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150 years ago, Italy became a country. Well, sort of. Venice and Rome didn't join for another 9 years, so many Italians will be waiting until 2020 for the big celebration of the Risorgimento, as the unification is called in Italian. Nevertheless, as Italy's first capital city in 1861, Torino (aka Turin, home of the famed Shroud) is celebrating all year, including the reopening today of the Risorgimento Museum, with free admission for the rest of March. This weekend also marks the reopening of the Automobile Museum, with a huge expansion and total concept overhaul, fitting for a country that gave birth to the Ferrari, the Lamborghini, the Alfa Romeo, and Torino's own Fiat.
Beginning this summer, the history and evolution of Italian fashion will be celebrated just outside Turin at La Venaria Reale. La Venaria Reale will also host a Leonardo da Vinci exhibition starting in October 2011. Not to leave out food, visitors can attend "royal dinners" all spring through fall, sample traditional regional dishes, and learn about their history as part of the unification. Buon compleanno, Italia!
Learn more about Italy's birthday events at eng.italia150.it and


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The Tacoma X-Runner RTR (Ready to Race) project pickup truck, which will make its public debut at the 2010 SEMA Show, is an exercise in demonstrating Toyota's engineering prowess by creating an in-house, high performance vehicle through the utilization of Toyota parts. As a result, the Tacoma RTR is a "parts bin" build with all but a few components currently available on Toyota products (traction bars and drive-line shaft are the only two non-Toyota parts).
The Tacoma X-Runner RTR achieves its performance credentials by dropping in a completely stock, current-generation Tundra 5.7-liter V8 engine into the unmodified engine bay along with a six-speed automatic transmission. A Toyota Racing Development (TRD) Supercharger Kit was added, bringing the SAE certified power stats to 504 horsepower and 550 lb.-ft. of torque. The truck runs on premium gas rather than race fuel.
A stock Tundra rear axle, with a 4.3 ratio and 10.5-inch ring gear, was narrowed a total of 5.7 inches to Tacoma rear-track width). A TRD prototype mechanical limited slip differential, designed by Eaton, was added to maximize traction. The truck rides on current generation Tacoma 15-inch styled steel wheels that were modified to 10-inches wide in the rear and wrapped by 30×11.5×15-inch Goodyear Eagle Dragway Specials. The front wheels are 4.5-inches wide and mounted to 28×4.5×15-inch Goodyear Eagle Front Runners.
The Tacoma X-Runner RTR was lowered approximately 4.5 inches from stock X-Runner height, and a custom exhaust system was fabricated to include two TRD perforated-chamber mufflers with a 3.5-inch pipe. The only body modification to the X-Runner RTR was the relocation of the exhaust outlet from behind the passenger-side rear wheel to underneath the cab to help maximize rear-suspension compression, which is common in hard launches. The brakes were left untouched from the stock Tacoma X-Runner braking system, and vehicle traction aids are still functional, including ABS, Vehicle Stability Control and traction control.
The exterior body panels of the Tacoma X-Runner remain untouched. A silver and red paint scheme applied by Five-Axis was inspired by classic low cost but ready-to-race sports cars, including the late 1960s Dan Gurney Cougar XR7-G. The number "95" on the doors signifies the first model year the Tacoma nameplate was sold in the U.S. The Tundra i-Force engine badge was painted on the front fenders to signify the upgraded power plant and is in the same location it would be found on the current Tundra. In classic hot rod style, the hood is adorned with "504 HP" graphics signifying the SAE verified horsepower. Also on the hood, and unique to this build, is a TRD Supercharger graphic featuring a tornado, signifying the forced induction. The side rocker panels feature the X-Runner logo.
Inside, all non-essential equipment was removed to make the vehicle as light as possible, including the audio head unit, speakers, air conditioner, power windows, front fog lamps, windshield water bottle, and rear seats. The stock front seats remain but are covered with classic Toyota fabric trim found on 1980s era vehicles. Added interior features include a custom TRD steering wheel, Tundra stock accelerator and brake pedals, and a stock Tundra gated shifter with sport shift mode. A TRD designed removable roll bar was also installed.

subset: commoncrawl


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Welcome to The Greek Theater, official 0 A.D. music blog!
This blog will chronicle the making of 0 A.D.'s music, since I assumed the role of composer and music department lead for Wildfire Games!
It is most appropriate to begin with a brief thank you to Aviv (Jeru on the forums) for recruiting me to WFG in the first place.
It was March 2011, and around the release of Alpha 5, Edetania:
Being both a (casual) gamer and a (professional) musician, I knew exactly what I want to hear in game – I had no interest in creating a period score, nor do I posses enough knowledge of the actual music of 0 A.D.
I decided the score had to be first and foremost – game music, and it must be compelling in that context!
In the interest of maintaining continuity, and ensuring each civilization in the game had it's own, unique sound – I decided to completely rewrite the score, one piece at a time.
The first three tracks that came to be are "Celtic Pride", "Forging a City-State", and "Harsh Lands, Rugged People": peace tracks for the Celts, Hellenes and Iberians respectively.
Given that these pieces had to feel relevant and integral to a massive war game – I chose to fully orchestrate them.
A simple yet effective device to identify the various civilizations was instrumentation:
On top of the orchestra, the Celts were portrayed with tin-whistles, highland pipes, a bodhràn and a fiddle, the Hellenes with a harp, bouzouki and flute, and the Iberians with a classical guitar (true, it did not exist around 0 A.D., but within the context of modern game music – it worked for me).
Thanks for listening, stay tuned for more 0 A.D. music!
– Omri Lahav
Tracks mentioned in this post:


