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© 2013 AFPRenowned photographer Leslie Kee arrested in Japan over obscene photos
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68 Comments Login to comment
That law is stupid and outdated anyways. I always thought it was funny that in a country that is so ensconced with sex somehow the twig and berries and the vag is too offensive.
Yes matthew, please no more pixelation in Av movies heh.
2 years????? Wow thats more than one can get with a more serious crime
Elbuda Mexicano
Japan NEEDS TO GROW UP!! A male PENIS oh my god! There are FESTIVALS here in Japan where the native Japanese run around yelling wasshoi wasshoi as they care huge Ochinchins made from TREES, and they sell cocksicles, kind of like popsicles that we used to buy as kids, but yes these frozen treats come in the shape of cocks! The festival is something about fertility etc..so why in the heck is it ILLEGAL to take pictures of a male penis?? A female vagina?? Put all those stupid pixels over the best part of your average Japanese porn video?? Just so stupid!
Well, they were selling them at a gallery, so perhaps they thought the work would be classified as "art" and allowed to slip in under the regulatory radar...
Still, sometimes less is more...
No arguement from me.... its porn no matter who puts it in a can.
When did this law happen? About 10 years ago there was a big Robert Mapplethorp exhibition showing lots of those "things", not in small book form, but in huge wall size pictures. I was in junior high school and they let me in (no I was not traumatized). And you can still buy uncensored Robert Mapplethorp books at certain bookstores in Aoyama.
Elbuda - +1 because you show spirit :)) yeah fight them until they give you your uncensored porn....
Hide Suzuki
This is a seriously ridiculous law that has been outdated for so long. Anyone can watch whatever they want on the internet and I can't believe they are wasting time arresting the photographer who do absolutely no harm
Ewan Huzarmy
Under Japanese law pictures of genitals must be obscured, a process usually done through pixellation, which has given rise to its own genre of pornography
Yes and this pixelation has also given rise to herbivore Japanese men, who balk and run a mile when they see a ladies frontal bottom in it's full umpixelated glory !
Censorship is supposed to be unconstitutional, although the Supreme Court refuses to uphold the law.
The ridiculous thing is that they sell Porn Magazines in convenience stores depicting any kind of sick sexual fantasy, and then worry about pixellation of art work in a gallery? Shouldn't we award the Japanese system with the No.1 Global Award in Hypocrisy? Too ridiculous, really ...
never ceases to amaze me how the Jcops get worked up about this yet never quite manage to make a meaningful dent on the child porn that comes out of Japan...
or fined up to 2.5 million yen: small price to pay for the publicity this arrest is going to get them!
Brings back memories of the scandalous photo book of Rie Miyazawa, in around 1992, which sold VERY well, and the special-for-Japan pixilated version of Madonna's box.
Knox Harrington
2 years in the slammer makes sense for this. Japan is probably the least morally inhibited country on the planet yet continue with this outdated fashion of not daring to show the pubes. What's up with that, anyway? Poor adults, have to turn to animated characters to see what ought to be completely normal.
We have this & yet possession of child porn is legall.......................seriously messed up, but hey thats Japan
Silly law, but he should have been aware of it, not to mention the Japanese publisher.
Hope his trial and possible sentence makes worldwide headlines. But it won't happen and I predict that not wanting to lose face, the Japanese courts will find him guilty and give him a slap on the wrist.
There are A LOT of totally nude female statues around Japan even inside train stations. No mozaiku there, it's art. No wonder J men get excited when they see a hint of a bra or a thread of a panty. Agree with everyone. There is no other country with such level of hypocrisy. "Soap massage parlors" right next to koban (Sinjuku) are daijyobu but male cucumbers and meat balls in art photos are "obscene".
Why? Because there was never any sexual revolution in the 60s in Japan. Check how little is covered in Wiki http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%80%A7%E3%81%AE%E9%9D%A9%E5%91%BD So Japan continues in a confusing and ambiguous path either conservative/childishly shy or extremely dirty/porn as if human sexual behavior can only be either of the two. Notice the absence of anything erotic anywhere and how women on TV desperately try to cover up in case "something" might show. Once the Great Master Araki departs for a different dimension it's welcome absolute monopoly of Disneyland and AKB.
Alex Einz
women on tv, cover up ? what ? unless you watching midday kids programs I am not really sure what you are talking about
And there's a huge Aida Makoto retrospective on right now at the Mori Art Museum in which adolescent girls are depicted naked, maimed, and abused in various sexual poses. There are images of naked women, photographic and non photographic, in every imaginable suggestive pose, and they're also sold at the museum shop. Why isn't Aida being arrested-- his stuff is actually problematic and not done in the same honest kind of spirit that Kee's is. And what of all the art students around Japan who shoot nude photos regularly as part of their creative work? What about the Mapplethorpe books, the Nan Goldin books, the Araki books, the various nude photograph books of men all over this country? What about images of naked men taking baths? This is NORMAL!!!!
This isn't just about porn, it's a crackdown on the eroticization of the male body itself, which is not just homophobic, it's a paranoid move because the patriarchal power base of Japan is feeling sorely threatened by this kind of representation AND the fact that it so popular with the public. And it's ironic, because it was this kind of male erotica that was popular among the same ilk of masculinist elites in Japan up until the early 1900s at least.
In the end I am sure that this will lead to even more male nudity in art and photography actually, just like the famous case against Oshima Nagisa confronted all kinds of themes of nudity and sex in films. Censorship cases like this-- including those against Robert Mapplethorpe or Allen Ginsberg in the US--were actually revolutionary turning points for gay visibility and expression as well. What makes me ache in this case, however, is that Leslie Kee is the nicest guy, a great artist and photographer who does respectful and highly respected work-- and, because he's not Japanese-- they can easily deport him and really ruin his career. Now, if Lady Gaga and Matsutoya Yumi and all those big celebrities who Leslie photographed all rally behind him and shame the Japanese government into rethinking it's stance, then we will really see the beginnings of a gender and sexuality public revolution here that is long overdue.
You have to know that Japanese authorities can't tell the difference between "art" and porn. They also can't tell the difference between adult actors and children in porn since 18 year old are considered children. Then they also miss every year "Kanamara Matsuri" so are they going to arrest all those participates in Kawasaki in April? Seems you can get repricas of all those pixelated parts in Japanese porn and even a lolipop.
Neil McDonald
Magazines and DVDs of school children in bikinis is ok but art is obscene?
tsunagarist, you seem very well informed. Do you think it's possible that someone in Kee's promotion retenue made a call in to the police, to get the ball rolling? For the sake of publicity?
Is Japan where he lives, works, and the base from which he's building (such that being deported would be a massive blow), or is this just one market, of many, from which he can launch to (bigger) global reknown, from making headlines around the world, due to Japan's silly anti-porn laws.
If the former, he's got my sympathies, and I'd kick in to a legal defence fund. I tend to be cynical though, and suspect the latter. Please let me know if I'm wrong.
(PS: I'd google him myself, but I'm at work, and afraid of what might come up in a search of his name !!)
I love how they have phallic shapes at Temples or Shrines (I forget which) and you can't show a penis around here. But it's OK for Ossan to take a leak where ever they please, and in plain sight of everybody else. You have mixed onsen here and nobody bats an eye, but a picture of it is a sin. Are Japanese actually Muslim, because they're not allowed to have any living object depicted in art, pictures, etc...
It is a stupid law and not consistent with reality in Japan, but nevertheless remains a law so the satsu enforce it. Happens all over the world with dumb laws.
@taj-- Leslie Kee is not some back alley photographer shooting pornographic shots. He has major exhibitions in big and major public venues, like Omotesando Hills near Harajuku and Aoyama. He is well known for his amazing portraits of some of Japan's biggest celebrities, including Matsutoya Yumi and many other women. He's also photographed Lady Gaga and other foreign celebrities. Often these celebrities are photographed nude, but the images are not particularly sexual. And even if they are suggestive, it's been definitely on the "art" side of suggestive, rather than some sort of pornographic smut-- displayed in major galleries and sold in very upscale art book shops. More recently he's gotten into shooting male celebrities and ordinary models or guys off the street who happen to be very handsome, and often these shots are nude, too. But there's no difference with what he's been doing for the past decade or more in his work. And in fact this work has also garnered a lot of praise from the gay community in Japan, because they feel he's standing up for their rights and representation, as an openly out, gay artist who tries to express male aesthetic beauty as a counter to all the media saturation of women. But it's ART.
So in response to your question as to whether it would be someone in his promotion retinue, I highly doubt it. The guy is famous enough. He doesn't need some scandal to launch his career. But he's also not ridiculously famous. He's just very popular, well-liked, very accessible, and a very talented photographer. So it's hard not to think they're scapegoating him for something else. And he's been selling these books already for several years as art books. Another article states that the police got the tip from reading his public facebook fan page. And yes, he is Singaporean but he lives in Japan with his partner, and Tokyo is his main base of operation. Deporting him would be devastating to his career and his personal life, too, I'm sure.
The Tepco guys are only started to be investigated for being d*cks years ago, and that guy only showed photos of one is already arrested... Japanese justice has a weird sense of priority.
In the world's second biggest producer of pornography, where magazines with titillating shots of schoolgirls in bikinis and underwear are sold openly; where comics depicting children raped by tentacled sea-creatures are freely available on convenience store shelves but would be banned under most international child porn laws, they want to arrest a art photographer for a picture of a tallywhacker? Bravo, Japan. Hypocrisy at its finest.
I still think at least his Japanese publisher should have been aware of how the law is applied here.
Still, it is kind of strange that while the cops arrest this guy, they are busy regulating traffic at the Kanamara Matsuri:
I really doubt that Kee's publisher would have been worried about obscenity charges. Even if the law talks of mosaic to blur out genitals, this has only really been applied to pornographic material--and artwork and art books are widely considered to fall beyond this frame. Kee was not depicting sexual acts or pornographic settings-- The laws themselves are archaic, and in practice this is just one of those things that people usually seem to turn a blind eye to in recent decades, unless it's a depiction of children or something explicitly sexual. But that's not what this is, effectively. This is explicitly police anxiety about the portrayal of the male nude body, despite the widespread depiction of the fully exposed (and hairy) nude female body in popular magazines and books all over Japan. I am sure it caught the publisher and gallery off guard because these kinds of works and books are now widely published and sold in Japan. Kee is but one of many artists who have been successful in this genre. Go to any art book store in Japan and see for yourself.
Japan grow up. Or if you don't want to see such terrible parts of the body, which I think most of use have anyways, don't look. Please don't tell me what I can or can't look at. Censorship is NOT freedom!
Vernie Jefferies
He should have waited to sell that book down at the Fertility Festival in Kawasaki. I never see them arrest anyone who is selling those explicit candy and toys on the display.
outdated fashion of not daring to show the pubes
Yes they can show the "pubes" but not much else.
Ridiculous law. Just another way to make some extra cash for the police coffers ! This is against the law but dude across from me on the train can fold his paper outwards exposing a half naked women posing for the perverts that by them ?? Or better yet some of these manga aren't censored very well because I've seen some pretty lewd pictures depicting extreme porn in scenes ...also on the train with no regard for the women's feelings around them.
Stupid law ....just a money grab.
I'm from Singapore, but I say the law is the law. Until it is changed to accommodate artistic pictures of private sexual parts, they have to answer to it. Hope they get smart lawyers to get just a fine.
In this case, it is the law which is pornographic, which is defined as "serving no useful social function."
Cortes Elijah
A stupid arrest. Arrested for selling it to people who wanted to buy it. I get porn adds in my face every day I commute to work. What the heck is up with this crap? Penis festivals... Dildos and vibrators for sale beside head-phones.... Come on J-Law get with reality.
Onsen and sento are fine to be naked in. But genitals in AVs or books oh no!!!! Stupid law and seriously outdated! Why should we be ashamed of something that's a part of our body?
Steve Fabricant
Hey - everyone! You ALL have made relevant moral and artistic points!
Now the bad news: I agree with Taj - if the artist's agents didn't actually orchestrate this publicity, they not wringing his hands over it either.
Simona Stanzani
outrageous. free him right away!! art is nothing to be censored to begin with–and sexual organs are the most natural things on Earth. this sexual organ phobia that Japan has really needs some prompt and efficient cure.
hahaha! Japan the biggest producer of pornography in the world and child pornography, has double standards!
Well it seems that America and Japan do have something in common both would rather allow violent moves in the theater than allow one photo of a naked human body get out
Personally, pictures of genitalia to not count as "porn" any more than a picture of a hand counts as "porn". It's part of the human body. I guess Michelangelo's "David" is porn, to, huh? People need to fine-tune this law a bit. The human body is not ugly, it's not evil, and it CERTAINLY isn't pornographic.
Richard bHard
This country is bass ackwards when it comes to laws and common sense. No wonder some of the men are so sick and twisted,too much repression methinks.
Mirai Hayashi
How is this any different from the pictures of nude women in magazines and sports newspapers?
Thank you for your insights, Tsunagarist! If he is eventually charged let us know if there's a defence fund to which we can donate.
And the name of the prosecutor handling the case, so we know to whom we can express our disgust.
So, in Japan taking nude photos of kids is OK.. but taking photos of a grown man's genitals is not OK? I expect this from the Taliban.. not Japan!
So, in Japan taking nude photos of kids is OK.. but taking photos of a grown man's genitals is not OK? I expect this from the Taliban.. not Japan!
As I understand it right now, taking the photos of nude kids in provocative poses is illegal but possession of the photos isn't. I'm sure someone here will correct me if I'm wrong (and frankly, if I'm wrong about possession being legal, it wouldn't ruin my day.)
Amazing.... pornographic images and you, because you're so smart, can deem them art. So, so, many idiots posing as intelligent people with a discerning eye.
John Tan
I'm also from Singapore, and am appalled by this other poster's ignorance. If he had RTFA, he would know that the law is very vague. It does not say that showing the sausage and meatballs is considered obscene. Also, the Supreme Court in Japan decided that the Mapplethorpe pictures which showed full frontal nudity was not porn because it was artistic. I believe Mr. Kee was reasonable to expect his pictures to fall under this exception. As a thinkling adult, i think that bad laws ought to be questioned instead of blindly submitted to.


