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The Amazing Wonderful Fabulous & Kind Team—Organizers: Elissa R. for the taco after party * Photographers: Elissa R. Photography (Digital) & Zachary Hunt Photography (Instant)* Event Venue: Book Woman, Austin's Feminist Bookstore *
Until this trip, I'd never been to Texas. I'm not sure how that happened, given how huge Texas is and how many friends I have in Texas (it seems like half my friends at NYU were from the arts high school in Houston), but there you are. So I was curious, to say the least. And what I can tell you is that Texas treated me very, very well, and it was also the hardest and most exhausting part of my book tour.
I showed up in Houston where one of my best girlfriends lives. She put me right to bed, and then I was up at 6:30 am for super delicious hipster Houston breakfast, and then off to rent a car and drive to Austin. I listened to country the whole way because it seemed like the thing to do. Also, a lot of country songs surprise you by being about Jesus, right at the end. Which I suppose isn't surprising, once you know the drill. But it was like: heartbreak, I love my jeans, I love my dog, I love my wife, love my kids, I love ice cold beer… I love Jesus! And every time I was surprised by the final twist. But I digress.
So, I arrived in Austin (which is in fact more adorable and hip than you've heard), moved into my Bed & Breakfast, and then sat down and did four interviews back to back. Even my publicist thought I was crazy, scheduling that many interviews in a row, but I figured knock them out, get them done. And then it turned out two of the interviews were for feature articles, and were an hour long. Perhaps I should pay more attention to what I'm scheduling next time! But what the heck. I do like to talk, and everyone I was talking to was charming and smart. So by 5:30, I was done with all the interviews and I could hardly stand up, let alone speak coherently. And I had an event to do. Hum. So I lay down for a quick nap, ditched plans for an exciting hairdo, chased a wayward cat out from under my bed (which took ten minutes and made us late). Then my friend Michelle and I (Michelle drove up from College Station, just for the event) whisked off to Austin's feminist bookstore.
And, somehow, no matter how tired I am, when you put me in front of a crowd, I'll stand on the chair and sing my song. So I made everyone move up to the front, so we could all be cozy. Then we talked about feminism and weddings, and about how weddings brings us right up against the parts of our lives and culture that are still far from equal and makes us grapple with them. We talked about name change, and how in my opinion, the important bit isn't what decision we make, but how we open a dialogue with the people around us (and particularly with men) about issues of equality and emotion and family names. The crowd was lovely (Austin you do it up right), and after I signed books, someone gave me a crazy delicious gluten free cupcake to eat, and I somehow stumbled off to eat a few tacos with the final stragglers of the night.
And then, when I woke up the last morning, I felt like I'd hurdled the last huge hurdle of the tour. And after some girl gab and shopping in Austin, and way more girl gab in Houston, I caught a train. LA, I'm resting up for you… because I think the last stop of the tour should arguably be the best. Let's bring it.


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DIY: Circle of Confusion Shape Modifier
Feb 20, 2012
DIY: Circle of Confusion Shape Modifier
We are always happy to get a nice bokeh build tutorial in the blog, even if it means we have to throw away the name of our best product and find it a new one, maybe the circle of confusion masters kit…
Circle of Confusion Shape Modifier – At least that's what I call it. I call it that because "circle of confusion" refers to the actual defocused spot, while "bokeh" refers to the aesthetic quality of the blurring caused by the larger-than-a-point circles of confusion. If you disagree with my reasoning, just ignore the title (darn, need to think of a new product name, UT). Anyway, since you are reading this, you have probably seen this article. I really liked the idea and made one just like it. It worked very well, but to make one for every shape I might want seemed a bit impractical due to the amount of space such a collection would require. So I set out to solve that "problem." And here is what I came up with…
As you can (hopefully) see above, the hood consists of four basic parts—the round part that wraps around the lens; a front part with a large cutout; a slot, into which you slide the, er, slides; and a little part at the top that helps to line up the slide and keep it secure when upside-down. Note that yours will look a little different than mine. I designed the slot after cutting out the rest of the hood, so mine is a bit rough.
What you'll need to make one:
- One large aperture lens (I used a Canon 50mm f/1.8 II)
- Black cardstock (I found 50 sheets at a local craft store for $4, or $2.80 with a coupon:)
- Photoshop or Photoshop Elements or Gimp (I used Pse7)
- An X-Acto knife (or similar) with a nice, sharp blade
- A cutting mat (…like this one. It's not required, but I highly recommend using one.)
- White Elmer's glue or a glue stick
- Tape
Follow those steps
To make your own, start by opening up Photoshop. Create a new 8.5×11" image. Now, go to View>Grid and make sure it's checked. The grid will help A LOT in getting things lined up. You'll notice how some of the lines are darker. Pick one of the dark crosses toward the middle and zoom to 300+%. Use the custom shape tool to create the following image. Line up the cursor with a dark cross when you create a shape. This may sound a bit overkill, but it ensures that everything is lined up properly.
- outer circle= 70x70mm
- lines= 110x5mm, 5x110mm
- square= 45x45mm
- inner circle= 35x35mm
*These dimensions work for the 50/1.8. You may need to modify them if your lens has a different diameter.
Save the file, and create a new 8.5×11" image. Zoom in to 300+% again and start creating 45x45mm squares at the dark crosses. I fit 12 of them arranged like this:
Obviously, I could have fit more squares on the page, but I didn't want to risk having my printer not print some of the sides. Once you have made the squares, set the custom shape tool's size to 15x15mm (I used 15 because I knew it would work, but you can experiment with other sizes if you want) and start adding some shapes. With some of the shapes, you will have to reduce one of the dimensions. Just try different numbers until it looks right.
You can also draw your own shapes if you want, but be careful not to make them too big. When you're done, save this file, too.
Now it's time to print and do some cutting. If you have a cutting mat, use it. It will make the entire cutting process much easier. You can use cardboard in a pinch, though. All of the areas below that are red need to go.
The two lower cutouts (2 & 3) form the slot. The height doesn't have to be exact, just reasonably close. The point is that part 3 is taller than part 2. Glue part 2 onto part 1, then part 3 onto part 2. Glue part 4 onto part 1, across from the slot. You also need to cut a 1-1.25" strip from the long side of a sheet of cardstock. Wrap it tightly around your lens. Tape it and glue down the flap you just created. From here the construction should be obvious.
The page with the slides should be self-explanatory.
To store all of those slides, I used an "ancient" case designed for a Game Boy cartridge. If you don't have one of those, one of these would work just as well. …Or, get creative and make something. :) The hood can be stored in the cardboard lens box when traveling so it isn't crushed.
And you're done! Enjoy! Let me know in the comments section how you like it.
50mm 1.8 Lenses [B&H | Amazon]
The 50mm 1.8 is probably the best value for money any you'll find. They are sharp, fast and compared to other fast glass darn cheap. 50mm lenses give a really nice bokeh which is the reason they work so well for shaped bokeh shots.
Bokeh Masters Kit [DIYP | Amazon | B&H]
The bokeh masters kit turns light into shapes. If you are not that handy with an utility knife or simply don't have the time to make the device above, you can always got one of our fabulous kits. They come with a lens adapter, 21 pre-cut shapes and 8 blank discs just in case you change your mind about the knife.
Article and images by Mike Gerdau.
Udi Tirosh
Udi Tirosh is an entrepreneur, photography inventor, journalist, educator, and writer based in Israel. With over 25 years of experience in the photo-video industry, Udi has built and sold several photography-related brands. Udi has a double degree in mass media communications and computer science.
Join the Discussion
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Be nice, be on-topic, no personal information or flames.

