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Speech Communication
Macek discusses media activism, film scholarship and more at conference
May 29, 2014
Steve Macek, North Central College associate professor of speech communication and coordinator of urban and suburban studies, attended the Society for Cinema and Media Studies conference in Seattle this spring. He served as a respondent on a panel about Detroit, automobiles and film, and also participated in a roundtable discussion on media activism and film scholarship.
Macek was joined by peers Chris Robe of Florida Atlantic University, Mobina Hashmi of Brooklyn College, Jack Bratich of Rutgers University, Carol Stabile of the University of Oregon and others. Topic titles were "The Disenchantment of the Automobile (Industry) in American Media" and "Media, Activism, and the Cultural Industries: Theorizing the Horizons of Resistance."
Macek has been on faculty at North Central College since 2002. He earned his B.A. from University of Wisconsin at Madison and his M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities.


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Great review
I think the review says it all really. Great device but who cares? With only 4GB of memory who's going to bother when they can pick up a 16GB iPhone for less money?
So near but so far HTC.
With the Diamond, HTC probably reckons it has a device that can stop lurking in the bushes, and instead leap out and bash the iPhone over the head with a brick. The first thing that struck us about the Diamond was how small it was. We were expecting something altogether more iPhone-like in both size and weight, but the HTC is …
"Our biggest concern is the lack of a memory card slot which on a high-end smartphone in this day and age is tough to explain or justify."
Do you know how much real estate a memory card slot takes up on a phone motherboard? A lot when the phone is that size and offers all that tech.
Part of the reason memory cards have gotton smaller over the years has been driven by phone manufacturers wanting more space on their motherboards, gave them room to squeeze on GPS as well as Bluetooth and WiFi, now they want to squeeze on graphic chips as well!
Wish I hadn't locked in for 18months with a Touch Dual now, want this phone :(
"...the Diamond proved to be remarkably stable for a Window's handset. We had to re-set ours only the once during our ten days with it... ahem."
SERIOUSLY? Is that the best thing we can say about Windows Mobile? It had to be reset only once in ten days?
I had six different Palm devices and phones from 1996 to 2007 and I can't say I ever had to reset them except for a handful of times in eleven years. Sadly, Palm devices just haven't been updated enough in several years and I jumped ship to Windows Mobile late last year. What a disastrous move that was! This HTC Tilt P.O.S is going in the garbage at the end of the week. Wish me luck with the iPhone 3g.
Before this was released in the UK I read that there were two versions of this phone planned... the Diamond and the Diamond Pro. The difference being that the "Pro" version had a Micro SD expansion slot.
Not seen it anywhere and had planned to buy the "Pro". Now put off and may wait for the N96.
A colleague has one and I was ready to buy one until I tried his.
First of all, it's got a lousy radio - GPRS and 3G signals drop out all the time in our office, but the same network has no such problem on any of the other mobiles here. GPS signal reception, however, is excellent.
Secondly, that pointy back means it doesn't sit flat on a desk so you need to rest it on something or it'll wobble. It's hard to appreciate just how annoying this is.
Finally, and this is a huge problem, he's lucky to see 8 hours use out of it before the battery gives up, and that's assuming he makes or receives no calls, just push email (GPS and bluetooth turned off).
I also found it to be a little slow and clunky, but he finds it quite acceptable.
I'd like to see more thorough reviewing from el reg, please. This review smacks of playing with a new toy rather than a subjective, hard-nosed analysis.
Another really nice sounding HTC product, great specs, but with a tiny screen. A 2.8" simply isn't usable for web browsing or video - the Iphone's (3.5") has 56% more screen acreage.
Get rid of the hard buttons, get a decent sized screen, and you have a product.
Oh, and no memory slot is pretty dim. Given you can get 16GB microsd now for about 50 quid, those slots are really pretty useful nowadays.
...or does it look like a Zune?
Interesting phone, although I don't care about smart phones at all, and won't be getting one anytime soon (just want something to speak). Nice to see others finally starting to catch up with the iPhone interface anyway.
Just one reset in ten days? That's the best Windows ever, then! Can we have it instead of Vista in new computers?</joke> :O)
I own an HTC Touch - biggest piece of garbage ever.
Windows Mobile 6x is so unbelievably awful that any device built on that piece of abject piece of crap is doomed to failure - and so it should be.
I can't wait to trade mine in for a new jesus phone - I couldn't believe it when I played with the original for an hour or so.
Words almost fail me trying to explain how ill-conceived, poorly designed, badly written, abysmal usability, slow, slow and did I mention slooooow WM 6 actually is.
It just shows what a talentless bunch of idiots Microsoft's programmers truly are. I'll take a sucky iPhone camera in exchange any day.
Not that I'm bitter about spending £300 odd quid on this crap or anything you understand.
I am using htc P3600, s730 and just added the touch diamond. Also, I have configured all kinds of htc phones for office colleagues and friends.
I love htc phones however the touch diamond is a huge disappointment. 3G connection is unstable and unusable in same locations where the P3600 and s730 show steady multiple bar signal and make and receive video calls.
Touchflo 3D is jumpy and I spend a lot of time canceling calls when trying to just view contacts or the call logs. It is not responsive. Battery is very poor and I charge the phone twice a day to keep it up all day.
I hate the phone and wish I resisted the urge. Sad I am stuck with an $800 toy.I should have waited and bought many iphones. I do not think the reviewer saw the phone talkless of testing it.
HTC Touch Diamond is a waste of money and an exercise in frustration, please do not buy until HTC releases a version tested under real world conditions. I am not alone, please check xda developer forum for more disappointed users. Seems HTC has lost its way.
This post has been deleted by its author
@ Neil Stansbury, - sounds like you have dodgy firmware. I use an HTC Touch with the slow 200mhz CPU and it runs WM6 fine. No lag, doesn't crash, and with SPB Mobile Phone Suite you can pretty much emulate the Diamond's fancy gui with skins from xdadevelopers (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=402021)
This product has some nice ideas, with a decent UI buit with some poor implementations, and building it ontop of Win Mo only adds up negative points in my book, and 4gb, for a 'media' phone? Useless. iPhone will steal all its thunder. The iPhone has only one competitor who could steal its thunder BlackBerry, and its the only one who shows it also knows how to create a device people stick to... CrackBerry addicts!
Noticed on the HTC site than an "extended life battery" is on offer for £40 - comes with an enlarged back panel too - so I guess HTC have decided it needs more juice. Wonder if it will ship with the long life battery when it arrives as the 02 Xda whatever-the-hell, T-Mobile Vario thing-a-me-jig etc
Seriously, what's wrong with Windows Mobile? Apart from it being MS Software so "IT SUXXX COS BIL GATEZ WROTE IT LOLZ"? I bet it'd be a ninth wonder of the world (after Linus Torvalds and his mighty finnish brain) if it was "Linux Mobile".
It's not particularly hard to use- easier than other phones I've had, it has a massive amount of software available for it (and it's quick + easy to write new stuff for it w/ visual studio if there's something you need), and resetting once a week is hardly a hardship if you just do it at night- hit reset, stick on charger, fall asleep.
I follow this routine, and I've been using WM2003/WM5/WM6 for about 3 years on a few different handsets and apart from the occasionally badly cooked alpha-stage custom ROM I've randomly downloaded from the 'net, I've had no major software screw ups. The phone's only run out of battery power on me once and that was due to me losing it for a week with WiFi/BT/3G all turned on.
As far as slooooow OSs go, it's not slow for me. Maybe your network's bundled trillions useless, memory-eating apps with your version? IMHO, it's these that break and these that slow WM down to the horrible thing some people see.
WM6 rocks. Even on my newly-upgraded-to-WM6 2 or 3 year old XDA2s it rocks. Network added apps don't.
@"HTC FOR THE FAIL"AC, it's called a Crackberry as everyone who has one- especially those who use it as a verb (as in "Blackberry me")- are arses.
I recently got given one for work and my personal phone is an iphone, so comparison is fair.
Funnily enough this seems the right combination. From an interface point of view I prefer the i-phone and the touch screen is far less fiddly than that of the Diamond, BUT....
What I want from a work phone is
1. Portability - diamond takes much much less pocket space
2. Functionality - Able to read and work on Microsoft docments a real plus without non-prop add ons. Also I do a lot of walking around strange towns (work related - please don't ask), so having GPS on board knocks my current 1.0 i-phone into a cocked hat
Personal opinion is they could have improved the touch screen interface, but otherwise a great little work phone. For a personal phone I would still go with the iphone though!
PS Biggest downside (which is not the phones fault) is the Norwegian OS I am stuck with - thanks procurement for that little gem.
When the original HTC Touch was introed about a year ago, I bought one of the first 100 in the UK, no contract, and WINced at how much I paid. But the small size of it, and the apparent coolness factor, were enough for me to get over it.
Now I've had it for a year, and tomorrow night I am sitting in a camp chair in a queue for a new iPhone. I have HAD it with Windows Mobile - absolutely HAD it. Too many small fiddly menu choices that are IMPOSSIBLE to navigate with a finger tip, and many of them cascading! They put cascading menus on a MOBILE device with a finger touch screen?!?!? And that f£"$ing touch keyboard - I have small fingers, and loads of patience, but frankly I have to reach for the stylus for anything longer than one or two sentances, and even that is painful. And the number of times I have tried to punctuate a sentence and ended up bringing up the freakin' MENU instead I have lost count of!!!
I tried a 3G iPhone the other day, and was AMAZED at how much easier it was to use, type on, and navigate. The larger screen makes all of the screen functions MUCH easier to use - the menus are more logical and less fiddly, and the screen itself is just beautiful. I have a couple of Windows Mobile applications that I will miss (especially my Chess tutorial program), and the lack of stereo Bluetooth is criminal, but overall I think I can live without them just to get a phone that works. Now I just have to plan how to spent 12 hours in line tomorrow night...
And no, I've never owned an Apple product in my life, hardly a fanboi, but I have to hand it to Jobs on this one...

