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February 1, 2012
by Beth and Chris Padon, California Archaeological Site Stewardship Program
For several years, volunteer site stewardship has been recognized as an effective way to help protect archaeological and historical resources and several site stewardship programs have been developed throughout the United States. A 2007 survey by Sophia Kelly, published by the National Park Service as Technical Brief 22, listed many of the state programs and identified key elements of volunteer site stewardship. During the last four years, however, many changes have occurred, especially in program budgets. The California Archaeological Site Stewardship Program (CASSP) is one program that has adapted to these changes. In an effort to better understand how site stewardship programs achieve their goals, this article examines some of the current characteristics and practices of CASSP.
A working group within the Society for California Archaeology (SCA) started CASSP in 1999 with the goal of training volunteers at two Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Field Offices to help protect sites in those resource areas. Initially, it was not certain if CASSP would go beyond these first two workshops. Gradually, public land management agencies and local communities responded with greater interest and funding.
Since 1999, almost one thousand people have participated in more than fifty CASSP training workshops held all across California. Last year, about three hundred active volunteer stewards reviewed the physical conditions of nearly four hundred sites and districts and reported their findings to agency archaeologists. Stewards help identify problems before they become more serious and, consequently, more expensive to fix. Their presence also helps deter inappropriate behavior by visitors (Figure 1).
In California, volunteer site stewards are based in nine BLM Field Offices, six National Forests, five units of the National Park Service, and several State Parks Districts and State Vehicular Recreation Areas. Hundreds of CASSP volunteers work on public lands, but CASSP is not a government program. It is a program of the Society for California Archaeology, a nonprofit organization.
CASSP has three clients: sites, agency archaeologists, and volunteer site stewards. The program helps to protect archaeological and historical sites on public lands, assists the agency archaeologists in monitoring the sites that they are responsible for, and provides opportunities for the volunteers to have a meaningful experience. When these goals overlap, CASSP creates a win-win for the public agencies, archaeologists, and volunteers.
To achieve these goals, CASSP follows five main principles: attract good volunteers; maintain a consistent structure, but be flexible; decentralize; focus; and food. Each is important, but the first one is absolutely essential.
Good volunteers are people who are sincerely interested in and committed to protecting sites. Good volunteers are self-selected by meeting several thresholds. In order to become a site steward, applicants must complete a training course (Figure 2). The training is a formal, two-day workshop held over the weekend at the public land management agency where the volunteers may work. The workshop fee is $25 per person, and applicants have to register one week in advance. Workshop participants also sign an agreement to keep specific site location information confidential. By completing the training, applicants demonstrate their commitment to site preservation, and we treat them with the respect they deserve.
In order to attract good volunteers, it is important to emphasize that site stewardship is serious, important work. We start the training workshops by talking about what it takes to be a site steward:
· complete the two-day training workshop,
· commit four to eight hours each month,
· abide by the confidentiality agreement,
· avoid confrontations with visitors that you meet,
· maintain your safety.
We offer a "free trial" of site stewardship on the second day of the workshop. After completing the classroom sessions on the first day and signing a confidentiality agreement, the participants take a field trip on the second day to several recorded archaeological sites. At each site, we talk about a site steward's duties and encourage one or more of the workshop participants to complete the monitoring form, which is then turned over to the host archaeologist as the first volunteer reports on the site (Figure 3). For an example of the CASSP monitoring form, please see pages 6 and 7 of this article.
To attract committed volunteers, it is essential to respect the participants. We do this by providing name badges at the workshops to both the volunteers and to everyone helping to run the workshop. The badges help break down barriers between strangers and can be used to introduce people to each another.
We show respect by keeping the workshops on time and on topic. We start at 9:00 a.m. and end at 4:30 p.m. Speakers are given definite time limits that are enforced by the workshop moderators. Time limits are also enforced by requesting that questions and discussion be deferred until break time or lunch and, if necessary, by going to the front of the room and politely sliding into the speaker's personal space until they get the message and wrap things up (this is not always easy when the speaker is a uniformed supervisor or law enforcement officer but it helps that we do not work in their office). Staying on time shows that we think that the volunteers' time is valuable, even if they are just starting their training.
We follow an agenda that is printed on the first page of the workshop notebook. This plan allows us to make sure that all necessary topics are covered, ensuring that the volunteers receive the full value of attending. Completing the agenda also demonstrates right from the beginning that CASSP makes measurable progress, and that volunteers can make similar progress as site stewards who are preserving cultural resources.
The number of participants at each workshop is limited to 25 people, in addition to speakers and agency staff. This is the maximum number we can effectively address and engage at one time. When the number of participants is 25 or less, everyone who attends has the chance to ask questions and become involved in the discussions.
We maintain contact with the volunteers and workshop participants after their training has been completed. The second day of the workshop ends with a group picture, which we print and send to everyone with a handwritten thank you note, as well as an evaluation form with a return-addressed stamped envelope. We are genuinely interested in participants' comments about the workshop and their suggestions on improving the program. We also want the volunteers to know that we enjoyed meeting them and that they are an important part of a statewide organization.
The CASSP newsletter is printed and mailed to everyone who requested it or has participated in a workshop in the past five years. It is also sent by e-mail as a PDF and archived on the CASSP web site (www.cassp.org). The web site contains several sections, including a description of CASSP and information for potential volunteers, current volunteers, and agencies. CASSP also maintains a listserv (email@example.com) and provides presentations and articles (like this one) to other organizations.
We provide the agency archaeologist who hosts the workshop with copies of the volunteers' candidate forms and confidentiality agreements and from this we create a contact list. We write thank you letters to the archaeologist and to the supervisors in the host agency (with the group photo of the workshop participants included). This helps bring closure to the workshop and highlights the agency archaeologists' role with the volunteers to their supervisors.
The format for the workshops and structure of the program is the same for each office and agency while still allowing for flexibility with the details. For example, the program outlines the duties of a site steward to visit his or her assigned site and to record any observations, but the program is very adaptable concerning frequency of visits and the form of the report. For the workshops, while we provide an agenda, the schedule can adapt to the background and concerns of the audience and speakers. For instance, agency law enforcement officers are scheduled on the workshop agenda, but their patrol duties may change their availability, so we adjust the agenda accordingly.
We provide a turnkey structure, but workshop locations and participants vary greatly, from conference rooms to tribal council rooms to camping out in the desert. Flexibility with the details means we can be more responsive to local needs and talents. In the workshops, there are standard components that are used every time and at every location, and then there are custom-made ones, such as information about the local archaeology and history, which help make the training more relevant to those who will be local volunteers (Figure 4). Standardization reduces effort and expense and enables volunteers to train at one location and work at another that is closer to home.
Decentralization means that the volunteer site stewards work under local control and for the archaeologist at the local agency, not for the CASSP office in southern California or for the SCA office in northern California. Supervision of the volunteers is the responsibility of the agency archaeologists, as they will provide the daily contact and oversight for their volunteers.
The workshop training reinforces decentralization. While the workshop organizers and presenters initially are the center of attention, the focus shifts through the morning from the organizers to the agency archaeologist and other speakers as they give presentations about local cultural resources and other topics.
After lunch, we move the center of attention from the speakers to the volunteers. We create a list of items (on the white board and in the workshop notebooks) that should be carried on a volunteer's site visits. We do an exercise in which the participants practice their observation skills by writing down their description of one of the presenters as a "perpetrator." Then we break into small groups to discuss how to react in situations that one could face as a site steward (Figure 5). There are no easy or obvious answers and after 30 minutes, each group has to report back to the whole workshop and discuss their choices. By this stage, the participants are doing almost all of the talking as they lead the discussions. On the field trip, the workshop participants see actual archaeological sites and make their own discoveries. They also develop the habit of conversing with the archaeologist who will be their supervisor about specific site conditions and the general archaeological background.
It is easy to be distracted by other worthy activities but CASSP tries to narrow its activities to a few specific ones in order to be as efficient and effective as possible. CASSP focuses on its clients and primary goals and if a proposed activity does not serve all three clients, then it is not pursued. Even if they are worthy, the program cannot spend time and resources trying to do activities that are outside the site stewardship scope and experience.
It is important to say "no." For example:
· CASSP is not a certification program, university extension, or field school.
· CASSP does not train individuals to monitor construction projects or activities for archaeological evidence.
· CASSP does not provide site interpretation or other public education at a site.
· CASSP does not create mitigation strategies or cultural resource evaluations.
Instead, CASSP concentrates on volunteer training for site stewards to visit assigned sites and report on their conditions. Many volunteers will work with their agency archaeologists on other valuable tasks that help protect cultural resources. When that happens, it strengthens the program but it is not something that the program requires, expects, or is able to spend resources on.
The fifth principle for a successful site stewardship program is food. CASSP provides lunch on the first day of the volunteer training workshop when people spend all day in a classroom setting. We initially did this to save time and to keep up our momentum but soon recognized this as an important tool for creating a comfortable atmosphere. Food is fun; everyone enjoys a good sandwich or a tasty spinach salad or an extra bite-sized brownie. When sharing a meal, people feel more comfortable asking questions and participating in discussions. The lunch is fresh and simple, with plenty of choices. Sandwiches, salads, and beverages for 25 people can be provided for a total cost of about $200. We bring sandwich bags and save leftovers as snacks for the next day's field trip.
The final point, which is actually incorporated into all the principles, is to remove barriers. The Society for California (SCA) is the statewide professional society for archaeologists in California. Members of the public can also join and are encouraged to do so. As the sponsor of CASSP, the SCA offers everyone who takes the volunteer training for site stewards a free first-year membership. This helps introduce the SCA to people who may want to continue with paying memberships and for many people, it opens a door to archaeological lectures, research, and professional papers. It is common to see people at the annual meetings of the SCA wearing name badges with the "CASSP" affiliation.
By following these principles, CASSP workshops produce site stewards who provide site protection, worthwhile volunteer hours, and assistance to agency archaeologists. The program also provides other benefits:
· Committed and serious volunteers often go beyond site stewardship by, for example, assisting in fieldwork and helping to repair vandalized sites.
· In the training workshops and when doing site stewardship, volunteers have opportunities to talk to people with whom they normally do not interact. The workshops attract a diverse group of people, such as students, retired people, hikers, bikers, off-highway vehicle users, Native Americans, and community old-timers and newcomers. We start with everyone introducing themselves, then ask questions, share lunch and encourage involvement in discussions. During the workshop, participants find common interests and experiences to share with each other. Conversations are made easier because everyone at the workshop shares the same status: everyone is new to the local archaeology or to the site stewardship program.
· Volunteers bring greater visibility to cultural resource concerns at agencies. As the volunteer site stewards come to the public agency office, their visits to the agency archaeologist are noticed. Management soon realizes that these people are not coming to lodge a complaint, but are instead coming to help the agency comply with its responsibilities for cultural resources.
· In turn, these volunteers gain a greater awareness of the goals, tasks, and constraints of the U.S. Forests, BLM, and parks where they volunteer.
· CASSP has brought academic and consulting archaeologists into activities with public volunteers. We often ask other archaeology and anthropology professors and consultants to provide their expertise for CASSP advanced training workshops. They do not pay the workshop fee and can participate in the complete workshop where they continue to informally share their knowledge and answer any questions from the participants. Established volunteer site stewards are also invited to return to workshops (without paying the fee again) to inspire new volunteers with their enthusiasm and experience (Figure 6).
This article has described some of the principles and practices that have been useful for CASSP. Other programs will differ because they face different challenges and opportunities and have different needs and funding sources. By sharing experiences, site stewardship programs across the country can generate critical thinking and discussion about how public volunteers can best help protect cultural resources. As a result, a national coalition of site stewardship programs is emerging to share expertise, identify opportunities of economies of scale, attract new funding sources, and provide a focus where agencies can find out how site stewardship may be useful for them. Site stewardship programs have to maintain current best practices while being receptive to change, in order to better protect sites, assist agencies, and benefit volunteers. Stay tuned.


