "PSDS" Post San Diego Syndrome - a disturbing condition my kids get for about a week after spending time with their amazing grandparents). Texting not only makes me happier, but now that I have zero time to have a full phone conversation, it keeps me sane and connected with my people.
I channel my frustration in a productive way: Instead of yelling at the kids, I can jab out a quick text to my husband that says "UR CHILD IS IN HIS 11TH TIME OUT OF THE DAY!!"
I get/give important news as it happens from people I love: "OMG he just took his first steps! Tear!"
I get ideas and reminders off my list, the moment I think of them : "Can u stop n pick up Depends-heavy absorb otw home so I can go to kickboxing class? Thx, ur the best hub ever."
I save heartwarming texts to brighten my day: I put them in a folder called "pickmeups" and when I'm having a crappy day, I go back and read a sweet love note or funny message to get an immediate lift.
Navigate forward to interact with the calendar and select a date. Press the question mark key to get the keyboard shortcuts for changing dates.


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Getting into shape, changing your diet, slipping some exercise into your day, or overall taking the steps you need to take to live a happier, healthier life are all great ideas, but they can be difficult to get moving on when the inertia of day-to-day living sets in. SuperBetter is a web-based game built by author and TED speaker Jane McGonigal designed to get you on the road towards being a smarter, stronger, more resilient, and an overall better person.
SuperBetter is a free game, and once you sign up, you can choose a goal you want to work towards, and add "quests" to your account that you can complete to work your way there. As you complete quests and inspire other people with your progress, you'll earn points in different character areas, like mental, emotional, social, and physical resilience. Once you select your goal, you can add quests and create your own adventure, or you can choose a "power pack" that's a bundle of quests, activities, and "bad guys," (or things that stand in your way) that will help you get started.
When I signed up, I started with the "Lazy Exercise" power pack, which includes activities like walking around the block and dancing to my favorite song. Some of the "bad guys" I have to fight are sitting for more than an hour at a time, or taking super-short car trips when I could walk instead. If I want help, or want to work towards my goals with friends, I can invite "Allies" from Facebook, or connect with other SuperBetter players. All the while your goals are kept front and center at the top of the page, right next to your level progress bars. You even get a "secret lab" that's completely private where you can brainstorm and keep track of your activities and progress.
SuperBetter is the brainchild of Jane McGonigal, game designer and author of the book Reality Is Broken. She knows a thing or two about games in general and gamification can help people get engaged with things that would previously be difficult for them to motivate themselves to do. We've talked before about how video games can be a powerful force for good, and SuperBetter is a free game that exemplifies this philosophy. It reminds us a lot of the Mindbloom Life Game, which we've mentioned before.
Give SuperBetter a try and let us know what you think. The service is completely free, has a great tutorial to get you started, and you have the option to sign up with Facebook or create an account with your email address. Best of all, it's fun!


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Show All Answers
Patterson has Council-Manager form of government. In the Council-Manager form of government, the Council is the governing body of the City, elected by the public, and the Manager is hired by the Council to carry out the policies it establishes. In Patterson the Council five members including the Mayor (or Council President) who is elected by the people as defined in the City Charter. The Council provides legislative direction while the City Manager is responsible for day-to-day administrative operations of the City based on the Council's recommendations. The Mayor and Council, as a collegial body, are responsible for setting policy, approving the budget, and determining the tax rate. The City Manager serves as the Council's Chief Adviser. VOTERS COUNCIL MANAGER DEPARTMENT HEADS
The 2010 United States Census reported that Patterson had a population of 20,413. The population density was 3,428.5 people per square mile (1,323.7/km²). The racial makeup of Patterson was 10,117 (49.6%) White, 1,291 (6.3%) African American, 221 (1.1%) Native American, 1,069 (5.2%) Asian, 280 (1.4%) Pacific Islander, 6,235 (30.5%) from other races, and 1,200 (5.9%) from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 11,971 persons (58.6%).The population was spread out with 6,890 people (33.8%) under the age of 18, 2,140 people (10.5%) aged 18 to 24, 5,822 people (28.5%) aged 25 to 44, 4,280 people (21.0%) aged 45 to 64, and 1,281 people (6.3%) who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 29.1 years. For every 100 females there were 101.1 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 98.0 males.


