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Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
CINCINNATI (AP) - Teddy Bridgewater made several great escapes with the game on the line. Brendon Kay hobbled around on a bad ankle and matched him in the fourth-quarter cold. It went down to overtime for the second year in a row.
Some ending for this Ohio River rivalry.
Bridgewater rallied No. 19 Louisville in the fourth quarter, and Dominique Brown ran 2 yards for a touchdown in the first overtime Thursday night for a 31-24 victory over Cincinnati in the Cardinals' farewell to the American Athletic Conference.
"I told my mom that I wanted to cry, but tears of joy," Bridgewater said. "I'm so proud of this team. We have a lot of heart.
"Coach tells us all the time to ride the wave. We rode it. Then Cincinnati rode it for a while, but we knew we would ride it again and we did."
The comeback clinched the first AAC title for Central Florida, which had a one-game lead over Cincinnati (9-3, 6-2) heading into the final weekend. Louisville will play in the Russell Athletic Bowl in Orlando, Fla.
"It was great to see this team finish the way they finished," coach Charlie Strong said. "You talk about a team with a lot of resiliency and a lot of heart. There were high expectations this season."
For the second year in a row, the Ohio River rivals went to overtime to decide who gets the Keg of Nails, this time for the foreseeable future with Louisville (11-1, 7-1) leaving for the Atlantic Coast Conference next season.
The Cardinals won 34-31 in overtime in the rain in Louisville last season. This one went to overtime on a wet, raw night when Cincinnati's Tony Miliano kicked a 26-yard field goal with 7 seconds left.
An interference penalty in the end zone set up Brown's 2-yard run to open overtime.
The Bearcats got the ball and wound up with a fourth-and-14 at the 29, and Kay's pass went off the hands of Anthony McClung at the 6, ending Cincinnati's first overtime game at Nippert Stadium since 2003. The Bearcats could be headed to the Belk Bowl.
Bridgewater was 23 of 37 for 255 yards with three touchdowns, two of them in the fourth quarter. He eluded three tacklers for a 14-yard run on fourth-and-12 to keep one touchdown drive going, and finished it by scrambling away from defenders and throwing an off-balance pass for a 22-yard score.
"We're athletic at defensive end, and we were grabbing air a lot of times," Cincinnati coach Tommy Tuberville said. "We had him in our grasp. That fourth-down run, that was obviously the one that took the air out of our defense."
He and Kay kept topping each other in the fourth quarter, but Cincinnati's sixth-year senior didn't have one more big play left in him. He was 22 of 40 for 304 yards with two interceptions and two touchdown scrambles, one of which left him woozy.
For Louisville, the game amounted to a farewell.
The Cardinals head off to the ACC next season, leaving Cincinnati behind. Louisville claimed the final Big East football title last season, beat Florida in the Sugar Bowl and was favored to win the first AAC championship.
A loss at home to Central Florida ended the Cardinals' chances of winning the league's BCS bowl berth. Cincinnati's slim hopes were extinguished by the loss Thursday.
Both defenses rank in the Top 10 nationally for fewest points and yards allowed. They dug in a cold rain that made it tougher to throw and catch the ball, until the two quarterbacks lit it up in the fourth quarter.
Bridgewater rallied Louisville with two sensational plays. He slipped away from three tackles for his 14-yard run on fourth-and-12, then ran around in the backfield avoiding rushers before throwing a 22-yard touchdown pass to Damian Copeland with 8:08 left, ending up on his back after the off-balance throw.
"The plays Teddy made in that fourth quarter," Strong said with admiration. "I thought he was sacked. Then he breaks free and gets the ball to Damian Copeland."
Kay responded with a 57-yard completion that set up Ralph David Abernathy IV's touchdown run, and Bridgewater matched it with a 4-yard touchdown pass to DeVante Parker and a 24-21 lead with 2:26 to go _ just enough time for Kay to lead the Bearcats in range for a tying field goal.
Kay hurt his left ankle on the opening drive of the second half and played the rest of the game with a pronounced limp. He went for an MRI after the game. He also got dazed on his second touchdown run, getting hit hard by two defenders as he crossed the goal line in the third quarter.
"That's how tough the kid is," Tuberville said. "You can't say enough about him. I'm proud he was my quarterback for the last nine games."
Follow Joe Kay on Twitter: http://twitter.com/apjoekay
(Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)


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WASHINGTON—U.S. builders started work in August on the most single-family homes in six months and requested permits to build even more in future months. The figures suggest housing remains a driver of economic growth despite higher mortgage rates.
Builders increased construction of single-family homes 7 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 628,000, the Commerce Department said Wednesday. That's the fastest rate since February. And they sought 627,000 permits for future single-family homes, 3 percent more than July and the best pace since May 2008.
Overall, builders broke ground last month on houses and apartments at an annual rate of 891,000. That's up from a rate of 883,000 the previous month. The gain in single-family homes was offset by a decline in volatile demand for apartments.
Total permits fell to a rate of 918,000 from 954,000 in July, also because of a decline in apartments.
The longer-term trend is also positive: housing starts are 19 percent higher than a year ago.
The housing market has been recovering steadily over the past year, helped by lower mortgage rates and steady job growth. The gains have contributed to economic growth at a time when consumers and businesses have spent more cautiously.
But mortgage rates have risen more than a full percentage point since early May. Some economists say higher rates may be starting to slow the recovery's momentum. In July, new-home sales plummeted to the lowest level in nine months.
Mortgage rates could rise even further if the Federal Reserve decides later Wednesday to slow its $85 billion a month bond purchase program. Most economists expect the Fed will announce that it will reduce its purchases by $10 billion. The bond purchases have kept long-term interest rates low.
The average fixed rate on a 30-year mortgage was 4.57 percent last week. That's near the highest level in two years. Still, rates remain low by historical standards. And most economists expect the housing recovery to withstand the increase in borrowing costs.
Homebuilder confidence remained at its highest level in nearly eight years in September, according to a survey by the National Association of Home Builders. But builders are starting to worry that sales may slow in the coming months if rates keep rising, the survey found.
Though new homes represent only a fraction of the housing market, they have an outsize impact on the economy. Each home built creates an average of three jobs for a year and generates about $90,000 in tax revenue, according to NAHB statistics.
Tagged with tED

subset: commoncrawl


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Saint Peter's Square
Sunday, 8 September 2013
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Good morning! In today's Gospel Jesus insists on the conditions for being his disciples: preferring nothing to the love of Christ, carrying one's cross and following him. Many people in fact drew near to Jesus, they wanted to be included among his followers; and this would happen especially after some miraculous sign which accredited him as the Messiah, the King of Israel. However Jesus did not want to disappoint anyone. He knew well what awaited him in Jerusalem and which path the Father was asking him to take: it was the Way of the Cross, the way of sacrificing himself for the forgiveness of our sins. Following Jesus does not mean taking part in a triumphal procession! It means sharing his merciful love, entering his great work of mercy for each and every man and for all men. The work of Jesus is, precisely, a work of mercy, a work of forgiveness and of love! Jesus is so full of mercy! And this universal pardon, this mercy, passes through the Cross. Jesus, however, does not want to do this work alone: he wants to involve us too in the mission that the Father entrusted to him. After the Resurrection he was to say to his disciples: "As the Father has sent me, even so I send you"... if you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven" (Jn 20:21-22). Jesus' disciple renounces all his possessions because in Jesus he has found the greatest Good in which every other good receives its full value and meaning: family ties, other relationships, work, cultural and economic goods and so forth.... The Christian detaches him or herself from all things and rediscovers all things in the logic of the Gospel, the logic of love and of service.
To explain this requirement, Jesus uses two parables: that of the tower to be built and that of the king going to war. The latter says: "What king, going to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and take counsel whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends an embassy and asks terms of peace" (Lk 14:31-32). Jesus does not wish to address the topic of war here; it is only a parable. Yet at this moment in which we are praying intensely for peace, this word of the Lord touches us to the core, and essentially tells us: there is a more profound war that we must all fight! It is the firm and courageous decision to renounce evil and its enticements and to choose the good, ready to pay in person: this is following Christ, this is what taking up our cross means! This profound war against evil! What is the use of waging war, so many wars, if you aren't capable of waging this profound war against evil? It is pointless! It doesn't work.... Among other things this war against evil entails saying "no" to the fratricidal hatred and falsehood that are used; saying "no" to violence in all its forms; saying "no" to the proliferation of weapons and to the illegal arms trade. There is so much of it! So much of it! And the doubt always remains: is this war or that war — because wars are everywhere — really a war to solve problems or is it a commercial war for selling weapons in illegal trade? These are the enemies to fight, united and consistent, following no other interests than those of peace and of the common good.
Dear brothers and sisters, today we are also commemorating the Nativity of the Virgin Mary, a Feast particularly dear to the Eastern Churches. And let all of us now send a beautiful greeting to all the brothers, sisters, bishops, monks and nuns of the Eastern Churches, both Orthodox and Catholic, a beautiful greeting! Jesus is the sun, Mary is the dawn that heralds his rising. Yesterday evening we kept vigil, entrusting to her intercession our prayers for peace in the world, especially in Syria and throughout the Middle East. Let us now invoke her as Queen of Peace. Queen of Peace pray for us! Queen of Peace pray for us!
After the Angelus:
I would like to thank everyone who, in various ways, joined in the Vigil of Prayer and Fasting yesterday evening. I thank the many people who united the offering of their sufferings. I express my gratitude to the civil authorities, as well as to the members of other Christian communities and of other religions, and to men and women of good will who have undertaken, on this occasion, periods of prayer, fasting and reflection.
But the task remains: we move forward with prayer and works of peace. I invite you to continue to pray so that the violence and devastation in Syria may cease immediately and that a renewed effort be undertaken to achieve a just solution to this fratricidal conflict. Let us pray also for other countries in the Middle East, in particular for Lebanon, that it may find its hoped-for stability and continue to be a model of peaceful co-existence; for Iraq, that sectarian violence may give way to reconciliation; and that the peace process between the Israelis and Palestinians may proceed with determination and courage. Finally, let us pray for Egypt, that all Egyptians, Muslims and Christians, may commit themselves to build up together a society dedicated to the good of the whole population.
The search for peace is long and demands patience and perseverance! Let us keep praying for this!
I joyfully recall that Maria Bolognesi, a faithful lay woman of this region, was beatified yesterday in Rovigo. She was born in 1924 and died in 1980. She devoted her entire life to serving others, especially the poor and the sick, bearing immense suffering in profound union with the Passion of Christ. Let us give thanks to God for this Gospel witness!
I greet with affection all of the pilgrims present, all of them! In particular the faithful of the Patriarchate of Venice, led by the Patriarch; the alumni and alumnae of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians; and the participants in the "Pilgrim Mother Campaign" organized by the Schoenstatt Movement.
I greet the faithful from Carcare, Bitonto, Sciacca, Nocera Superiore, and from the Diocese of Acerra; the Societies of the Sisters of the Holy Rosary of Villa Pitignano; the young people from Torano Nuovo, Martignano, Tencarola and Carmignano and those who have come with the Sisters of Mercy from Verona.
I greet the Choir of San Giovanni Ilarione, the "Pace e Gioia" and "Calima" Associations, respectively of Santa Vittoria d'Alba and Orzinuovi, and the blood donors of Cimolais.
I wish you all a good Sunday. Have a good lunch and goodbye!
Copyright © Dicastero per la Comunicazione - Libreria Editrice Vaticana