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subset: commoncrawl


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3x3 EyesSynopsisPai may look like a cute little girl, but she's actually the last of a powerful, long-lived race known as the Sanjiyan, whose powers manifest when they reveal the third eye located in their foreheads. Her greatest wish, however, is to become human. Unfortunately, this isn't so easy, as many seek to use her powers to their advantage. In the crossfire: Fujii Yakumo, a normal high school student who dies, and is turned into a "Wu", an immortal servant whose life is linked inextricably to the person who creates him. ReviewIt seems like a good idea. Cute girl with strange powers. An immortal servant who protects her. Demons and fighting and lots and lots of action. Even a bit of comedy. This should be a classic, right? Well, not really. You see, the 3x3 Eyes anime suffers from this nasty ailment I call "Greenwood syndrome". It tries to retell a story that has already been told as a manga (which I've only read bits and pieces of), and the animators obviously did not have enough time to tell you the entire plot. So therefore, they animated what they thought were the best parts of the manga (or manipulated them to fit an OAV timeframe), and then compressed it together to form a short series. It didn't work for Greenwood, it didn't work for Akira, and it doesn't work for 3x3 Eyes. The plot often jumps (without adequate transitions) from point to point, and while there was some attempt at narrative exposition, I still felt like I had no idea what was going on by the end of the series. I guess if you really want to know what's happening, I'd recommend reading the manga first. That being said, this is STILL good anime we have here. While the original episodes of this title are over a decade old (and starting to show some age in the character design style), the animation is still fluid and competent, with very gory and detailed fight scenes, and rather exceptional amounts of suspense and atmosphere. While Yakumo is immortal, he still has a human body. So he "dies" spectacularly, often, and in full bloody detail on the screen. I'm not sure how many times I squirmed at the thought of having to reabsorb my guts after being bloodily disemboweled by a demon, but it happens. The squeamish need not apply, obviously. (Now we know for sure where Detatoko Princess pillaged the idea for Kohaku, the Shield of Meat.) Thankfully, the leads aren't just gimmicks, but well-developed and well-acted characters. Yakumo is persistent, spunky, and quite likable, and Pai's dual-natured character (a great role, or pair of them, for Hayashibara Megumi) is wonderfully rich, going from cutesy to creepy at the drop of a hat. The side characters are capable, though the villains (with one major exception) are pretty much there to get toasted. Extra points for Pai's "pet" beasties. Again, the main disappointment of 3x3 Eyes was the disjunctive nature of the plot, but the ending was anti-climactic and very disappointing (but a good excuse for a second OAV series to occur), and it was often hard to tell where events were actually happening at times. (Am I in Japan? Hong Kong? Whaaaat?) Plus the predictable "I'm-a-human-sacrifice-watch-me-wriggle-in-skimpy-clothes" scene, which made me laugh much more than it had any right to. While not a bad series, 3x3 Eyes would probably have been better served as a television series. Perhaps with more time and context, the comedic bits wouldn't have seeming as jarring as they did alongside scenes of Yakumo getting literally ripped to pieces by bad guys. As it is, it's a good taster for the manga, and still enjoyable in its own right as an action fantasy anime. Just be sure to wipe the blood off your screen when you're done. Gory, action-packed anime that could've used more of the plot that the manga originally had. — Carlos/Giancarla Ross Recommended Audience: While the well-traveled children of sci-fi convention-goers didn't freak out at this title, I would not recommend 3x3 Eyes for the squeamish or the very young. This is a fairly gory title, and there's more violence than the normal Pioneer release. No nudity (though there's a bit of fan-service of Pai), and no sexual content to speak of. Version(s) Viewed: R1 DVD Review Status: Full (4/4) 3x3 Eyes © 1991 Takada Yuzo / Kodansha / Bandai Visual / King Records |
© 1996-2015 THEM Anime Reviews. All rights reserved. |


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The science of the human body is something complicated, yet truly amazing. While the world leaves bodies prone to sickness, white blood cells can help to fight them. In the physics arcade game Microtrip players must help a blob trek its way through a strange body collecting white cells to stay alive. Do you think you can avoid all monsters standing in your way?
Take a look at Microtrip and find out what you think.
This is a Cult Of Mac video review of the iOS application Microtrip brought to you by Joshua Smith of "TechBytes W/Jsmith."