subset: commoncrawl


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Magellan's continuous-improvement coordinator Jonathan Ung checks data gathered by the Merlin machine-to-machine communications platform. With more than 60 yr. of producing components for some of the most sophisticated supersonic jet-fighter aircraft in the world, longevity for the Magellan Aerospace plant in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, is partly due to its expertise in high-velocity hard-metal machining of titanium, Inconel and stainless steel. The firm manufactures major components for the futuristic F-35 Lightning II fighter, as well as landing gear and other key components for most major aerospace-OEM platforms.
The 135-employee, 100,000-sq.-ft. plant boasts of relentless pursuit of excellence, which recently led it to invest in new "shop floor to top floor" software supplied by Memex Automation, Burlington, Ontario, Canada. Its Merlin (Manufacturing Execution Real-time Lean Information Network) software is a manufacturing execution system and machine-to-machine communications platform that provides real-time visible dashboard metrics.
Merlin executes work orders generated by an ERP system and sends the results back to the central ERP database. Other functions include production data collection, downtime and reject-cause analysis, labor-productivity tracking, usage-based preventive maintenance and visual production scheduling. Users, such as Magellan, leverage information captured by Merlin to increase production and income from operations, while raising overall equipment effectiveness (OEE).
Reduced Optional Machine Stops
Dave Quehl, Magellan Aerospace's manager of technical services, oversaw installation of the Merlin software in 2011, and has it running on various machines throughout the plant. Continuous-improvement coordinator Jonathan Ung is charged with tracking the plant's progress with Merlin; he has gathered very promising return-on-investment results.
"We deployed Merlin on our FMS/Makino cell," says Ung, "which features four robot-controlled CNC machines. We also outfitted three stand-alone CNC machines configured in a cell-like environment. The stand-alone machines utilize the Merlin Ax9150 hardware board along with the G55 handheld scanner, giving us visibility of the machines that we previously lacked. The Merlin operating portal on the Makino cell provides detailed machine information right on the shop floor. We feed Merlin with work-order and product standard data directly from our Cincom ERP system."
Ung notes that prior to installing Merlin, the stand-alone machines were not reaching production targets and the plant was considering buying another machine. "Merlin identified and then helped us reduce optional machine stops, or M01 codes," he says, "programmed in by an operator. The data showed us that there were far too many M01s and other downtime events. We shared this information with our team, which was able to reduce the number of monthly hours caused by downtime events from 400 hr. down to 100 hr. This resulted in a net increase in machining capacity of 100 hr./month per machine. Multiply that by the hourly machining cost and we captured real savings of more than $30,000/month against an initial price for Merlin of $20,000. That's a very satisfying payback on the technology."
On one of its machines, says Ung, the shop was able to more than double machining time, for a 100-percent-plus efficiency gain. "It was so much of a gain that it was surreal at first," says Ung, "with experienced operators very surprised to see the results.
"Previous to Merlin," continues Ung, "shopfloor supervisors would manually record information regarding start and end times, and quantity produced during the shift. However, the information didn't provide the detail that enables better decision-making. With Merlin in place, we've seen a dramatic drop in time spent gathering data, along with a notable increase in the amount of data available to management and to operators.
"It's important to be able to put the information in front of the operators so they can see the change in performance as changes are made in operating procedures," continues Ung. "Merlin provides a truthful record of problems and, as the Pareto principle shows, we can quickly focus on the 20 percent of issues that result in 80 percent of our problems."
Data Fuels a Lean PDCA Methodology
After collecting a month's worth of information from Merlin, Ung and his team initiated a lean plan-do-check-act (PDCA) methodology with corrective actions.
"Memex supplied this in its 'Roadmap to Success' methodology," says Ung, "a valuable tool for analyzing and interpreting the information Merlin makes available."
After completing the corrective actions, Ung was able to show that Merlin brought the plant's OEE to a sustained 85-percent-plus, up from 36 percent.
Day-to-day, Merlin provides Ung and his team with instantaneous as well as timed e-mail alerts to minimize downtime. Dashboards, displayed on video screens throughout the shop floor, communicate realtime machine status.
More Benefits Coming
See also: Memex Automation
Technologies: Management, Software
Check out these other articles.


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Tony Robinson
December 1994
This report describes a program that performs compression of waveform files such as audio data. A simple predictive model of the waveform is used followed by Huffman coding of the prediction residuals. This is both fast and near optimal for many commonly occuring waveform signals. This framework is then extended to lossy coding under the conditions of maximising the segmental signal to noise ratio on a per frame basis and coding to a fixed acceptable signal to noise ratio.
If you have difficulty viewing files that end '.gz'
which are gzip compressed, then you may be able to find
tools to uncompress them at the gzip
web site.
If you have difficulty viewing files that are in PostScript, (ending
or '.ps.gz'
), then you may be able to
find tools to view them at
the gsview
web site.
We have attempted to provide automatically generated PDF copies of documents for which only PostScript versions have previously been available. These are clearly marked in the database - due to the nature of the automatic conversion process, they are likely to be badly aliased when viewed at default resolution on screen by acroread.


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The incandescent light bulb was invented in the very early 1800s, but at that time was a device too crude and impractical for mass adoption. Over the next 80 years, at least 20 inventors contributed to its improvement, until, in 1880, Thomas Edison developed and patented a bulb that would last a miraculous 1,200 hours. Edison's product was the first to offer the levels of functionality, durability, and affordability necessary for widespread commercial appeal. That's why he gets credit for inventing the light bulb, even though he was decades late to the party.
Some 130 years after Edison's patent was approved, the incandescent light bulb has basically the same features… a filament inside a glass bulb with a screw base. And for all those years, it's been doing yeoman-like work providing clean, quality lighting (compared to the candles and oil lanterns of the 19th century), in millions of homes and offices.
Today, however, the incandescent light bulb is on its way out… and a multibillion-dollar industry will be forever changed.
Done In by Inefficiency
The incandescent bulb, though very effective, is notoriously inefficient. To understand why, one need only understand how it produces light. The filament (or wire) inside a bulb is heated by an electric current until it becomes so hot it glows.
The problem: only about 10% of the energy used by an incandescent bulb is converted into light; the rest is dissipated as usually unwanted heat.
This is a problem, not just for the homes and businesses using these bulbs, but also upstream at the power plants that produce the required energy. In an era when producers are wondering how they're going to keep up with the surging demand amidst rising fuel costs and concern about the environmental impact of energy production is running high, such inefficiencies are frowned on.
Governments, of course, have the ability to put muscle behind their frowns… and they're doing just that. In 2013, it became illegal in the United States to manufacture or import 75- and 100-watt incandescent bulbs. 40- and 60-watt bulbs were added to the ban in January of this year. The US isn't the only government actively limiting the use of incandescent bulbs. The European Union, Canada, Brazil, Australia, and even China are among many that have phase-out programs aimed at forcing users to convert to an alternative technology.
For household applications, that primarily means a switch to those twisty-shaped compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs), or the newest competition in town, light emitting diodes (LEDs).
A CFL's spiral tube contains argon and mercury vapors, and they are far more efficient than the old Edison bulb. When an electrical current is passed through the vapors, invisible ultraviolet light is produced. The ultraviolet light is transformed into visible light when it strikes a fluorescent coating on the inside of the tube.. all at about one-fourth the electrical cost for an equivalent amount of light from an incandescent lamp.
LEDs, in contrast, don't use commonplace materials. Rather, they're made from somewhat exotic semiconductor materials, like indium and gallium nitride. When an electrical current is passed through these semiconductors, energy is released in the form of particles called photons—the most basic units of light in physics, i.e., light's equivalent of individual electrons. In the process, little is lost to heat and the materials take minimal wear, making for another very efficient light source, and one that lasts far longer than its competitors.
Comparing the Alternatives
Right now, LED bulbs are relatively expensive to produce. That's because a bulb is not just a bulb when it comes to LEDs—it can't be made brighter by just putting in a thicker filament or tube. Instead, each bulb is a complex web of up to dozens of small diodes, each roughly the size of a pinhead, wired together and to a ballast that regulates the electricity flowing through them.
When compared head to head with incandescent and CFL light bulbs, LEDs come out the clear winner in operating costs. But even with millions of these bulbs now shipping to Home Depot, they still fall down on initial cost:
60-WATT Equivalent |
Lumen | 880 | 800 | 800 |
Life (hours) | 1,000 | 8,000 | 25,000 |
Initial cost | $1.19 | $5.00 | $9.98 |
Yearly operating cost | $7.23 | $1.81 | $1.45 |
However, when you add up those advantages over that 25,000-hour lifetime, then the advantages start to become clear:
60-WATT Equivalent |
Yearly operating cost |
$7.23 | $1.81 | $1.45 |
Years | 23 | 23 | 23 |
23-year operating cost |
$166.29 | $41.63 | $33.35 |
Initial cost | $1.19 | $5.00 | $10.00 |
Replacement cost |
$28.56 | $10.00 | $0.00 |
Total cost | $196.04 | $56.63 | $43.35 |
As you can see, to produce roughly the same lumens (a measure of the amount of visible light emitted by a source), both CFLs and LEDs are hands-down more economical than incandescent bulbs.
Of course, in a residential scenario where a bulb is run for maybe three hours a day, it would take about 23 years to realize that big a savings. But put them in place in a commercial or industrial setting like the hundreds of lights running 24 hours a day in the local Walmart, and the savings add up quickly.
Still, why are we so bullish on the prospects for LEDs if they barely edge out their CFL competitors over tens of thousands of hours?
The first difference is environmental. CFLs have the inherent disadvantage of containing mercury, a toxic metal that poses health and environmental risks. Break one of these bulbs and you have a biohazard on your hands. There's a real cost to recycling these bulbs and containing the mess from those that are just tossed in the trash heap. It's a cost that will certainly be shifted back to consumers of the bulbs if environmental legislation continues on its same path.
Further still, over its life, an LED bulb is already 25% more economical than a CFL. When compared to an incandescent bulb, either is a huge cost winner. But when it comes down to dollars and cents, the LED wins today. The only reason not go that route is the big upfront cost difference, which when buying tens of thousands of bulbs at a time (as many commercial companies do) can be a hard pill to swallow.
However, the cost of LEDs has been falling fast in recent years and will continue to do so. In 2011, a 60-watt equivalent LED bulb retailed for about $40. In 2012, the price fell below $20. Today, it's less than $10.
As volumes increase and competition among manufacturers and retailers intensifies, prices will continue to fall. Some industry analysts see a $5 LED on the near horizon. We wouldn't bet against it.
The price could go even lower if manufacturers can successfully implement a cost-reduction break-through. Specifically, LED devices are built on expensive aluminum oxide substrates. But manufacturers are working on ways to build on substrates made of silicon, which would substantially reduce defects and thus costs.
As prices drop, and if environmental law hits mercury-laced CFLs next, LED's cost advantage will start to widen significantly.
Inflection Point
This all means that the LED's time has arrived. According to IHS, a global market and economic research firm, unit shipments of LED lighting devices will grow at a compounded annual rate of 40% between now and 2020.
In 2011, the size of the global lighting market was about $96 billion, and LED devices accounted for about 12% of that amount. By 2020, McKinsey & Company projects, the size of the market will be $136 billion, of which 63% will be attributable to LEDs.
With the LED bulb, we have a trend that's been in the making for several years… and it's now ready to surge. How should an investor play it? Certainly not with a blindfold and a dartboard, or a whole sector buy like an ETF, because not all participants in this market will prosper.
Some will not be a pure enough play to benefit, or will be cannibalizing their own incandescent and CFL business… like GE and Phillips. Others will find themselves producing a commodity with ever-thinning margins… like Cree. And others still already have much of the anticipated growth priced into their shares.
By Adam J. Crawford
Analyst for Casey Researcy
However, we scanned the field and found a company that is well positioned to benefit from the growth of the LED market while, at the same time, actually improving its margins. We believe this company's stock is undervalued. That's why we're recommending it in the next issue of BIG TECH. For access to this recommendation and many more, simply sign up for a risk-free trial of BIG TECH. If you decide to keep your subscription, it will only cost a mere $99—nothing compared to the profits just this one investment should bring. But, if for any reason you're unsatisfied, simply cancel to receive a prompt, courteous, and complete refund of the entire subscription price. You have 3 full months to make up your mind.