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Blibli.com: Analyzing customer ecommerce behavior with BigQuery
About Blibli.com
Founded in 2010 and launched in 2011, Blibli.com is an Indonesian business-to-consumer ecommerce provider.
Tell us your challenge. We're here to help.
Contact usIndonesian ecommerce business Blibli.com has turned to Google Cloud to scale to support business growth, give its analyst team faster access to data, and democratize data access.
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Cut time to provide data to analytics team by almost 92%
With more than 260 million people, Indonesia represents a considerable opportunity for business-to-consumer ecommerce companies. These companies can sell products and services to consumers and act as marketplaces for other vendors to sell to consumers.
Blibli.com aims to become a leader in Indonesia's ecommerce sector. Founded in 2010 and launched in 2011, Blibli.com plans to be a one-stop shop for consumers seeking products and services in mobile and tablet devices, sports and outdoor activities, home and living, men's and women's fashion, tickets and vouchers, and other categories. The business also provides bill payment and hotel and airline booking services.
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Growth exposes limitations
Blibli.com started running its ecommerce and data platform on infrastructure in an on-premises data center. However, the speed of Blibli.com's growth soon exposed the inability of this infrastructure to scale quickly and cost effectively. The Blibli.com IT team needed four hours or longer to provide ready-to-consume data from its data warehouse to its team of analysts. In addition, the IT team had to control and limit access to its data platform, as a CPU-intensive query could overwhelm its servers and compromise performance.
Finally, the IT team was spending too much time managing its infrastructure rather than helping the business extract value from its data.
The IT team began exploring alternative infrastructure options for Blibli.com's data platform. However, many offerings required team members to manually complete tasks, such as RAM and CPU allocation to virtual machines and partitioning to optimize query performance.
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—Welly Dwi Putra, Principal Data Engineer, Blibli.comA comprehensive evaluation of Google Cloud
The business then conducted a thorough evaluation of Google Cloud – in particular the BigQuery analytics data warehouse – and found the service aligned perfectly with its requirements. "The simplicity and scalability of Google Cloud was ideal for our needs," says Welly Dwi Putra, Principal Data Engineer at Blibli.com. The business conducted a proof of concept and started moving its data platform to Google Cloud two months later, before completing its migration just four months after that.
Blibli.com is now running its data platform in a Google Cloud environment designed to optimize performance and availability. An open-source stream processing platform forwards clickstream and microservices data from its on-premises infrastructure to the Cloud Pub/Sub messaging service. Cloud Pub/Sub forwards the messages to BigQuery for analysis and visualization. The business uses Cloud Dataflow to transform and enrich approximately 23GB per day of streaming data and 50GB per day of batch data. All data is stored on Google Cloud for archival, disaster recovery, and ease of access.
Compute Engine provides infrastructure as a service that enables Blibli.com's IT team to easily create virtual machine images and size clusters for systems such as an Elasticsearch search engine, which gives the business the ability to search pre-aggregated data used by its internal services.
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"Machine learning services could improve our product combinations as well as help us automate and streamline inventory planning, customer segmentation, and events classification. We now have more time to consider our options in this area because Google Cloud has allowed us to spend less time managing our infrastructure."
—Welly Dwi Putra, Principal Data Engineer, Blibli.comAccelerating data availability
Blibli.com has achieved considerable benefits from its move to Google Cloud. The speed and scalability of BigQuery has cut the time to provide ready-for-consumption data to its analysis team from 4 hours to just 20 minutes. In addition, the business has been able to provide data access to any team member that requires it.
"With BigQuery we can provide access to anyone who needs it and not be at all concerned about performance," says Dwi Putra. "And because Google Cloud runs on Google infrastructure, we can be confident our data will be available as we need it.
Machine Learning presents opportunities
Blibli.com is now well positioned to use services such as Cloud Machine Learning Engine to provide more relevant customer experiences and operate more efficiently. "Machine learning services could improve our product combinations as well as help us automate and streamline inventory planning, customer segmentation, and events classification," says Dwi Putra. "We now have more time to consider our options in this area because Google Cloud has allowed us to spend less time managing our infrastructure."
With Google Cloud, Blibli.com is now well positioned to realize its goal of becoming a one-stop shop for online consumers in Indonesia. The business has a robust foundation to achieve ambitious business growth targets over the coming years.
Tell us your challenge. We're here to help.
Contact usAbout Blibli.com
Founded in 2010 and launched in 2011, Blibli.com is an Indonesian business-to-consumer ecommerce provider.