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Bob Miller drives the road to Madagascar to discover how writer/directors Tom McGrath and Eric Darnell, with animator Jason Schleifer, survived this CG jungle.
At the Central Park Zoo, Alex the Lion, Marty the Zebra, Gloria the Hippo and Melman the Giraffe are the star attractions. Theyre groomed, well-fed and hundreds of fans adore them. To the four Zoosters, their home is a paradise. But Marty the Zebra is curious. Whats it like outside the zoo? His quest entangles his three friends in a madcap misadventure, which, ultimately, results in their arrival on a remote island. Can four domesticated animals from New York survive in the wild? And when nature rouses their primal instincts, can they survive each other?
Madagascar, the latest animated comedy from DreamWorks, was directed by Eric Darnell and Tom McGrath, and written together with Mark Burton and Billy Frolick. Darnell, who previously directed Antz, relates that production began four-and-a-half years ago, when hand-drawn animated features were still in vogue.
When Madagascar was developed, I dont think it was pitched as any particular medium, he says. That kind of stuff, at least in those days, came out of development as what made the most sense, with the story that we were telling. Once I got involved (my own interest is in CG), it was easy for me to motivate it and steer it in that direction.
Madagascar marks McGraths debut as a feature director. With my background, theres a little bit more to 2D, he says. The CG realm was all new to me. I learned a lot from Eric as well as PDI [Pacific Data Images, officially PDI/DreamWorks]. Eric really wanted to tell the story in a fantasy world that actually was tangible, that you could step into. Thats one of the things that CG can offer. The advancements that PDIs had since Shrek, we were able to take this world, stylize it and actually use the aesthetics of 2D in a 3D world, so you get the best of both worlds.
Regarding CGs technological advancements, Darnell says, People arent working on great pieces of technology unless there is a need. In our case, the creative kind of drove what we did technologically. For example, in the beginning, we could only get four or five furry characters on screen at one time, and we needed 500. So a big effort went in to develop the systems that would allow us to do that. We knew we had a big organic jungle with four million leaves blowing in the wind, and thats finally what we were able to achieve. But no way could we do that four years ago.
Water is always difficult in computer animation, because while nobody quite knows how to make it look right, everybody knows when it looks right. You know when its water. To create a system that would be believable but would also work in the design of the film (its not photorealistic water, either), and also be controllable that we could use it to help tell our story, were huge challenges for the technology folks.
Says McGrath, So many times we were asking, Can we do that? And theyd go, Well get back to you. He chuckles. And then theyd come back and go, Yeah, we can do it. (They would say,) Alex cant touch his mane. In fact, nothing can touch Alexs mane. And we were going, Oh, really? How are we going to stage this? And theyd come back a week later and go, WE CAN TOUCH ALEXS MANE! Wooooooo! We can touch Alexs mane! Theyd go cheering off and wed (exhale sigh of relief).
The other technological challenge was driven by a creative [need], Darnell says. Wed talk about animation style in the film, so we set out from the very beginning this very broad style with squash-and-stretch. But its difficult to do in computer graphics because you basically have a virtual puppet that you have to construct before you begin animation. All the controls and capabilities have to be built into this puppet before you start. With hand-drawn animation, if you want to draw a guy thats normally six feet tall and stretch him out to be 12 feet tall, or flatten him on the ground, you just draw it that way. And youre done. To design a puppet with those kinds of capabilities was a big challenge for us, because we wanted to be able to do that, too. And ultimately can squish our characters to be 12 inches tall or stretch them way out, or have the jaw drop down to the belly button, or when a hand sweeping through the frame, scale it three or four times for a few frames. A lot of times, when you do this, its not something that you see; its something that you feel. Again, these are tricks of the trade that animators have been using for decades, but its that much harder to get into CG. The technical directors that set up these guys have a big challenge with that, too.
I think as a whole our department really started to push smear frames and stretching characters like crazy where it was warranted, says animator Jason Schleifter, who joined DreamWorks after working for WETA on The Lord of the Rings trilogy. We worked really hard to keep the characters on-model when striking a pose, but inbetween poses oh, man, we were going nuts! You'd have fingers stretch five times their normal lengths, eyes bulging all over the place. I even did a shot where a fossa hits the ground and when he does his eyes actually smack into each other, then stretch out so they're 2-1/2 times their normal distance from each other, and then rattle back. It happens so fast it's subtle, but boy does it add a nice punch to the action.
McGrath explains, We wanted to do something, animation-wise, that was more than what youve seen in 3D and to have a 2D sensibility, much like animation in the Forties: Tex Avery, Warner Bros. Because of the advancements we were able to do squash-and-stretch broad animation, and have this in a stylized world thats really believable in 3D.
The world of Madagascar is as caricatured as its characters, which allowed the artists imaginations to run wild.
Says McGrath, There were careful considerations in the design of this world that [production designer] Kendal Cronkite had worked on with the simplification of things, and caricatured. There were no straight angles. Everythings slightly off-skew. We called it Wack Factor. When things got to crazy we pulled it back.
On Antz, when they surfaced the environments, theyd do it with photographs. They would photograph textures and use those. In Madagascar, it was all art. It was all hand-painted designs that were stylized that every surface was treated with. As opposed for using photos, the surfacing was all hand-painted, says McGrath.
The artists in the surfacing department had a blast, says Darnell. Because they could invent every surface, every texture, for the surface of a leaf, the bark of a tree. Everything then could fit into this design paradigm that Kendal and her team devised. They just had a great time. They felt they had a creative input. Whats up there on the screen is theirs.
The majority of the plants that you see in the film are actual plants that are from Madagascar. But theyre also very designed and stylized and fit in the style of the film. Even their organization and arrangement inside the frame and the environment, its very different than how they would occur naturally, as we try to create this stylized fantasy of a jungle based on the Malagasy rain forest.
So for a lot of creatives, it doesnt have to be real. It can be our own version of real, Darnell explains.
For Tom and I, going in, we really encouraged all the leads and frankly everybody who worked on the film to step up and suggest ways we could rethink how we approached these things with different ideas and new solutions that were creative ones, stylistic ones that worked with the flow of the film. Just so we wouldnt get stuck in a rut. We wanted to step out of that. And of course along with that wed give them the responsibility and creative authority to bring those suggestions to fruition as well. Theyre satisfied because they feel theyve had an opportunity to be creative.
Animator Schleifer found that working with the angular designs (created by Craig Kellman, who currently art directs Fosters Home for Imaginary Friends at Cartoon Network) in CG animation was not much of a challenge. I didn't consider it harder or easier. I found it more interesting than working with rounded shapes. You could really strive for those graphic poses with hard angles. It became much more important to pay attention to silhouette, but by paying more attention to it you could end up with some really interesting and funny poses.
As production on Madagascar progressed, and as area studios shut down their commitment to traditional animation, more and more hand-drawn animators transitioned over to the CG realm.
Yeah, there were quite a few traditional (if you want to call them that) 2D animators, McGrath relates. It helped elevate the medium all around, because they learned from guys at CG that have been doing this a long time, and the traditional animators were able to teach those guys in bringing the level up a little bit. Once you think in terms of animation, and you change the medium, the main principles must apply.
A lot of these guys that learned the system came out ahead of the game because they were visualizing their animation, but it was now a new realm, but it was working off the same principles. It really helped us to get the style of animation we wanted as well.
Darnell adds, I think all the animators, too, were surprised at how far we were asking them to push this stuff. Even the guys that knew their stuff on the computer, they were saying, Really? I can really do that? I can really go that far? I can really have them jump six feet in the air and hang there for a second or two before he comes back down? I can really stretch his face that wide? Or on a broad action, scale his hand by a factor of three so it stretches across the screen for a frame? And of course the answer was, Yes. You can. In fact, we kind of dared the animators to go that far. Once they realized what we were going for, stylistically, they couldnt have been happier. It was all a relief for some folks, who have perhaps found that some of the experience in CG was more confining and limiting to the sorts of things that they wished they could do with the medium. So the 2D animators came on board and made it happen. Once they realized what they could get away with it
it spoils them, McGrath says, completing the thought. Im not sure a lot of them would want to go back to naturalism and moving things in a realistic way.
Schleifer agrees wholeheartedly. It was so freeing to be able to try things like that. They really let us use our imagination, and not worry about making something look natural. Need the character to get across from screen right to screen left? Want him to pick up another character? Instead of thinking about how they'd do it naturally, you got to explore fun and weird ways of doing it: What if he jumped up, spun his feet in the air, then caught them on the ground and dragged his hips forward while his chest stayed where it was? Or instead of that, what if he leads with his finger and pulled his whole body across by breaking his knees? If it looked cool and funny, we could do it.
I found that I learned so much about fluidity, and making a movement feel nice instead of focusing on mechanical issues which I had to focus on in the past. If it looked good and felt right, then it was right! What an amazing experience!!
How well did the two directors work together, especially when working in separate locales?
I know that there are those individual directors my hat goes off to them, because theres an incredible amount of decisions to be made on any given day that demanded that the two of us be separate, Darnell says. If we werent, or if there were only one of us, certain parts of production would come to a halt waiting for decisions. And so, having two of us served really well in terms of production.
Darnell, who lives in the San Francisco area, works at PDI/DreamWorks, the north campus. This oftentimes meant conferring with McGrath by VTC, video teleconferencing.
We always joke that wed meet in Bakersfield at Dennys off the freeway, Darnell quips.
McGrath laughs, adding, We both have an enormous amount of frequent flyer miles. Erics family took me in. I became their third adopted child. It was great during the day because the schedule was just minute-to-minute. We had stuff to do. So Id stay at Erics house in San Francisco. We spent many hours on his back porch, getting our ideas together and problem-solving. Or talking with Mireille [Soria, the producer]. So wed get our ducks in a row and work together to problem-solve it, think up new ideas. We really didnt have that much time during the day unless it was at lunch.
According to publicity manager Fumi Kitahara, the crew totaled 246-260 people, with production split between two separate locations. 85% worked at PDI/DreamWorks in Redwood City, California while 15% worked at DreamWorks in Glendale. Most the pre-production and story work was done at the Glendale campus.
You know, its not better than being in one place. Its always better to be [in person], flesh-and-blood to be able to pass somebody in the hallway, or see them at lunch, and say, Hey, you know about that thing, or Hey, I have an idea. Thats a two-way street, of course, as well. To formalize the process a little bit. But, it makes it possible. Without it, you couldnt do it at all. Without it, you couldnt take advantage of some of the wonderful animators that are on different sites, to be able to bring them up together. Thats why its really helped us that weve got this great talent at both locations to be able to mesh and work together.
Schleifer reveals that the animators worked with both directors pretty much equally. I really enjoyed their different views on shots. Both directors would bring something different to the table. Tom had a great way of making you feel like you could really do it. He was extremely supportive as a director, and very open to learning the process. Eric has been doing 3D animation for an incredibly long time, and knew a lot about what we could and couldn't do. I felt like I learned a ton about filmmaking from both of them! Teresa [Cheng, the producer] and Mireille also gave good feedback, and were there to rein things in at times, which was very helpful!
Madagascar was such a blast for me to work on. I felt like I had quite a bit of creative freedom within my shots in Madagascar. One of the things I really appreciated when I first got here was that I was immediately given a broad range of shots to work on, from hero lip-sync to non-hero shots. PDI/DreamWorks really strives to give everyone a chance to have shots they can be proud of which isn't something you find in many studios.
When we started working on some of the newer characters, like Julien [king of the lemurs], Eric and Tom were extremely open to hearing suggestions about ideas for business. You could get a shot handed over to you, and really start to try new ideas: what if Julien tried to emulate Maurice? What if he acts tough, but you can sense this bit of insecurity? I felt like I could really throw ideas in the ring and take ownership of the shots (as long as the fit into what the shot was trying to accomplish, and were in character).
Schleifer credits studio executive Jeffrey Katzenberg as inspirational to the animation crew.
Jeffrey really pushed the idea of going nuts with the animation. He loved some of the wackiness, which was starting to come into the shots, so he really tried to emphasize that side of things. He even offered a prize for the person who animated something so crazy that he'd have to tell us to tone it back. At that point it became incredibly fun to try and come up with new ways of doing things It became incredibly liberating to try new ideas and see when they worked (and when they didn't!).
McGrath concurs. He was like that a lot. He was contributing a lot to the humor as well as the story. I mean, the guys been making films for a really long time, so his notes were valuable to us.
He was a great joke-writer as well. We had Alex at Grand Central Station. Eric and I thought, Hey, why dont we have this old lady beat him with her purse, and Jeffrey would go, Yeah, but you know what? She should kick him in the groin and mace him. And we just all laughed and said, Yeah, lets do that! So he was really great.
Darnell recalls, Theres another similar time where we had the scene where the characters were doing all these spit takes, but we werent just getting the laughs We were getting a lot of advice that this was not a good gag. To Katzenbergs credit, he came in and said, No, the problem is, is you dont have enough. You need two more big spits. And we did that and everybody was cracking up at the screenings. So we thank him for saving the spit-takes.
In traditional animation, lead animators would specialize in a single character, as Glen Keane did as the animation supervisor for Tarzan. According to Schleifer, such was not the case on Madagascar.
The animators would certainly be cast towards their strengths, especially as the end of the film grew closer, he says. We each have different talents, some are better at action shots, others are better at close up drama, others are better at humor. So the directors, animation director and sequence leads would work together to try and cast a sequence so it would be as strong as possible. When they could, they would give us a series of shots in order so we could have a nice continuation, but 99% of the time we would be animating all characters in a single shot.
Madagascar had a sequence where more than one animator worked on the same character in the same scene.
This happened in Sequence 600, Schleifer says, where the Zoosters are caught in a crate on the boat. In this case, because the shot was so long (around 1,400 frames!) they broke up the shot to make it easier. In that one, Cassidy Curtis and David Burgess split Alex (each got 700 frames), Rex Grignon and Denis Cuchon split Marty, Dave Spivack animated Melman and Sean Mahoney animated Gloria.
It happened in a few other sequences as well, but in general they tried to give everyone each character in a shot.
In traditional animated features, sculpted models maquettes are made of each lead character and used as visual reference by the animator. But in a CG film, the characters are already stored in a virtual matrix, always on model for the animator to view from every angle. Are maquettes obsolete in a 3D world?
No, not at all, says Darnell. It was a great way to visualize these guys in 3D without going through all the necessary rigging you have to get a posed character, a character with personality. So it was actually beneficial for us to do that. Once you do get something that you can move around and change the pose on and open the mouth when you want to, and adjust eyebrows, thats when you start to learn about all these things. Its a challenge when you do them in CG, because you start to pose them in different ways and start to find that, Well if I do that, and move this cool clean line thats defining an element of the character, its all twisted and distorted. So how can we maintain that design conceit, and also have it work when we know the animators are going to push these characters all over the place.
Darnell illustrates, In 2D, you can just draw around that. In 3D, if you have a hard line running across the character defining his rib cage or something, that hard line will always be there. Unless you set the rig up that where a character gets pushed into a certain pose, if you wanted to that hard line would be eliminated, or modified, or minimized. Those are the things that you learn when you get these guys into the computer and start moving them around.
On Madagascar, Maquettes were definitely made, and are a great way of translating a 2D drawing into 3D space, says animator Schleifer. The directors can hold them, turn the maquettes, and get a really good idea how light will fall across the surface, whether or not the character's butt or nose are too big, etc. It's a great first step into making the digital 3D models.
Director McGrath concurs, Whats great about maquettes is that before its even in the computer is you can see what its going to be like in three dimensions. Usually theyre pretty rough. But a great deal of computer films is that its still done on paper. Its storyboarded for years. Thats how you work out the film. Theres so many storyboard artists that contribute, that have the maquettes and see the characters, to be able to draw them as well when theyre doing the storyboard. The closer it is to the character, the better sense you have an idea of how visually its working. So theres quite a bit of hand-drawn work behind the CG bells-and-whistles, you know. Theres still quite a bit of artistry
that happens before you take it into the computer, Darnell interjects. Certainly after but certainly before, as well. We also use maquettes a lot just in presenting the film to people when we pitch a story, whether its performers, you can come in and say, This is the character wed like you to play, and spin it around on a Lazy Susan, and its got this great attitude and its right there and its tangible and they can see what it would mean to be that character. So its really valuable in that sense, too. We had some maquettes that were painted up and that looked absolutely beautiful.
For its animation, PDI/DreamWorks uses its own propriety software, Emo, which stands for Emotion.
We use it for moving these characters around and get emotion out of them, Darnell says.
As with traditional animated features, Madagascars cast was videotaped as they recorded their roles, as visual reference for the animators.
At times this would be a big help, Schleifer relates. Most of the time, however, we'd just act the shots out ourselves and try and imagine how the character would be speaking. Sometimes we'd shoot reference of ourselves and other animators acting out shots. Unfortunately, we didn't get to talk to the voice actors at all on Madagascar. While I was animating on The Lord of the Rings, Andy Serkis would come in quite a bit and talk with us about his motivation while performing a scene, which was a real help when dealing with the multiple levels of insanity that Gollum had!
Notably, Madagascars characters are voiced by talents best known for their live-action work, with Ben Stiller as Alex the Lion, Chris Rock as Marty the Zebra, David Schwimmer as Melman the Giraffe and Jada Pinkett Smith as Gloria the Hippo. For a character to be believable in animation, the performer has to be able to convey personality through the vocal performance, alone. Were these live-action celebrities up to the task, or were they hired solely for marquee value?
Darnell responds, You know, theyre great actors, whether theyre on camera or whether theyre in front of a microphone, which is why we go to them. Its really, for us, finding the right character the right voice to match the character. In this movie, it was even more of a challenge because of the ensemble nature, to find voices that play off of each other nicely, so, we would actually cut material together from other films that these guys had done, even though it was nonsense, but, cut it together as if they were having a conversation, just so we could hear how Jada bounced against Chris, against David, against Ben, and get a feeling for how they might mesh. It ended working out really well.
McGrath adds, You try not to put anyone in a position where they would suck, by the way we cast. If you think of an actor, its easier to look at them and see a performance come through. We dont look at them at all. We listen to them. As Eric was saying, thats how we really cast. We listen to the voices, and you can tell if theyll be a good animated voice character.
However, for recording sessions, the actors did not record their lines as an ensemble.
We always recorded individually, Darnell says. That way we could stay focused on getting the performance. These guys are all famous, talented comedic actors. Even if we wanted to get them into the same room at the same time, its almost impossible because theyre so busy. So you dont want to depend upon that, certainly.
Its always nice to be able to focus on just one person at a time. Its a very exhausting process doing a vocal recording because the actor has to imagine everything and put themselves in [the characters] place, that doesnt exist. It takes a lot of brainpower to do that. And the performance moving from sequence to sequence to sequence takes a great deal of energy. Ultimately, it worked out really well because they would do some stuff, try out some things. We can take them back to our animation wonderland and push and pull things around while things are playing, and the following week wed record another actor whose voice might be alongside the first one, and get the leverage off of what theyd done, and their ideas and what they infused into the performance. The second actor comes in and adds their own component and wed go back to the first actor a few weeks later and its a very collaborate process. Over the course of a few years wed go in and bring in one of these comedic voices maybe ten, fifteen times. Each time they would rework what theyd done before, trying out new sequences that werent ready yet. Its very, very cyclic in that way. It allows us to make the movie so much better because when you can throw out some things that dont work.
McGrath notes that, The high point for them is to having to go Ow! Ooo Ahh! and do all these efforts over and over. OK, youre falling down a hill and you hit rocks. Then you hit cactus, and now you hit flowers. A lot of it is doing all these vocal efforts that sound ridiculous. Its funny, when you go in and one of your last lines is, youre stepping on a thorn. You just have to get this. And theyd come in and theyd do it. Its kind of an interesting process I would think from an actors point of view. As Eric was saying, its all coming from the imagination in a pretend world.
The directors found that having comedians in the cast was advantageous, as they improvised lines during recording sessions.
Says Darnell, Tom and I dont write lines like, This place is crackalacka. Thats pure Chris Rock. And we encourage a lot of improvisation and adlibbing in the studio. You know. We will get whats on the page, and ask the guys, How would you say this? How would you respond if Marty came at you with this question? And so we encourage it.
Our process allows us to take advantage of that. We spent two years working on story and recording the voice talent before we animate a single frame of the final film.
[Our actors] make up this stuff and its gold for us, McGrath says, then notes ruefully, At some point its tough, but you have to cut some of this stuff down. Its heartbreaking, in a way.
Not all the roles were performed by celebrities. Some voices came from the production team itself. For example, McGrath voiced Skipper, the lead penguin. Chris Miller (not relation to the author of this report), head of story on Shrek 2, voiced another penguin, Kowalski. Audiences also heard him as the Magic Mirror in the Shrek films, and the Tower Guard in Sinbad. Chris Knights, assistant editor on the Shrek films and Madagascar, voiced another penguin, Private (and one of Shreks Three Blind Mice). And the voice of Mason the monkey comes from CalArts graduate Conrad Vernon, co-director of Shrek 2 and voice of the Gingerbread Man, Cedric, the Muffin Man, Mongo and the Announcer. He also composed the song Merry Men in Shrek.
Madagascar sees nationwide release on May 27, 2005. With the film rating high with pre-release focus groups, and as a potential franchise for DreamWorks, is a sequel in the works?
McGrath replies, Weve thought of that possibility, since weve been working with these characters for about four years. If by some luck (knock on wood) the film does well, there might be a possibility of it. We havent planned it, but as far as Eric and I thinking, What else can these guys get into?
Says Darnell, Everybody says the film seems to end with this feeling that theres a sequel on the way. He laughs. We struggled to not do that. For us, what we wanted to say at the end of the film was this theme that became the foundation of the movie, which is its not where you are, but who youre with. Ultimately, in our minds, it doesnt matter where the Zoosters end up in this story.
Theyre all content, McGrath says. [Suddenly] Hey, lets pull the rug out from under them, just as a joke.
Just for a joke at the end, Darnell says. Yeah.
There is a mystique with animation and how its done, McGrath observes. In fact its very similar to the same kind of problems in a live-action film. The biggest consideration as a director is we have to concentrate on the story and characters. Thats with any film, regardless of what medium. Story is the most important thing. Everything else branches out from that.
Ultimately, everything that youre doing has to serve the story, says Darnell. And also what Tom has said, the biggest difference [between live action and animation] is for every single pixel, every square inch of that screen, somebody has to make a decision about what youre looking at. Tom and I are not only making big decisions about story and script, but also, what color is the bark on that tree? And what is the groundcover? Are there a lot of sticks on the ground or is there grass? Are there leaves on the ground? How many leaves do you want? When characters go through this environment, do the leaves get kicked up? Or can they just stay on the ground? When they go past a bush, do you want the bush to move? Theres all these things [to consider]. Cause nothing is for free.
Says McGrath, The exciting part, for us, is to actually start with an idea, and then see it through and see it up on the screens, to see how people react to it. Thats what its all about. Thats the fun of it, when you finally get to see it in the theater with the big crowd and watch it and go, Wow, we did it! We made it!
Since 1985 Bob Miller has written numerous articles covering the animation industry for publications such as Starlog, Comics Scene, Comics Buyers Guide, Animation Magazine, Animato! and Animation World Magazine. He was storyboard supervisor for MGMs Lionhearts, Courage the Cowardly Dog for Stretch Films/Cartoon Network, Megas XLR for Cartoon Network, and lately, the Say it with Noddy 3D interstitials for Make Room for Noddy, coming this summer to PBS Kids. Bob won a 1999-2000 primetime Emmy Award certificate for storyboarding on The Simpsons episode, Behind the Laughter. Bob serves on the board of directors at the International Animated Film Society, ASIFA-Hollywood.


