text:
The Victorian Government has launched a Technology Student Accelerator Voucher initiative which intends to make small and medium-sized companies more competitive locally and globally by matching them with students studying ICT at university.
The initiative is one component of the three that make up the Government's $8 million Technology Voucher program, which was developed to drive the use of cutting-edge technology and support Victorian companies.
In addition to pairing, nine SMEs received vouchers worth up to $10,000 to develop ICT solutions. The companies include: Scientific Technology, Ad Hoc Software, Senath, English Online, Adilam Technologies, Evado, Lexer, Billcap, and b2cloud.
RMIT University, Swinburne University of Technology, University of Ballarat, and University of Melbourne will partner with these businesses in the first round of the program.
"The vouchers give Victorian SMEs access to the relevant technology skills and expertise needed to develop innovative products," Technology Minister, Gordon Rich-Phillips, said. "ICT university students and academics from Victorian universities will collaborate with these companies to deliver tangible and practical ICT solutions."
Students will be putting their learning into practice through projects ranging from the development of real-time digital content delivery mechanisms for mass communication, to testing of frequencies for bulk reading of radio frequency identification (RFID) tags.


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SMF - Just Installed!
Well... I guess a mother is GENERALLY closer to the children (particularly when the kids are younger) and thus will keep them in better contact with her parents than the father's. There are differences, certainly, but I can't imagine I'd get hung up if Evelyn decided to never have kids and I had boys who did.

subset: commoncrawl


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1972 India
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1971 India
In 2020, the United States Postal Service issued a set of 10 new Forever stamps picturing some of Bugs' most iconic costumes. Add these popular stamps to your collection now!
Save time and money with this year-set. You'll receive every major Scott number issued in 2019 – including the Priority and Express Mail stamps – in one order. It's the easy way to keep your collection up to date.
This fun mixture of U.S. stamps is made up of completely random years, and will contain both used stamps on and off paper. It is packaged by weight, and you will get a full 1/2 lb of stamps to sort through and identify- hours of fun at your kitchen table!


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By Deb Stanley, Examiner.com
Thousands of people come from around the country each year to climb Colorado's 14ers. A "14er" is a peak above 14,000 feet.
Depending on who you ask, you'll be told there are 52, 53, 54, maybe 56 14ers in Colorado. 14ers.org recognizes 54 peaks. 14ers.com counts 53. 14ers.com Web site says to be officially ranked as 14er, "the peak must rise at least 300 feet above the saddle that connects it to the nearest 14er peak."
So what do you need to climb a 14er? The two main categories would be fitness and gear.
Let's talk about fitness first. While some people fly in from New York, Washington D.C., New Orleans and many other places and climb a 14er the next day, you should give yourself at least a couple days to get acclimated to the elevation in Colorado. Consider a hike at 10,000 feet in Rocky Mountain National Park or in Colorado's high country to see how you feel. If you get a headache or nausea, it is time to descend. And while you may run 5K's at sea level, hiking at 14,000 feet is very different.
Now let's talk about gear. You'll see people climbing 14ers in shorts, a cotton t-shirt, a hoodie and a single bottom of water. Bad idea. Cotton absorbs water and doesn't dry quickly. Storms are a normal day on a mountain, you don't want to be soaking wet and cold. The temperature is also a lot colder at 14,000 feet than your hotel room in Denver. 14ers.org has a good gear list that includes rugged boots for the rocks and possible ice and snow, and extra food and water since 14er hikes typically take longer than expected. Here's another gear list from 14er.com that includes a list of cold weather gear. Think you won't see ice or snow since it's summer? There was more than 6 inches of snow in places on Grays & Torreys the first weekend in August in 2009.
Maybe the best advice is to remember is there is no such thing as a easy 14er. The Summit County Rescue group says in just one week in July 2009 they were called out four times. Rescue teams say that's because people read Quandary is one of Colorado's easiest 14ers and underestimate how difficult it will be.
When you're ready to climb, here are two good Web sites with information about climbing the 14er peaks: 14ers.org peak's page & 14ers.com peaks page. Want to bag two 14ers in one hike? Try Grays & Torreys.


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Abstractions For Binary Search, Part 9: What Do We Need to Test?
Last week, we wrote a
linear_search function that is intended to yield the same results as our
binary_search function whenever we present these two functions with identical, valid input. However, it is not good enough simply to call these two functions with a bunch of test cases and verify that they produce the same result.
This claim is controversial enough that it bears repeating: Verifying that a program's output is correct is not enough to test it thoroughly.
Where is the controversy? It comes from confusing the idea of a test case working correctly with the idea of a program producing correct output. The trouble is that it is possible for a program to produce what is apparently correct output, even though it is doing so entirely by coincidence.
For example, consider the expression
i+j+k, where
j, and
k all have type
int. This expression is defined as being equivalent to
(i+j)+k, by the normal precedence rules. Now let's consider what happens if
k is negative, and
i and
j have large enough values that
i+j overflows. In both C and C++, the result of a (signed) integer overflow is undefined: The implementation is entitled to do as it pleases. Most implementations do not check for overflow, so as long as the infinite-precision result of this expression is within bounds for an
int, the result will be the same as if we had written
i+(j+k). However, in such cases and on such implementations, writing the expression as
i+(j+k) would be correct even though the incorrect expression
i+j+k would yield the same result. This example should be enough to show that it is possible for an incorrect program to produce correct output.
The fact that incorrect programs can produce correct output greatly complicates the notion of test-driven development. Wikipedia defines test-driven development, in part, as
First the developer writes an (initially failing) automated test case that defines a desired improvement or new function, then produces the minimum amount of code to pass that test, and finally refactors the new code to acceptable standards.
You can see the attraction of this approach: It forces developers to think about the essential behavior of what they're trying to develop, and to capture that behavior in a way that can be verified automatically. However, behavior is not all that matters. For example, our overflow example might cause a program to fail if we tried to move it to a different implementation, or even if a future version of our local implementation started checking for overflow. Array indices out of bounds can be even a more serious problem: It is entirely possible for a program to appear to produce correct results, but to have a side effect of disrupting memory used by an unrelated program. As a result, it behooves us to test for array bounds errors, even if they do not produce obviously incorrect behavior. In fact, we might argue that testing for such errors is especially important if they do not produce obviously incorrect behavior.
With these ideas in mind, let's look again at our binary-search code:
size_t binary_search(T x, const T* array, size_t n) { size_t begin = 0, end = n; // Invariant: This function will eventually return a value in the range [begin, end] while (begin != end) { size_t mid = (begin + end) / 2; if (array[mid] < x) { begin = mid + 1; } else { end = mid; } } return begin; // Or return end, because begin == end }
What claims might we want to test about this code that will not generally be reflected in its behavior? The first notion that the foregoing discussion brings to mind is that inside the loop body,
begin and
mid should both be valid array indices, and
end should be an array index or
n. Moreover,
mid must be in the range
[begin, end). We know that none of these variables is ever negative, because
size_t is an unsigned type. Therefore, we can augment the first few lines of the loop by writing something such as
while (begin != end) { assert (begin < end && begin < n && end <= n); size_t mid = (begin + end) / 2; assert (begin <= mid && mid < end); if (array[mid] < x) { // …
What about the computation of
mid? As we saw with our
i+j+k example, it is possible for integer arithmetic to overflow. Indeed, as one reader pointed out, it is entirely possible that
begin + end might overflow, even though computing
(begin + end) / 2 might appear to yield a correct result. What's particularly interesting about this specific error is that if we were using classes, rather than integers, to implement our indices, this problem might not occur. If our index class supported only the random-access iterator operations, the problem would show up during compilation, because the result of adding two random-access iterators is not defined. With this observation, we see that we should have written
size_t mid = (begin + end) / 2;
size_t mid = begin + (end – begin) / 2;
all along, because although the sum of two random-access iterators is not well defined, the difference is.
So far, then, we have found three changes that we can make to our binary-search function to ensure that it is operating correctly from an internal viewpoint: two assert statements and one change that we could find only through a generally suspicious attitude toward arithmetic. Each of these changes detects problems for which there is no guarantee that they would ever be visible from outside the function. They are good examples of why white-box testing is rarely enough by itself — in other words, of why it is not enough to verify that a program behaves correctly. Next week, we shall continue building our tests.