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The congressman for Georgia's fifth district, civil rights pioneer, and original Freedom Rider will debut his graphic memoir, March: Book One, this August, two weeks before the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington. It's the first book in a trilogy of autobiographical comics set against the backdrop of the civil rights movement. Written with coauthor Andrew Aydin and illustrator Nate Powell, March: Book One tells the story of Lewis's childhood in rural Alabama; the first time he met his mentor, Martin Luther King Jr.; and his leadership in the 1960s sit-ins against racial discrimination.
Why the comic book format? During the civil rights era, the 1957 comic Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story illustrated the historic bus boycott sparked by Rosa Parks in Alabama. That comic, distributed by the Fellowship of Reconciliation, taught young people not just about the event itself but also about nonviolence as a tool for social change.
Lewis says of reading the comic back when he was a teenager, "It was part of learning the way of peace, the way of love, of nonviolence. Reading the Martin Luther King story, that little comic book, set me on the path that I'm on today." But Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story was only the beginning of the story; much of the struggle was yet to happen: the student sit-ins, the March on Washington, Bloody Sunday, and the Selma to Montgomery marches. Lewis was a key figure in all of these events.
When the congressman told his staffer Aydin in 2008 about the groundbreaking 1957 comic book, Aydin asked, "Why don't you write a comic book?" Lewis said, "Yes, I'll do it—but only if you write it with me."
Aydin, Lewis's then–press secretary for his reelection campaign (and a comic book fan), was up to the task. Says Aydin, "I grew up without a father. I was raised by a single mother, and the sort of comfort and support that the congressman has given me over the last six years—it was something that I wanted to find a way to put into this book."
So they kicked off the narrative in the present day, with two fictional young African-American boys visiting the congressman in his office in order to hear his story firsthand. This mirrors Lewis's mentorship efforts in real life. He speaks with kids from the U.S. and around the world as often as possible about the civil rights movement. "They come and sit on the floor in my office. The photographs—kids can't believe it, seeing me standing there with Dr. King, President Kennedy."
At which point the book borrows from superhero comic structure. We see Lewis growing up in rural Alabama, where he worked on his family's farm and cared for a flock of chickens. Lewis says, "I wanted young people to know that I was just a typical child."
When he turned 18 and was attending the American Baptist Theological Seminary, he was still a wide-eyed country boy who had just spent his first semester in college. He thought that he might want to transfer to Troy State in his hometown. But back then the school didn't allow black students.
At this point, he wrote to Dr. King to seek advice. Surprisingly, Dr. King arranged to meet with him in the office of a small church in Montgomery, Ala.: "I saw Martin Luther King Jr. standing there with another minister by the name of Rev. Ralph Abernathy. Dr. King said, 'Are you the boy from Troy? Are you John Lewis?' I was so scared, I didn't know what to say or what to do. And I said, 'Dr. King, I am John Robert Lewis'—I gave my whole name."
"He became my hero. If it hadn't been for him, I don't know what would have happened to me. I would still be there in rural Alabama, preaching to the little chickens."
While Lewis didn't choose to fight for a spot at Troy University, he did choose to follow in Dr. King's footsteps. Lewis attended workshops on nonviolent direct action and teamed up with other budding activists including Diane Nash.
In 1959, Lewis, Nash, and two other black students decided that they wanted to take action against segregation in Nashville's stores. Lewis says in the book, "We could shop there and pay the same prices as white customers, but we couldn't use the dressing rooms or sit at the lunch counter to eat. It was humiliating." They decided to do a few test sit-ins—to request to be served at the lunch counter to see what might happen.
John Lewis says of the protest he helped lead against racial discrimination in Nashville in 1960, "[About 80] of us were arrested for sitting in at a lunch counter at a Woolworth's store. We were denied service. And that arrest made me more committed, more determined to bring down those signs that said 'White Waiting,' 'Colored Waiting.' "
Word spread quickly, and the idea caught on in other towns including Greensboro, N.C. Aydin says, "The Greensboro sit-ins—that was a flash point. And it was only seven days later that the Nashville students started sitting in [in larger numbers], and it swept across the South." Lewis writes in the book, "Our numbers swelled to over 200 students for our next sit-in on Thursday, February 18."
As young Lewis's group of activists grew larger and larger, they realized that they needed a primer on nonviolence for those who hadn't attended any of the workshops. Lewis says, "I liberated—I didn't steal it—I liberated some typing paper and made it available for someone to type the dos and don'ts [of the sit-in]," which he himself wrote. One of the guidelines said, "Do not strike back or curse if abused."
But at the sit-ins at Woolworth's, Kress's, and McClellan's, violence erupted. Powell's illustrations skillfully bring fury and chaos to the page—the swift punches from local boys, the humiliation on the faces of the student activists and their allies, and a backdrop of unblinking police officers.
Lewis says, "When we were sitting on the lunch counter stools, when someone would come in and spit on us or put a lighted cigarette down our backs or pour hot water or hot coffee or hot chocolate on us, it was part of the discipline, part of the training, that you didn't strike back, you didn't hit back, that you try to make eye contact with the person abusing you."
So when Lewis and his group were arrested at Woolworth's, he says in the book, "I felt free, liberated—like I had crossed over." And the document he had written for his fellow activists? "The day we got arrested," Lewis says, "every single person who went to jail on that Saturday, February 27, 1960, had a copy of the dos and don'ts."
Amid this tale of a pivotal event in the civil rights movement is the message of nonviolence and the need for moral courage. Says Lewis, "There is a need for young people to understand the power of the philosophy of nonviolence. If they follow the way of love, the way of peace, they too can bring about what we call a nonviolent revolution."
Aydin says that, as the trilogy progresses, March will illustrate multiple examples of nonviolent protest from the civil rights movement. "We're just giving people more tools in their toolbox to pursue their own form of protest and social change."
Moreover, while Lewis and Aydin's book focuses on the struggles of African-Americans in the late '50s and early '60s, it's by no means for African-American youth alone. For one, it's also aimed at parents, teachers, and community leaders who seek a compelling way to engage young people in their history and in the struggle for social justice.
But also, March speaks to the present-day civil rights movement in a broader conversation that includes the larger group of people of color as well as LGBTQ folks. "Many young people, many children, are being abused, being put down, being bullied because of their sexual orientation," Lewis says. "I'm hopeful that this book will inspire them to be able to stand against the tide, stand against the wind, and speak up and speak out, and not feel alone."
Says Aydin of Lewis, "There's a peace that he gives to people, even for a moment." In fact, Lewis says of his recent trip to New York for BEA, "People walked up to me and said things like, 'I've been following you all my life.' 'I've been following you since I was born.' 'My father, my grandfather told me about you.' 'We studied you in my history class.' "
Aydin says, "It seems like people are thirsty for a decent person, someone who's just good, someone who pursues a life of simple justice."
The hope is that young men and women—as well as their parents, teachers, and leaders—will draw inspiration from Congressman Lewis's story just as the teenager from Troy once did from the comic about Martin Luther King Jr.
"Following the teaching of Gandhi and Thoreau, Dr. King, it set me on a path," says Lewis. "And I never looked back."


