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-- Michael Urie from ABC's "Ugly Betty" to Host Four-part HD Special Premiering January 4,
Leading up to the Miss America LIVE! Finale on January 26 --
Los Angeles, CA -- TLC ushers this classic television event into the modern era with the new
four-part reality special MISS AMERICA: REALITY CHECK. Michael Urie (ABC's "Ugly
Betty") is tapped to host the programs, premiering January 4 at 10 PM (ET/PT) and airing
consecutive Friday nights leading up to the MISS AMERICA LIVE! finale on Saturday, January
26, 8-10 PM (ET live/PT tape-delayed). MISS AMERICA: REALITY CHECK was shot in high
definition and can be viewed on the TLC HD simulcast.
For the first time in history, MISS AMERICA: REALITY CHECK brings all 52 beauty queens
together to live under one roof to undo everything they have learned about pageant basics and
determine if their smarts, attitudes and looks hold up in contemporary society. Led by host Urie,
the girls participate in an intense set of events and challenges designed to prepare them for the finale
event, a renewed competition that will redefine what it takes to be Miss America, a relatable and
individual �it girl' who can connect with today's modern woman.
MISS AMERICA: REALITY CHECK calls on tastemakers to lead the hopefuls through their
journey as they learn the latest trends, newest hairstyles and how to represent themselves as role
models in today's modern world. Throughout the episodes, the girls will be critiqued on their
progress by an elite advisory board comprised of celebrity stylist Jeanie Mae, Us Weekly editor
Dina Sansing, and celebrity photographer Mark Liddell.
Additionally, special guests will share their area of expertise with the contestants including the
current Miss America Lauren Nelson, Stacy London and Clinton Kelly from TLC's hit show "What
Not to Wear," world-renowned make-up artist Napoleon Perdis, celebrity hairstylist Kim Vo,
choreographer Fred Tallaksen, and fashion expert Randolph Duke.
"The Miss America of today is more than a pretty face," says Brant Pinvidic, senior vice president
of programming for TLC. "These are remarkable women who have made great contributions to
their communities. We want to give America the chance to get to know these women and follow
their journey as they strive to obtain the Miss America title on January 26 in Las Vegas."
MISS AMERICA: REALITY CHECK is produced by PB&J Television for TLC. Executive
Producers for PB&J are Patty Ivins and Julie Pizzi. TLC's HD simulcast service is available
nationwide on DirecTV and DISH Network and via numerous local cable and telco providers.
About TLC
TLC's innovative hit series include perennial fashion favorite What Not to Wear; Little People Big World,
now in its third season; Miami Ink and the hit spin-off LA Ink. The channel defined home design with
Trading Spaces and continues to reinvent the genre with Property Ladder, Flip That House and Moving
Up. TLC's daytime lineup includes the Emmy Award-winning A Baby Story as well as Take Home Chef,
featuring one of People Magazine's Sexiest Men, Curtis Stone. The channel is available in more than 93
million homes in the US, nearly 8 million homes in Canada and through the website at www.tlc.com. TLC is
part of Discovery Communications which is owned by Discovery Holding Co. (NASDAQ: DISCA, DISCB),
Advance/Newhouse Communications and John S. Hendricks, Discovery's founder and chairman.
About Miss America
The Miss America Pageant - and the scholarship program itself - is among the most enduring endeavors in
modern American history. From its humble beginnings as a "bathing beauty'" contest in the 1920s, the Miss
America Organization today is one of the nation's leading achievement programs and the world's largest
provider of scholarship assistance for young women. Last year, the Miss America Organization and its state
and local organizations made available more than $45 million in cash and scholarship assistance, helping
young women all across the country to reach their dreams and goals. For more information, go to


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The DRC family wishes you all the best this holiday season. Remember we will be closed on Christmas Day but open for the rest of the week including New Year's Day!
Friday, December 24, 2010
Posted by The DRC Family at 8:56 AM
2 comments:
- Annah B. said...
Merry Christmas DRC Dolphins! I <3 you so much!
- December 24, 2010 at 11:35 AM
- Max said...
To all the humans, dolphins, cats, dogs, birds and lizards of DRC, a very merry Christmas!
- December 24, 2010 at 8:59 PM

subset: commoncrawl


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Detail of Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier & His Wife (1788) by Jacques-Louis David at Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, NY.
Photo by Jim Steinhart © 2011, all rights reserved. (Ref: NYMDDV12)
Click an index below to see this photo among related images:
Jacques-Louis David Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art - 16th through 19th C Painting Collection
Captions List for Art Museums of New York City


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NEW YORK — The only shot the Rangers put past Detroit's Jimmy Howard was actually meant to be a pass.
NEW YORK — The only shot the Rangers put past Detroit's Jimmy Howard was actually meant to be a pass.
Mats Zuccarello had no complaints when the puck found its way into the net.
Zuccarello broke up a scoreless duel between two Olympic goalies with 5:58 remaining, lifting the Rangers to a 1-0 victory over the Red Wings on Thursday night.
"It was a pass to (Benoit) Pouliot," Zuccarello said. "It was a lucky bounce, I guess. I will take that."
Zuccarello floated a puck over Howard when he drove to the net, putting New York's 45th shot of the night into the net.
Howard recognized Zuccarello's intention, he just couldn't stop it.
"Bittersweet," Howard said of his 47-save performance. "Zuccarello wasn't looking to shoot that. He was looking to pass it across. It's unfortunate."
It was just enough offense for Henrik Lundqvist to earn his third shutout of the season and 48th in his NHL career. Lundqvist, who made his sixth straight start, stopped 38 shots.
Gustav Nyquist slipped a shot behind him with 44.5 seconds remaining, but Lundqvist reached back and covered the puck just in time.
"You kind of wait for a reaction when you hear it hits the post, but then you don't get a reaction, so you know it's behind you somewhere," Lundqvist said. "You don't want to make too big of a move, so I just turned around, and it was right there. It's fun when you get some puck luck. Maybe I earned it after a few tough bounces."
The Red Wings were beaten 1-0 for the second straight game. Detroit, which hasn't scored a power-play goal in six games in 2014, lost at Anaheim on Sunday.
"It's frustrating right now," Howard said. "We have to score more goals. We are creating a lot of chances, we just can't bear down and get them in right now.
"It was fun. It was like the playoffs. But it's a lot more fun to be on the winning side."
The Rangers bounced back from a 2-1 loss to Tampa Bay on Tuesday and completed a 3-1 homestand. New York is 9-3-1 in its last 13 games.
"This was important for us, to come back right away with a win and a strong effort," Lundqvist said.
The second period played out much like the first with Lundqvist of Sweden, and American goalie Howard staring each other down at opposite ends of the rink.
"I think we both felt that the next mistake is going to be the difference. And it was," Lundqvist said. "Lately, we just believe in our system and we play a really strong team game. It's been paying off lately in big games."
Howard was the busier of the two, stopping 17 shots in the second after making 18 saves in the first. Lundqvist followed up his 15-save effort of the first by turning aside 10 shots in the second.
As good as Howard was, in particular with a lunging glove grab from a seated position to nab Carl Hagelin's shot, he got a bit of help from Kyle Quincey. The defenseman blocked a shot from Ryan Callahan that got behind Howard, and then swept the puck out of danger as the crowd cheered and groaned with 2 1-2 minutes left in the second.
Lundqvist made stellar saves against Luke Glendening and Drew Miller midway through the period.
"Both Hank and Howard had their 'A' game out there," Rangers coach Alain Vigneault said. "They were seeing the puck and controlling the rebounds. We were just fortunate to finally be able to put one past him."
Howard turned aside an in-close chance by Derek Stepan just 3:17 in, and flashed his glove to knock away Brad Richards' drive 40 seconds later. Howard was then drilled in the mask by Pouliot's hard shot from the left point. Howard covered up the loose puck and tucked his head down to shake off the effects.
Lundqvist held his ground against Olympic teammate Henrik Zetterberg in front during the first of Detroit's two power plays in the opening period and then made three rapid-fire saves as the Red Wings pushed to score in a final-minute flurry.
Detroit finished a 2-3 trip.
"You don't get a lot of moral victories in the NHL," Red Wings coach Mike Babcock said. "To me, the evaluation process for our group is how hard we play and how organized we are. I was pleased with that."