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Federer dispatched Spain's Tommy Robredo in straight sets on Tuesday lunchtime, with compatriot Wawrinka accounting for Feliciano Lopez in similar fashion.
Swiss grass master Federer booked his 12th Wimbledon quarter-final with a commanding 6-1 6-4 6-4 victory over Robredo, avenging his 2013 US Open defeat to the world number 22.
The 32-year-old admitted he would put his feet up to watch Switzerland take on Lionel Messi and company in second-round World Cup action in Brazil.
"It would be quite amazing to play Stan in the quarter-finals here too, that would be something for Switzerland that's for sure," said Federer.
"It's nice having the national football team doing well now as well, I'm definitely going to watch the game.
"It feels great to be closer to the finish line than the start.
"All the things that need to be happening to go deep in this tournament are happening.
"The important thing is what's happening on the court, not what the press or anyone else is saying.
"It's about really being focused out there, I'm able to do that, and I'm healthy.
"It's only the quarter-finals, though, and that's where the tournament really starts ultimately."
Australian Open champion Wawrinka powered past 19th seed Lopez 7-6 (7/5) 7-6 (9/7) 6-3, admitting winning the first tie-break was crucial to his victory.
The fifth seed hailed lining up a quarter-final against compatriot Federer, especially on the same day Switzerland face a World Cup acid test.
"It's going to be fun, I hope, on grass at Wimbledon, it's going to be something special," said Wawrinka of the last-eight clash with Federer.
"I'm happy with how I'm playing so far. It's going to be tough after two matches in two days, but I'll do everything I can to be ready.
"It was a tense match, playing against him (Lopez) on grass is tough.
"Winning the first tie-break was important as there was a lot of tension out there.
"There was a bit of tension out there between us, but that's just because you both want to win so much.
"I was trying to be really aggressive, serve strong and come to the net."
Canada's Milos Raonic exploited his serve advantage to see off Kei Nishikori in four sets and book his second successive grand slam quarter-final appearance.
The 23-year-old eighth seed blasted 35 aces en route to a 4-6 6-1 7-6 (7/4) 6-3 victory over his Japanese opponent.
Raonic's reward for dispatching the 10th seed is a quarter-final clash with the winner of the fourth-round battle between Rafael Nadal and Nick Kyrgios.


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Price is the final debate to be had over ebooks. I really do have a great deal of sympathy with those readers who resent the notion of having to pay a second time for an electronic version of a book which they've already bought in hard copy. I wouldn't want to do that myself, no matter how much I might prefer the convenience of having all my favourite titles to hand on an ereader when I'm travelling. The sooner the publishing industry takes heed from recent initiatives in music and video products and starts bundling electronic versions or a licence to get one with the physical product, the better.
Where I don't have much sympathy is when I've heard people muttering that it's somehow reprehensible/selfish/greedy for authors to profit putting from their backlist into ebook when they've already been paid for the original publication and hey, the books are still in the shops, so they're still earning their cut that way. Why aren't the ebooks free? Since they should be, why not find a free download?
As with so much in life, I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that.
Personally, one reason I'm epublishing my backlist is to try and recover some of the losses I've sustained over the past five years as hard copy sales of my early series have fallen off a cliff. Not only for me and not because people have stopped enjoying our books. Because these days, backlist titles by the majority of authors are simply not in the shops for a browsing reader to find and buy.
That was always a crucial element of the traditional publishing model; the way in which writers acquire new readers and any writer constantly needs to attract new readers because no series of books keeps all the people happy all of the time. Online retailing is simply not the same; it's great when you know what you're looking for but no amount of 'other customers also bought' and 'look inside' features replicate that browsing experience.
But some years ago, publishers stopped sending backlist books to shops on a sale or return basis, hoping to reduce both their costs and losses in an increasingly hostile economy. Booksellers responded by no longer stocking backlists, using their shelf space and promotions tables instead for the frontlist and best-seller titles, piling them high and selling them at a punishing discount for all concerned, hoping to retain some of the market share which the supermarkets were taking away.
And of course, there are far fewer bookshops for people actually go and browse in, especially after the demise of Borders. The cumulative effect of this for me and many other writers has been a significant loss of income. The past few years of financial turmoil have also had a significant impact on the foreign rights markets, where translation deals for midlist books are now increasingly hard to come by, once more reducing authorial incomes by noteworthy amounts.
Don't mistake me. This isn't whining or special pleading. The world doesn't owe me or any other writer a living. This is just the way things are now. So if writers are to be able to afford to continue writing, we need to adapt. One such strategy is making money through epublishing backlist titles. That means not selling our titles for stupidly low prices, purely for the egoboost of being 'An Amazon Top-100 Seller!'. At 99 cents a copy, that's not such a big deal. Remember what I said about 100% of not-very-much still being not-very-much.
It's also not in anyone's interests to see the ebook price become fixed at an unsustainably low level. Apart from those shareholders in Amazon who don't actually care about books or indeed any of their other product lines but who are only interested in gaining market share through predatory pricing, looking to cash out and retire with no great concern about the decline of a healthy market economy.
But I'm not interested in those people. I'm concerned about books and readers' interests, since I was a reader before I was ever a writer and I'll continue being a reader whatever the ups and downs of my writing career.
We're in a period of transition and just at the moment, yes, it can reasonably be said that most of the income is profit for a publisher putting out an ebook for a backlist title that has long since earned out its advance. All the up-front costs, the author's initial advance, the editing, copy-editing, proofing and production have been covered. Well, yes, and that would be the same for paper editions of that book, less the ongoing expense of printing and shipping the physical books. This is how publishing has always worked, with the publisher bearing those initial costs and hoping that enough of their titles earn out that advance payment and head into significant profit to cover those titles which don't.
Bear in mind that most books take years to turn a profit, including in all likelihood titles here and there by a good many of your favourite authors, especially if your tastes are for writing somewhere off to either side of the mainstream bell curve. It's the mega-sellers at the central peak of that bell curve which bring in the bulk of the revenue which gives the publishers the leeway to allow their editors to cut a writer some slack if a particular title hits the market at a really bad time or some other factor entirely beyond their control affects sales.
Why is this relevant to ebook pricing? Because books are books are books, whether you're reading them by way of pixels, paperbacks or hand-illuminated parchment. There are up-front costs in producing them. Beyond the core of established best-sellers, there are no guarantees that the publishers will make their money back. If you as a reader want to continue to see a broad range of books for all tastes, well-edited, accurately proof-read and competently produced for ereaders and other platforms, the ebook price needs to become fixed at a point where doing all those things remains economically viable for publishers. Then publishers can support a broad midlist, where those writers who will emerge as future best-sellers learn their craft and build their readership through word of mouth recommendation, in person and online.
Ah but, I've heard it said, market forces will see best-sellers naturally emerge from the brave new world of independent epublishing, free of the dead hand of the past. Really? Like the Fifty Shades of Grey books? I have no opinion on the literary merits or otherwise of those particular titles because I have no intention of reading them, having no interest in that particular genre. I have no interest in quite a few things that are tremendously popular. I have never watched any of the X-Factor type talent shows or 'reality' TV (beyond a very few historical re-enactment things). Cookery, home-makeover or real-life-struggle programmes bore me rigid. I'd rather read a good book.
I have friends and family who love some or all of the above TV shows and that's fine; I don't pass any moral judgement on them, any more than they do on me for watching the SF and crime series which they would loathe. Fortunately there is still a sufficiently broad range of viewing for us all to enjoy the telly. As a reader I want to live in a world with a similarly broad choice of reading, where publishing professionals can offer me books to my taste, rather than being faced with a narrowing selection of titles determined by mob rule.
This is not to say that things should just stay the same, with ebooks simply priced like paperbacks. Not when the publisher is most definitely making a saving on warehousing, transportation and the other costs associated with physical books. The reader should see that reflected in the new economic model – and speaking personally, I'd like to see the authors' share of revenues adjusted upwards as well.
Ebooks also offer publishers potential for using pricing intelligently to everyone's advantage, their own as well as the readers', with special offers, introductory discounts and so on. Although as some independent authors have already discovered, the dumb automated price-matching algorithms used by the likes of Amazon can cost them dearly, literally. An author offering an ebook directly at a lower cost, even temporarily, will see their Amazon prices cut, sometimes to zero, and it can take a long time for Amazon to put that price back up, if they ever do. As I said, Amazon are not interested in books. They're interested in market share.
Then there is the problem of pricing for different markets where purchasing power is very different. Let's not forget that half the world lives on less than $2.50 a day. That makes even a 99-cent ebook a non-trivial purchase. Especially if Amazon adds a surcharge for buying some ebooks depending on where the purchaser's credit card is registered – or simply refuses to sell the ebook to that particular customer in the first place. For more on this, do read Charles Tan's highly informative blog post
This used to be covered by the different rights and territories granted in publishing contracts, ensuring that publishers could set prices suited to local conditions and no one else could come in and undercut them. That worked reasonably well, at least from a First World Publisher point of view, when books were physical objects, and is still one of the arguments advanced for Digital Rights Management. Alas, that particular argument, and indeed that particular traditional publishing model, now only stands for as long as it takes for someone to crack a book's DRM and these days, that's measured in hours.
On the wider issues of DRM, incidentally, you cannot do better than read this post by Charles Stross (and the earlier post on Amazon which he references is well worth a read as well).
To return to the question of price, this becomes an area where questions of piracy definitely become complicated. I remain vehemently opposed to elooters – the likes of Pirate Bay who steal other people's intellectual property and offer it up solely to enrich themselves.
But what about people in the 3rd World for whom ebooks could be a game-changer in terms of the education and access to information that they so urgently need to improve their own conditions? I'm not talking about access to the latest crime or SF best-sellers. I'm talking about textbooks and academic papers and journals and the like. Isn't insisting that they pay American or Western European prices as morally indefensible as insisting they buy life-saving medicines at similarly unrealistic prices for local purchasing power? But a realistic price for a text book in West Africa or Indonesia would be an economically unsustainable price for that same product in the US or UK, if author and/or publisher are to stay in business.
As I say, it's complicated. I don't know what the answers are but answers need to be found, in everyone's interests, readers, writers and publishers alike – and a free-for-all is not the solution.
For the moment, thankfully, finding those answers is not down to me. What I need to decide is a realistic price for my own ebooks, to see me and my business partners rewarded for our work without gouging readers. Then it's up to the reader to choose whether or not to buy. In that sense, the unspoken contract between story teller and audience remains the same as it has always been.