subset: commoncrawl


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February, of course, brings Valentine's Day, and MusicRadar cemented its position as the website for musical lovers (as opposed to music lovers) with our steamy guide to 69 of the sexiest songs of all time. If you made it through the whole playlist, you have our respect...
If you were looking for something to calm your libido, then our round-up of affordable USB audio interfaces should have served as metaphorical cold shower (albeit a very useful one), and staying with the list theme, we also celebrated the 60 greatest bassists in history and asked top sticksman Gavin Harrison to name his 10 essential drum albums.
Over in DJ land Native Instruments put a new spin on mobile mixing with Traktor DJ for iPad, and we also picked out a selection of the finest iOS synths.
Here are some of MusicRadar's biggest new articles from February 2013...
8 of the best budget USB audio interfaces
Sub-£200/$250 computer recording solutions
The 60 greatest bassists of all time
Your favourite bass players revealed...
Gavin Harrison picks 10 essential drum albums
Porcupine Tree's master sticksman names his faves
7 of the best affordable monitor speakers
Find your perfect pair for between £200 and £600
13 of the best iPad/iPhone iOS synths
In no particular order, our pick of the best synthesizers the App Store has to offer


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An air quality advisory has been issued for all of northern B.C. and several pockets of the south due to wildfire smoke.
Regions listed in the Smoky Skies Bulletin issued Tuesday, July 24 include the South Thompson, Central Okanagan, South Okanagan, East Columbia, and all parts of province north of Quesnel.
ICYMI: #AirQuality smoky skies bulletin in place for South Thompson, Central & South Okanagan, East Columbia & all areas North of Quesnel #BritishColumbia https://t.co/6PcO6xqBP1 @Interior_Health
— Env Report BC (@EnvReportBC) July 25, 2018
The Cariboo Fire Centre released a statement saying smoke in the northern half of the province can be attributed to an upper low that has pulled smoke into B.C. from the fires currently burning in Manitoba and Ontario.
According to Jessica Mack, the fire information officer for the Cariboo Fire Centre, some of the smoke may also be from fires in areas as far away as Siberia and Eurasia.
"Because of changing wind directions and the number of fires, it can be difficult to pinpoint exactly where this smoke is coming from. However, a phenomenon known as long range transport can carry smoke hundreds and even thousands of kilometres away from a fire," says Mack.
Currently there are no significant wildfires in the north and central Interior; however, there are seven wildfires of note in the Kamloops Fire Centre and one in the Southeast Fire Centre.
Smoke in the southern part of the province has been attributed to local fires in the area.
Those areas under the advisory are expected to be impacted by wildfire smoke over the next 24 to 48 hours. People with pre-existing health conditions, the elderly, infants, children and sensitive individuals are more likely to experience health effects from smoke exposure and the government advises residents to use common sense to limit exposure to wildfire smoke.
For more information on symptoms and tips on how to reduce exposure, see the Smoky Skies Bulletin.
Residents in Williams Lake also woke up to thick smoke in the region Wednesday morning, reminiscent of last year's wildfires leaving many feeling unsettled and looking for answers to where exactly the smoke was coming from.
Related: Vehicles and outbuildings burned in Okanagan wildfire
As the wildfire season ramps up, so is the hot weather, with daytime temperatures expected to reach the upper 30Cs for the Okanagan and Kootenays this week.
The drying conditions have prompted the BC Wildfire Service to issue campfire bans starting Thursday for the Kamloops Fire Centre and Southeast Fire Centre.
Related: Campfire bans issued around B.C.
FireWork, Canada's Wildfire Smoke Prediction System, is an air quality prediction system that indicates how smoke from wildfires is expected to move across North America over the next 48 hours. See the map here: https://weather.gc.ca/firework/firework_anim_e.html?type=em&utc=12
Do you have a comment about this story? email:
Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.


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At first glance, it looked like any other community day in the park. Kids dabbled on arts-and-crafts projects while the adults mingled, enjoying refreshments on a nearby table as a band played in the background.
But a few details hinted that this Sept. 10 festival was unlike any other the city of Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada had ever seen—namely, the tent just off to the side, where a bearded gentleman sat with a quill in hand and a large Torah scroll open on a table before him.
The pomp and circumstance went hand in hand to mark the completion and dedication of a brand-new Torah scroll for the two-year-old Chabad-Lubavitch of the Okanagan, co-directed by Rabbi Shmuly and Fraidy Hecht.
"People were just flabbergasted, and so excited to have a Sefer Torah," said Rabbi Hecht. "People in the community came over to me in tears telling me how happy they are living in this small town, and who would have ever thought we'd get to write our own Sefer Torah?"
Hecht noted that the date was chosen to recognize the yahrtzeit, the anniversary of the passing of Rebbetzin Chana Schneerson, mother of the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory.
Community member Stephen Cipes acknowledged the "great deal of support, merriment and gaiety" at the celebration. "It was very meaningful."
Of some 117,000 residents in Kelowna, Hecht estimates that maybe 1,000 are Jewish. And while Kelowna is the largest city in British Columbia's Okanagan Valley, how did this relatively quiet area—a full 4½-hour drive northeast of Vancouver—end up with its own Torah?
'A Nice Coincidence'
According to Hecht, the story goes back several months ago to the Jewish festival of Shavuot.
For that holiday—held this year in mid-May and which commemorates G‑d's giving of the Torah at Sinai—Hecht needed to borrow a Torah scroll from a synagogue in Vancouver, since Chabad Kelowna didn't have one of its own. Having secured one, he then sent out invitations to the community to attend a lively holiday service.
Cipes, originally from New York, and his adult sons were among those who took the rabbi up on the invite. "It was a wonderful time we had," recalled Cipes, adding that two of his sons were even honored with an aliyah, being called up to the Torah as it was read aloud.
After services, Cipes and his son Ezra went to talk to the rabbi. That's when Stephen Cipes announced that he wanted to buy a Torah.
"I was just inspired, and I stood up and made the gesture spontaneously," said Cipes. "I really didn't even know we didn't have a Torah," he said, because one was present during the service. As for the timing—making a pledge to buy a scroll on the day Jews celebrate G‑d's giving of the Torah—Cipes noted that it was a "nice coincidence."
Hecht recalled telling Cipes after his announcement "how amazing it was that on the day of Shavuot when the Jewish people received the first Torah, how honored we are that on that day we received our first Torah."
Given that it can cost between $20,000 and $60,000 to purchase a new Torah scroll, it is often not something most Chabad houses can do when they are first getting off the ground. (The cost is due to the meticulous work and significant time it takes for the sofer, the scribe, to compose the scroll.)
During the next few months, Hecht located a Torah scroll being written in Israel and arranged for Cipes to purchase it with a planned completion marked for the High Holidays.
The Torah they got, said Cipes, "is a piece of art. It is one of the most beautiful Torahs anyone's ever seen … ."
And in that beautiful scroll, Cipes and other community members had a hand in physically helping to complete the final letters on that early September day in the park.
"Everyone got to do a letter from their Hebrew name, which was exciting," said Hecht, noting that this Torah is believed to be the first ever written for Jews living in the Okanagan Valley.
Among those who wrote in the scroll was Chabad supporter Lesley Spiegel, who stood in for her husband, Timothy, who was on a plane at the time. Reflecting on that moment, Spiegel said, "Honestly, it happened so quickly that I had difficulty collecting my thoughts and trying to understand the scribe at the same time. When I thought about the whole experience later, I was very emotional. I have never seen a Torah up close!"


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fresh strawberry lemonade
Of all the things I've posted on the blog in the last few months, I think this one might be my very favorite! Strawberry lemonade is one of my very favorite treats in the whole world. I order it whenever I see it on a restaurant menu (even when it's outrageously expensive!) and I still can't get enough. It's so refreshing and sweet, and the perfect way to cool off on a hot day. I love slurping the chunks of strawberries up through my straw and I love the contrast of tangy and sweet. Yum!
This homemade version is as good as any I've had at a restaurant, but it's so incredibly easy to make at home! I mentioned earlier this week that I've been making batch after batch of my new favorite strawberry sauce, and this drink is the reason why! I do recognize that it's a super unconventional way to make lemonade, but it seriously couldn't be easier, and I love making it this way. Give it a try and I think you'll love it too!
Fresh Strawberry Lemonade
3 lemons, washed well
1 cup sugar
6 cups cold water (more if you like your lemonade a little less strong)
2 cups ice
for each serving: 2 tablespoons fresh strawberry sauceCut the ends off the lemons, then cut each lemon into sixths or eighths. Add the lemons, the sugar, and 3 cups water to a blender, and pulse 6-8 times, or until the lemons are broken up but not smashed to bits. Pour the mixture into a pitcher through a fine mesh strainer. Add the remaining water and ice. To serve, add some ice to the bottom of a glass. Top with 2 tablespoons strawberry sauce, then fill with lemonade. Enjoy!


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WASHINGTON, D.C. – Corning scientists Drs. Dana Bookbinder, Ming-Jun Li and Pushkar Tandon were recently recognized by the American Chemical Society (ACS) as recipients of the 2017 Heroes of Chemistry award for inventing a technology which enabled Corning® ClearCurve® optical fibers, a revolutionary product that enables optical fiber to be bent to small diameters or around very tight corners with significantly less signal loss. The scientists were recognized as one of six companies receiving this award from ACS at its annual Heroes of Chemistry celebration.
In addition to the scientists receiving their awards, Dr. Gary Calabrese, senior vice president, Global Research also accepted the corporate award on behalf of Corning. During his remarks, Gary congratulated the three scientists on this tremendous achievement.
"I can't think of three scientists more deserving of this recognition. Thank you for all that you've done for Corning and what you will continue to do for us in the future."
Corning has been in the business of optical communications for more than four decades. In 1970, Corning inventors Bob Maurer, Don Keck and Peter Schultz invented the first low-loss optical fiber that revolutionized global telecommunications, and enabled emerging communications applications, including the Internet.
"The original invention helped lay the groundwork for long-haul fiber to span across oceans and countries, but the challenge was bringing fiber into homes and data centers," said Dana Bookbinder, Corporate Fellow. "To bring fiber into buildings and data centers, it needed to be in smaller cables and routed to different places. This was a problem because when the fiber was bent, light would escape resulting in data loss."
In the early 2000s, Dana, Ming and Pushkar began collaborating on a new type of optical fiber. By building off the earlier work of Maurer, Keck and Schultz, and leveraging their individual skillsets and Corning's decades of optical fiber research, their collaboration led to the development of what would become an industry-changing solution – ClearCurve optical fiber.
The three scientists have always had a great working relationship, often running ideas by each other for advice, and this time was no different. Dana took an idea he had to Ming and Pushkar, and together they began working on it.