subset: commoncrawl


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Gender | Women |
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Strap connecting width | 14 |
Wrist circumference (max.) | 18 |
Shipment includes | Watch box |
Style | Classic, Elegant |
Case height | 6 |
Glass | Mineral Glass |
Display color | Beige |
Power reserve | No automatic |
bezel | none |
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Scalzi is discussing comment management. There are…ideas…floating around there; some suck, some are interesting. Here are My Opinions™ on comments.
Comments are absolutely essential and are not going away. What do you think I read the site for? Besides, we've long had an interesting community here.
I'm not going to require real names. Consistent pseudonyms are good enough. I really, really hate sockpuppets; they undermine the credibility of all pseudonyms. I will burn all puppets to the ground on discovery.
My smartest recent move was appointing monitors who write in to report troublemakers. I don't have to read everything constantly to track comments, which relieves a lot of strain.
The banhammer: too much or too little? I've been a little bit more heavy-handed lately, because of all the sexist jerkwads who've been popping in. I'm leaning in favor of more.
With the loss of the dungeon, I've thrown away most of my tracking of bannings, which doesn't bother me much…but one thing I've long been missing is some way to achieve redemption. Once you're banned, you're dropped into a bottomless pit of blackness, never to be seen again, and there isn't any way to gain forgiveness. How could we arrange to have a ban removed?
One capability I wish WordPress had was a way to require a certain minimum of words in a comment. I'd rather see fewer one-liners and more thoughtful discussion.
Should I implement a comment limit? I don't think it's currently a problem, except for that one guy who would dump German opera librettos or whatever into comments.
I do have keyword filtering, and I use it to block a lot of the language misogynists use, which is remarkably effective (there sure is a lot of rapey hatey talk stuck in the spam filter now). Other suggestions for words that magically disappear the bad guys would be useful. Also maybe words that block some of the knee-jerk responses from the good guys. What words/phrases do you hate to see popping up?
Never gonna implement comment threading or comment rating, so don't mention 'em.
Scalzi shuts off some comments while he's sleeping. I'm not going to do that: it discriminates against Australians and Europeans, and we have too many of that furrin ilk here.
Any wordpress experts know of any useful plugins for comments? I can pass suggestions along to the tech guy…who's supposed to fix the main page first, of course.
I know the crappy preview function is a sore point for lots of you. Anything else that bugs you?
Styles. While we're wating for the tech guy to get everything else done, one thing I can do all by myself is tweak the stylesheet. Any comment layout stuff you desperately want?


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In Shmuel Aleph, when Shmuel becomes a Navi, he runs to Eli each time Hashem comes to him thinking it is Eli not Hashem. After the fourth time Eli realizes it is Hashem and tells Shmuel (in paraphrase) that the next time he is called to say "Hashem your servant is listening". When it actually happens that Hashem calls Shmuel leaves out the word Hashem and just says "your servant in listening".
Many commentaries give the reason why this is so, but I am not interested in that as much as, aside from the book of Esther, are there any other places in Tanach where Hashem's name is missing?


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US challenges part of ruling that blocked grizzly bear hunts
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — U.S. officials asked a federal appeals court on Friday to overturn part of a judge's ruling that blocked the first grizzly bear hunts in the Lower 48 states in almost three decades.
The case before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals involves more than 700 grizzly bears in and around Yellowstone National Park. It comes after a judge in Montana restored protections for the animals last September.
U.S. Justice Department attorneys said the judge was wrong to require officials to review the status of grizzlies everywhere before lifting protections for bruins in the Yellowstone region. They also rejected the notion that the bears' long-term genetic health was in doubt.
But the attorneys did not challenge other concerns raised by U.S. District Judge Dana Christensen. That includes whether sufficient safeguards are in place to keep the bears from sliding toward extinction if states take over management of the animals.
The Fish and Wildlife Service "has accepted a remand in this case and is already working on some of the issues identified by the district court," the attorneys wrote.
Grizzly bears were listed as a threatened species in 1975 and have slowly regained territory and increased in numbers in the ensuing decades.
If protections are again lifted for the animals, jurisdiction over them would be returned to state officials — and hunting that has been planned in Wyoming and Idaho could proceed.
Christensen's ruling blocked the two states last year, just as hunting was scheduled to begin. The hunts would have killed up to 23 bears, which state officials maintained was a sustainable figure given the size and expansive range of the animals.
Also Friday, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released a report indicating grizzly bear numbers are holding steady in the Yellowstone area and elsewhere in the Northern Rockies.
More than 1,000 of the bruins occupy a vast swath of northwestern Montana that includes Glacier National Park.
The agency said both populations are biologically recovered after being decimated by hunting and trapping early last century. But the bears also experience high death rates amid conflicts with humans and livestock.
About 130 grizzlies roam areas of northern Idaho, northeastern Washington and southern British Columbia.
In his ruling last September that blocked hunting, Christensen said the struggle to return bears to some other areas of the Northern Rockies was not given enough consideration when officials decided to lift protections for Yellowstone's grizzlies.
He noted an estimated 50,000 bears once roamed the contiguous U.S.
Follow Matthew Brown on Twitter at https://twitter.com/MatthewBrownAP .
The Western Journal has not reviewed this Associated Press story prior to publication. Therefore, it may contain editorial bias or may in some other way not meet our normal editorial standards. It is provided to our readers as a service from The Western Journal.
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Coming from someone who has only watched the Bourne series and never read the books, it came as a great surprise to me that Jeremey Renner is playing a different character in The Bourne Legacy.
Is there a specific production reason why they changed to a different character like Matt Damon or even the writers getting bored of Jason Bourne. Or is it as simple as the production wanting to tell this tale from someone else affected by the Treadstone program?


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MIT licensed open source decompiler for Windows and Linux, plugin support for IDA. Building on the epic foundation of LLVM.
License issues by side, maybe it wouldn't even be so hard to completly decompile CoD2 and recompile it for the web.
Don't tested yet, but maybe somebody wants to give it a try to see how it compares to HexRays decompiler. Floating point support etc.