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Founding leader of Oakland philanthropy will depart in late 2013
Dr. Mark D. Smith, who has led the California HealthCare Foundation (CHCF) since its founding, plans to step down as president and CEO at the end of year, the foundation announced today.
"It has been a great honor to lead the California HealthCare Foundation in its mission to improve the quality of health care for all Californians," Smith said. "I leave the foundation knowing it is well positioned to continue this important work."
During his tenure, Smith focused CHCF on catalyzing efforts to improve health care quality, promote greater access, and reduce the cost of care for the state's most vulnerable and underserved residents. The Oakland-based philanthropy makes grants totaling approximately $37 million annually from a fund of $700 million. CHCF has granted over $500 million since Smith became the founding president and CEO in 1996.
"Mark Smith's remarkable leadership over the last 16 years has focused the California HealthCare Foundation on a vision to improve the health care system where it matters most: in the clinics, the hospitals, doctors' offices, and wherever Californians go to find care," said Ian Morrison, PhD, chair of the CHCF Board of Directors. "While he recognized that the problems in health care are huge, Mark and his team were smart and innovative in targeting the foundation's resources where they could most make a difference."
Smith, 61, a physician and expert on state and national health policy, will continue his work as a member of the clinical faculty at the University of California, San Francisco, and as an attending physician at the Positive Health Program for AIDS care at San Francisco General Hospital, where he has practiced since 1992, including during his tenure at CHCF.
Under Smith's leadership, CHCF focused on improving the way health care is delivered and financed in California through a number of initiatives, including:
Promoting research and policy analysis. From its founding, CHCF has supported sound decisionmaking using evidenced-based research and nonpartisan policy analysis. CHCF has become a prolific publisher on issues of quality, access, and the financing of care covering both the commercial and public sectors.
Promoting transparency. The foundation has made significant investments in supporting transparency in health care delivery through publicly reporting quality data on hospitals, nursing homes, and long term care facilities, and building public websites that allow consumers to compare local facilities and provide health care leaders with benchmarks for improvement.
Improving clinical care. Smith focused attention on innovative ways to improve care delivery, including being an early proponent of using information technology at the point of care, challenging providers to deliver high-quality and cost-effective care, and promoting disruptive innovations like retail clinics and process redesign. He has also championed redefining the scope of work among clinical team members, to help ameliorate the need to train more doctors to do work that lower-cost members of the clinical team can deliver safely and effectively.
Training new leaders. The foundation initiated the CHCF Health Care Leadership Program at UC San Francisco in 2001. The two-year, part-time fellowship has trained 355 clinicians in management and leadership skills required to lead the state's health care institutions in a rapidly changing and challenging environment. The program's alumni now occupy leading positions in hospitals, clinics, medical groups, and government throughout the state.
Fostering innovation. The $10 million CHCF Health Innovation Fund helps accelerate innovation in care delivery by investing in new and emerging companies focused on lowering costs and improving access to care. While supporting improvements to the health delivery system, CHCF also has focused on the rise of alternative care delivery models such as retail clinics and the adoption and effective use of information technology.
Modernizing enrollment. CHCF has been a leader in promoting more efficient and consumer-friendly ways for eligible Californians to enroll in public programs. In 1999 the foundation supported the development of the first web-based eligibility and enrollment application in the United States, which it licensed at no cost to the State of California. More recently CHCF led the successful national public-private development of a first-class user experience design to streamline enrollment under the Affordable Care Act (C. The foundation has also recently focused on supporting the implementation of the ACA in California, and continues to monitor and report on its progress.
Supporting health care reporting. Recognizing the important role that the media has in promoting improvements in health care, CHCF has devoted significant resources to supporting health care journalism. Since 1998, the foundation has produced California Healthline, a daily digest of news, analysis, and opinion on the state's health care system. In 2009, the foundation established the CHCF Center for Health Reporting at the USC Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism, which collaborates with media across the state on in-depth, explanatory journalism on critical health care issues.
"Mark has built a strong staff that is set on a steady course, focusing on the medical delivery and financing systems in California, with an emphasis on quality improvement, increasing both access and efficiency, and addressing the unsustainable cost of care to individuals and society," Morrison said. "The board expects the foundation to continue building on its successes in these areas."
"There is still a lot of work to be done. While I will assist the board and staff in making a smooth transition to a new leader, I will also continue to look for ways to make our health care system work better for the people of California," Smith said.
A native of New York City, Smith earned his bachelor's degree in Afro-American studies at Harvard (1979), his medical doctorate from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1983), and a master's in business administration with a concentration in health care administration from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania (1989).
Prior to joining CHCF, Smith was executive vice president at the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. He previously served as associate director of the AIDS Service and assistant professor of medicine and of health policy and management at Johns Hopkins University. He has served on the board of the National Business Group on Health, the performance measurement committee of the National Committee for Quality Assurance, and the editorial board of the Annals of Internal Medicine.
He was elected to the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academy of Sciences in 2001 and recently completed service as the chair of an IOM committee on "The Learning Health Care System in America," which issued its report Best Care at Lower Cost in September 2012.
Smith will continue serving as CHCF's president and CEO until a new leader is in place, which is expected by the end of 2013. The search for Smith's successor will be conducted by the foundation's board of directors. Inquiries should be directed to Carol Emmott of Russell Reynolds Associates at email@example.com or 415-352-3363.
About the California HealthCare Foundation
The California HealthCare Foundation works as a catalyst to fulfill the promise of better health care for all Californians. We support ideas and innovations that improve quality, increase efficiency, and lower the costs of care.


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Despite the formation of a new government in Greece—determined to renegotiate the terms of its bailout—and a rescue for the banking sector in Spain, it looks as if a long hot summer is in store for the eurozone as financial conditions continue to worsen.
Thursday saw continued contraction in the private sector; Spain and Italy were the subjects of a dire prediction; and in the U.K. the government planned to give shareholders greater say over executive compensation.
Reuters reported Thursday that Greece said it would ask for an additional two years to meet fiscal targets specified in its bailout, and its new government said an extension of unemployment benefits was another key element in its policy. In response to a surge in public pressure and the promise of additional pressure from second-place party Syriza, the pro-bailout parties that make up the new coalition government agreed to a number of changes softening the terms of the bailout and would seek approval for them from eurozone partners.
If there were hints of a breather for Greece, however, eurozone news remained grim. The June Flash Composite Markit Purchasing Managers' Index indicated a fifth straight month of contraction, with the private sector pulling in its belt at the fastest pace since June 2009.
While a combination index of the services and manufacturing sectors did better than expected by economists polled by Reuters, it still fell to 46, remaining below the 50 mark that is the divider between growth and contraction. It has been below 50 in all but one of the last 10 months.
Howard Archer at IHS Global Insight said in the report of the numbers, "The only remotely positive spin that can be put on the dismal eurozone [PMI] is that there was no further deepening in the overall rate of contraction. Hardly a cause for celebration." Even China suffered, with its factory sector contracting for the eighth straight month in June.
The gloom spread in a prediction by Jamie Stuttard, head of international bond portfolio management at Fidelity in London, who forecast in a Bloomberg report the need for sovereign bailouts for both Spain and Italy within the next 12 months. The result, he said, would shake the global economy.
Between them the two countries carry have 2.8 trillion euros ($3.6 trillion) in sovereign debt, which is four times the debt carried by Greece, Ireland and Portugal and enough to threaten the crisis mechanisms of Europe. In the report, Stuttard said, "We are onto the big countries now. A rescue for Italy is pretty much impossible without a major change in German borrowing costs, a major change in overall eurozone levels of inflation, a major change in the level of the euro, or a major change in the structure of the eurozone." Together the two countries would have to come up with about a trillion euros in principal and interest payments through 2014. That's double the amount European governments have set as the limit for additional rescue lending for the permanent bailout mechanism, set to come online in July— a maximum of 500 billion euros—after already promising 300 billion euros to Greece, Ireland and Portugal. On Thursday, Spain's borrowing costs continued to rise, topping 6% and reaching a 15-year high.
"This is the biggest crisis with which the IMF has ever had to deal," Professor Simon Johnson, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said in the report. Johnson, a former IMF chief economist, added, "It's the entire eurozone that is now in crisis—about a quarter of the world economy."
Pressure is still building on Chancellor Angela Merkel of Gernamy to commit to direct sovereign debt purchases through the euro area bailout fund. Such a measure has been advocated by eurozone leaders, including President Francois Hollande of France, as a means of stopping the spread of contagion and bringing the crisis to a halt.
However, Merkel said such an action "is not up for debate," adding, "There is no concrete planning that I know about, but there is the possibility of purchasing sovereign bonds on the secondary market. But this is a purely theoretical statement about the legal situation."
Merkel faces her own challenges at home, where she is trying to win approval for passage of Europe's fiscal pact and the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) by June 29. The small German Left Party had planned to oppose both measures via a complaint to Germany's constitutional court, despite a compromise reached with the center-left opposition by Merkel's party through the addition of growth and job creation measures to the fiscal compact.
Reuters reported that the constitutional court said Thursday that it will need time to study the ESM, which, if it wins approval in the German parliament, is set to launch on July 1. A review by the constitutional court could delay its implementation; in the report, a constitutional court spokeswoman said that the ESM is so complex that if it does win parliamentary approval, the court expects President Joachim Gauck to hold off on signing it until the court has had time to study it.
In an indication of the public's anger over the pain of the fiscal crisis and the disconnect between individual suffering and corporate pay structures, Britain said on Wednesday that it would legislate to give shareholders binding say over executive compensation. Business Secretary Vince Cable said that the move was intended to improve the link to performance and soothe the public's anger over executive pay. He was quoted saying, "At a time when the global economy remains fragile, it is neither sustainable nor justifiable to see directors' pay rising at 10% a year, while the performance of listed companies lags behind and many employees are having their pay cut or frozen."
The action follows a number of shareholder votes against compensation packages at annual meetings and previous government action to limit the size of bankers' bonuses. The European Union is considering similar measures to allow shareholders to have a means of reining in executive compensation.
According to Cable, companies publicly listed in Britain would have to seek shareholder approval for director compensation packages in an annual vote, under laws that could take effect as early as next year. If companies make no change to director compensation, the shareholder vote on pay could be limited to once every three years—a measure on which the Labour Party has accused Cable of backpedaling. Cable's original proposal had provided for a binding shareholder vote on compensation every year.
Other provisions proposed include binding votes on exit packages and the publishing of a total figure for director compensation so that shareholders can easily determine how much is proposed for pay. Companies would also have to publish a chart that compares chief executive compensation to company performance.