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Arab "Republics of Fear" at an End?
The Libyan dictator Muammar al-Gaddafi is fighting for the survival of his brutal regime. Yet, in terms of military support, he can only count on mercenary troops and a few elite units commanded by his sons. As was the case in Tunisia as well as in Egypt, a large section of the army is not prepared to fire upon their own countrymen in order to bring the protests under control. The formula whereby citizens are suppressed through violent means appears not to be valid anymore.
Although deaths are reported daily in the wake of demonstrations in Libya, the protesters continue to demand an end to the regime. Imad Salamey, a political scientist at the Lebanese American University in Beirut, sees this as a clear sign of the end of the so-called Arab "republics of fear". "People simply aren't as afraid to risk dying for their freedom. They have learned how to demolish this old wall of fear."
The reason, according to Salamey, is that the people no longer merely regard themselves as citizens of isolated countries, but now see themselves as belonging to the greater global community. The days when such countries could be sealed off while their regimes massacred the population are over. This has given the people the power to emancipate themselves. It will therefore be difficult for Arab regimes to return to business as usual, stresses Salamey.
The military unwilling to prop up rulers
The greater the violence that dictators employ against the demonstrators, the more determined they are in their protest. The formula used by autocrats until now to protect their regimes no longer seems to work. People in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, and other Arab states have overcome their fears.
In addition, a large section of the military is no longer prepared to shed the blood of their countrymen in order to defend decaying regimes. One of the reasons for this is that protests have not been aimed against the military per se, stresses Paul Salem from the Carnegie Foundation for International Peace.
The protests are instead directed against the political leadership and their entourage. "As such, the army has been confronted with a decision – it doesn't have to fight against the people to save itself, but solely to ensure the survival of the leader."
The soldiers were not prepared to make such a sacrifice. Another contributing factor, says Salam, might be that even the soldiers knew how corrupt the regime was and that only a small circle of insiders has profited from this corruption. Certainly not the simple soldiers. On the contrary, they share the concerns and misery of society, of which they are a part.
The role of the West and the media
The political scientist Salamey also points to the fact that in an uncertain political landscape, it is important for the military to maintain its respected standing in the country and as an institution. "The soldiers don't want to be isolated, either in their own country or globally. This would endanger their own survival."
The case of Bahrain has shown what can happen when the West expresses its disapproval of the army being deployed against demonstrators. After the army had fired on civilians, Britain and France immediately froze their military support. Washington admonished its ally King Hamad, insisting that violent suppression of the protests was unacceptable. Since then, Bahrainis have been able to peacefully express their opinions.
This transformation in the Arab world has been aided by the modern media. Images and news of deserting soldiers and those celebrating their liberation from the yoke of suppression have been transmitted to the most remote corners of the Arab world.
Satellite television, the Internet, and social media such as Facebook and Twitter have provided comprehensive and almost immediately accessible documentation of events. This has helped to unite people and break through the wall of fear.
The collapse of police states
The attempt to end demonstrations for democracy and more rights through the use of force has proved to be an outmoded method that no longer functions. Paul Salem goes one step further. "This is not only the collapse of a model of military deterrence, it is the collapse of the complete system of Arab autocratic police states."
It has ceased to work in any respect, whether politically or economically, or in terms of the generational conflict, in which the elderly generation of rulers stands opposed to the country's dynamic youth. Yet, it remains to be seen what new model Arab republics will choose to replace this violence prone gerontocracy.
Birgit Kaspar
© Deutsche Welle/Qantara.de 2011
Translated from the German by John Bergeron
Editor: Arian Fariborz/Qantara.de
Uprising in Libya
This Is Their Revolution
The number of Libyans injured and killed will continue to rise – Colonel Gaddafi is not a man who gives up. Despite this the West must not use military intervention, which would only put the legitimacy of the protests at risk. Tomas Avenarius comments
Unrest in the Arab World
The Battle for Bahrain
The uprising in Manama differs from the recent mass protests that toppled long-time rulers in North Africa. In his essay, Barak Barfi expresses the opinion that sectarianism and the security forces' complete loyalty to the monarchy seriously diminishes the likelihood of peaceful regime change in Bahrain
Political Upheaval in Egypt
The Mubarak System without Mubarak
Mubarak may be gone, but the remaining elites will try to use his structural and political heritage to suit themselves, ensuring that Egypt's road to democracy will be a difficult and open-ended one. By Thomas Demmelhuber
Uprisings in the Arab World
The anger of the Tunisians and the Egyptians towards the autocratic regimes in their countries has triggered an unprecedented revolt in several states in the Arab world. Our dossier provides an insight into the factors that led to the unrest and an overview of current developments


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Sam Phillips had slapback at Sun, and Capitol Records built large reverb rooms into the basement of their Hollywood studios, which can be heard to great effect by Speedy West, who joins Hank Thompson on "Waiting In The Lobby Of Your Heart." In this song Hank describes the painful wait that sometimes a man must endure, not knowing whether he's here nor there, or where he should be - suffering an existential mind-fuck, or maybe just lost in space.
Download: "Waiting In The Lobby Of Your Heart" mp3
by Hank Thompson and His Brazos Valley Boys, 1952.
available on All-Time Greatest Hits
"I'm Waiting For The Day" mp3
by The Reigning Sound, 2001.
available on Break Up Break Down
"Tired of Waiting For You" mp3
by The Kinks, 1965.
available on BBC Sessions 1964-1977
"Crying, Hoping, Waiting," mp3
by Buddy Holly, 1959.
available on The Buddy Holly Collection
"Waiting In Vain" mp3.
by Bob Marley and the Wailers, 1977.
available on Exodus.
Photo: Butte, Montana 1994. © Ted Barron


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LOS ANGELES – Indiana State helped No. 13 UCLA christen its newly renovated arena in a nod to the late John Wooden, who coached both programs during his storied career.
Jordan Adams scored 21 points in his college debut and the Bruins won 86-59 on Friday night in both teams' season opener played a short time after UCLA learned star recruit Shabazz Muhammad was ruled ineligible by the NCAA.
Justin Gant led the Sycamores (0-1) with 11 points, including scoring the first points in the renovated building on a 3-pointer.
"It's a pretty cool thing to do," he said. "It's a great honor to John Wooden. It was a great experience to be a part of that."
Indiana State was chosen as the first opponent because the Terre Haute, Ind., school is the only university besides UCLA where Wooden coached. He spent two seasons at what was then called Indiana State Teacher's College, posting a 44-15 record from 1946-48. Wooden then left for Los Angeles, and began coaching the Bruins in 1948. He led UCLA to 10 NCAA championships, including a record seven straight, during his 27 years in Westwood.
"I'm glad we made this trip," Sycamores coach Greg Lansing said. "It was an unbelievable atmosphere."
Adams, the school's first-ever signee out of vaunted Oak Hill Academy in Virginia, was 7 of 12 from the floor and had eight rebounds off the bench for the Bruins (1-0). Travis Wear added 17 points and his twin brother David Wear had 13 points and 10 rebounds.
The long-awaited decision about Muhammad overshadowed the first game in new Pauley Pavilion, which opened after an 18-month, $132 million renovation. He watched the game from the bench dressed in a blue UCLA sweat suit along with a crowd of 13,513 — 287 short of a sellout.
In the closing minutes, fans chanted "Free Shabazz."
Both teams shot poorly to start the game, combining to miss their first eight shots. Eventually, the Bruins settled down and ran off eight straight points late in the half to lead 36-27 at the break.
Adams came on strong in the second half, hitting two 3-pointers and another basket that stretched UCLA's lead to 56-36 midway through the half. His 21 points were the most by a freshman since Reeves Nelson, kicked off the team last season after multiple suspensions, had the same amount on Dec. 27, 2009.
The Sycamores cut their deficit to 63-52 on a 16-7 run, including two 3-pointers by Lucas Eitel and another by Khristian Smith, with 7:25 remaining. Manny Arop added 10 points for Indiana State, which hasn't won a season opener on the road since 1970 against Purdue, a streak of 14 losses in openers.
The Wear twins combined to run off nine straight points and extend the Bruins' lead to 72-55 as they ended the game on a 23-7 run.
Shortly before the game, UCLA athletic director Dan Guerrero said the NCAA had ruled Muhammad ineligible for violating amateurism rules. The NCAA gave no timetable for Muhammad's ineligibility and Guerrero said only that he is "ineligible at this time."
"We are extremely disappointed that the NCAA has made this determination," Guerrero said, adding that UCLA believes "the decision is incorrect and unjust to Shabazz."
He said the school will pursue its options to challenge the ruling.
The NCAA said that Muhammad accepted travel and lodging during three unofficial visits to two NCAA member schools. He chose UCLA over Kentucky and Duke last spring.
Muhammad tweeted, "Cool shirts some fans made and will wear tonight if I don't play in the game!!!!" Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea played the national anthem wearing a "Free Shabazz Muhammad" T-shirt, a sentiment echoed on signs held up by fans.
Former Bruins stars Reggie Miller, Marques Johnson, Ed O'Bannon, Rod Foster, Don McLean and Lucius Allen, who scored the first points when Pauley opened in 1965, were introduced in a pre-game ceremony. A video highlighted historic moments in the arena's history with comments from Wooden.


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Abstract Examples Article Annotations
Verb Phrase Ellipsis (VPE) has been studied in great depth in theoretical linguistics, but empirical studies of VPE are rare. We extend the few previous corpus studies with an annotated corpus of VPE in all 25 sections of the Wall Street Journal corpus (WSJ) distributed with the Penn Treebank. We annotated the raw files using a stand-off annotation scheme that codes the auxiliary verb triggering the elided verb phrase, the start and end of antecedent, the syntactic type of antecedent (VP, TV, NP, PP or AP), and the type of syntactic pattern between the source and target clauses of the VPE and its antecedent. We found 487 instances of VPE (including predicative ellipsis, antecedent-contained deletion, comparative constructions, and pseudo-gapping) plus 67 cases of related phenomena such as do so anaphora. Our annotation is theory neutral, and has better coverage than earlier efforts that relied on automatic methods, e.g. simply searching the parsed version of the Penn Treebank for empty VP's achieves a high precision (0.95) but low recall (0.58) when compared with our manual annotation. The distribution of VPE source-target patterns deviates highly from the standard examples found in the theoretical linguistics literature on VPE, once more underlining the value of corpus studies. The resulting corpus will be useful for studying VPE phenomena as well as for evaluating natural language processing systems equipped with ellipsis resolution algorithms, and we propose evaluation measures for VPE detection and VPE antecedent selection. The stand-off annotation is freely available for research purposes.