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WikiLeaks revelations only tip of iceberg – Assange
The man behind WikiLeaks says his website's revelations are just the tip of the iceberg. In an exclusive interview with RT, Julian Assange said it is only a matter of time before more damaging information becomes known.
Watch the full version of RT's exclusive interview with Julian Assange (part 1)
Watch the full version of RT's exclusive interview with Julian Assange (part 2)
The publication of confidential cables proved deeply embarrassing for the US and other countries."If we look at our work over the last 12 moths, think about that. All these stories that have come out actually happened in the world, before 2010, but people didn't know about it. So what is it that we don't know about now? There's an enormous hidden world out there that we don't know about. It exists there right now."Assange claims the data released by WikiLeaks is not even the most important and calls on people not to believe that the information they receive from the media is all that is happening. "We only released secret, classified, confidential material. We didn't have any top secret cables. The really embarrassing stuff, the really serious stuff wasn't in our collection to release. But it is still out there."Read more about Laura Emmett's interview with Julian Assange
"Every war in past 50 years a result of media lies"
RT: Julian, thank you for talking to RT. Now, through the course of your work, you have some insight into the way that political decisions are made throughout the world. What do you make of the recent developments in the Middle East and North Africa at the moment? Do you think that we are seeing genuine social unrest or are we seeing some kind of orchestrated revolt and if so, who do you think is behind all this?JA: There is genuine change in some parts of the Middle East. I mean Egypt is a clear case. I was concerned at the beginning over the Egyptian revolution: whether we just saw a changing of the chairs and the maintenance of the same existing power structure, or whether something was really happening. But after Mubarak fled Cairo, you saw mini-revolutions occurring in every institution within Egypt, from Alexandria to Cairo. So, that's the sort of change that's hard to undo. What's happening in some other countries is a bit different. The situation in Libya clearly has an involvement of state actors in it from many different areas. That's something that has been driven by state actors. Now, it is normal for neighboring countries to have interconnections with each other: the activists in different countries, families in different countries, businesses in different countries, and the states from neighboring countries. That's normal. When outside forces from very, very far-flung countries start to take an aggressive role in a regional affair, then we have to look a bit more and say that what is going on is not normal. So, what's happening in Libya, for example, is not normal.RT: And social networking, what role, do you think, sites like Facebook and Twitter, have played in the revolutions in the Middle East? How easy, would you say, is it to manipulate media like that? JA: Facebook in particular is the most appalling spying machine that has ever been invented. Here we have the world's most comprehensive database about people, their relationships, their names, their addresses, their locations and the communications with each other, their relatives, all sitting within the United States, all accessible to US intelligence. Facebook, Google, Yahoo – all these major US organizations have built-in interfaces for US intelligence. It's not a matter of serving a subpoena. They have an interface that they have developed for US intelligence to use. Now, is it the case that Facebook is actually run by US intelligence? No, it's not like that. It's simply that US intelligence is able to bring to bear legal and political pressure on them. And it's costly for them to hand out records one by one, so they have automated the process. Everyone should understand that when they add their friends to Facebook, they are doing free work for United States intelligence agencies in building this database for them.RT: OK, let's talk about other latest WikiLeaks cables that have been released. They show the UK as a haven for extremism, with at least 35 Guantanamo detainees having at least passed through the UK. Is the UK still a haven for terrorists? JA: You know it has been a haven for terrorists, and it is certainly a haven for oligarchs and former regime dictators that have come here. I mean, remember the famous Pinochet trial for the extradition of Pinochet from the UK, which Thatcher resisted – incredibly, using a lawyer that is involved in trying to extradite me from the United Kingdom. Now, part of that is, perhaps, good. It's an example of true liberalism in the United Kingdom: everyone come here, and we'll protect you. On the other hand, there does seem to be a disconnect. Is it really supporting free-speech activists like me who come to the UK? But, on the other hand, it is supporting people like sons of Gaddafi.RT: The Guantanamo information… why has WikiLeaks released it now? I mean it seems sort of to be after the fact. Is it because Obama has recently announced his re-election campaign and obviously closing Guantanamo was one of his main election promises?JA: There is a number of reasons why we released it now. The primary one is that we are a small organization, although a very committed one. Last year we came under extraordinary attack. All these things continue to go on. And so they've really dampened down our ability to move quickly and publish quickly. The timing is good. Obama has given up on closing Guantanamo and has decided to re-open the trial process. And we now have a situation where even the Obama administration says that 48 of those people still in Guantanamo are completely innocent and they should be sent somewhere, and they are not being sent anywhere. So, completely innocent people are incarcerated for years and years and years with no trial and no hope of relief. No country would agree to house them, including the United States. But the United States has made them its problem. The United States was involved in rounding up these innocent people, setting up a process that was from the very beginning corrupt. There is a reason why they are in Guantanamo and not on the US mainland and not in an allied country. And that reason was to hide them and to keep them outside of the law. Just like you have Caribbean islands engaged in money laundering, the United States is engaged in people laundering.RT:Let me talk about your media partners, one of which is The Guardian, with whom you're now involved in a dispute. But you chose them as your primary English-language partner for distributing the WikiLeaks cables. And now Guardian journalists have published this book on WikiLeaks, which you say is an attack on you. How would you describe, following that, The Guardian's stance on whistleblowing and media freedom in general?JA: They are a publishing organization, and so, of course, they want as much rights over publishing them as possible, that's a natural self-interest. What they have done with this cable-cooking in this incredible over-redaction of cables is they have pushed the right of the people to know to the very, very edge. And what they are concerned about is any possible attack on them. But we have seen this sort of abuse of the material that we have provided several times. The Guardian is the worst offender, but we saw it also by The New York Times. The New York Times redacted a 62-page cable down to two paragraphs. And this is completely against the agreement that we originally set up with them on November 1, 2010. That agreement was that the only redactions that should take place are to protect people's lives. There should be no other redaction, not to protect reputation, not to protect The Guardian's profits, but only to protect lives.What happens in the West is that there is no border between state interest and commercial interest. The edges of the state, as a result of privatization, are fuzzed and blurred out into the edges of companies. So, when you look at how The Guardian behaves, or how The New York Times behaves, it is part of that mesh of corporate and state interests seamlessly blurring into each other. The Guardian is concerned predominantly about being criticized by these powerful interests, about lawsuits against it driven by oligarchs, driven by people powerful enough to push a court case forward.RT: Let's talk a little bit about you and what you are going through at the moment. You are currently fighting extradition to Sweden. What are your fears should you be extradited there?JA.: The problem is in two parts. The United States is trying to get up an extradition case for me to the United States. Just today we saw a new subpoena coming out of the secret grand jury that is operating in Alexandria, Virginia, and it's trying to get up that espionage case against us. It is building that case, and whatever country I am in, once it decides to indict, they will try to extradite me from that country, and possibly not just me, possibly our other staff. The other problem with the Swedish extradition is that the process itself has been corrupted. It was corrupted from the very beginning. We've seen corruption in Swedish media, we've seen all sorts of strange actions in relation to how this case is progressed. RT: What message do you think you would send to the world, if the UK did turn around, almost unexpectedly at this point, it seems, and refuse to extradite you?JA.: It depends on to which country. Here is the sort of calculation that's going on in the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom wants to keep its good relationships with the United States. So, if the UK was to reject the US extradition order, that would pose terrible problems for it. Similarly, if it was to reject the Swedish extradition order, that would pose problems for it, because it would look like it was seeking to harbor me. And this is the sort of difficult situation that Afghanistan faced when it appeared as if it was harboring bin Laden, and as a result there was an aggressive response. Any country which appears to be harboring us, as the United States is trying to conduct its aggressive response, faces political pressures. If the United Kingdom does attempt to extradite me to the United States, then it faces a difficult position politically. The bulk of the people in the United Kingdom support us.RT: And finally, Julian, who do you consider to be your No. 1 enemy?JA: Our No. 1 enemy is ignorance. And I believe that is the No. 1 enemy for everyone – it's not understanding what actually is going on in the world. It's only when you start to understand that you can make effective decisions and effective plans. Now, the question is, who is promoting ignorance? Well, those organizations that try to keep things secret, and those organizations which distort true information to make it false or misrepresentative. In this latter category, it is bad media.It really is my opinion that media in general are so bad that we have to question whether the world wouldn't be better off without them altogether. They are so distortive to how the world actually is that the result is… we see wars, and we see corrupt governments continue on.One of the hopeful things that I've discovered is that nearly every war that has started in the past 50 years has been a result of media lies. The media could've stopped it if they had searched deep enough; if they hadn't reprinted government propaganda they could've stopped it. But what does that mean? Well, that means that basically populations don't like wars, and populations have to be fooled into wars. Populations don't willingly, with open eyes, go into a war. So if we have a good media environment, then we also have a peaceful environment.RT: Thank you very much.


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If you're like many Americans – 71 percent, according to an AARP survey – you might be under the impression that your 401(k) plan administrator doesn't charge you anything to maintain your account. You'd be wrong.
In fact, these companies typically charge fees equivalent to 0.5 to 2 percent of your account balance each year – sometimes as high as 5 percent. In addition to ongoing tariffs for managing your investment options, plan administrators often deduct numerous other fees from individuals' accounts, including charges for administrative costs, sales commissions, advertising, insurance, and trading expenses.
Perhaps equally disturbing is that many employers – which have a fiduciary responsibility to ensure the retirement plans they sponsor have reasonable fees and expenses – often don't know what fees their employees are being charged either.
Over time, out-of-control fees can take a serious toll. The Department of Labor estimates that paying just 1 percent in extraneous fees each year could reduce your account balance by 28 percent during an average working career.
Finding – let alone understanding – such fee disclosures can be time-consuming and often involves wading through complex plan documents. That's why last year, the Labor Department issued regulations requiring fund administrators to provide a more transparent breakdown of their fees to employers, which in turn must pass the information along to employees.
During the first disclosure phase, investment companies were required to send a detailed statement about their plan's investment options, including fund performance and fees. You should have received this information from your employer by August 31, 2012. This statement, which will hereafter be sent annually, should include:
- An explanation of any fees and expenses for general plan administration, such as legal, accounting and recordkeeping services.
- Total annual operating expenses expressed as a percentage of account assets and a dollar amount per $1,000 invested.
- An explanation of fees and expenses incurred based on your actions (e.g., trading fees, loans, service charges for low balances, hardship withdrawals, processing divorce decrees or qualified domestic relations orders, etc.)
- The historical performance of each fund in which you invest (at 1, 5 and 10 years, and since the fund's inception.)
- Benchmark performance – for example, if you invest in an S&P index fund, it should be compared to the average expense ratios for the S&P 500 over the same periods.
The second phase of fund disclosure was the release of quarterly performance statements tied to your particular investment accounts. The first of these statements was for July 1 – September 30, 2012, and most people should have received theirs by mid-November. It should include specific dollar amounts of plan-related expenses or fees charged to or deducted from your accounts that quarter, along with a detailed description of the related services.
For many, these statements are a wake-up call for why they need to choose investment options more carefully. They won't do all the work; you'll still need to crunch the numbers on how your current investment choices stack up against other funds. And no piece of paper can determine your appetite for risk vs. reward. But they're a start.
The Department of Labor hopes that by shining daylight on 401(k) plan costs, employers will be motivated to rein in costs and seek better investment options for employees – and that employees will be more inclined to seek out the most cost-effective funds for their retirement savings.