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About | Publications | Reports | Policies
The Department of Education has identified 15 principles that we believe states, local school districts, preschool, elementary, and secondary schools, parents, and other stakeholders should consider as the framework for when states, localities, and districts develop and implement policies and procedures which should be in writing related to restraint and seclusion to ensure that any use of restraint or seclusion in schools does not occur except when there is a threat of imminent danger of serious physical harm to the student or others, and occurs in a manner that protects the safety of all children and adults at school.
Restraint and Seclusion: Resource Document
The purpose of this resource document is to present and describe 15 principles for state, district, and school staff; parents; and other stakeholders to consider when states, localities, and districts develop policies and procedures which should be in writing on the use of restraint and seclusion. This resource document discusses the context within which these principles were developed, lists the principles, and highlights the current state of practice and implementation considerations for each principle.
Additionally, this document provides a synopsis of ongoing efforts by federal agencies to address national concerns about using restraint and seclusion in schools. Two attachments at the end of this document provide information about state policies on the use of restraint and seclusion in our nation's public schools and an annotated resource guide on the use of restraint and seclusion in schools.
- Download
Restraint and Seclusion: Resource Document:
PDF (1.5MB) | MS Word (357KB)
- Press Release.
Reports, Testimony and Letters Regarding Restraint and Seclusion
GAO Report on Restraint and Seclusion: Seclusions And Restraints: Selected Cases of Death and Abuse at Public and Private Schools and Treatment Centers
On May 19, 2009, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) testified before the Education and Labor Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives regarding allegations of death and abuse at residential programs for troubled teens. Recent reports indicate that vulnerable children are being abused in other settings. For example, one report on the use of restraints and seclusions in schools documented cases where students were pinned to the floor for hours at a time, handcuffed, locked in closets, and subjected to other acts of violence. In some of these cases, this type of abuse resulted in death.
In some of these cases, this type of abuse resulted in death. Given these reports, the committee asked GAO to:
- provide an overview of seclusions and restraint laws applicable to children in public and private schools,
- verify whether allegations of student death and abuse from the use of these methods are widespread, and
- examine the facts and circumstances surrounding cases where a student died or suffered abuse as a result of being secluded or restrained.
GAO reviewed federal and state laws and abuse allegations from advocacy groups, parents, and the media from the past two decades. GAO did not evaluate whether using restraints and seclusions can be beneficial. GAO examined documents related to closed cases, including police and autopsy reports and school policies. GAO also interviewed parents, attorneys, and school officials and conducted searches to determine the current employment status of staff involved in the cases.
- Download:
Seclusions And Restraints: Selected Cases of Death and Abuse at Public and Private Schools and Treatment Centers.
Highlights (PDF, 74KB) | Full Report (PDF, 485KB) | Accessible Text
Secretary Duncan Sends Letter to Chief State School Officers on Restraint and Seclusion in Schools
On July 31, 2009, Secretary Duncan sent a letter to Chief State School Officers encouraging each state to review their current policies and guidelines regarding the use of restraint and seclusion techniques in schools and if appropriate develop or revise them to ensure the safety of students.
- The letter can be found at: www.ed.gov/policy/elsec/guid/secletter/090731.html.
Policies, Regulations and Guidelines on Restraint and Seclusion
State and Territorial Policies
Please learn more about states' policies, regulations and guidelines regarding the use of restraint and seclusion in light of the May 2009 Government Accountability Office's Seclusions and Restraints: Selected Cases of Death and Abuse at Public and Private Schools and Treatment Centers report.
- State Policies, Regulations and Guidelines


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Source: Blabbermouth.net
During a brand new interview with Invisible Oranges, MORBID ANGEL bassist/vocalist David Vincent was asked whether it was weird to perform the band's 1993 album, "Covenant", in its entirety on the group's current North American tour without MORBID ANGEL's longtime drummer Pete Sandoval.
"Nope. Not at all," Vincent replied. "Tim's [Yeung, MORBID ANGEL's current drummer] an excellent drummer. He handles the material very well. He was a big fan of the record when it came out, too. He's a couple years my junior, but it's cool. He feels the songs really well, and it's fun.
Regarding whether Sandoval is still a member of MORBID ANGEL, Vincent said: "Pete's no longer in MORBID ANGEL." He added: "His whole way of life has changed. He's in a different spot, and the spot that he's in right now, Pete Sandoval and MORBID ANGEL are not compatible."
Pressed to elaborate on this supposed "incompatibility" between Sandoval and MORBID ANGEL, Vincent offered: "Well, [Pete] has found Jesus. You can see where the incompatibility comes from."
During a chat with Brazil's Som Extremo in October 2011, Sandoval — who in 2010 underwent surgery after a prolapsed disc — was asked for his opinion about MORBID ANGEL's "controversial" new CD, "Illud Divinum Insanus", which incorporates industrial and electronic elements into the band's traditional death metal sound. "No comment! I don't play on that album," he said. He was then questioned about what he thought he would have done different on "Illud Divinum Insanus" had he played on the record. "More exreme deathgrind metal and less DJ, boring awful typical I care less industrial experimental same as everybody boring bull!" he said. "This is not what MORBID has been all about! …Hmmmmmm, and I really care less…!"
Sandoval recently celebrated the 24th anniversary of TERRORIZER's classic album "World Downfall" by performing the LP in its entirety at several shows. He was joined at the gigs by Lee Harrison (MONSTROSITY) and Sam Molina.


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The Iowa Straw Poll last weekend is to election season what Labor Day is to Fall; it's official now – the season has begun!
I don't care about the "viability" of candidates. I am not a prognosticator. Well, if I were, I'd be a very bad one. I said former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty was most likely to get the nomination because his name is the easiest to make puns with (i.e. Pawlenty of Votes!) and he was the first one to drop out of the race. Plus, I've yet to see anyone (besides me) make ANY puns with his name. Pawlenty of wrong guesses!
But I'm also not interested in "who could go all the way." I'm interested in this moment in time. And if you look at the former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney – he's perfect for the current Republican Party.
The first reason is he has five gorgeous able-bodied adult sons who've never spent a day in the military. Actually, none of the as-yet announced Republican candidates have children serving in the military. We've been in two wars now for nearly a decade each and yet the all-volunteer force is entirely made up of Americans not spawned from GOP candidates. For the last 30 years at least, the Republicans have been relentlessly, uniformly hawkish – but mostly with other peoples' children. This disconnect was made evident in the '08 election when soldiers donated money to candidate Barack Obama 6-1 over Senator John McCain.
The second is Romney's hard turn (read: total flip-flop) on women's reproductive freedoms. When Romney ran against Senator Ted Kennedy in 1994, unprompted he offered, "Many, many years ago, I had a dear, close family relative that was very close to me who passed away from an illegal abortion. It is since that time that my mother and my family have been committed to the belief that we can believe as we want, but we will not force our beliefs on others on that matter. And you will not see me wavering on that." Of course, he wavered on that. His "family relative" was Ann Keenan, who died from an infection due to her illegal abortion in 1963 when Romney was 16. Now at 64, Romney toes the party line on abortion: He's against it. He's now against the law that could have saved his relative's life.
But this is consistent with the Republican Party of today. The man known as "Mr. Conservative" himself – 1964's Republican candidate, Barry Goldwater was not pro-life. His wife Margaret Goldwater helped found the first Planned Parenthood in Arizona in the 1930s. If ever there was an issue (or an area) for government to get out of – it's a uterus. But as much as current Republicans like to bark that government is getting too intrusive – Romney and his ilk want the government to tell women what to do.
Speaking of the government telling us what to do – the health care reform "individual mandate" that Republicans are so rabidly against? That was a Republican idea (first introduced in 1993) Romney implemented in his state in 2005. Now? It's a job-killing communist plot that will destroy America! Romney and his parallel Republicans were for this job-killing communist plot that will destroy America - before they were against it.
The third thing that makes Romney the ideal representation for his party is his time in the private sector. Yes, Romney calls himself (un-ironically) a job creator. And well, he did create jobs, but mainly in other countries. He cut thousands here at home. But he touts this accomplishment anyway. The GOP has become an anti-worker movement. They use the language of the common man, railing against "the elites." But when it comes to policy – the GOP worships the privileged. They love the gilded class and don't want them to have to pay taxes or hear a cross word about themselves. They've convinced non-elites that the top one percent are all-American magical job makers and that if we just make this tiny fraction of our country happy – our economy will once again flourish. There's no evidence of this ever being the case. It's pure fantasy. But Republicans treat lies like incantations – they just have to say something enough and it will manifest.
So regardless of whoever gets in the race or drops out – Romney is the ideal symbol of his party. He is the GOP. His story is the story of the Republican Party.
He's perfect.


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All parents want to feed their family well. The trick is that life seems to get in the way: Soccer games, violin lessons, long work days, and a lack of ready-to-go ingredients –all conspire against parents' best intentions to sit down with their kids for healthy, home-cooked meals. Over the years, I've found that planning a weekly but flexible menu—creating a lineup for five weeknight dinners, with options for leftovers—is the number-one key to keeping my sanity as a working mother and home cook. Here are my tips for making this a reality in your home, too.
1. On Saturday or Sunday, sit down with a blank piece of paper and the family calendar. Find out which nights will require especially quick dinner prep because of after-school or evening commitments. Wide-open evenings? Pencil in meals that are easy but best fresh, such as fish. [Also build in meals that, if you don't end up making them, can be saved easily, such as chicken breasts (freeze for when you have more time, or cook and use in something else).
2. Look for foods you need to use up, like a few cherry tomatoes, a neglected lemon, leftover herbs, opened jars of salsa. Work these into your meal ideas; almost anything can go into a salad, pasta sauce, omelets, or soup.
3. Think about the season: What's in abundance at the produce stands? What does your body feel like eating? Let nature guide your choices. You'll save money and your food will taste better.
4. Make a thorough grocery list based on your menu ideas, and shop at the beginning of the week. Post the meal plan on the fridge, and check it before bedtime each night so you know whether you need to defrost something overnight. Then follow the menu, but feel free to jettison or switch around meals to accommodate unforeseen schedule changes. Plan for leftovers: Cook extra chicken, beans, vegetables, whatever; then plan them into future meals to save time. (For example, roast two chickens instead of one; it saves energy, too.)
5. Give yourself a night off. One of my friends serves popcorn, cut-up cheese, and apples for their Saturday dinner. Nothing wrong with that, and her kids love it! Breakfast food is another restful option: Whole-grain pancakes or scrambled eggs make an easy, quick, and fun dinner.