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Oregon State Bar Bulletin NOVEMBER 2009 |
Exalted Principle?
Edward Fadeley admonishes us that "opposition to Judge Sotomayor seemed all partisanship, but disguised as selfless principle" (Letters, August/September 2009). Doubtless Fadeley will permit the inference that exalted principle underpinned Sotomayor's support. In view of President Obama's reported gatekeeping directive, "white males need not apply," I take it we may rest assured that the operative principle was something other than, "two wrongs don't make a right."
Peter Smith
Grants Pass
Birth Mothers Respond
Birthmothers deserve more attention than the passing reference Melody Finnemore gives to them in her article about adoption attorney Scott Adams ("Family Man," June 2009): "… for every adoptive parent who gains a child there is a birth parent who places one." This is far too dismissive a reference to the women who actually bear the children.
Because women who lost children to adoption are shamed into silence, much of the public has accepted the idea that the experience was a positive solution for their untimely pregnancies. Yet for most of them, the truth is far different. Numerous studies and the memoirs of these women show that surrendering a child leads to lives of unresolved grief.
Despite this, Oregon law is titled against the woman who bears the child and towards the adoptive parents. These mothers are often without resources and financial support. Although the right of parents to nurture their children is protected by the due process clause of the 14th Amendment, Troxel v. Granville, 530 U.S. 57 (2000), the law encourages them to make hasty, ill-informed decisions with no right to undo them.
Immediately after the mother leaves the delivery room, she may sign the consent form as well as an agreement (ORS 418.270(4); 109.312(2)) giving up her right under Oregon law to rescind her consent within six months absent fraud or duress. No woman can appreciate her loss until she has given birth and has had time to internalize the consequences of surrendering her child.While Oregon courts prohibit attorneys from representing both prospective adoptive parents and natural parents, the adoption agency or the prospective adoptive parents' attorney often refers an attorney to the natural mother, and pays her bill. The mother's attorney becomes a facilitator to see that the adoption progresses as planned. To assure independence of counsel, we recommend that a funding source such as a surcharge on adoption-petition filing fees pay Legal Services or similar organization to represent parents considering adoption.
Open adoption agreements, thought to provide some relief to adoption trauma for mothers and their children, are hard to enforce. Failure of adoptive parents to abide by the agreement does not nullify the adoption, ORS 109.305. If adoptive parents cut off contact and refuse to participate in mediation, or if mediation is unsuccessful, birthparents must initiate a court action to obtain relief, pitting them against adoptive parents who most likely have greater financial resources. And of course, adoptive parents wishing to close the adoption can simply disappear into another community, another state, another country.
We want a world where all children are cherished. If families cannot with help care for their children, adoption is obviously the better alternative to growing up in an orphanage or in foster care. Adoptive parents we have known are loving people who are committed to the well-being of their children. However, the adoption industry today and the legal system surrounding it fails to protect vulnerable mothers and mothers-to-be, and thrusts too many children into the adoption mill when they need not be.
Jane Edwards, Portland
Lorraine Dusky, Sag Harbor, N.Y.
Editor's note: Jane Edwards has been a member of the Oregon Bar since 1971 and is retired from the state of Oregon. Lorraine Dusky is the author of Birthmark (1979); Still Unequal: The Shameful Truth About Women and Justice in America (1996) and other works. Both surrendered daughters to adoption and are reunited.


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SAN FRANCISCO --- First off, have you viewed the great documentary WHO IS BOZO TEXINO? (The Secret History of Hobo Graffiti)? If not, do watch this great doc by Bill Daniel and get excited about Thursday's show here in SF at Adobe Books. ~DETAILS
Mostly True, an exhibition that showcases 5 artists from Bill Daniel's book of the same name. Opening: Thursday, 6pm at Adobe Books - 3130 24th St.


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Photos by Michael Lucibella
On May 17, APS President Michael Turner presented a plaque to the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism (DTM) of the Carnegie Institution for Science, as part of the APS Historic Sites Initiative. Located in Northwest DC, the DTM is the site of work in the 1970s by Vera Rubin and Kent Ford on the rotation curves of galaxies, which provided early evidence for the existence of dark matter. On top, Michael Turner congratulates Vera Rubin, while on the bottom, Kent Ford shows where a key component, the image tube spectrograph, was located in a photo of the two of them inspecting the telescope at Kitt Peak where the data were taken.


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Hopefully by now you are already well acquainted with the reports in Local Insight. Within the reports you will have noticed data visualisations and charts comparing your custom area to two other areas. Since our announcement last week, where we added new Community Dynamics data into our tool, we've been working hard to show those indicators in our area profile reports. But we didn't want to leave it there – so, we have also added data on housing affordability to the reports too – enjoy!
New indicators
Under the heading 'Communities and environment: Neighbourhood Satisfaction and Local Participation', you will be able to see the following data:
- Local social relationships
- Belonging
- Satisfaction with local area as a place to live
On a separate page as part of the 'Housing: How affordable is local housing?' (released back in April) section you will be able to see
- Housing affordability gap
- Savings ratio
- Total affordability ratio
Updated data
In addition to the new data, all other data is now up-to-date within the reports.
Update your reports
To see the latest data in your reports you must generate new reports for your custom areas. To do this, simply click Request Report on the Manage Custom Areas page. For more information about the Reports in Community Insight, check out the Report section in the Knowledge Base.
For more information take a look at our blogs on


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David Finkel is author of The Freedom Formula and co-author of, SCALE: 7 Proven Principles to Grow Your Business and Get Your Life Back (written with Priceline.com co-founder Jeff Hoffman), and one of the nation's most respected business thinkers. A Wall Street Journal and Business Week bestselling author of 12 business books, David's a regular columnist for Inc.com, FastCompany.com, and Forbes.com reaching over 1M readers each year.
Over the past 20 years, David and the Maui coaching and advisor team have scaled and sold over $62 billion of businesses.
Maui Mastermind helps business owners build companies they love owning again--for the value they create, the lives they touch, the profits they earn, the team they employ, and the freedom they enjoy. Their clients have enjoyed an average annual growth rate five time higher than the average privately held company, while at the same time reducing their companies' reliance on them as the owners by an average of 191% percent.
An ex-Olympic-level athlete turned business multi-millionaire, David and his wife Heather, and their three sons live a very simple life in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.


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Review: Copilot Live 8
There are some pretty cool technologies involved in the hardware that is being crammed into our Windows Phones these days. WiFi, various cellular technologies, GPS, et al. My vote for the coolest of these is GPS. The fact that some very intelligent person somewhere came up with the idea of putting machines into orbit around the globe and then using these to navigate is extremely impressive to me.
Harnessing the full power of the GPS on a Windows Phone can be a difficult proposition. Free tools such as Google Maps and Bing/Live Search are capable of utilizing a GPS receiver, but they don't give you all of the benefits that we have come to expect from a full featured GPS.
Copilot Live is one of the premier GPS applications for Windows Phones. Now in version 8, ALK Solutions has re-worked their pricing to make this amazing software accessible to just about anyone with a Windows Phone. (See my review of Copilot 7 here.)
To see the new features that Copilot Live 8 offers, check out the review after the jump.
Included Features
Copilot Live provides navigation and routing to a specific location. In version 8, there are several ways of specifying the location that you are trying to get to. Obviously an address or GPS coordinates are a standard method of defining where you want to go; in addition you can use an intersection, a contact or point of interest (for example an airport, amusement park or museum). A new feature in version 8 is the ability to use a Geo-tagged photograph to define the point to which you want to navigate; very cool.
Also new and improved is the ability to specify the method of transportation being used. Car, RV, bicycle or walking are all supported modes of travel. That might not sound like a big deal, but getting routed to walk a freeway isn't the best thing in the world.
Premium Features
ALK offers a set of Premium features for an additional annual fee. These services make use of your data connection to receive up-to-the-minute traffic information, gas prices, and local search. Obviously these are services offered by Google Maps and Bing, but having these features available without leaving Copilot will be well worth the additional cost to some people.
One of the things that stand out to me the most about Copilot is how every feature is totally usable. Every button is finger friendly; all of the menus are easy to navigate. Maps and lists are intuitive and simple.
While driving, sometimes there are situations where you have to make multiple consecutive turns. Copilot handles this by offering what they call a "Turn after Turn Indicator." Your next two turns are displayed in the bottom left hand corner, and an audible cue lets you know if there is a quick transition between the two turns.
Pricing and Licensing
My biggest issue with Copilot 7 was the sheer cost. At more than $100, it was out of reach for a lot of people as far as cost is concerned. Version 8 sells for a much more reasonable $34.99 (upgrade for $29.99). This is a very competitive price point and is much more accessible for someone on a budget.
The flip side of the price conversation is that the Live features such as traffic and gas prices are at an additional cost. $19.99 per year will get you these additional features. Even at the additional cost these features may be worth the cost to some. I really like that ALK didn't go with the all-or-nothing approach.
There are some other additional features that are coming in 2009 Q4 (that would be any day now), but were not available at the time of this review. Keep an eye out for Text to Speech (Copilot will pronounce full street names in order to give you detailed directions) and Copilot Command (allows you to navigate Copilot's menus using only your voice) in the next couple of months.
The biggest benefit in Copilot Live 8 is the reduction in price. $34.99 is an amazing price for this piece of software. If you have ever wanted a fully featured GPS system, this is definitely your opportunity. I would highly recommend you take a look at Copilot Live before your next trip.
Copilot Live can be purchased directly from ALK Solutions.
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George is the Reviews Editor at Windows Central, concentrating on Windows 10 PC and Mobile apps. He's been a supporter of the platform since the days of Windows CE and uses his current Windows 10 Mobile phone daily to keep up with life and enjoy a game during down time.