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Dear Lifehacker,
My company and some websites force me to regularly change my passwords, like every three months or so. How often do I need to change my passwords for all my other logins (if at all)?
Stale Passwords
Dear SP,
Lots of organizations require mandatory password changes because it's long been considered a security "best practice." However, there are pros and cons to that rule, so before you decide if you need to regularly change your other passwords, let's take a look at the times when changing your password often makes sense—and when it doesn't.
Why Companies Enforce Password Duration Policies
When you change your password every few months, it limits how long a stolen password is useful to a stealthy attacker—how long he/she has access to your account. If someone steals your password and you don't know about it, the attacker could eavesdrop for an unlimited time and glean all sorts of information about you or do other damage. Photo by Rochelle Hartman
Therefore, for decades, many security guidelines have recommended frequent password changes, usually between 30 and 180 days. Windows Server has a default of 42 days.
However, in most cases, these might now be outdated policies or recommendations. At the very least, it's highly debatable that changing passwords frequently actually does increase security.
Why Changing Your Passwords Often May Be a Waste of Time
A Microsoft study a couple of years ago found that mandatory password changes cost billions in lost productivity—for very little security payoff. Other computer security resources (Purdue University, Health Informatics, and Life as a CIO blog, for example) point out that the "best practice" of frequently changing passwords does little to improve security but much to increase everyone's frustration. Users typically end up choosing variations on the same simple passwords (e.g., password3) or resorting to sticky notes taped to their laptops. In other words, in some cases password changing requirements could actually increase risk. Photo by Juan Martinez
Security expert Bruce Schneier points out that in most cases today attackers won't be passive. If they get your bank account login, they won't wait two months hanging around, but will transfer the money out of your account right away. In the case of private networks, a hacker might be more stealthy and stick around eavesdropping, but he's less likely to continue to use your stolen password and will instead install backdoor access. Regular password changes won't do much for either of those cases. (Of course, in both instances, it's critical to change your password as soon as the security breach is found and the intruder blocked.)
In today's crazy hacker-friendly system, frequent password changes are less relevant than ever. The NIST says that password expiration policies are "irrelevant for mitigating cracking," because not only are hackers totally on to our clever password tricks, they've got more advanced hardware and software:
Generally, password expiration periods are not of much help in mitigating cracking because they have such a small effect on the amount of effort an attacker would need to expend, as compared to the effect of other password policy elements. Suppose that an organization reduced its password expiration period from 60 days to 30 days. An attacker would simply need to use twice the hardware resources to compensate for this change.
Hackers have machines that can break 348 billion NTLM password hashes per second. (NTLM is a password encryption algorithm used in Windows. At 348 billion NTLM hashes per second, any 8-character password could be broken in 5.5 hours.)
So, really, changing all your passwords every 30 or 90 days isn't very worthwhile and isn't likely to increase your security. That's a good thing, because many of us would rather clean the toilet than change our passwords.
Accounts Which You Might Want to Change Your Passwords Regularly
As is usually the case, there are exceptions. For certain types of accounts, hackers may be more likely to "listen in" and silently stick around for months until they glean important information from you. Schneier points out that if your kid sister or the tabloid press (if you're a celebrity of some sort) has your Facebook password, for example, they'll likely listen until you change your password, which could be months or years if you never find out about it.
In general, this is Schneier's advice:
You don't need to regularly change the password to your computer or online financial accounts (including the accounts at retail sites); definitely not for low-security accounts. You should change your corporate login password occasionally, and you need to take a good hard look at your friends, relatives, and paparazzi before deciding how often to change your Facebook password. But if you break up with someone you've shared a computer with, change them all.
I would add you might consider regularly changing passwords for communication-type sites that don't have two-factor authentication: Email, especially, and things like IM or conferencing services. These are more snoop-friendly services where hackers might listen in for months before you find out. (On the other hand, you really should be using an email service with two-factor authentication, since it's a goldmine for hackers if they can get into it. It's probably the most important account for you to secure, along with your password manager and computer account.) Some services, including Gmail, Facebook, and Dropbox, show you active sessions, so as a general security precaution, you can check those to make sure no one else is logging into your accounts.
Above All Else: Beef Up Your Security in General
It's much more important that you choose a unique password for all accounts—one as long as possible—and strengthen all your other security options (two-factor authentication, making your password recovery questions unguessable, and backing everything up), because, in the end, strong passwords aren't enough—no matter how often you change them.
If you have any weak or duplicate passwords anywhere, definitely change them as soon as possible. Also consider each regular security breach a reminder to audit and update not just your passwords, but your security setup in general—if needed. After all of that, enjoy the peace of mind that you're doing the best you can—and save yourself the hassle of changing all your passwords on a schedule.


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Click the words above "Drakes Estero Triptych – Cleanup continues" to see this entire post.
17 September is Coastal Cleanup Day in California (as well as many other places around the globe).
Drakes Estero is getting a much deserved sprucing up with the removal of 5 lineal miles of treated wood racks that have been there for many decades. Tons of live and dead oysters, clams, plastic tubes of various sizes, plastic bags, lumber and other detritus from the oyster farm still on the bottom of Drakes Estero will also be removed so that the Estero can return to a more natural, unencumbered part of the global ecosystem.
The piles of lumber seen below are from a little less than 10 racks that have been removed so far.
There are over 90 racks total to remove.
This wood is drying in the sun to reduce the weight to be hauled to special dump sites which allow toxic material.
Click here to read more about the oyster farming operation that last farmed oysters in Drakes Estero.


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- Home
- Government
- Departments
- Public Works
- Wastewater
- Outreach & Education
- Fats, Oils & Grease (FOG)
Fats, Oils & Grease (FOG)
FOG can cause a multitude of problems if it enters the sanitary sewer system. FOG can cause sewer back-ups and service interruptions to customers leading to unnecessary environmental damage. FOG is caused primarily by food wastes that enter the sanitary sewer system through drains. Sources of FOG are Food Service Establishments (FSE) and residential dwellings.
Major Problems with FOG
FOG can cause many problems including but not limited to:
- Accumulation leads to system blockages
- Creates pollution from potential sewer overflows
- Decreased useful life of the sanitary system
- Environmental strain from increased water use
- Increased sewer maintenance costs
How to Avoid FOG
Prevention is the best approach when managing FOG. Many of the problems associated with FOG can be prevented by using Best Management Practices (BMPs). Keeping food wastes out of the sanitary system is the most effective way to manage FOG. This can easily be accomplished by avoiding the disposal of food wastes through household garbage disposals or any other drain system. FSEs can minimize FOG in the sanitary system by installing and maintaining grease traps. Grease traps are installed in the establishment's drain system and attempts to trap grease while allowing water to flow freely through the system.
Grease Trap Maintenance
Grease traps must be maintained in order to function properly. If grease traps are not maintained regularly, failure will result, leading to sewer blockages. You should perform routine inspections on a weekly basis to ensure the traps are working effectively. This simple BMP will ensure the trap is removing grease from the waste stream and helping to reduce FOG. Routine cleaning is fundamental to a proper functioning grease trap.
The frequency of cleaning will be determined through the routine inspections. Each customer will need to determine this frequency based on their usage and type of business. An alternative to grease traps are great recycling containers. These containers also need to be properly maintained to ensure you FOG doesn't become a stormwater pollutant.
Prevention Tips
- Display "No Grease" signage near drains
- Do not dispose of food waste in garbage disposal
- Do not pour grease down the sink
- Install and maintain grease traps
- Install drain screens on all drains
- Remove all excess food prior to washing
- Train employees on proper disposal and maintenance methods
By having a preventative care program in place you can save large unwanted costs. Implementing BMPs is the best approach and through the use of BMPs, owners and operators can avoid costly backups and higher user rates attributed by FOG. The sanitary system performs best in the absence of FOG.
Please do your part to help eliminate Fats, Oils and Grease from the community's sanitary system.


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this is a discussion within the Saints Community Forum; Halloween night didn't cause any problems for the Saints who appeared to be reeling after last week's embarrassing loss to the lowly Cleveland Browns. It was a night of redemption and a defense that came alive thanks to two late ...
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Halloween night didn't cause any problems for the Saints who appeared to be reeling after last week's embarrassing loss to the lowly Cleveland Browns. It was a night of redemption and a defense that came alive thanks to two late turnovers including a game-sealing interception by cornerback Leigh Torrence off of Ben Roethlisberger. Earlier in the fourth quarter, safety Darren Sharper caught a fumble out of mid-air which stopped another big Steelers' drive.
The entire first half of the game was nothing more then a defensive challenge and both teams proved that they were up to the task. In the first quarter, the Saints ended up going 0-4 on third down conversions while the Steelers were 0-3. There was just no letting up by either team and they made it a point to keep the opposing at bay. Pittsburgh finally broke through in the second quarter and put together a drive that looked as if it had ended in a sure touchdown, but a replay helped the Saints and showed that Hines Ward was down at about the 6-inch line. A big goal line stand by the Saints caused the Steelers to settle for a Jeff Reed field goal to go up 3-0. It was the Steelers turn to hold after that as the Saints were driving down field in the final minutes, but had to settle for a field goal from Garrett Hartley and go into the half tied at three. The stats were paltry to say the least as both teams only had 119 yards total offense each. After the third quarter was over, it was only 6-3 with the Saints on top and it appeared as if there was going to be another game settled by field goals. Then the offense of the Saints woke up. Robert Meachem had a 50-yard reception. Drew Brees passed for two touchdowns one to Lance Moore and one to Marques Colston. And the Saints had 199 yards of total offense in the fourth quarter alone. Going back to the defensive side of things though, the Saints harassed Roethlisberger the entire night. New Orleans chalked up three sacks, an interception, and held "Big Ben" only 195 passing yards and no touchdowns. It seemed as if defensive coordinator Gregg Williams broke out the old playbook from last season and proceeded to send some big time blitzes and keep the Steelers on their toes the entire evening. Well, it worked. There was almost no stopping the Saints' defense from doing as they pleased out there and that's even missing both starting cornerbacks in Tracy Porter and Jabari Greer due to injuries. Pittsburgh's lone touchdown came on a 38-yard rushing play by Rashard Mendenhall early in the fourth quarter after the Saints had built their first 10-point lead. New Orleans really looked like the team that won the Super Bowl last year as the offense took a little bit to get going, but then came alive. The defense played exactly like they are capable of doing at full strength yet they had to do it with a number of back-ups and players even situated at different positions. There's still one more game before the Saints have a bye week and can allow a number of injuries to heal, but being at the midway point of the season at 5-3 and not 4-4 is a huge advantage. |
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1517 Publishing produces theological and apologetic resources rooted in the tradition of the Reformation. We promote the defense of the Christian faith, the distinction between law and gospel, vocation and civil courage, and the proclamation of Christ crucified for you.
Just as Martin Luther capitalized on the published word to proclaim justification by grace through faith alone, we too believe hearts and minds are changed and encouraged through the written word.