text:
Good Bread: Il Buco Alimentari e Vineria
Stories about the loaves we love.
With his burly physique, shaved head, and cauliflower ears, Il Buco Alimentari e Vineria's head baker looks like the wrong kind of guy you'd want to meet down a back alley in Bordeaux. And you'd be right: as a youth in France, Kamel Saci was a professional judo champion. But in his basement bakery, a completely different side to his personality comes out. For Kamel, dough is not an opponent to be beaten into submission; it responds best to a minimum of handling, the gentler the better. The results show his techniques work. Il Buco's ovens produce some of the crustiest and most flavorsome artisan loaves in the city.
Kamel was raised in the small city of Vianne in France's southwest. From an early age, he showed an aptitude for judo, competing through high school and college. But then he broke his leg, ending his fighting career, so he had to find a job to keep paying for school. A temp agency sent him to an artisan bakery to sweep the floors. The boss needed an assistant baker; Kamel filled in and fell in love with the work. He moved to Paris to study the trade, working under the famous baker Eric Kayser, and then globe-hopped from London to Barcelona to Miami to Orlando. Last year, he was hired by Il Buco to make bread for its diners and for the retail trade. He says: "I try to make the best bread in New York every morning."
Il Buco's ciabatta reveals Kamel's aesthetic. Ciabatta means "slipper" in Italian, and in too many bakeries around town this loaf has degenerated into a pale, spongy, and flavorless sandwich roll. Kamel, on the other hand, bakes the darkest ciabattas in town. Tap the crust: it's hard, not soft as the Pillsbury Doughboy's stomach. That thick and crunchy crust encloses a crumb with a beautiful hole structure and a faintly sour and nutty flavor. It's made with just organic flour (like all Il Buco's breads), sea salt, and the Italian-style biga starter. Serious bread.
In his baguettes, Kamel demonstrates the art of balancing flavor and texture. This is a classic baguette with the crackling crust, but inside the crumb has a rich, wheat-y flavor. He achieves that flavor by mixing two parts biga with one part blended whole wheat and white flours. He also adds sea salt and a secret ingredient: cracked wheat that has been softened in water. Unlike most great baguettes, which only four or five hours after baking, this is a 12-hour baguette. Bought at breakfast, it will still be fresh at dinner.
That same baguette dough goes into Kamel's delicious lentil bread. First he cooks yellow lentils with onions and thyme until they're just soft on the outside and still hard at the inside. He mixes one part drained lentils with three parts dough and shapes the bread into a pointy loaf. The lentils don't add much flavor to crumb but do add a slight but pleasant crunch. So you get to enjoy the total package of crisp crust, crunchy crumb, and great whole wheat flavor.
Il Buco's two fruit-nut breads, both made with the baguette dough, are also worth a detour, particularly for breakfast. The fig-hazelnut is made from 10 percent dried figs and 10 percent roasted hazelnuts, while the walnut-raisin includes golden raisins and coarsely chopped toasted walnuts. Both are slightly moister, denser, and chewier than the baguette and absolutely delicious.
Kamel Saci's breads are available behind the retail counter at Il Buco Alimentari e Vineria.
Il Buco Alimentari e Vineria
53 Great Jones Street, New York NY 10012 (map)
All products linked here have been independently selected by our editors. We may earn a commission on purchases, as described in our affiliate policy.


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Solution Manual for Fundamental Managerial Accounting Concepts 7th Edition by Edmonds
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text: Focus to win with the world's only active noise cancellation for gaming and the driver-free ROG Spitfire USB audio processor Exclusive ROG Spitfire USB audio processor – driver-free hardware DSP (digital signal processor)7.1 virtual surround, headphone amplifier, and FPS EQ one-click gaming sound enhancement modesWorld's only active noise cancellation created specifically for gaming reduces 85% low frequency noise, especially from PC components30dB passive noise cancellation of high frequency environmental noise and human voiceNeodymium magnet drivers deliver crystal-clear directional audio detailUltra-soft cushions made from memory foam and breathable Japanese protein leather for long-lasting comfort Shop Modal header The Republic of Gamers is committed to helping you win more through superior audio power, precise positioning, and lifelike immersion ― the perfect aids for those critical online shooter moments. 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"Along with Blum's informative chapters, the captions for several hundred illustrations include interesting tidbits of their own, for example that in lieu of journeying to Paris for her fittings, Mae West send a plaster cast of her figure.Blum, Dilys E. is the author of 'Shocking The Art and Fashion of Elsa Schiaparelli' with ISBN 9780300100662 and ISBN 0300100663.[read more]
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text: District 9 scored last summer as a breakthrough sci-fi film that fused the mundane grit of a politically dysfunctional society with classic alien elements. Operating simultaneously as apartheid metaphor, personal drama and shoot-'em-up spectacle, the movie coalesced through an intensely creative collaborative process that was rife with trial and error. As documented in upcoming book The Art of District 9, Weta Workshop practiced the design equivalent of Method acting. Beyond crafting cool-looking effects, artisans working under the direction of Peter Jackson's go-to effects expert — The Lord of the Rings Oscar-winner Richard Taylor — embedded behavior and motivation into their freakish models of aliens, weapons and spaceships. That kind of baked-in realism has proven highly influential, with sci-fi pictures such as Gareth Edwards' extraterrestrials-in-Mexico movie Monsters and upcoming alien-invasion flick Battle: Los Angeles taking cues from District 9. Here's an exclusive look, taken from The Art of District 9, at concept art, maquettes and prototypes developed to flesh out director Neill Blomkamp's distinctive vision for his trend-setting movie. Above: The Art of District 9 Written by Weta Workshop designer Daniel Falconer, the 160-page, full-color book The Art of District 9 (priced at $45 in hardcover) will be released by HarperCollins on a staggered schedule (New Zealand in October, Australia in November and the United States and Britain in December). The book can also be ordered online for $35 from www.wetaNZ.comTentacles Everywhere From the outset, District 9 writer-director Neill Blomkamp established alien guidelines for the film, initially known only as "Project X." In The Art of District 9, author Daniel Falconer writes: "The creatures should have tentacled faces and hands, designed with practical creature-suit-wearing human performers in mind, distorting the recognizable human form wherever possible."Human Puppeteers Form followed function for District 9 designer Daniel Falconer. To deflect attention from the human puppeteers that would portray aliens, he said he "looked at hunching the shoulders and dropping the head. I also thought it would be interesting to give the aliens industrial-looking robotic stilts that would disguise the actor's legs."Prawn Sunglasses District 9 designer Christian Pearce decided the aliens, disparagingly called "prawns," might have sensitive skin or eyes. "They'd cover themselves with garbage bags, clothing, signs, hats, whatever they could find," Pearce says in The Art of District 9. "I also thought it would be funny if all try to wear sunglasses but of course they don't fit, so they break them and maybe tape them on."Ghetto Extraterrestrials "In the harsh slums we were referencing for the aliens' Earth environment, we saw that ... random pieces of clothing took on special meanings," District 9 designer Christian Pearce says.Alien Cockfight District 9 depicts cockfights that pit alien critters against each other. The creatures featured crustacean anatomy to demonstrate shared DNA with the alpha Prawns. Early iterations incorporated blades into the creatures' armature, but designer Christian Pearce and lead creature designer David Meng later replaced this concept in favor of a "nasty tail barb," according to Pearce.Cockfight Maquette Weta sculptor Don Brooker fabricated this District 9 maquette to model the personality of an alien cockfight combatant.From Tools to Guns Director Neil Blomkamp sketched out weaponry concept art for District 9 while sitting in a Los Angeles hotel room. He had originally conceived the items as "tools," he says, "but eventually the geekiness took over."The Gas Projector A design aesthetic emerged about a quarter way into production of District 9, as sharp angles and an orange/black/white color scheme took hold. Describing the Gas Projector weapon above, designer Greg Broadmore says: "It would have worked like a flamethrower except instead of firing an ignited jet of liquid or gel, it dispensed this very dense gas that had a fierce corrosive effect."Alien Assault Rifle Prop maker Callum Lingard crafted these District 9 assault rifles, which featured an actual recoil effect.Skyscraper Spaceship Weta Workshop boss Richard Taylor pitched the notion of a "vertical" ship as the home base for District 9 aliens. Director Neill Blomkamp liked the "floating skyscraper" idea and generated the illustrations above.Saucer in the Sky In the end, District 9 director Neill Blomkamp opted for a more traditional take on the Prawns' mothership. "Ultimately I thought there needed to be a basic sci-fi familiarity," he says in The Art of District 9. "The setting of South Africa was already weird enough, so I went back to the pure saucer shape that has defined alien arrivals since the 1930s."Insectoid Drop Ship British sci-fi series Space 1999 inspired designer Christian Pearce to devise this unfolding insectoid design for District 9's single-pilot Drop Ship. When District 9 designer Greg Broadmore took another shot at the prawns' ship, he included a "slave hold" and made sure the squared-off sides matched the aliens' weaponry and exosuits.Signs of the Times "I wanted the signage to have a certain wonkiness ... like something normal people without graphic sophistication would produce," says District 9 graphic designer Leri Greer.Historically Grounded Rhetoric To underscore the apartheid motif in his District 9 signage, designer Leri Greer researched the rhetoric used decades ago by the South African government. "Gauteng is the province in which Johannesburg sits," he says. "I lifted that (language) and put it straight into the anti-alien material. I literally looked up original apartheid signs from that era and deconstructed them, changing the designs to fit our alien situation."Alien Child This maquette served as model for District 9's Little CJ alien child.Follow us on Twitter: @hughhart and @theunderwire.See Also:Secrets of District 9's Grungy Alien RealismReview: Gritty Lead Performance Drives District 9's Alien VéritéXenophobia, Racism Drive Alien Relocation in District 9Photos: Weta Flashes Sci-Fi Guns at Comic-Con