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'24: Live Another Day': Kim Raver's Audrey Raines to Return?
It's been a good long while since we've heard anything on the front of 2014 '24' revival 'Live Another Day,' but it seems Jack Bauer may have even more familiar company than Chloe O'Brian when the terrorism-countering agent is called out of retirement once more. Multiple-season love interest Audrey Raines (Kim Raver) is nearing a deal to return for the new season, but what state will '24: Live Another Day' see her in?
Via TVLine, Raver nears a deal to return for the '24' revival series, despite the fact that her character was last seen in a vegetative state stemming from Chinese torture methods, with Jack forbidden to see her again. "Audrey is so not dead," says returning executive producer Howard Gordon. "She's not even in a coma. In my opinion, she is at the very worst in a psychiatric facility, but she may also be married to a contractor in Virginia who has a child."
Elsewhere, '24: Live Another' day has been confirmed to take place over 12 episodes, potentially jumping between hours in a story that likely sees Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) in an international setting. 'Live Another Day' will also have its A-game behind-the-scenes talent with the returning '24′ team of writer/producers Howard Gordon ('Homeland'), Evan Katz, Manny Coto, David Fury, Robert Cochran, Brian Grazer, Jon Cassar and Kiefer Sutherland.
Well, what say you? Who else from '24' history would you like to see return for '24: Live Another Day' in 2014?


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Milpitas, CA, USA – July 1, 2010 – Blackmagic Design today announced Intensity Shuttle, a new low cost and extremely high quality HDMI and analog video capture and playback solution for USB 3.0 computers is now shipping. Intensity Shuttle is powered from the USB 3.0 connection and features an attractive white inline design priced at only $199.
Intensity Shuttle includes separate connections for HDMI 1.3, component, composite and s-video capture and playback at full 10 bit video quality. Intensity Shuttle lets customers connect to the latest AVCHD and HDV cameras for direct capture from the image sensor for incredible video quality, and HDMI and component video outputs provide fantastic quality monitoring with maximum possible real time effects.
USB 3.0 is the new version of the USB computer connection that runs 10 times faster than regular USB. This means, for the first time, there is a built in connection on computers that is fast enough for 10 bit HD uncompressed video. USB 3.0 allows simple to install products with broadcast quality video to be designed for low cost computers. USB 3.0 is already included as standard on computers from HP, ASUS and Gigabyte, and is becoming more popular every day.
Intensity Shuttle includes built in broadcast quality video at a consumer price, making high-end 10 bit broadcast quality video available to even more videographers for true professional work. Many videographers are working on demanding video work such as independent films where quality is important. Intensity Shuttle lets anyone work at the highest video quality regardless of budget!
Intensity Shuttle requires an Intel™ x58 series Windows™ computer with USB 3.0 connection. Intensity Shuttle supports Premiere Pro™, After Effects™, Photoshop™, Fusion™ and more. Blackmagic Design's Media Express software is included free, and a free developer SDK is available.
"We are very excited to make the high quality of our Intensity cards available in an attractive, affordable and easy to install USB 3.0 based external design", said Grant Petty, CEO, Blackmagic Design, "Now even more videographers will have access to the highest quality video with new 10 bit broadcast quality, plus independent connections for HDMI, component, composite and s-video. It's a fantastic solution!"
Intensity Shuttle Key Features
• HDMI in and out.
• Component analog in and out.
• Composite video in and out.
• S-Video in and out.
• Stereo analog audio in and out.
• USB 3.0 connection to Intel x58 series computers.
• Powered via USB 3.0 connection.
• Uncompressed 10 and 8 video and compressed video capture and playback.
• Works with Premiere Pro, After Effects, Photoshop, Fusion and more.
• Includes Media Express capture and playback software.
Availability and Price
Intensity Shuttle is now shipping for US$199 from all Blackmagic Design resellers worldwide.
Filmmakers go-to destination for pre-production, production & post production equipment!
Shop Now


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In this issue discover the wonders of God's creation and see how our Creator is clearly seen all around us. Articles cover bizarre creatures in the fossil record, the intricate "matrix" of bacteria, the eye, and many other marvels.
Browse Issue SubscribeAnswers in Genesis is an apologetics ministry, dedicated to helping Christians defend their faith and proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ.


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By Megan Evans and Martine Maron
Clive Palmer's China First Coal Project is entering the last stages of review for its proposed coal mine in Queensland's Bimblebox Nature Refuge. As part of the Supplementary Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS), the proposal suggests protecting about two hectares of remnant bush for every one hectare of the nature refuge that is affected by the mine. That sounds like we're getting two for one – but biodiversity offsets aren't that simple.
Biodiversity offsetting is an increasingly popular means to balance out the impact developments have on the environment. Just as many of us will purchase a carbon offset to compensate for the emissions we generate when we take an overseas flight, biodiversity offsetting aims for "no net loss" of biodiversity values from a development project.
Like carbon offsets, biodiversity offsetting is a controversial topic. Recent media in the UK has highlighted how contentious it can be, with the UK government's trial of its new biodiversity offsetting scheme decried by some as "a license to trash nature".
One of the problems for biodiversity offsetting is working out whether "no net loss" is actually being achieved. Despite the widespread and growing use of offsets, very little evidence is available to demonstrate what those offsets deliver.
A recent paper is one of few to evaluate the outcomes from a biodiversity offset. When frog habitat was destroyed during development in Sydney Olympic Park, more habitat was created as an offset. The authors monitored the population size of the vulnerable green and golden bell frog (Litoria aurea) before and after development. They found that an area of habitat 19 times larger than the habitat area affected had to be created to ensure there was a no net loss of frogs.
This is an example of an offset working. But the amount of habitat that had to be created relative to the habitat lost (known as the "offset ratio") was 19:1 – much greater than initially expected, and this was only discovered after intensive monitoring over more than a decade.
Often, proposed offset ratios are closer to 2:1, such as what has been proposed for the loss of the 8,000 hectare Bimblebox Nature Refuge. Is this enough? We can estimate whether an offset ratio is likely to be sufficient by calculating its conservation benefit.
To do this, we need to know two things: what is the risk the offset habitat would be lost if we don't protect it? And what is the risk of its loss if we do protect it?
We'll assume that the risk of loss of the offset site is about 1% over the next 20 years (based on the current rate of loss of remnant vegetation in Queensland). If the offset site is protected, we assume the risk of loss is zero (although this might be a bit optimistic).
The difference between the expected area of the offset site with protection, and the expected area of the offset site without protection, must equal the impact of 8,000 ha if we are to achieve no net loss. Based on this model, about 800,000 hectares would need to be protected to offset the loss of Bimblebox Nature Refuge. That means an offset ratio closer to 100:1!
We make a number of assumptions to get this figure, like the risk of losing a patch of remnant bush if is unprotected or protected. If, for example, we had considered regrowth vegetation with its 20-year risk of loss at about 10%, this would bring the offset ratio down closer to 10:1 (although the quality of the offset would be lower).
But even with the most generous assumptions, a simple exchange of two hectares protected for every hectare destroyed is unlikely to achieve a no net loss outcome in our example. Unfortunately this illustrates that in many cases, we are pushing the limits of what can realistically be considered "offsettable".
With any major development, the proponent must detail in its Environmental Impact Statement how threatened environmental values contained within the project area (in this case, within Bimblebox) are to be avoided, mitigated, rehabilitated or offset. The total sum of offsets required by State and Federalpolicies for individual environmental values, such as the black-throated finch and the koala, may provide a very large offset area when combined. But without calculating the conservation benefit of offsets like we have here, its not clear whether it will be enough to achieve no net loss.
If the China First Coal Project goes ahead, it will be the first timean entire protected area is lost to development in Australia, so there's currently no policy that requires an offset for a protected area in its own right. Based on our example, a 2:1 offset would likely not achieve the "no net loss" standard for the loss of Bimblebox Nature Refuge.
Ultimately, governments can revoke the protected status of any conservation area, and compensation isn't necessarily required. The question is whether the Australian public considers the loss of publicly-funded conservation areas to be a fair exchange for the benefits provided by a development. But to make this judgement, we need to fully understand and acknowledge thelimitations of biodiversity offsetting. Otherwise, we may unknowingly accept an exchange that could result in the loss of effectively irreplaceable biodiversity.
Megan Evans is a PhD Candidate in Environmental Policy & Economics at Australian National University.
Martine Maron, PhD, is a Senior Lecturer in Environmental Management at University of Queensland.
This article was originally published at The Conversation. Read the original article.


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This resource is no longer available
This concise report assesses the online presence of 36 of the UK's leading high street retailers.
Of the companies in the study, 20% did not have mobile optimised websites. 22% did not have a mobile application and 10% had neither
Companies more active on Google+ are also more active on Twitter, but this is not the same is not true in reverse. Pizza Hut for example, currently has 352,504 followers on Twitter, but does not have a Google + account.
On the other end of the spectrum, internet retailing giant, ASOS and fashion brand, Topshop both have a 500,000+ followers on both platforms.
This research was produced by Ann Stanley, managing director of Annica Digital.
Anicca Digital Ltd is a web development company that specialises in internet marketing and search engine optimisation


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Seriously, do we still need these at this point? Don't get me wrong, I still love talking about One Piece or Naruto or whatever, but those forums are dead. We don't even do individual threads for episodes/chapters anymore.
Those entire subforums get less activity than some standard anime threads in the general anime forum. I think it's time those series joined the rest of the general forum and were relegated to a single thread.
Hell, I think doing this would actually INCREASE the amount of discussion about those series, because I seriously think most users don't even bother to scroll down past the General Anime forum anymore.