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Series Overview: How Safe Are Our Roads?
Media no longer available
This week, more than 33 million Americans will drive at least 50 miles to visit family and friends for Thanksgiving. The great majority will return home safely.
But for too many families, this holiday will bring tragedy. Last year, during the four-day Thanksgiving driving period, nearly 400 people were killed in traffic accidents in the U.S., according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. For all of 2008, more than 37,000 people were killed in car crashes.
Throughout this week, National Public Radio will be airing stories and hosting conversations about highway safety. We'll explore the many ways that safety has been improved through better vehicle technology, smarter road designs, and reformed behaviors, such as reduced drunken driving.
The changes have yielded dramatic results: In 1969, the driving-related fatality rate in this country was 5 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles traveled. The current rate is about 1.27 deaths.
But fatalities are still high because of the many dangers that remain, especially on rural roads where trucks, RVs and passenger cars frequently collide. And new risks are emerging as more and more drivers look away from the road to send text messages. At the same time, tens of millions of aging baby boomers are entering the years when driving skills will be declining significantly.
In coming decades, will we see more advances in safety because of new technologies and laws? Or will we see fatality rates start to rise again?
Here are some of the stories we will be covering:
Monday, Nov. 23
Vehicle Technology
The number of people killed on the nation's highways last year hit its lowest level since John F. Kennedy was president. Correspondent Brian Naylor visits the crash hall at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety's Vehicle Research Center to learn about the latest vehicle safety innovations.
Federal Role In Safety
Over the years, Congress has played a major role in forcing the safer design of cars. Lawmakers have mandated seat belts and air bags. They spent billions to improve highways. And they've gotten results: Highway deaths are way down. But what's next? With a sour economy and automakers in trouble, reporter Audie Cornish considers the daunting challenges Congress now faces.
California Crumbling
Budget constraints have made California's highways — once the envy of the world — more nightmare than dream. Correspondent Ina Jaffe rides along the state's troubled roads, wondering how states can maintain safety levels when they can't afford to keep up their streets and bridges.
Tuesday, Nov. 24
Road Safety
Beyond rumble strips and cloverleaf interchanges, correspondent Naylor looks at new technologies and design ideas that can make roads safer for travel.
NPR also takes a look at the "diverging diamond" highway interchange being put to the test in Missouri.
Driving While Old
Florida is making visibility and navigability improvements because the state leads the country in older-driver deaths. All Things Considered host Robert Siegel travels there to investigate special initiatives, including an older-driver program and an anonymous tip line to alert police to potentially dangerous senior drivers.
Wednesday, Nov. 25
Teen Angel
Though highway fatalities have dropped significantly over the past decade, statistics show there has been little change in the number of highway deaths among teenage boys. NPR's Robert Benincasa explores the persistently lethal mix of horsepower and testosterone.
Aging Suits
New technology is often touted as improving the driving ability of older motorists. Tracy Samilton of NPR member station Michigan Radio investigates whether this technology actually increases safety or simply gives false confidence to older drivers who shouldn't be behind the wheel.
Thursday, Nov. 26
Texting — The New Drinking
Highway officials say that in 2008, nearly 6,000 people were killed as a result of distracted driving — and one-third of those deaths involved texting. NPR reports on efforts to change attitudes about mixing these two activities.
Friday, Nov. 27
Pod Cars
Getting people out of their cars is one of the best ways to reduce highway fatalities, but having them take public transportation can be a hard sell. NPR reports on what some transportation planners hail as the answer: the pod car — a driverless, point-to-point transit that doesn't involve rubbing elbows with strangers.
Saturday, Nov. 28
The Trouble With Tailgating
Many colleges have cracked down on alcohol consumption at football games. Reporter Greg Allen investigates tailgating, including a visit to a football game that's come to be known as "The World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party."
Sunday, Nov. 29
Dangerous Rural Roads
Well over half of traffic deaths occur on rural roads, though only a quarter of the U.S. population is rural. Correspondent Howard Berkes visits a highway in Utah (once labeled "America's Most Dangerous Highway"), which got more than $160 million in safety improvements after demands from residents.