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Lately I've been seeing the phrases "kind of" and "sort of" in print, and hearing them far too often on podcasts and radio. When is it appropriate to use these terms and when should we leave them at home?
If you have a task at work that is slightly difficult, you can say that it is kind of a pain. What you don't want to say is this: "I have a sort of project that needs to be finished by Friday."
The first sentence has "kind of" modifying the word pain, which makes sense. The second sentence has the adjective modifying the word project, which doesn't make any sense, because we're not going to have a "sort of" project. We either have a project or we don't!
Here's another one. "It's kind of important for me to show up at the party." That sentence is fine. If I change it to this, it's grammatically incorrect: "It's important for me to kind of be at the party."
You either show up or you don't. Kind of and sort of are filler words akin to "like…" (I was, like, so busy.) They seem to be the modern equivalent of saying "um" or "ah," but you don't want to discard them altogether, because there are a number of instances where they are the best words of choice.
Sigrid Macdonald is a book coach, a manuscript editor, and the author of three books including Be Your Own Editor. BYOE is available on Amazon in soft cover (http://tinyurl.com/3xkoths) and on Kindle (http://tinyurl.com/3y3nuzb). Or get 20% off the regular price by writing directly to the author.


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Ubisoft's new trailer for Assassin's Creed Unity emphasizes the inequality that France's working class suffered under a corrupt aristocracy, which leads to a whole lot of people getting stabbed in their heads, necks, and vital organs.
A voiceover from new protagonist Arno Victor Dorian rallies the people (and players) to his cause as in-game clips show off Unity's gorgeous environments, impressive crowds, and new mechanics. Ubisoft says the new-gen exclusive features revamped combat and parkour mechanics, and better stealth gameplay, which you can see glimpses of in the trailer below.
Assassin's Creed Unity launches on October 28 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. For more on Unity, check out Miller's list of Ten Things You Need To Know about the game.