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Tray Packaging - Global Material Solutions
XtraPlast offers a wide range of tray packaging material options for your product packaging applications. You can select from both shrink and no shrink lidding material as well as a wide range of tray sizes. All XtraPlast tray products are made from the highest grade material for strength and clarity. If your package requires custom-printed or special color lidding film or trays, your XtraPlast Packaging Consultant can assist you with the many options.
Let Us Help You Find the Perfect Packaging Solution
Our team of industry leading packaging consultants can assist you in determining the Right Material, Right Now. The XtraPlast Packaging Team has decades of combined industry experience and can offer you a wide variety of options.
Not the Product You Are Looking For?
We offer more than 1,000 different type of packaging material to meet our customer's packaging needs including:


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Commission Districts
(Click map for details)
The five-member Commission is appointed by the Governor from five geographical districts. Members serve staggered four-year terms, with three members appointed at the beginning of the Governor's term and two appointed two years after the Governor's term begins. The appointments are to be made without regard to political affiliation and to be made solely for the wise management of the fish and wildlife of the state. At least one member must be experienced in the breeding and management of domestic livestock.
The Commission is a quasi-judicial citizen board whose general authority and duties are further defined and shaped by specific responsibilities in the statutes.
The Department is an executive branch agency under the Governor. The Director of the Department is appointed by the Governor and reports to the Governor. The Department has duties and responsibilities as provided by statute.
In summary, the Department administers the day-to-day activities of the Department under the executive branch with specific statutory duties and the Commission sets fish and wildlife regulations, approves property acquisitions, and approves certain rules and activities of the Department as provided by statute.
Contact Commissioners
See the Members page for addresses and phone number for each Commissioner.


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Today is a pretty quiet Friday in the City Archaeology Lab here in West Roxbury, Massachusetts. We've had a busy past couple of weeks, so it's nice to be able to take it easy for a change. It also gives us some time to read through old site reports in preparation for an upcoming book on the history of Boston.
Our volunteers are hard at work reanalyzing old collections. This particular collection is from the Three Cranes Tavern in Charlestown, which burned to the ground during the Battle of Bunker Hill in 1775. After the battle, the town decided to leave the site undeveloped as a memorial, which gave us some incredibly well preserved archaeology when a road tunnel was put through in the 1980s as part of the Big Dig. We are going through the collections to try to identify and organize the artifacts more accurately, so that they can be more useful to researchers in the future.
Another big part of our day is keeping up with social media. We're coming off our best week ever on Facebook, gaining 431 new page likes and reaching a total 23,559 people – that's almost a 4000% increase from last week! Facebook and Twitter are great ways for us to share exciting tidbits from our day-to-day activities and stay in touch with archaeology and history enthusiasts from Boston and beyond.
Sometimes we need to pull out old collections to find the type of artifact we want to share with our fans. Today, we got out the lithics collections from the Dillaway-Thomas House site in Roxbury, which was last excavated in 1988. We were looking for stone points from the Native American occupation of the site, going back all the way to 5,000 to 7,000 years ago. Many people don't realize that Boston has an extensive Native component, and we want to share this relatively unknown but extremely important piece of history with the public.
Archaeology is hard work, and even on a slow day, we don't want our volunteers to get hungry, so we make sure to provide lots of snacks.
After lunch, a researcher stopped by to check out some interesting pieces of redware that we've recently rediscovered in the Three Cranes Tavern collections. None of us have ever seen this particular style in Massachusetts, and the examples that have been found in Maryland and Maine have significantly younger dates than this piece. Exciting stuff! He took advantage of our setup to photograph this and other pieces for his research. It's great to have a place where local researchers can come and have access to what they need.
Sometimes we get a little silly. The City Archaeologist made this video this morning when he had the lab to himself for a few minutes before the volunteers arrived.
Video tour of City Archaeology Lab and call for volunteers
Thanks for coming along with us today! If you want to be a part of a day in the City Archaeology Lab, shoot us an email (firstname.lastname@example.com)! We're always looking for new volunteers.


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EU Proposes Plan To Accelerate Low-Carbon Tech
European Commission proposes a plan to accelerate energy technologies for a low-carbon future
Energy technologies will be crucial to successfully fighting against climate change and securing world and European energy supply. Achieving Europe's 2020 and 2050 targets on greenhouse gas emissions, renewable energy and energy efficiency will require action on energy efficiency, standards, support mechanisms and putting a price on carbon emissions.
It will also require the deployment of more efficient and new technologies. So a significant research effort is necessary. Europe's potential to develop a new generation of decarbonised energy technologies, such as off-shore wind, solar technology, or 2nd generation biomass, is enormous. However EU energy research is often under-funded, dispersed and badly coordinated.
If the opportunity facing the EU is to be seized, actions to develop new energy technologies, lower their costs and bring them to the market must be better organised and carried out more efficiently. This is why the European Commission is proposing the Strategic Energy Technology Plan, a comprehensive plan to establish a new energy research agenda for Europe.
The Commission believes that Europe should lower the costs of clean energy and put EU industry at the forefront of the rapidly growing low carbon technology sector. This Plan is to be accompanied by better use of and increases in resources, both financial and human, to accelerate the development and deployment of low-carbon technologies of the future.
"The Energy Policy for Europe calls for a new industrial revolution. Like all industrial revolutions, this one is going to be technology driven and it is high time to transform our political vision into concrete actions. Decisions taken over the next 10-15 years will have profound consequences for energy security, for climate change and for growth and jobs in Europe. If we fall behind in the intensifying global race to win low carbon technology markets, we risk meeting our targets with imported technologies," said European Commissioner for Energy Andris Piebalgs.
Janez Potočnik, Commissioner for Science and Research said: "We have the chance to be world leaders in low carbon technologies, but if Europe doesn't act together more effectively, we will squander that opportunity and the economic benefits of the transition to a low carbon economy will go elsewhere. The ideas that the Commission is putting forward today will allow Europe to develop a world class portfolio of affordable, clean, efficient and low emission energy technologies."
Europe faces real challenges linked with energy supply and climate change. With current trends and technologies, the EU and the world will not achieve its climate change objectives at a cost that is economically sustainable.
Research and innovation in energy technology are therefore vital in meeting the EU's ambition to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 60-80% by 2050. But unless there is a major change in the EU's approach such technologies, there is a serious risk that these objectives will not be met, or the technology to do so will come from outside the EU.
The energy innovation process, from initial conception to market penetration, suffers from structural weaknesses. There is neither a natural market appetite nor a readily discernible short-term business benefit for such technologies. In addition, public energy research budgets in the EU Member States have generally declined substantially since the 1980s. It is clear that many of the technological challenges faced by the EU energy policy cannot be overcome by the instruments or models of cooperation that are in current use. A new mind-set is required.
The European Commission is therefore proposing a new approach, which focuses on more joint planning, making better use of the potential of the European Research and Innovation area and fully exploiting the possibilities opened up by the Internal Market.
In particular, the Plan includes the commitment to set up a series of new priority European Industrial Initiatives focusing on the development of technologies for which working at Community level will add most value. The Plan proposes the strengthening the industrial research and innovation, by aligning European, national and industrial activities; it also proposes the creation of a European Energy Research Alliance to ensure much greater cooperation among energy research organisations as well as improved planning and foresight at European level for energy infrastructure and systems.
The Commission clearly signals the need for increased funding in this field, and will present its ideas on financing low carbon technologies during 2008. It will set up an information system to ensure a clear picture of energy technologies across Europe and establish a process with Member States so that energy technology research can be planned together. A European Energy Technology Summit will be called in 2009 to review progress.
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BOISE, Idaho - For Boise State President Bob Kustra, the decision to part ways with the Big East and rejoin the Mountain West ultimately came down to predictable revenue, conference stability and the opportunity for the football team to cash in on its growing national brand.
Kustra announced Monday that Boise State was backing out of its commitment to join the faltering Big East, opting instead to keep the Broncos football team and its other athletic programs in the Mountain West.
Boise State's decision was made easier by the Mountain West's own ambitions, a new television contract for football games and a willingness to give Boise State a few special perks. Ultimately, Boise State and the MWC reached a deal that was too tempting to pass up and rewards the football team for its success and popularity.
"I was committed to the Big East decision and thought it was a good decision," Kustra told reporters Wednesday. "But this thing started changing, and then it became a different matter. That's where the Boise State and the Mountain West come together for this very innovative approach."
The centerpiece of the deal, and a provision unique to Boise State among its MWC peers, is the ability for the Broncos to negotiate its own television deal for all home games. Boise State will work with the MWC to sign a broadcast deal with the top networks that provides the best exposure and revenue for the school, Kustra said.
Money from that deal will go to the Mountain West, then distributed back to Boise State and other teams in a bonus plan. For example, the MWC will pay Boise State $300,000 if a game at Bronco Stadium is televised nationally by ESPN, ESPN2, NBC, CBS or Fox, and another $200,000 if that game is played on Saturdays.
The MWC also has agreed to 50/50 split with Boise State - or any other league team - the revenue paid for making it to a BCS bowl game.
Ultimately, those financial incentives and giving Boise State the flexibility to control its own television destiny were more appealing than anything the Big East was prepared to offer, Kustra said. The Big East has yet to renegotiate its television deal, creating even more uncertainty for the Broncos and its perennially powerful football team.
"We started hearing that there was interest in Boise State as a media property separate and apart from the other conferences," Kustra said. "I think that's when we realized there was an opportunity here. When the networks speak so clearly about the importance of Boise State University's football program and what it means to them, then that had a large role to play in moving these conversations forward.
"When one school like Boise State over the last 10 years rises up as we have, it does put you in a position where you have to lay the cards on the table and acknowledge you have a property here that can not only be valuable for the individual school, but for the entire conference," Kustra said.
Now, Boise State athletic director Mark Coyle will work with other MWC schools to redo the Broncos 2013 schedule, which included home games with Big East programs like Louisville and Rutgers.
School officials will also begin negotiating the costs associated with leaving the Big East and the Big West, which until last week was the new conference for men's and women's basketball and other Broncos teams.
The exit fee for the Big East is $5 million, but Kustra said the contract has language that could lessen that amount. Under the new arrangement, the MWC has agreed to pay up to $3 million toward those exit fees. Kustra said he expects to honor the Big West contract and its $1.5 million exit fee.
Boise State will give the Mountain West 11 members next season, along with Fresno State, Nevada, New Mexico, San Jose State, Utah State, Colorado State, Air Force, Wyoming, UNLV and Hawaii for football-only. Mountain West Commissioner Craig Thompson said he has also had discussions with other western schools about joining. If the conference gets to at least 12 members, it likely will hold a football championship game.
Another result of the Boise State deal is the MWC agreeing to give San Diego State the first option to rejoin. San Diego State is still part of the Big East and has until Jan. 31 to decide what to do, according to the agreement.