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Michael DiSanto breaks down Saturday's UFC RIO main event between Anderson Silva and Yushin Okami...
Georges St-Pierre is the face of mixed martial arts. We all know that, thanks to his Under Armour and Gatorade endorsements. He is also one of the most gifted fighters in the world. He would be the unquestioned king of the sport, pound for pound, but for one man.
Nicknamed "The Spider," Silva is the UFC Middleweight Champion. But his accomplishments go far beyond that.
Nobody in the history of the promotion has started his career with more consecutive wins (13) than Silva. He is the longest reigning champion in UFC history across all weight classes—1,778 days by the time he steps into the Octagon on Saturday night. During that time, he has amassed more successful consecutive title defenses (8) than any champion in UFC history.
In fact, when Silva steps into the cage on Saturday night to defend his title for the ninth time, it will mark the 2,045th day since he last tasted defeat. The night will be a historic one because it marks the first time in the Zuffa era that the UFC will hold an event in the motherland of the sport, Silva's native Brazil. The champion will be extra motivated because this will be his first opportunity to perform live in front of his countrymen in nearly eight years.
Of course, there is another motivating factor for Silva that far outweighs the location of the event. The last man to defeat him….wait for it….is his UFC RIO opponent, Yushin Okami. Silva may not admit it, but that loss has to burn white hot in his core. Not only because Okami has a win on his record over the champion. Also because it was, in Silva's mind at least, a very questionable loss.
Let's take a trip down memory lane for a minute.
January 20, 2006. Blaisdell Arena in Honolulu, Hawaii. B.J. Penn's older brother, J.D., arranged a 175-pound tournament outside of the UFC for some of the very best fighters in the world. Silva and Okami met in the opening round. It was a fight that most expected Silva to win, though he certainly had not yet developed into the seemingly unbeatable monster that he is today.
Silva obviously did not win. At 2:33 of the opening round, Silva delivered an upkick from his guard to Okami's face. It would have been a legal kick, except for the fact that Okami had both knees on the ground. That made it an illegal kick to the head of a downed opponent.
Okami was visibly shaken by the blow. He was given time to recover from the foul and continue with the fight. Yet, when he informed the referee that he was unable to continue due to the blow, the Japanese fighter was awarded the win via disqualification.
It was a bout decided by a technicality. In Silva's mind, Okami quit. He took the easy way out. In Okami's mind, Silva cheated, and his cheating ways impaired his ability to continue at peak levels.
Whatever really happened, all will be made well on Saturday night, because these two gifted fighters will do battle once again. This time, Silva's 185-pound championship will be on the line, as will his standing as the king of the sport.
No, Okami won't be viewed as the single best fighter in the world, if he wins. He will be the new ruler of the 185-pound division. GSP will instead take Silva's place at the peak of MMA supremacy.
In other words, there is a lot riding on the outcome of UFC RIO.
What makes this fight even more interesting from the fans' perspective, is the fact that Silva's biggest weakness just so happens to be Okami's biggest strength—wrestling. And that could be enough to decide the fight. It almost decided the outcome of Silva's toughest UFC fight today.
Back on August 7, 2010, Silva defended his championship against decorated former amateur wrestler Chael Sonnen. The fight lasted 23 minutes and 10 seconds. The champion was getting his rear end handed to him for nearly 23 full minutes. He was hopelessly behind on all the judge's cards with two minutes remaining in the fight, after being taken down and pounded on for basically every minute of the fight leading up to that point.
Sonnen then made a mistake. He got sloppy with his ground-and-pound attack, over extending his punches while allowing the champion to move his hips high on his chest. That opened the door for a triangle choke, and in the blink of an eye, Silva turned what seemed to be certain defeat into the most exciting win of his UFC career.
Silva was unable to defend any of Okami's takedowns on that fateful night. Afterward, the world learned that Silva suffered injured ribs heading into the fight, which arguably contributed to his inability to keep the fight standing. Sonnen scoffs at that notion, pointing instead to the champion's lack of elite takedown defense as the culprit.
Okami certainly hopes that Sonnen's assessment of that night is accurate, especially since he has been training with the world-class contender in Oregon for this bout. If so, he stands a very good chance of scoring a massive upset victory.
Okami is the definition of a grinder. He is a wrestling-based fighter with limited submissions, but excellent top control and effective ground and pound. He also happens to be a very big, strong middleweight, overpowering most opponents whenever the fight moves to the clinch.
What Okami does not do effectively is shoot for takedowns from the outside. He instead prefers to execute judo-style throws from the clinch. That could pose a problem—more on that in a bit—but Okami needs to do whatever he can to get this fight to the ground. He needs risk everything to put the champion on his back early in each round and then do whatever it takes to keep him there. Why? Because that is the only way he can win the fight, outside of landing a proverbial lottery-winning strike.
Silva is a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt under the Nogueira brothers, so he is far from out of his comfort zone if the action hits the ground—not by a long shot. Nonetheless, he does not want to find himself in that position. Sonnen's Achilles' heel throughout his career has been his submission defense, which is a direct result of his over aggressiveness on the ground. That Achilles' heel led to his defeat.
Okami, by contrast, has never been submitted. Not once in 32 professional fights. Thus, Silva should view winning from his back as a distant Plan C.
The keys to victory, therefore, are very straightforward for each man. Silva must aggressively counter on the feet and use good lateral movement to try and keep Okami from cutting off the cage and tying him up. If he finds himself nearing a clinch, go ahead and attack in traditional Muay Thai fashion by doing what he does better than any man in the UFC—grabbing the back of Okami's neck and bombing knees to the body and chin. Okami may not have a demonstrable weakness for submissions, but he has no answer for Silva's Thai attack in the clinch. I'm certain of that one.
If the champion finds himself on the ground, he should utilize his tremendously long legs to lock up a body triangle. That position will largely stalemate Okami's ground and pound attack, while allowing the champion to squeeze some of the conditioning out of his foe.
Note, however, that a body triangle is only a temporary answer. Silva cannot win the fight from that position because submissions are almost impossible from that position. Once he Okami under control, he needs to open his guard and stand up.
Despite Okami's penchant for ground and pound, he has never shown the ability to submit a high-level opponent with his jiu-jitsu skills. It is highly unlikely that Silva will be the first to fall prey to an armbar, triangle choke, or God forbid, a gogoplata. So, there is no real risk for Silva opening his guard and working feverishly to get back to his feet in order to avoid losing round after round on the cards by fighting from his back.
As mentioned, Okami has but a single key to victory: takedowns. He knows that he cannot out strike Silva. Sure, any man can score an improbable knockout. It is equally true that Silva knocks out Okami 99 out of 100 times, if the two engage in a standup-only fight. Actually, it might be 999 out of 1,000.
In order to maximize the odds of scoring a takedown, Okami should slowly try to walk Silva to the cage. Remember that Silva greatly prefers to counter. If Okami cautiously approaches with his hands held high, Silva will bide his time while retreating or circling. Once Silva is anywhere near the cage, Okami should throw caution to the wind and close the distance with unabashed aggression.
Granted, he may get his lights turned out during that charge, but do you have a better idea for getting Silva to the ground? Approaching behind strikes is a bad idea. Silva will destroy him in that scenario. The better approach is to feint while rushing in. Silva's traditional reaction to every aggressive lunge forward is to take a step backward and then fire. If he steps backward into the cage, it will cause him to hesitate, even if only briefly, as his mind processes the change in the environment and recalculates how to counter. Okami must take advantage of that hesitation by finishing executing a takedown or throw by any means necessary.
Just like in the Sonnen matchup, this is Silva's fight to lose. He is the rightful betting favorite. Okami is a serviceable boxer, but he will be severely risking his personal safety each time he presses forward for a takedown. That is a terrifying thought for a guy whose best chance of winning is by scoring multiple takedowns.
Anderson Silva
• 36 years old
• 6'2, 185 lbs
• 77-inch reach
• 30-4 overall (13-0 UFC)
• 13 consecutive UFC wins is most in history
• 11 UFC wins inside the distance (8 by KO/TKO and 3 by submission)
• 6 of those 11 wins were in the first round
• Hasn't lost since January 20, 2006 (DQ loss to Yushin Okami outside of UFC)
• 9-0 in championship fights
• 9 championship wins ties for the most all-time
• 8 successful consecutive defenses is the most in UFC history
• Current layoff is 203 days
• Longest layoff of UFC career is 245 days
• Submission of the Night twice
• Knockout of the Night three times
• Fight of the Night three times
Yushin Okami
• 30 years old
• 6'2, 185 lbs
• 72-inch reach
• 27-5 professional record (10-2 UFC)
• 4-1 in his last 5 bouts
• 8-2 in his last 10 bouts
• Riding a 3-fight winning streak
• 1-1 in official title eliminators
• 1-1 against current or former champions
• First UFC title fight
• Current layoff is 287 days
• Longest career layoff is 301 days
• No UFC post-fight award bonuses
Jamahal Hill Talks UFC 300 Main Event
Hall Of Fame