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Copyright © 2013 W3C® (MIT, ERCIM, Keio, Beihang), All Rights Reserved. W3C liability, trademark and document use rules apply.
This document captures the use cases and requirements for standardizing a solution for responsive images. The use cases and requirements were gathered with consultation with the HTML Working Group and WHATWG participants, RICG group members, and the general public.
Found a bug, typo, or issue? Please file a bug on github or email us!
This section describes the status of this document at the time of its publication. Other documents may supersede this document. A list of current W3C publications and the latest revision of this technical report can be found in the W3C technical reports index at http://www.w3.org/TR/.
This document was published by the HTML Working Group as a Working Group Note. If you wish to make comments regarding this document, please send them to email@example.com (subscribe, archives). All comments are welcome.
Publication as a Working Group Note does not imply endorsement by the W3C Membership. This is a draft document and may be updated, replaced or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to cite this document as other than work in progress.
This document was produced by a group operating under the 5 February 2004 W3C Patent Policy. W3C maintains a public list of any patent disclosures made in connection with the deliverables of the group; that page also includes instructions for disclosing a patent. An individual who has actual knowledge of a patent which the individual believes contains Essential Claim(s) must disclose the information in accordance with section 6 of the W3C Patent Policy.
In HTML, a user agent's environmental conditions are primarily expressed as CSS media features (e.g., pixel-density, orientation, max-width, etc.) and CSS media types (e.g., print, screen, etc.). A responsive image is an image that adapts in response to different environmental conditions: adaptations can include, but are not limited to, changing the dimensions, crop, or even the source of an image.
Many media features are dynamic in nature (e.g., a browser window is re-sized, a device is rotated from portrait to landscape, and so on), thus a user agent constantly responds to events that change the properties of media features. As a document's layout adapts to changes in media features and media type, an image's ability to communicate effectively can be significantly reduced (e.g., images start to show compression artifacts as they are scaled to match the quality of media or some media feature). When this happens, developers rely on various client/server-side solutions to present images at different resolutions, or even in different formats. Swapping images provides a means to continue communicating effectively as the features of media change dynamically.
Furthermore, as the number and varieties of high-density screens has increased (both on mobile and desktop devices), web developers have had to create custom techniques for serving images that best match a browser's environmental conditions. For a list of examples of the range of techniques in use in 2012, see Chris Coyier's article "Which responsive images solution should you use?". These techniques have a number of limitations, discussed below, which serve as the motivation to standardize a solution through the W3C and WHATWG).
In formulating the requirements, this document tries to be neutral - it is not predicated on any solution. The document only tries to describe the use cases and what the RICG understands, from practice, would be needed to address the use cases in the form of requirements. The RICG expects that a technical specification can be created to formally address each of the requirements (i.e., the solution).
To date, four such specifications are currently under development, described below. The four proposed solutions are not mutually exclusive: together they address the set of Use Cases and Requirements for Responsive Images.
Allows authors to define various image resources and "hints" that assist a user agent to determine the most appropriate image source to display. Given a set of image resources, the user agent has the option of either following or overriding the author's declarations to optimize the user experience based on criteria such as display density, connection type, user preferences, and so on.
Building on srcset, this specification defines a declarative solution for grouping multiple versions of an image based on different characteristics (e.g., format, resolution, orientation, etc.). This allows the user agent to select the optimum image to present to an end-user based on the user agent's environmental conditions, while also providing the ability to "art direct" images.
Defines a set of HTTP headers that allow browsers to indicate a list of device and agent specific preferences. Servers can then use these "client hints" to assist in content negotiation, ideally resulting in content being served that best matches the environmental conditions of the client for the resource being requested.
The RespImg Syntax introduces a new
" attribute set on the img
element that accepts a small set of microsyntaxes. These
microsyntaxes address the viewport-based selection,
device-pixel-ratio-based selection, and art direction use cases
described in this document. The proposal claims to avoid the
implementor concerns associated with the `picture` element
As currently there are no standardized solutions implemented in mainstream browsers, web developers are relying on various techniques to use responsive images in their applications. Unfortunately, there are significant limitations with these techniques:
The reliance on semantically neutral elements (e.g., the
and span
elements), instead of
semantically meaningful elements such as img
, prevents
browsers from loading the image resources until after the DOM has
(at least partially) loaded and scripts have run. This directly
hinders the performance work browser engineers have done over the
years to optimize resource loading (e.g., WebKit's
HTMLPreloadScanner). Unnecessarily bypassing things like the
preload scanner can have measurable performance impact when loading
documents. See, for example, "The
WebKit PreloadScanner" by Tony Gentilcore for a small study
that demonstrates an up to 20% impact in load time when WebKit's
PreloadScanner is disabled. More recent performance
tests yield similar results.
The techniques rely on either JavaScript or a server-side solution (or both), which adds complexity and redundant HTTP requests to the development process. Furthermore, the script-based solutions are unavailable to users who have turned off JavaScript.
The RICG believes standardization of a browser-based solution can overcome these limitations.
The following use cases represent usage scenarios commonly seen "in the wild".
Developers generally want to provide the same image in multiple resolutions, so that high-res devices can get the optimum image for a given resolution, while low-resolution devices can avoid wasting time and bandwidth downloading overly-large files.
Image dimensions in responsive layouts tend to vary according to the size of the viewport. This often results in images with large dimensions (e.g., 2x or more times the size of the viewport) being sent to browsers with narrow viewports, which are then resized by the browser to fit the design (see, for example, Retina Revolution by Daan Jobsis and the compressive images technique). Ideally, developers would like to serve images that match the user's viewport dimensions. Without a means to do this, they sometimes need to send more data to the user than they would otherwise need to.
For example, a 1000px wide image might be appropriate as a 1x image when used to fill the background of the page, but it's far too large to use for the same purpose on a 320px wide screen. On a screen that small, it's more like a 2x or 3x image. In other words, the same image might be applicable to multiple viewport sizes, but at different effective resolutions.
To display images in a way that reduces perceptible artifacts (i.e., so the images look "crisp"), devices with different screen densities require images with different minimal resolutions. Thus, the higher the pixel density, the more pixels an image needs to have to look good. This also applies to icons, where completely different images may need to be used for different device-pixel-ratios (see All the sizes of iOS app icons, by Neven Mrgan).
In a responsive design, it is typical to change an image so it can be targeted towards the features of a particular display (or set of displays). Sometimes this means cropping an image. Other times, it can mean a different image altogether that may have different proportions or may be changed in other ways to communicate more effectively in a layout. This means, for example:
This is illustrated in the figure below.
A related use case is when orientation determines:
For example, on the Nokia Lumia site where it describes the Meego browser, the Nokia Lumia is shown horizontally on wide screens. As the screen narrows, the Nokia Lumia is then shown vertically and cropped. Bryan and Stephanie Rieger, the designers of the site, explained that on a wide screen, showing the full phone horizontally showed the browser best; but on small screens, changing the image to vertical made more sense because it allowed the reader to still make out the features of the browser in the image.
In Web development, a breakpoint is one of a series of CSS Media Queries, which can update the styles of a page based on matching of media features. A single breakpoint represents a rule (or set of rules) that determines the point at which the contents of that media query are applied to a page's layout. For example:
@media screen and (max-width: 16em) { ... } @media screen and (max-width: 32em) { ... } @media screen and (max-width: 41em) { ... }
Developers currently match specific breakpoints for images to the breakpoints that they have defined in the CSS for their applications. Being able to match the breakpoints ensures that images are operating under the same rules that define the layout of a design. It also helps developers verify their approach by ensuring that the same viewport measurement tests are being used in both HTML and CSS. If the developer cannot specify breakpoints for images in the same manner that they are defined for the design, developers will need to convert the breakpoints back to the values specified in the layout in order to verify that they match. This increases authoring time and the likelihood of human-error on the part of developers.
For example, if a breakpoint is specified as "max-width:
", then web developers would like to define a similar
breakpoint for images at a max-width
. Otherwise they are forced to transform
measurements into another unit, like pixels, which is tedious and
potentially error-prone.
According to Wikipedia's article on "dots per inch":
"An inkjet printer … is typically capable of 300-600 DPI. A laser printer … [prints] in the range of 600 to 1,800 DPI."
As printers generally have the ability to pack more points per inch than a device's screen, printers have to compensate for the lack of pixel data by applying reprographic techniques, such as half toning, to simulate continuous tone in imagery. As illustrated below, applying such techniques can cause images to look blurry and low-quality when compared to text.
Allowing developers to reference images at different resolutions could allow user agents to choose an image that best matches the capabilities of the printer. For example, a photo sharing site could provide a bandwidth-optimized image for display on screen, but a high-resolution image for print. The same technique could also be used for e-book formats, such as EPUB.
However, displaying a color image on monochrome media (e.g., paper and e-ink displays) can be problematic: different colors with similar luminosity are impossible to distinguish on monochrome media. This problem is illustrated in the figure below, where it becomes nearly impossible to associate slices of a pie chart with corresponding labels.
Currently, server-side solutions exist to adapt web content to e-ink displays (e.g., kinstant), but such services only work on text and layout and not on images. As interpreting the meaning of images is a problem of semiotics, it is infeasible that this problem can ever be computationally solved. The only feasible solution is for authors to provide alternative image content that communicates effectively in monochrome media.
Lastly, through the CSS Media Queries specifications, the CSS Working Group continues to add media features to the Web platform. New media features in CSS Media Queries level 4 include script, pointer, hover, and luminosity. The lack of a declarative mechanism to associate image content with media features means that developers cannot use them without relying on the aforementioned limited techniques.
A common practice in creating flexible layouts is to specify the size
values in media queries as relative units (e.g., em
s or
percentages). This approach allows layouts to match the users'
default font size (based on zoom level), and it avoid cases where the
layout breaks on devices who set a default font-size is set to
something other than the usual 16px.
If art-directed images are not specified in relative units, they can either break the layout or become distorted when faced with a uncommon default font-size (e.g., Amazon's Kindle defaults to 20px instead of the usual 16px).
Developers rely on the different capabilities of a range of image formats to communicate effectively. These capabilities include, but are not limited to, alpha transparency, animation, high-color depth support, or better compression ratios for certain image categories. For example, JPEG offers developers good optimization between image quality and file size, but lacks alpha transparency or animation. So, in cases where alpha transparency or animation is needed, developers may instead rely on PNG, GIF, and emerging formats like WebP.
In a responsive design, images need to be displayed at different sizes and device pixel ratios. When possible, a vector format such as SVG might be most appropriate. There have also been proposals for new responsive image formats (see, for example, Christopher Schmitt's .net article).
Although a web developer may want to use a specific image format, new or otherwise, the browser may not always support it. Currently, developers are forced to abandon the most suitable image format in favor of one that has ubiquitous support across user agents.
In situations where the user knows their bandwidth is limited or expensive (e.g., while roaming), the browser could assist users by:
There are browsers already catering for these kinds of situations. For example, Opera Mini provides users with a choice of image quality (but those images are compressed on the server). Amazon's Silk browser also compresses images "in the cloud" (i.e., through their own proxy servers) before serving those images to a user's device. Google Chrome also allows users to disable images altogether through "site preferences".
The use cases give rise to the following requirements:
To allow for art direction, the solution MUST afford developers the ability to match image sources with particular media features and/or media types - and the user agent SHOULD update the source of an image as the media features and media types of the browser environment change dynamically.
The solution MUST support selection based on viewport dimensions, screen resolution, and device-pixel-ratio (DPR). Sending the right image for the given dimension and DPR avoids delaying the page load, wasting bandwidth, and potentially reduces the impact on battery life (as the device's antenna can be powered off more quickly and smaller images are faster to process and display). It can also potentially save users money by not downloading redundant image data.
The solution MUST degrade gracefully on legacy user agents by, for example, relying on HTML's built-in fallback mechanisms and legacy elements.
The solution MUST afford developers with the ability to include content that is accessible to assistive technologies.
The solution MUST NOT require server-side processing to work. However, if required, server-side adaptation can still occur through content negotiation or similar techniques (i.e., they are not mutually exclusive).
The solution MUST afford developers the ability to define the breakpoints for images as either minimum values (mobile first) or maximum values (desktop first) to match the media queries used in their design.
The solution SHOULD allow developers to specify images in different formats (or specify the format of a set of image sources).
To provide compatibility with legacy user agents, it SHOULD be possible for developers to polyfill the solution. See the W3C's TAG's recommendations to the RICG.
The solution SHOULD afford user agents with the ability to provide a user-settable preference for controlling which source of an image they prefer. For example, preference options could include: "always lowest resolution", "always high resolution", "download high resolution as bandwidth permits", and so on. To be clear, user agents are not required to provide such a user-settable preference, but the solution needs to be designed in such a way that it could be done.
In order to avoid introducing delays to the page load, the solution MUST integrate well with existing performance optimization provided by browsers (e.g., the solution would work well with a browser's the preload scanner). Specifically, the solution needs to result in faster page loads than the current techniques are providing.
We are tracking open issues on Github. Please help us close them!
A complete history of changes is available on Github.
You can also see all the closed issues relating to this document.
This document is composed of contributions from participants of the responsive images community group.
The editors would like to thank the following people for reviewing this document: Mike Taylor, Doug Shults, Barbara Barbosa Neves, Eileen Webb, and Anselm Hannemann.
This document repoduces text from Tab Atkin's Proposal for RespImg Syntax, as permitted by its C0 license.
The figure in the viewport-based selection section is a derivative work from Responsive Images: What We Thought We Needed, by Paul Robert Lloyd.
Participants of the Responsive Images Community Group at the time of publication were: Barry Atimer, Daniel Abril, George Adamson, Heide Alexander, Marie Alhomme, John Allan, Joshua Allen, Angely Alvarez, Agustin Amenabar, Aaryn Anderson, Philip Andrews, Ritchie Anesco, Phil Archer, Tony Atayi, Tom Atkins, Justin Avery, Mohsen Azimi, Phillip Baker, Raymond Baker, Michael Balensiefer, Toni Barrett, Bruno Barros, Paul Barton, Adrian Bateman, Jesse Renée Beach, Robin Berjon, Seth Bertalotto, Anirban Bhattacharya, Nicolaas Bijvoet, Barna Bitai, Nathan Bleigh, Andreas Bovens, J. Albert Bowden, Adam Bradley, Rodrigo Brancher, Gordon Brander, Paul Bridgestock, Aaron Brosey, Brandon Brown, Cory Brown, mairead buchan, Kris Bulman, Ariel Burone, Mathias Bynens, Marcos Caceres, Rusty Calder, Ben Callahan, Loïc Calvy, Welch Canavan, Chuck Carpenter, Brandon Carroll, Frederico Cerdeira, Daniel Chamberlin, Adi Chikara, David Clements, Geri Coady, Anne-Gaelle Colom, Cyril Concolato, Jessica Constantine, Greg Cota, Geoff Cowan, Andy Crum, David D'Amico, Jason Daihl, Francois Daoust, Kevin Davies, Robert Dawson, Jacques de Klerk, Timothy de Paris, Ryan DeBeasi, Anna Debenham, Darryl deHaan, David Demaree, George DeMet, Ian Devlin, Alex DiLiberto, peter droogmans, Ronni Dyrholm Chidekel, simpson eddie, Sylvia Egger, Dominic Fee, Ève Février, Maximiliano Firtman, Ben Fonarov, Harry Fozzard, Marlene Frykman, Dennis Gaebel, Igor Gajosinskas, Nicolas Gallagher, Miguel Garcia, Rafael Garcia Lepper, Larry Garfield, Peter Gasston, George GeorgeHaeger, David Goss, Chris Grant, Petra Gregorova, Ilya Grigorik, Jason Grigsby, Aaron Grogg, Antoine Guergnon, Jeff Guntle, Aaron Gustafson, Jason Haag, Jordan Haines, Cristina Hanes, Patrick Haney, Anselm Hannemann, chris hardy, Vincent Hardy, Bridget Harrison, Duncan Hawthorne, Dominique Hazaël-Massieux, Chris Hilditch, Jon Hill, Nathan Hinshaw, Sean Hintz, John Holt Ripley, Enrico Hösel, Peter Hrynkow, Kym Huang, Shane Hudson, Vinicius Ianni, Tomomi Imura, Philip Ingrey, Bryn Jackson, Rihnna Jakosalem, Brett Jankord, Scott Jehl, Dave Johnson, Nathanael Jones, Danny Jongerius, Michael Jovel, Chao Ju, Tim Kadlec, Raj Kaimal, Kevin Joe Kanger, Frédéric Kayser, Serge K. Keller, Arthur Khachatryan, Jin Kim, Andreas Klein, Peter Klein, John Kleinschmidt, Daniel Konopacki, Darius Kruythoff, Zoran Kurtin, Vitaliy Kuzmin, Gerardo Lagger, Adam Lake, Chris Lamothe, Tom Lane, Matthieu Larcher, Christopher Latham, Bruce Lawson, Zach Leatherman, Silas Lepcha, Kornel Lesinski, Chris Lilley, grappler login, william lombardo, Tania Lopes, Amie Lucas, André Luís, Jacine Luisi, David Maciejewski, Kevin Mack, Ethan Malasky, Josh Marinacci, Eduardo Marques, Mathew Marquis, Daniel Martínez, Tom Maslen, Jacob Mather, Chris McAndrew, Mark McDonnell, Andre Jay Meissner, Benjamin Melançon, Julian Mendl, Rick Messer, Zane Milakovic, Denys Mishunov, Sabine Moebs, Ian Moffitt, Orestis Molopodis, jason morita, David Moulton, Bobby Mozumder, Brian Muenzenmeyer, Emi Myoudou, Irakli Nadareishvili, Giorgio Natili, Jonathan Neal, Christian Neuberger Jr, David Newton, Todd Nienkerk, Ashley Nolan, Johnna Nonboe, Kenneth Nordahl, Mark Nottingham, Lewis Nyman, Darrel O'Pry, Alejandro Oviedo, David Owens, Paddy O'Hanlon, Isabel Palomar, suzanne peter, Hassadee Pimsuwan, Guy Podjarny, Andreas Pollak, gentian polovina, Dave Poole, Florent Preynat, Manik Rathee, François REMY, Venkatesh Rengasamy, Jen Reynolds, Ricardo Andrade Belo Ricardo Belo, Michael Riethmuller, Carlo Rizzante, John Rodler, César Rodríguez, Nestor Rojas, Adrian Roselli, David Rupert, Chris Ruppel, Oguzcan Sahin, Viljami Salminen, Luca Salvini, Ana Sampaio, Luke Sands, crazyrohila sanjay, aron santa, Osny Santos, Jad Sarout, Brandon Satrom, Jeroen Savat, Stéphane Savona, Christoph Saxe, Doug Schepers, Jason Schmidt, Christopher Schmitt, Joe Schmitt, Greg Schumacher, Boaz Sender, SHAHINA SHEIK, Tomoyuki Shimizu, Ariel Shkedi, Abdul Wahid Sial, Pandapotan Silaban, Mauricio Silva Teixeira de Nobrega, Jen Simmons, Michael Singleterry, Katerina Skotalova, David Sleight, Michael[tm] Smith, Nick Snyder, Ignacio Soriano Cano, Steve Souders, Brenden Sparks, Aaron Staker, Aaron Stanush, Walter Stevenson, Bridget Stewart, Jared Stilwell, Matt Stow, Shari Sullivan, Kevin Suttle, Patrick Szalapski, Satoru Takagi, Rob Tarr, Philipp Tautz, Nguyen Thao Thao, Edward Thurgood, Anthony Ticknor, Erek Tinker, Sebastián Tromer, Tsvetan Tsvetkov, Yusuke Uchida, Mads Ulsø Østergaard, Katarina Ur, Adam van den Hoven, Jacob van Zijp, Lucas Vilaboim, Jitendra Vyas, Amy W, Tady Walsh, Yoav Weiss, George White, Michael Whittet, Matt Wilcox, Richard Wild, John Albin Wilkins, Chris Williams, Rory Wilson, Owen Winkler, Robin Winslow, Cyril Wolfangel, Mike Woodard, Jeremy Worboys, Mike Wu, Bruce Zawalsky, Carlos Zepeda, and jintian zheng.
A complete list of participants of the Responsive Images Community Group is available at the W3C Community Group Website.