text:
Click the cover to see the preview
December 1987
This is The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers #10: The Idiots Abroad Part 3.
The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers were created by Gilbert Shelton, one of the greatest American underground cartoonists. The Freak Brothers are timeless clowns, and it's Shelton's mastery of satire and slapstick, silly punchlines and the traditional forms of humour at the heart of these tripped-out cartoons that have kept them fresh and mirthful for over 45 years.
Unlike many cults from the Sixties which have since faded away, the Freak Brothers are still going from strength to strength and acquiring new fans all the time. They are published in 15 languages and worldwide sales are now over 40 million copies plus millions of items of merchandise, T-shirts, postcards, badges, posters and more.
Based on the edition first published in 1987 by Rip Off Press.
Alan Moore
•Author of From Hell, Watchmen, A Disease of Language
"Gilbert Shelton is as near as comics have come to producing a natural comedic genius of the same stature as a Chaplin or a Tati ... He is truly one of the greatest and most sublimely funny talents that the comic medium has to offer."
Publishers Weekly
•Publishing trade magazine
"First rearing its shaggy head during the thick of the psychedelic era, Shelton's classic series could be cited as the Big Bang of 'stoner' humor as we now understand the genre ... Differing from much of the mean-spirited material found in the nascent underground genre by being legitimately funny, the Freak Brothers slacked their way from one misadventure to another, getting ripped off by dealers, avoiding work and staying as completely stoned as possible. Fat Freddy, Phineas and Freewheelin' Franklin's existence reads like a pothead sitcom, the characters' world defined first in a series of short stories, and longer, even epic tales allow Shelton to run wild as the gags fly fast and furious."
The Guardian
•UK national newspaper
"The Freak Brothers live between the opposed poles of their own desire for intoxication, at almost any price, and the law of the land's determined efforts to prevent their citizens from self-medication. At any price. Accordingly, they live in a state of blissful torpor relieved only by bursts of paranoia or stimulant-induced frenzy. As such, theirs is a world as edenic as anything imagined by Wodehouse, albeit with references to the Birch Society, Richard Nixon, and other 1970s cultural signifiers." – Nicholas Lezard