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Harris Orthodontics
Premium Orthodontic Care in Highland, UT
"Harris Orthodontics is the leading Orthodontist in Highland, UT & the surrounding areas. We proudly offer Braces & Invisalign in Highland, UT! Get in touch with us if you need Braces for Kids or Adults. Our goal is to provide our patients with the highest quality, state-of-the-art orthodontic care. Our team is committed to serving you with care every step of the way. Contact us if you are looking for "Invisalign Teen near me". We are excited to meet you and give you the confident smile you deserve. Our number one priority is crafting a gorgeous smile you're proud of. Start today by requesting a Free Consultation to see how we can help you smile with confidence."
Highland is a city in Utah County, Utah, United States. It is approximately 30 miles (48 km) south of Salt Lake City and is part of the Provo–Orem Metropolitan Statistical Area. According to the 2010 census the population was 15,523, a 90.0% increase over the 2000 figure of 8,172. == Geography == According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 8.5 square miles (22.1 km2), all land. == History == Highland was settled by homesteaders in the 1870s.
Arcadia Heights, Arlington Hills, Ballpark, Bonneville Hills, Cadence Homes Timp Hollow, Cedar Pass Ranch, Clinton, East Bench, Federal-Heights, Foothill, Fort Utah, Gai Land Estates, Glendale, Grand View North, Grand View South


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Product Description: This beautiful handloom buti ball linen saree is woven with black & pink colour combination. Ball buti designs woven on its plain double colour body with a wide plain border of multi-colour. The border of the Anchal is designed with pum pum style. These are feather-light and sheer sarees
Work Details: Linen is made from the fibre of the flax plant. Made observing the latest designs in the market by our expert weavers using quality yarns. It is made with the tedious process of looming and dying. This linen garment is long lasting, resists moths, sheds dirt and does not produce lint. It is exceptionally absorbent, making it ideal for warm weather comfort.
- Product Type: Buti Ball Linen Saree
- Material: Linen
- Size : L: 6.2m×W:1.20m
- Work: Woven
- Wash Care: Dry clean only,
- Occasion: Traditional functions, Marriage, Puja, Party and other special occasions


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Motions of the Ocean
Ocean water is always moving.
At the ocean surface, water is moved by the wind and Coriolis effect to form large surface ocean currents. These currents swirl water around ocean basins to create large loops of rotating ocean water called gyres. The Gulf Stream, a surface current that runs between the United States and Europe is part of a gyre in the North Atlantic. Often, smaller spinning rings of water called eddies form from surface ocean currents.
Ocean water is moving from deep to shallow areas of the ocean in areas of upwelling. This can have an impact on marine life and the regional climate. An upwelling area can create a cool, damp and foggy environment above the water. It can also drain power from hurricanes if they pass over. The upwelling water is rich in nutrients so plankton blooms are common.
The direction where surface water moves is affected by the direction of the wind and a process called Ekman Transport. Water at the ocean surface, moved by the wind, ends up moving at a right angle to the wind because of this process.
Moving water is found on a smaller scale too. Waves travel across the ocean and crash on coastlines. Currents along coastlines have the power to transport sand to new places and to even move swimmers far from their beach towels.
On a global scale, water moves each day with the tides. It also moves around the world from the shallow to deep oceans because of changes in the density of seawater - a process called thermohaline circulation.
The moving water in the oceans transports heat and so it has a large impact on Earths climate.


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Featured Letter: PBS is an investment in our future
To the editor:
I'm very troubled by what Mitt Romney said regarding Big Bird and PBS television no longer being funded in part by the federal government. I would like to know how much money in the past Romney, Obama, Ryan, Biden, Bishop and Altschuler have given to PBS, Big Bird and education programs for pre-schoolers. Can you investigate this for voters like me? Also, if the government will not help fund these programs, how much of a percentage of these men's wealth will they pledge to keep these vital programs up and running?
Our little children need all the help they can get to mature into healthy, happy and productive adults, and Big Bird and PBS have done a fantastic job. Let's find out what our candidates are made of.
Warren McKnight, Riverhead


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Via The Daily What, these ketchup packets extolling the dangers of land mines were recently rolled out in New Zealand as part of CALM: Campaign Against Landmines.
In case you weren't quite clear on what's going on, the press release clarifies:
Using a ketchup sachet, we demonstrated the horrific nature of living in a land mine affected country and how much a part of everyday life that horror is. The idea is simple: as you tear open the sachet you also rip through the child's leg and the ketchup inside pours out like blood.
Terribly effective visual there friends, and kudos for the strong call to action (via text or website) on the packet - now we all have something to do while we regain our appetite.