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One afternoon not that long ago, A.J. Weiss was sitting in a cafe, tapping his pen on an empty note pad, and staring out the window. The prior accumulated years of adventure, heartbreak, and common drudgery had all amounted to this, a particular moment, for reasons both unknown and fairly straightforward. The most straightforward being that he worked at Blue Planet Foods, Ltd., importer of high-quality food products and ingredients, and that he had set forth to complete the task of conjuring a suitable name for the company's new Spanish specialty food brand. After a certain amount of consideration and voluminous list-making, Donostia Foods came to be.
What was the inspiration for this (superb) brand name? Donostia-San Sebastián, a small coastal city in Basque Country in northern Spain, renowned for its restaurants, gastronomic societies, and culinary traditions. A place where locals and visitors alike wander the cobblestones of the old town in the warm evening light, drifting amongst the pintxo bars to sample unparalleled small-bites accompanied by the effervescent local wine, txakoli, and sharing in the laughter that becomes the fondest of memories; a place that exudes good food, good drinks, and a general sense of revelry. All of which is quite enjoyable.
With Donostia Foods we hope to introduce more people in the United States to the gastronomic pleasures of Donostia-San Sebastián and Spain as a whole, with a continually expanding product line of the best examples of the best products we can find and with the conviviality of the place itself.
Thank you for your interest in Donostia Foods, and if there's anything we can do for you, please contact us.
A.J. Weiss in the village of Espelette in Basque Country.


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The Office of Institutional Planning & Budgeting supports Western in the following areas:
Operating, Ancillary and Capital Budget Planning, Development, and Analysis. Management Information and Analytical Support to the University's Planning and Decision making Processes - including university surveys, data warehousing, and decision support systems. Space Planning and Management - including General University Classroom Scheduling and Room Reservations.