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After years of enticing rumors, ambitious prognostications and flat-out blather, 2010 may finally be the year that the tablet PC evolves from being a niche device to becoming a mainstream portable computer.
The tipping point comes via word to Wired.com from a well-connected industry executive that mainstream heavyweights Dell and Intel are collaborating on a touchscreen tablet due for release next year. Though our source has learned little about specifications of the device, what's apparent is that the tablet will serve as a subscription-based e-reader for displaying newspapers, magazines and other media, giving Amazon's Kindle — particularly, the nearly $500 large-format DX model — a run for its money.
As notable as the format is the business model: The tablet will be free for consumers who opt into a contract subscribing to one or more digital media subscriptions, according to our source. That's similar to how telecom companies currently subsidize cellphones when customers agree to two-year contracts.
Our source, who requested to remain anonymous due to a non-disclosure agreement, said the companies are aiming to launch this product in about six months.
Dell and Intel are just the latest examples of a growing trend. MKM Partners analyst Tero Kuittinen said he, too, has heard rumors about not just Dell, but also handset makers Nokia and HTC delivering tablets by end of first quarter 2010. Nearly everyone has now confidently reported that Apple is launching a tablet by early next year. Singapore start-up Fusion Garage and TechCrunch are rushing to release the CrunchPad touchscreen tablet by this November.
Market research firm Display Search now projects the touchscreen market will triple in the next few years, from $3.6 billion to $9 billion.
"The iPhone was a big catalyst for the whole touchscreen industry, even if it's just from a 3.5-inch mobile phone," said Jennifer Halgrove, an analyst and director of display technologies with Display Search. "It encouraged people's imaginations, and now companies are saying, 'Oh, I can make a bigger one, and I can also have this user friendly interface.' That really opened this industry."
The idea of the tablet computer is nothing new to the tech industry. The development of tablet PCs can be traced as far back as 1888, when the United States Patent office granted a patent to electrical engineer Elisha Gray for an electrical-stylus device for capturing handwriting. In more recent years, plenty of hardware companies, such as Hewlett-Packard and Acer, have presented tablets that have only succeeded to fulfill a niche. Controlled with a stylus on a touch-sensitive "digitizer" screen, tablet PCs have traditionally been tailored toward artists and designers, failing to break into the mainstream.
But in recent years, costs of touchscreen components and software have been declining, and new types of touchscreens are emerging in the display market, Colegrove said. After stylus-controlled digitizer touchscreens came resistive touchscreens, which were very cheap to produce but suffered from low durability and poor transmittance. Then, a newer technology called capacitive touch became available, in which electrodes sense a user's fingers on the X and Y axes, negating the need for a stylus.
In 2007, Apple featured capacitive touch technology (which it marketed with the more friendly term "multitouch") in its iPhone and iPod Touch, which have sold 40 million units worldwide to date. Clearly, there is a mainstream audience for these keyboard-less computers, and Apple opened the doors with a superior user interface.
"The touch-based user interface is something we got from the handset market," Kuittinen said. "And now that you have this innovation, it's easier to go back to the tablet concept, and say, 'Wait a minute, let's add this.' All of a sudden the device is a lot more appealing and sexier, especially since you have multitouch."
A $0.00, media-centric tablet from Dell and Intel would certainly be competitive against Amazon's Kindle in terms of price. Who would buy an Amazon Kindle reader if a free tablet were made available? The Kindle 2 costs $300, and the large-format Kindle DX runs for $490 — and even after purchasing a Kindle, consumers must still pay for content.
At Amazon's Kindle DX launch event in May, The New York Times teased the idea of subsidizing longer term subscription commitments, but only in areas where "home delivery is not available." Still, no such subsidy model has yet come into fruition for Amazon's Kindles.
The idea of opting into a contract might initially sound like a turn-off, but Kuittinen told Wired.com that for cellphones, carrier-subsidy has been an extremely successful method to reel in customers. He said he would expect similar results with a subsidized tablet.
Kuittinen added that he has heard the Dell tablet would measure 5 inches — slightly larger than an iPhone but smaller than a Kindle. However, he said he is skeptical about Intel's involvement with the product. Given the nature of the company, Intel would provide the guts of the device — perhaps a low-powered processor such as the Atom, which is currently used in netbooks. Kuittinen said this processor is not adequately energy-efficient to power a tablet PC compared to the ARM-based chips used in iPhones and devices running Google Android.
"There's really no other viable alternative," he said. "Android has such a strong moment right now. It's going to be so much easier to develop for it."
The low cost of Intel's Atom chips would help keep the a rumored device's overall price down in order to make subsidy not too hefty for content providers involved. But the software would be the key ingredient to drive the success for this device, and an Intel-based machine would either have to run a Windows or Linux-based operating system.
A tablet produced by Dell and Intel would most likely run a mobile version of Windows 7. In presentations marketing Windows 7, Microsoft has been heavily promoting the upcoming operating system's support for multitouch. Windows 7 is slated for an October 2009 release.
The challenge for Dell and Intel is unlikely to be the creation of the product, but rather cementing negotiations with content partners. The companies will find it difficult convincing large newspaper companies to convert from being an advertisement-based business to a fee-based business. However, they might be more open to the idea if Dell and Intel keep their tablet at a low cost.
Intel and Dell declined to comment on this story.


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Truly versatile luxury cruising is available to more pontoon owners than ever before, thanks to the Cruiser Series. And the shining star is the Cruiser 250, a stunning contemporary pontoon that demonstrates bold styling, high-quality materials and innovative design at every turn, plus customizable floor plans and amenities to suit every lifestyle. The CS floor plan offers a bow walk-through, swim-deck access aft, two lavish bow lounges and a comfortable L-shaped lounge with large sun pad. The SL floor plan incorporates a single rear-facing lounge rather than the aft lounge, and the LX floor plan incorporates two bucket, basic, or Lux bow seats instead of bow lounges. Created specifically for serious anglers, the FS floor plan offers four fish seats, an aerated livewell, rod holders and a well-appointed rear workstation that conceals an optional pull-up changing room. With all of these floor plans, you'll enjoy plush thick-foam cushions, rich vinyl, plenty of convenient hidden storage, the latest technology in electronics and instrumentation, performance options and power choices that go up to a 200 hp Mercury Verado. Get ready to make memories on the water, and be prepared to do it in exceptional style.
The Company offers the details of this vessel in good faith but cannot guarantee or warrant the accuracy of this information nor warrant the condition of the vessel. A buyer should instruct his agents, or his surveyors, to investigate such details as the buyer desires validated. This vessel is offered subject to prior sale, price change, or withdrawal without notice.