text:
Announcing L_ProAudio;
_________________________________________________________________________ __ _
The L_ProAudio project aimed at Vastly improving wine-enabled Windows VST/ASIO applications to run more seamlessly and integrated in a Gnu/Linux environment. EDIT: it ALREADY accomplishes it's aims for the most part, with the exception of WineASIO / wine-rt / wineserver bound applications ~ which are stuck using the 'wineserver bottleneck'. ~ but this is being looked into so be patient...
NOTE: there is lots of info (below) and at SF.net wiki + readme.
I've started some docs for the wiki, but you'll have to wait a few days for that.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
This project is split into components:
1. Linux-L_pa is the specially tweaked kernel. This kernel is tweaked for RT (Realtime Linux), but more specifically 3.6.11-rt25-1-rt patched with a few 'cherry-picked' patches (by me) from various useful sources. These sources include; Muse Research, Mao Tao / Google / google, while others will be identified in the patch, themselves. These were all then applied and/or reworked in order to work nicely. This kernel is designed to work with wine-L_pa and does so, very well.
2. Wine-L_pa is a highly modified version of Wine. It's patches were also cherry-picked from Muse Research / Codeweavers, my own patches or otherwise identified, respectfully. This version is based on 1.5.21 (and thus all patches were re-based...). A brief log of useful stuff included;
- new threading/priority model; L_RT_THREADS bool (env variables for new prio/threading enablement)
- ntdll use syncronisations for pipes (<-- needs investigating by devs, but provides jack like synchronization to wine-apps)
- Rendering vastly improved for vst plugins (and wine in general, no flickering on move/scale)
- much better handling of threads/priorites
- signicant reduction in CPU usage (in general)
- much more stable than upstream wine
- fixes for disk geometry io ctl
- fixes for DnD
- fixes for metacity / hidden windows / etc...and much more
FSThost from SVN on SF.net will also be useful, since it integrates with L_pa-Wine's new priority mapping / threading code via env variables (that fsthost handles)
< triplesquarednine (_AT_) gmail (_DOT_) com
Wine-L_pa is available in the AUR:
Linux-L_pa is available at sourceforge project page, but will be available in AUR, in the next day or so (along with nvidia-l-pa, for binary driver rt-users, like myself)
http://sourceforge.net/projects/l-proau … z/download
report back issues, patchwork, etc... have fun
Last edited by triplesquarednine (2013-01-05 13:28:23)
pro-audio user here (unfortuanatly no dev/programer/scripter)
one question: why no AUR-packages?
Last edited by capoeira (2012-12-31 21:22:35)
I'll give you a hand to package this stuff, sounds very interesting.
Are you familiar with archaudio? It's a binary addon repo which in combination with aur could be to make distribution easier. There is also a freenode channel at #archaudio if you want to chat about this.
Just give me some days, since I'm on vacation right now.
I'll give you a hand to package this stuff, sounds very interesting.
Are you familiar with archaudio? It's a binary addon repo which in combination with aur could be to make distribution easier. There is also a freenode channel at #archaudio if you want to chat about this.
Just give me some days, since I'm on vacation right now.
No problem. I was hoping you might be inclined to help with packaging, but was hesitant to ask because on some sort of level, i felt like i was stomping on your toes a little
I think you will be shocked by the differences between wine-proaudio/linux-proaudio vs. othger alternatives... I need to get in touch with the FSThost maintainer too - i need him to start looking into supporting this stuff.
i want tier 1 windows VST/ASIO support on my h/W - these packages bring me about 85% of the way
pro-audio user here (unfortuanatly no dev/programer/scripter)
one question: why no AUR-packages?
I actually talk about that in my OP. I am not good at that.... but it sounds like jhernberg is going to come to the rescue (possibly). I need to focus on more important things, such as enhancements, better gtk/wine integration - as well as cherry-picking a few more patches here and there.
Last edited by triplesquarednine (2012-12-31 21:50:30)
Just an update for those interests, more than one person (me) is now using L_ProAudio
I know of another Archer experimenting with L_PA-wine and i know someone in Ubuntuland running both kernel and wine - with success
FalkTX is making some test packages for the KxStudio crowd.
and i will be ready to drop new packages soon that have a couple of new patches, as well as some cleanups.
...and i have been flooded with Emails today about this _kickass_ project
happy happy joy joy
@ Everybody.
I've updated sf.net with new sources, i've added a few things to the readme on sf.net and update the one's inside. I included the fixed patches, but NOTE: wine-rt is disabled in the xxx-prepatched.tar.gz ~ while is because it has proven to be unnecessary with the new multi-threaded model, thus isn't really required any way. (in fact, it was screwing me up today, as i was sifting though some vsts dlls i haven't touched in a long time - wine-rt + new wine would cough in certain circumstances... i scratched my head, then compiled it with wine-rt removed... did some more testing, problem gone....went and tested my regular array - all working nicely.... Wine-rt patch is still in the Arch_n_patches.tar.gz though.
the link/files are as follows; https://sourceforge.net/projects/l-proaudio/files/
wine-L_Proaudio-prepatched.tar.gz < pre-patched sources. ready to compile, like usual wine
Wine-L_Proaudio-Arch_n_patches.tar.gz < pkgbuild for archlinux, which includes patchset ~ and revision, thank you FalkTX
I've also decided to deprecate the MUSE_ symbols from the sources. Quite frankly, i don't want any trademark hassles - and that is clearly associated with them, if they have a problem with that they can contact me, i have no issues. either way, i am happy to oblige.
The new names are as follows, the env Variables are used like so;
env L_RT_THREADS=1 L_ENABLE_PIPE_SYNC_FOR_APP=1 foo (<---- foo is your wine app/plugin)
without doing this, your app is not using the new multi-threaded model.
There are also other env variables, they are found in the patchwork for that marked; 0054-xxxxx.patch...
I won't be packaging new kernel sources for a few days (after more testing, more current dogfood/kernel ~ which is promising). but obviously, my current sources and patches are on sf.net. I'm telling you guys though, i've done my homework on what Wine likes and what it does not like, it loves my modified kernel (because i toasted a really big bottleneck). ~ As i have said from the beginning, this isn't just use one but not the other; for _real_ results, you need the pair.
I don't know how many people are following this thread, but i have several areas of news;
1. I am working on figuring out issues with Cockos Reaper (including being in touch with them, plus kindly given an NFR'd copy for reaper testing puroses.
2. I am working with Upstream wine and in the next release or two - some of my patches will be merged upstream (although not the _best_ ones), mostly one's that fix bugs in upstream wine. ~ that's okay though, we still have a proaudio geared L_pa-Wine anyway. (which is part of the point, in the first place - i knew they would reject the best patches from L-pa - but this is entirely why L-pa is a downstream project ~ that will continue to work with upstream).
3. FSThost fully-supports my project with integration of L_RT_THREADS and the pipe_sync support. ~ it is the de-facto standard for hosting VSTs in L_pa.
4. WineASIO needs to be looked at as faw as hosting DAWs. FSThost seems to be a more direct path and handles prios properly, wineASIO does not (with or without wine-rt patch apllied to L_pa-Wine)- but as far as single hosting + WineASIO ~ just pass the env L_ variables and you should be fine. (the threading/prio mapping gets trickier with DAWs and needs to be investigated / tested quite a bit more - before i can promise your wineDAW will run well).
5. I've got a good amount of testers for both system components, some having great success, some still having issues (to be expected, this is experimental software ~ and an *alpha" project. ~ i am making progress very quickly though, so be patient.
6. I _think_ in 3.8-rt ext4 _may_ be alright with some tweaking. noatime,data=writeback are almost certainly going to be requirements though, (since they reduce latency / increase performance ~ albeit at the cost of a little data integrity... so it's upto you what you wanna do in this regard. Ext4 is not very performant for these kinds of uses (with RT and Wine). Using a different file-system could fix the problem ~ but not many of us, have that choice always.
7. 1 system (out of many testers) is incompatible with the revert-stable-page-write patch, if you get hung on boot - with a stop on loading ramdisk ~ you need to revert it and re-compile. Unfortunately, this is _likely_ to mean ext4 will be a much bigger bottleneck on your system ~ so you will need to look into alternative ways of taming the latency inducing / xruns causing beast that is ext4.. ~ but we will get upstream ext4 tamed in the next couple of releases (as forementioned). ~ but note: i am looking into the 1 system that hangs on boot (i just need logging/crash info, and a bit of time).
I am also looking into Btrfs support, although there is no rush for that (since i am not using it). (
more to come
Last edited by triplesquarednine (2013-01-04 18:39:02)
You might be interested in :
Also, the BFQ IO scheduler patch for the kernel. Homepage: http://algo.ing.unimo.it/people/paolo/disk_sched/
Last edited by Brett Lyons (2013-01-04 22:08:45)
Muse Research has now chipped in on helping sort out the patch work. (because of my initiative / networking and creation of L_pa!!! Linuxaudio users should take this as a BIG WIN for OUR community.
- I've documented each patch, what they do, what is applicable/not applicable to upstream / the how's and the why's (wine-devs also are aware and merging patches, investigating upstream problems, presented by others that may or may not be accepted. ~ ie: upstream wine will have improvements soon - L_pa-Wine will have less maintainance. ( i will be updating L_pa-Wine later )
I have also extended my hand (in friendship) to the project lead there, about trading tricks on taming linux-rt ~ so we will see what he says. (their 'secret sauce' in their product line is not things of that nature - they have finely crafted software + hardware to handle any and all VST quirks in their environment ~ which is a whole other ball game
but either way, things a looking up ...and i am still looking for people to collaberate on this project, help with Git / SF.net and whatever else. I also have some graphic art i am working for L_pa and icon-work for FSThost ~ both will take a little while, but i am motivated to improve Linuxaudio / L_pa and any other related project
FSThost author is also working on a host application, that will be of interest down the line.
- as well, i think i have a very practical way to get VSTs that don't properly accept (mapping) midi-program changes -> fxb/plugin presets. (and i don't thinking it's going to require much effort to get it working, being as most of the code applicable, is already implemented to work around the problem... i just need a bit more investigating
EDIT: Heard back from Muse Research's project lead: We are on friendly terms, and it's looking like i _may_ be included in their beta program...!!!
...looks like a week's worth of work (and a few years of experience) has paid off
Last edited by triplesquarednine (2013-01-04 22:16:47)
Thank you for the 1st - going to look into it.
i'm already well aware of BFQ (and have chatted with it's dev, in the past) ~ i used to used that patchset (on Zen-Kernel + bfs) a couple of years ago, to combat RT being crappy on that H/W ~ with a bunch of hack, as well. ... those days were fun, and that 2.6.37 kernel was actually pretty sick (running in Fedora).
...man Oh man, am i making progress with my Project's goals (!!!)
EDIT: BUT! ...if this is something that you are interested in, there is nothing stoppping us from integrating it into L_pa ~ as it is an option / not a hard-requirement anyway.
I'll do some investigating (as i am not sure if BFQ works on RT). But i know _just_ whom to ask, from previous interraction with in the past; a guy involved with RT / CUDA development, whom i've gotten to know. ~ i'll see if he has anything useful to say on the matter, if not ~ i will hit the RT list.
but feel free to make a patch, i won't hesitate from dog-fooding it on my systems
... if it fails, it might yield useful info i can pass along to respective developers.
food for thought
Last edited by triplesquarednine (2013-01-05 00:17:14)
I don't know how many people are following this thread
Be sure there are some.
I'll join the "testers" soon
good to know
and fyi, while the kernel isn't available in AUR, yet ~ Wine-L_pa is, rebased on 1.5.21 (just released upstream);
but remember, it doesn't play well with many windows DAWs yet, this has to do with limitations in wineASIO/wine-rt.. Use FSThost for the best handling of VST with L_pa, and (as i commented in AUR) ~ (when you start using this stuff) start testing old semi-working (but failing) VSTs ~ at my count locally, I have 19 VSTs working that _never_ worked quite right before. (!! and i haven't went through my directory really, nor hit KVRaudio)
with FSThost all prio/threading is handled ~ you should see great benefits, with none of the bottlenecks of Wine-rt.
...the DAW stuff will take time (this is new technology to us, and i have only been investigating the DAW problems over the last 2 days).
Side-note: As general useful tip for (the odd) windows installer:
- every once in a while, there is a windows-installer that does not work (but the app and/or VST in fact, is well-supported).
it'll spit something like this (below), hang for a while and everntually fail)
[ninez@ninez ~]$ '/home/ninez/Downloads/ohm_studio_installer.exe'
bash: /home/ninez/Downloads/ohm_studio_installer.exe: Permission denied
[ninez@ninez ~]$ chmod +x '/home/ninez/Downloads/ohm_studio_installer.exe'
[ninez@ninez ~]$ '/home/ninez/Downloads/ohm_studio_installer.exe'
fixme:exec:SHELL_execute flags ignored: 0x00000100
fixme:exec:SHELL_execute flags ignored: 0x00000100
the work around is simple;
- install the app using 'sudo' (to your *root* wine-prefix)
- open up 'regedit' (with sudo, again to use your root wine prefix), then search for the app/vsts related registry keys (right click and export/save).
- next you need to find all installed files and copy them into your ~/.wine prefix (or other used prefix).
- lastly, (without sudo) launch regedit; from the main menu 'import keys' ~ import the saved registry keys into regedit.
- close regedit and launch newly-installed application (make sure you have completely stopped wineserver and friends first. ~ wineboot is one such method)
I mention this, because i ran into it for the first time in a long time (yesterday) installing Ableton Live (for testing purposes, which jugged my memory - but obviously OHM studio is another _fine_ example).
but have been aware of this hack, for a few years now.
~ ideally, we should have some mechanism in L_pa to handle these kinds of quirks (as it would make things easier, for those troublesome apps).
~ i haven't looked into this at all yet (implementing it). but go nuts, if you come up with something that works, we can look at adding it to L_pa
Last edited by triplesquarednine (2013-01-05 03:09:28)
Just for Jun;
FSTHost + L_pa --> FL Studio ~ VST plugin (latest demo / release).
it actually just gave me an idea that i need to run by FSThost/Pawel (that could improve some handling for users).
FL Studio runs very well here, although realistically, i should be giving the app a little more buffering, if i was working on a track. FL doesn't cause xruns until 60-70% DSP load in jack (on my machine), which are very few (if even audible) @ 99% you get some grains/distortions (from me not feeding the DAW enough buffers from jack, in the first place..).
At 88.2/96khz on this box, i would probably (in a real life situation, making music in FL), be using 512 vs. 256 buffer to give everything a larger slice of time to process.
it's interesting to see this DAW being hosted with FSThost, anyway.
oh and i meant to post the output from that run.
You'll notice that FSThost handles the threading/priorities quite nicely ~ and if you are familiar with FSThost, but not using L_pa ~ you have never seen any VST have threading like this; http://pastebin.com/SxPMNp9X
If you are familiar with Windows priorities, you can clearly see them being mapped to linux priorites. for example;
JACK: JACK: Thread 7106 at THREAD_PRIORITY_TIME_CRITICAL set to SCHED_FIFO - priority 20
Thread 7107 at THREAD_PRIORITY_TIME_CRITICAL set to SCHED_FIFO - priority 20
JACK: Setting thread 7106 at level THREAD_PRIORITY_NORMAL to SCHED_NORMAL
Setting thread 7107 at level THREAD_PRIORITY_NORMAL to SCHED_NORMAL
JACK: JACK: Thread 7106 at THREAD_PRIORITY_TIME_CRITICAL set to SCHED_FIFO - priority 20
Thread 7107 at THREAD_PRIORITY_TIME_CRITICAL set to SCHED_FIFO - priority 20
JACK: Setting thread 7106 at level THREAD_PRIORITY_NORMAL to SCHED_NORMAL
each thread is being directed as to how it should be handled in Linux land.
happy stuff
I've got a new linux-l-pa pkgbuild on SF.net for people to try;
http://sourceforge.net/projects/l-proau … z/download
please test
- it does NOT install over linux-rt
- it is a *unique package*.- no nvidia-l-pa package yet (-rt patched for binary beta driver) and i'll do that today/tonight... so if using the blob (like me); you are on your own, until i sort that out.
- i have reverted/ditched a few patches (other than for my local machines) because of user issues.- I've also commented out the last applied patch for reasons, that i've stated above, and because it's a performance hack, that some people may not be comfortable with...
I think in my excitement and busyiness, i really hadn't put enough thought into that one. That being said, the revert-stable-write-page.patch yields very nice performance improvements in general and fixes some latency bottlenecks with wine (particularly, squashing certain nasty latencies in ext4 operations cause ridiculous amounts for latency (in particular for L_pa-Wine, since it is quite a bit quicker/heavy duty than normal Wine)
...So this becomes a question of sacrificing a little data-integrity vs. a nice performance boost / more stable / uninterrupted operation. ~ Particularly, i am finding with Wine, since it is actually a power-house now...
* I should also note that i have been reverting 'stable write pages' in ext4 for _all_ of the 3.0+ linux-rt series in order to get the performance required... Sooo, make your own decisions as what you want to do - but i have left the patch in the pkgbuild for those whom may need it, since it has been very critical for my systems... There is also new prepatched-sources on Sf.net (or will be shortly). - for the next release I have 2, possibly three new patches... it'll be up in a few dayz
* as a side note:L_pa-Wine breaks DOSBOX support in Wine. my advice; go download DOSBOX, instead if you are all about dos ~ L_pa-Wine isn't for dos games
Last edited by triplesquarednine (2013-01-05 11:39:50)
Wine-L_pa is, rebased on 1.5.21 (just released upstream);
nice, just installed this.
Let me know how it goes, read the readme and wiki.
...grab the latest FSThost code from svn (since it uses Wine-L_pa effectively).
Let me know how it goes, read the readme and wiki.
...grab the latest FSThost code from svn (since it uses Wine-L_pa effectively).
not now, but soon I'll test all this
i need help with nvidia-l-pa packaging and quite frankly, i do not have the time to be learning about packaging in Archlinux right now (I'm not even all that interested in being a package maintatiner, really). especially when someone who already knows this stuff could have it done in a minute or two;
http://sourceforge.net/projects/l-proau … z/download
it's just screwing up on integrity checks (can install with --skipinteg and works with linux-l-pa locally - tested). but i am busy investigating ext4 in 3.8 kernel and this is how my time should be spent right now (resolving ext4 problems, generically, for later relase of L_pa 3.8-rt) and/or working on my Wiki pages and other bits - to be focusing on packaging.
~ ie: I _HATE_ writing/working on pkgbuilds (just so you guys know.. lol)
so technically, by going to sf.net Nvidia-rt users _should_ be able to use linux-l-pa with the latest beta 313.09 driver (makepkg -si --skipinteg). Anyway, I am am done with packaging for today ~ i don't know when i will get to it, but won't upload linx-l-pa until i have a working nvidia-l-pa for people to use..so if ppl want this stuff in AUR ~ please help.
Last edited by triplesquarednine (2013-01-06 01:51:27)
I'll just pop in to say that I am also watching this very closely.
I just don't have the free cycles to play re alpha/beta testing at the moment but I certainly appreciate the work effort that will result in an easy to install fantastically useful compatibility stack for Linux Pro Audio. When things solidify I'll certainly be installing and checking things out.
It really would be fantastic to have a Muse like level of stability and large choice of available VST's on an Arch build!!
Keep up the great work!
Last edited by arkay (2013-01-06 02:54:28)
I had some stuff i wanted people to try out here, but I have to do some investigating aka: not ready.
Last edited by triplesquarednine (2013-01-06 04:17:36)
scratch that... /
got confused on something there...
I think i re-enabled wine-rt in a compile by accident or / something is strange is happening here...
dumb dumb dumb.
desperately want to get wineASIO sorted quickly though.
Last edited by triplesquarednine (2013-01-06 04:10:46)
I'll just pop in to say that I am also watching this very closely.
I actually appreciate that. I kinda feel like i am talking to myself most of the time. lol.
I just don't have the free cycles to play re alpha/beta testing at the moment but I certainly appreciate the work effort that will result in an easy to install fantastically useful compatibility stack for Linux Pro Audio. When things solidify I'll certainly be installing and checking things out.
well, definitely aimed at improving a few components and having some patches merged upstream anyway
It really would be fantastic to have a Muse like level of stability and large choice of available VST's on an Arch build!!
It would be hard to obtain quite the level of love that Muse' puts into it's host. But I am definitely all about improving all of our stack, where we can. Having a good implementation of wine and some apps that support it goes a _long_ way, though.
Keep up the great work!.
thanks man. I do what i can, when i can.
Last edited by triplesquarednine (2013-01-06 04:20:33)
Ok i finally got registered with this forum. For anyone else reading and having problems with the arch Captcha questionn what is the output of ? If the clock on your desktop is in local time and not utc.. you have to change the first part by inserving V where the W is date -u +%V$ not date -u +%W$
I do have a question. You mention problems with your kernel and Nvidia that you are sorting out. If i am Running amd Catalyst proprietary should i have the same concerns.
Stupid question 2. I understand the reasons for tweaking the kernal and Wine to work together with audio apps. But i think this may only be one link in the chain. Correct me if i am wrong but doesnt Receptor run a vst host that is a windows program running in wine. It appears that most of us have the best luck running VST's inside of a host designed for windows. Why not Create a vst Host specifically for linux that runs inside of wine and is optimized from source to run in wine. And as far as Wineasio problems. couldnt something like jack2's Netjack be used to connect the in and out streams from the vst to jack on the linux host.
I have yet to start using win vst on my linux boxes. Having some issues getting it running in arch/ was pretty much plug and play in KXstudio (thank you faltx) I do use ardour as my daw. but i am using a winbows machine loaded with jack2/netjack to host my vst. and send them back to ardour. on a gigabit network i see added latency of about 1 ms. maybe using the virtual network switch that is in place for virtual machines somehow could eliminate half of this because it probably comes from my network switch.
I may be totally off my rocker. Like i said in another forum. Im not a coder Just a guy that builds networks and KVM server farms for people