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Americans seem to be stepping up their homebuying while they can still find bargains.
July home sales rose 2.3% from June, and 10.4% from a year earlier, to an annual rate of 4.47 million, according to a report from the National Association of Realtors.
The market has been bolstered by low home prices and mortgage rates, according to Lawrence Yun, NAR's chief economist, but the inability of some potential buyers to obtain financing has cut into sales.
"The market is constrained by tight lending standards and shrinking inventory supplies, so housing could easily be much stronger without these frictions," he said.
Given the country's population growth and demographics, Yun said home sales are still below what he would consider normal, which would be between 5 million and 5.5 million.
Elizabeth Ptacek, a senior real estate analyst for KeyBank, said economic factors still limit home sales.
"Mortgages are available if people have good credit and enough cash for a down payment," she said. "But with the [slow] job growth and consumer confidence still low, even if you can get a mortgage, you have to think twice about buying."
July sales came in slightly below forecasts from a panel of industry experts surveyed by Briefing.com, which had predicted an annual sales rate of 4.57 million.
Related: Best Places to Live where homes are affordable.
Stuart Hoffman, chief economist for PNC Financial, said the psychology of the market has turned. With mortgage rates coming off of historic lows and home prices on the rise, homebuyers are more likely to think that prices will rise, making them more inclined to buy.
NAR reported a rise in the median home price of 9.6% in July, compared with a year earlier, to $187,300. Listing inventory has fallen to a 6.5 month supply, down 24% from a year earlier.
NAR President Moe Veissi stressed that pricing homes at the right level is key.
"Correctly priced homes are selling quickly these days," he said. "Fully one-third of homes purchased in July were on the market for less than a month, and only 21% were on the market for six months or longer."


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DAMASCUS — Much of Syria has been transformed into a "Sea of Glass" after sources reported an enormous nuclear blast Wednesday. President Obama addressed the American people from the Oval Office, saying, "We cannot permit the use of weapons of mass destruction against innocent civilians anywhere in the world. The Assad regime has been annihilated and can no longer threaten the peace and stability of the world."
Early estimates suggest as many as 5 million Syrians died instantly, and nuclear fallout specialists suggest that nearly a million will die slow, painful deaths from cancer and mutations. People around the globe have taken to the streets in mourning for the civilians killed by the Assad regime's vile chemical attacks.
Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a furious statement to President Obama, "Next time we're looking for a new source of oil and have to drop a nuke, the world should know who to blame. Obama has set the precedent, and now we're just looking for our first target. The Russian people are as thirsty for oil as the Americans, and we have even more powerful nukes!"


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This is the bread of my affliction.
As you guys probably know by now, I am a big proponent of budgeting.
Not only do I think it's critical that you have a budget – but also that you have a reliable method for tracking how much you're spending each month. You know, so that your budget isn't merely hypothetical.
Hopefully you are already living on a written budget — so you are telling your money what to do, and not the other way around.
Even so, I've noticed that for some reason, come Pesach, even the most disciplined budgeters among us seem to throw caution to the wind. (I'm not judging… I'm writing from my own struggles with this, believe me!)
It's like we're subconsciously thinking: "Oh no! Eight whole days without chametz! I might starve! My precious children might starve! I'd better go shop. NOW!"
And so we rush off to the store, with nothing more than a credit card in one hand and a mile-long list in the other.
If you have truly unlimited resources, then I guess it won't really hurt your pocketbook to stop paying attention for a few days.
But the vast majority of us can't afford to throw all shopping sense out the window just because Moses told us that the dough didn't have time to rise!
If we do, we might be paying for this Pesach until next Pesach. And you know, I don't think that's what they mean when they say, "B'shanah Ha'ba'ah…"!
The best way to avoid over-spending for Pesach is to sit down now, together with your spouse if you're married, and take a look at your finances.
If you decide you need to spend an extra $1000 on Pesach, where is that going to come from? Can you cash flow an extravagant seder? Or will the Master Card be footing the bill?
In our eagerness to do Pesach "right", let's not fall into the trap of celebrating our liberation from Pharoah's bondage by enslaving ourselves to the credit card companies.


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Well, World Bread Day may be almost over for another year, and I know I've already shared with you a wonderful recipe for a beautifully festive loaf, but I couldn't resist mentioning the beautiful creation that was my contribution to last weekend's Thanksgiving meal tonight. This bread has quite possibly the most involved recipe development process out of any that I've made in recent memory - it took a combination of website scouring, grilling fellow foodies on their likes and dislikes, selecting the ingredients and converting them all to a standard weight! Finally, when the whole thing was finally assembled and in the oven, I started acting like an expectant father who's waiting on the birth of a child - I kept pacing from my bedroom (where I was supposed to be doing homework) to the kitchen and back again, peering into the dimly lit appliance through the peep window to check the progress!
By the time the bread was finished, cooled and wrapped up for it's trip to the grandparents' place for dinner, I was beat... and I just hoped that there would be at least a slice left over from Thanksgiving's bread basket so I could photograph the wonderful purple interior!
Yes, I said purple! You see, the obession I had with creating this decorated boule was with adding a combination of walnuts and red wine to the dough. I had no idea if the alcohol would be damaging to the dough's condition (alcohol does not allow for gluten development at the same rate as water or milk) or moisture, and I knew that walnuts often will tint a bread dough blueish just be their volatile oils. What better (or prettier!) way to celebrate? For the dough that formed the cluster of grape leaves on top of the bread (I figured grapes, wine, why not?) I made an entirely different recipe - this one a basic, slightly sweet white bread with saffron infused water. The delicate fragrance and beautiful colour lent a special touch to the recipe that wasn't apparent until the first cut was made!
Decorated Wine and Walnut Loaf
Serves 30
2 fl. oz warm water
1 fl oz (2 tbsp) honey (or raw sugar if vegan)
2 1/4 tsp dry active yeast
3 fl oz warm unswetened almond milk (or regular milk, if you like)
10 fl oz red wine
14.5 oz (4 cups) flour
7 oz (1 1/2 cups) whole wheat flour
1 tsp vital gluten
1/2 tsp nutmeg
2 tsp salt
7 oz (scant 1 3/4 cups) chopped walnuts
2 fl oz boiling water
2 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp saffron (optional, for colour)
1/4 tsp dry active yeast
2.6 oz (3/4 cup) flour
1 egg white, for glaze (optional for vegan)
- In the bowl of a standing mixer fit with the dough hook, combine water, honey and yeast. Allow to stand 10 minutes.
- Add almond milk and red wine, mixing well.
- Whisk together flours, gluten, nutmeg and salt.
- With the mixer on low, add the flour ingredients to the liquids and allow to mix for 12 minutes.
- Add the walnuts and mix 2 minutes longer.
- Cover the bowl and allow to rest for 2 hours.
- Punch dough down and shape into a rough ball.
- Place ball seam side up in a well floured towel-lined bowl or couche form. Cover and let rise 1 1/2 hours.
- In a medium bowl combine water, sugar and saffron. Allow to steep and cool enough that you can touch it comfortably.
- Stir in yeast and allow to stand 10 minutes.
- Beat in flour to form a smooth, supple dough. Cover and allow to rise 1 1/2 hours.
- Punch dough down and on a piece of parchment, shape the mirror image of a grape cluster from pieces of dough, leaving a small space between balls for rising. You will be flipping it onto the boule so make sure to assemble it backwards.
- Preheat the oven to 475F and allow to sit at temperature for 30 minutes.
- Turn the boule out onto a lined baking sheet.
- Brush the exposed side of the grape cluster with some egg white (or water if vegan) and carefully turn onto the boule.
- Brush the cluster with more egg white.
- Bake loaf on the lowest rack of the oven for 15 minutes, spritzing the oven walls with water every 5 minutes.
- Reduce the temperature to 425F and bake 35 minutes longer.
- Cool completely on a rack before slicing, or wrapping in cling wrap and freezing.
- Store at room temperature wrapped in cling wrap for up to 5 days, or slice and freeze wrapped in foil.
Calories: 157.0
Total Fat: 4.8 g
Cholesterol: 0.0 mg
Sodium: 5.5 mg
Total Carbs: 23.1 g
Dietary Fiber: 1.7 g
Protein: 4.6 g
This will also be my entry to next week's edition of YeastSpotting at Wild Yeast.