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On Friday, an unlikely book will break the all-time record for Kickstarter's most successful publishing project: a comedic choose-your-own-adventure-style novel by popular webcartoonist Ryan North that transforms Shakespeare's Hamlet into an interactive story where readers can actually choose whether to be – or not to be. It's a quirky idea that couldn't get any traction at book publishing houses, but as a crowdsourced, collaborative online project, To Be or Not to Be: That Is the Adventure has earned over $425,000 $580,000 in less than a month.
The book, which allows readers to either pick the canonical path of the play or diverge into hilarious alternate-universe timelines, isn't just a wish-fulfillment exercise for every student who shouted, "Just kill the King already, Hamlet!" It's also a demonstration of the power of new media, and how internet curation and collaboration can turn small ideas into successful projects that would never be possible through traditional publishing channels.
"On the original Kickstarter page I said, 'You are going to decide how awesome this book is going to be!' and it happened surprisingly quickly," says North, best known as the creator of Dinosaur Comics. "No [publisher] would drop hundreds of thousands of dollars on getting this book made because you don't know if the audience will show up for it, and you have to front all these costs. The better you want to make the book, the riskier it gets. But with Kickstarter, we know the audience is there when we make these decisions."
Instead of simply breaking out the party hats after his project met its initial funding goal of $20,000, North decided to feed his profits back into the book using Kickstarter's tiered system of additional rewards and transformed To Be or Not to Be from a modest black-and-white book to a full-color volume with over 100 illustrations from an all-star roster of webcartoonists, all for the same $25 pledge.
Other rewards "unlocked" at higher funding levels include the addition of both Ophelia and the ghostly Hamlet Sr. as "playable" protagonists, a pronged bookmark designed to hold multiple pages, squishable toy Yorick skulls and a separate prequel adventure imagining the corporeal life of Hamlet's most famous disembodied skull.
North also "directed" a live, interactive version of the book for backers, posting a new chapter from the book online for each $5,000 the project earned and letting the readers pick which path to take next. They chose to engage the story from the perspective of Ophelia, and collaboratively selected a path that led to a happy ending where she married Hamlet. Finally, when the funding passed the $425,000 mark, North announced that he'd be releasing the book through the Creative Commons license, which he described as "basically the same deal Shakespeare gave me."
"You don't get that experience by a book simply dropping, fully formed, from the Traditional Publishing heavens," said North.
The inspiration for the book came from the most obvious source imaginable: Shakespeare's most famous soliloquy about waffling. "I was driving and musing about how 'to be or not to be' is structured like Hamlet's giving a choice to himself, and it's a short thought from there to "hey, like one of those choose-your-own-adv—oh my gosh, I have got to write this," said North.
The idea of turning the most classic Shakespearean will-he-or-won't-he dilemma into a choose-your-path narrative is compelling one, and so intuitive that it's hard to believe no one thought of it before. Ay, there's the rub: someone did.
Tom Helleberg, a business manager for the New York University press who describes himself as an "old media guy," observed the success of To Be or Not to Be with great interest and a bit of regret; he's spent the last two years pitching his idea for a chooseable-path Hamlet adventure to over 25 different publishers with coauthor Mike Gorman, only to hear over and over that publishers "just didn't see a market" for this type of book.
After seeing the Kickstarter soar over six figures with an idea he had repeatedly been told wasn't commercially viable, Helleberg reached out to North with a friendly e-mail titled, "You win again, new media!"
"This episode is really remarkable because it highlights so many strengths of the new modes of publishing and so many areas where the old guard just isn't keeping up," said Helleberg. "It's not that these old-guard publishers are necessarily risk-adverse; it's that they carry so much editorial, production, and marketing overhead that they can't effectively compete with Kickstarter or other DIY approaches when it comes to new, untested projects. Their hurdles are just too high."
Kickstarters like To Be or Not to Be obliterate the idea of publishers as the sole gatekeepers for literary and artistic work, allowing readers to step in as the curators and promoters of the work they enjoy. It's a good thing for readers, writers and other independent creators, but its implications for old media seem less promising.
"It probably won't be long until Kickstarter (or something similar) completely replaces the slush pile and agents when it comes to filtering submissions," said Helleberg. "Then presses are going to have to figure out how on Earth they are going to attract successful authors who are effectively earning 100 percent royalties on self-produced projects."
At 80,000 words and counting, To Be or Not to Be is already more than twice as long as the original play, and while readers can choose the "real" path through the book by following the choices marked by helpful Yorick skull icons, what makes To Be or Not to Be fascinating isn't the ways it imitates Shakespeare, but the way that it departs from it.
North also says that part of his goal was to make Ophelia as "badass" as he had imagined she was before rereading the play. "Then as I was rereading the play I thought, 'Oh. Huh. I guess she's not as badass here as I thought!' For some reason I remembered her as being way more awesome than she's written! Anyway, I made her that way in my book. She's great."
Several other innovations in the book include the opportunity to kill Polonius earlier than Shakespeare did, although that leaves you locked in a room with the body and only five "turns" to dispose of it before you're discovered. Hamlet's play within a play will also get its own tribute in the story as readers enter a choose-your-own-path story within a choose-your-own-path story (see exclusive preview), while other choices send you backward in the narrative. And in the Yorick prequel, choosing the "wrong" path creates a temporal paradox 20 years down the road when you fail to die and your skull is no longer there for Hamlet to pick up.
North described his writing process as being similar to his writing on the Adventure Time comic, where "basically at every turn, when the characters face a choice, you think, 'What's the most awesome thing that could happen here? What is the most totally amazing or totally insane thing that these characters could do?'" The difference, he says, is that in Shakespeare you often discover that the characters are already doing the most amazing or insane thing possible.
North plans to donate at least 200 free copies of the book to libraries and schools suggested by Kickstarter backers, and while he sees the book primarily as entertainment, he concedes that there is some educational potential for the book.
"If you've ever struggled with people's motivations in the play, I think everything becomes a lot more clear when you're the person making those choices. So in that way, yes, it's educational! But you can also decide just to cut off people's faces and throw them into the ocean, so in that way, probably you're better off just reading Wikipedia."
The Kickstarter for To Be or Not To Be ends on Dec. 21, although the book will still be available for pre-order through Breadpig.


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Transformation celebrated in New Milford exhibit
NEW MILFORD -- Enchanted Realms will present a group art show, "Riding the Wave of Transportation," in its gallery, 285 Litchfield Road (Route 202), opening Sat, March 29, from 4 to 6 p.m. This is the first show to be presented in this new gallery.
Works by Sandra Cointreau, Pita Lemstra and Kathy Lalonde will be included in the exhibit.The show will be on display through the middle of May. Call 860-350-3898. Visit www.enchantedrealmz.com.
Call for artwork
NEW MILFORD The 19th annual New Milford Outdoor Art Festival, scheduled for June 14 and 15, is accepting inquiries from fine artists and fine crafters for participation in the show. Call the New Milford Historical Society at 860-354-3069. Email email@example.com or Pat Lathrope at email@example.com.
NEWTOWN The Newtown Arts Festival has issued a call to artists for the 2014 event, which will take place on the grounds of Fairfield Hills off Wasserman Way on Sept. 13 and 14. They seek artists, artisans, crafters, authors, dancers and unique food vendors for the juried festival. Applications are available at newtownartsfestival.com. Email firstname.lastname@example.com.
NEWTOWN The Newtown United Methodist Church seeks applicants for the 9th Annual Fall Arts & Crafts Fair, which will be held at The Reed Intermediate School, 3 Trades Lane, Newtown, Oct. 18 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Applications for the juried fair are now being accepted. For applications and information, visit http://thefair.numc.us. Email email@example.com. Call Debbie at 203-426-2336.
Other exhibitions
BETHEL Jeffrey Kellner of Kent will show his photography in "Ambivalent Series" at Molten Java, 213 Greenwood Ave., through April 6. Call 203-739-0313 or 203-798-0760. Visit www.artswesternct.org.
DANBURY "Fadeless Imagery: Light and Memory," photographs by David Blackett and Lys Guillorn, will be on view at The Gallery at Still River Editions, 128 East Liberty St., now through March 28.
Call 203-791-1474. Visit www.stillrivereditions.com/gallery.html
DANBURY The digital art of Peter Schachter will be on display at CityCenter Danbury, 186 Main St., through March 27. Call 203-792-1711.
DANBURY Maressa Gershowitz's photography will be on display in "Color Light & Texture," at Danbury City Hall, 155 Deer Hill Ave., through March 27. Call 203-794-1413 or 203-798-0760. Visit www.artswesternct.org.
KENT Carolyn B. Fisher is the artist of the month in March at the Kent Art Association Gallery, 21 S. Main St. Her work may be viewed during gallery hours Fri through Sun from 1 to 5 p.m. Fisher will be at the gallery Sun, March 23, from 2 to 4 p.m. to talk about her experiences as an artist. Call 860-927-3989. Visit www.kentart.org.
LITCHFIELD The Marie Louise Trichet Art Gallery at Wisdom House Retreat and Conference Center, 229 East Litchfield Road, will have the exhibit, "Realms: Works of Mary Terrizzi, Naya Bricher and Scott Bricher," on display through March 29.
Call 860-567-3163. Email email@example.com. Visit www.wisdomhouse.org.
NEW BRITAIN "James Prosek: Wondrous Strange," a solo exhibition of the Connecticut artist's work that bridges science and art, will be at the New Britain Museum of American Art, 56 Lexington Ave., through June 8.
Museum admission is $12 for adults, $10 for senior citizens and $8 students. Children under 12 admitted free. Free admission sponsored by American Savings Foundation is Saturdays from 10 a.m. to noon.
Visit www.nbmaa.org
To list your Arts event, email firstname.lastname@example.com at least two weeks in advance.