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Robin Williams, Actor and Comedian, Dead at 63
Robin Williams, the man who brought us iconic performances as the Genie in 'Aladdin' and Peter Banning in 'Hook', has died at the age of 63. He was found in his California home today according to the Marin Count Sheriff's department.
The Sheriff's department's report indicates Williams died of asphyxiation in an apparent suicide. While the investigation is still ongoing, Williams' publicist released a statement to THRstating, "Robin Williams passed away this morning. He has been battling severe depression of late. This is a tragic and sudden loss. The family respectfully asks for their privacy as they grieve during this very difficult time."
Susan Schneider, Williams' wife, also released a statement.
This morning, I lost my husband and my best friend, while the world lost one of its most beloved artists and beautiful human beings. I am utterly heartbroken. On behalf of Robin's family, we are asking for privacy during our time of profound grief. As he is remembered, it is our hope the focus will not be on Robin's death, but on the countless moments of joy and laughter he gave to millions.
In addition to the previously mentioned roles, Williams won an Academy Award in 1998 for Best Supporting Actor for his role in 'Good Will Hunting', as well as more memorable roles in films like 'Dead Poets Society', 'Mrs. Doubtfire' and 'Jumanji'.
However, it was the release of The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time that endeared Williams further into gamer hearts. When the Nintendo 3DS remake arrived on the scene, Williams and his daughter Zelda took part in a series of advertisements for the fan-favorite Nintendo game. It was there we learned Williams was not just an avid gamer, but also that he named his own daughter after the leading lady in The Legend of Zelda franchise.
Williams played more than Zelda games, too, and offered quite a bit of insight into his gaming habits during a Reddit AMA in 2013. There he admitted to being a fan of the Call of Duty franchise, Warhammer 40K, and even expressed his interest in the (then) upcoming releases of the Xbox One and PlayStation 4.
Robin Williams is survived by his wife and three children. Our condolences to his family, and our gratitude to him for so many fond memories.
If you, or anyone you know, is struggling with depression or emotional distress, please reach out for help. Organizations like Take This, and many others like the Suicide Prevention Hotline, exist for just that reason.