text:
Megachurch Launches Website for Public Flogging of 'Grinches'
First Baptist Church—a Dallas megachurch with a pastor who calls Islam an "evil, evil religion"—want everyone to have a Merry Christmas. They want it so badly, they're public shaming businesses that don't say "Merry Christmas" to customers.
It all started when a local Christian radio station heard about a Southlake, TX bank that had "fallen into the trap of political correctness" and elected not to display a Christmas tree this year. They took this as a personal affront. (Martyrdom complex?) They did a broadcast shaming that bank, which relented and put a tree in its lobby.
Heartened by this success, First Baptist Pastor Robert Jeffress launched GrinchAlert.com, a catch-all message board for publicly shaming those who fail to "show outward signs of supporting Christmas." If you're not a Christian, GTFO. And if you are a Christian, know that it's not enough to have Jesus in your heart—you must also wear him on your sleeve. Here are some sample floggings from Grinch Alert's "Naughty" list:
Crowley City Hall - Crowley Texas
"The city hall at Crowley has GIANT letters in front of the city buildings that say "HAPPY HOLIDAYS"......I say "booooooooo"!!! Merry Christmas is the true REASON for the SEASON!!!"
Target - Probably all
"I was looking for an ornament that reflected the reason for the season, and I could not find anything that said Merry Christmas. I'm tired of seeing ONLY snowmen, Santa Clauses, snowflakes, birds, glitter, ect. I could not find a gift bag, an ornament, or a gift box with a manger or the Holy Family on it. My husband & I will make a conscious effort to support stores like Mardel's, Hobby Lobby, Life Way, or church bookstores that support Christmas wholeheartedly."
...and some sample kudos from the "Nice" list:
City of Marshall - Marshall, Michigan
"I am very thankful to live in a city that displays a life-size Nativity in the middle of town."
"I don't want to offend anybody, but here at Park Central OB/GYN Associates, we say "Merry Christmas!" After all, Jesus is the reason for the season!!!"
Kincaid's Hamburgers - Southlake, TX
"After checking out, the clerk told me Merry Christmas, to which i responded with a Merry Christmas. Glad to see that many people still arent conforming to the over jealous minority. More than 85% of Americans celebrate Christmas, including many non christians. I dont understand why the minority is offended if they recieve a Merry Christmas greeting. I would not take offense to someone wishing me a happy Hanukkah. I would understnad they take pride in what they celebrate and gladly want to spread their holiday. Its "happy holidays" that offends me. It is just a way of saying, "although there is well over an 85% chance you celebrate Christmas, i am afraid of offending the other 15%, so happy holidays".
Anyone can submit a Grinch Alert, but after a few dust-ups in the "Naughty" list (someone put First Baptist Church there) the alerts are now moderated. Hopefully this one gets through!
Click to enlarge.