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NVIDIA nForce 780i SLI Arrives
Introduction and Features
The nForce 680i SLI has been at the top of NVIDIA's chipset product stack for well over a year now, which seems like an eternity in this day and age of accelerated product cycles. Although still a top-notch performer, and arguably the best choice for gamers looking to put together a system with multiple GPUs, the nForce 680i SLI is getting a bit long in the tooth. This is most evident when you consider that current 680i SLI motherboards don't properly support Intel's sought after 45nm Penryn-derived processors. Technically, the chipset supports the CPUs, but a circuit level issue on today's nForce 680i SLI-based motherboard implementations causes compatibility problems that cannot be addressed through BIOS or driver updates. In that regard, "out with the old and in with the new" is the theme this time of year, so today NVIDIA is launching a new (sort of) family of chipsets, dubbed the nForce 700 series, that will properly support Intel's latest processors and usher in some new features. Initially, the nForce 700 series of chipsets will consist of the flagship nForce 780i SLI and the mainstream nForce 750i SLI. As you can probably surmise, the nForce 780i SLI will be NVIDIA's top of the line chipset heading into this holiday season and the 750i SLI will be a trimmed down version minus some of the more cutting edge features. A complete breakdown of the nForce 780i SLI's and nForce 750i SLI's major specifications and features are outlined in the table below.
NVIDIA nForce 700 Series Chipsets Specifications and Features
As you can see, the nForce 780i SLI and 750i SLI differ in a number of ways. They both support all of Intel's current processors with front side bus speeds up to 1333MHz (unofficial support for 1600MHz FSB processors is also possible), but the 750i SLI has fewer PCI Express lanes, supports a maximum DDR2 memory speed of only 800MHz without EPP, it doesn't support ESA, it has a single GigE port, and fewer USB 2.0 ports. When running in SLI mode, the 750i's PEG slots operate in a dual x8 configuration, whereas the 780i SLI has 16 lanes of dedicated PCI Express connectivity to three PEG slots. In fact, the nForce 680i SLI has a total of 62 Gen 1 and Gen 2 PCI Express lanes.
Below is a high-level block diagram of the nForce 780i SLI that illustrates its major features and which parts of the chipset are responsible for the functionality. If this block diagram looks familiar to you, it's because many of the features seen here are available in the nForce 680i SLI as well.
Major additions to the nForce 780i SLI chipset include support for NVIDIA's ESA standard and PCI Express 2.0 support through the use of the new nForce 200 chip. Other than those two additions, the nForce 780i SLI is almost identical to the nForce 680i SLI, which is not surprising considering the 780i SLI SPP and the 780i SLI MCP are essentially the same chips used on current nForce 680i SLI motherboards.
The nForce 200 chip augments the SPP and MCP and offers 32 lanes of PCI Express 2.0 connectivity. It directly connects to the 780i SLI MCP over a proprietary NVIDIA interface with a maximum bandwidth of 14.4GB/s. If you do the math, you'll quickly realize the 14.4GB/s is less than half of the 32GB/s that all those PCI Express 2.0 lanes can use, but NVIDIA claims the 780i SLI will still be able to run PCI Express 2.0 graphics cards at full speed, more than likely because no current applications tax the bandwidth offered by PCI Express 1.0, let alone 2.0. We should also point out that, even with a pair of PCI Express 2.0 compliant graphics cards installed into the slots powered by the NF200, there will never be a time when that much data is passed through the nForce SPP and the nForce 200 chip because most data is transferred between the GPUs via the SLI Bridge that physically connects them. Data is rarely transferred past the nForce 200 chip to the nForce SPP. The link between these two chips provides enough bandwidth to enable full performance of PCI Express 2.0 graphics cards in SLI mode.
Here we have some shot of the actual chips that comprise the nForce 780i SLI as they are configured on an Asus P5N-T Deluxe. If you look close, you'll see that the MCP is actually branded as a NF570 – the same chip used on motherboards dating back to the introduction of the nForce 500 series. The SPP, while branded an NF780SLI is virtually the same as the current 680i SLI. And then of course, we have the new arrival in the form of the NF200.


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Built inside a 20-foot shipping container placed on its end, the Kamermaker – " room maker" in Dutch – is one of the largest 3D printers we've ever seen. Able to print objects as big as 2 meter square and 3.5 meters high, the Kamermaker is designed to print huge objects including furniture, architectural elements, and even entire rooms.
The Kamermaker is a collaboration between Architectburo DUS and Utilimaker and the result of wanting to build the world's largest 3D printer pavilion. Built inside a stainless steel-clad shipping container, the Kamermaker features a scaled-up version of the X, Y, and Z axes you'd find in any other 3D printer. The only change is a scaling up of current designs, allowing it to print small wind turbines covering its surface or, theoretically, a life-size TARDIS.
Because using traditional plastic filament would be prohibitively expensive, the Utilimaker team chose to extrude plastic pellets on the fly as it is used. There's an excellent video of the filament extruder here along with a walk-through of the machine in operation after the break.


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William & Mary ranked No. 1 for fostering service careers
William & Mary had more graduates enter service careers over the first decade of the new millennium than any other national university, according to a recent report by the Aspen Institute and Washington Monthly.
The report, which lists the top 50 national universities and top 50 liberal arts colleges for service careers, was created using LinkedIn data from 2000 to 2010 to determine the percentage of graduates reporting government and non-profit positions as their first and second jobs following graduation.
William & Mary tops the national university listing with 32.1 percent of its graduates reporting government and non-profit sector positions for their first and second jobs. George Washington University is second with 31.1 percent, followed by University of Chicago (30.1), Brandeis University (28.2) and Brown University (27.3).
"Students come to William & Mary expecting to find meaning and purpose in their work. They develop the passion and skillset in the community and in the classroom. This report is evidence our graduates are indeed changing the world," said Drew Stelljes, assistant vice president for student engagement and leadership and director of the Office of Community Engagement.
"It is our shared vision to create an engaging learning environment where community is strengthened, students flourish and our graduates have the skills to enjoy meaningful careers," he added.
Among liberal arts colleges in the report, the United States Naval Academy takes the number one spot with 88.5 percent of its graduates going on to service careers. The United States Military Academy at West Point follows with 87 percent, followed by Grinnell College (41.2), Swarthmore College (37.8) and Smith College (37.1).
An article on the report, which appears in the November/December edition of Washington Monthly magazine, cites William & Mary's support for students just getting into service careers as one of the reasons for the university's success.
"At William & Mary, community engagement grants and yearlong post-graduation fellowships provide students with funding to participate in high-impact programs around the world," the article says.
William & Mary students complete approximately 300,000 hours of service each year through opportunities made available by the Office of Community Engagement, the Sharpe Community Scholars Program and various other programs and organizations. For example, students learn about social entrepreneurship careers at the Mason School of Business, which hosts an annual conference, SEcon, on the topic. Students are also encouraged to become engaged citizens throughout their lives during the annual Active Citizens Conference, which brought together 270 students, faculty, staff and non-profit organization members from 40 colleges across the country this year.
At the Cohen Career Center, students are prepared to enter careers of service through its "Making a Living Making a Difference" initiative, which includes guest speakers on campus, site trips to Washington D.C., a government and nonprofit career symposium and the "Management Skills for Public Service" workshop series.
In June, William & Mary signed on as one of five lead institutions for the 21st Century National Service Action Plan during the 21st Century National Service Summit in Aspen, Colo., sponsored by the Aspen Institute's Franklin Project. The action plan challenges young adults to commit to one year of full-time service work following college.
The service careers report is the latest in a series of positive rankings on which the university has found itself this year. In fact, this spring, the W&M Law School topped of a similar ranking. The National Law Journal created a list of 20 law schools with the highest percentage of 2012 graduates in government and public interest jobs. With 34.3 percent of its Class of 2012 in such jobs, W&M Law School ranked at number one on that list, followed by the George Washington University School of Law (32.5 percent), Florida State University's College of Law (30.4), the City University of New York School of Law (27) and the University of South Dakota School of Law (26.3).
In September, William & Mary was listed as the top public university in the nation for a "strong commitment to undergraduate teaching" (tied for third overall behind only Dartmouth College and Princeton University) in U.S. News and World Report's annual listing of top colleges. And, just a few weeks ago, the Center for Public Anthropology included William & Mary in its faculty impact rankings. William & Mary was listed at number six in that report – the only university in Virginia ranked in the top 10. This new ranking looks at the degree to which faculty research in the social sciences is mentioned in public media sources and is based on the number of faculty members cited in the Google News archive from 2006-2011. Rice University, Southern Methodist University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology were ranked first, second and third, respectively.