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Name an in-demand movie star or superstar singer and chances are Damone Roberts has powered their faces, glossed their lips, or trimmed their brows -- if not all three.
His deft hand with makeup and eyebrow grooming has made him somewhat of a Hollywood legend. From Iron Man's Robert Downey Jr. to music icons such as Madonna and Beyoncé, Roberts has built a multi-million dollar Beverly Hills empire out of his love of art, fashion, and all things beautiful.
Not bad, as he likes to say, "for a little gay, black boy from Oakland."
"I was always just this creative kid who loved beauty,'' Roberts tells The Daily Beast. "What really did it was when I was about seven or eight years old and I saw Diana Ross on the television screen for the first time. I was so mesmerized by her beauty and by the fact that she had my skin color and was running the world in terms of dominating music and winning Oscar. I had to be in that world somehow.''
His father's work as a regional manager at Nabisco caused his family to move around the country quite a bit, but by the time Roberts was a senior in high school, he'd drawn a picture of Ross that won him a full art scholarship to Rutgers University.
"It was so great to finally be somewhere where everyone was unique and a little different," remembers Roberts. "I wasn't the only one different. Everyone was incredibly creative in their ideas and their thoughts. I didn't stand out as I had for most of my life and that felt good.''
Even today the Northern California native arrives at work in his Beverly Hills salon each morning with a full face of flawlessly applied makeup, courtesy of years as a Mac makeup artist, along with a mass of shoulder-length curls. His signature hairdo, he says, is a loving homage to his idol, Ms. Ross.
"How can I make anyone else look fabulous if I don't?'' asks Roberts. "I take my craft very seriously and my clients know it. They pay well for it.'' Indeed they do: a trip in Roberts's chair for just eyebrows in either his New York or Los Angeles salons will run you $125.00. House calls run $300 and above.
Roberts was busy perfecting his craft in eyebrows and makeup in the late 1990s when another eyebrow legend, Anastasia Soare, asked him to join her team. The woman behind the brows of Oprah, Sharon Stone, and Penelope Cruz already owned the most famous brow salon in Hollywood when she recruited him. "Anastasia took my skills to another level," remembers Roberts. "Before I met her eyebrows were just a part of the look I did for makeup. But Anastasia showed me that brows are frames for the face, and make such a world of difference in how a woman looks. I knew I'd found my little niche when I began to focus on making eyebrows the central part of my work.''
After a few years in the shadow of the Queen of eyebrows, Roberts decided it was time for him to claim his rightful place as the eyebrow King. In 2003, he opened the Damone Roberts Salon, just blocks from his former employer in Beverly Hills and immediately began attracting many of her high-profile clients.
Anastasia wasn't pleased. The brow King and Queen's huge falling out resulted in a story aptly titled "Eyebrow Wars.'' "It didn't end well with Anastasia but I needed to move and grow as an artist,'' admits Roberts. "We were very close, we'd spend holidays together and now when we see each other at functions, we say hello and that's about it."
With names like Beyoncé, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Madonna filling his appointment book regularly, Roberts soon opened a New York location in 2006. "People said I couldn't do it,'' he recalls. "They didn't' see how a black man could be successful doing eyebrows in Beverly Hills. With a store right across from Neiman Marcus no less. Thankfully, my chair is never empty.''
Roberts says that his technique of carefully studying each client's facial features before he tweezes or waxes distinguishes him from others. "Women come in with magazine photos of Madonna, Megan or Beyoncé and tell me they want to look like them,'' says Roberts. "I tell them they're beautiful women in their own right and need eyebrows to match their exact facial shape. Not someone else's.''
With regular appearances on Oprah, Good Morning America, and TLC's 10 Years Younger, it also wasn't long before Roberts expertise in brow grooming was being sought by those of the male persuasion, including Channing Tatum and Robert Downey Jr. "A lot of men come in after their significant suggest it," he says. "Both Robert and Channing make their money off their faces so grooming their eyebrows just makes sense.''
Though he's tended to the brows of many of the world's most famous women and men, there are still two people he'd love to get in his chair: First Lady Michelle Obama and Kate Middleton. "I'd love to reshape the First Lady's brows and make them a bit fuller,'' says Roberts. "For Kate, I'd like to thin them out a bit more. They are both incredibly beautiful women but I'm always looking for what more can be done to make them even prettier and add more frosting on the cake."


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Pete is a consultant, facilitator and coach with an international background in leadership and organisational development. Pete has worked at Roffey Park Institute for five years, and despite having leaving full-time employment continues to work as a tutor on the Roffey Park MSc in People and Organisational Development, their Post-Graduate Certificate in Coaching. He is also Programme Director for their Embodied Leadership open programme, which he created.
Whilst working with Roffey Park, Pete worked with a range of organisations, including KPMG (for whom he has been a coach as well as conducting research), the Equality & Human Rights Commission, the Institute of Cancer Research, the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, Lloyds Banking Group, AXA, Control Risks, University of Reading and Virgin Atlantic. In addition he has been heavily involved in Roffey Park's expansion to Asia, delivering programmes there with both public and private sector organisations.
Previously, Pete led the creation, delivery and evaluation of a highly successful leadership development action-learning programme for KPMG, and was heavily involved in the design and delivery of programmes in the NHS and in local government. Formerly UK Managing Director of a European online recruitment consultancy, Pete has led projects in change management, leadership development, and organisational re-design.
Following a BSc (Hons) in Physics & Astrophysics from the Queen's University of Belfast, Pete trained as a consultant with Fast Future Ventures, focusing on strategy, innovation and futures & scenario planning. His clients included the Ministry of Defence and ABN Amro. He also worked on new venture development and gave organisational coaching to numerous start-up companies.
In his international volunteer work Pete has served in executive positions with both the UK and Italian chapters of the youth leadership development charity, AIESEC. He has also acted as an advisor to PeaceDirect, an organisation aimed at conflict resolution and prevention, and a volunteer coach with troubled young people through the charity Youth at Risk.
Pete is the only executive coach in Europe to have completed an intensive four-month training internship with Dr. Richard Strozzi-Heckler at the Strozzi Institute for Embodied Leadership. He has been certified as a Somatic Leadership Coach and has completed a Certificate in Humanistic Counselling with the Gestalt Centre in London. He has also completed an MSc in Change Agent Skills & Strategies at the University of Surrey, where his dissertation focused on conflict in teams. In addition Pete is licensed to deliver Barry Oshry's Organisation Workshop and is certified to use the FIRO-B and SDI psychometrics.
Pete practises the martial art of Aikido, reads across a wide range of topics, and enjoys travelling on adventures to various parts of the world. He has published articles in a range of publications, including The Times, HR Magazine, People Management, The Retailer, and Charities Management, and is currently writing a book on Embodied Leadership.