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Extreme Stamp Licking
Extreme Stamp Licking is a particularly radical sport which came about in the early 21st century as part of the emerging craze for taking 'ordinary' pastimes and making them infinitely more interesting. Working around the process of licking postage stamps to an unhealthy extreme, the game evoked much controversy in many societies around the globe and was ultimately banned outright worldwide in 2005. The last global competition was held in 2004 Olympics. Let it be noted that lesbians would be PROS at this XTREME sport.
How it is played[edit]
The 'extreme' element of the sport gains its reputation in the way it is played. A group of two or more people get together and select the house of an individual that collects stamps. They then hide nearby, staking out at the location until the house is empty. Then, it is a simple race to see who can break into the house, find the person's collection and successfully lick and apply as many stamps as possible to a pre-selected surface.
Winning the game[edit]
The person who can find and apply the most stamps is the winner, and receives the satisfaction of being able to witness the loser, who is required to remain in the house until the occupant(s) return, struggle to escape from the now irate stamp-collector. For the loser, the penalties can be harsh - they can often find themself being chased down the street by bespectacled individuals wielding heavy dictionaries.
Conceived in 2000 by retired English postman Graham Hick as 'Stamp Licking', the sport was originally much more conventional and less danger-fraught. It soon caught on amongst bored youths and a more violent extreme variant emerged in inner-city areas. This variation on the original, which resembled what Extreme Stamp Licking would eventually become to be known as, was much more preferable to Britain's misguided youths as it was less expensive and involved the ever-appealing element of violence.
Despite its many merits, Extreme Stamp Licking does have many negative aspects, evidenced by the events which occurred following the 2002 inaugural unofficial stamp-licking World Cup. Seven stamp-collectors were killed mainly by blows to the knee and nether regions. A further thirteen were injured, though these was predominantly superficial, although it was reported that one was rendered bed-ridden for days with a sprained wrist.
As a direct result of the problems highlighted by the sport, many countries phased out the traditional 'lick and stick' version of stamps, instead opting for new technological advances. Some governments have even eradicated stamps from their postal system completely, such as the UK, who have resorted to sellotaping 50-pence pieces to envelopes in a bid to crack down on stamp-licking addiction. This method failed however when during a postal strike the 50 pence pieces all came off.
Worldwide banning[edit]
Extreme Stamp Licking was banned outright worldwide in 2005, when the World Postal Regulation Organisation ruled that the sport had become overly outrageous and hazardous to the health of innocent geeks stamp-collectors around the globe.
However, the sport is still practiced 'on the underground' (both metaphorically and literally) in many cities by bored gangs, who have euphemistically called it "Extreme Envelope Licking" or "Pushing the envelope". This has led to the founding of the Stamp Collector Protection organisation by local mafia. More unofficially, the invention of anti-thug devices by threatened stamp-collectors have been an effective measure in recent times.
See also[edit]
- Drug addiction
- Extreme Programming
- Extreme Olympics
- Extreme Tiddley-Winks
- Extreme Kite Buggy Ironing
- Extreme Hide and Seek


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Last year at Maker Faire Bay Area, CRAFT Contributing Writer Rachel Hobson showed us all the basics of hand embroidery, check it out! This year there will be plenty of crafty demos to spark your creativity and passion for crafting, so don't miss it May 22nd and 23rd. We're finalizing the CRAFT area demo schedule soon, and we can't wait to share it with you!
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Join Make: Community Today


text: A Mantra is a sacred phrase, usually in Sanskrit, which has a spiritual and psychological influence. With repeated chanting, it encourages the wandering mind to enter into a meditative state, so the person can connect to oneself and the divine, spiritual energies. It is believed that in choosing to chant mantras you put a halt to your negative thoughts and evoke a higher level of consciousness.


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This week's Gallup/USA Today poll looks like very bad news both for President Obama and the religious right.
Its most widely reported findings showed Mitt Romney erasing Obama's once-formidable lead with female voters in swing states, one crucial to the president's reelection hopes. But it also found that these voters care a lot about reproductive rights. Asked to name the most important issue for women in this election, almost 40 percent said abortion. Thirty-one percent of women said the candidates' birth control policy would be "extremely important" in influencing their vote, and on that issue, respondents favored Obama by 21 points. These numbers suggested that Obama's best chance of reopening the gender gap lay in emphasizing Romney's support for hardline Republican positions on contraception and abortion.
It seems a safe bet that the campaigns are looking at internal polling saying the same thing, because suddenly both candidates are working hard to win over pro-abortion rights women. For Romney, who struggled to prove his anti-abortion rights bona fides during the Republican primary, this could be tricky. But social conservatives are likely to cut him quite a bit of slack, as a Romney victory could easily mean the end of Roe v. Wade. For that long-cherished dream, it's worth putting up with a bit of rhetorical moderation.
At the debate on Tuesday night, Obama repeatedly brought up Romney's pledge to eliminate federal funding for Planned Parenthood, while championing his own support for the federal mandate requiring insurance coverage of birth control. In the past, Romney has been outspoken against the mandate, calling it a violation of religious liberty, but on Tuesday, he tried to make it seem as if he backed it. "I don't believe employers should tell someone whether they could have contraceptive care or not," he said. "Every woman in America should have access to contraceptives. And—and the—and the president's statement of my policy is completely and totally wrong."
Then, on Wednesday, Romney's campaign released a new ad aimed at moderate women. "You know, those ads saying Mitt Romney would ban all abortions and contraception seemed a bit extreme, so I looked into it," says a young woman identified as Sarah Minto. "Turns out Romney doesn't oppose contraception at all. In fact, he thinks abortion should be an option in cases of rape, incest, or to save a mother's life."
It isn't the first time Romney has tried to distance himself from the absolutist anti-abortion position of his party—and his running mate. Last week, he told the Des Moines Register's editorial board, "There's no legislation with regards to abortion that I'm familiar with that would become part of my agenda." That's a pretty big turnaround from the stance he took during the primary campaign, when he published a statement titled "My Pro-Life Pledge" in National Review. In it, he promised, "[A]s president, I will support efforts to prohibit federal funding for any organization like Planned Parenthood, which primarily performs abortions or offers abortion-related services." He also wrote that he would "advocate for and support a Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act to protect unborn children who are capable of feeling pain from abortion."
So far, Romney has been able to pivot away from such commitments because the anti-abortion rights movement, desperate to regain the White House, has been cooperative. Even before his spokeswoman walked back his comments to the Des Moines Register, leaders of the religious right were quick to absolve him. "No alarm bells here," the Family Research Council's Tony Perkins told Talking Points Memo. "I'm fine with his answer and he's made it very clear he's pro-life," Ralph Reed told the conservative website NewsMax.
Such statements provided space for Romney to move even further toward the center, fudging his stance on the contraceptive mandate. Taken literally, his words during the debate don't represent a reversal—Romney has never said that a woman's employer should have the power to prevent her from getting birth control, just from using her health insurance to pay for it. In the context of his exchange with Obama, though, Romney's words were clearly meant to obfuscate. He was certainly unwilling to make the type of religious liberty arguments that he once used before right-wing audiences.
For some conservative leaders, that's just fine. "What he said was, 'I don't believe anyone should tell a woman whether she should have contraception or not, and that is completely consistent with his position on the mandate,'" says Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the anti-abortion rights Susan B. Anthony List. "I don't in any way fault him for trying to communicate what his position really is."
Until Election Day, the right will likely keep giving Romney leeway, but that leeway will only go so far. He cannot, for example, renege on his promise to defund Planned Parenthood or to appoint Supreme Court justices who will overturn Roe v. Wade without sparking revolt. Indeed, one reason social conservatives are willing to tolerate their candidate's current feint toward the center is because the possibility of finally getting rid of Roe is so tantalizingly close. Three of the Supreme Court justices who support the decision are now in their 70s. Romney only needs to replace one of them to usher in an era of total abortion bans in many states and perhaps at the federal level as well. As long as social conservatives know this, they don't mind if Romney tries to make sure that most voters don't.