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If your tivo does not have a USB port on the back, then this is the place for support. Don't post newbie questions here, but this is the place for legitimate support issues. This includes both DirectTiVos & standalone TiVo. NO DTV HACKING TALK
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From the Blog
Get to Know Special Needs Trusts
Trust assets can be used for a variety of helpful and enriching benefits, all while not jeopardizing valuable government assistance.
Caring for a family member or friend with a disability or special needs can difficult to navigate without expert help and the right plan. Whether due to an accident or mental disability, a special needs trust can help enrich your loved one's life while not jeopardizing benefits that can be a significant source of income and health insurance.
What Is a Special Needs Trust?
A special needs trust, sometimes called a supplemental needs trust, is a legal arrangement where one person or entity – the trustee – is charged with protecting the interest and assets for the benefit of another – the beneficiary. The trust essentially allows an individual with a disability or special needs to benefit from the income and principal of the trust without reducing their eligibility for government assistance such as Supplemental Security Income (SSI) or Medicaid.
The use of a special needs trust can protect against the reach of creditors, and it provides protection for a beneficiary who may be vulnerable, susceptible to undue influence or unable to manage money independently. But most importantly, a special needs trust stretches each dollar contributed to the trust and allows the beneficiary to be cared for at a higher level of care without jeopardizing the beneficiary's benefits.
How Can the Assets Be Used?
Trust assets can be used to buy a wide variety of goods and services to assist the beneficiary and enrich his or her life. Common uses include personal care attendants, vacations, home furnishings, out-of-pocket medical and dental expenses, education, recreation, vehicles and physical rehabilitation.
Choosing the Right Trustee
Given the complexity and longevity of administering a special needs trust, it's important to consider the best-qualified person or a corporate trust company to serve as trustee. Properly managing a special needs trust means understanding the disabilities of the loved one and communicating effectively with parents, caregivers or guardians, which can require a significant time commitment. The trustee must be able to prudently manage the assets held for the loved one's benefit and understand the governmental regulations and how to work about them.
A special needs trust can help fund a lifetime of care for a disabled or special needs individual. While governmental support is designed to only provide for the very basic necessities, such as food and shelter, the funds in a special needs trust can be used for those many extras that will make the beneficiary's life more rewarding and fulfilling. You may find it helpful to consult a special needs attorney, talk with your financial advisor, and read the full information guide below to learn more about special needs trusts and other strategies tailored for disabled or special needs individuals.


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VIDEO DOWNLOAD - Rick Steiner Shoot Interview
"The Dogface Gremlin" Rick Steiner talks about his entire career. Steiner has been through it all from early territories like UWF to the big two with NWA/WCW and WWE to being a major star in Japan and he holds nothing back talking about it all here. From his brother to his true feelings on Ric Flair, Steiner isnt afraid to speak his mind. Here is what Steiner talked about:
-His collegiate career.
-His relationship with his brother growing up.
-Training with Eddie Sharky.
-His early days in AWA.
-Thoughts on Vern Gagne.
-Going to work for Bill Watts.
-Steiner talks a lot about the controversial Watts?
-UWFs travel schedule.
-How did the UWF crew treat him as a newcomer?
-Who helped him?
-Memories of Buzz Sawyer in and out of the ring.
-His early matches vs. Steve Williams and Jim Duggan.
-Thoughts on Eddie Gilbert.
-First impressions of Sting & Jim Hellwig.
-Teaming with Sting.
-What did they learn together?
-Rick talks about his favorite and least favorite guys to work in UWF.
-Steiner talks about when he and Steve Williams helped save people in a car accident.
-He talks about The Freebirds.
-When did he realize UWF was in financial trouble?
-Details on when UWF was sold to Jim Crockett.
-What was the first show like with Dusty Rhodes as booker.
-Is it true some guys almost walked out?
-Was he surprised there wasnt an invasion angle?
-How did the NWA guys treat the UWF guys?
-Were there any problems between the two groups?
-Memories of his first Starcade in 1987.
-Where did the idea with The Varsity Club come from?
-Teaming with Kevin Sullivan and Rick Steiner.
-Rick compares Watts and Rhodes as bookers.
-Did he like the idea to turn babyface.
-His thoughts on Ric Flair.
-Changes in the company when Ted Turner bought it.
-Was he ever offered a deal by Vince McMahon in the 80s.
-Thoughts on Jim Herd.
-How close was he to Scott when Scott was in USWA.
-Memories of some of the top guys like Terry Funk, El Gigante, Tom Zenk, Brian Pillman, Sid Vicious and Paul Heyman.
-Thoughts on Halloween Havoc match vs. Nasty Boys.
-Who he enjoyed and didnt enjoy working with in NWA/WCW.
-All the details on teaming with Scott.
-How did things change when Ric Flair went to WWE?
-Working Sting and Lex Luger.
-First Japan tours.
-Working WCW and Japan at the same time.
-Did Sting change with success?
-Teaming with Bill Kazmier.
-Ole Anderson as booker.
-Memories of program with Doom and Woman.
-Working Steve Williams and Terry Gordy.
-Memories on Chamber Of Horrors match and working Abdullah The Butcher.
-Matches vs. Hase, Muto, Sasaki, Bam Bam Bigelow and Vader in Japan.
-Rick talks about his matches vs. Cactus Jack.
-Steiner reveals the infamous practical jokes he used to pull.
-Being managed by Missy Hyatt.
-Thoughts on when Bill Watts booked WCW.
-Did he think Steve Austin would be a success when he first came into WCW?
-Were there ever any plans for him to feud with Scott?
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Lunch in the Loop: Pazzo's Express
Reviews of restaurants in the Loop.
Editor's Note: Whether you're a tourist or an office worker in downtown Chicago, you can get sick of eating at chain restaurants all day. So we've started a series to get you the lowdown on where to find a great and affordable lunch.
Well, now that I'm done giving myself a self-congratulatory pat on the butt, (good game, Dennis, good game), it's back to some serious business. I'm clearly a serious business person. I already covered a fried tilapia sandwich from Pazzo's Express in May, but never covered the rest of the lunch goodies at this little counter.
Pazzo's Express is not to be confused with its fancy-pants counterpart, Pazzo's, in the same beautiful marble courtyard, adorned with palm trees and a fountain. It's so pretty, in fact, that some of my friends got married there a while back. I will forever remember that wedding as the first one where I did a reading, and the priest congratulated me on how well I could read words aloud to a crowd of happy people. True story. Hey, I didn't say it was a good story. In fact, almost all of my stories are terrible, except for that one time I got locked in an ATM vestibule and had to call 911 to get myself out.
See? I wasn't kidding about the marble and cool fountain in the courtyard. The express counter can be hard to spot from up top, but when you get down to the courtyard level, you'll see it.
The buffalo chicken pizza ($7.95), the special of the day, is assembled on a pre-made crust, and it easily could have turned into a disaster. Thankfully, the crust is satisfyingly light and chewy with plenty of beautiful air bubbles in the cornicione. The tomato sauce, however, is candy-sweet, which might put some of you off. A generous portion of cubed chicken breast is placed on top, and after it goes through the conveyor belt oven, it's finished with a fresh squirt of vinegary hot sauce. The chicken is dry, which detracts from an otherwise respectable express lunch pizza. They also offer cheese, pepperoni, and sausage pies, too.
The hummus sandwich ($4.95) is served on pita bread with fresh housemade hummus. If you order it with everything, all they give you is sliced tomatoes and cucumber, which seems sad to me. So my coworker asked for tabouli on top, and voila! A real vegetarian sandwich! High-fives, everyone! I highly recommend you do the same. The parsley and cracked wheat salad adds a grassy vegetable element to the chickpea spread, not to mention some extra substance. With the refreshing cucumber and tomato, it turns into a substantial lunch. The fries are of the thicker cut variety, and are unremarkable. At least they're crispy.
I'd skip the chicken parmesan sandwich ($6.95) which is just a baked chicken breast with no breading (boo!), marinara, and melted mozzarella. The bread is grilled beautifully, which is welcome attention to detail, but the marinara renders the sandwich soggy and hard to eat after a few bites. The chicken is underseasoned, dry, and boring.
The cobb salad ($6.90) is also underwhelming—a good cobb salad can make a pretty sturdy lunch, but in this case, it's sort of lacking in everything but the lettuce, chicken and bacon; the other ingredients barely showed up. I realize this is a puzzling configuration in the photo; I asked for the chicken and bacon on the side to accommodate my vegetarian coworker.
I recommend Pazzo's Express for its wide variety, though some of its options can be a bit dull. However, I do want to point out that while I was looking confused and lost looking over the menu, a helpful patron said, "They'll make whatever you want here, just ask, and they'll make it for you even if it's not on the menu."
Pazzo's Express
311. S. Wacker, Chicago IL 60606 (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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Giant jellyfish and cephalopods are fearsome enough on their own, but wait until they get their tentacles on man-made weapons. Keith Noordzy's Man-Made Disaster series pairs natural monsters with technological menaces.
Man-Made Disasters is currently on display at the San Francisco arm of Gallery 1988 as part of the Paper Pushers show.
Paper Pushers 2009 [via NOTCOT]
G/O Media may get a commission