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My name is Nikki!
I really like earl greys, green teas, and herbal teas.
I take my tea straight- no milk (barring something like a chai, in which I love warm almond milk stirred in) and absolutely no sugar.
I'm married and live in New England. I work at a book store and am going to school with the end goal of getting a Master's in family and child mental health counseling and hopefully work beyond as a therapist. I'm a culinary school graduate who specialized in pastry and baking and love incorporating tea into cuisine. I have 2 cats, Spartacus and Jetter, and 1 beagle-mix named Newton!
New England


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The latest wildfire spreading through the media and blogosphere is that armed neo-Nazis are patrolling Sanford, FL, in anticipation of trouble if George Zimmerman is not charged in the killing of Trayvon Martin. In what has become a prime example of media malpractice, none of the major publications spreading the rumors bothered to check with local law enforcement. I did, and the Sanford Police deny any indication of neo-Nazi patrols.
It all started with this blog post in The Miami New Times, Armed Neo-Nazis Now Patrolling Sanford, Say They Are "Prepared" For Post-Trayvon Martin Violence:
Neo-Nazis are currently conducting heavily armed patrols in and around Sanford, Florida and are "prepared" for violence in the case of a race riot. The patrols are to protect "white citizens in the area who are concerned for their safety" in the wake of the Trayvon Martin shooting last month, says Commander Jeff Schoep of the National Socialist Movement. "We are not advocating any type of violence or attacks on anybody, but we are prepared for it," he says. "We are not the type of white people who are going to be walked all over."
Because nothing diffuses racial tension like gun-toting racial separatists patrolling an already on-edge community….
The patrols are comprised of between 10 and 20 locals and "volunteers" from across the state, including some from Miami, he added. He couldn't go into specifics on what kind of firepower, exactly, the patrols had with them.
The blog post quotes someone from a supposed neo-Nazi group in Detroit, and contains photos of armed patrols not in Sanford, but in Arizona. The author of the blog post provides no confirmation that such patrols actually are taking place.
The blog post already has generated over 1100 comments, and was picked up with reckless abandon by the usual suspects, including Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs:
You know all that rhetoric about "race war" that's showing up at Breitbart.com and many other right wing sites these days? It's not just rhetoric. There are some people in Sanford, Florida right now who are taking it very seriously indeed
And Pam Spaulding at Firedoglake:
And the right wing said it wasn't about race (on their side), didn't they? Neo-Nazis have never been affiliated with the left; they've always been on the fringe anarchist/chaos/gov't overthrow wing of the GOP, because there's no way these white supremacists would vote Dem. After all, that party is polluted with black, brown…you know, the Mud People….
I thought the police department was there to protect all of Sanford's citizens (when it's not torpedoing its own bad police work/f'ing up cases involving black folks as victims), but as there's nothing like having this paramilitary crowd with strong views on race stepping in to do the job. You know, like the KKK, it's not intimidating at all.
A writer at Mediaite joined in [note: Mediaite has updated its post with a link here, and also has published a separate post on the Sanford denial]:
And just so we're clear, the Neo-Nazis have no official position on the Martin case, because remember, George Zimmerman isn't even white. But the Neo-Nazi commander is trying to assure everyone that they are trying to protect everyone, because "if something were to touch off a race riot, we'd already be in the area."
Well said! Because whenever there's a race riot, my first question is always, "Where are the armed racists when you need them? They'll put a stop to all this violence!"
HuffPo and The Daily Beast are helping spread the story.
It even has spread to The NY Daily News [note: The NYDN story changed tonight. after I contacted the writer, and now acknowledges police denial; the following is from the original story] :
The Trayvon Martin case is getting even more heated as armed neo-Nazis are reportedly patrolling the streets of Sanford, Fla.-where the black, unarmed teen was shot and killed.
A representative for the Detroit-based National Socialist movement told the Miami New Times that his group of roughly 10 to 20 volunteers aren't there to start trouble, but are prepared to protect the "white citizens in the area" in the event of race riots.
Only Gateway Pundit asked the obvious question:
Is there any evidence that this is actually happening in Sanford?
Did anyone bother to contact the Sanford Police? I did, and the Sanford Police deny any indication of Neo-Nazi groups patrolling in Sanford. Here's the e-mail exchange:
My initial e-mail (which included an embedded link to the Memeorandum thread):
"There are a number of reports in the media that Neo-Nazis are conducting armed patrols in Sanford. Can you confirm or deny whether this is true, and provide any information you have on the subject? If someone is able to get back to me as soon as possible (and before Monday) that would be appreciated, since such rumors are spreading."
Response from Sanford Joint Information Center:
"At this time the City of Sanford has not confirmed the presence of Neo-Nazis groups."
My follow up:
"You say "not confirmed." Is there any indication of such patrols that the Department is aware of?"
Further Response from Sanford Joint Information Center:
"We have no indication of any such patrols at this point in Sanford. The only large gathering was the children and their parents at the Easter egg hunt."
I can't say this is the worst example of rumor mongering and irresponsible conduct by bloggers and the mainstream media I have ever seen, but it's a contender.
For The Daily Beast, Huffington Post, Mediaite, and The Daily News to spread such thinly-sourced claims without verification at a time when racial tensions already are high is irresponsible in the extreme.
Update: It's now at Fark, Gawker, The Blaze [now updated with link here] …. And now Drudge has it at the top of the page — I've alerted them let's see if they update with a correction… and The NY Post too.
Update 4-8-2012 7 p.m. – Finally the original blog post which gave rise to an internet craze about neo-Nazis partolling the streets of Sanford now, finally, after millions read the story or heard about it without equivocation, carries this disclaimer:
UPDATE: The Sanford Police Department says that it has no evidence of neo-Nazis in the area. "We have not seen any neo-Nazis on patrol nor have we had any reports of them," says Sgt. David Morgenstern. He added that there had been no sign of the New Black Panther Party, either.
Drudge has not updated, and still has as its top link:
Armed Neo-Nazis Now Patrolling Sanford, FL...
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to the full extent allowed by law.


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Anelare Introduces New Zio Label
For nearly 10 years Anelare has kept production between below 1,000 cases and focused on big reds, but they've recently launched a new, lower-price brand called Zio. Much of the Zio production will be sold via a new partnership with Yoke's Fresh Market — a small grocery chain based in Spokane. Their first release is a 2010 blend of Roussanne and Viognier, and the brand — an Italian word for "uncle" — is a tribute to family. One of their uncles is Earl Smart, a Tri-City wine professional who often pours at the Anelare tasting room. His signature beret has been incorporated […]
Introducing the New Kid on the Block
Well, you may have heard that the original wine slinger, Ben Hilzinger, is moving on to rainier pastures in Seattle. Benny (as we affectionately call him) has been the face of Nectar for nearly 2 and 1/2 years. Check out my touching tribute to him here. After an exhaustive search, I am excited to announce that we have found our next Tasting Room Manager for Nectar.
Announcing: You Can Now Buy Nectar Wine Online
You love Nectar Tasting Room! You love Washington wine! Now you can purchase wine from our 5 Nectar wineries online, in one convenient online location. Whether you're travelling through and need wine shipped to your home or you want your out of town relatives to enjoy one of your favorite wines, our online shopping cart is here for you.
Now Hiring Nectar Tasting Room Manager
It's official, long time friend and Nectar wine slinger is moving on in June. Ben has been with Nectar since week 3 in January 2011. Many of you consider Benny a great friend and we will be sad to see him go. We'll give you more details soon on the exciting adventures Ben is off to pursue. Save the date for Ben's going away party on May 24. With that, it's time to announce that we are hiring a Tasting Room Manager. The position will be filled by the end of March, 2013. This will allow the new person to […]
Nectar Spokane Wine Events March 2013
Hard to believe that February is over. Soon we will be basking in the heat of the summer sun, dipping our toes in the water and sipping on a perfectly chilled Sauvignon Blanc. Great mental picture, huh? Until then, we will make it through the soggy and unpredictable Spokane Spring with WINE and tons of fun events! Ready to join us? Thanks again, Spokane for helping us with another amazing month. This was our best February on record. The March lineup looks to continue the trend.


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Top Services
Work Incentive Coordinators
The Denver Region is committed to providing accurate and timely information about work incentives available to beneficiaries of Social Security administered disability benefits.
The Denver Region Area Work Incentives Coordinators (AWICs) will manage and coordinate work incentive training, public outreach and service programs in their respective states:
Colorado and Wyoming: The AWIC is Katrina McManus. Katrina may be reached by phone at 866-206-7656 (ext 14468), or by e-mail.
Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Utah: The AWIC is Thomas Sprunt. Thomas may be reached by phone at 866-690-2075 (ext 19506), or by e-mail.
Ticket to Work Program
Most Social Security and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) disability beneficiaries will receive a "ticket" they may use to obtain vocational rehabilitation, employment or other support services from an approved provider of their choice to help them go to work and achieve their employment goals. The Ticket to Work Program is voluntary. More information about the Ticket to Work Program may be found at https://choosework.ssa.gov and https://yourtickettowork.ssa.gov
Plan for Achieving Self-Support (PASS)
A PASS is a tool to help beneficiaries of Social Security administered disability benefits work or increase their work. Basically, a PASS is a self-financed plan for your future. Many people receiving disability benefits want to work, and you may be one of them. But, maybe you need to go back to school before you can get a job. Or, maybe you want to start your own business. Whatever your work goal may be, a PASS can help you reach it.
Normally certain income or assets prevent or reduce SSI payments. A PASS lets you set aside money and/or other things you own to help you reach your goal. Your goal must be a job that will produce sufficient earnings to reduce your dependency on SSI payments. A PASS is meant to help you acquire those items, services or skills you need so that you can compete for an entry level job in a professional, business or trade environment.
The Denver Region has specialists who can answer your questions about the PASS. You can contact these PASS specialists at 1-800-772-1213.
To view and/or print a PASS application, click here.