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SACRAMENTO (AP) — Danilo Gallinari celebrated a contract extension by scoring 21 of his 23 points in the first half and the Denver Nuggets routed the Sacramento Kings 122-93 on Wednesday night for their fifth straight victory and fifth in a row on the road.
Denver led by 23 points at the half and scored the first eight points of the third quarter. They have won five consecutive road wins for the first time since joining the NBA in 1976-77.
The Nuggets, who have the second-best record in the Western Conference at 13-5, signed Gallinari to a four-year, $42 million contract extension earlier in the day.
Nene had 16 points for Denver, 7-3 on the road. Andre Miller added 15 points and 10 assists, Corey Brewer also had 15 points, Ty Lawson 11, and Al Harrington 10.
Rookie Jimmer Fredette scored 19 points for the Kings, who never got the lead under 20 points in the second half. DeMarcus Cousins had 17 points and 15 rebounds, Isaiah Thomas scored 16 points, and Tyreke Evans had 12 and seven assists.
They had an NBA-high 92 points in the paint and only three of their first 41 baskets were outside that area. The Kings also allowed the previous points-in-the-paint high this season, giving up 72 in a Jan. 3 loss to the Memphis Grizzlies.
With Carmelo Anthony now playing with the New York Knicks, the Nuggets envision the 23-year-old Gallinari becoming the face of the franchise. And Gallinari responded by playing like an All-Star in the opening half.
He made 7 of 10 shots, hit all seven free throws, and blocked two shots in 21 minutes.
Denver shot nearly 60 percent and had its running game on display in assuming a 66-43 halftime lead. The Nuggets scored off the break and got numerous easy opportunities inside, their 46 points in the paint more than the Kings had overall.
Ahead by six points after one quarter, the Nuggets outscored Sacramento 34-17 in the second. Denver bothered the youthful Kings at the defensive end and capitalized at the other end. Gallinari scored 14 points and Harrington had eight in the quarter.
Despite the big halftime lead, the Nuggets experienced no letdown in the third quarter. The lead reached in the third when Denver continued its torrid shooting and outscored sluggish Sacramento 28-22.
Earlier in the day, the Kings announced that leading scorer Marcus Thornton is expected to miss one or two weeks with a deep bruise in his left thigh. Thornton, who is averaging 16.4 points, was replaced in the starting lineup by Fredette.
The struggling Kings, who are the NBA's youngest team, were coming off a pair of road losses, including a humbling 128-95 loss on Saturday to Memphis. The Kings are 4-8 under Keith Smart, who replaced fired Paul Westphal seven games into the season.
NOTES: The Nuggets also signed backup center Kosta Koufos to a three-year, $9 million contract extension. Kings forward Chuck Hayes, who has missed 11 straight games with a dislocated left shoulder, might return to the active roster Saturday against Utah. Denver played its second straight game without starting guard Arron Afflalo, who is out with a right groin injury. ... Mild-mannered and sitting on the bench for much of the first half, Nuggets coach George Karl still managed to pick up a technical foul late in the second quarter with his team ahead by 21 points.


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Thursday 23 October 2008
Fried Rice
The only drawback to making fried rice, is the need to plan ahead because it is really best if the rice has time to cool for at least a few hours, preferably overnight, in the fridge. But once that is done, the recipe comes together quickly. I can do it in about 30 minutes, complete with chopping all the vegetables, which is pretty quick for me. This is a great way to use up leftover rice.
I usually use sweet chilli sauce in fried rice, but having thrown out an unloved bottle recently, I am reluctant to buy more. So I decided to buy some ketjap manis which is an Indonesian sweet soy sauce. I was curious to see if they sell gluten free versions but got distracted when surfing the net to see that there are recipes to make it using soy sauce and sugar plus flavourings such as lemon grass, garlic and star anise or ginger, coriander and molasses. Sounds like a possible future project for me. And it sounds like it can be gluten free -for those of us who are curious or need to know!
Ketjap manis gave enough sweetness – and so it ought if my bottle has as much sugar as the recipes I have seen online for the sauce. I also added a bit of pineapple juice because I had it. The second night it didn't taste quite as good and when I remembered to add the rice vinegar it really did make a difference. Other vinegars or lemon juice could be substituted if you don't have rice vinegar.
The vegetables I used are seasonal, so any combination of vegetables can be used. I did take delight from the wonderful colours which you can see in the photos. I love tinned pineapple in fried rice but also like some sort of protein – on the first night I served it with chopped fried egg, the next night was cashews, and I would love to try it with some smoked tofu.
I am sending this dish to Srivalli at Cooking for All Seasons for her Rice Mela (deadline 30 November). She is asking bloggers for any dish with rice as the main ingredient.
Fried rice with vegetables, pineapple and cashews
Serves 2-3
½ cup basmati rice, uncooked
1 tbsp canola oil
1 red onion, cut into thin crescents
1 carrot, peeled and finely chopped
1 bunch asparagus, trimmed (about 250g)
1 handful sugar snap peas, trimmed
Kernels of 1 corn cob
½ capsicum
5 or 6 button mushrooms
1 garlic clove
⅓ cup chopped tinned pineapple, drained
1 tbsp ketjap manis
1-2 tbsp tamari
1 tbsp rice vinegar
1 tbsp pineapple juice
⅓ cup cashews, roughly chopped
Cook the rice as you normally would and cool at least a few hours prior to making the fried rice (preferable the night before). It should make about 1 – 1½ cups of cooked rice but exact quantities aren't important if using up leftover rice.
Heat oil over medium-high heat in a wok or very large frypan (I used my huge heavy bottomed non-stick frypan). Fry the onion and carrot for about 4-6 minutes til soft. Meanwhile prepare remaining vegetables by chopping into small dice and finely slicing garlic.
Add asparagus, peas, corn, capsicum, mushrooms and garlic. Fry about 4 minutes til vegetables starting to soften. Add remaining ingredients and fry another 2 minutes. Serve hot.
On the stereo:
Spook Party – Various Artists
4 comments:
That reminds me I have an untouched bottle of ketjap manis to experiment with. Next time I make fried rice, I'll give it a go.
I tend to make fried rice if I have any cooked rice leftover, usually just for myself for lunch and find its easy to make in a nonstick frypan (I go for ginger, garlic, spring onions, shitake mushrooms, a little other veg and just flavour with tamari at the very end).
My mum did teach me one handy trick (like you - I've dumped the ham though). The rice needs to be really dry, so she'd spread it on a baking tray and let it dry out in the oven at low heat.thanks AOF - I like the idea of drying out the rice like that - this fried rice was definitely not as dry as I think it should be
thanks Lysy - my ketjap manis is a cheap supermarket bottle but not as thick and flavoured as the recipes suggested so I would like to try other versions of it - definintely worth a try for somethig different
thanks Srivalli - will look forward to the round up
Thanks for dropping by. I love hearing from you. Please share your thoughts and questions. Annoyingly the spammers are bombarding me so I have turned on the pesky captcha code (refresh to find an easy one if you don't like the first one)


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It's Christmas break here at the Kill Zone blog. During our 2-week hiatus, we'll be spending time with our families and friends, and celebrating all the traditions that make this time of year so wonderful. We sincerely thank you for visiting our blog and contributing to our rants and raves. We wish you a truly blessed holiday season and a prosperous New Year. From Michelle, John G, John M, Clare, Kathryn and Joe to all our friends and visitors, Seasons Greeting from the Kill Zone blog.
See you back here on Sunday, January 4.


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Several new Docker tools are out there: Docker Machine, Docker Swarm, and Docker Compose. They come from Docker Inc. itself, which has has the advantage of being designed by the same folks who developed the Docker container.
But they also risk shutting down the growing community of third-party Docker tools, as developers might not want to risk the Docker Inc. mothership becoming a competitor later.
The new Docker tools from Docker Inc.
Docker Machine provides developers and system administrators the ability to both provision and host infrastructure, then install the engine. Docker Machine supports Amazon Web Services EC2, Google Cloud Platform, IBM SoftLayer, Microsoft Azure, and a few others.
Docker Swarm provides clustering, scheduling, and integration capabilities. This tool enables developers to build and ship multicontainer/multihost distributed applications for the necessary scaling and management for container-based systems.
Docker Compose simplifies the work for Docker developers, allowing them to create multicontainer implementations using declarative YAML files, which can then define the containers comprising an application, providing orchestration capabilities so they can be bound together to form distributed applications.
The third-party Docker tools that Docker Inc. now competes with
As someone who defines Docker-based solutions for enterprise clients, I don't have issues with the tools themselves. But they are redundant with tools in the market. Here are two examples:
- Google's Kubernetes is an open source container cluster manager much like Docker Swarm. Kubernetes can schedule any number of container replicas across a group of node instances.
- Cloudify provides a Docker orchestration tool that overlaps with Docker Compose. Its YAML-based blueprints let developers describe complex topologies, including the infrastructure, middleware tier, and app layers.
Which tools should you use? The ones provided by the Docker Inc. mothership? Or those from other providers?
I would like to see Docker Inc. focus on making the container standard and architecture the best they can be. After all, it has only finite resources available.
I would like to see it leave alone such items as container management, orchestration, and scaling to third-party providers. Those other companies should not have to worry about investing in the Docker ecosystem only to have the carpet yanked out from under them by Docker Inc.
If Docker Inc. sticks to Docker itself, everyone will be better off -- trust me.
Join the CIO Australia group on LinkedIn. The group is open to CIOs, IT Directors, COOs, CTOs and senior IT managers.


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Chapter XVII.—Of the Harmony of the Four Evangelists in Their Notices of the Draught of Vinegar.
54. Matthew proceeds in the following terms: "Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour." 1436 The same fact is attested by two others of the evangelists. 1437 Luke adds, however, a statement of the cause of the darkness, namely, that "the sun was darkened." Again, Matthew continues thus: "And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani! that is to say, My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me? And some of them that stood there, when they heard that, said, This man calleth for Elias." 1438 Marks agreement with this is almost complete, so far as regards the words, and not only almost, but altogether complete, so far as the sense is concerned. Matthew next makes this statement: "And straightway one of them ran, and took a sponge, and filled it with vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave Him to drink." 1439 Mark presents it in a similar form: "And one ran, and filled a sponge full of vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave Him to drink, saying, Let alone; let us see whether Elias will come to take Him down." 1440 Matthew, however, has represented these words about Elias to have been spoken, not by the person who offered the sponge with the vinegar, but by the rest. For his version runs thus: "But the rest said, Let be; let us see whether Elias will come to save Him;" 1441 —from which, therefore, we infer that both the man specially referred to and the others who were there expressed themselves in these terms. Luke, again, has introduced this notice of the vinegar previous to his report of the robbers insolence. He gives it thus: "And the soldiers also mocked Him, coming to Him, and offering Him vinegar, and saying, If thou be the King of the Jews, save thyself." 1442 It has been Lukes purpose to embrace in one statement what was done and what was said by the soldiers. And we ought to feel no difficulty in the circumstance that he has not said explicitly that it was "one" of them who offered the vinegar. For, adopting a method of expression which we have discussed above, 1443 he has simply put the plural number for the singular. 1444 Moreover, John has also given us an account of the vinegar, where he says: "After this, Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said, I thirst. Now there was set a vessel full of vinegar: and they filled a sponge with vinegar, and put it upon hyssop, and put it to His mouth." 1445 But although the said John thus informs us that Jesus said "I thirst," and also mentions that there was a vessel full of vinegar there, while the other evangelists leave these things unspecified, there is nothing to marvel at in this.
Luke 23:36, 37.
204:1443 204:1444[This act of the soldiers was probably distinct from the giving of the vinegar referred to by the other evangelist; it belongs to the time when all were mocking the Crucified One.—R.]
204:1445John 19:28, 29.
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Architects: TYIN Tegnestue
- Year: 2009
Text description provided by the architects. TYIN tegnestue is a non-profit organization working humanitarian through architecture. TYIN is run by five architect students from NTNU and the projects are financed by more than 60 Norwegian companies, as well as private contributions.
Through the course of the last year TYIN has worked with planning and constructing small scale projects in Thailand. We aim to build strategic projects that can improve the lives for people in difficult situations. Through extensive collaboration with locals, and mutual learning, we hope that our projects can have an impact beyond the physical structures.The new bathhouse covers basic needs like toilets, personal hygiene and laundry. A simple structure was already built and became the framework for the project.
Project Description
The most intimate functions are located in the two separate parts of plastered concrete blocks. In the central area you find a space for bathing that opens up towards the vast teak plantation. The bathing area is only partly privatized, adapted to Karen culture. A tilted facade of bamboo covers the front of the building and creates a passage, tying the functions together.
A great challenge in this project is that sewage and drainage had to be dealt with on-site and handle large amounts of water during the rainy season. The waste from the toilets passes through pipes into buried. Concrete tanks that are drained from the bottom and sides. Gravel and wooden floors are easy to keep clean and dry, and all wet rooms are drained by using layers of stone and gravel.
The existing sanitary facilities at Safe Haven Orphanage, as well in the district in general, are narrow, dark and have concrete flooring that accumulates water and dirt. With this bathhouse we have tried alternative solutions that hopefully will be an important asset in the future development in the district. The climate of northern Thailand makes good personal hygiene essential to prevent diseases, especially for small children. With this bathhouse TYIN wanted to create well functioning and dignified facility for personal hygiene.