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Currency exchange
In Russia, the RUB is official currency and RUB is used everywhere.
Exchange center is located in airport and also people can exchange money in the banks (as usually, passport required). Visa & MasterCard are accepted in many department store. ATM could help you to get RUB cash from your credit card.


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Verizon's latest Android smartphone, the Droid DNA, kicks off a new Amazon shopping experience when it arrives on November 21. The HTC handset come pre-loaded with the "Amazon content ecosystem" which is touted as a fully integrated shopping system. Users will have access to more than "22 million books and songs in a single, fully-integrated and easy-to-use experience."
Pre-loaded on the home screen of the Droid DNA and future devices, the app lets users shop across all of Amazon, discover new content, access media, and receive recommendations. To help better illustrate the new features, Amazon has put together a short video which we have embedded below
Continue reading: Droid DNA ushers in new Amazon experience for Verizon subscribers
Be sure to follow AndroidGuys on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube!


text: Legal proceedings started with malice and without good case. Vexatious litigation is meant to bother, embarrass, or cause legal expenses to the defendant. A plaintiff who starts such litigation either knows or should reasonably know that no legal basis for the lawsuit exists. To obtain a remedy for vexatious litigation, the injured party often files a claim for malicious prosecution.


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Ohio Leads Country In Metal Thefts
< < Back toOhio continues to lead the nation in metal thefts.
A National Insurance Crime Bureau report released Wednesday says the state reported more than 4,000 claims from 2011 through 2013 from homes and businesses, nearly all copper thefts.
That's about a third more claims than second-place Texas and 40 percent more than third-place California.
The state had 1,446 claims last year, about flat with 2012 and up from 1,232 in 2011.
Mary Bonelli, spokeswoman for the Ohio Insurance Institute, says it's hard to say why Ohio leads in this category, but she speculates that law-enforcement agencies here may do a better job of tracking such thefts.
The U.S. Department of Energy has estimated that metal theft costs U.S. businesses $1 billion a year.


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Sri Lanka: Campaign image 1
Credit: (c) Amnesty International
Credit: (c) Amnesty International
Like you, we are horrified by the violence and the civilian death toll in Gaza, Israel and the rest of the Occupied Palestinian Territories. We're calling for an immediate ceasefire by all parties in the occupied Gaza Strip and Israel to prevent further loss of civilian lives. Amnesty International is investigating mass summary killings, indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks, hostage-taking, and siege tactics.
As ever, our mission to protect human rights remains. Please donate today to help expose war crimes and protect human rights. Thank you.
© Amnesty International UK 2023. Amnesty International UK Section Charitable Trust. A company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales (03139939) and a charity registered in England and Wales (1051681) and Scotland (SC039534). Amnesty International United Kingdom Section. A company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales (01735872). Registered office 17-25 New Inn Yard London EC2A 3EA.
© Amnesty International UK 2023


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A Young Prodigy's Search, Cut Short
The pianist and composer Austin Peralta released his first album, Maiden Voyage, when he was 15 years old. It was a trio record of mostly standards with Ron Carter on bass and Billy Kilson on drums, two of the most trusted jazz sidemen anywhere, and it was issued by a major record company (Sony) in Japan. It's quite accomplished for someone of any age, and if you don't believe me, there's plenty of evidence on YouTube, on or off stage. As if that weren't enough, he also released a quintet album of mostly standards — with other top-tier talent like bassist Buster Williams and vibraphonist Steve Nelson — less than a year later.
To just about anyone, that should signal an incredible achievement. But I can't help think about what Peralta must have thought about his first efforts on record. He certainly didn't promote those records, and by the time I first learned about him, his artistry was already at a different place.
I learned about Austin Peralta, who died last week at age 22, the same way most folks away from Southern California's jazz scene did. For most intents and purposes, his third album, Endless Planets, put him on the national map. He was 20 when it came out in early 2011, and the child prodigy buzz was part of the hype around the record. Those who have been around the business grow a skeptical frown when someone mentions "child prodigy," but this was somewhat different. Endless Planets isn't a rote recital of precocious virtuosity, and even sounds thoughtfully designed to avoid that impression. Clearly, the kid behind it was trying to grow.
Not that it's hard to hear why Peralta was so heavily tipped. On tracks like "Capricornus" and "The Underwater Mountain Odyssey," he's got a certain sparkling right-hand feel: playful, fluid, punctuated with feints and stutter steps in search of a lyricism beyond stock bebop-style virtuosity. (Unsurprisingly, it's an approach heard in a lot of top younger players today — the Robert Glaspers, the Aaron Parkses, the Gerald Claytons, etc.) He intermittently jabs for a chord like Bill Evans might, but as he runs up and down the keyboard, you can hear him searching for ways to avoid the admitted early influence.
Peralta also seemed to make a conscious decision not to hog the spotlight. The core of the record is made with a quintet, featuring saxophonists Ben Wendel and Zane Musa, and he gives his sidemen more than equal space to stretch out. Hamilton Price plays bass and Zach Harmon plays drums, filling out a band of relative peers — another thing you didn't find on his teenage wunderkind records. Of course, he'd already been leading working bands and groups for some time now: Here's a studio session from KCRW in 2008, just after he turned 18.
If his piano isn't necessarily the dominant voice, his authority as bandleader comes through in his compositions. It's a program of originals, which work best centered around fetching grooves — "Capricornus" in a dynamic 5/4, or "Algiers," with its open structure around a single pedal point and a set of tabla drums. But he also makes efforts at ballads ("Ode To Love"), electronic atmospheres ("Epilogue: Renaissance Bubbles," with the Cinematic Orchestra and vocalist Heidi Vogel), spacey meditations ("Introduction: The Lotus Flower"). Some of it comes off as standard high-modernist stuff: post-Wayne-Shorter harmonies and experiments of unclear logic. A more charitable interpretation would point out how often remarkable ambition synchronizes with execution, and how the kid was already letting his more cosmic concerns lead him in new directions.
Nearly two-thirds of the way through, there's a brief "Interlude" of straight-ahead swing. Set in relief amid the rest of the record, that out-of-context, barely-a-minute-long glimpse of a band deeply in the pocket is striking. As tossed-off as it looks, it's hard to hear it as anything other than a statement about his roots, and maybe the collective past of the musical tradition which raised him. What that statement says, exactly, is open to interpretation.
Endless Planets came out on Brainfeeder, the independent record label founded by electronic music artist Flying Lotus. The album has a few electronic touches to it, courtesy of the artist Strangeloop, but in turn, the Brainfeeder family embraced Peralta back. He appeared on record with the producer Teebs, on stage with the singing electric bassist Thundercat and with FlyLo himself.
It was one avenue in which Peralta connected to a greater musical community, one beyond "jazz." Of course, it seems likely he would have gotten there anyway — in recent years, he's been sighted backing up the singer Octavius Womack, or improvising with beatboxer Taylor McFerrin, or recording for Erykah Badu — and it doesn't mean he wasn't playing with top jazz-trained musicians either. Here's a clip where he covers Flying Lotus' "MmmHmm" with bassist Tim Lefebvre and drummer Justin Brown.
You can hear all this by purchasing Endless Planets, or streaming it on Spotify/etc., or even YouTube, where Alpha Pup Records — which distributes Brainfeeder — has uploaded all of it. You could also check out this live set from the Endless Planets release party, also recorded for Brainfeeder.
It's a huge bit of progress to make in 4-5 years. Even so, I suspect that 22-year-old Austin Peralta was already antsy about his 20-year-old self. It's clear he wasn't content to simply be good — he was pushing himself to find a compositional voice, and to play beyond showy emulation. It also sounds like he was beginning to make records on his own terms, and starting to realize the enormity of the world of tones and rhythms available to him.
We learned of Austin Peralta's death last week. Brainfeeder confirmed the news on Thanksgiving Day, including a memorial post from Flying Lotus himself. Peralta will be missed for what he accomplished, but also for what he might have become. "NEW ALBUM COMING VERY SOON!!!" his Twitter profile reads. If only we could see him celebrate it.


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The LispWorks manuals do not attempt to describe Lisp itself. For definitive information on Common Lisp, including CLOS, consult the American National Standard X3.226 for Common Lisp. An HTML version of this document is supplied with LispWorks and can be accessed from the Help menu.
For information on CLOS, Sonya E. Keene's book Object-Oriented Programming in Common Lisp: A Programmers' Guide is very helpful. This book is published by Addison-Wesley.
For an account of Metaobject protocols as well as a detailed study of an implementation of CLOS see Kiczales, Rivieres and Bobrow, The Art of the Meta-Object Protocol , published by MIT Press. The LispWorks MOP mostly conforms to the MOP described in chapters 5 & 6 of this book.


text:
Jump to navigation
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Germany (known locally as Deutschland) is a country in Western Eurasia, a largely forested temperate area. Germany has a population of about 81 million, making it the most populated nation in the European Union. Germany has an advanced manufacturing sector and is economically quite powerful (having the fourth largest economy in the world). Germany is bordered by Poland and the Czech Republic to the East; France, Belgium, and the Netherlands to the West; and Switzerland and Austria to the south.
German Developments
- The European Printing Press
- Public Education
- The Bolt Action Rifle (Dreyse needle gun)
- The Rigid Airship
- The Haber Process
- The Automobile (Benz Patent-Motorwagen, 1886)
- The Jet Engine
German States in History
- The Holy Roman Empire: A loose assemblage of states created by Charlemagne with the backing of the Catholic Church, which once included France and Germany before being largely limited to Germany. The Imperial throne became an elected position, with emperors being voted in by the highest ranking nobles of the Empire. The Empire was a loose affair at the best and effectively ceased to be after the protestant reformation.
- Various German Principalities
- The Kingdom of Prussia: One of the more powerful German states that rose to prominence after the protestant reformation and during the age of Enlightenment, notably during the reign of king Frederick II.
- The German Empire (1871-1918): Unified under the leadership of Otto von Bismarck, Germany grew in industrial strength and developed a colonial empire. The German Empire was dissolved after losing the Great War.
- The Weimar Republic (1918-1933)
- Nazi Germany (1933-1945)
- German Democratic Republic (1945-1990): After the fall of the Third Reich part of germany was occupied by the USSR. The Soviet Union installed a communist regime in the territory that it occupied.
- Federal Republic of Germany (1945 onward): A democratic state that was created after the second world war in territories occupied by the British, French and Americans. The Federal Republic of Germany evenutaly absorbed the German Democratic Republic.
Germans of Note
- Albert Einstein
- Angela Merkel
- Claus von Stauffenberg
- Erwin Rommel
- Frederick II of Prussia
- Gregor Mendel
- Johannes Gutenberg
- Konrad Adenauer
- Konrad Zuse
- Otto von Bismark
Germans on SD.net
- Thanas
- Serafina