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The Big Duck - A Long Island Story
At first glance, this 20 foot high white duck is ridiculous-looking, even frightening; but give it a second look and you are drawn in by its simplicity and realism. Who wouldn't want to explore a museum shaped like a duck in the middle of nowhere? The Big Duck is actually at the symbolic entrance to the "new" East End of Long Island, the gateway to The Hamptons and wine country and miles of shoreline. What it represents is Long Island's past, a late 19th Century and early 20th Century farming culture that saw ducks, potatoes and shellfish as building blocks to a secure economic future for the region.
At its peak in 1930, Long Island duck farming produced over six million Peking ducklings a year from 90 farms. Started in the late 1800s from one man's bright idea and a conservative import of 25 ducks from Peking, China, the East End of Long Island became the largest producer of Peking ducks in the world within 40 years, many of the ducks being frozen and even sent to China as export for restaurants. At the same time, potato farmers were also cultivating eastern Long Island and the Baymen worked both the western and eastern underwater shellfish beds of The Great South Bay creating more industry and wealth for the region.
By 1960, duck production had peaked and began a fast nosedive into oblivion. There were just too many duck farms, too many ducks and while profits plummeted because of saturation and the rising cost of feed, another cause for the death of the Peking duck industry on Long Island was growing and gaining momentum.
Growing up on Long Island in the 1960s, I remember that anywhere there was a freshwater stream or river, there were Long Island ducks, as the huge white ducks came to be known all over the world. Their numbers began polluting the East End's freshwater sources.
The streams flowed into the larger bodies of water where fishermen, boaters and bathers were affected. People wanted clean water and the environmental movement that began in the late 1950s and early 1960s was the vehicle to change the landscape. Legislation on water remediation became law and along with that came large expenses for farmers... and even larger fines if they did not or could not comply. As a result, all of the farms and "ranches", as the largest ones were called, except two, either closed up shop or moved production out of the state.
Potato farming also began to take a hit around the same time with a combination cycle of pests destroying crops, farmers destroying pests with pesticides and the pesticides leeching into the ground water and the beaches. By 1970, potato farm acreage was cut in half on both the North Fork and the South Fork, the two regions on the eastern end of Long Island. It became more fortuitous for the old farming families to sell prime farmland for luxury real estate development than to literally "lose the farm" through higher and higher costs of production and rising taxes. As for the scallop and oyster harvesters and clammers, the Baymen, they are still toiling at their trade, albeit in smaller numbers due to recurring toxic marine algae, known as brown tide, a scourge that comes and goes killing their sea crops, increased government restrictions on catches and the high costs of commercial boating. Evolution, pollution, progress, change.
So, back to The Big Duck. As a national historic site, it gives a permanent time, place and importance to the agricultural foundation of Long Island's East End. It is used as a souvenir spot and tourist information center where rubber ducks stamped "Flanders, NY" and duck-shaped candy can be purchased along with information about he entrepreneurial duck farmer in 1931 who created this cement legacy.
The Big Duck is open seven day a week from Memorial Day to Labor Day as a tourist information station and is located on Route 24 South in Flanders, New York. On your next trip out east to enjoy the wine, the beachfronts and the social scene, stop by The Big Duck and ponder over this remnant of the agricultural revolution that made The Hamptons possible.
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How do I apply for a student visa?
A Certificate of eligibility for a visa, Form I-20, can be obtained through the Office of Graduate Admission. In order to obtain a Form I-20, the applicant must demonstrate that he/she has sufficient funds available to pay for tuition and living expenses for at least one year of study in the U.S. Students must provide evidence of additional financial support of $5,000 per year for a spouse and/or child who accompanies them to the U.S.
Applicants who will require a student (F-I) visa must submit:
1. A copy of a valid passport. A mailed photocopy or fax is acceptable.
2. A Financial affidavit. Visit the Graduate Downloadable Forms page; under the International Students section, select the financial affidavit for your college/school.
All monies pledged on the Pace University Financial Affidavit for International Students Form must be verified by the following:
- A letter from a bank on bank letterhead or bank statement indicating the date, account number, account holder's name, and amount on deposit in U.S. dollars. The letter must include the signature of a bank official.
- A letter of support from a sponsoring scholarship program, fellowship program, loan or grant organization.
Once the form is complete, send it to the appropriate Office of Graduate Admission:
Office of Graduate Admission
One Pace Plaza
New York, NY 10038, USA
(212) 346-1531
Office of Graduate Admission
The Vineyard
861 Bedford Road
Pleasantville, NY 10570 USA
(914) 422-4283
How should I arrange my travel plans to the United States?
Depending upon which campus you are attending, there are several airports you can choose from.
If you are studying in New York City, we recommend you arrange your flight land at John F. Kennedy Airport (JFK), LaGuardia Airport (LGA), or Newark Liberty Airport (EWR). Once your flight lands, there will be access to public transportation into the city (see NYC transit links in following question), or you may schedule a car service to pick you up. You will find contact information for car services on each of the airport websites.
If you are studying in Westchester, we recommend you arrange your flight land at John F. Kennedy Airport (JFK) or LaGuardia Airport (LGA). Once your flight lands, we recommend making arrangements for a car service. You will find contact information for car services on each of the airport websites.
Does New York City have a public transportation system? How does it work?
For information about public transportation in New York City, Westchester County, Long Island, and New Jersey only, please visit any of the following websites for subway maps, train station listings, and information about taxis in New York:
New York
About New York City Metro Transit Authority (MTA)
MTA New York City Subway Map
MTA: MetroCard Information
MTA Metro-North Railway Map
Long Island Railroad Map
New York City Taxis
New Jersey
New Jersey Transit Website
NJ Transit Railway Maps
New Jersey PATH Train
Where can I find a map of my Pace University campus?
Are there hotels near the Pace New York City and Westchester campuses?
Yes. View a list of hotel accommodations around campus. We recommend you make your hotel reservations prior to your arrival in the U.S.
How can I learn more about campus housing at Pace University?
The best way to learn more about university housing is to visit the Housing and Residential Life website. If you have additional questions, you may reach the appropriate office using the information below. We strongly encourage all students wishing to live on-campus to contact the Housing and Residential Life office PRIOR to their arrival in the U.S.
Housing & Residential Life -
New York City
Fulton Hall, 2nd Floor
New York, NY 10038
(212) 346-1295
Housing & Residential Life -
Westchester (Pleasantville)
Howard Johnson Hall, Room 1-09
Pleasantville, NY 10570
(914) 923-2791
What should I bring with me to Pace University?
Incoming students should first make sure they have all proper documentation with them in order to be issued a student (F-I) visa. Read the financial affidavit and student visa information above for information on all documents that must be included in order to be issued a visa. View the list of all necessary documents needed for study in the U.S.
For help in choosing clothes to pack, please consult the average temperature chart below (all temperatures are listed in degrees Fahrenheit). In general, New York has cold winters with snow or sleet at times. Students should bring sturdy, warm shoes or boots for the winter, and a winter coat, hat, and gloves. If you are unable to purchase these items at home, there are many stores in New York that sell them. The spring is often warm and mild -- a light jacket is appropriate.
Celsius to Fahrenheit Converter
|New York City
|Westchester, NY
|January: 31.5°
|January: 28.1°
|February: 33.6°
|February: 30.5°
|March: 42.4°
|March: 39°
|April: 52.5°
|April: 46°
|May: 62.7°
|May: 59.5°
|June: 71.6°
What is the English Language Institute (ELI)?
The English Language Institute is owned and operated by Pace University and offers international students the opportunity to improve their English skills for academic study, career advancement, or personal enrichment through a variety of programs.Pace University has two ELI locations: New York City and Westchester County, NY.
You may contact the ELI and its directors using the following information:
New York City ELI
One Pace Plaza
New York, NY 10038
phone: (212) 346-1562
Westchester ELI
861 Bedford Road
Pleasantville, NY 10570
phone: (914) 773-3820
For more information about the ELI, please visit the ELI web site.
How can I learn more about financial aid?
Pace University offers various types of financial aid to qualified students. International students are NOT eligible to U.S. Federal Financial Aid programs.


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Colorado Shooter Faces 24 Counts of Murder, 116 Counts of Attempted Murder
CENTENNIAL, Colo. (AP) - Colorado prosecutors charged the suspect in the Aurora movie theater shooting with multiple counts for each victim to create more options during sentencing, if he's convicted.
James Holmes was charged with 24 counts of murder, two each for the 12 people killed, and 116 counts of attempted murder, two each for the 58 injured.
For the murder charges, one count included murder with deliberation, the other murder with extreme indifference. Both carry a maximum death penalty upon conviction.
A former chief deputy district attorney says a conviction under extreme indifference means that any life sentences would have to be served consecutively, not concurrently.
In addition, Holmes was charged with one count of possession of explosives and one count of a crime of violence, which is a gun charge.


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I could normally use generate scripts / DTS to move data and tables etc. However one of the databases has a large amount of encrypted procedures that I can't script to move.
Neither do I have older 2005 backup of the database.
I do not have decrypted procedures to restore manually.
Is there any way to just copy/move them over?