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Brackets Turns 30 (Ditches the Minivan and Goes for the Jet Pack!)
Nearly one year ago, Jeffrey Way reviewed the open source Brackets project. In the time since that review Brackets has come quite far, recently celebrating it's 33rd Sprint release. In this article I'll talk about many of the updates as well as demonstrate why Brackets is my favorite editor.
Ok, What Is Brackets Again?
Brackets primary focus is on web development.
Just in case you aren't aware, Brackets is an open-source code editor focused on web development and built with web standards. Yes - an editor built with HTML, JavaScript, and CSS. It was originally released in July 2012 on GitHub (http://github.com/adobe/brackets). While launched by Adobe, the commiters behind Brackets include folks from numerous sources. (As an aside, the Brackets team makes it a priority to focus on non-Adobe pull requests.)
That's where Brackets began. Now let's talk about where it has come and what we can expect in the future.
The Basics - Covered
Improvements have been made in all aspects (HTML, CSS, and JavaScript).
When Brackets first launched, it was something of an experiment. Could you use web standards to build an editor for web developers? Even more importantly, could you build something that would perform? Because this was something of an experiment and there were many low level architectural concerns, some things that you would expect in any decent editor, like renaming files for example, did not ship for a long time. Brackets was not marketed as being ready for prime time. Instead, the idea was to try something new and see what worked.
It is now fair to say that Brackets has all of the basics covered. Things like creating new files, deleting, opening from the file system, etc. are now baked in. While not necessarily something to crow about, if the lack of these basic features were the only thing keeping you from using Brackets, now is definitely the time to check it out. (And for those of you waiting for a Linux version - one is ready for you!)
/* * @param {number} x First number * @param {number} y Second number */ function ringTheBell(x, y) { 'use strict'; var total = x + y; return total; } function sayHello(name) { 'use strict'; return "Hello, " + name; }
My code has two functions, one called ringTheBell
and one called sayHello
. I provided some additional metadata for ringTheBell
, but that isn't required. Providing it though will make code hinting a bit nicer. Now I'm going to type a call to ringTheBell
Notice how it detected the arguments and and type. If I enter a value for the first argument, notice how the code hinting bolds the second argument:
Even in cases where Bracket's can't determine the type of argument being used in a function, it will still provide you with the name of the argument which can be useful:
Live Connect for HTML
Recently Brackets added real support for HTML live connect.
Live Connect is probably one of the cooler aspects of Brackets. As I mentioned above, it lets you edit CSS and see updates in real time. Need to tweak padding or margins? You can use your editor and see the impact immediately. Browsers typically allow for this (Chrome Dev Tools), but don't normally provide an easy way to get those changes back out into source. Chrome has made strides in this area recently, but as much as I love Chrome, I'd rather write my code in an editor.
While that worked great for CSS, it did not support HTML. Brackets would automatically reload your browser on saving an HTML file, but if you wanted to preview your changes without a save, you were out of luck. Recently Brackets added real support for HTML live connect. As you modify your HTML code the browser will update in real time. You will also see highlights in the DOM for the area you're modifying. This doesn't really translate well to screenshots, but imagine the following HTML.
<!doctype html>   <title>Test</title>
This is a Test