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Growing confidence among business and consumers suggests the recovery from Australia's first recession in nearly 30 years is well under way.
National Australia Bank's business survey shows confidence is at its highest level since mid-2019.
Industries like retailing have seen a strong recovery from the depths of the pandemic.
Consumer confidence has also strengthened for 10 weeks in a row through a combination of falling coronavirus cases, easing restrictions, personal tax cuts and more recently lower interest rates.
The ANZ-Roy Morgan consumer confidence index - a pointer to future household spending - also topped the 100-point mark for the first time since the pandemic was declared in March.
The monthly Westpac-Melbourne Institute consumer sentiment survey for November is released on Nov 11.
In October, its sentiment index soared to its highest level since July 2018 in response to the federal government's tax-cutting budget.
For the first time in at least a decade, consumers thought the budget would improve their finances.
It suggests retailers could be in for a buoyant Christmas shopping period.
"A potential spending splurge - on the back of pent up demand - in the lead up to Christmas trading could encourage more casual and part-time workers to be hired in retail stores," Commonwealth Securities senior economist Ryan Felsman said.


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Today's recipe is specially made for the Livogen Iron Chef Contest. I am submitting this recipe via Indiblogger. You too can submit your favorite Iron rich recipe here.
*Note: Nutrition chart is included at the end of the recipe!
Anemia is a serious problem among women and children in India. The statistics are quite shocking indeed! According to the Global Nutrition Report-2016, India stands way too low on the list of nations dealing iron deficiency (anemia)? It is 170th among 180 countries ranked for anemia among women, 114th among 132 for chronic malnutrition in children under five and 120th among 130 for acute malnutrition in children under five!
My recipe for today is made out of items that are easily available in every household. 3 key ingredients; Eggs, Spinach and Whole wheat bread.
My love for spinach started when I first watched "Popeye: The Sailor man" cartoon. The way Popeye used to gain instant energy after having spinach somehow encouraged me to eat lots of spinach and eventually I developed a love for this leafy vegetable. Not that I forget the fact that my mom's hand does magic when she cooks, but it was Popeye who had an influence on me!
Well! That being said, let me also mention that all the three ingredients used in this recipe are rich in Iron! It is also a filling breakfast with a calorie intake being below 300 Kcal! I separated Egg whites and yolks in this recipe and opted a different way than the traditional way of making scrambled eggs. The reason behind it is that I find routine boring and try to change at least the look of my dish if not the ingredients. You can go ahead and use egg as a whole to make the scramble in the traditional way!
I first had an 'Egg white scramble with spinach' in a meal served on a flight. I loved it and tried it out myself at home and since then I occasionally make this dish just to add a twist and color to my breakfast! Healthy and tasty is always welcome isn't it?
Without any further delay, let me share this healthy recipe with you, which is very quick and easy to make!
- Spinach (Finely Chopped) – 1 cup
- Eggs (Medium Sized) – 2 no's
- Whole Wheat Bread – 1 Slice
- Olive Oil – 2 Teaspoon's
- Salt – As per taste
- Black Pepper – As per taste
Serving 1 | Preparation time: 5 minutes | Cooking time: 10 minutes
- Heat a pan and dry roast 1 teaspoon of olive oil. Add 1 cup of chopped spinach into it and cook it on medium high flame for 5 minutes. Spinach doesn't take a lot of time to cook so it should not take more than 5min! The raw spell fades away and that's when you know it is done. Transfer it into a bowl and set it aside. Also toast a slice of bread in the same pan and set it aside along with the spinach.
- Lower the flame and add the remaining teaspoon of olive oil into the pan. Separate egg yolk from each of the eggs (set egg whites aside) and add the yolks one by one carefully into the pan. Make sure that the round shape of the yolk is not disturbed while you do it! Add a dash of salt and pepper to taste on top and let it cook for a 1 minute or so until the top side of the yolk turns into pale yellow color. That is when you can take it out of the pan (Need not cook on both sides). Set them aside.
- As the pan is already hot and egg-whites get cooked very quickly, turn off the flame and add the tossed spinach, egg whites and a dash of black pepper into the pan and gently mix them together. You need not add more salt as spinach releases a lot of sodium. Adding salt to your dish now makes it very salty. So avoid adding salt. When Whites start to set, quickly remove from the stove top and transfer the scramble into a serving plate.
- Viola! Spinach and Egg-White Scramble is ready! Serve it with shallow fried egg yolks on top and a slice of toasted whole wheat bread on the side!
- This recipe yields 1 serving. Also, it is quite filling (calorie intake being just 273 Kcal) and you are sorted until lunch!
Nutrition Chart:
It would be a great way to include iron rich foods like Spinach, Eggs and Whole Wheat Bread in your breakfast without compromising on TASTE.
I hope you loved the recipe! If so, then do share this recipe. Also, give it a try and let me know your thoughts by dropping a comment below.
Connect with me on Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | Pinterest


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WASHINGTON – It's one of the most far-reaching of all the federal aid programs launched during the COVID-19 pandemic — up to $300 per child going directly into the bank accounts of families on the 15th of every month.
But the last checks will go out Wednesday, the expanded child tax credit program expiring unless Congress revives it for 2022. That appears highly uncertain as lawmakers try to push President Joe Biden's roughly $2 trillion social and environmental bill into law.
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The swift launch, and potentially quick end, to the bolstered child tax credit highlights the risks of enacting sweeping social policy changes in a politically divisive environment, without consensus to make the changes stick. Biden and Democrats on Capitol Hill might not have been praised by voters for adding the new benefit, but they almost surely will be blamed if the money abruptly stops flowing next month.
"We need to keep them going," said Rep. Suzan DelBene, D-Wash., and chair of the House's New Democrat Coalition. "Families deserve that predictability and certainty."
The child tax credit wasn't new when Democrats, over the objections of Republicans in Congress, altered the program as part of Biden's $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill shortly after he took office in January.
But rarely has it provided the boost to families seen with this year's changes.
For more than 20 years, American taxpayers have been afforded a tax break for their children. Started as a $500 per child write-off under Bill Clinton in 1997, it changed over time and was beefed up under Donald Trump's GOP tax cuts in 2017. Biden's American Rescue Plan increased the credit to $3,000 a year, added 17-year-olds and boosted the amount to $3,600 for children under six years old. Most dramatically, it gave the credit to millions of families with low or no income, even if they didn't earn enough money to pay income taxes or pay enough tax to qualify for the refund.
Studies suggest the child tax credit expansions are expected to cut child poverty by 40% — with 9 of 10 American children benefiting. All told, some 4.1 million children are on track to be lifted above the poverty line, according to analysis from the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities.
After the first checks started arriving in July, about one-third of recipient families used the money during the first few months to pay down outstanding debt, along with paying for school supplies and child care, according to preliminary reports from the U.S. Census Bureau.
Families in New Mexico, which has one of the country's highest child poverty rates, spent nearly 46% of their child tax credit money on food, a study by Washington University in St. Louis' Social Policy Institute found.
"It says a lot about what families are worried about," said Sharon Kaye, communications director for New Mexico Voices for Children. "This is hugely important to a lot of families."
Republicans are fully opposed to Biden's larger policy bill, which would extend the tax credit, arguing the overall health, education and climate change package is too big and costly at a time of rising inflation.
On Tuesday, Sen. John Thune, the No. 2 Republican, said his side was fine letting the policy lapse as the coronavirus crisis eases and the temporary aid goes away.
"The thing I don't think you want is a huge spike in spending," Thune told reporters. "And that would probably be the most obvious example of an inflationary type policy."
Faced with Republican opposition, Biden is trying to pass the roughly $2 trillion package with Democrats alone, which the House has already done. But the path in the evenly split 50-50 Senate is more difficult, with no room for dissent.
Biden has been in talks with one key holdout, Sen. Joe Manchin, who appears to be the final obstacle for Democrats trying to pass the big bill by Christmas.
Asked specifically about the expiring tax credit this week, Manchin did not respond to repeated questions about the potential loss.
One Democrat who has had "many, many, many conversations" with Manchin is Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado, who said the West Virginian "is not at this moment a fan of the Child Tax Credit."
Bennet said he hopes Manchin will come to see that the extension would help the country because it would enable more parents to afford child care and work. "My hope is that with the one-year extension of the enhanced credit he will become a fan and we'll see," he said.
When it became law this year, the expansion of the child tax credit was hailed as a potential philosophical shift in the way that government assistance programs work by emphasizing a direct, no-strings cash support.
Instead, the program delivers discretionary cash directly into parents' bank accounts, leaving the parents to decide how best to use it. Recipients spend it on food, rent, school supplies or even recreational activities. Proponents described it as an element of trust that had been lacking in much of the American social safety net — relying on parents to make the right decisions on their family's needs.
Robert Greenstein, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution, compared the child tax credit to America's signature safety net programs — Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid — which have been adjusted and changed over the years to become mainstays in American life. He said there are few policies that are more important.
Greenstein said the benefit flows not just to the families receiving the cash, but has the potential to bring long-term economic benefits. "We'll end up having healthier, better-educated generations of children who can be more productive workers in the U.S. economy of future decades," he said.
"People are often skeptical — the government doesn't do things right," he said. "This is an example of something that they really got right."
With the last checks now slated for Wednesday, Democrats are rushing to ensure that Jan. 15 checks will still land in families' bank accounts. The Treasury Department has warned lawmakers that Dec. 28 is the deadline to pass the bill and ensure no disruption, though lawmakers have suggested payments could be made retroactively if Biden's package stalls.
Emma Mehrabi, director of poverty policy at the Children's Defense Fund, called the potential interruption of payments "a real slap in the face for families in need."
She said, "There is no other tool in our toolkit that has significantly reduced child poverty for decades."
Associated Press writer Josh Boak contributed to this report.