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Photography, video production, digital media producer, live event planning, live event production.
Now Offering Expanded Event Production Services
Theme design, Set Design, Staging, Lighting, Audio / PA, Video, Live streaming, Entertainment, Keynote Speakers
Professional high resolution digital imaging for commercial and consumer use. We photograph people, places, and things. We also edit images to suit almost every need or want, large or small format.
Learn More
Video Production
Our roots go back to the New York City production business working with NFL Films, Saturday Night Live, and the most demanding advertising agencies in the world. ANS can handle all aspects of media production.
Learn More
Meeting and Event Production
Should your next meeting, convention, trade show, or conference require special event planning and production we can help. Want to live stream your event? We can do that!
Our Happy Clients
We love working with Dominick. He has done our staff pictures for several years now. The pictures look great.
— Chris Walker, Portage District Library
He was a visionary who understood how to bring out the best aspects of my program. His attention to detail is first rate and the quality of his work is outstanding. I would recommend him to anyone who needed similar work.
— Felix Brooks, former Executive Director, Youthful Offenders Transitions Program
Act Naturally Studios was nothing short of excellent in working with our team. They delivered on time and within budget, going above and beyond to deliver for our national conference. Highly recommended.
— Carol Cramer Brooks, CEO, National Partnership for Juvenile Services
Dom did a great job of managing expectations, completing the project on time, and on budget.
— Gary Wager, Exec. Dir. Kalamazoo River Cleanup Coalition
As entertainers we have worked with numerous producers and I have to say Dominick is a class act...very easy to work with and knows the business. Bravo!
— Jeff & Kimberly Bornstein, International Entertainers
Dominick is a great photographer who is fun to work with, he has a "can-do" attitude and takes his work very seriously, with a flair of adventure.
— Deborah Droppers, President, The Event Company
Frequently Asked Questions
Every shoot is a little different, so that is a tough question to answer. However, we are extremely competitive and most of our clients are very happy with our one project pricing. We do all inclusive prices...no packages to get your photos. We shoot, edit, and deliver professional photography at one reasonable price...end of story. Projects starting at $150 dollars.
How much does it cost to build a house? You could have a small bungalow in the country or a mansion on the beach. Every video project is so very different that makes this a challenging question. We can quote projects small to large...on up to producing a major motion picture. Just remember, pre-production is where you really find out what it is going to take to get the job done. It's all in the creative approach. I will say this...We have years of experience and often can save clients a lot of time and money with a simple first meeting. We know how to do the extravagant on a budget.
We operate day-to-day on a lean self-contained basis, but when things get bigger, we have access to all types of specialized professionals who can fulfill the most demanding of projects. We develop and execute, elaborate and big budget projects, by contracting specific people, for a specific job, for a specific time frame. If your budget allows, we have access to specialists locally and worldwide. We act as producer / director, keeping you on time and within budget. The big shots upstairs in the corner office will be thrilled.
Yes. We can collaborate with your in-house marketing team or your advertising agency. We are extremely flexible.
We do not do photography or video for weddings, but we know some really good people who do.
Would you like a referral?
Act Naturally Studios is a Gladstone & Associates owned company. GA is a Michigan based corporation for over 13 years. We can provide references upon request. We can propose on large and small projects. There is no budget too big, however sometimes there are budgets too small. You will never know unless you ask...we're friendly...give us a try.
Gladstone & Associates Inc.
The backbone of any good campaign is planning, executing, and measuring. Our team at Gladstone provides the strategic planning for effective communication. We excel in marketing, advertising, and public relations. Gladstone and Associates has been helping clients reach their marketing communication goals for over 13 years. We thrive on brainstorming new ideas and concepts, while keeping up with the latest trends. We are a highly creative team assisting for profit and nonprofit companies achieve success within a time frame and within a budget.


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System-On-Chip (SOC) Development
Advanced ASIC and FPGA technologies allow to integrate complex systems on a single chip, embedding standard processor devices, dedicated processing blocks, interfaces to various peripherals, on-chip bus structures in a SOC, or even analog blocks in a mixed-signal device. Moving away from the use of traditional components towards SOC technology will help to satisfy the ever-increasing demands for high processing performance, while reducing mass and power consumption.
With increasing complexity, the design methodology has changed from being gate-level oriented to the integration of complex building blocks (IP-cores). Tasks, which traditionally are considered as 'system-design', such as interface specification, bus throughput assessment etc. are now part of the chip design. The designers have to rely on pre-existing building blocks, ideally with already verified functionality, documentation and production test vectors being available. But different IP-blocks from various origins imply different coding styles, documentation and verification levels. Their interoperability and compliance to the overall SOC specification ultimately has to be verified on chip level.
Besides the technical issues, core-based design is also a challenge on the legal side, when it comes to the integration of IP blocks from various origins, bound to different licensing conditions, prices and non-disclosure agreements.
The European Space Agency promotes the use of SOC in space by the means of SOC development activities, IP-core development/distribution and documentation relating to on-chip bus systems and design methodology. These activities are presented in the following sections.


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So much news passes before our collective eyes every day that we couldn't possibly cover it all. Mostly because much of it isn't worth covering! But here are a some borderline tidbits we passed on, just in case.
Inside the iPhone 5 Factory, or Not
Could this really be a picture of a Wintek factory worker inspecting iPhone 5 screens? Well, sure it could. But it more likely isn't, on account of the total lack of evidence. These displays could be for literally any phone on the planet, except maybe the HP Veer, on account of that one's so tiny and newly dead.[UberGizmo]
Romantic Boar Hunt for Two
Winners of this penny auction will be treated to a lavish wild boar hunt for two at the "famous" Bear Run Hunting Lodge in "historic" Clinch County, Georgia. It's not really gadgety at all, but we thought you might like to know anyway.[Outdoor Sportsman Auctions]
Amazon Instant VIdeo Reaches 100,000th Title You Don't Care About
I'm sorry; that was rude. It's just that I much prefer it when Amazon mentions specific TV shows and movies that they've added as opposed to some BIG NUMBER that includes so much terrible awful unwatchable things. Quality v. quantity, etc. [Amazon]
Terrible No Good Palm Memorial Video
Self-explanatory. Please don't try to watch the whole thing. Maybe instead read this? [BoingBoing]
Left Behind is our daily collection of chaff things we didn't think was quite good enough to post on its own, and why.


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Tampa, Fla. — Already a destination for its beaches, palm trees and Disney parks, Florida can now add medical tourism to its list of attractions as more and more Canadians visit for surgery.
Long wait times are increasingly driving patients south, including two Albertans who underwent surgery on the same day last month, and commiserated about feeling abandoned by an ailing system back home.
Their Florida surgeon has seen the number of Canadian patients grow by a staggering 800 per cent in the past decade. Medical tourism has become big business for the sunny southern state, which is poised to spend $5 million next year in bid to lure more people for specialized procedures.
Dr. Jim Norman, founder and head of the Norman Parathyroid Center at Tampa General Hospital, says Canadian patients are coming to him because the wait back home to remove diseased and tumorous glands is too long. In 2013, he operated on 45 Canadian patients, compared with just five in 2003.
"That is a new phenomena," said Norman, who does up to 50 operations each week. "It's remarkable that we are in Florida and we now do more operations (parathyroidectomy) here than anyone in Canada, or close to it," added Norman.
"It's not right to put people in line based on who's more sick than the other."
Canadian wait lists and patients seeking treatment south was thrust back into the headlines in recent weeks after a Toronto doctor defended Canada's single-payer health system before a U.S. Senate committee in Washington. But while Americans forge ahead with a debate about major health reforms in their own country, Canadians seem anesthetized on the topic, seemingly accepting the status quo in a public medical system increasingly plagued by long lineups.
Surgical wait lists have become Canada's modern-day breadline — a long queue of desperate people without anywhere else to turn. And it's only getting worse.
In Alberta, new data released this week shows that provincial lung cancer patients are typically waiting twice as long as other Canadians for surgery. Ninety per cent of those patients underwent surgery within 85 days, according to a Canadian Institute of Health Report.
Alberta Health Services' wait times website shows a 46-week wait for neck surgeries, which would include those similar to the operations performed at the Parathyroid Center in Florida. That's six weeks longer than the wait last year, when 90 per cent of "interventions" were done within 40 weeks.
A Fraser Institute report, meanwhile, showed wait times for surgical and other therapeutic treatments across the country rose last year to an average of 18.2 weeks compared with 17.7 the year before. The total wait time in 2013 was 95 per cent longer than in 1993.
"When the system got declared iconic of Canadian values it turned it into a political thing as opposed to a service or industry where we could talk openly about solutions," said Herb Emery, a health economist at the University of Calgary.
"Now you can only talk openly about a solution that conforms to Canadian values. In the meantime, no one ever asks if this is leading to better outcomes."
Defenders of Canadian Medicare trumpet the fact that no one is ever denied care in Canada. But the question of timely treatment has become a thorny one.
Just ask the nearly 42,000 people who sought — and paid for — treatment outside Canada last year. Many of those people go to the United States because their cases are considered non-urgent. Pain, suffering and quality of life don't count when it comes to determining location in the queue.
The situation has grow so dire that some Alberta doctors are flying to Turks and Caicos along with their patients, to get operating-room time for procedures such as knee replacements.
Then there are patients such as Eleanor Brandt, who don't even make it into the surgical lineup.
Brandt, 69, suffered serious health problems for three years before being diagnosed with a glandular disease called hyperparathyroidism. It causes calcium to be sucked out of the bones and put into the bloodstream, wreaking all kinds of havoc on the body. Two Alberta surgeons agreed she needed an operation but both refused to perform it, citing the risks as too high, Brandt said.
"That's exactly what they said," said the Medicine Hat grandmother.
She turned to Norman in Florida for help because surgery is the only treatment.
"It is truly an answer to prayer," Brandt said a few hours after the surgeon removed from her throat two small tumours, curing her of the disease two Canadian surgeons refused to treat.
Brandt was in the next bed and a couple of patients ahead of me at the Parathyroid Centre in Tampa last month.
We officially met the night before, at the hotel that caters to many of Norman's patients, shuttling them to and from the hospital at no charge, ensuring the surgery is complimented by a pleasant hotel stay.
The two of us, along with Brandt's husband, shared what we dubbed the 'last supper,' a generous meal before a medically imposed fast ahead of surgery. We broke bread and shared the agony of illness and frustration of feeling medically abandoned by our homeland.
Brandt's story, however, is somewhat more dramatic than mine. Last year, at age 44, I, too, was diagnosed with hyperparathyroidism. Unlike her, my illness didn't land me in hospital or leave me languishing for years suffering from some mysterious ailment.
A simple test revealed my fatigue, thinning hair, aching bones and spotty memory to be caused by high blood calcium from an overproducing tumorous gland. The referral to a surgeon soon followed.
The Calgary surgeon agreed to surgical treatment but it would be many months before that could happen, possibly nearly a year because I was not at imminent risk of dying. And this would be no easy operation — three to five hours on the table and as many days in hospital recovering. Never mind the nearly ear-to-ear slice across my neck that would forever bring stares and whispers by those too afraid to ask what violence had befallen me.
The Internet led me to Norman's centre, which specializes in cases just like Brandt's and mine.
A surgery date was booked within days of the doctor receiving and reviewing my information. The operation to remove a large tumorous gland from my neck took just 18 minutes. I was out of hospital within hours and flew home the next day, compared to the several days I would have spent in a Calgary hospital. The scar is well healed and I am back on my feet, yet still haven't heard from the Calgary surgeon's office since last November about a potential date.
But it came with an $11,000 US price tag, not including travel and accommodation. Alberta does not fund operations outside the country if the procedure is offered here — not even for Brandt, who was refused surgery in Alberta.
Had neither of us funded our own operations south of the border, the long-term costs to the Alberta health-care system could have far exceeded that amount.
Brandt herself spent three weeks in hospital before doctors diagnosed her surging blood pressure, 20-kilogram weight loss and severe bone aches that necessitated shots of morphine as caused by tumorous glands — which two surgeons refused to remove.
"That has to cost a big bundle for government if that's how they're (treating this disease) here," said Brandt, who's now on the road to recovery. "All I know is that I would have just kept getting sicker and sought more doctors' attention because I would have had no choice."
Yet while Americans look at major reforms in the United States, Canadian policy-makers remain seemingly unmoved by the chronic problems within Medicare contributing to increasingly long lineups for treatment. A court this week even struck down a legal challenge that argued the government's monopoly over health care imposes suffering and sometimes death on patients on waiting lists.
"The Canadian medical system is premised on, it will treat you when there is a problem. But the whole idea of preventing downstream problems isn't part of that model. It was a system built . . . out of treating acute illness," says Emery.
"We wait for the disasters to happen before stopping them."
Indeed. Florida is banking on it.
Suzanne Wilton is an award-winning journalist and former Calgary Herald reporter.