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Posted by Editoress on 07/4/12
Grand River Hospital is proud to continue the legacy of four years of Ride with Lance by introducing the 2012 GRHF Ride for Cancer. This event is a new and exciting opportunity for cyclists to ride with, and spend a day in the company of, cycling's best and brightest riders and celebrities, including George Hincapie, Steve Bauer, Craig Hummer, and riders from Team SpiderTech.
On Saturday, September 1st, this exclusive group will take to the road fighting against cancer. This unique event is taking place in support of cancer programs and patient care at Grand River Hospital, and for those living with cancer in Ontario. Registered riders commit to raising a minimum of $5,000 to ride.
For more information, visit www.grhfcycling.ca.
Return to Canadian Cyclist homepage | Back to Top |


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The Department of Recreation and Leisure Services is responsible for the development, management, operation and maintenance of municipal recreation facilities. Our public parks and recreation infrastructure enhance quality of life for Casselman residents.
The department also organizes recreational programs and a few community events. We work closely with Casselman community groups to support the development of sports and recreational activities, and community participation.
The Department of Recreation and Leisure Services is a four-person team. Our department is evolving with the community's needs. Do you have ideas for the development of new programs or to improve quality of life in Casselman? Share your ideas with the department's manager or with the Recreational and Leisure Services Advisory Committee.


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This article is more than 1 year old
SciDB: Relational daddy answers Google, Hadoop, NoSQL
Stonebraker doesn't drop ACID
Mention "relational databases" and a few people's names might spring to mind: Oracle's Larry Ellison, thanks to his billions, or Monty Widenius, main author of the ferociously popular MySQL. Geekier types might plump for Oracle's former Dr DBA Ken Jacobs or open-sourcer Brian Akers, who helped architect MySQL.
Michael Stonebraker's name probably doesn't jump very high in many minds outside computer science, yet it was Stonebraker's quick thinking 40 years ago that paved the way for the industry these better-knowns call home.
A faculty member of the University of California in Berkeley, Stonebraker seized on the research of IBM mathematician Tedd Codd to start work co-developing the industry's first relational database in 1973: Ingres. Ellison wasn't around until 1977, while it took lumbering IBM, owner of the mighty DB2, another eight years before it had something.
Ingres fed into Sybase as Sybase founder Robert Epstein was one of those who worked on Ingres, and then Microsoft's SQL Server. Through his various teaching positions, Stonebraker has also schooled CEOs, CTOs, founders and vice presidents of engineering at VMware, Sleepycat Software, Tibco, Oracle, Documentum, Alfresco and Cloudera. Along the way, Stonebraker found time to deliver Postgres, Mariposa, Aurora, C-Store and H-Store and help found startups to sell and support them: Illustra Information Technologies, Cohera, Streambase, Vertica and VoltDB.
After 40 years, though, Stonebraker finally thinks it's no longer a "one-size-fits-all" world and that there could be more to life than just relational. His latest work, SciDB, is going post-relational to serve the needs of those working with big data - large volumes of information crunched on thousands of nodes in distributed data centers.
"In the 1980s, the 'answer' was if all you wanted to do was business data processing, then it was relational databases. Try to stretch SQL to do everything, though, and that's an unnatural act."
And as this pioneer from the past keeps working, he's come into conflict with those on today's leading edge - the NoSQL movement - as he's put the sacred cows of the Web 2.0 crowd in their place for cheaply sacrificing the benefits of the relational technology he pioneered.
As autumn kicks in, the 66-year-old MIT adjunct professor is on the cusp of releasing the first code under open source for SciDB, a collaboration with long-time colleague Dave DeWitt.
SciDB is Stonebraker's big-data analytics play in an era of Google's MapReduce, Apache Software Foundation's Hadoop and the NoSQL evangelists who seem to be setting the pace, if not hogging the limelight, on big data in massive data centers today.
The database targets boffins, number crunchers and computer scientists and will scale, it's claimed, from megabytes of data to petabytes running on tens of thousands - all on industry standard, multi-core x86 servers with little human administration.
"The 'answer' is the current thing I'm focused on," Stonebraker told The Reg about the work on SciDB.
"The 'answer' in the 1980s was there was only one database market. In 2010, there are business processing databases with OLTP, science databases, document databases. There are genomic databases. The horizontal world of the database space has mushroomed.
"In the 1980s, the 'answer' was if all you wanted to do was business data processing, then it was relational databases. Try to stretch SQL to do everything, though, and that's an unnatural act."
According to Stonebraker, the relational model he helped popularize doesn't work in data-intensive scientific discovery because the data is multidimensional.
Combining and sharing that data means complicated engineering work on the part of developers and database admins, and it produces bottlenecks. Scientists have been rolling their own architectures or - recently - deploying Hadoop, the open-source implementation of Google's MapReduce.
SciDB goes beyond the relational world Stonebraker helped pioneer by swapping rows and columns for mathematical arrays that put fewer restrictions on the data and can work in any number of dimensions. Stonebraker claimed arrays are 100 or so times faster than a RDBMS on this class of problem.
A database for all seasons
It's a world away from where Stonebraker started. In addition to being multidimensional and offering array-based scaling from megabytes to petabytes and running on tens of thousands of clustered nodes, SciDB's will be write once read many, allow bulk load rather than single road insert, provide parallel computation, be designed for automatic rather than manual administration, and work with R, Matlab, IDL, C++ and Python.
SciDB's being piloted by healthcare products giant Novartis, the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), Fermilab and an unnamed Russian astronomy project.
"Postgres is no good at the data warehouse market because the science market wants arrays, they don't want tables. But arrays are impossibly slow on top of tables. Postgres has arrays, but they were supported by blobs, so weren't first-class citizens," Stonebraker said.
"I learned if you want to advance the data warehouse market and want to go fast, you need a column store, not a row store...There are unbelievable advantages to specialization."
SciDB's is Stonebraker's biggest departure from the rules of the relational road. It's a journey that in the last five years has seen Stonebraker reinvent different parts of the relational stack.