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New car insurance rules to end 'loyalty tax' overcharging
and live on Freeview channel 276
New rules will stop car insurers from charging existing customers more for cover than new clients.
Millions of drivers are thought to be paying more than necessary for their insurance because they allow their policy to auto renew without shopping around. In many cases, the renewal quote is more expensive than the price than they paid previously and more than they would be charged as a new customer.
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Hide AdThis so-called price walking or loyalty tax is thought to collectively cost UK drivers hundreds of millions of pounds each year.
However, under new guidelines from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) insurers will no longer be allowed to charge a customer more to renew than they would pay as a new customer.
The FCA says the move will not only stop firms price walking but could also put an end to unsustainably low-priced deals which are used to lure in new clients.
The change, which comes into force in January 2022 will apply to car and home insurers and the FCA estimates it will save customers £4.2 billion over the next 10 years. At the same time, insurers will have to make it easier for customers to cancel automatic renewal on their policies.
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Hide AdSheldon Mills, executive director of consumers and competition at the FCA, said: "These measures will put an end to the very high prices paid by many loyal customers. Consumers can still benefit from shopping around or negotiating with their current provider – but won't be charged more at renewal just for being an existing customer.
"We will be watching closely to see how the market develops in the future and to ensure firms continue to deliver fairer value to consumers."
Gareth Shaw, Head of Money at Which?, said the changes were long overdue. He commented: "For far too long, insurance companies have employed sharp pricing tactics to lure in customers before hitting them with eye-watering price hikes and exorbitant premiums, so it is right that measures will finally be introduced to help put an end to these unfair practices.
"Greater transparency is still needed on what factors insurance firms are using to set prices and the FCA should carry out further work looking at whether there are other practices firms should be prohibited from using."
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Hide AdLouise O'Shea, CEO at Confused.com said the move was a "watershed moment" for the industry. She added: "Things are about to get very competitive – insurers will be competing to win new business, and so there will be a better price out there for every customer."


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Text Adventure vs. MUD vs. Roguelike vs. Dwarf Fortress
Wed 05 June 2013 Al Sweigart
A text-style game is a common project for beginner programmers. These can be fun to do, but also require spending time up-front to design it is worthwhile. Before you start designing your own game, look at the design decisions of a few different text-style game genres.
Text Adventures
Also known as interactive fiction or IF, a text adventure game were the first incarnations of these types of games. They are single-player, turn-based (the game paused while the player typed in commands), and presented the user with an English text description of each room the player was in. The player was often a single character with an inventory of items picked up in the rooms. Commands were simple English phrases like "open door"
or "get lamp"
West of House
You are standing in an open field west
of a white house, with a boarded front
There is a small mailbox here.
> open mailbox
While the player could die, often the player did not have stats such as hit points, money, or experience points. Text adventures are puzzle-based (such as finding different rooms or figuring out which items to use where), rather than based on progressing in stats or levels.
Text adventure games are more than just "Choose Your Own Adventure" programs, because they take place in open sandbox worlds that the player can freely explore.
These are the simplest types of games to make. In fact, you don't even need a real programming language to make one of these games. There is software specifically for creating text adventure games.
The 1993 hit Myst is an example of a graphical version of this genre. These games became more sophisticated with the graphic adventure game genre (or "point-and-click adventure games"), the most notable coming from LucasArts. Specialized software for making graphic adventure games also exists, chief of which is Adventure Game Studio.
- Single-player
- Turn-based
- Player directly controls a single character
- English text descriptions (not ASCII art)
- English phrases for commands
- Inventory
- No stats or levels
- Puzzle-based and role-playing story elements
Multi-User Dungeons
A MUD (also sometimes called a Multi-User Dimension) was a multiplayer form of text adventures that incorporated hack-and-slash combat. Players connected to a server with telnet client software. Although MUDs still had English text descriptions for rooms and accepted English phrase commands, the games were in real-time: things could happen while you were typing in commands. Players controlled a single character that moved around an open sandbox world, fighting monsters and leveling up. Players could also treat the game as a large chat room to talk to each other.
Because many things could be happening at once, most MUDs made use of colorful text to make the descriptions easier to read (for example, room descriptions in gray, items in the room in white, chat messages in red, etc.)
MUDs still exist today and are often free to play. The Mud Connector is site with a large list of still-active MUD servers.
A Cage
[Exits: north south up]
There is a wimpy goblin here.
kill goblin
Your pierce hits the wimpy goblin.
The wimpy goblin is slain by a final deadly stab.
You receive 170 experience points.
You hear the wimpy goblin's death cry.
You get a metal helmet from the perforated corpse of the wimpy goblin.
MUDs are a bit more difficult to program since they require network programming (and all the concurrency issues that come with that). Although it is entirely possible to create a single-player, turn-based MUD (which is essentially a hack-and-slash text adventure).
Modern MMORPGs such as World of Warcraft are the graphical equivalents of MUDs.
- Multiplayer
- Real-time
- Player directly controls a single character
- Colorful text
- English text descriptions (not ASCII art)
- English phrases for commands
- Centered around advancing stats/levels and acquiring money/items
Roguelikes get their name from the UNIX game Rogue. Roguelikes dropped the English-based commands and descriptions for rooms. Instead, ASCII art (in which text characters represent objects and are used for simple line drawing) took their place. Commands were done using single-key presses (hotkeys) or menus to do things such as moving the character around the room.
Most roguelikes are single-player and turn-based, but do not necessarily have to be. The player still controlled a single character (often represented by a @ symbol). Colorful text was used to differentiate between different types of things displayed on the map.
------ - Wall
|....| ############ # Unlit hallway
|....| # # . Lit area
|.$..+######## # $ Some quantity of gold
|....| # ---+--- + A door
------ # |.....| | Wall
# |.!...| ! A magic potion
# |.....|
# |..@..| @ The adventurer
---- # |.....|
|..| #######+..D..| D A red dragon
|<.+### # |.....| < Stairs to a higher level
---- # # |.?...| ? A magic scroll
###### -------
Gameplay was centered around hack-and-slash and progressing in levels and items by fighting monsters in dungeons. Since the rooms were not created with English descriptions but rather ASCII art, roguelikes had procedurally-generated levels that were unique (although formulaic) each time the player started a game.
Because there is an actual geometry and space for the map (as opposed to a MUD's English description), "line of sight" calculations become a factor for what the player and dungeon monsters can perceive. Rather than display the full map, a "fog of war" might shroud unexplored areas.
Other aspects of roguelikes: "pets" that would follow you and attack nearby monsters, permanent-death, and magical items that are initially unidentified. (These also commonly appear in MUDs.)
Because the text characters are easily interchangeable with simple tile graphics, graphical roguelikes are also available. The Diablo games are graphical, real-time modern equivalents of roguelikes.
- Single-player
- Real-time
- Player directly controls a single character
- ASCII art
- Hotkeys/menus for input
- Centered around advancing stats/levels and acquiring money/items
Dwarf Fortress
Dwarf Fortress is a single game (rather than a genre) first released in 2006 programmed solely by Tarn Adam. It uses procedural generation to create an entire game world, along with history, lore, and natural resources. It extensively uses ASCII art and colors and looks like a roguelike except with a much more extensive system of menus and screens.
The player controls a entire tribe of semi-autonomous dwarves (each with a unique name, personality traits, skills, and stats) as they build a fortress and try to survive. The learning curve is incredibly steep for this game due to the complexity of its simulation. It is a single-player game that runs in real-time.
Dwarf Fortress is a monstrously complicated game, so programming something like it would not be too difficult so much as the large amount of design needed.
- Single-player
- Real-time (but can be paused since it is single-player)
- Player indirectly controls several autonomous dwarves
- ASCII art
- Hotkeys and menus for input
- City-building and simulation genre
Creating Your Own Text-Style Game
The largest advantage to creating a text-style game is that you do not need to be a good artist or spend time acquiring graphic assets for your game. However, these games still require design work to be done beforehand, along with decisions about how the gameplay should work.
When making your own game, consider between the following design decisions:
- Single-player or multiplayer. Single-player is easier but multiplayer is more fun and social. Multiplayer requires learning network programming.
- Turn-based or real-time. Turn-based is easier, but real-time is often more fun. Single-player games can be turn-based or real-time (with pausing and controllable time-speed) but multiplayer games almost always must be real-time (adding to their programming difficulty).
- English descriptions or ASCII art. Writing English descriptions is easy, but it requires a lot of work to create an expansive game world. Using ASCII art to draw out worlds is also easy-but-a-lot-of-work, however you can use procedural generation algorithms to automatically create large, unique (but formulaic and often repetitive) worlds, monsters, and characters.
- English commands or hotkeys/menus. Typing an English command like
"get lamp"
or"say 'Hello' to elf"
offers a richer way to engage with the game, although it can also be opaque at times. (And nothing is more frustrating than constantly reading, "I did not understand that command.") While hotkeys and menus are more limited, they are also more obvious. Games with story and role-playing are often better suited for English commands, while hack-and-slash games use hotkeys and menus. - Story-base or hack-and-slash. Story-based games require more design work, and players may or may not like the story and writing. Hack-and-slash games are simple, but can become repetitive.
- Player directly or indirectly controls one or multiple characters. The player can either directly control the movements of one or more characters, or indirectly give instructions. Indirect control requires more complicated AI for the characters but makes it easy to control multiple characters by issuing orders and letting the character carry them out.
- Monochrome or colorful text. Colorful text is almost always better, but might require the use of a curses library to program this.
- Puzzles or stats-progression Similar to story-versus-hack-and-slash, puzzles require more design which the players may or may not end up liking. Stats-progression games where the player acquires better weapons or advances in levels can be fun but also repetitive.
Game design is all about decisions and trade-offs, but knowing what these choices are gives a hobbyist programmer more insight as to what's been done, and what can be possible.


text:
I'm interested to know if there exists something like a chess timer, but for an arbitrary number of players. I would like to use this for games such as Carcassonne and Settlers of Catan, where each player's turn is largely independent of the other player's involvement.
Assuming there is a product like this I would like to hear whether you have found it helpful to play with, or whether you think it causes more problems than it solves.