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Lady Flames will enter ACHA DI nationals as No. 1 seed
February 19, 2013 | Lynchburg, Va.
When the final American Collegiate Hockey Association Division I women's rankings were released Monday night, Liberty University was the near-unanimous choice to stay at No. 1 for the third consecutive poll.
The Lady Flames (25-2) received all but one first-place vote and will enter the ACHA DI tournament, set for March 6-10 at The Ice House in Ashburn, Va., as the No. 1 seed for the first time.
Competing at nationals for the fifth time in the past seven seasons, they will face No. 8 Michigan (18-5-4) in the first round. Liberty defeated the Wolverines 2-1 in their last meeting, Nov. 20, 2011.
"They've never beat us yet, but they're building their program," Lady Flames head coach Paul Bloomfield said. "They're going to be ready for us. They're not going to bring anything to us that we haven't seen. We just need to be on our game."
Besides top-ranked Liberty and Michigan, which remained at No. 8, there was plenty of shakeup in the rest of the rankings for the final poll. Michigan State (17-9-4) moved up five spots to No. 7, Rhode Island (19-5) dropped three positions to settle at No. 6, defending national champion Northeastern (11-5-2) bumped up a spot to No. 5, Robert Morris Illinois (25-6-3) slipped two rungs to No. 4, Minnesota (12-2-1) took one step forward to No. 3 and Massachusetts (16-4-2) rose three spots to No. 2.
"Everybody there in the last couple of weeks was beating each other, so we knew we probably would end up ranked first," Bloomfield said. "We didn't know who would come in at the bottom of the pile."
Michigan and Rhode Island are the only two teams in the tournament field the Lady Flames haven't faced this season.
"The top eight are all going to be (capable of winning it all)," Bloomfield said. "Everybody's going to have to be on their game. There's no room for mistakes."
The Lady Flames will be grouped with Minnesota, Rhode Island, and Michigan in Pool A and could play two games on March 7. UMass, Robert Morris, Northeastern, and Michigan State will be in Pool B.
Bloomfield approaches nationals with cautious optimism, especially compared with last year, when Liberty entered the tournament seeded third and finished fifth after being eliminated by eventual champion Northeastern in the third round.
"I think they're ready, (though) you never know for sure until the day," he said, noting freshman right wing Catharine Burrell, who's out with a knee injury, is the only player on his roster who won't be available. "We're much healthier this year and we've got more bodies, too, so that helps. I think we've got what we need. We need to make sure that we're there and ready to go."
The Lady Flames will practice three times this week and next to sharpen their skills and fine-tune their game plan going into nationals.
"I'm not arrogant about it (but) I know if the girls show up to play, we have a good team," Bloomfield said. "We just need to keep in shape and keep on the ice, so we don't get rusty."


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New York-based non-profit organization China Labor Watch said in a report on Dec. 14 that its investigations found that HTNS Shenzhen Co. Ltd., a company that assembles mobile phones for Samsung in China, allegedly employed girls under the age of 16.
Samsung swiftly denied the allegations in a statement, saying that there are no underage workers employed at its supplier, HTNS Shenzhen Co. A representative at HTNS Shenzhen declined to comment.
"As part of our pledge against underage employment, we began auditing all sites in China in September, and are implementing new hiring policies to strengthen identity verification measures. These include in-person interviews of all candidates, the introduction of electronic devices to detect fake IDs, and enhanced training and guidelines for managers and HR personnel," Samsung said.
In response to Samsung's denial however, China Labor Watch released another statement Monday, essentially backing its claim.
This isn't the first time Samsung has come under the scrutiny of China Labor Watch. In September, China Labor Watch said it found evidence of offenses including excessive overtime, exhausting working conditions and the use of underage workers after checking conditions at six factories operated directly by Samsung and two operated by suppliers between May and August.
Responding to the allegations, Samsung said in November it was taking corrective measures. While denying the child labor allegations, Samsung said it had identified instances of employees working overtime hours in excess of local regulations.
"The audit identified several instances of inadequate practices at the facilities, including overtime hours in excess of local regulations, management of supplier companies holding copies of labor contracts, and the imposition of a system of fines for lateness or absences," it said at the time.
Samsung isn't the only company under scrutiny for its labor practices in China. Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., a supplier to Apple Inc., has also faced controversy over problems including the excessive use of overtime and employee suicides.
Hon Hai has responded by pledging that it would bring its overtime policies into alignment with Chinese law by next year and also improve health and safety conditions at its campuses across China.
Min-Jeong Lee


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J.Lo's first season on "American Idol" could also be her last.
The popular judge of Fox's singing talent show told BBC radio she was "on the fence" about returning for another season.
"I had an amazing time doing it and I loved it, but I have a lot of other things happening, and it's going to come down to making a choice of really what I want to do for the next year," she said, according to the Hollywood Reporter. "We're not really at the breaking point of 'You have to make a decision right now!' So I'm not. I'm really enjoying the time of just waiting--and seeing."
Lopez signed a one-year, $12 million deal with "Idol" in October. Her critiques were usually generous and she often got emotional on camera. Some critics considered the show a much needed comeback for the singer, who has been largely absent the past few years.
She might be angling for money, The Huffington Post reported. Steven Tyler made more than she did with his judging debut, with $18 million.
In the meanwhile, J. Lo and her husband Marc Anthony are traveling around the world for a Latin competition show, "Q'Viva! The Chosen," accroding to the Hollywood Reporter. The couple and director-choreographer began searching for undiscovered Latino talent this summer.
Selected Reading: Hollywood Reporter, Huffington Post


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Fish Soup
(Balik Corbasi)
250 gr small size fish, I use Smelt (frozen, cleaned)
1/2 lemon juice
1/2 tsp lemon zest
3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
3 cups hot water
3 tomatoes, peeled and diced
1 celery stick, cut in bite sizes
2 medium onions, chopped
1 medium potato, cut in bite sizes
2 tbsp parsley, chopped
2 tbsp fresh oregano, chopped
4-5 slices of French baton bread
Cut off the heads of the fish and de-bone. Place them on a plate and sprinkle lemon juice, lemon zest, olive oil, salt and pepper on top. Put aside.
In a medium-size pot, cook the onion, potato, celery and tomato with water at medium-low heat for about 15 minutes until the vegetables soften. Add the fish and cook for another 15 minutes. Turn the heat off when the fish are cooked, sprinkle parsley and oregano on top.
Place a slice of bread on each plate. Pour one ladle of soup over each. Serve while still hot.
But before you serve the soup, check if it needs more salt, pepper or lemon juice to your liking.
If you can't find small fish (smelt), you can also use canned fish. Sardines go very well with this soup. Keep in mind that if you use canned fish, add the fish after cook all the vegetables as it won't need extra cooking time.
One more tip is to keep the soup a little bit watery so that the bread will absorb the juice.
Labels: Soups