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Fairly well known among Geneva cyclists is some version of the 10 Col Vallée Verte loop. Of course real (wo)men start from Geneva, whereas I started at the bottom of the first climb.
In order: Cols: Saxel, Ludran, Perret, Avernaz (Plaine Joux), Jambaz, Terramont, Feu, Arces, Moises, & Cou.
To be clear, by no means does the loop in the map below completely climb each Col – or try to climb the hardest side of a given col. Starting at the base of Col de Saxel the routing is designed to get to the summit of each climb as directly as possible. Just some silly fun.
It was roughly 80 kilometres with 2100 metres ascent. One could easily construct a far harder version of the same challenge.
The Vallée Verte is just south of Lake Geneva (Lac Léman) in Haute Savoie France. Part of the Chablais Alps, it's full of quiet roads and loads of small to medium climbs. The entire route ranged from quiet to very quiet.
For more routes in the Vallée Verte see here.


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Multiple sclerosis symptoms in animals with the disease were drastically reduced by the sexual dysfunction drug Viagra, researchers in Spain say.
The study, published in Acta Neuropathologica, showed a practically complete recovery occurred in 50 percent of the animals after eight days of treatment of the drug normally used in the treatment of erectile dysfunction.
Drs. Agustina Garci and Juan Hidalgo of the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona studied the effects of a treatment using sildenafil -- sold under the brand name Viagra -- in an animal model of multiple sclerosis.
If given shortly after disease onset, the scientists say they observed the drug reduced the infiltration of inflammatory cells into the white matter of the spinal cord, reducing damage to the nerve cell's axon and facilitating myelin repair.
Multiple sclerosis is caused by the loss of myelin sheaths around the axons -- a long, slender projection of a nerve cell that conducts electrical impulses away from the neuron's cell body -- affecting the ability of neurons to communicate and neurodegeneration in different areas of the central nervous system. There is currently no cure for the disease, but some drugs help fighting symptoms, the researchers say.
Source: UPI


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The Colorado Department of Agriculture has established an emergency quarantine in and around Boulder County including parts of southern Larimer, western Weld and northern Jefferson Counties (see quarantine map) related to the recent discovery of the Emerald Ash Borer (EAB). The quarantine is effective immediately. Boulder County is working with the Colorado Department of Agriculture, the City of Boulder, and other affected entities to address the quarantine and plan for the potential impacts of the EAB in Boulder County.
The emergency quarantine prohibits the sale and/or movement of all plants and plant parts of the genus Fraxinus, including but not limited to:• Logs and green lumber• Nursery stock, scion wood, and bud wood• Chips and mulch, either composted or uncomposted• Stumps, roots and branches• Firewood of any non-coniferous (hardwood) species
Quarantined items may be transported within the quarantined area but may not be moved outside its borders without specific authorization from the Commissioner of Agriculture or the United States Department of Agriculture.
Quarantined items can be transported within the quarantined area to:• Denver Regional Landfill, 1441 Weld County Road 6, Erie• Front Range Landfill, 1830 Weld County Road 5, Erie• Republic Landfill, 8900 Colorado Highway 93, Golden
Residents participating in Boulder County operated flood-debris removal programs, including curbside debris collection do not have to take any special steps to maintain compliance with the quarantine. Debris collected by Boulder County is being treated and transported according to the requirements of the quarantine.
Any person violating this quarantine is subject to civil penalties up to $1000 per violation. The full text of the quarantine, including additional restrictions, can be found at www.EABcolorado.com.
If you think you have EAB in your ash trees, or if you have any questions or concerns, or would like additional information, please contact the CSU Extension in Longmont at 303-678-6238, email email@example.com or visit www.bouldercounty.org/property/forest/Pages/eab.aspx.


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Early pregnancy alcohol linked to heightened premature and small baby risk
Drinking alcohol during the first three months of pregnancy may heighten the risk of having a premature or unexpectedly small baby, suggests research published online in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.
In the UK the Department of Health recommends that pregnant women and those trying to conceive should not drink alcohol at all and no more than 1-2 units a week.
Middle class women were most likely to drink more than this, the study found.
The researchers base their findings on responses to food frequency questionnaires by 1264 women at low risk of birth complications in Leeds. All the women were part of the Caffeine and Reproductive Health (CARE) study, looking into links between diet and birth outcomes.
The mums to be were asked how often they drank alcohol, and what type it was, at four time points: in the four weeks before conception; and in each of the subsequent three months (trimesters) throughout the pregnancy.
Alcohol consumption was significantly higher before conception and in the first three months of pregnancy than in the subsequent two trimesters, averaging 11, 4, and just under two units a week, respectively.
Over half (53%) of the women drank more than the recommended maximum two weekly units during the first trimester. And almost four out of 10 said they drank more than 10 units a week in the period leading up to conception.
Those who drank more than two units a week were more likely to be older, educated to degree level, of white ethnicity, and more likely to live in affluent areas.
Some 13% of the babies born were underweight, and 4.4% were smaller than would be expected; a similar proportion (4.3%) were born prematurely.
Drinking during the first three months of pregnancy was most strongly linked to these outcomes.
Women who drank more than the recommended two weekly units were twice as likely to give birth to an unexpectedly small or premature baby than women who abstained completely.
But even women who didn't exceed the maximum recommended alcohol intake during this period were still at increased risk of a premature birth, even after taking account of other influential factors.
Drinking during the period leading up to conception was also linked to a higher risk of restricted fetal growth, indicating that this may also be a critical period, suggest the authors.
"Our results highlight the need for endorsing the abstinence-only message, and further illuminate how timing of exposure is important in the association of alcohol with birth outcomes, with the first trimester being the most vulnerable period," they write.
More information: Maternal alcohol intake prior to and during pregnancy and risk of adverse birth outcomes: evidence from a British cohort, Online First, DOI: 10.1136/jech-2013-202934