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PLAY COLE PRODUCTIONS"I Want to See Play Cole!"Play Cole is the most original, funniest, smartest, and best looking sketch comedy group to come along since the Zany Boys. Play Cole is a NY/Seattle based video and improv sketch group that is feared in the all the land for their ability to process dairy. The members have been active in the comedy scene, writing, doing improv, stand-up, or just eating dairy with a smug look on their faces. Play Cole relies on technology to liberate itself from the constraints of time and space and contribute gems for the betterment of the human race. |
Can Play Cole tell me a joke?Stand Up with Play Cole and Friends of Play ColeHas Play Cole seen any movies lately?Play Cole podcastsCan I speak to Play Cole?The Play Cole discussion forum is here. Who is Play Cole?Play Cole BiosJon ClarkeBill MonroeMike DruckerAndrew TorresBrian Kunath Who are the FOPC?(Friends of Play Cole) PilarToonsFrench Fry Head *FOPC Productions* Can I hire Play Cole?Play Cole is available for weddings and Bar Mitzvahs, as well as other events.Select Play Cole content is available for licensing.Please email email@example.com |
A Day in the life of Hellboy Even demonic superheroes like Anung un Rama have some of those days. Written and animated by Jon Clarke Runtime -- 1:49 |
Batman: Kidnapped!Killer Croc helps th Riddler kidnap Batman. Then he want to renegotiate his fee. Directed, written, and edited by Jon Clarke. Starring Mike Drucker and Mark Normand. Runtime -- 1:41 |
Star Trek: The Sitcom How do you turn one of the coolest 1980s Sci-Fi shows into a cheesy 1980s sitcom? Directed and edited by Jon Clarke. Voiceover by Renee Clarke. Runtime -- 3:53 |
The Muppet Show, Starring William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy Mark Hamill was great when he appeared on the Muppet Show, but didn't you always want to see William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy hang out with Kermit? Now you can. This stop motion animated film took three months to produce. Starring Jon Clarke, Brian Kunath, Bill Monroe, and Andrew Torres. Written by Jon Clarke and Bill Monroe. Directed, shot, edited and hair pulled out by Jon Clarke. Runtime -- 6:45 |
Lois Lane: Intrepid Reporter Sometimes a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist isn't all that bright. Writen, directed, and animated by Jon Clarke. Starring Pat Dixon, Lara Yaz, Alec Grubard, Jon Clarke, Mike Drucker, Ed Murray, Maddog Mattern, and Jeff Sussman Runtime -- 2:35 |
Stan Lee's SoapboxJon Clarke took audio from Stan Lee's Fantastic Four introductions in the
mid-90s and animated it with his action figures and digital camera. Runtime -- 2:10 Runtime -- 3:31 |
The Bribe A young go-getter invents a new way to get a raise. Starring Jon Clarke and John Knefel Written by Jon Clarke and Mike Drucker. With Billy the Kid on lighting. Runtime -- 2:37 |
Joker Goes to Comedy Central How does Comedy Central find new shows? They schedule pitch meetings with popular entertainers. Or criminal masterminds. Starring Jon Clarke, Mike Drucker, and Alex Grubard. Featuring Emily Conbere Runtime -- 3:02 |
Tension Envelopes Interviewing for a new job can be a nerve-wracking experience. But when the tension in the air is so thick you see people snap all around you, it is a truly memorable experience. Strarring Jon Clarke, Brian Kunath, Bill Monroe, and Andrew Torres. Directed by Jon Clarke. Written by Jon Clarke and Bill Monroe Runtime -- 3:23 |
Force Years ago, Calvin Klein showed us a new way to sell perfume. His marketing genius continues today with the first cologne for nerds. Starring Jon Clarke, Brian Kunath, Bill Monroe, and Andrew Torres. Written, directed, and edited by Bill Monroe Runtime -- :49 |
You Never Heard Such Laughing The rise and fall of the greatest comedy duo of our time -- The Zany Boys. This film is a documentary that traces their career from their early days in Vaudeville through their historic movie career. Starring Jon Clarke and Andrew Torres as the Zany Boys. Featuring Brian Kunath, Bill Monroe, and a host of Friends of Play Cole. Runtime -- 21:04 |
The Job InterviewWith unemployment as low as it is, sometimes interviewers have to make compromises. Starring Jon Clarke and Andrew Torres. Written by Jon Clarke. Runtime -- 4:54 |
The First Commandment There's no such thing as a simple rule. Starring Jon Clarke and Andrew Torres. Featuring Brian Kunath as the voice of God Runtime -- 3:05 |
Planet of the Apes: Behind the Grunts An in-depth look at how a great movie begins as a very bad movie. Starring Jon Clarke, Brian Kunath, and Andrew Torres. Runtme -- 3:02 |
The Adventures of Straight Man The story of a superhero with the power to deflect any joke. Starring Jon Clarke, Brian Kunath, and Andrew Torres. Written by Jon Clarke and Andrew Torres. Runtime -- 3:52 |
The Lazeris The chilling story of genetic mutation gone slightly wrong. Starring Jon Clarke, Brian Kunath, Bill Monroe, and Andrew Torres.. Concept by Brian Kunath Runtime -- 7:12 What should be done with the Lazeris? |
Lunching with LarryDelicious food and delightful commentary. The first season of Lunching with Larry featured 3 short episodes. |
*A Home of His Own*Blind Travelogue with Mort NormsteinJoin Mort on his travels around the world |
The Stevens FilesThe action packed story is here. Follow every twist and turn in the new special effects extravaganza. Join the hero on the ultimate quest to do what is right -- consequences be damned. Filmed on location and with a star packed cast -- this is the movie your friends will be talking about. Written, directed by, edited, and starring Brian Kunath. Runtime -- 1:44 |
C'mon C'mon How one word in the world of hip-hop can mean so much. Sing along. You know the words. Starring Brian Kunath. Directed by Dave Wasklewicz. Written by Jon Clarke. Runtime -- 1:29 |
Frank and the Steins Sure parts of the act are, um, "Recycled" but Frank and the Steins are still Alternative Rock at its best. This short concert film shows them at their peak. Starring Jon Clarke, Hector Luis, Brian Kunath, Andrew Torres, and Lara Yaz. Shot by Davis Wasklewicz. Written and directed by Jon Clarke. Runtime -- 3:31 |
Directing Robin Williams Directing films is hard work. Some actors probably make it harder. Writen by Jon Clarke and Mike Drucker. Directed by and starring Jon Clarke. Featuring Alex Grubard. Runtime -- 1:10 |
© 2006 - 2008 Play Cole Productions. |


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"The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand." That's freshly minted GOP vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan talking -- statements he would eventually recant -- at a party celebrating what would have been the prolific author's 100th birthday.
Rand's books are a big driver in the long-term right-wing campaign to delude millions of people into believing that there's no such thing as society -- that everyone must look out only for themselves. Lately, Rand's work has enjoyed a major revival of interest. Besides Ryan, she's inspired yoga-wear company Lululemon to publish her quotations on its products, and she's even made inroads into the North American semi-socialist enclave of Canada.
AlterNet has kept the pace with Rand's resurgence, doing our best to educate people about what a nutcase she was and how harmful her ideas are. These 10 articles, previously published on AlterNet, shed light on why Rand's influence on Ryan is so dangerous.
1. How Ayn Rand Seduced Generations of Young Men and Helped Make the U.S. Into a Selfish, Greedy Nation
"When I was a kid," AlterNet contribuer Bruce Levine writes, "my reading included comic books and Rand's The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. There wasn't much difference between the comic books and Rand's novels in terms of the simplicity of the heroes. What was different was that unlike Superman or Batman, Rand made selfishness heroic, and she made caring about others weakness."
Bruce Levine's explanation of how Rand has captured the minds of so many is a must-read. "While Harriet Beecher Stowe shamed Americans about the United State's dehumanization of African Americans and slavery, Ayn Rand removed Americans' guilt for being selfish and uncaring about anyone except themselves. Not only did Rand make it 'moral' for the wealthy not to pay their fair share of taxes, she 'liberated' millions of other Americans from caring about the suffering of others, even the suffering of their own children."
2. Rand's Philosophy in a Nutshell
The bloggers at ThinkProgress explain that the philosophy Ayn Rand laid out in her novels and essays was, "a frightful concoction of hyper-egotism, power-worship and anarcho-capitalism. She opposed all forms of welfare, unemployment insurance, support for the poor and middle-class, regulation of industry and government provision for roads or other infrastructure. She also insisted that law enforcement, defense and the courts were the only appropriate arenas for government, and that all taxation should be purely voluntary. Her view of economics starkly divided the world into a contest between 'moochers' and 'producers,' with the small group making up the latter generally composed of the spectacularly wealthy, the successful, and the titans of industry."
AlterNet's Joshua Holland has the goods: "Her books provided wide-ranging parables of 'parasites,' 'looters' and 'moochers' using the levers of government to steal the fruits of her heroes' labor. In the real world, however, Rand herself received Social Security payments and Medicare benefits under the name of Ann O'Connor (her husband was Frank O'Connor).
4. Rand Worked on a Movie Script Glorifying the Atomic Bomb
According to author Greg Mitchell, Rand called the nuclear weapon capable of incinerating entire cities "an eloquent example of, argument for and tribute to free enterprise."
5. Billionaires and Corporations Use Rand's Writings to Brainwash College Students
Pam Martens reported that Charles Koch, who pushes "millions of dollars through his foundation into economic programs at public universities and mandating approval of faculty and curriculum in some instances," partnered with the "Southern banking giant BB&T ... mandating that Ayn Rand's book Atlas Shrugged is taught and distributed to students."
6. How Rand Became the Libertarians' Favorite Philosopher
Author Gary Weiss explains how the "Rand movement, which was little more than a cult when the Atlas Shrugged author died 30 years ago, has effectively merged with the vastly larger libertarian movement. While many differences are likely to remain ... this means that Objectivism, Rand's quasi-religious philosophy, is going to permeate the political process more than ever before."
Author Hal Crowther writes, "For an eyewitness portrait of Ayn Rand in the flesh, in the prime of her celebrity, you can't improve on the 'Ubermensch' chapter in Tobias Wolff's autobiographical novel Old School. Invited to meet with the faculty and student writers at the narrator's boarding school, Rand arrives with an entourage of chain-smoking idolaters in black and behaves so repellently that her audience of innocents gets a life lesson in what kind of adult to avoid, and to avoid becoming. Rude, dismissive, vain and self-infatuated to the point of obtuseness — she names Atlas Shrugged as the only great American novel — Rand and her hissing chorus in black manage to alienate the entire school, even the rich board member who had admired and invited her. What strikes Wolff's narrator most forcefully is her utter lack of charity or empathy, her transparent disgust with everything she views as disfiguring or disabling..."
8. Red-State "Parasites," Blue-State "Providers"
Ayn Rand loved to throw around the word "parasite." If you aren't a psychopath billionaire, in Rand's eyes you're a parasite. It's a psychology totally in keeping with the myths of blue-state/red-state America, as AlterNet's Sara Robinson explains.
9. Ayn Rand Was a Big Admirer of a Serial Killer
No exaggerating here. Mark Ames writes, "Back in the late 1920s, as Ayn Rand was working out her philosophy, she became enthralled by a real-life American serial killer, William Edward Hickman, whose gruesome, sadistic dismemberment of a 12-year-old girl named Marion Parker in 1927 shocked the nation. Rand filled her early notebooks with worshipful praise of Hickman. According to biographer Jennifer Burns, author of Goddess of the Market, Rand was so smitten with Hickman that she modeled her first literary creation ... on him."
"The most devoted member of [Rand's] inner circle," George Monbiot writes, "was Alan Greenspan, former head of the U.S. Federal Reserve. Among the essays he wrote for Rand were those published in a book he co-edited with her called Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal. Here, starkly explained, you'll find the philosophy he brought into government. There is no need for the regulation of business – even builders or Big Pharma – he argued, as 'the "greed" of the businessman or, more appropriately, his profit-seeking … is the unexcelled protector of the consumer.' As for bankers, their need to win the trust of their clients guarantees that they will act with honour and integrity. Unregulated capitalism, he maintains, is a 'superlatively moral system.'"