 fooioikkkllklkkopkk

If I click in the h2
above, Chrome will render a highlight of that item:
If I modify text inside the h2
, Chrome will reflect those changes immediately.
Working With Extensions
Another important update to Brackets involves extension support. Behind the scenes, what extensions can do and how they can do it have been progressively improving with each sprint. While not necessarily that important to an end user, for people writing extensions the improvements had made it much easier to add new features to Brackets. If you can spend less time on boilerplate code and more time on features, that's an all around win for extending Brackets. Brackets also exposes the ability to use Node.js itself for extensions. This feature gives your extensions the ability to make use of anything Node can - which by itself pretty much opens the entire world to you. This is a rather complex topic but if you want to learn more, read this guide: Brackets Node Process.
That's behind the scenes, but for the end user, Brackets has come a long way in making it easier to actually use extensions. Brackets now ships with a full-fledged Extension Manager. Available via the File menu or an icon in the right gutter, clicking it will launch the manager:
Notice that for each extension have installed, you can see details about the version, links for additional information, and even better, a quick way to remove the extension if it is causing problems. At the bottom of this manager is a button that lets you install extensions from a URL. That's handy if you know what extension you want (as well as the GitHub URL), but what if you don't? Simply click on the Available tab:
You can now browse (and even filter) through a long list of available extensions. Even better, installation is as simple as clicking a button. Note the Bracket's Extension Manager is even smart enough to recognize when an extension may not be compatible with your version of Brackets:
Theseus Integration
Probably the most exciting update to Brackets (at least for me) is the integration of the Theseus. Theseus is an open source project created by folks from both Adobe and MIT. It is focused on providing debugging support for both Chrome and Node.js applications. Imagine being able to debug a Node.js application made up of server-side JavaScript as well as client-side code. Theseus provides just that. While still early in development, Theseus is now integrated into Brackets and can be used within the editor itself.
Theseus currently provides three main features:
- Code coverage in real-time
- Retroactive inspection
- Asynchronous call tree
Let's look at a few examples of these. Theseus's code coverage support will show how often a function is called. It sounds simple, but can be powerful. I recently tried Theseus on a simple demo that made use of AJAX to call a server-side program. I noticed that my demo wasn't working, and the Theseus-integration in Brackets confirmed this. Notice the "0 calls" report by my callback:
Turns out my server-side code wasn't set up right and I didn't write my JavaScript code to support an error callback for the AJAX call. This was literally the first time I played with Theseus and it immediately helped point out a problem in my code. After modifying my front-end code, I could see the difference right away:
To be clear, this is all done in real-time. With Brackets open and Chrome open, I can click around in my application and see the updates in Brackets in sync with my actions in the browser.
On top of just seeing the call count, I can also click on an item and see what was passed to it. This is the retroactive inspection feature I mentioned above. Note that you can click into complex properties and really dig into the data.
Finally, for asynchronous calls that my occur at an undefined time after their initial call, Theseus has no problem handling and correctly organizing these calls under their initiator.
Adding New CSS Rules
One of the earliest features in Brackets was inline editing for CSS items. You could put your cursor in any HTML element, hit CMD/CTRL+E, and Brackets would scan your project to find relevant CSS files as well as the appropriate matching rule. This made it incredibly easy to quickly update the style sheets applicable for your content.
This worked well - as long as your content actually had a matching CSS rule. In the latest update to Brackets, the editor will now recognize when an element doesn't have a matching CSS rule.
You can now directly add a new CSS rule right from the inline editor.
New Theme
Finally, a new "shell" look is being added to Brackets. Currently available to Windows only (but will be in the OSX build soon), the "Dark" look is the future of the Brackets look and feel.
What Next?
Your primary editor is a very personal decision for a developer.
Your primary editor is a very personal decision for a developer. I found myself using Sublime Text a few months ago and noticed that something wasn't working right. Turns out, I was trying to use a Brackets feature. That day I switched from Sublime as my primary editor to Brackets. I still use Sublime (and to be clear, it is a pretty darn awesome editor!) but now my day to day work is done almost entirely in Brackets.
Obviously I'd love for you to go - right now - and download Brackets. But if you want to dig a bit more before you commit (hey, I understand, building a relationship with an editor is a serious undertaking), check out these resources:
- First and foremost, the Bracket's home page is your core location for everything about Brackets.
- Even if you have no plans on contributing to Brackets, looking at the source code on GitHub would be a great way to look at a seriously cool application built with web standards.
- Have a question or a problem with Brackets? Head over to the Google Group to post your question. That's where I go when I have problems and I typically get help pretty quickly.
- Finally, if you want to know what's coming next with Brackets, you can find everything at the Trello board.