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i have a big problem. yesterday i tried to run my wireless lan with wpa-psk. after a search through the forum and wiki i finally get it to work.
today i tried wifi-radar. but it cannot connect, i think because of wpa-psk.
so i want to start my network via the network-deamon. but now there is an error: after /etc/rc.d/network start, i choose my profile and then:
:: Starting network profile: wlan_home [BUSY]
Failed to connect to wpa_supplicant - wpa_ctrl_open: No such file or directory
i reinstalled wpa_supplicant - same problem.
kernel: 184.108.40.206-2
wpa_supplicant: 0.4.7-2
lsmod | grep ipw
ipw2200 106156 0
ieee80211 31944 1 ipw2200
my wpa-config:
group=TKIP CCMP
#psk="..." <-- ASCII
my network-profile:
# Network Profile
DESCRIPTION="wireless-lan @home"
# Network Settings
# Interface Settings (use IFOPTS="dhcp" for DHCP)
# DNS Settings (optional)
# Wireless Settings (optional)
IWOPTS="mode managed essid $ESSID channel 6" #key restricted $KEY
#WIFI_INTERFACE=wlan0 # use this if you have a special wireless interface
# that is linked to the real $INTERFACE
#WIFI_WAIT=5 # seconds to wait for the wireless card to
# associate before bringing the interface up
USEWPA="yes" # start wpa_supplicant with the profile
# use "" for normal operation or specify additional
# options (eg, "-D ipw")
# see /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf for configuration
WPAOPTS="-ieth1 -Dwext -Bw -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf"
another problem was: with wpa-psk starting the network fails often. i had to restart it a few times. what is that?
plz help me...
thanks iggy
sorry for my bad english
Have you tired starting wpa_supplicant manually? Boot with out stating the network profile then use the info in the wiki to start it up manually. Turn on the debugging and see if you can get any information from it. If not post it up here and we'll try to figure it out.
plz help. i need a step by step description how to realize what you mean. i tried to start it manually but there a no error messages and wlan don't work.
here some lines out of my everything.log (frok inserting module up to start the network via "network start")
Feb 28 17:57:36 laptop ACPI: PCI interrupt for device 0000:01:04.0 disabled
Feb 28 17:57:36 laptop ieee80211_crypt: unregistered algorithm 'NULL'
Feb 28 17:57:37 laptop ieee80211_crypt: registered algorithm 'NULL'
Feb 28 17:57:37 laptop ieee80211: 802.11 data/management/control stack, git-1.1.7
Feb 28 17:57:37 laptop ieee80211: Copyright (C) 2004-2005 Intel Corporation <email@example.com>
Feb 28 17:57:37 laptop ipw2200: Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2200/2915 Network Driver, git-1.0.8
Feb 28 17:57:37 laptop ipw2200: Copyright(c) 2003-2005 Intel Corporation
Feb 28 17:57:37 laptop ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:01:04.0[A] -> GSI 18 (level, low) -> IRQ 18
Feb 28 17:57:37 laptop ipw2200: Detected Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG Network Connection
Feb 28 17:58:04 laptop eth1: NETDEV_TX_BUSY returned; driver should report queue full via ieee_device->is_queue_full.
Feb 28 17:58:15 laptop eth1: no IPv6 routers present
sorry for my bad english
Follow the steps here to start it manually:
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Wpa … e_Shooting
Though one thing I see right away is a problem with your WPAOPTS=. You only need to specify the proper driver here. The line in the script looks like this
wpa_supplicant -wB -i $WIFI_INTERFACE -c /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf $WPAOPTS
The script is able to figure out your interface name from the netowrk profiel. ($WIFI_INTERFACE = $INTERFACE unless you specify something difernt for WIFI_INTERFACE=). The -wB are hard coded because you will always want the program to wait for the interface and run in the background when its started from the initscritps. The path to the configuration file is hard coded because that is where it installs from the arch path and since it can handle multiple networks I saw no reason not to do it that way at the time.
I didn't notice that error the first time I looked at it. Trim your wapopts down to WPAOPTS="-Dwext" and give it a shot. The rest of the configs look good.
WPA with AES (ccmp) timeouts happen to me too sometimes. I increased wait time (a loop 10 x 2 sec. sleep -> 20 x 2 sec.) in the netcfg script.
So far so good but I'm still testing this.
@phydeaux: thank you! triming my wpaopts down worked. no more errors. i also changed the psk-option in the wpa_supplicant to the ascii-string, instead of the hex-string.
but the problem, that it sometimes connects and sometimes not (time out?) is still there.
thanks @all
mfg iggy
sorry for my bad english
Does changing /usr/bin/netcfg around the line no 124 from:
if [ $i -gt 10 ]; then
if [ $i -gt 20 ]; then
help you ? It seems to work for me but I need more time to be sure.
This is the wpa timeout part and sometimes during boot the standard value is not enough.
You can add before this line something like this:
wpa_cli status | grep "wpa_state"
to be sure that this is your problem too.
The code that tries to detect if wpa_supplicant connected etc is kind of a hack. I ripped it right from phracture's wireless scripts and wrote a patch to intergrate it into the arch network profiles when the profiles rolled out. He inturn had ripped it from another previous script iirc. Unfortunately wpa_supplicant keeps retrying if it fails to connect so it's very hard to determine if its failed or not with a script, since the retry looks exactly like the first try. The value I used was the original default and is about 2x as long as it takes my laptop to connect to my psk network. It worked fine for me and I had never heard compalints about it so I just left it be. From this post I'd bet it'd be a good idea to make the timeout value configurable from the network profile similar to what they did with wifiwait. I'll get to work on a new patch and submit it as a bug, lets hope they devs incorperate this one too. An easy way to tell if it is the timeout value is to start it manually. Since it won't be run from the script if.
By the way, just for the record the actuall time out time works out to be 24 seconds, 2 second inital wait, then 2 seconds aditional for each of 11 passes through the loop. Changing 10 to 20 brings the timeout up to 44 seconds. A value of 28 would make the wait 1 minute. I'll clean up the algorithm when I make it adjustable so you can actually specify the timeout in seconds.
Thanks for your work and for the explanation. This is how it looks when I add wpa_status check inside the loop:
/etc/rc.d/network restart
:: Shutting down interface: eth1 [DONE]
:: Stopping Network [DONE]
:: Starting network profile: wireless [BUSY]
:: Starting Network [DONE]
The standard timeout value works fine when I restart network from the CLI (99%). But during boot there is 50-60% chance that it will fail. It probably depends on the system configuration (loaded modules, daemons etc.), wireless router config (wpa2, G mode only etc.) and system load during boot. Assuming of course that my wireless profile is correct :-)
Patch and bug have been submitted as promised. The patch and more info can be found here: http://bugs.archlinux.org/task/4140
Tnx. I added my comment.
@Tech-Man: Why do you use "-Dwext" for your device as you have the ipw2200 card installed? I was thinking that "-Dipw" (or similar) would be the correct device?!
Maybe this is my problem then in my WPA-configuration...
-Dwext is correct for the ipw2200, took me some hours when i set up my wlan because i thought it would be -Diwp, too.
Yes, that was the mistake. I dont know why I thought it was ipw....ah, in the profile sample it says "ipw" so I thought...anyway, now it works.
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Every year hardware manufacturers release new iterations of their products. From Apple to Samsung to Nintendo, the upgrade treadmill never ends. So, why do we feel the need to buy into it every year? We'll show you why you get stuck on the upgrade treadmill, and how to be happy with what you have.
At Amazon's recent press conference for the new Kindle Fire, CEO Jeff Bezos calls the phenomonon of constant new gadgets the "upgrade treadmill:"
We don't need you to be on the upgrade treadmill. If we made our money when people bought the device, we'd be rolling out programs left and right to try to get you to upgrade. In fact, we're happy that people are still using Kindle Ones that are five years old. They're still reading on them, and every time they buy a book, that's good for us. That's alignment.
For Amazon, hardware doesn't really matter because they make their money from content. But Bezos' point still remains: that upgrade treadmill is something most of us are caught on. It's not just tablets, it's everything: game systems, phones, TVs, appliances—when a new shiny gadget comes, most of us turn into a precious-obsessed Gollum. Why do we do this? And more importantly, how can we get off the treadmill and enjoy what we already own?
Why We Feel the Need to Upgrade
Regardless of how much willpower we all have, most of us think briefly about an upgrade. According to financial weblog The Simple Dollar, this is at least partially because of the primacy and recency effect:
The primacy effect means that people tend to remember the first information presented about something better than information presented later.
For example, let's say that your first awareness of a product was during a segment on a morning show, where they lauded how well the product worked. If you were paying attention, that information is more likely to stick in your head ("this product is good and does the job well") than information you find out later on about the product.
However, there is something that trumps the primacy effect: the recency effect means that people tend to remember the most recent information presented about a product above all else.
What the Simple Dollar is saying is that we overvalue the new because it's the last thing presented to us. We tend to forget the old information (that the old product is also great) and supplement it with the new (that the new product is "more great"). We also want new things because the brain likes getting the rush. Psychology Today explains how:
First, a quick neuroscience lesson: The brain balances the desire for shiny new things with their cost. Observing something to buy activates the brain's "wanting system" that makes getting things feel good. But, the Rolling Stones reminded us that we can't always get what we want. The brain reacts to prices by activating brain regions that make us feel pain. The information from the wanting and pain systems are relayed to the prefrontal cortex where a cost-benefit calculation is made to determine if you should buy that new pair of Valentino slide sandals for $675 or keep your cash for some other use.
In a way, the cost-benefit calculation is supposed to keep your brain in check so you don't make an unneeded purchase. However, with the upgrade treadmill, and the hype that inevitably surrounds a new product, it's really easy to get caught up in it all and make a quick decision without thinking the decision through. Photo by David Fulmer.
Why Not Upgrade?
Holding that new shiny piece of equipment in your hand is a gadget geeks heaven, but it's a fleeting feeling. After a week, you might have even stopped using the protective case, quit dusting it everyday, and barely even notice all the fingerprints on it.
Nowadays, the bulk of upgrades are incremental. While sometimes an upgrade will really change the course of a device, more often it's a tiny sliver of a change that's only exciting because the manufacturer tells us it's exciting. The bulk of our technology hasn't changed that much in the last few years—a four year old HDTV is thick, but has the same amount of pixels as a new one, an iPhone 4 is still a fantastic phone capable of running the same apps the new iPhone 5 can.
In most cases (not all, of course), an upgrade is a luxury, but not a requirement. More often than not, what you have will do the trick. Photo by Collin Anderson.
Make the Most of What You Have
Just because a company releases a new product it doesn't mean your old stuff is outdated. In fact, as we've shown time and time again, you can get most new features on the devices you already have using already available software. Sure, your hardware might not be new, but your old stuff can perform nearly all the same functions as a new one can.
For instance, a cheap camera can get an upgrade with a little hacking, and a Nook can become an Android tablet. Even your computer is easy to upgrade if you know which upgrades really matter. If your laptop is just sluggish, an extreme makeover takes no time at all. Photo by Mark Skipper.
Compare and Contrast What You Already Have with What You Want
It sounds simple, but a quick comparison chart between what you already own, and what you want is a really easy way to get rid of the recency effect.
Before you start your comparison chart, take a look at the device you're thinking about upgrading. Ask yourself how you use it. I'll give you the example of me and my iPad: 90% of my time with my iPad is spent reading Kindle books. Should I upgrade to another iPad? Probably not, since it isn't going to read those Kindle books any better than my current one (if anything, it'd make more sense to "downgrade" to a Kindle—but of course that'd still cost money). How you think you'll use a product when you first purchase it is often radically different than how you actually use it when it's in your hands. Before blindly upgrading, ask yourself, "Have my needs changed? Does this upgrade fill that hole?"
When you're really on the fence about an upgrade, or just need to talk yourself out of one, start writing a list. In one column, write what you don't like about your old device. In the next column, write down what the upgrade has fixed. More often than not you'll realize it's not really worth it.
Of course, that's not always the case. For instance, upgrading appliances can often save you money over the long term. Other times, minor upgrades, like a significantly better battery life, or screen, or whatever else, are enough to justify an upgrade for you personally. The point is that you think critically about upgrading as opposed to just doing it because you can. Photo by Zhao !.
Break Your Brand Loyalty and Decide What You Really Need
We've talked about brand loyalty before, and it's an important factor to consider anytime you're thinking about upgrading. More often than not, the first inclination to upgrade is all about the recency effect. A company you tend to like has a new product, you need said product. Part of the upgrade treadmill is getting locked into brand loyalty, blindly upgrading and refusing to look for other options. But do you really need their product? Or will another do?
Take Apple for example. The reason they keep their iPhones and iPads locked to iTunes isn't just about controlling the product. It's about controlling the infrastructure. To walk away from an iPhone you have to abandon everything you've already invested in it. This makes an upgrade to another one of their devices feel like the logical solution.
Or at least, that's how it seems. With the exception of apps, walking away from Apple (or Android, or anything else) is made to seem complicated. But it's often not as bad as we think. Provided you're using third party services (any apps that sync to the cloud, Kindle, etc), you can almost always migrate your data easily. Even switching from an iPhone to an Android isn't that bad (or vice versa). Photo by Mike Lau.
The upgrade treadmill isn't always a bad thing. Some devices and gadgets get major upgrades that appeal to you directly. Others are less interesting. The point is to stop and really think about what you need. Just because hardware manufacturers are on a schedule for upgrades doesn't mean their upgrades are worth making. If your gear is still working for you, don't let a company tell you when it's time to upgrade.
Title image remixed from Diamond_Images (Shutterstock).