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It's one of the most dangerous missions on the modern battlefield — and one of the most important. Crews flying big, vulnerable and sometimes unarmed helicopters brave gunfire, bad weather and rugged terrain to snatch wounded troops from a firefight or the scene of a bomb blast.
Medical evacuation crews are some of the gutsiest people around. But to avoid another Black Hawk Down scenario — in which the rescuers also get trapped alongside the wounded — in the hottest battle zones the Pentagon sometimes grounds the medevac copters under certain conditions. Now the Army has latched onto a possible solution: replace the human copter crews with Vertical Take Off and Landing (VTOL) drones.
That's the thrust of the Army's recent small business solicitation asking the industry to come up with a basic design for an "autonomous VTOL [Unmanned Aerial System] capability for critical medical item resupply and [casualty evacuation]." Companies are not required to produce a working robot. Instead, the Army wants planning documents and a "short list of VTOL UAS candidates." The aim is, as quickly as possible, to put the pieces in place for a full-fledged, follow-on development program.
The solicitation does not specify what specific medical equipment the copter should carry, but it's not hard to guess. Tie-downs to secure the patient inside the aircraft, for one. Also, some kind of remote telemetry for keeping tabs on the injured troop's vital signs.
The solicitation helpfully lists the best candidates for the robot airframe, mentioning purely unmanned copters such as the Kaman K-MAX, the Northrop Grumman Fire Scout and Boeing's A-160 Hummingbird as well as existing manned helicopters that can be modified for remote control, including Boeing's Little Bird, the ubiquitous Sikorsky Blackhawk and EADS' Lakota. One outlier on the list is Urban Aeronautics' AirMule, a prototype ducted-fan 'bot with its rotors buried inside the airframe.
Of these candidates, the K-MAX is arguably the farthest along. The Marines are already using a pair of of the twin-rotor robo-copters for resupply missions in southern Afghanistan and have been pleased with their reliability and the relative simplicity of their controls, which combine GPS navigation with remote inputs from a human operator on the ground.
Meanwhile, a Navy team led by MIT professor Missy Cummings is working on new, iPad-style controls for K-MAX and other robo-copters that could allow any minimally trained trooper to guide an unmanned vehicle to a safe touch-down in a hot landing zone. Cummings says the new control system is specifically meant to enable robotic medical evacuation. "Your buddy took a bullet to the chest and no manned helicopter is crazy enough to land," is how she describes the scenario.
If there's a big potential obstacle, it's trust. Even after more than a decade of robotic warfare, many soldiers don't feel safe placing their lives in mechanical hands. "The problem is overcoming the natural fear of entering a vehicle without a pilot," said Urban Aeronautics' Janina Frankel-Yoeli. Her company's solution is to pipe into the AirMule, via radio, the voice of a human medic — all in an effort to soothe a possibly panicked patient.
Even if the Army can't immediately solve the patient-panic problem, robotic medical evacuation is certainly worth pursuing. Thanks in great part to human medevac crews, a wounded soldier today has a 95 percent chance of surviving. Adding robots to the evacuation mix might help save some of the five percent who slip through.


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This was published 9 years ago
Mines handling risks pollution and legal action: report
By Tony Moore
Two government ministers have responded to accusations their departments have placed the environment in danger and exposed the state to legal action over their handling of Queensland mine sites.
An Auditor-General's report into resource industries criticises the departments of Environment and Heritage Protection and Natural Resources and Mines.
The report comes as a federal inquiry questions how millions of tonnes of dredge spoil leaked from a bund wall in Gladstone Harbour in 2011 -12, but had to be discovered by a visitor.
Questions continue to be asked over the lack of scrutiny of Queensland Nickel's tailings dam north of Townsville.
Auditor-General Andrew Greaves' report, tabled in state parliament on April 1, highlighted poor communication, few proactive inspections, inadequate monitoring and poor data collection.
His 2013-14 report delivers a damning finding on the actions of the departments.
''EHP is not fully effective in its supervision, monitoring and enforcement of environmental conditions and is exposing the state to liability and the environment to harm unnecessarily,'' the report stated.
Nine recommendations call for major improvements in both departments by June 2015.
The report highlights appalling communication between the EHP and NRM departments.
The two departments still use different means of identifying projects and do not share information to indicate if mining companies are meeting their environmental conditions, the report finds.
Mr Greaves said there was ''real risk'' that environmental damage was occurring ''undetected'' because environmental inspectors were not watching.
However, Environment Minister Andrew Powell said the report - despite covering events in 2012 and 2013 - covered problems when the LNP came to office, not since.
''While my colleagues in Education and Health inherited long waiting lists and maintenance backlogs, the fact is that as Minister for Environment, I inherited a compliance system from DERM that was clunky, ineffective and outdated,'' he said.
That software system - called EcoTrak - is now being replaced.
Despite the Mr Greaves' findings, Mr Powell insisted his department did know which projects were not meeting their environmental conditions.
''There are shortcomings in the way in which the data is recorded – which is what the Auditor-General points out.''
A spokesperson for Minister for Natural Resources and Mines Andrew Cripps said NRM only monitored health and safety at mine sites, not environmental issues.
The spokesman conceded it did manage abandoned mine sites and had restored 200 abandoned mines since March 2012.
''In 2013, more than 50 abandoned mine sites were inspected and assessed in areas ranging from Stanthorpe near the Queensland-New South Wales border up to Far North Queensland,'' the spokesperson said.
''High-risk shafts have already been remediated at Passchendaele and Ipswich in southern Queensland; Calliope and Opalton in central Queensland and in Herberton and Ravenswood in the north."


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text: >> IMO, this is a dubious assertion. I bought a couple incredibly cheap >> desktop disks for home use a couple weeks ago: just seagate 7200.12's. > > Are you happy with the 7200.12 so far? I must admit the awful 7200.11 (the 1 and > 1.5 TByte variety) has quite soured me on Seagate. I haven't had any problems > with WD so far (I'm strictly using RE3 and RE4's, though). 7200.x's are clearly just desktop disks - I wouldn't necessarily build a large raid out of them, or expect to run them 24x7 for years. but these days, you really have to regard disks as cheap consumables, at least if you're not pushing max size or enterprise models. I had myself talked into wd re's as well, but then I realized that a few 7200.12's are just to cheap to care - es.# and re# lines cost over twice as much. and if we're talking about $50 disks, is it really worth talking about? I have no reliability experience yet. it's clear though that disk vendors have heard all the discussions on how URE/NRE rates limit the usability of large raid arrays. (ie, 7200.12's are "1 NRE per 10e14 bits read". I wonder whether they mean just 10^14, since 10e14 should be normalized to 1e15...) in any case, my home array is not going to be close to either 12.5 or 125 TB, so I don't worry about the too-big-to-rebuild-without-URE issue. but I did notice that some drive lines (wd caviar black) actually appear to increase the ECC on bigger models. the 500/640G models are rated as <1 in 10^14, but the 750/1000 step up to <1/10^15. the sustained bw drops from 113 to 106 MB/s, supporting the idea... regards, mark hahn.