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Maybe somebody knows what code need to sent to EV/CAN bus to start heater or cooler like it does with Nissan Connect?
I want to start A/C when car is switched off.
So while the Carloop is asking for the Climate Control to start, the TCU is sending a message (every 100 ms) to the Climate Control to not change, and the Leaf's VCM would not be expecting to receive such conflicting messages. After much testing I found that it usually works to send the 0x56E messages more often than the TCU, and send them for longer than the TCU would when it starts the Climate control. I settled on sending the bus wake-up (0x68C 00) , followed 50 ms later by 0x56E 4E 08 12 00 to turn on Climate Control, then delaying another 20 ms and repeating this Climate Control command another 45 times at 60 ms intervals.


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Stanley-National Hardware has been a leading manufacturer of hardware for more than a century. Over the course of the last 160-plus years, Stanley-National is a name that has become synonymous with quality, innovation, and customer service. With a wide array of finishes and corner options, there's a Residential Hinge application ideally suited to fit your interior project needs. The complementary Antique Brass offers a warm feel with deep accents in the contours of the product.
- Removable pin for easier installation or removal of doors
- Heavy-gauge cold-rolled steel for added strength
- Nib on hinge for finished appearance
- Five knuckle, full mortise design
- Square corners
- Screw holes are countersunk
- Oil-rubbed bronze
- LifeSpan limited lifetime warranty


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Karl Stojka was born on April 20, 1931 in a Rom family of the Roman Catholic faith in Wampersdorf in the Austrian province of Burgenland. Karl had five brothers and sisters. The Stojka family had been living in Austria for over 300 years, travelling across the country as horse dealers in their caravan. When Germany invaded and occupied Austria in 1938, Jews, Sinti und Roma were immediately excluded from society and turned into outcasts. From 1939 on, it was forbidden for them to leave or change their place of residence. So Karl's family settled in Vienna in 1939. His father supported the family by working in a factory. Karl and his brothers and sisters attended elementary school there down to 1943
The Nazis repeatedly arrested Sinti and Roma and confined them in concentration camps. At the end of 1941 Karl's father was imprisoned in the Dachau concentration camp, and later in the camp Mauthausen , where he was murdered. Karl's sister Kathi was taken in 1942 to the Lackenbach camp . Just after Karl turned 12, he was arrested at school and deported with his mother and other brothers and sisters to the co-called »Gypsy camp« in Auschwitz-Birkenau . He was transferred from there to the concentration camp Buchenwald, and later to the camp Flossenbürg. He survived the death march and was liberated in April 1945 by American troops. After the war, Karl Stojka began to paint, trying by means of art to deal with his experiences of persecution. If you go on to further pages, you can see his paintings and read his comments on them
»In 1942, four Gestapo officers arrested my father and took him from the family. We children were all crying a lot. My mom quickly gathered together and packed a few things for him. I can still remember: my dad was wearing a bright plaid suit. He was sent to Dachau and then brought before the Second District Court in Vienna and held there. We were allowed to visit him there. He was standing in the visitors' room behind a very small grid so that you could hardly see him. He was pleased to see us, but all I could feel of his kiss on my lips was the cold iron of the grid. After just a few words, they took him away. My mom, my grandmother and we children were all crying. Two months later a letter came from in him, written in Mauthausen. He said there that he hoped to see us again soon. Two weeks after that we received a package containing his plaid suit, a death report (weak heart) and a small box containing some bones and ashes. That's all that was left of my 32-year-old father.«
»Fifty years ago [in November 1940] the Gypsy camp Lackenbach was set up in Burgenland. We Gypsies were mistreated and persecuted there from 1940 to 1945and we still are suffering from that today 50 years later. My sister Kathi and my uncle Lulo, my aunt Mala with her children and all my relatives cried many tears in the Lackenbach camp, we suffered much misery, beating and hunger. In that small Austrian town, whose name I shall never forget, there are many Roma and Sinti buried under the meadow and the trees.
»In March 1943, my mother and the children were arrested. I was at school, and four or five SS men entered our classroom. All the pupils had to stand up and say Heil Hitler. I did that too. The teacher, her name was Fischer, told us to sit down and then she called me over to her. The men took me with them. They brought me home, where the SS and Gestapo were already waiting. My mom said to me: Thank God you're here, then we had to get onto a truck and leave our home in Vienna, District 16, Paletzgasse 42. We were brought to the police jail Roßauerlände. In the cells and corridors there were hundreds of Gypsies. After two or three days, they put us on a train, and it went to Auschwitz-Birkenau.«
»Auschwitz-Birkenau June/July 1943: I was together with my relatives in Block No. 10 when my mom brought my brother Hansi with blood poisoning to the medical barracks. She had little hope of ever seeing her child alive again. I ran over to Hansi and wanted to take him back out, because the only way the prisoners left the medical barracks was through the chimney. But the next day my brother came to us and told my mom about a beautiful dream he had had: a beautiful white woman had filled his body with wonderful warmth and had healed him. My mother looked up to heaven, where the smoke was rising from the crematorium, and thanked God and the Holy Virgin. The medical barracks was not for healing people. It was a place for the dying, for people destined to die. The prisoners called it the vestibule of the crematorium [where they burned the bodies of the dead].«
»Mein brother Ossi. In Auschwitz-Birkenau, after we were tattooed with our prisoner number we were brought to the Gypsy camp. Ossi was six years old. There was not much to eat, mainly turnips. One day my brother came down with typhus and they sent him to the medical barracks. But there was no doctor there, and Ossi died, also because of starvation. He was no criminal, he was just a simple Gypsy kid."
»The colors in Nature are something that has accompanied me all my life. In a great love for Nature, I searched again and again for the beauty and purity of colors. Brown like the earth, blue like the sky, green like the trees, and red like blood. I see my life here on this earth only as a kind of journey in transit, that's what I believe. And that through the colors in my paintings, so strong and powerful, I am preparing the way to the next life. Everywhere there is life, hope, love and faith. When I paint a picture, I don't just paint the house, the flowers, the fields or the tree. No, I paint what is inside my body, what my heart says, my blood and soul. Because only if you believe in a soul, only if you believe there really is another life after this one, can you paint these paintings.«