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2020 was an unprecedented year in which a global pandemic took over the world. As a result, Mauritius closed its borders in immediate action, later reopening with a 14-day mandatory quarantine on arrival. For a country that boasts more tourists (1.8million annually) than a population (1.2million) the impact on the real estate sector was severe.
It has now become a lot more affordable to own property and live in Mauritius. The tropical island of Mauritius has always been a favourite destination for South Africans wanting to emigrate or experience a better, safer, and more relaxed lifestyle. Based on the recent changes implemented by the Mauritian government - it has now become even cheaper to do so.
Bolt Talent Solutions, a digitally advanced global recruitment and HR Advisory organisation with a major focus in the FinTech, Financial Services and Information Technology industries; has founded Bolt Home Mauritius, a remote working specialist and expatriate management firm.
Mauritius saw demand halt in the wake of border closures throughout 2020/21 with supply far outstripping demand. During this period the market remained quite resilient with sale prices not moving while homeowners waited out this period.
Landscope Mauritius is one of the country's largest real estate developers responsible for key landmarks such as Port Louis Waterfront, Ebene Cybercity and extensive commercial areas across the island.
As inflation and the cost of living continue to increase, both globally and in Mauritius, homeownership remains a key priority as an inflation-hedge by focusing on long-term capital growth.
Cap Tamarin Smart & Happy Village, forming part of the Smart City Concept, is located on the West Coast of Mauritius at the foot of La Tourelle Mountains.
The Balao Villas, located in Grand Baie, provides a lifestyle where serenity, well-being and privacy is provided to all homeowners in this gated community
Here at PropertyCloud we've been busy developing new products to make searching for your dream home in Mauritius that much easier! Take a look below and try out our newest features.
Just a few metres from the turquoise seawater of Poste Lafayette public beach on the East coast of the island is nestled Ocean Terraces by Excellia Properties, a luxury living beachfront experience for both Mauritians and foreign nationals
If you are looking for a refined lifestyle with an inspiring and stylish island living experience in the much-coveted Grand Baie area, look no further. The Kempt Luxury Villas by Villa Vie Ltd offers a collection of exclusive single-storey villas with extensive verandas, private swimming pools and lush tropical gardens to both Mauritians and foreign citizens.
Hardly 15 minutes from the airport and 45 minutes from the capital lies the sprawling Pointe d'Esny Le Village, the first real estate project on the island to be developed around preserved, restored and enhanced natural ponds.
The MaxCity Group, is launching a new residential project in the north of the island. A few minutes from the centre of Grande Baie, in the heart of La Salette with its rich history and charming surroundings, is where La Salette Estate will be built
Harmonie Golf & Beach Estate, an invitation for harmonious luxury living - If you are among the selected few, who deserve to live in perfect harmony with nature, then you should consider being the owner of one of the luxury villas at the Harmonie Golf & Beach Estate, to be etched on the edge of an 18-hole international golf course with sweeping vistas of the region, the greens, and the ocean.
Workshop17, a South African-based co-working space, is taking the Mauritian landscape by storm in its quest to provide dynamic working spaces for an evolving market
Montagne du Lion Farm Living, a project led by the CIEL group, is a first in Mauritius. Integrated into the first Mauritian agrihood , it offers an attractive place to live and a more sustainable way of life with a reconnection to land and nature through the practice of "farm living".
The Mauritius government has managed to generate Rs 6.6 billion in revenue based on changes made to the Non-Citizens (Property Restriction) Act - implemented in April 2021.
The Ireva Villas promoters have literally left no stone unturned to replicate Mark Twain's redefinition of paradise while designing every single component of this up-scale project. The 3 and 4 bedrooms are designed with such care as to provide natural light within the living area on plots ranging from 68 to 113 toises.
That residing on the idyllic island of Mauritius is a dream, is an indisputable truism. But choosing to live in an area viewed as 'la crème de la crème' is...
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When choosing an investment destination, it's important to know the tax implications on your investment. We break down a comparative analysis of how Mauritius compares to other countries for real estate investment purposes
When the 2020-21 Mauritius budget was announced in June 2020, the government aimed to create 12,000 new social housing units at a cost of Rs 12 billion......
MaxCity Property Fund, a major player in the real estate sector in Mauritius and a subsidiary of MaxCity group, recently revealed the new visual identity of ...
As more companies embrace hybrid work, coworking spaces fill a unique void. More than a trend, these phenomena is fueled by and help drive changes in work ....
The 2023/24 National budget of Mauritius was presented by the Minister of finance, the Honourable Renganaden Padayachy in June 2023. FDI figures published by ..
The Bank of Mauritius (B.O.M) recently announced its decision to maintain the key repo rate at 4.5%. This marks the first time of stability following 5 cons..
TBI Mauritius is a relocation and consultancy firm. Another British lawyer and I created some companies here in 2018, initially to assist those doing business..
Côte d'Or Technopole by Landscope Mauritius, a new technology hub and business hub that is set to attract over MUR 25 billion in investments was officially inaugurated on the 25th October 2023.
The inaugural Mauritius Real Estate Awards is fast approaching. Scheduled for 30 November 2023 at the exclusive Intercontinental Resort, Balaclava - entries...
The Mauritius Real Estate Awards, hosted by Propertycloud.mu, recently held its prestigious gala-ceremony on 30 November 2023. With over 136 guests and selected media in attendance at the Intercontinental Resort, Balaclava that provided the perfect ambiance of luxury and ideal backdrop for the presentation ceremony.
Nestled in the heart of Trianon, CentrePoint stands as the ultimate destination. Its strategic location, adjacent to the M2 highway, ensures seamless accessibility and unparalleled visibility. Moreover, it's conveniently within walking distance of the Trianon metro station, further bolstering its connectivity.,
After launching its Workspitality services, which bring hotel services to offices and offering on-demand office layout services, Oficea continues to expand its offerings. In its building, The Trademark, located in the heart of Telfair La Promenade in Moka, Oficea introduces "plug and play" ...
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Wikijunior:Human Body/Digestive System/Small Intestine
The small intestine is a part of the digestive system. It is the most important organ for the digestion of food.
What does the small intestine look like?[edit | edit source]
The small intestine is a long, narrow tube that is all coiled up in the lower part of our abdomen (the part of our body we usually call our "stomach"). It is over 20 feet (6 meters) long! This is the largest part of the digestive system. The only way the small intestine can fit into our bodies is by curling and looping to fit in a small space.
What are the parts of the small intestine?[edit | edit source]
The small intestine is about 20 feet long
The first part of the small intestine is called the duodenum. The middle part is the jejunum. This is where most of the nutrients in food are absorbed into the blood. The last part of the small intestine is called the ileum. This part connects to the large intestine.
The lining of the small intestine is covered with tiny finger-like projections called villi. They look almost like carpet. The villi help the nutrients in food to be absorbed into the blood.
What is the function of the small intestine?[edit | edit source]
The small intestine is where most digestion takes place. Food is broken down into smaller and smaller particles. Finally, when the particles are small enough, they are absorbed into the blood, and the blood carries the nutrients to all parts of the body.
How does the small intestine interact with other parts of the body?[edit | edit source]
The small intestine is connected to the stomach. Food that the stomach has begun to digest moves into the small intestine. After it moves through the small intestine, food moves on the large intestine. Like other organs, the small intestine gets oxygen from blood vessels. The blood in the small intestine also carries the nutrients from food to the rest of the body. The circulatory system allows this to happen.
The small intestine gets enzymes from two important glands, called the liver and the pancreas. The liver is the largest organ in our bodies. It makes a liquid called bile that helps digest fat. The bile is stored in another organ called the gall bladder. The pancreas makes a juice that breaks down sugars and starches.


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There is often a tremendous amount of creativity seen in Pixar shorts, as the shorter time length allows for directors and other members of the production team to experiment with technology and varied art styles that may later be utilized in the far lengthier format of feature films. It is fitting to see the Brave Blu-ray and DVD released alongside Pixar Short Films Collection Volume 2, for it is indicative of the relationship that we have come to expect between feature films and shorts released by Pixar – one is always accompanied by the other in theaters.
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Working area of the CALAQUAKE project
The CALAQUAKE project
(The CALabrian Arc subduction complex: active faults, historical earthQUAKEs and turbidites) is designed to carry out a multiscale-multidisciplinary study of deformation processes and relationships between tectonics and sedimentation in key areas of the Ionian Sea.
The Calabrian Arc (CA) is a narrow and arcuate subduction system resulting from Africa/Eurasia plate convergence and slab rollback in the Tyrrhenian region. Shortening is taken up by thrust faults in the accretionary wedge, while transtensive deformation accounts for margin segmentation along transfer tectonics systems, which are the shallow expression of deeply rooted processes.


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10/3/11: Striptease Reruns with Creator Commentary!
WELCOME BACK. I'll be posting the entire archive, start to finish, with commentary. All strips, from good to bad, had a bit of history, so I'll try to explain the jokes, the art, the characters. For those that are interested, this is a behind the scenes look at Striptease. Join me, won't you?
Also, I won't be updating the LiveJournal or Keenspot forums anymore. I'm just updating Twitter about posts. it's SO much easier!
9/6/11: the end?
About eleven years ago, I was in a completely different world. I was in Savannah, Georgia, having just started the graduate program at SCAD, living with weird people I had just met, single, and confused about what the next chapter in life would bring. At that time, I only had a faint idea that I wanted to do a webcomic. One of my friends from college was doing it, and it seemed doable, but I didn't know the first thing about starting one. Along came a modern art history class that was a required class. That professor made us do a hands on research paper, getting students to interview someone in the field of art we were interested in pursuing. I wasn't gonna get Jim Lee on the phone, but I might be able to interview some webcomic artists. And I did.
As part of the project, I had decided to also start my own comic. Based on the interviews, I would use that info to make my own "test" webcomic. After many sketches, I came up with a rough idea for 'Striptease.'
11 years, and 1000 strips later, I'm on the other side of the country, happily married, in a different carreer, and have even been doing a second webcomic for over 4 years. A lot has changed, to be sure. Readers have come and gone, but those of you that have come back, given this comic a second, or third, or fourth chance, I thank you. At times, the support from people reading this strip is what kept me going. I know it's only a little slice of the internet, but I happy to share that slice with you, and I hope you've enjoyed it.
So what's next? Well, I'm not completely done with Striptease. Now I focus on the first book collection, hopefully due next summer, with more books to follow after that. After a little vacation with my wife, I'll be starting to repost the archive with commentary from the very beginning. And I'll still be working on Punch an' Pie which starts back up in November. As for other comics? well, that would be telling...
Thank you again, to everyone who has supported, commented, taken the time to just check this out. Even if you got here through a google search hoping to see some boobs, I hope you got a chuckle from the comic (or at least looked through the archive looking for boobs). Thanks to my family, for not judging my weird little project, and actually reading it. To Keenspot for hosting the comic, and giving me a shot. To all the webcartoonists that have given friendly advice, I couldn't ask for a better bunch of upstarts and weirdos to be associated with. To my amazing wife, Anna, for always supporting me, pushing me to get the next comic done, peeking at the next script before I was done, letting me vent, and being honest with me. And finally to the fans. I always hated using the word "fans", because it seemed to separate the connection I had with the readers of the strip, and I didn't want to be on that pedestal. But I know there are those readers that have stuck with the strip through years of missed updates, artistic upheavals, site downtimes, and bad plot twists. You've donated, bought stuff at cons, and been overly supportive. You've sent emails, instant messages, and posted on message boards. And if we ever got to meet, Stritpease "fans" are some of the nicest people out there. You're a quiet bunch, and a little weird, but that's okay... I'm in good company.
So tune back in later this year. I'll crank up the archive machine, and we'll revisit the story all over again.
maybe with a few twists along the way? we'll see...
7/6/11: Comic Con
UPDATE! We'll be back at Booth #1230 in the WEBCOMICS PAVILLION. We're right next to Halfpixel, across from Keenspot and Topatoco, and around the corner from Penny Arcade. I'll be doing sketches, selling the last T-shirts (SALE!), poster, comic con exclusive prints, and will have an exclusive look at the END of the comic for readers that really really want to see. Hope to see lots of you there!
6/29/11: Comic Con
I will be sharing a booth at San Diego Comic Con international this year with Randy from Something Positive, and James and Mel from Two Lumps. It should be in the same place as the last two years, in the Webcomics Pavillion area, across from Topatoco, Keenspot, and other webcomics booths. Be sure to drop by, say hi, ask questions, and ask for sketches! I'll have some exclusive prints and will be trying to clear stock of the shirts, so BIG DISCOUNTS!
Other Comics by Chris:
Punch an' Pie
updates Mondays and Wednesdays.
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