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Libs' credibility spent on NBN pricing
I have always admired the convoluted art of MC Escher and Salvador Dali. I understood the plots of Inception, Momento and Mulholland Drive at first viewing. I even know some of the lyrics to "Louie, Louie". But I cannot, after years of trying, make sense of a Coalition telecoms policy that repeatedly and determinedly ignores reality to support a politically skewed and desperately optimistic world-view in which unfettered private-sector interests will supposedly deliver future-proof broadband to everybody for free.
The Coalition's telecoms platform is more of a Möbius strip: one-sided, repetitive and inescapable. (Möbius strip image by David Benbennick, CC BY-SA 3.0)
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Rewind to Monday morning, when iiNet's NBN pricing hit the wires and tech journalists wondered aloud how NBN-hating Liberals would spin prices ranging from $49.95 to $99.95 a month. With a single announcement, iiNet proved that Internode's pricing — which put 100Mbps/40Mbps services at a nosebleed-inducing $189.95 per month — was an anomaly (and one which will soon, apparently, be changed).
We now know that, despite years of Opposition bleating that the NBN was going to bleed us dry, NBN services will cost between $34.50 and $99.95 per month. That is so similar to current ADSL2+ pricing that it casts a pallor over the Liberal Party's entire strategy of blasting the NBN as a high-priced white elephant. In fact, with just around 1800 customers online, the NBN has already emerged as a highly competitive marketplace.
The Opposition will never admit it, of course. But it doesn't have to: any right-thinking observer can see the absurdity of the party's position when it is compared with reality.
Remember back in July, after Internode's pricing was released, how Malcolm Turnbull hastily called a media doorstop to tell journalists how the pricing absolutely, positively proved the NBN was a failure and that Stephen Conroy had no credibility at all? He created a huge sensation: news reports screamed about the high price of the NBN; talkback radio was abuzz with NBN non-believers who screamed about the high price of the NBN; it seemed we were destined to get ripped off.
After iiNet's pricing was announced, I asked Turnbull's office when he would be holding a doorstop to discuss the implications of the pricing. Surely, I figured, he would have an opinion about the latest figures, just like he did the previous time?
Sorry, came the response; he was going to sit this one out.
Fletcher says if consumers wanted 100Mbps speeds, they would be willing to pay prices like Internode's $189.95 package.
Happy to step into the ring, however, was Paul Fletcher, another opinionated Liberal minister who you would've thought knows better. He's the one, remember, who stood up in parliament and said discount NBN pricing from Exetel and Dodo could be ignored because they were cut-rate operators with dismal customer-service track records (I still reckon an offended Larry Kestelman is holding back on announcing Dodo's NBN pricing until he finds a way to deliver it for $29.95 a month).
iiNet, of course, is our second-largest ISP and is well-known for providing good service; this fact alone torpedoed Fletcher's argument dead in the water. But he's a relative newbie and apparently doesn't know when he's been beaten, so Fletcher rushed ahead to fill the vacuum Turnbull had left behind. His subsequent announcement argued that iiNet had proved the NBN won't be cheaper than ADSL — and that its ability to price high-speed plans under $100 proved that "an experienced retailer like iiNet does not think consumers will pay much of a premium for those speeds".
Fletcher's claim that the NBN won't be cheaper than ADSL is correct, but I don't believe anybody ever believed the point of the NBN is to deliver broadband for pennies. The Liberals' habit of comparing real-world pricing to their unspoken ideal pricing — which would seem to be zero, from the sound of it — falls flat when one considers that the NBN is indeed comparable to existing broadband offerings.
Fletcher really jumps the shark, however, when he claims that iiNet has lowered its NBN prices based on low expected demand. If consumers wanted 100Mbps speeds, he is saying, they would be willing to pay prices like Internode's $189.95 package — but just weeks ago, the Coalition's entire argument about the NBN was that consumers would not be willing to pay $189.95 per month for fast broadband.
Similar logical inconsistencies popped up in the discussion that followed my inquiry to Turnbull. iiNet or not, he said, the real pricing issue was that NBN Co had already indicated it would be raising wholesale prices by an average 5.7 per cent per annum for the next 12 years. That is the real issue now, his dodge-and-feint strategy now argues.
I don't know about you, but my council rates went up by around 9 per cent last year, water by 10 per cent, train prices by over 10 per cent, electricity by even more. Only mobile rates and internet access stayed the same, and that's because they're contractually set. Not so for my coffee, which has increased by about 15 per cent — which for a journalist is a serious hit to the bottom line.
In real-world terms, then, even if NBN pricing went up by 8 per cent annually — to account for wholesale increases plus an inevitable retail margin — it would actually be no different than the increases we're copping from nearly every other part of the economy. Does this represent a failing on the part of the NBN's business model, or simply reflect the fact that life in Australia is getting more expensive every year?
Turnbull, Fletcher and their peers would have you believe it's the former — heck, for them, everything is a failing of the NBN's business model — but you and I know that it's really a symptom of the latter.
The funny thing is that the Coalition has long demanded proof that the NBN is going to generate enough revenues to be financially viable, but entirely reasonable plans to set product prices and increase costs, like the rest of the world does to deliver acceptable financial returns to investors, are knocked back time and again.
One can only conclude that the Coalition's NBN will be given away for free, built on a shoestring budget, deliver robust next-generation infrastructure, and magically generate enough revenues to pay for itself and deliver commercial returns. Furthermore, this is all meant to happen by the goodwill of a private-sector telecoms sector that will, through some magic, suddenly be inspired to invest billions in next-generation infrastructure for nothing more than the warm fuzzy feeling it will give them.
Rather than having a telecommunications platform, the Liberals have a policy Möbius strip: you can look at it from as many different angles as you want, but in the end it only has one side.
When I asked Turnbull if this meant a coalition government would subsidise NBN access to preserve the profits of these apparently altruistic private-sector operators, there was no response.
The Opposition has made an art of rampant NBN criticism and dodging requests for hard facts in support, but its constantly-shifting ideology remains riddled with internal inconsistencies. It's understandable that government intervention in infrastructure markets may seem unpalatable for free-market, big-business advocates, but the Liberal Party's constant policy tweaking, back-pedalling and logically inconsistent policy rephrasings are rapidly diminishing it to a telecoms industry sideshow.
Rather than having a telecommunications platform, it appears the Liberals have a policy Möbius strip: you can look at it from as many different angles as you want, but in the end it only has one side. There is no progression or escape; and if you follow it, you think you're getting somewhere but always end up at the same point.
iiNet gave the Coalition what it said it wanted — lower NBN pricing — but the Opposition still isn't happy because it fundamentally wants no part of Labor's NBN. This is Liberal's prerogative, of course, but it is also the prerogative of logically-minded voters to expect a more rational argument that might, just once, be punctuated with the admission that something about the NBN isn't really that bad.
Christopher Nolan may have been playing with our minds in Inception, but even that universe had internal rules that must be followed. Opposition policy enjoys no such restrictions — and this fact could become the party's biggest shortcoming as the steady progression of less-than-horrible facts around the NBN proves the Liberals are doing nothing more than tilting at windmills.
What does iiNet's pricing tell you about the NBN? Would you like to see a more reasoned opposition, or even one which is capable of recognising it's been proven wrong? Or is the pricing still too expensive? In which case, how much would you pay for the NBN?