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When celebrities such as Angelina Jolie or Bono highlight human tragedy to show that something can be done to alleviate it, the heart melts and the purse strings loosen. But the stars, alas, aren't up on the economic literature. Research is increasingly questioning the benefits of foreign aid.
For a long time, persistent underdevelopment in aid-receiving countries fostered doubts about whether the do-good impulse was doing permanent good. Validation seemed to arrive with two World Bank researchers, Craig Burnside and David Dollar, who purportedly showed in the late 1990s that aid helped boost long run economic growth. It did so not everywhere and all the time, but only where recipient countries followed good policies and had reasonable institutional environments for these policies to be effective.
Governments, nongovernmental organizations, donors, the press, and civil society embraced this work with the hungry enthusiasm of the long-deprived. The research had the great virtues of plausibility and expediency-a finding that aid is unconditionally good would have strained credulity. And by linking aid effectiveness to policies, the research gave intellectual justification to donors' practice of imposing "conditionality" on recipient governments. Tough love had found its intellectual savior.
Unfortunately, the Burnside-Dollar findings did not hold up to further scrutiny. Aid, after all, simply expands resources available to countries to build schools, hospitals, and roads and to pay teachers. These investments in human capital and infrastructure surely boost growth and improve living standards, the thinking went, even if there is some wastage of resources along the way through corruption or mismanagement. But as researchers pored over the data, it became increasingly difficult to maintain that there was any systematic relationship between aid and long-run economic growth.
The problem is that development and long-run growth are less about resources than about the environment for generating and sustaining private sector investment. Two key aspects of this environment are decent public institutions or governance-the essential "software" for running a market economy, creating rule of law, and protecting property rights-and incentives that encourage the private sector to export, especially manufactured products.
Aid, especially in large amounts, can damage governance and make an economy uncompetitive. Like revenues from natural resources, it is manna from heaven for governments. When governments receive large oil revenues or aid, they have less incentive to be accountable to their citizens, and governance suffers. In theory, donors impose an alternate form of accountability. In practice, donors' motivations are sometimes a mixture of the murky (think of the United States and Pakistan post-9/11 or the West and Zaire's Mobutu several decades ago) and the mindless (in 2000-2002, the Tanzanian government reportedly had to write a few thousand reports to donors every quarter). Even where motivations are honorable, recipients have infinite ways of circumventing donor conditions.
Aid can also have adverse effects on an economy's competitiveness. When foreign resources come pouring in and are spent domestically, wages tend to rise, especially for those in scarce supply such as managers, supervisors and entrepreneurs. Factories that export will find themselves becoming uncompetitive and go out of business.
In research with Raghuram Rajan, we find that in countries that received more aid, exportable industries systematically underperformed. And exporting manufactured goods has been the mode of escape from underdevelopment in many of the East Asian successes. Is it a coincidence that, with rare exceptions ( Mauritius), there are no booming clothing industries-the launching pad for some of the East Asian miracles-in aid-addled Africa? This despite the fact that clothing is only minimally demanding of infrastructure and entrepreneurship and despite the very favorable access that Africa has always had in Western markets for exports of clothing products.
The new research findings have provoked genuine soul-searching among aid practitioners on the need to do things differently. But a new line, expressed most recently by the New York Times' Nicholas Kristof, goes something like this: So what if aid cannot do permanent good? The question is can it do some good? Or, even if aid cannot promote livelihoods, can it save lives?
If it can, aid for a set of well-defined objectives, such as improving health and education, should continue to flow, and even increase substantially. There is ample evidence that foreign assistance helps fight disease in poor countries, documented most vividly in the Center for Global Development's "Millions Saved: Proven Successes in Global Health." So, why not do more of the same?
Because the fact that aid can save lives does not mean that aid might not have some of the adverse long-run effects relating to damaging governance and making the economy uncompetitive. Better health could be accompanied by slower growth and hence reduced prospects for long-run prosperity. Even if the trade-off is worth making, it needs to be acknowledged. Aid advocates evade this by thinking and acting as if the long-run problems caused by aid can be fixed independently. That rarely happens.
Aid advocacy leads to perhaps an even more serious problem. There is a limited stock of good will and good intentions in the rich world and the question becomes whether this stock is best harnessed by mobilizing more aid or by pursuing alternative actions that could have a bigger impact.
Consider a few: mobilizing more money to provide incentives for greater research and development devoted to addressing poor country health and agriculture problems (the green revolution in Asia was made possible by research on high-yielding varieties of wheat, and Africa hasn't had a similar revolution of its own); making regulatory changes in industrial countries that can reduce corruption (for example, more rigorous enforcement of bribery and corruption by rich country officials and corporations) in poor countries, which could have a huge impact on economic performance; or allowing more immigration from the poorest countries, which would directly benefit the poor.
These solutions are seldom pursued with the zeal that they deserve, in part because they are more difficult to support politically, and in part because that zeal which is essential to overcome the difficulties gets diverted toward, well, to calling for more aid.
Giving aid is like looking for the lost key under the lamppost because that is the easiest thing to do. But it is not obviously the most effective way that outsiders can help. When Ms. Jolie appears on the screen calling for more aid, she not only distracts our attention toward her obvious good looks, she may also be distracting our attention away from the search for more effective solutions to helping the poorest around the world.