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'Devil's Bargain' introduces us to Jazz Callender as she sits in a seedy bar, getting lost to the bottom of a bottle. Jazz is an ex-cop at the end of her tether – two years ago her partner and best friend, Ben McCarthy, was convicted and imprisoned for murder. Ever since she's been running a half-assed investigation trying to free him. While sitting in this seedy bar she is approached by a lawyer named James Borden, who represents firm 'Gabriel, Pike & Laskins'. This firm has a proposition for Jazz – she get's $100,000 to start up her own Private Investigations firm if she agrees to be partnered with ex-FBI/CIA agent Lucia Garza and the two of them agree to take on the firm's priority cases, to be delivered in a red envelope.
As the story progresses, it is revealed that Gabriel, Pike & Laskins are funding Jazz and Lucia's PI firm through 'The Cross Society' – and more specifically one man called Max Simms who is currently imprisoned for serial murder. Simms isn't your typical con though – Max Simms claims that he can predict the future. From his holding cell he feeds his predictions through James Borden, who delivers them to Lucia and Jazz who in turn are making catastrophic changes to the universe by altering the cause of events.
It's not as good as Caine's other series. I can't quite put my finger on it, but 'Red Letter Days' definitely falls short.
Maybe it's the vague genre. 'Morganville Vampires' and 'Weather Warden' are both firmly Urban Fantasy – and while 'Red Letter Days' does have elements of the supernatural with its psychic storyline, the crime mystery elements kind of outweigh the paranormal, leaving the books in a strange genre limbo.
'Devil's Bargain' is told from Jazz's perspective. 'Devil's Due' from Lucia's. The narration change is a little jarring, but as the story progresses in 'Due' you realize a change-up in narration was integral to plot pace.
One trademark in all of Caine's series is a strong romantic element. In all of her series Caine likes to pair her leading ladies up with their soul mates, and 'Red Letter Days' is no different. Jazz's leading man is lawyer James Borden. Lucia's honey is Ben McCarthy, Jazz's ex police partner who was wrongly convicted of murder.
I didn't really feel the heat between James Borden and Jazz. There's lots of lingering looks and naked speculation, but their romance didn't spark the same way Caine's other couples have – James & Jazz didn't have the same chemistry as Claire & Shane (Morganville Vampires) or Jo & David (Weather Warden). I did like Jazz – she reminded me a little bit of Veronica Mars; a snarky Alpha-female. I preferred Jazz to Lucia (who is a statuesque Latina goddess) and while the narration switch aided plot pace, I would have preferred sticking with Jazz.
I felt a little more heat between Lucia & Ben, but they have added intensity by the fact that Ben's been in prison for 2 years and is a little… eager. Despite that, their relationship is a bit awkward because Jazz & Ben also share a special bond – and there are hints of jealousy.
I was especially disappointed by the romance in both books because I expected some steamy scenes, judging by the publishers. 'Silhouette Bombshell' published the books, which was a Harlequin line with the MO of featuring strong heroines in action-packed storylines. Because 'Silhouette' was a Harlequin faction I thought romance and steaminess were guaranteed – not the case, unfortunately.
The plot in 'Devils Bargain' takes a while to pick up the pace. It's not until halfway through the book that Jazz and Lucia discover the revelation that they are working for a psychic and carrying out his chaos-theory predictions.
The 'Red Letter Days' series also falls short because it feels incomplete. The psychic storyline definitely has a feel of longevity to it, and the series probably would have improved the deeper Caine explored the conspiracy theories. But unfortunately Harlequin's 'Silhouette Bombshell' line was discontinued in 2007. Meaning the series, and Caine's rights, died along with the book franchise.
I really wanted to love this series. I am a huge Rachel Caine fan; I adore her 'Weather Warden' and 'Morganville Vampires' series, and assumed that 'Red Letter Days' was guaranteed to please. 'Red Letter Days' has all the elements I enjoy; a mix of paranormal and mystery. However it just didn't click for me. I was probably ranking it too harshly against 'Morganville Vampires' and 'Weather Warden', but how could I not?
Even if you're a die-hard Caine fan, I probably wouldn't recommend you bother with this series. It's definitely not on-par with her other books, and the fact that the series was cut-short by the publisher's liquidation means you'll be reading a 'work in progress' that will never be completed.


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Gregg Allman has canceled all of his scheduled tour dates for the year.
The 69-year-old rocker posted Monday on his website that "it has been determined that Gregg will not be touring in 2017." In November, Allman said he was taking several months off from touring so he can "focus on his health," but still had plans to tour.
The new statement said that fans who bought tickets for concerts in June should "contact the ticket outlet from where you purchased the tickets for a refund."
More details about why Allman has canceled all of his 2017 shows were not available. He has faced multiple health issues, including contracting hepatitis C and having a 2010 liver transplant.
According to Rolling Stones health issues in recent years have prevented Allman from touring at full capacity.
In August 2016, Allman revealed that unspecified "serious health issues" would force him to cancel 28 appearances including some festival gigs.
He returned to the stage in late October for a pair of shows at his own Laid Back Festival in Atlanta, but his winter tour, which included New Year's gigs in Savannah, was postponed due to a vocal injury that required several months of recovery.
U.S. & World
Born December 8th, 1947 in Nashville, TN, a little more than a year after his older brother Duane, Allman was raised by single mother as the family moved to Daytona Beach in 1959.
According to Greggallman.com Allman was a successful 2010 liver transplant recipient. He also accrued a remarkable list of honors over his five decade career, including the ABB's 1995 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and 2012 Lifetime Achievement Award at the 54th Annual GRAMMY® Awards as well as his own 2006 induction to the Georgia Music Hall of Fame.


text:
Episode 104 – The Gauntlet
Magician or thief? Glory faces 'The Gauntlet' – a test of her magical abilities against the wiles of a disgruntled thief.
by Hugh J O'Donnell
Find his Podcast at: Way of the Buffalo
This story is also available within the eBook collection of Freelance Hunters stories called "Glory's Gauntlet and Other Tales":
Direct Download


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Svx2vdb news
All items from May 2015
5 May 2015 : New page for svx2vdb #
The svx2vdb tool now has its own page with screenshots and everything. Looking back, I'm not certain it warranted its own page, but it's done now.
2 May 2015 : svx2vdb added #
The svx2vdb tool has now been added to the Linux software page. It's still very early code, but seems to work on the files I've tried so far.


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Family across B.C. is fighting to bring their cousin, daughter and sister home from Croatia, with her two children.
Sue Gauvin is currently stranded in the European country, where she moved with her husband (who is Croatian). She is desperate to get back to B.C., specifically to Kelowna where her 81-year-old mother lives.
"Sue has been living outside of Canada with her family for over 10 years, but recent events have put her in an impossible situation," said Sue's cousin Valerie Gauvin, of Terrace. "Her husband has lost his business due to events beyond his control; they are about to lose their home and the stress of the situation has made it impossible for her and her children to stay there with her soon to be estranged husband. Sue was not able to get citizenship due to a requirement to speak Croatian and cannot get any help from the embassy or the government to get home."
The Gauvin family has started a GoFundMe page, aiming to raise enough funds to bring Sue and her two children, Adriana, 18, and Sam, 13, back to Canada.
"We are desperate to help her and her children get back home with family and re-establish herself and her family in Canada," said Valerie.
To date, less than $3,000 of the $14,000 needed has been raised for three one-way tickets back to Canada, plus rent, food and clothing for the first month until she is able to get employment. To help out, visit https://www.gofundme.com/f/4rapj-bring-our-family-home?utm_source=customer&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet.
"Things have become desperate for my cousin Sue, she is officially homeless this Friday if we don't get her on a flight," said Val. "Then she will have no way of communicating as all our communication has been online."
Sue was hoping to get the kids back to Canada in time to start school Sept. 3.
Sue grew up in Surrey but lived in various locations around the province.
READ MORE: GoFundMe campaign raises $16,000 overnight for new Kelowna mother
READ MORE: Funds pour in for Vancouver Island man who fell ill while on Okanagan vacation
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Raleigh Mobile Diesel Truck Repair
Mobile diesel truck repair experts of Raleigh, NC!
Diesel engine repairs can be complex and require precision work. That's why, if you're in the Raleigh area and your truck needs a diesel engine repair, it's important to choose a shop that has experience working on diesels. At Raleigh Mobile Diesel Truck Repair, we have years of experience repairing diesel engines of all shapes and sizes. We have the experience to repair diesel engines quickly and accurately so you can get on the road again as soon as possible. Call us today to make an appointment!
Raleigh (; RAH-lee) is the capital of the state of North Carolina and the seat of Wake County in the United States. It is the second-most populous city in North Carolina, after Charlotte, tenth-most populous city in the Southeast, 41st-most populous city in the U.S., and the largest city of the Research Triangle metro area. Raleigh is known as the "City of Oaks" for its many oak trees, which line the streets in the heart of the city. The city covers a land area of 147.6 square miles (382 km2). The U.S. Census Bureau counted the city's population as 474,069 in 2020.
Autumn Hill, Battery Heights, Bloomsbury, Boylan Heights, Budleigh, Cameron Park, Cameron Village, Chastain, Chelsea, College Park, Crosstowne, East Raleigh, Glenwood South, Granite Ridge, Grove Park


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The FIA entry list states "Mercedes GP Petronas F1 Team"elf341 wrote:Also, isn't the team called "Mercedes AMG", not "Mercedes F1"?
No it will be all new. So pessimistic already!diego1960 wrote:Just don't get your hopes high. I know I won't, certainly not after 3 whole seasons of lame excuses and PR talk from Ross and Norby. This time I hope actions speak and not words.
For the moment however, taking in mind how disappointing 2012 was, we should hope to be above Torro Rosso, FI and Caterham and from then build on to something better. Especially if the rules are the same, I expect cars to be evolved versions of ther 2012 predecessors, so Mercedes starts one step behind (yet again).
What I fear most however is that Lewis is slowly starting to realize his mistake. If the project fails in the next 3 years we will wave goodbye to the rebadged BAR Hondas.