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The HaRe Project
This page is a little stale the latest version, from the github, of HaRe is working with the GHC api and the latest update seem to be on the google+ community page. Davorak 18:58, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
Currently, HaRe is a Haskell 98/2010 refactoring tool for automated refactoring of Haskell programs. It is integrated with Emacs.
It is being rewritten to use the GHC API.
The project was previously lead by Chris Brown, it is currently being developed by Alan Zimmerman
- HaRe development on github
- Overall Project homepage (a bit stale)
- Stable release (on hackage)
- Screenshots
- HaRe Wiki
Roadmap (sketch)
- Complete port to GHC API, and extend supported refactorings
- API decisions (ghc-api/ programmatica/ haskell-src-exts)
- Extending refactorings to cope with new extensions
- Simpler generics for tree traversals.
- Query / transform language support
- Better examples, user extension documentation
- Maintainance and portability long term.
This next section needs to be updated
- HaRe is currently built upon the Programatica project for access to an AST and Token Stream and Strafunski for generic tree traversal.
- HaRe uses the Programatica front-end to parse full Haskell projects into an AST with static semantics, and a token stream. Programatica's token stream contains layout and comments together with position information, which HaRe uses (in combination with the AST) to pretty-print the refactored programs. HaRe attempts to produce refactored output that looks as close as possible to the original program.
- Strafunski is used for tree traversal and transformation. In particular, Strafunski has a powerful and expressible mode of traversal, allowing all nodes, some nodes or one node to be traversed/transformed.
- Static semantics are vital for refactorings that require binding information of variables. Renaming, for instance, renames all occurrences of a name within its scope. This scope information is currently retrieved from the AST. In addition to this, static semantics are also vital for HaRe to identify particular expressions for refactoring and to also pretty-print the refactored output (together with the token stream).
- The refactorings in HaRe are relativity low level, working directly on the AST for transformation. An underlying API is used to build the transformations and queries.
- Some refactorings require types, which are retrieved using hint.
- HaRe is integrated into Emacs and VIm: when a new refactoring is added, the build system generates the Emacs and VIm scripts automatically.
Some Problems to Address
- Programatica is only Haskell 98. HaRe currently will not parse a Haskell program that is not 98.
- Programatica is no longer maintained: we need a parser that is maintained and up-to-date with the current language standard and extensions.
- Scrap-your-boilerplate may be more suitable these days for generics.
- We require static semantics. Packages such as haskell-src-exts do not provide this. We also require layout and comments to be preserved.
- Type information in the AST would be useful.
- Moving to Scion for editor interfacing. This would eliminate the dependency for Emacs and Vim, and make HaRe more usable to people using other systems.
- HaRe currently uses a two-tier state monad. The first layer being Programatica's parser monad, and then HaRe's own state monad underneath. The reason for this is to plumb the token stream (and AST) through the program implicitly. Transformations can then be performed using (typically) an update function. It may be wise to simplify this design.
- The implementation of refactorings require reasonable technical knowledge and a steep learning curve. Abstracting away from the internals of HaRe and moving towards a DSL for refactoring would benefit knew refactorings.


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This site is a collection of all of my work, both commercial work and work I do on a personal level for family and friends. These designs are not for sale but already have owners. Please find my shop
to make a purchase. If you see a logo design you like just write down the name to give me an idea of your style. Thank you and looking forward to working with you!
Sunday, April 3, 2016
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Frank Ocean Struggles To Sail Smoothly At Coachella 2012 (PHOTOS)
Frank Ocean may have silky smooth vocals, but his Coachella set was unfortunately anything but — technical issues delayed Ocean's eagerly awaited performance by a good 15 minutes, and sound troubles plagued him throughout. Still, he put on an intriguing set, beginning with an unexpected cover of Bob Dylan's lost masterpiece "Long Time Gone" before knocking out the his own swoon-inducing "Thinking About You". Ocean had another surprise in store too — his Odd Future colleague Tyler, The Creator joined for "Analog 2", off the recent The OF Tape Vol. 2 recording. But feedback and squealing sound put a damper on the proceedings. "I'm trying to be professional," he said at one point. "But my sound is super fucked up."
Watch Frank Ocean's whole Coachella performance below.
Ocean of course also performed jams from his acclaimed Nostalia, Ultra mixtape, including "Strawberry Swing". As Complex notes, Ocean closed with perhaps the most appropriate song of all: his hit "Novacane", which references "a model broad… I met her at Coachella". The "hometown" crowd, of course, went bananas. Did Ocean's set have you swinging? Let us know on Facebook, Twitter or in the comments.


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THURSDAY, Nov. 8, 2012 (HealthDay News) -- All those hours Americans spend in their office chairs or on their sofas may be packing on a particularly unhealthy form of fat around the heart, a new study suggests.
What's more, the fat stayed in place even when people undertook regular exercise, according to a study reported this week in Los Angeles at the annual meeting of the American Heart Association.
CT scans of more than 500 older Americans found that excess time spent sitting "was significantly related to pericardial fat around your heart," said study lead author Britta Larsen, a postdoctoral researcher in the department of cardiovascular epidemiology at the University of California, San Diego.
There have been numerous large studies recently suggesting that when it comes to its deleterious health effects, sitting is not just the absence of physical activity -- it has effects on the body that go beyond lack of exercise.
According to Larsen, that means that "even if you run every day but then you sit for eight hours a day, the sitting is still doing something bad for your health." She also noted that studies have found sitting to be detrimental to health even after scientists factored out excess weight gain.
"So, we wanted to see if sitting was related to the distribution of fat, because different types of fat are worse than others," Larsen said.
The study looked at data on 504 Californian adults, average age 65. In particular, Larsen's team examined CT scan data that showed how much of certain types of body fat were deposited in each participant's body.
"We looked at subcutaneous fat, which is stuff on the outside [for example, a "pot belly"]; then visceral fat, which is around your organs; intramuscular fat, which is actually in your muscles; intrathoracic [chest cavity] fat; and pericardial fat, which is around your heart," Larsen said.
The participants were also asked about the amount of time per week they spent sitting and how much time they had spent being physically active.
The study found that the more time spent sitting, the bigger the area of fat deposited around a person's heart, Larsen said. She explained that pericardial fat "is strongly related to cardiovascular disease. It gets in the way of heart function, it clogs up your arteries -- you don't want it there."
Prolonged sitting was not significantly related to any of the other types of fat, the study found.
There was also bad news for people who sit a lot but assume that they can exercise away all that pericardial fat. According to the study, regular exercise was not related to a lessening of pericardial fat, although it did help reduce visceral fat around the organs, which is strongly tied to diabetes and metabolic disease.
All of this means that for people who want to prevent the buildup of unhealthy fat deposits, exercise may not be enough.
The study "really emphasizes that [sitting and exercise] are two distinct behaviors," Larsen explained. "In order to really be healthy you need to focus on both -- get enough exercise but also not sit for 10 hours per day like most of us do."
She agreed that is probably a tall order for millions of office-bound Americans. Still, simple innovations, such as "standing desks," or getting up for a stroll every hour or two at work can help mitigate sitting's effects.
"Sitting really is bad for your heart," Larsen said. "So we are hoping that the workplace, especially, becomes more standup-friendly."
One expert said the study raises interesting issues, but it's too early to link sitting with heart disease and heart attack.
"Other studies have indicated that pericardial fat is associated with cholesterol blockages, particularly in people who are less obese," noted Dr. Stephen Green, associate chairman in the department of cardiology at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, N.Y.
However, he added, "in this study there was no direct linkage between sitting and heart attacks, or sitting and cholesterol blockages."
Study author Larsen also stressed that the study could only point to an association between sitting and pericardial fat, it could not prove a cause-and-effect relationship.
Dr. Sripal Bangalore, an assistant professor of medicine at NYU School of Medicine in New York City, added that the study may help unravel the mystery of why a "couch potato" lifestyle is so unhealthy.
"The current study shows that a sedentary lifestyle may have a differential increase in fat accumulation based on activity level," he said. "It is very intriguing and should be confirmed in future studies," Bangalore added.
"I guess until that time, it is time to sit less and be more active," said Bangalore, who is also director of research at the Cardiovascular Outcomes Group at NYU Langone Medical Center.
Findings presented at medical meetings are typically considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.
More information
There's more on physical activity and the heart at the American Heart Association.