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[ by Charles Cameron — a suggested solution to what ails the US Congress, Bertold Brecht style — and trace evidence of some early unpublished poems ]
I was reading Shivam Vij's piece, The epiphanic moment of the lathi charge, on Kafila today, and he included a quote from Bertolt Brecht that was intriguing enough — and appropriate enough to the fiscal-cliff-jumping mood in Congress these last few days — that I looked for the source, and found it in this poem:
The Solution
Bertolt Brecht, tr John Willett
.After the uprising of the 17th June
The Secretary of the Writer's Union
Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee
Stating that the people
Had forfeited the confidence of the government
And could win it back only
By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?
When I was a very young poet, my friend Dom Sylvester Houédard sent some very young poems of mine to John Willett, who was then the Editor of the Times Literary Supplement. They didn't publish them, but I did get a mention in the TLS a little later, in one of Sylvester's own writings on the British poetry avant-garde. In any case, here's the note Sylvester sent me, letting me know he'd been submitting my stuff to Willett:
As you can see, Dom Sylvester could do some pretty nifty graphics with his old Olivetti Lettera 22 typewriter. He'd gotten into the habit while working in British Army Intelligence somewhere in the Far East during World War II as I recall — before he came home and became a monk. Why? Because Army Intelligence demanded he send them 16-page reports, and he could only ever find fifteen pages worth of intel to send them. They disapproved of blank pages, he complied with orders by filling the final pages of his reports with graphical poetry. And thus a tiny whirlpool in the arts was born…
Okay, enough: Sylvester was a phenomenon of mind and heart, and is sorely missed.
As I said, I was very young when he sent those poems of mine to the TLS — it was 1964, and I was a student at Christ Church, Oxford, "chch" in Sylvester's abbreviation — but the name of John Willett stayed with me, like a runic talisman. So I just can't help but notice when my daily reading, almost fifty years later, brings up his name again — this time as a noted Brecht translator.