text:
"Lord, Increase Our Faith," Ensign, Nov. 1987, 51
Sunday Morning Session
4 October 1987
"Lord, Increase Our Faith"
I add my word of welcome to all who are gathered in this great conference. It has veritably become a world conference. We now speak to congregations throughout North America and instantaneously reach to some across the seas. Hundreds of thousands are gathered this morning to hear the word of the Lord. I thank you for your faith and your desires, and seek the direction of the Holy Spirit.
Let me tell you of an experience I had with one of our Area Presidents. We were in a land where, to our knowledge, there was not a member of the Church among the millions of that nation.
There was a man who knew of the Church and desired baptism. He had been a longtime student of the Bible. He belonged to a Christian church but was not satisfied. The thought came into his mind that he should belong to a church that carried the name of the Savior. In an old encyclopedia in a public library, he found listed The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with headquarters in Salt Lake City. He wrote a letter of inquiry and received a response with literature. Other literature followed as he requested it.
When we met him he had read the Book of Mormon again and again. He had read the Doctrine and Covenants and other Church writings. With enthusiasm he had told his friends of his treasured find. He asked to be baptized.
We questioned him. He knew of the priesthood, its orders and its offices. He knew of the various ordinances and the procedures of our meetings.
Did he believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God? Oh, yes, he knew it to be true. He had read it. He had prayed about it and pondered. He had no doubt of its truth.
Did he believe Joseph Smith to be a prophet of God? Most assuredly. Again, he had studied and prayed. He was convinced of the reality of that glorious vision when God the Eternal Father and His Beloved Son, the resurrected Lord, appeared to the boy Joseph to usher in a new and final dispensation of gospel truth.
The priesthood had been restored with all its gifts and powers. He knew that. Our friend asked for baptism and hoped for the priesthood that he might teach and act with proper authority.
"But," we said, "if we baptize you and then leave, you will be left alone. While there are many Christians in your nation, and freedom of religion is guaranteed under its laws, there are severe restrictions concerning foreigners. There will be no one to teach you and help you. There will be no one on whom you can lean."
He responded, "God will teach me and help me, and He will be my friend and support."
I looked into the eyes of that good man and saw the light of faith. We baptized him under the authority of the holy priesthood. We confirmed him a member of the Church and bestowed upon him the Holy Ghost. We baptized his wife. We conferred upon him the Aaronic Priesthood and ordained him to the office of priest so that under proper direction they might have the sacrament.
We held a sacrament and testimony meeting with them. We embraced them and said good-bye to one another, and tears were in our eyes. They left to return to their home, and we left for responsibilities in other nations.
I shall never forget him. He is poor in the things of the world. But he is educated—a teacher by profession. I know little of his circumstances. But this I know—when we talked with him, the fire of faith burned in his heart, and our own faith was quickened also.
As we traveled from that scene and there was time to meditate, I wished that faith of his kind was found more widely, both among us and among others. His example has provided a text for me. It is found in the fifth verse of the seventeenth chapter of Luke. Jesus had been teaching his disciples by precept and parable. "And the apostles said unto the Lord, Increase our faith" (italics added).
This is my prayer for all of us—"Lord, increase our faith." Increase our faith to bridge the chasms of uncertainty and doubt. As most of you know, in the last four or five years we have passed through an interesting episode in the history of the Church. There came into our hands two letters that were seized upon by the media when we announced them. They were trumpeted across much of the world as documents that would challenge the authenticity of the Church. In announcing them we stated that they really had nothing to do with the essentials of our history. But some few of little faith, who seemingly are always quick to believe the negative, accepted as fact the pronouncements and predictions of the media. I recall a letter from an individual who asked that his name be taken from the records of the Church because he could no longer believe in a church that had to do with an experience with a salamander.
Now, as you know, these letters, together with other documents, have been acknowledged by their forger to be total frauds and part of an evil and devious design which culminated in the murder of two individuals.
I have wondered what those whose faith was shaken have thought since the forger confessed to his evil work.
However, I hasten to add, the vast majority of Church members, all but a very few, paid little attention and went forward with their faithful service, living by a conviction firmly grounded in that knowledge which comes by the power of the Holy Ghost. They knew then and they know now that God watches over this work, that Jesus Christ is the head of this Church, that it is true, and that happiness and growth come of following its precepts and teachings.
Out of this earlier episode has now arisen another phenomenon. It is described as the writing of a "new history" of the Church as distinguished from the "old history." It represents, among other things, an effort to ferret out every element of folk magic and the occult in the environment in which Joseph Smith lived to explain what he did and why.
I have no doubt there was folk magic practiced in those days. Without question there were superstitions and the superstitious. I suppose there was some of this in the days when the Savior walked the earth. There is even some in this age of so-called enlightenment. For instance, some hotels and business buildings skip the numbering of floor thirteen. Does this mean there is something wrong with the building? Of course not. Or with the builders? No.
Similarly, the fact that there were superstitions among the people in the days of Joseph Smith is no evidence whatever that the Church came of such superstition.
Joseph Smith himself wrote or dictated his history. It is his testimony of what occurred, and he sealed that testimony with his life. It is written in language clear and plain and unmistakable. From an ancient record he translated the Book of Mormon by the gift and power of God. It is here for all to see and handle and read. Those who have read with faith and inquired in prayer have come to a certain knowledge that it is true. The present effort of trying to find some other explanation for the organization of the Church, for the origin of the Book of Mormon, and for the priesthood with its keys and powers will be similar to other anti-Mormon fads which have come and blossomed and faded. Truth will prevail. A knowledge of that truth comes by effort and study, yes. But it comes primarily as a gift from God to those who seek in faith.
My constant prayer in behalf of the entire Church is this: Lord, increase our faith to rise above the feeble detractors of this Thy great and holy work. Strengthen our will. Help us to build and expand Thy kingdom according to Thy great mandate, that this gospel may be preached in all the world as a witness unto all nations.
I have seen answers to that prayer. I have seen the miracle of the expansion of this cause and kingdom and can testify of it.
In 1960, only twenty-seven years ago, I was given an assignment by the First Presidency to work with the mission presidents, the missionaries, and the Saints in Asia. The Church was weak and small in that part of the earth. The seed had been planted in Japan, Taiwan, and Korea by faithful Latter-day Saints in military service. But it was tiny and unstable. We had no buildings of our own. We met as small groups in rented houses. In winter they were cold and uncomfortable. Converts came into the Church. But some, lacking faith, soon left. However, there remained a residual of strong and wonderful men and women who looked beyond the adversity of the moment. They found their strength in the message, not in the facilities. They have remained faithful to this day, and their numbers have been added to by the tens and tens of thousands.
A few Sundays back we held a regional conference in Tokyo. The spacious hall was filled to capacity. There were almost as many present on that occasion as there are assembled in the Salt Lake Tabernacle this morning. The Spirit of the Lord was there. An attitude of faith filled that vast congregation. For me, who had known those days when we were weak and few in number, it was a miracle to behold, for which I give thanks to the Lord.
We had a similar experience in Hong Kong, where there are now four stakes of Zion.
Then in Seoul, Korea, my heart was touched as we entered the largest hall in that great city to find every seat taken by members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and their invited guests. A magnificent choir of 320 voices opened with the strains "Oh, how lovely was the morning" ("Joseph Smith's First Prayer," Hymns, 1985, no. 26). It was a moving expression of the first vision of the Prophet Joseph Smith.
I had known South Korea in its days of poverty and reconstruction following the terrible war. When first I went there, we had six missionaries in Seoul and two in Pusan. Some were ill with hepatitis. Today there are four thriving missions in that land, with some six hundred missionaries. Many of the missionaries are sons and daughters of Korea. They include bright and beautiful young women in whose hearts burns the light of faith. They include young men who leave schooling for a season in order to serve missions. These young men are under tremendous pressures because of military requirements as well as educational demands, but they have faith in their hearts.
When first I went to South Korea, there were two or three tiny branches. Today there are one hundred fifty local units of the Church, both wards and branches. Then it was a small, isolated district of the Northern Far East Mission. We had no chapels. Today there are 14 stakes with 47 chapels built and owned and another 52 under lease, with others under construction.
I felt a spirit in that congregation three weeks ago that touched me to the depths of my soul. I saw the sweet fruits of faith. I knew of the early struggles in establishing an unknown church. I knew of the poverty of the people. Now there is strength. There is an undreamed-of measure of prosperity. There is a warm spirit of fellowship. There are families of devoted husbands and wives and good and beautiful children.
These are people I love, and I love them because of their faith. They are intelligent and well educated. They are hardworking and progressive. They are humble and prayerful. They are an example to others across the world.
I say again, as did the Apostles to Jesus, "Lord, increase our faith." Grant us faith to look beyond the problems of the moment to the miracles of the future. Give us faith to pay our tithes and offerings and put our trust in Thee, the Almighty, to open the windows of heaven as Thou hast promised. Give us faith to do what is right and let the consequence follow.
Grant us faith when storms of adversity beat us down and drive us to the ground. In seasons of sickness may our confidence wax strong in the powers of the priesthood. May we follow the counsel of James:
"Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord:
"And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up" (James 5:14–15; italics added).
He who will follow me in speaking, President Howard W. Hunter, is a shining example of the efficacy of such faith.
Lord, when we walk in the valley of the shadow of death, give us faith to smile through our tears, knowing that it is all part of the eternal plan of a loving Father, that as we cross the threshold from this life we enter another more glorious, and that through the atonement of the Son of God all shall rise from the grave and the faithful shall go on to exaltation.
Give us faith to pursue the work of redemption of the dead that Thine eternal purposes may be fulfilled in behalf of Thy sons and daughters of all generations.
Father, grant us faith to follow counsel in the little things that can mean so very much. Our President, he whom we sustain as prophet, has repeatedly, since he was called to this responsibility, asked us to read that other great witness for the Lord Jesus Christ, the Book of Mormon. Tens of thousands have now done so to their great blessing. They could testify, Sweet are the rewards of simple faith.
Lord, increase our faith in one another, and in ourselves, and in our capacity to do good and great things.
This, my brothers and sisters, is my prayer.
There is a simple and moving story in the book of 1 Kings. Permit me to read you a few lines:
"And Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead, said unto Ahab, As the Lord God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word.
"And the word of the Lord came unto him, saying,
"Get thee hence, and turn thee eastward, and hide thyself by the brook Cherith, that is before Jordan.
"And it shall be, that thou shalt drink of the brook; and I have commanded the ravens to feed thee there.
"So he [Elijah] went and did according unto the word of the Lord" (1 Kgs. 17:1–5; italics added).
There was no argument. There was no discussion. There was no rationalizing on the part of Elijah. He simply "went and did."
Father, increase our faith. Of all our needs, I think the greatest is an increase in faith. And so, dear Father, increase our faith in Thee, and in Thy Beloved Son, in Thy great eternal work, in ourselves as Thy children, and in our capacity to go and do according to Thy will, and Thy precepts, I humbly pray in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.