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Thomas G. Field, Jr.Professor of Law at Franklin Pierce Law CenterPosted: October 6, 2009
As real estate title may cover a square inch of Arctic tundra or a square mile of Manhattan, intellectual property protection may be broad or narrow, cover various kinds of products or processes, and have widely varying value. Yet, some misconstrue Emerson's dictum and believe that patenting an invention will cause the world to beat a path to their door. Others, who appreciate that it is often easier to patent than to sell an invention, believe that patents increasingly cost more than they're worth. This discussion shows how both views are wrong. Patents do not guarantee market success, but they and other forms of intellectual property can easily be worth the cost.
Costs are more important to some inventors than others. Employed inventors usually need not be concerned; their inventions belong to their employers. Firms large enough to hire professional inventors should have personnel and procedures to weigh intellectual property options and select among alternatives (but it's remarkable how many don't). Inventors not so employed have the same need, and this discussion offers basic advice on how to meet it.
Exclusive rights to make and sell new products may help secure business loans or obtain royalty income. In most cases, the value of those rights derives from their capacity to stop free riders -- and the need for such capacity varies widely.
Small firms should also appreciate the advantages of scale. R&D aside, small-volume firms must also appreciate that large competitors, on the basis of size alone, may be able to beat their prices and make higher profits. If so, IP rights can be the key to survival!
IP protection locks the door to specific product markets, but one does not lock up things unlikely to be stolen, much less buy expensive locks. The first step in seeking cost-effective protection is to evaluate the invention's market.
Most factors critically affecting the market potential of new products should occur to any thoughtful person -- or at least one unencumbered by fantasies of riches and glory. We are all consumers. Innnovators would do well to think about how they behave as purchases.
Marketing Basics
Many sellers of products and services seem to ignore the basics:
For example, computer users often encounter shareware that has marginal value at best. Prices requested from users are sometimes incredible unless one considers how easily programmers can focus on the amount of time spent rather than the program's objective utility.
Purchasers are unconcerned about an innovator's sweat. Mousetraps that cost twice as much as ones already available but have only 50% more consumer value will not sell. This is true even though, in some way(s), new products might be regarded as many times better than anything on the market.
Three Factors Affecting Likely Market Success
The figure shows five cells in a 2x2x2 matrix, with the lowest risk being an old product, introduced by an established firm, into an old market. Yet, Ford's Edsel in the 1950's and more recent experience with "new" Coke show that such a scenario is not free of risk. Imagine how much higher the risks are for new products brought by new firms to new markets! Innovators should consider such matters in attempting to decide, for example, whether to try to go into business themselves or to license others.
Potential Competition
Another set of important factors hinge on potential competitors. Unless one is selling a truly new product to meet a totally new need (a risky proposition), competition is likely.
The lightbulb epitomizes the great invention. Yet, firms promoting electricity had to face large, well-established utilities and attract enormous resources to displace gas for illumination. Innovators must consider the full range of advantages enjoyed by present and potential competitors, including goodwill, skilled personnel, well-established distribution channels, access to raw materials and economies of scale.
Discussed at length elsewhere, such matters do not need detailed treatment here. For example, the booklet, Guide to Invention and Innovation Evaluation, provides an excellent discussion. Published by Gerald Udell and colleagues at the University of Oregon in 1977, it discusses 33 factors to be considered. That booklet also contains a questionnaire for considering each factor with regard to particular products or services. Confirming what is urged here, the very last question is: "Can the inventor legally exclude others?"
Still, inventors must keep in mind that offering an invention for sale or publicly disclosing it without having first filed a patent application forfeits all rights to a patent in the U.S. after a year -- immediately in many foreign countries. Test marketing before at least considering possible patent protection is most unwise!
Basic Intellectual Property Options -- Benefits and Costs
Some people believe that marketing experts are adept at explaining successes and failures but incapable of predicting either. This is too unkind, but even the staunchest defenders are unlikely to claim that marketing is a science. Thus, even sophisticated firms usually decide what to spend for IP protection in the face of great uncertainty. Because patents may be the most expensive form of IP, other options should be considered. For example, trademarks are relatively inexpensive and very useful for protecting goodwill after a product is marketed. Trade secrets and copyrights should also be considered.
Rights in trade secrets protect commercially important information from being used in breach of confidence and from being obtained, for example, by bribing another's employees. However, trade secret law is not effective against another's obtaining the information by reverse engineering (copying a product found in the marketplace) or independent discovery.
For most inventions, copyright offers little potential because most inventions fall outside the scope of its subject matter. Copyrights are nevertheless valuable for software. Unlike trade secrets, copyrights can be used to stop others from copying products acquired in the market. Still, they suffer serious limitations. First, copyrights cannot stop others from selling very similar works that are independently created. However, the more widely a work is available, the more difficult it is for later sellers to establish independent origin.
A more serious limitation for copyrights is that, although they can be used to prevent others from copying or closely imitating software, they cannot be used to prevent competitors from writing a different program to execute the same functions or get the same result. Finally, copyrights are of little value in preventing other from copying and using data no matter how expensive it may have been to collect.
Utility patents are what most people intend when they refer to patents. Other possibilities such as design and plant patents are not considered. Patents are better than copyrights in most ways. Although of no use for protecting data, patents can protect a much wider range of inventions and can be used to prevent sale of works independently invented. Nevertheless, for inventions such as industrial processes, patents may be difficult to impossible to enforce. For example, if others can learn to practice an invention from reading a patent, but the patentee cannot determine that the invention is being used, the patent will not be worth much. In such circumstances, trade secrets may be preferred.
Among various types of IP, trade secret rights also cost virtually nothing to obtain. Maintenance, however, is a different story. Maintenance may require special personnel; employee training; restricted access to plant, equipment and documents; the need to get agreements from and to educate people with unavoidable access; and the need to monitor disclosures through publications, conferences and trade shows. The costs of such precautionary measures can be high. Also, university faculty whose reputations are tied to publication in professional journals are apt to find anything that interferes, i.e. secrecy, unacceptable.
Copyrights are the least expensive. They arise automatically upon creation of proper subject matter. For works created in the U.S., registration is necessary only if one needs to bring suit; it is usually unnecessary elsewhere even for that purpose. Yet, for all copyright owners, early registration confers important remedial advantages. The registration fees are modest, and registration rarely warrants legal assistance.
Finally, patent protection is expensive to obtain, maintain and enforce. Government fees alone run into thousands of dollars and have increased dramatically over recent years.
Unlike the situation with copyrights, patents must be obtained in each country where protection is desired. Costs abroad are usually higher than here -- particularly if translations are required. This means that few inventions would warrant patent protection in more than a small fraction of possible countries. Still, that IP-sophisticated U.S. firms do file abroad indicates that foreign patents are sometimes worth the expense.
Controlling Patent Costs in the Face of Market Uncertainty
Besides potentially unenforceable patents, consider, for example, the invention's possible lifespan. Patents issue slowly and confer no benefits until they do. Markets may change quickly because of technology or sometimes fleeting consumer interest. In such circumstances, filing patent applications can represent a waste of money.
If patents are not rejected for such reasons, inventors almost always face the daunting challenge of trying to evaluate their possible advantages when the profit potential of inventions is very much in doubt. Unfortunately, free riders later face far less uncertainty: They weigh options after market demand has been shown!
Otherwise well informed people often fail to appreciate that patents vary enormously in their ability to forestall competition. Generally, patentees get what they choose or, more likely, can afford to pay for. Patent protection that covers too little technological territory, or is in the wrong geographic or market location, is probably not worth the cost. For example, those without patents there cannot stop others from sharing or even taking over European markets if their inventions prove to have great consumer demand. Yet, patents covering empty markets represent wasted resources.
Because inventors often lack important information when cost-critical choices have to be made, it may be useful also to think of intellectual property as insurance. How can one purchase adequate insurance at least cost? Where can corners be cut, at what risk? One way independent inventors can cope is to do as much as possible themselves.
Prior Art Searches
The first step in determining whether an invention is patentable is a prior art search. If it is old or obvious to those familiar with the technology, an invention cannot be patented. Also, prior art searches may reveal unexpired patents that could block sale of improvements. A patent does not permit one to sell -- only to prevent others from selling an invention. Thus, inventors must consider, for example, the time left for any blocking patents and whether licenses are available.
Inventors should not try to save money by omitting prior art searches before filing applications. Given the difficulty and cost of marketing new products, inventors must not assume, just because a product seems to be commercially unavailable, that it is novel.
True, patent examiners do searches after applications are filed, but dollar-wise inventors do not pay attorney and filing fees to have examiners tell them what they could learn much more cheaply.
If inventors, themselves, search as much literature as possible, including patents, initial attorney consultations will accomplish more -- and, if further searches are needed, they will cost less.
For example, two inventors called, years apart, about the same life-saving invention (a signal balloon for use where someone lost at sea or in rugged terrain might otherwise use a flare). I do not know if the product has ever been marketed, but at least four expired patents cover that basic idea!
Caveat emptor! The second inventor mentioned above was trying to obtain several thousand dollars to purchase the services of an invention promotion firm -- in hopes that he could save lives and perhaps become rich. Had he been able to afford its fee, he would likely have received nothing. Not all promoters are fraudulent, but many are. Inventors must heed the list of red flags assembled by the now-defunct Inventors Awareness Group. The government can't find and stop them all. Even when authorities have closed some down, inventors have received little, if any, of their money back.
Preparing Applications, Seeking Assignees
Nor should inventors stint on application preparation. If an invention warrants protection, it seems penny-wise to spend thousands of dollars in government fees for a patent that offers less protection than is warranted or needed. Those who want only to brag about being "patentees" may be able to get something from the Patent and Trademark Office (PTO). Yet, if meaningful protection is desired, it is highly doubtful that average persons (or even lawyers) can get that without much more help than do-it-yourself books can provide. Whether you can "get a patent" without expert help and whether you can get one worth the time and money are very different questions.
The challenge of preparing an application is greater than that of provisioning a boat for a long voyage. Once an application is filed, supplemental applications are possible but expensive. Also, added matter does not get the filing date of the original application. Applications can be filed more cheaply, however, when inventors have studied the prior art and can explain how their inventions differ from what has gone before -- especially by focusing on unexpected advantages. Inventors are usually most familiar with their technology, and, the more they do, the less attorneys have to charge.
After a U.S. application has been filed, a window of opportunity opens. It should not be wasted. Applicants have a year within which to decide whether to file elsewhere. Also, they can test market without forfeiting potential rights.
Further, once applications are filed, inventors can approach prospective manufacturers with less concern about having their inventions stolen. In fact, many manufacturers will not consider outside submissions unless patent applications have been filed. If the market and prior art prognoses are good, and applications are well prepared, this will increase a manufacturer's interest. A pending application can be assigned. If so, inventors can avoid further expense. Also, a manufacturer will have a better idea of whether foreign protection is warranted, and where.
Yet, keep in mind that prospective assignees will be concerned about their own costs and risks: The higher their likely costs (including development and marketing), and the lower their chances for profit, the less they will be willing to pay. This severely curtails inventors' ability to pass costs on to others.
Prosecuting, Maintaining and Enforcing Patents
Before a patent issues, a dispute with the PTO is likely. Indeed, contrary to what some believe, an initial indication that all claims are allowable may not be good news: It suggests that too little was initially sought.
The downside of claims being denied, of course, is the expense of responding, filing multi-tiered appeals or taking measures to show unexpected advantages of the invention. How far should an applicant pursue those options? An answer is impossible without at least a good guess about the value of contested territory that the patent could cover.
If an invention's value proves to be comparatively low, or allowable patent claims prove inadequate to protect potential markets, an application can be abandoned. This avoids further prosecution costs, as well as issue and maintenance fees. Further, particularly if they do not file abroad, inventors may retain trade secrecy following abandonment.
Those who have inventions of dubious value should be disabused of the mousetrap myth. Inventions can easily be more difficult to sell than to patent. Do you want to spend money to keep others from copying something that can't be sold at a profit?
Conversely, if you have a valuable invention, you should not be deterred by myths and rumors. It seems foolish not to deter free riding or to give away something that others would be happy to purchase.
The cost and availability of IP protection vary widely depending on subject matter and other factors. As soon as an invention's income potential appears to justify it, options should be explored with experienced counsel. Professional help in assessing alternatives represents money well spent.
Patents may not offer the only or even the best protection: Depending on the circumstances, cheaper alternatives may be ample. When that is untrue, patents are often worth the additional cost.
If an invention lives up to expectations, it is critical to be able to recover the costs of developing and marketing. Small firms in particular must consider how, when properly used, patents and other kinds of IP can help them to match the prices of larger and better-known competitors.
The need to optimize protection stops only when inventions prove to be clearly valueless.