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Excessive exposure to ultraviolet radiation is responsible for up to 60 000 deaths a year worldwide, according to a report released this summer by the World Health Organisation. Many of those deaths, however, could be avoided through simple preventive measures such as seeking shade when the UV Index is high, the report says.
Thanks to an innovative service called HappySun, the UV Index can be delivered directly to mobile phones via SMS or can be accessed on the Internet. HappySun calculates the UV Index throughout the day by using ESA satellite data on radiation, ozone and cloud coverage. The service has just completed its two-year-long test phase and has received positive feedback from users.
"HappySun is a tool for the primary prevention of skin cancer," Franco Marsili, Director of the Dermatology Clinic at the Versilia Hospital in Italy, said. "The aim is to educate people about the intelligent 'use' of the sun."
Users are able to personalise the service by completing an online questionnaire about skin sensitivity to UV. Once users specify the place and time of sun exposure, HappySun calculates the personal safe exposure time and suggests the adequate sun protection factor (SPF).
The World Health Organisation (WHO) report, 'Global Burden of Disease of Solar Ultraviolet Radiation', says of the 60 000 deaths annually an estimated 48 000 are caused by malignant melanomas and 12 000 by skin carcinomas.
The report also recognises that ultraviolet radiation has beneficial effects such as the production of vitamin D, which prevents diseases such as osteoporosis and rickets. The WHO says vitamin D levels are in most cases maintained with minimal UVR exposure and warns over-exposure to the sun's radiation is much more dangerous than insufficient vitamin-D levels.
By using data from Envisat and Meteosat-8 satellites, HappySun is also able to offer the sea surface temperature and sea water transparency. Knowing the sea temperature allows tourists to make decisions on holiday destinations depending on their desire for cool or warm waters. Knowledge of the sea water transparency is useful for tourists wanting to dive in waters with good visibility in order to explore the marine environment.
The UV protection service is currently available in Tuscany, Italy, for APT Versilia and Sardinia, Italy, for Baja Hotels. The APT Versilia website shows the temperature of the Versilia sea, while the Baja Hotels' website shows sea temperature implemented in a Google Maps interface.
"Tourists appreciate having a 'satellite eye' that takes care of their skin during sun exposure. Tourists, snorkellers and divers all appreciate having information on sea water in order to find the best conditions," Baja Hotels General Manager Marco Bongiovanni said.
"HappySun is an innovative service conceived in the scope of a European project with the aim of spreading the information regarding benefits and drawbacks associated to heliotherapy," Renato Baldi, APT Versilia Director, said. "We have hosted such a service on our website to promote Versilia as a place where people can sun safely."
These types of services are set to continue in the near future, as HappySun is following up the tourism aspects of the service with tour and hotel operators in preparation for next summer. In addition, the Global Monitoring of the Environment and Security (GMES) initiative – a joint initiative of the European Commission and ESA – is incorporating the public health aspects within its portfolio of services.
The HappySun service, provided by Flyby s.r.l., is backed by an ESA Earth Observation Market Development (EOMD) programme aimed at fostering the development of Earth Observation data within business practices.
Story Source:
Materials provided by European Space Agency. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
Cite This Page:


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Weather Station
Martin Luther College hosts weather data gathered through a Davis Instruments weather center. Data is stored on campus and also shared with Weather Underground, a well-known weather site on the internet.
Martin Luther College Current Conditions
Click here for more information on the current conditions at Martin Luther College
Area Radar
On the Weather Underground site you can find the following pages for our weather station:
- Weather Station Dashboard – current conditions and historical data
- Campus Conditions & Forecast – current conditions and forecast
Weather Underground provides free hosting of our current and historical weather data. Because of that they do have advertising on the site. Martin Luther College is not responsible for any advertising found on the Weather Underground site.
Lightning Sensor
In Spring 2014, the college was approached by WSI's United States Precision Lightning Network with an offer to include MLC in the data gathering network. The offer was to provide a lightning sensor as long as we did the installation and provided internet connectivity.
Since the offer was in keeping with the original intent of the weather station installation, MLC agreed to sign the five year contract. The sensor and antennas arrived in May 2014 and installation occurred later in the month. After testing, the data was added to the network in June 2014.
The photo here is of the stroke (whip) antenna along with the GPS antenna at MLC. The larger unit to the right is the Davis instruments weather center which provides the other weather data on the MLC weather page.


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Published in 2000, "The Tipping Point" rapidly reached a tipping point. In the blink of an eye, it seems, Malcolm Gladwell's argument that social epidemics are spread by a small number of special people, whom he calls mavens, connectors, and salesmen, became conventional wisdom.
According to Jonah Berger, an assistant professor of marketing at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, conventional wisdom is wrong. More important than the messenger, Berger points out, is the message. In "Contagious," he identifies six ingredients or principles that are associated with messages, products, or ideas that go viral. Summarized in an easy-to-remember acronym (STEPPS), they are: Social Currency, Triggers, Emotion, Public, Practical Value, and Stories.
Some of Berger's principles of social transmission are well known, even to those of us who have never sold a Girl Scout cookie. Most of us understand, for example, that emotions (more than reason) get our attention and boost sharing. We agree that observable things are more likely to be discussed and the packaging of information affects how often it gets noticed.
"Contagious" contains arresting — and counterintuitive — facts and insights. Each day, Berger reveals, Americans, on average, engage in 16 conversations in which they say something about a brand, product, organization, or service. Narrower content, he says, may get shared more often because it reminds the speaker of something.
Most interesting of all, however, are the examples Berger cites of successful and unsuccessful marketing campaigns. To raise money to fight prostate cancer, he writes, a group of guys in Melbourne, Australia, found a way to go public with a heretofore private act. They asked donors to grow handlebar mustaches for a month to raise awareness about the disease. Within a few years the idea spread to Denmark, Ireland, South Africa, and Taiwan and $174 million was raised. Public health organizations used a different strategy, called "the poison parasite" by researchers, for an antismoking campaign. Injecting poison into an iconic ad, they put a caption on a picture of two Marlboro Men that read: "Bob, I've got emphysema." Anti-drug ads, Berger notes, backfired when they spread the word that lots of teens were using, making some other teenagers more willing to experiment.
Berger acknowledges that the challenge for advertisers involves "cutting through the clutter," but he does not always indicate how successful the ads he cites were in doing so. Did the slogan "Each and every dining tray needs five fruits and veggies a day," printed in different colors and fonts, and shown 20 times to college students, have a lasting impact on their eating habits? Have the bigger logos on Ralph Lauren and Lacoste shirts boosted sales? Do "I Voted" stickers increase turnout? Do the factoids placed under Snapple caps get passed along to friends, without calling attention to the product? More generally, do "sale prices," which have become ubiquitous, still have the power to attract customers?
Given the ratio of failure to success in spreading the word about anything at all, the conclusion to Berger's interesting book seems too sanguine. The best part of his framework, Berger announces, "is that anyone can use it. It doesn't require a huge advertising budget, marketing genius, or some sort of creativity gene." By following the STEPPS, he claims, "you can make any product or idea contagious."
You can't help wondering if he believes what he's just said — or whether he's just trying to make "Contagious" contagious.
Glenn C. Altschuler is the Thomas and Dorothy Litwin Professor of American Studies at Cornell.