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Unique leather and pearl bangle, made with black snakeskin and two big size white baroque pearls: 13x15mm, surrounded by shiny swarovski crystals. The design of this pearl bangle is simple and elegant.
Pearls are known as "the queen of gems", as they symbolize unblemished perfection, modesty and purity. Baroque pearl is nature's generous gift. Each pearl is "one of a kind", inspiring fancy creations from jewelry designers.
Yide Jewelry, formerly jyxpearl, has rich experience of online exporting for over 15 years, therefore we have formed mature and standard packing and shipping procedures.
Each item is enclosed in a plastic zip-lock bag separating from others with the item number plus purchase quantity writing on it for you to check. The whole parcel will be carefully wrapped with plenty of bubble paper to protect it from damaging during international shipping. Needlessly to say, the packing service is offered free.
Generally speaking, the handling time of every order is strictly kept within three business days after cleared payment. It might also take longer time if there're hundreds of items to be prepared, so wish you could understand and thanks.
The delivery time of your order depends on the shipping method you choose, which varies from 3-5 business days (DHL EXPRESS) to 10-20 business days(AIR PARCEL OF CHINA POST).
There also might be certain delay due to multiple external factors, so if there's any delay of your shipment, please kindly contact us in the first time.
In addition, the tracking number of your shipment can be used to track your order online timely.
Under our promise of 100% satisfaction guarantee and in any case of dissatisfaction caused after receiving our products, please do not hurry to give your negative comments before contacting us.
In this case, YIDE Jewelry promise to offer you 14-day easy return service as long as the items to be returned remain in good condition. Please note, buyer should pay return shipping.


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How to Justify Continual Jihad and Keep a Clean Conscience
ACCORDING TO the Qur'an, a Muslim must continually and aggressively advance the cause of Allah. It is his duty, whether he likes it or not. And if he doesn't want to burn face down in the fires of hell forever with nothing to drink but boiling water, he had better accept his duty and fulfill it. (Read more about the amazing collection of instructions in the Qur'an.)
The only way a Muslim man can guarantee a place for himself in heaven (and avoid eternal torment in hell) is to die while fighting for Allah.
The Qur'an also says, "Allah does not love aggressors."
What a dilemma. What's the solution?
Muhammad himself provided the way, and every Muslim is duty-bound to follow Muhammad's example. Muhammad always relentlessly advanced Islam, pushed it forward, prodding and poking those who were not Muslims, criticizing their religions and arguing against their beliefs and practices.
When the kuffar (non-Muslims) responded aggressively to Muhammad's aggressiveness, he called it persecution. The way he saw it, Islam is the true voice of the Almighty, and resisting it is evil. When kuffar resist the relentless advance of Islam, they are "fighting against Islam" and "persecuting Muslims" and it is the duty of all Muslims to rise up in defense of Islam.
This is Muhammad's example, and Muslims around the world have been using it ever since. The method is very clever. Muslims can stay in continual war with kuffar and never appear (either to themselves or their enemies) to be the aggressors.
The reason Muhammad's historical example is important is that jihadists around the world are doing exactly the same thing, and many in the West are buying it and thinking of the West as the "aggressors." This point of view undermines the West's ability to defend itself from a non-stop Islamic advance.
So let's look carefully at how it works. Muhammad was pushy in Mecca (where he first started Islam). He harshly and publicly criticized the religions practiced by others. They resented this (of course) and criticized Muhammad's religion.
Muhammad kept aggressively insisting everyone needed to convert to Islam and give up their old religions. The more actively he insisted, the more actively they defended themselves. The hostilities escalated. Eventually, Muhammad left Mecca. He spoke of himself as "persecuted and exiled" by those who were unfaithful to the one true Allah.
To retaliate against those who had "persecuted" him (and to gain some wealth for his struggling cult) his men attacked caravans going to Mecca.
This was bad for business in Mecca. Their goods were being stolen before they arrived in Mecca, and their people were being killed. Eventually the Meccans sent out warriors to stop the Muslim raiders. This led to bigger and bigger battles as Muslims "defended Islam."
In a nutshell, Muhammad's example is this: Anything that in any way interferes with Islamic aggressive advance is labeled persecution or attack — which justifies war against the ones resisting (whom we shall call the persecutors and attackers) all the while preventing the appearance of the aggressor because Allah does not love aggressors.
Alert your teammates (other members of your country) of this strategy so they can see it for what it is. If we were not falling for the trick, the policy decisions of the free world would be a lot clearer and simpler.


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Belarus risks alienating both Russia, EU in wake of political crackdown
| Moscow
Alexander Lukashenko appears to be completely secure in the massive – yet highly suspect – electoral landslide Sunday that returned him to a fourth five-year term as supreme leader of Belarus with 80 percent of the popular vote.
But in one night of police violence and mass arrests after opposition activists took to the streets to protest alleged vote-rigging, Mr. Lukashenko may have compromised his long-term survival strategy of turning to the European Union as a means of offsetting his dependence on Russia, Belarus' traditional sponsor.
Heading back into Moscow's arms, as he pledged to do in a Monday press conference, isn't likely to prove easy for him either. Among other things, the Russians are shaking their heads over US diplomatic cables just released by WikiLeaks that show Lukashenko frequently trashed the Kremlin and undermined key Russian policies in private meetings with Western envoys.
"Of course we'll have to deal with him," says Vladimir Zharikhin, deputy director of the Kremlin-funded Institute of Commonwealth of the Independent States in Moscow. "But no more gifts for him, it'll be just something for something. And everything will have to be put in writing from now on, because Lukashenko has a tendency to spill the beans about matters decided orally, or in private."
Building bridges
Lukashenko has spent the past two years painstakingly building bridges to the West.
When Russia started trimming the subsidies that kept Belarus' economy afloat in 2008, Lukashenko accepted loans from the International Monetary Fund. Last year, Belarus joined the EU's Eastern Partnership, which is designed as a first step on the long road to membership, and was promised significant European aid if Belarus could show improvements in its dismal human rights record.
As recently as Sunday evening, election observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), were indicating that they were impressed by the more open atmosphere in the presidential campaign and might certify the results as acceptable.
But the next day, after riot police crushed an opposition protest rally and Lukashenko's KGB security service arrested 630 people (including 7 out of 9 presidential candidates), Western observers were singing a different tune.
"This election failed to give Belarus the new start it needed," Tony Lloyd, head of the OSCE's parliamentary delegation, told a press conference Monday. "The counting process lacked transparency. The people of Belarus deserved better. And, in particular, I now expect the government to account for the arrests of presidential candidates, journalists and human rights activists," he added.
Lukashenko threatens to crack down harder
In his own post-election press conference, Lukashenko took responsibility for the crackdown and threatened more to come.
"Our country will have no more senseless, muddle-headed democracy," he said. "I warned you," he added, apparently addressing his opponents, "you are messing with the wrong guy."
Lukashenko also promised to "make every effort" to patch up his frayed relationship with Russia. "I will have patience and bear all ills to ensure that we do not drift away from Russia," he said.
Soured relations with Moscow
But no one in Moscow is smiling. Relations with Lukashenko had been deteriorating for some time, but the arrest of nine Russian journalists covering Sunday's protests in Minsk has been widely covered – in outraged tones – by the Russian media.
And then there's WikiLeaks. One US embassy cable being widely cited in the Moscow press details a 2009 conversation between Lukashenko and Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Paet, in which Lukashenko is reported to have maintained "an anti-Russian tone throughout the meeting."
Among other things, Lukashenko expressed the hope that Estonia and other Baltic countries would prevent Nord Stream, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's pet project of building a gas pipeline to Germany under the Baltic Sea, from ever being realized.
Lukashenko also reportedly complained about having to dance to the Kremlin's tune in exchange for cheap energy and – in a remark that Russians will find especially galling – claimed that Moscow was to blame for planning and carrying out the 2008 war with Georgia.
"There is no love left," says Alexei Makarkin, director of the Center for Political Technologies, an independent Moscow think tank. "What we don't like about Lukashenko is that he's a double-dealer. He promises a lot, but doesn't deliver."
"There will be no more defending his regime from European charges that he abuses human rights, and so forth, as we did in the past," he says. "We don't have any alternatives, so we need him. In future our relations will be cool, but practical."


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Institute of Metal Forming (IBF)
The Institute of Metal Forming, headed by Professor Hirt, stands for teaching and research in the area of metal forming. This includes the bulk and sheet metal forming from semi-finished to finished products. The corresponding parts differ from extreme lightweight microparts to very heavy open die forming parts.
For the analysis of problems in metal forming the institute uses modern experimental facilities in industrial scale (rolling, open die forging, ring rolling and sheet forming). Additionally, a high number of precise model machines are available for practical experiments. On top of these experimental potentials the institute is well-known for its skills in numerical and analytical topics. Combined with sophisticated material testing facilities this allows a profound optimization of metal forming processes, machinery and materials.
Regarding teaching the institute provides many lectures, exercises, practical courses and projects. The following topics are covered: basics of metal forming, technology of process chains, theoretical solution methods and numerical simulation. External lecturers from industry deepen the understanding of certain topics and offer the students an early insight in the industry's perspective. The close link between theory and reality is also the basis for the professional training offered at the institute. Courses specifically designed for companies and annual seminars are provided for the education of employees.