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Innovative Dining Group
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Have questions? Call us now!
IBM System Storage DS3512 Model C2A - hard drive array
The IBM System Storage DS3500 Express Storage Systems are the addition to the IBM System Storage DS3000 series family of entry disk storage systems. The DS3500 delivers affordable, entry-level configurations for small and medium businesses in compact 2U, 19-inch rack mount enclosures, with the flexibility to scale in capacity, performance, host interfaces, and functions as your business grows or requirements change.The DS3500 combines next-generation controller technology with a 6 gigabit per second (Gb) SAS interconnect to the disk drives and high-performance host interface technologies - 6 Gb SAS and 8 Gb Fibre Channel (FC). In addition to 6 Gb SAS and 8 Gb FC host interfaces, the DS3500 also supports 1 Gb iSCSI. You can intermix FC or iSCSI concurrently with SAS, giving you the flexibility to address your shared storage requirements within a single system.The DS3500 carries on the tradition of DS3000 series data protection features with support for multiple RAID levels, storage partitions to manage volume-to-host access, and FlashCopy and Volume Copy to create logical or physical copies of your data.


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About Criminal Justice
The objective of the Criminal Justice faculty is to prepare interested students to become the next generation of law and public safety professionals. Majors begin to develop the knowledge, skills, and demeanor of professional practitioners through a curriculum emphasizing the science of public safety, the law, ethical imperatives, and a strong liberal arts core. Tailored degree options are offered for law, law enforcement, and corrections careers. Likewise, these degree options are excellent preparation for those aiming for careers in private security.
The Criminal Justice Department offers a variety of degree options and courses to make it possible for students to successfully achieve their educational and career goals.
Each degree option is specifically tailored to provide the student with the appropriate courses required to pursue his or her chosen career. It is therefore important for students to choose the program of study which is appropriate for their career goals. It is not unusual for a student's career goals to change and, therefore, it is possible to change degree programs. However, each specific degree option has different course requirements, and changes may affect the total number of courses a student may have to take to complete his/her new program.
Contact Information
Downtown Campus
3rd Floor, Suite 332
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Rochester, New York 14608
8:00am - 4:00pm
(585) 685-6009


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In the vast majority of papers forcing is always developed over ZFC.
Not surprisingly too, since infintary combinatorial principles are often used to prove results based on properties such as chain conditions, closure, and so on.
I am looking for a good start on forcing over models of ZF. I have before me two papers which I have yet to read thoroughly, however may not be as useful for this purpose as I am hoping.
- Grigorieff, S. Intermediate Submodels and Generic Extensions in Set Theory. The Annals of Mathematics, Second Series, Vol. 101, No. 3 (May, 1975), pp. 447-490
- Monro, G. P. On Generic Extensions Without the Axiom of Choice. The Journal of Symbolic Logic, Vol. 48, No. 1 (Mar., 1983), pp. 39-52
While I do intend to read them either way, it seems that neither develops the theory of forcing in the absolute absence of choice. I am currently looking for references which deal with such situation, or with the relation between forcing theorems proved in ZFC and the amount of choice needed for them to hold.
Edit: I probably should have mentioned that I am quite familiar with permutation models of ZFA+embedding theorems and transfer theorems (Jech-Sochor, Pincus' theorem) as well with symmetric extensions.
I am not looking for ways to develop forcing extensions of ZF without the axiom of choice; rather I am looking for theorems such as c.c.c forcing does not collapse cardinals and similar theorems extended to the choiceless contexts if possible, or the strength of choice needed for these theorems to hold.
Consider two examples:
Suppose a model of ZF in which the axiom of choice does not hold. Can we, by set forcing add the axiom of choice? If not, can it be done using a machinery similar to a symmetric extension? If we can in fact find such extension, does that mean the model without choice is a symmetric extension between two larger models?
Suppose A is an infinite Dedekind-finite set, what can we say on a forcing poset based on A (either domain of functions are partial to A or the range is in A)? Can we "collapse" amorphous sets onto ordinals? Can we collapse one amorphous set onto another? And so on.


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- Home
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- Rebates & Mini-Grants
Community Rebates & Mini-Grants
Maintaining Healthy Waterways
Citizens are the key to healthy waterways and a healthy environment. Small actions, done consistently, help everyone maintain the County's high quality of life. Simply picking up after pets, disposing of oils and grease safely and planting more plants makes a difference in how our neighborhoods look and how we experience our environment.
To help citizens participate and contribute on a larger scale, either individually or as a group of neighbors, the County offers a variety of rebates, mini-grants and giveaways that promote activities to improve our community. Funding is limited so apply early.
Clean County Commission Good Neighbor Environment Grant
The Clean County Commission Good Neighbor Environment Grant provides funding to neighborhoods to accomplish a sustainable landscape or beautification project and promote community spirit. Applications are due by Sept. 1 of every year. Good Neighbor Grant Applications will be accepted, but due to COVID-19 impacts on County revenues funding awards may be delayed. For more information, call 757-259-5375.
- Up to $500 in funding may be provided per neighborhood
Clean Water Heritage Program
Clean Water Heritage Grant
The Clean Water Heritage Grant Program provides funding to homeowner associations and communities who own private stormwater infrastructure and want to repair it or need funding to maintain it.
Complete and submit a Clean Water Heritage Grant Application (PDF) by Sept. 8, 2023. Please read all application instructions before submitting. Applications may be submitted through email or printed and handed in to the office. For more information, please contact John Fuqua at 757-253-6785 or via email.
These resources are provided as guidance for individuals applying to the program to help them understand the program requirements and how to complete the various forms.
John Fuqua
Stormwater CoordinatorPhone: 757-253-6785
Stormwater & Resource Protection
Physical Address
101 Mounts Bay Road
Building E
Williamsburg, VA 23185
Mailing Address
PO Box 8784
Williamsburg, VA 23187
Phone 757-253-6670Fax 757-259-4032
Monday - Friday
8 a.m. - 5 p.m.