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Intel X25-M SSD: Intel Delivers One of the World's Fastest Drives
by Anand Lal Shimpi on September 8, 2008 4:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Storage
How SSDs Work
The building block of NAND flash is the N-channel MOSFET:
Each "cell" is made up of one of these transistors. In a single-level cell (SLC) flash device, one of these transistors can hold 1-bit of data. You write data to the cell by electron tunneling; apply a high enough voltage to the gate, create a powerful enough electric field, and electrons will tunnel through the oxide and into the floating gate. Remove the voltage and the electrons will remain in the floating gate. Apply the voltage across the channel instead of the gate, reverse the bias and the electrons will go in the other direction. Simply put, that's how flash works - you've got two states, 0 and 1, and the state is preserved even if the cell has no power, making it ideal for a storage device.
Programming flash is an iterative process. The controller will apply voltage to the gate (or the channel), allow some electrons to tunnel and check the threshold voltage of the cell. When the threshold voltage has reached some predetermined value, it's now programmed and your data is stored.
MLC vs. SLC
There are two forms of NAND flash used in SSDs today: Single-Level Cell (SLC) and Multi-Level Cell (MLC). The difference between the two is the amount of data stored per cell, with SLC it's 1-bit per cell and with MLC it's 2-bits per cell. The key here is that both SLC and MLC take up the same amount of die area, so MLC effectively doubles your capacity at the same price.
Intel actually uses the same transistors for its SLC and MLC flash, the difference is how you read/write the two. With SLC there are only two voltages to worry about, since there are two states (0 or 1). With MLC, there are four states (00, 01, 10, 11) and thus it takes longer to access since you don't want to accidentally write the wrong bit of data; you've got the same min and max voltage, you simply have more graduations in between the two now:
SLC (left) vs. MLC (right)
Below is a table of some basic stats on SLC vs. MLC performance:
SLC NAND flash | MLC NAND flash | |
Random Read | 25 µs | 50 µs |
Erase | 2ms per block | 2ms per block |
Programming | 250 µs | 900 µs |
Erasing performance is the same between the two, read performance takes twice as long on MLC flash and write performance can take almost four times as long. If you've ever heard people complain about MLC write speed before, this partly why. Do keep in mind though, the numbers we're talking about here are ridiculously low - even 900 µs to write to MLC flash is much faster than writing to a mechanical hard disk.
The biggest advantage of SLC ends up not being performance, but lifespan. To understand how flash wears, we first need to look at how it's organized in a storage device.
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Mocib - Thursday, October 9, 2008 - link
Good stuff, but why isn't anyone talking about ioXtreme, the PCI-E SSD drive from Fusion-IO? It baffles me just how little talk there is about ioXtreme, and the ioDrive solution in general. -
Shadowmaster625 - Thursday, October 9, 2008 - link
I think the Fusion-IO is great as a concept. But what we really need is for Intel and/or AMD to start thinking intelligently about SSDs.
AMD and Intel need to agree on a standard for an integrated SSD controller. And then create a new open standard for a Flash SSD DIMM socket.
Then I could buy a 32 or 64 GB SSD DIMM and plug it into a socket next to my RAM, and have a SUPER-FAST hard drive. Imagine a SSD DIMM that costs $50 and puts out even better numbers than the Fusion-IO! With economy of scale, it would only cost a few dollers per CPU and a few dollars more for the motherboard. But the performance would shatter the current paradigm.
The cost of the DIMMs would be low because there would be no expensive controller on the module, like there is now with flash SSDs. And that is how it should be! There is NO need for a controller on a memory module! How we ended up taking this convoluted route baffles me. It is a fatally flawed design that is always going to be bottlenecked by the SATA interface, no matter how fast it is. The SSD MUST have a direct link to the CPU in order to unleash its true performance potential.
This would increase performance so much that if VIA did this with their Nano CPU, they would have an end product that outperforms even Nehalem in real-world everyday PC usage. If you dont believe me, you need to check out the Fusion-IO. With SSD controller integration, you can have Fusion-IO level performance for dirt cheap.
If you understand what I am talking about here, and can see that this is truly the way to go with SSDs, then you need to help get the word to AMD and Intel. Whoever does it first is going to make a killing. I'd prefer it to be AMD at this point but it just needs to get done. -
ProDigit - Tuesday, October 7, 2008 - link
Concerning the Vista boottime,I think it'd make more sense to express that in seconds rather than MB/s.
I rather have a Windows boot in 38seconds article,than a windows boots with 51MB/s speeds.. That'd be totally useless to me.
Also, I had hoped for entry level SSD cards, replacements for mininotebooks rather in the category of sub 150$ drives.
On an XP machine, 32GB is more then enough for a mininotebook (8GB has been done before). Mininotebooks cost about $500,and cheap ones below $300. I,as many out there, am not willing to spend $500 on a SSD drive, when the machine costs the same or less.
I had hoped maybe a slightly lower performance 40GB SSD drive could be sold for 149$,which is the max price for SSD cards for mini notebooks.
for laptops and normal notebooks drives upto 200-250$ range would be enough for 64-80GB. I don't agree on the '300-400' region being good for SSD drives. Prices are still waaay too high!
Ofcourse we're paying a lot of R&D right now,prices should drop 1 year from now. Notebooks with XP should do with drives starting from 64GB,mini notebooks with drives from 32-40GB,and for desktops 160GB is more than enough. In fact, desktops usually have multiple harddrives, and an SSD is only good for netbooks for it's faster speeds, and lower powerconsumption.
If you want to benefit from speeds on a desktop,a 60-80GB will more then do, since only the Windows, office applications, anti-virus and personal programs like coreldraw, photoshop, or games need to be on the SSD drive.
Downloaded things, movies, mp3 files, all those things that take up space might as well be saved on an external/internal second HD.
Besides if you can handle the slightly higher game loadtimes on conventional HD's, many older games already run fine (over 30fps) on full detail, 1900x??? resolution.
Installing older games on an SSD doesn't really benefit anyone, apart from the slightly lower loadtimes.
Seeing that I'd say for the server market highest speed and largest diskspace-size matter, and occasionally also lowest power consumption matter.
=> highest priced SSD's. X >$1000, X >164GB /SSD
For the desktop high to highest speed matters, less focus on diskspace size and power consumption.
=> normal priced SSD's $250 > X > $599 X > 80GB/SSD
For the notebooks high speed and lowest power consumption matter, smaller size as compensation for price.
=> Normal priced SSD's $175 > X > $399 X > 60GB/SSD
For the mininotebook normal speed, and more focus on lower power consumption and lowest pricing matter!
=> Low powered small SSD's $75 > X > $199 X > 32GB/SSD -
gemsurf - Sunday, October 5, 2008 - link
Just in case anyone hasn't noticed, these are showing up for sale all over the net in the $625 to $750 range. Using live search, I bought one from teckwave on ebay yesterday for $481.80 after the live search cashback from microsoft.
BTW, Does Jmicron do anything right? Seems I had AHCI/Raid issues on the 965 series Intel chipsets a few years back with jmicron controllers too! -
Shadowmaster625 - Wednesday, September 24, 2008 - link
Obviously Intel has greater resources than you guys. No doubt they threw a large number of bodies into write optimizations.
But it isnt too hard to figure out what they did. I'm assuming that when the controller is free from reads or writes, that is when it takes the time to actually go and erase a block. The controller probably adds up all the pages that are flagged for erasure, and when it has enough to fill an entire block, then it goes and erases and writes that block.
Assuming 4KB pages and 512KB blocks (~150,000 blocks per 80GB device) what Intel must be doing is just writing each page wherever they could shove it. And erasing one block while writing to all those other blocks. (With that many blocks you could do a lot of writing without ever having to wait for one to erase.) And I would go ahead and have the controller acknowledge the data was written once it is all in the buffer. That would free up the drive as far as Windows is concerned.
If I was designing one of these devices, I would definately demand as much SRAM as possible. I dont buy that line of bull about Intel not using the SRAM for temporary data storage. That makes no sense. You can take steps to ensure the data is protected, but making use of SRAM is key to greater performance in the future. That is what allows you to put off erasing and writing blocks until the drive is idle. Even a SRAM storage time limit of just one second would add a lot of performance, and the risk of data loss would be negligable.
Shadowmaster625 - Wednesday, September 24, 2008 - link
32GB SLC, currently $395
The 64GB version is more expensive than the Intel right now, but with the money they've already raked in who really thinks they wont be able to match intel performance or pricewise? Of course they will. So how can this possibly be that great of a thing? So its a few extra GB. Gimme a break, I would rather take the 32GB and simply juggle around stuff onto my media drive every now and then. Did you know you can simply copy your entire folder from the Program Files directory over to your other drive and then put it back when you want to use it? I do that with games all the time. It takes all of 2 minutes... Why pay hundreds of dollars extra to avoid having to do that? It's just a background task anyway. That's how 32GB has been enough space for my system drive for a long time now. (Well, that and not using Vista.) At any rate this is hardly a game changer. The other MLC vendors will address the latency issue. -
cfp - Tuesday, September 16, 2008 - link
Have you seen any UK/Euro shops with these available (for preorder even?) yet? There are many results on the US Froogle (though none of them seem to have stock or availability dates) but still none on the UK one. -
Per Hansson - Friday, September 12, 2008 - link
What about the Mtron SSD's
You said they used a different controller vs Samsung in the beginning of the article but you never benchmarked them? -
7Enigma - Friday, September 19, 2008 - link
I would like to know the question to this as well... -
NeoZGeo - Thursday, September 11, 2008 - link
The whole review is based on Intel vs OCZ Core. We all know OCZ core had issues that you have mentioned. However, what I would like to see is other drives test bench against OCZ core drive, or even the core II drive. Suppose the controller has a different firmware according to some guys from OCZ on the core 2, and I find that a bit bias if you are using a different spec item to represent all the other drives in the market.


text:
OHPI > MMFR > April 2005 |
If you have questions concerning the report, contact:
Marsha A. Reynolds
Federal Highway Administration
Office of Highway Policy Information (HPPI)
400 Seventh Street SW
Washington, DC 20590
Telephone: 202-366-5029
Facsimile: 202-366-7742
The Monthly Motor Fuel Reported by States report is only available on the FHWA Office of Highway Policy Information Website at the following address:
Data in the tables are subject to change because the States may revise and update their data.
This is an electronic version of Publication No. FHWA-PL -06-006
OHPI Home | Monthly Motor Fuel Reported by States | OHPI Feedback


text:
How to | pass personality tests
Personality tests are commonly at interviews to calculate your personality "Type". It is likely that you will be faced with one during your career.Personality tests are commonly at interviews to calculate your personality "Type". It is likely that you will be faced with one during your career.
Understanding about personality tests can be a big help should you have to face one and the best way to understand them is to do one. (You try one here for free. http://www.peoplemaps.com )
Your personality test results will reveal a range of things about you to a potential employer. Typically it will reveal your strengths, weaknesses and your preferred style of working and communicating.
To begin with you will usually be asked to complete a Forced Choice Questionnaire if it is a sophisticated system. This can be an awkward thing at first as often you want to select two answers equally but the system will not let you do so. Get familiar with this type of questionnaire and your next interview will be a little easier.
Personality profilers do not consider your education, qualifications or experience. They purely look at your personality.
It is not an exact science and potential employers often miss-use the system and depend upon it too much. Some people come across differently than they would imagine so it is important that you know how you are coming across. They are not perfect and they do get it wrong. Do not assume you know what your report says until you have tried a report and read the results.
An employer will delve into your perceived weaknesses according to the report, so it is better that you know what these may be and prepare some questions. Everyone has weaknesses in their report.
Do not try and cheat your results answer honestly. There are two reasons for this
- You do not know what type the employer is looking for
- You do not know how to reproduce this type
It is also possible for experienced profile analysers to tell if you are trying to trick the system.
Remember the best way to understand Personality profilers is to do one. Try one by clicking below: