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It is easy to be impressed by all the buzz surrounding artificial intelligence these days, especially the hot new field of deep learning. Not a week goes by without some breakthrough announcement from some AI lab or other. A few days ago, Google's DeepMind announced the creation of an AI program that can learn to play old Atari video games from the 80s as well as or better than a professional video game player. We are left with the impression that great advances are being made. But, as I explain in this article, nothing could be further from the truth.
Same Old AI Dressed in a New Suit
The problem with all the hoopla surrounding deep learning is that it is not really a new science. It has been around for decades. As others have noted, the reason that it has not made the news before is that, in order to train deep neural networks, one must have access to a huge number of labeled samples. Large repositories of labeled data did not become available until the advent of social networks like FaceBook or Twitter and search giants like Google or Baidu. In addition, the cheap and powerful computer hardware needed to process this enormous amount of data was not built until fairly recently. But the main reason that deep learning is old is that, in spite of claims to the contrary, it is not a new paradigm intended to replace symbolic AI, the bankrupt, "baby boomer" AI model of the last century. On the contrary. Deep learning is just GOFAI with lipstick on. Here is why.
The kind of deep machine learning that has been making the news lately is called supervised learning because it requires that the neural network trainer identifies each chunk of data, or sample, by attaching a label (i.e., a symbol) to it. Notice right off the bat that the intelligence is not in the neural network but in the trainer. If presented with thousands of pictures of cats, the machine automatically learns to map certain images to the cat symbol. This works even though the machine has no idea what a cat is. Of course, we humans do not need labels in order to learn to recognise patterns and objects. So if biological plausibility is a requirement for true AI (highly probable), it is a sure bet that true AI is not going to come from the mainstream anytime soon. Some in the business may want to argue that there is work being done on unsupervised deep neural networks but rest assured that, for all intents and purposes, unsupervised learning is nonexistent.
The point I am making here is that deep neural networks are really symbol generators. A DNN is just a huge, hierarchical collection of old-fashioned if-then rules. Hundreds or even thousands of tiny little rule processors work together to contribute to the activation of a label. What AI researchers have done is create a machine that can generate these rules automatically by looking at labeled pictures. Paradigms die hard, don't they?
Dumb Intelligence
In the Nature paper describing their game-playing neural network, celebrity AI scientist Demis Hassabis and his colleagues at Google's DeepMind offices in London declared:
"The work bridges the divide between high-dimensional sensory inputs and actions, resulting in the first artificial agent that is capable of learning to excel at a diverse array of challenging tasks."This sounds a bit like chest beating and at least one deep learning expert has already complained. The question is, did Google really achieve a breakthrough in AI or is all this just hype? What did Google really accomplish? As amazing at this sounds, all Google did was find an automatic way to create an old-fashioned rule-based expert system. Some of the positional brittleness were removed with the use of convolutional neural networks but, after training, all they have left is a purely reactive system, i.e., a dumb, one-track minded automaton wearing blinders and executing rules in the form: if you detect X, do Y.
Is that intelligence, I hear you ask? In a sense, yes, of course. But it is a rather limited and brittle form of intelligence. The human brain also has a similar type of automaton that performs simple or routine (but important) tasks for us whenever our attention is focused on something else. It is called the cerebellum. It handles such things are walking, maintaining posture, balance, etc. But this is not the kind of intelligence you will trust to drive you to work every morning. It would not know what to do in the event of a new situation for which it has received no training. In fact, it is completely blind to new situations. But even worse than that, it has no understanding whatsoever of what it is doing and why. Certainly, this technology can and will be useful for many applications such as factory automation and surveillance but, in the end, it is really a glorified expert system, a dumb intelligence.
Another Red Herring
It would have been more impressive if Google had announced that they had found a solution to the age-old credit assignment problem. Essentially, it is hard for a reinforcement learning program to determine which of its preceding actions caused it to receive a reward or a punishment. Deep neural networks do not offer a solution. Google's program gets around the problem by playing video games where the cause is immediately followed by the reinforcement signal. It did poorly playing Ms. PacMan for this reason. Another problem with this kind of rule-following neural networks is that they have no inherent ability to change their focus or attention. All the rules are active all the time and are always waiting for their chance to fire. As a result, if the system is trained to perform multiple tasks, those tasks must not have patterns in common because that would create a conflict of attention which could then cause a motor conflict.
In conclusion, let me say that I am impressed with the ability of Google's DeepMind algorithm to learn relatively complex tasks using only reinforcement signals. I am impressed because it is a useful algorithm and it is amazing that it works as well as it does. It is a sign that machines will one day be able to perform much more complex tasks as well as or better than humans. But I think that deep learning is yet another red herring on the road to true AI. It is going to be a costly success in the end because it is leading the AI community in the wrong direction. Mainstream AI has reached a point where its tricks are too good for its own good. But fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on one's perspective) for the world, mainstream AI is not the be-all of AI research.
See Also
Google's DeepMind Masters Atari Games
From Pixels to Actions: Human-level control through Deep Reinforcement Learning
No, a Deep Learning Machine Did Not Solve the Cocktail Party Problem


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The purpose of this trip was for a graduate course Food, Culture, and Communications at the American University of Paris. We spent the week applying what we learned about gastronomy in France by seeing firsthand how Comte cheese is produced in the Jura Mountains. Our itinerary included a trip to a dairy farm to learn about Comte cheese production by an incredible group of local farmers. Professor Christy Shields planned the perfect trip for her students.
I have so much more of an appreciation for locally produced food and the people who have dedicated their lives to its authenticity and quality. It was a pretty inspiring week to be out in the fresh air, getting closer to nature, and relishing local cuisine.

subset: commoncrawl


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High tourist season has kicked into high gear in Southwest Florida, and many industry watchers point to Hurricane Sandy as a primary factor behind the earlier-than-usual influx of visitors.
Eager to escape the devastation or avoid repair woes brought by the superstorm that battered the Northeast last month, many tourists and seasonal residents appear to have headed south months earlier than they normally would, according to some local businesses, anecdotal traffic counts and tourism officials.
Though winter tourist season here traditionally ranges from January to April, restaurant owners like Paul Mattison have noticed a definite pickup in customer traffic overall -- and more than a few people from areas hardest hit by the storm.
In Mattison's case, the difference this month has been felt across the board at his three Sarasota-area establishments.
"I think a lot of people came down here to get away from it all while they wait on insurance claims and for everything to get back to normal," said Mattison, the executive chef for Mattison's Forty One on Tamiami Trail, City Grille on Main Street and Bayside at the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall.
Before Sandy, Southwest Florida was on pace to shatter visitor records, thanks in part to an enduring glow from the May 2011 designation of Siesta Key's beach as No. 1 in the nation, pent-up demand, beefed-up marketing efforts and an incrementally improved national economy.
Even with the recent influx, though, tourism officials are left wondering if visitors from storm-ravaged regions will maintain their plans to travel this winter or reconsider, to focus time and money instead on rebuilding and making repairs.
Tourism plays a major role in Southwest Florida's economy and the state's, accounting for one in every seven jobs. Statewide, it brings roughly 80 million visitors a year and more than $70 billion in spending.
"So far, we are on pace to have as good of a season as last year," said Virginia Haley, president of Visit Sarasota County, the county's tourism agency. "We're seeing a few cancellations, but less than 2 percent, so very minimal."
Vacation rentals from Manatee to Charlotte counties are almost completely booked for the season, said Amy Chapman, rental director for Michael Saunders & Co., a Sarasota-based real estate brokerage and property management company.
While advance bookings are hovering near 90 percent overall, rentals near Sarasota's beaches like Siesta, Longboat and Lido keys are reporting expected occupancy rates of nearly 98 percent through the winter months.
"We've had zero cancellations due to Hurricane Sandy," Chapman said. "Actually, we've had a steady stream of people from the Northeast who are trying to reschedule bookings for a week or two earlier."
Those advance commitments are significant because they buck a pre-recession trend toward later bookings by visitors, which had stymied an industry dependent on steady cash flows.
Almost all of Anna Maria Vacations' 200-plus units have been rented for the high season this year, said owner Joe Varner.
"We're noticing that people are traveling in larger groups, and our bigger homes, with five to seven bedrooms, are what are rented first," Varner said, noting that the company has not had any cancellations in the wake of Hurricane Sandy.
The Northeast factor
Although Southwest Florida has typically drawn the majority of its winter visitors from Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and other Midwestern states, the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic have become increasingly important.
Thanks to flights to Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport by JetBlue -- and formerly AirTran Airways from Baltimore -- from New York and other cities, the region has greater access to tourists than ever before.
Despite the superstorm, Northeast marketing promotions are ongoing, officials from both Visit Sarasota County and the Bradenton-Area Convention Center and Visitor's Bureau note.
Pinellas County officials signaled immediately after the storm that advertising dollars might be diverted away from New York.
"We will still promote our No. 1 beach recognition, although it may not be as front and center of a promotion as it was," Haley said of the May 2011 recognition. "But it will still be a part of everything we talk about for Sarasota."
Going forward, Haley said that additional online reservation capabilities will help boost bookings this year, including at a remodeled Ramada Inn in Venice, which is to open in January.
Southwest Florida is not the only part of the state benefiting from the influx of seasonal snowbirds and transient travelers, however.
The Sunshine State as a whole is also on its way to a record-setting year for tourism, according to recent data released by Visit Florida, the state's tourism promotions entity.
Visit Florida estimates the state hosted nearly 22 million visitors during the third quarter, an increase of 3.5 percent compared with the same three-month period in 2011.
"Hurricane Sandy will of course have some impact on the state, but I do not believe that that will affect the momentum we've built from one record-breaking year to another," said Will Seccombe, chief marketing officer and acting president and CEO of Visit Florida.
Of the third-quarter total, domestic travelers accounted for 18.9 million visitors, a 3.2 percent increase from a year before.
There also was a larger percentage increase in the number of Canadians who came to Florida -- 4 percent -- while the number of international travelers rose 5.5 percent.
Although most Canadian visitors have tended to winter in Fort Lauderdale and Orlando, the number of visitors from the Great White North who frequent the Sarasota-Bradenton area remains strong, said Michael MacKenzie, president of the Canadian Snowbird Association.
"In 2011, tourism was up more than 10 percent. We expect this year it's going to be even greater," he said. "With the Canadian dollar being on par with the United States' currency this year, more Canadians will want to travel, especially to Florida."
The boost in tourism activity means more jobs and taxable sales for the state. Direct travel-related employment rose 1.5 percent to 1.02 million, with a net addition of 15,000 positions, according to Visit Florida.
Tourism and recreation taxable sales from January through August, the last reported month, were $49 billion. That represented an increase of 7.5 percent from the same period in 2011.
With business up and more bookings expected in the initial months of 2013, some hoteliers have raised their average daily room rates, a move that had been limited by the Great Recession and more frugal travelers.
If projections hold, those increases will spread to area attractions and restaurants.
With the anticipated bump in sales during the remaining weeks of the year, Mattison said that he is optimistic about the year to come.
Overall, sales at his area restaurants are up 14 percent, and his catering business is up about 23 percent, from last year's levels.
"I think people are just tired of being scared and worried about the economy," Mattison said.
"The last year or so has been good, and I think people are feeling better."
High tourist season has kicked into high gear in Southwest Florida, and many industry watchers point to Hurricane Sandy as a primary factor behind the earlier-than-usual influx of visitors.


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ARDUINO MEGA Update Bootloader
Note: This document only applies to the MEGA 2560 and MEGA ADK Arduino Boards. All other Arduino boards bootloaders are good!
Arduino 2560 Bootloader Issue
The current bootloader burned onto the Arduino MEGA 2560/ADK is not compatible with ROBOTC. In its current form, you will be able to download the ROBOTC Firmware to the Arduino MEGA 2560/ADK, but you will not able to download any user programs.
The reason for this is because there is a bug in the Arduino MEGA 2560/ADK firmware that does not allow flash write commands to start at anywhere but the beginning of flash memory (0x000000). See the bottom of this page for more technical details.
Because ROBOTC is not able to burn a new bootloader as of today, you will need to use the Arduino's Open Source language with our a modified bootloader file to re-burn your bootloader on your Arduino MEGA 2560/ADK boards. The enhanced bootloader is backwards compatible with the original one. That means you'll still be able to program it through the Arduino programming environment as before, in addition to ROBOTC for Arduino.
Hardware Needed
To burn a new version of the Arduino bootloader to your MEGA 2560/ADK, you'll need an AVR ISP Compatible downloader.
Using an AVR ISP (In System Programmer)
- Your Arduino MEGA 2560/ADK (to program)
- An AVR Programmer such as the AVR Pocket Programmer
- An AVR Programming Cable (the pocket programmer comes with one)
If you have extra Arduino boards, but no ISP programmer, SparkFun.com has a cool tutorial on how to flash a bootloader using an Arduino as an ISP.
Using another Arduino as an ISP
- Your Arduino MEGA 2560/ADK (to program)
- A Working Arduino (doesn't matter what kind)
- Some Male-to-Male Jumper Cables
For instructions on this method, take a look at the SparkFun.com website: http://www.sparkfun.com/tutorials/247
Software Needed
ROBOTC is not currently able to burn a bootloader onto an Arduino board, so you'll need to download a copy of the latest version of the Arduino Open-Source programming language.
- Arduino Official Programming Language - Download Page
In addition, you'll need the ROBOTC modified bootloader. You can download that here:
- ROBOTC Modified MEGA 2560/ADK Bootloader - Modified Bootloader
Bootload Download Instructions
- Download the Arduino Open Source Software and a copy of the Modified Bootloader File
- Copy the Modified Bootloader File into the /Arduino-1.0/hardware/arduino/bootloaders/stk500v2/ and overwrite the existing bootloader.
- Power up your Arduino MEGA 2560/ADK (either via USB or external power)
- Plug in your AVR ISP Programmer to your computer (make sure you have any required drivers installed)
- Connect your AVR ISP Programmer into your Arduino MEGA 2560/ADK Board via the ISP Header (the 2x3 header pins right above the Arduino Logo)
- Launch the Arduino Open Source Software
- Change your settings in the Arduino Software to look for an Arduino MEGA 2560/ADK
- Change your settings in the Arduino Software to select your ISP Programmer Type (Check your programmer's documentation for the exact model)
- Select the "Burn Bootloader" option under the "Tools" menu. The modified bootloader will now be sent to your Arduino. This typically take a minute or so.
- You should be all set to download ROBOTC firmware and start using your Arduino MEGA 2560/ADK with ROBOTC!
Technical Details
The Arduino Bootloader sets the "eraseAddress" to zero every time the bootloader is called. ROBOTC called the "Load Address" command to set the address in which we want to write/verify when downloading program.
When writing a page of memory to the arduino, the Arduino bootloader will erase the existing page and write a whole new page.
In the scenario of downloading firmware, everything is great because the Erase Address and the Loaded Address both start at zero.
In the scenario of writing a user program, we start writing at memory location 0x7000, but the Bootloader erases information starting at location zero because the "Load Address" command doesn't update where to erase.
Our modification is to set both the Load Address and the Erase Address so the activity of writing a user program doesn't cause the firmware to be accidentally erased!
Original Bootloader
case CMD_LOAD_ADDRESS: #if defined(RAMPZ) address = (((address_t)(msgBuffer[1])<<24)|((address_t)(msgBuffer[2])<<16)| ((address_t)(msgBuffer[3])<<8)|msgBuffer[4]))<<1; #else address = (((msgBuffer[3])<<8)|(msgBuffer[4]))<<1; //convert word to byte address #endif msgLength = 2; msgBuffer[1] = STATUS_CMD_OK; break; case CMD_PROGRAM_FLASH_ISP: case CMD_PROGRAM_EEPROM_ISP: { unsigned int size = ((msgBuffer[1])<<8) | msgBuffer[2]; unsigned char *p = msgBuffer+10; unsigned int data; unsigned char highByte, lowByte; address_t tempaddress = address; if ( msgBuffer[0] == CMD_PROGRAM_FLASH_ISP ) { // erase only main section (bootloader protection) if (eraseAddress < APP_END ) { boot_page_erase(eraseAddress); // Perform page erase boot_spm_busy_wait(); // Wait until the memory is erased. eraseAddress += SPM_PAGESIZE; // point to next page to be erase }
ROBOTC Compatible Modification
case CMD_PROGRAM_FLASH_ISP: case CMD_PROGRAM_EEPROM_ISP: { unsigned int size = ((msgBuffer[1])<<8) | msgBuffer[2]; unsigned char *p = msgBuffer+10; unsigned int data; unsigned char highByte, lowByte; address_t tempaddress = address; if ( msgBuffer[0] == CMD_PROGRAM_FLASH_ISP ) { eraseAddress = address & 0xFFFFFF00; // ROBOTC Custom Bootloader Addition // erase only main section (bootloader protection) if (eraseAddress < APP_END ) { boot_page_erase(eraseAddress); // Perform page erase boot_spm_busy_wait(); // Wait until the memory is erased. eraseAddress += SPM_PAGESIZE; // point to next page to be erase }


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Happiness during adolescence may increase wealth by adulthood
Happier teens may have deeper pockets in their adult years, new research suggests.
A study in the Nov. 19 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences finds that adolescents who reported higher life satisfaction were more likely to earn significantly higher levels of income than teens that didn't have a happy childhood.
The study may buck conventional wisdom that income directly affects happiness and the reverse is true, say the authors. They add that policy-makers should use the findings to put a greater emphasis on promoting general well-being.
"These findings have important implications for academics, policy makers, and the general public," study author Dr Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, a political science professor at the University College London, said in a press release.
For the study, researchers analyzed survey data from 15,000 adolescents and young adults living in the United States who were tracked as early as seventh grade and followed through adulthood.
They found that participants who reported higher levels of "positive affect" -- a measure of life satisfaction the researchers used to gauge happiness -- were more likely to earn more money as adults. A one-point increase on the life satisfaction scale (which was out of five points) at age 22 was tied to about $2,000 more annual earnings by the time he or she reached 29 years old.
Siblings were also included in the participant pool to see whether the effects ran in the family, and the researchers found even those who reported being happier than their brother or sister were more likely to earn a higher income.
"If you take our work at face value, it suggests that if you could make young Americans happier, then they would later become richer. It is possible that could work for a whole economy," study co-author Andrew Osland, a professor of economics at the University of Warwick in the U.K., said to HealthDay. "A happier U.S. would translate, eventually, into a richer one."
The findings in part may be due to happier people being more likely to get a higher degree, find a job or get promoted faster than their unhappier counterparts.
"Early happiness probably changes so many things about your life that even if later in life you're not as happy as you were, those formative experiences continue to play themselves out," Michael Norton, a behavioral scientist at Harvard Business School who was not involved in the research, commented to The Los Angeles Times.
Maria Iacovou, senior research fellow at the University of Essex in England who was not involved in the research, downplayed the findings to MyHealthNewsDaily.
"The effects in this paper are not small by the standards of social sciences, but they're not huge," she said. "It doesn't mean that if you have a gloomy teenager or if you are a gloomy teenager that you will necessarily end up with the rest of your life ruined."


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Yearly Archives: 2017
I Magicked My Perfect Man Into My Life and My Super Soul Dad
For years I struggled with men. I married way too young and stayed way too long. Then, I ended up in a five-year defacto rebound relationship with the wrong man that resulted in me pregnant and alone. Then there was … Continue reading


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Board Items of Interest
Click here to see the photo gallery
Click here to see the video recording
Gilmore Elementary students led the meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance.
Megan Keaster of Clear View High School was honored as a Hero in the Hallway for displaying CCISD's core value of Citizenship for her internship at the City of Webster.
Westbrook Intermediate Orchestra placed 2nd at the Texas Music Educators Association's full honor orchestra competition.
The Bayside Band Symphonic Winds Earned the Mark of Excellence from the Foundation for Music Education. The Bayside Band Wind Ensemble also placed 3rd in the Texas Music Educators Association's Honor Band Competition. Bayside Band was selected to attend the Music For All National Concert Band Festival in Indianapolis this spring break.
Dr. Karen Engle of Clear Lake High School was named an honoree of the Stanford's Teacher Tribute Initiative.
Gregory Gavins was named assistant director of transportation.
As part of the monthly donation acceptance process, the board publicly thanked the community for its overwhelming support of CCISD schools after Hurricane Harvey. For example, Bayside Intermediate received more than $58,000 in donations.
The consent agenda was approved.
Three community members provided input regarding CCISD's workshop model for English Language Arts.
The school board approved the 2017-2018 CCISD Superintendent Targets. Click here to read more
Dr. Karen Engle provided the board a presentation regarding the special history and inspirational voyage of the 1986 Clear Lake High School soccer ball and its final space homecoming at the November 3rd football game.


text: Welcome to AIIAS, a Christian institution of graduate education. Come and study in the land of eternal spring, coral island getaways, and waving palms. Explore ASIA, the crossroad of the world's religions. Live in a multicultural setting with students and qualified faculty from more than 40 countries. Experience quality education and service at an affordable cost. Experience AIIAS! Experience success!


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- Korean Grand Prix
Raikkonen cautious over Lotus updates
- Race:
- Korean Grand Prix
- Drivers:
- Kimi Räikkönen
- Teams:
- Lotus F1
Kimi Raikkonen is remaining cautious over the new Lotus updates, despite team principal Eric Boullier describing them as "a new era" for the team.
Lotus will have a new Coanda-effect exhaust layout in Korea as part of upgrades that Boullier hopes will allow it to challenge for victories once again. Raikkonen, however, said it was natural for the team to be positive when bringing new parts to the car but that he would reserve judgement until he tries the updates out on track.
"You have to be [positive] don't you, otherwise you wouldn't print any of this stuff!" Raikkonen said. "But we will see tomorrow, we know the numbers from the wind tunnel and the calculations but until we run anything we don't really know what it's going to bring us. So hopefully it works as we expect and it will improve our position a little but we should know after practices tomorrow."
Raikkonen also said he wouldn't be satisfied finishing in his current third position in the drivers' championship, saying it doesn't matter where he ends up if he isn't champion.
"For me it doesn't matter if I'm second or tenth, it makes no difference. I'd probably rather be out of second or third place so I don't have to go to the [FIA] prize giving [gala in December]! But seriously it makes no difference to be second or fifth if you don't win. For sure if you'd said at the beginning of the year [we'd be this competitive] we'd take it, but once you do well you want to do better and you want to all the time do better and better. We'll keep trying and hopefully we can improve."


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Chief executive officer Pius Kasolo says negotiations with FQM are already underway and that if both parties cooperate the matter will be settled out of court.
Dr. Kasolo has told ZNBC news in an interview that he did not want to drag FQM to court or bring in a third party.
He says it is vital to settle the case outside and not waste time going to court.
ZCCM-IH has argued that FQM took out a loan from Kansanshi at non-commercial interest rates and used it for company operations outside Zambia, disadvantaging ZCCM-IH as a 20 percent shareholder in the mine.
ZCCM-IH accuses FQM of fraud and is seeking 1 point 4 Billion US dollars and FQM CEO Matt Pascall has described the allegation as âvexatious and untrueâ.
ZCCM-IH is a successor company to Zambia Consolidated Copper Mines Limited (ZCCM) in which the Government of Zambia holds 87.6 percent of the shares with the remaining 12.4% held by private investors.


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Can the $300 home add dignity to the lives of the world's poorest people?
According to U.N. projections, a trend of demographic concentration in the world's great urban centers will intensify in the coming decades, compressing the world's poorest into fast arising slums. Viewed today, these too dusty or too muddy, sewage- and garbage-choked ghettos already make an unhealthy, unpleasant sight and a terrible place for the majority of the world's children to grow up.
The lives of the world's poor today seem confined by a series of apparently intractable social and physical obstacles: poor access to health care, education, and clean water; improper or nonexistent sanitation; sub- to no-standard housing. But what if it doesn't have to be this way?
That's the creative gauntlet thrown down by the $300 housing challenge. That project, initiated by Vijay Govindarajan, an international business professor at New Hampshire's Dartmouth College, and Christian Sarkar, a marketing consultant and environmentalist, dares entrepreneurs, designers, engineers, and international business executives to think small in order to resolve one of the planet's biggest problems: how to construct compact but adequate shelter for the world's poorest people that will promote human dignity while also protecting creation.
Competitors for the $300 house must think like the poor and use the same raw materials that crafty and creative poor people worldwide have typically sourced to build the shanties that crop up on "vacant" land that encircles the world's great cities.
According to the terms of the competition, the $300 house must preserve local ecologies and remain truly affordable so the poor are not forced to barter their future for decent shelter. "We wanted the house to be an ecosystem of products and solutions designed around the real needs of the inhabitants," Govindarajan and Chakar wrote in issuing the $300 challenge. "Of course it would have to be made out of sustainable, green materials, but more crucially, it would have to be durable enough to withstand torrential rains, earthquakes, and the stress of children playing."
There is no one way for the house to be designed, the sponsors stress, but each design should try to neatly confront some of the calamities that the world's people are asked to overcome each day. Govindarajan and Chakar say, "The house is really a one-room shed designed around the family ecosystem, a Lego-like aggregation of useful products that 'bring good things to life' for the poor."
"Furniture"—perhaps a sleeping hammock or Murphy bed-style chairs that fold away to allow more room—could be built into the design. The $300 house should include an inexpensive water filter and a solar panel and battery to allow the poor, typically far off the electric grid, to power the inexpensive mobile devices that are cropping up even in the world's least affluent places.
One size will not fit all. The needs of the poor and the materials they can access in São Paulo, Brazil will be different from the conditions of a shantytown in Nigeria or outside Budapest, Lima, or Washington, D.C. By the end of the competition, launched last August, sponsors will offer a variety of economically and ecologically affordable models for community activists, municipal authorities, or poor people themselves to choose from.
Adequate shelter is one of the components of human dignity that the church demands be treated as a right, not an act of charity or stroke of good fortune, for the world's poor. In an era when First World economies struggle to balance accounts while ladling out the public largesse in defense spending and subsidies and tax breaks for big agriculture and industry, can we really argue that the world can't afford to build a $300 house for its poorest? The truth is, considering the range of acute needs this practical proposal responds to, we really can't afford not to.
This article appeared in the July 2011 issue of U.S. Catholic (Vol. 76, No. 7, page 39).
Image: Megan Sweas


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Oooooo, love this one! Someone needs to wall this one soon! XD
JOIN ARETE III and win more ECHO scans!
Yay I have Kunie's ECHO!
I love this book, the art in the book is just amazing. The book is 128 pages in full colour. I love the use of bright and rainbow colours in it. From what I saw from RESET, Kunie-san's style has grown bolder and more colourful.
Most, if not all, of the figures in this book are female. A lot of art features dynamic movement. I love how there's such joy in her art; the characters all look like they're having a blast with life.
However, it's a bit of a pain to scan, because a lot of the art is across the binding X.x I may just vector some instead of scanning them XD
Another one with crazy hair and awesome colours. Scanned in 2 parts and stitched together,
More Kunie Kanbara Scans
Browse Kunie Kanbara Gallery: Recent | Popular.
fireflywishes Retired Moderator Oct 14, 2010
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The mid-to-late 1990s and early 2000s were a tough time to be a Dragon Quest fan living in America. The venerable Japanese RPG series was (and still is) popular to the point of ubiquity in its home country, but lackluster sales for the first four games (all released for the NES under the Dragon Warrior moniker) combined with the shuttering of publisher Enix's North American branch in 1995 meant that American gamers never got English-language localizations of the series' Super Nintendo games.
That's a real shame, too, because Dragon Quest V and VI are two of the strongest entries in a franchise that hits more often than it misses—it's the fifth entry that I want to draw your attention to. Before it was finally released by Square Enix on the Nintendo DS in early 2009, the only way to play Dragon Quest V was to learn to read Japanese, or to play one of the fan translations of the game that cropped up on the Internet in the early 2000s—this is how I was introduced to what remains one of my favorite games, and an excellent example of what an old-school role-playing game can be.
This time, it's personal
Japanese RPGs don't do things by halves. Video games in general have a tendency toward save-the-world boilerplate storylines, but other genres don't have a patch on the JRPG. You're always a ragtag band of misfits, and the fate of the world always hangs in the balance—that's also true in Dragon Quest V, but the game's story is much more personal than that.
Previous Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy games began with a young hero (or heroes) setting out on a dangerous quest, often infused with forced epic-ness from the outset—normally a king would tell you that the world needed saving and that you were the one to do it and sent you on your merry way. Dragon Quest V begins with your father pacing the room impatiently, eagerly awaiting your birth.
Flash forward a few years, but not all the way to adulthood. You spend the first few hours of the game as a young child, following your dad around while he has adventures that are neither explained to you at the time nor shown onscreen. Rather than working toward the world's salvation, you spend your childhood having kid-sized adventures: exploring a local cave, sneaking out with friends at night, and generally whooping monsters while your well-meaning but oft-distracted father is looking the other way.
The first sign of world-saving comes when your father, on his deathbed, tells you that he's been searching for a legendary hero, but even against this new heightened backdrop the game's story stays squarely focused on the hero: over the course of the game, you gr ow into adulthood, get married, and have your own children. By the time the game is done, your kids are just a bit older than you were in the early hours of the game, and your wife and kids don't just stay at home. They're all valuable members of your party, and in a small but neatly genre-bending twist, your character isn't actually the legendary hero your dad was looking for—it's actually your son.
The genius of Dragon Quest V's story is that even though you're saving the world, you're given unusually personal reasons for doing so. You need to find the Legendary Hero, but along the way you also need to avenge your father, save your wife, protect your kids, and find out just what happened to your mom. A story that easily could have been as generic as they come becomes a neatly circular tale about growing up and coming into your own, and it was all the more impressive for taking place against a dated-even-for-the-time 16-bit backdrop.
Ahead of its time, despite being a bit behind the times
Dragon Quest is known for its vigorous adherence to traditions and conventions, and the fifth entry in the series looks much like the first. You've got a top-down view, sprites with personality but limited animations, and a simple first-person perspective to the battle sequences. The DS remake (and gorgeous Japan-only PS2 remake) at least added monster animations, but in the SNES version you were still battling static sprites that didn't look all that different from their 8-bit predecessors. The nested, text-based menu system is also an archaic mess, and the DS's touchscreen is sadly under-utilized in the remake. Whether you find these anachronisms charming or lazy will depend on your sensitivity to nostalgia.
For a game that's so aggressively old school in many of its trappings, Dragon Quest V pioneered a surprising number of conventions we now take for granted. When you get married, you're asked to choose between a rich man's daughter and a childhood friend—a branching path that subtly effects how the rest of the story plays out. Games like Mass Effect and Skyrim offer infinitely more sophisticated paths your character can take, but Dragon Quest V plants some of those seeds. Your digital wife also gets pregnant and gives birth years before sim games like Natsume's Harvest Moon would make this a lynchpin of their gameplay (not that the conception is shown onscreen or anything).
The more far-reaching innovation involves monster catching. For the first time, the player could tame a large section of Dragon Quest's colorful Akira Toriyama-designed bestiary, and those monsters could participate in battle, level up, and be equipped with new weapons and armor just as would any member of your party. The original SNES game offered only about 65 monsters to capture, but this one gameplay mechanic—which is introduced quite a few hours into the game and isn't even integral to finishing it, since you're given plenty of human characters to use in your party—launched many successful franchises that took the idea and ran with it.
Pokemon, released four years after Dragon Quest in 1996, is the biggest and most obvious example, but any of the monster catching games that followed in its wake have their roots in Dragon Quest V. Indeed, in the wake of Pokemon's success Enix (and, later, Square Enix) began the Dragon Quest Monsters series, its own dedicated monster-catching spin-off games that incorporate some of Pokemon's ideas but also add many of Dragon Quest's unique herbs and spices for a much different feel.
It's possible that a new player approaching Dragon Quest V today would be turned off by how old some of it feels—even the DS remake retains the terrible menus of the original, and the graphics are a blend of 2D sprites and 3D backgrounds that don't always gel. For all of that, it remains one of my favorite games (and one of the best in the franchise) because the more intimate story and blend of genres that made it feel unique next to its contemporaries also help to keep it fresh and varied compared to the overblown, overly linear latter-day Final Fantasy games of recent years. Its relative simplicity also makes it more approachable than other games with an old-school bent, specifically those from Japanese developer Atlus. It's an old game, but it has aged gracefully, an it's just as worthy of your attention now as it was back in 1992.


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SANDY, Utah – Real Salt Lake (3-3-2, 11 points, West #2) started its three-game home stand on the right foot on Saturday night, getting a goal from MF Javier Morales to beat Chivas USA (3-3-1, 10 points, West #3) 1-0 at Rio Tinto Stadium.
Morales scored the game's lone goal in the 53rd minute, heading a FW Alvaro Saborio cross inside the far post from just inside the penalty spot. RSL GK Nick Rimando continued his strong start to the season on Saturday night, stopping a penalty kick in the first half and making five saves total to register his second clean sheet of the season.
RSL came out of the gates firing, nearly going ahead in the sixth minute when FW Olmes Garcia hit the crossbar. The 20-year-old Colombian – who was making his first MLS start – hit a shot from just outside the 18 that deflected off of a defender, sailed over Chivas GK Dan Kennedy and bounced off the bar.
Garcia was at the heart of another chance just a minute later, collecting Morales's through ball on the right wing before crossing to open MF Ned Grabavoy at the back post for a header that missed the frame.
RSL had two more good looks in the 15th and 16th minutes. Saborio had the first chance, collecting a Morales ball in the left side of the area before sending a chip shot over Kennedy and wide of the far post. Kennedy made a big stop on RSL MF Luis Gil one minute later; diving to the ground to block the U.S. Under-20 international's sliding 15-yarder.
The Claret-and-Cobalt had another great look in the 32nd minute. Garcia created the chance, getting behind the Chivas defense on the left side before squaring a ball to Saborio at the top of the box. The Costa Rican international quickly hit a shot toward goal, only for it to be blocked by sliding Chivas USA DF Mario de Luna.
The game turned in the 34th minute, when referee Jorge Gonzales whistled Grabavoy for a handball inside the box, giving Chivas USA a penalty kick. As he's so done has over the years, Rimando saved the day for RSL, reading Chivas USA MF Edgar Mejia like a book before diving to his left to block the spot kick. RSL's defense stood strong in the ensuing goalmouth scramble, blocking no less than three shots from inside eight yards to turn Chivas away.
The Goats had another good look in first half stoppage time. Rookie MF Carlos Alvarez picked up a ball in the left side of the box, rifling a low shot from 15 yards inches wide of the far post.
Like the team did in the first half, RSL came out of the break firing, with Garcia hitting the crossbar for a second time in the 52nd minute. Garcia blazed past Chivas USA DF Bobby Burling to collect a long, bouncing ball in the right side of the box before chipping a 12-yard effort over Kennedy's outstretched arms and off the bar near the far post.
RSL finally found pay dirt in the 53rd minute. Morales started the play, picking up a loose ball near midfield and quickly finding a teammate. The ball eventually made its way to Garcia, who found Saborio in the right side of the area with a neat through ball. Saborio squared up and crossed to the open Morales just inside the penalty spot, allowing the Argentine playmaker – so often the RSL player delivering crosses – to head home inside the left bar.
Morales nearly doubled RSL's advantage 10 minutes later, collecting a lay off from Gil outside the 18 on the right side and chipping a curler that glanced off the top of the far post.
Saborio and Morales had a chance each in the 87th and 88th minutes. Saborio had the first opportunity, running onto Morales's through ball in the middle of the attacking third before rolling a shot just wide of the left post from a yard outside the box. Morales forced Kennedy into a fine save one minute later, curling a 25-yard free kick toward the top left corner that the Chivas 'keeper tipped over the bar.
Chivas went down to 10 men when Mejia was shown a straight red card for an off the ball foul on Grabavoy in second half stoppage time.
RSL will return to action on Monday night, when it will host USL Pro club Phoenix FC at Rio Tinto Stadium in MLS Reserve League action. Tickets to Monday's Phoenix FC match – part of this year's groundbreaking partnership between MLS and USL Pro – are $8 for RSL Pride Season Ticket Holders and $12 for the general public. Fans can purchase tickets to the game at the Rio Tinto Stadium box office, online at http://www.riotintostadium.com/events/rsl-v-phoenixfc.php or over the phone at 801-727-2700.
RSL's next MLS match is next Saturday, April 27 against Western Conference rival LA Galaxy at Rio Tinto Stadium. Fans can purchase tickets to the LA match at the Rio Tinto Stadium box office, online at www.RealSaltLake.com/Tickets or over the phone at 801-727-2700.
Real Salt Lake Match Notes – RSL 1-0 CHV
- Saturday's victory continued RSL's recent dominance over Chivas USA, moving the Claret-and-Cobalt to 7-2-1 in regular season play against the Rojiblancos since beating them in the 2008 MLS Cup Playoffs.
- RSL GK Nick Rimando's penalty kick save on Chivas USA MF Edgar Mejia in the 34th minute moved the veteran 'keeper to 18-for-59 (30.5 percent) on penalties in the regular season in his career – the best mark in league history.
- Saturday's result was the first time that the home team won a RSL-Chivas USA match since May 7, 2011, when RSL beat Chivas USA 1-0 at Rio Tinto Stadium. The away team took all three games in the series last year, with the Goats beating RSL 1-0 in Sandy on March 24 before the Claret-and-Cobalt won at the Home Depot Center 3-0 on June 16 and 4-0 on Sept. 29.
- RSL FW Olmes Garcia made his first career MLS start on Saturday night, registering an assist and hitting the crossbar twice before coming out for FW Robbie Findley in the 63rd minute. Garcia, 20, signed a five-year contract with Real Salt Lake in February.
- RSL Captain Kyle Beckerman (Rib dislocation) missed Saturday's game due to injury. Beckerman – who initially suffered the injury last week in training and had to come off in the 31st minute of RSL's 1-1 draw at Vancouver last weekend due to the knock – was replaced in the lineup by MF Yordany Alvarez.
- RSL MF Sebastian Velasquez, DF Chris Wingert and Findley returned to the 18 on Saturday after all missing at least one game due to injury. Wingert (R foot fracture) made the gameday roster for the first time this season on Saturday, while Findley (L adductor strain) and Velasquez (R hand fracture) returned after missing two games and one game, respectively. Findley and Velasquez both saw action off the bench on Saturday night.
- Saturday's attendance of 14,900 was the RSL's smallest regular season crowd at Rio Tinto Stadium since May 28, 2011, when 14,674 fans attended the Claret-and-Cobalt's 2-1 loss to Seattle. Saturday's game was the first time in the last eight regular season contests that Rio Tinto Stadium did not sell-out.
Goals by Period 1 2 F
Real Salt Lake 0 1 1
Chivas USA 0 0 0
Scoring Summary:
RSL – Javier Morales (Alvaro Saborio, Olmes Garcia) – 53'
Misconduct Summary:
CHV – Bobby Burling (Yellow) – 58'
RSL – Ned Grabavoy (Yellow) – 76'
CHV – Joaquin Velazquez (Yellow) – 87'
RSL – Lovel Palmer (Yellow) – 90'
CHV – Edgar Mejia (Red) – 90+'
Real Salt Lake (4-1-2-1-2) – Nick Rimando; Tony Beltran, Chris Schuler, Nat Borchers, Lovel Palmer; Yordany Alvarez; Ned Grabavoy, Luis Gil (Sebastian Velasquez, 74'); Javier Morales (C) (Khari Stephenson, 90+); Alvaro Saborio, Olmes Garcia (Robbie Findley, 63')
Substitutes Not Used: Josh Saunders (GK), Chris Wingert, Kwame Watson-Siriboe, Joao Plata
Chivas USA (3-5-2) – Dan Kennedy; Mario de Luna (Carlos Borja, 39'), Bobby Burling, Joaquin Velazquez; Eric Avila, Carlos Alvarez, Marvin Iraheta (Giovani Casillas, 58'), Edgar Mejia, Jorge Villafana (Tristan Bowen, 66'); Julio Morales, Jose Correa
Substitutes Not Used: Tim Melia (GK), Steve Purdy, Jose Rivera, Josue Soto
Referee: Jorge Gonzalez
Referee's Assistants: Adam Wienckowski, Matthew Nelson
4th Official: Allen Chapman
Attendance: 14,900
Weather: Partly cloudy and 50 degrees


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A new word has been coined — "geroscience" — to describe the intensified focus on studying the human aging process and figuring out what to do about it.
Florence Katz's desk calendar is black with ink, nearly every hour filled, and she checks it faithfully each morning.
On Wednesdays and Fridays she works as the volunteer "disher-outer" at lunches for homebound elders at the Jewish Family & Children's Service of Sarasota-Manatee. Add to this her weekly card games, her nightly reading, her practice on the violin and viola, her attendance at the opera, symphony and various fundraisers, and all the activities offered by her retirement community, the Sarasota Bay Club.
At 4-foot-8 and about 76 pounds, she doesn't take up much space in this world. But she's been in it for more than 98 years, and she rarely allows herself to slow down.
"There's one thing that I tell myself: 'You're not going into the rocking chair, and you're not going to use a cane,' " she says. "And so far, I'm listening to myself."
Katz is one of those fortunate people whose "healthspan" has kept up with her impressive life span, sparing her from most disabilities that limit quality of life for many who are decades younger. She is the kind of dynamic elder that researchers are studying for clues about how the rest of us might age more gracefully and healthfully. And she is paying attention to the science herself.
"In my brain class they said that if you eat green vegetables it helps the brain," she says. "I'm doing everything to keep my brain going."
The graying of America and the developed world is now such a widely recognized phenomenon that a new word has been coined — "geroscience" — to describe the intensified focus on studying the human aging process and figuring out what to do about it.
A few of the distinguished geroscientists meeting in Washington for a November summit told U.S. Senate members that their goal is to increase the human healthspan to match and enrich our longer life spans. There are now more people over 60 than under 15, said Michael Hodin, executive director of the Global Coalition on Aging, and this phenomenon is "baked in for the next two generations."
"In 2020," Hodin told the Senate Subcommittee on Aging, "the Japanese will sell more adult diapers than baby diapers."
It is an image that captures the obvious challenges of an aging society. But the diaper comparison ignores a still-unresolved — and hotly debated — question about the dramatic rise in human life expectancy: Will it continue, or has it peaked?
Will the cohort that came of age around World War II be the last generation in developed nations whose members live into their 90s and 100s in such great numbers — or will breakthroughs in medicine and technology lengthen life spans even more for the generations coming after these aging pioneers?
For now, no one can say why so many in the "golden cohort" — people born in certain countries in the years just before and after 1930 — have survived to such a ripe old age. One theory has to do with food shortages in the years surrounding World War II, since caloric restriction has been shown to extend longevity in laboratory mice.
Katz, who has far outlived others in her family, suspects her severe allergy to wheat may have helped her stay fit. She has never smoked, keeps her medications to a minimum, and sleeps four or five hours a night.
"I don't know what my vices are," she says. "I probably have some vices, but I'm not conscious of it."
Researchers who think the obesity epidemic and other factors will derail current longevity trends suspect that this one generation has broken records that the baby boomers won't match.
"These individuals approaching retirement age are more disabled and more frail than the generations that preceded them," said Jay Olshansky, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Illinois at Chicago. "There isn't much room left for improvement. That's critical for those of us who study the future of longevity."
The stunning advance in life expectancies over the last century stems from two crucial developments: public health measures, such as the polio vaccine, that lowered the mortality rate for children; and medical treatment breakthroughs that extended life for people with once-fatal diseases like heart failure or cancer.
Life expectancy is an inexact calculation that tries to predict your remaining life span , depending on when you were born and how old you are now. If you were a 65-year-old American in 1930, for example, you could expect another 12.2 years of life. If you are 65 now, the figure is more like 18.5 years.
But Olshansky — speaking at a recent Age Boom Academy for journalists hosted by Columbia University — said these predictions, based on historical trends, tend to lag behind reality.
"Up until 1977, we dramatically underestimated life expectancy," he said. "After 1980, we started making the opposite mistake." In periods when mortality rates creep back up, he explained, the formula "overestimates life expectancy. I think we're there."
Take Japan, land of the rising market in adult diapers. While birth rates remain low, shifts toward Western diets and more sedentary lifestyles may be chipping away at the number of citizens who will see the other side of 85.
"A lot of my colleagues believe that especially in Japan, life expectancy is on the brink of a decline," Olshansky said. "There is evidence to suggest that these younger generations, especially in parts of Japan where obesity has increased, will see their life spans decline."
The counterargument — that still-to-come medical discoveries and technologies will continue to suppress mortality rates, and that there is no real upper limit to the human life span — is led by James Vaupel of the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock, Germany. He is said to be so opposed to Olshansky's views that he declines to appear at the same scientific conferences.
Vaupel's theory is that what he calls "the frontier of survival" is continually advancing, pushed along by rising numbers of humans who live past 100. His argument reflects current social assumptions that aging is relative, and that 50, for example, is the new 40 or even 30.
"We are making progress in bringing death rates down, even at the highest ages," he said in a recent lecture. "Aging is being postponed; it's not being slowed down. The health that people used to have at age 70, they're now having at 80 or 90."
While this may be true on an individual level — especially for individuals at higher levels of education and wealth — there are signs of an emerging longevity gap, at least in the United States. This suggests that the constantly receding frontier that Vaupel envisions may not apply across the board.
An influential paper last year by Olshansky and his colleagues with the MacArthur Foundation's Research Network on an Aging Society identified a group of Americans — white females with fewer than 12 years of schooling — for whom life expectancy actually declined between 1990 and 2008.
Olshansky and others also question whether extended life spans since the early 1900s have come at an unacceptable price. Fewer adults now die naturally "of old age" — instead, most linger for years while struggling with a host of debilitating conditions.
"We got 30 years, but we traded them off for heart disease, cancer, stroke and Alzheimer's — all the things we don't like," Olshansky said. "If we succeed in continuing to reduce the risk of major fatal diseases, we will get something else. We're pushing the life span into those regions where frailty and disability are extremely high. There is much less plasticity in what we can do to improve health at older ages."
While demographers on both sides of the longevity debate wait for evidence that they are right, geroscientists are concentrating on healthy supercentenarians — people older than 100 with minimal disabilities — to find clues on how to delay the toll that aging usually takes.
The MacArthur network of aging researchers produced another paper in Health Affairs in October, saying that slowing the aging process is a realistic goal that could increase life expectancy by 2.2 healthful years, and estimating the economic value of such an accomplishment at $7.1 trillion over the next half-century.
"If we think about this 30-year increase in life expectancy over the last 100 years, it offers us a new stage we've never lived before and we're not very well prepared for it," says Linda P. Fried, dean of the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. "Preparation could actually lead to a pretty great outcome, but lack of preparation can lead to policies and decisions based on our fears, which is not so good."
Dietary manipulation — like adding to the life spans of mice by limiting their intake — has received much attention in the anti-aging field, along with stem cell and molecular research. Another rich possibility is the study of ways to stem inflammation, as Dr. Richard Hodes, director of the National Institute on Aging, told the Senate panel recently.
"Several epidemiological studies indicate that high blood levels of inflammatory biomarkers are the most significant risk factor for both morbidity and mortality in the elderly," he said. "However, many unanswered questions remain about the etiology of age-associated inflammation — whether inflammation is a cause or consequence, or both, of disease."
By far the most promising path at this point for extending life in a meaningful and enjoyable way, the researchers agree, lies in early intervention. This involves helping people establish good health habits while they're young — before obesity and sedentary lifestyles can start to erode life expectancy.
Florence Katz shares one characteristic — a college education — that is emerging as a marker for those on the high side of the longevity gap. The rest she credits to relentless momentum, and an abiding gratitude for the time she's been allowed.
"I just go from day to day," she says. "When I get up in the morning and I look at the sky, I say, 'Thank God I'm here. How can I make the most of today? — because I don't have tomorrow.' I've done this all my life, but it becomes more accentuated the older I get.
"You have to appreciate the blue sky, and the stars in the sky; you have to be thankful for it."


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Product-colour may differ from image
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Hormone oxytocin may keep men monogamous, study suggests
Can a naturally-produced hormone stop men from cheating?
A new study in the Nov. 14 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience showed that men in relationships that were given the hormone oxytocin were more likely to want to stay farther away from an unknown woman they found attractive, compared to single men given the hormone or men that took a placebo.
Oxytocin is a hormone that's secreted from the pituitary gland and produced by the hypothalamus. It can help start or strengthen labor, facilitate nursing and slow down bleeding after labor. The hormone can also help create a stronger bond between parents and children and between couples and is sometimes called the "cuddle hormone." Now, researchers are saying it may help people stay in monogamous relationships.
"Previous animal research in prairie voles identified oxytocin as major key for monogamous fidelity in animals," Dr. Rene Hurlemann, a psychiatrist University of Bonn in Bonn, Germany, said in a press release. "Here, we provide the first evidence that oxytocin may have a similar role for humans."
To test the effects of oxytocin, researchers gave a group of 86 heterosexual men around the age of 25 a nasal spray that administered either oxytocin or a placebo. Forty-five minutes later, an attractive female entered the room. The men then indicated the distance they felt was the "ideal distance" for the woman to stand from them and the distance that made them feel "slightly uncomfortable."
The men who were in committed relationships who received oxytocin stayed on average 28 to 30 inches away from the attractive woman, compared to single men who received the spray or single and committed men who received the placebo. The latter two groups preferred to stay 20 to 24 inches away from the woman.
A similar effect was observed in another experiment when only a photograph of an attractive woman was shown, and men were told to move a joystick to move the image closer or away from themselves.
- Questions raised about "love hormone's" real impact
- Being nice may be in your genes, according to study
- Watch: Oxytocin: The "Cuddle Chemical"
All the men rated the woman with the same level of attractiveness no matter if they had been given the placebo or the hormone. Another experiment however showed that the distance that men stayed from a male presenter was not affected by the hormone.
"Because oxytocin is known to increase trust in people, we expected men under the influence of the hormone to allow the female experimenter to come even closer, but the direct opposite happened," Hurlemann said.
Paul Zak, founding director of Claremont Graduate University's Center for Neuroeconomics Studies, said to the Los Angeles Times that the study showed that oxytocin makes people more empathetic, more observant of social cues and more willing to adjust their behavior. It also showed that humans, unlike animals, have evolved to accept being committed.
"The finding that one's relationship status affects how oxytocin affects the brain provides some evidence that our brains evolved to form long-term romantic relationships," Zak said. "Hugh Hefner is the exception, not the role model for men."


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I don't know who wouldn't love a bowl of steamed glutinous rice. I ate this while growing up in Malaysia and now I passing this dish to my daughters. I hope when they grow up, they will learn how to cook this and pass it down to the next generation as well and let the tradition continue.
Instead of the usual waxed sausages, I substituted it with the waxed pork belly that was given to me. I was out of dried shrimps so this was without it. But this dish won't be as flavorful without the dried shrimps. Best to serve it with chopped scallion, crispy fried shallots and chili padi.
Waxed pork belly courtesy of a Chinese chef who works in our friend's restaurant. His departure gift as he will be leaving here for good and back to China to be with his daughter. A bit sad as no more special treat from him. :(
- 1 skinless and boneless chicken breast, thinly slice and season with soy sauce, dark soy sauce, Chinese cooking wine, white pepper, sugar, sesame oil and cornstarch. Mix well.
- 2 big shallots (the smallest one is for making shallot oil for my png kuih), mince
- 4 cloves of garlic, mince
- 9 shiitake mushroom, soften in water and thinly slice
- 1 piece of waxed pork belly or you can use lap cheong (waxed sausage), thinly slice
- 3 1/2 cups of glutinous rice/ sweet rice, soak in water overnight, drain
- Seasonings to taste, no measurement here.
- Fish sauce, iodized salt, sugar, 5-spice powder, white pepper.


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One lens one story #10
One lens one story, a new chapter begins: Zoom lens.
You would often find lens construction diagram in the lens catalog and other promotional materials. However, this isn't enough to tell all about the particular lens.
For example, a typical lens construction includes only the inner part of the lens barrel. It doesn't mention about the imager part where all the lights are condensed at the end. In such case you cannot see the difference between lens for mirrorless camera, compact camera like X100, and DSLR which contains a mirror box.
Let's get back to today's topic; XF18-135mm.
You will not learn the greatness of it, if you only look at the lens construction diagram.
There are several other lenses in the same category as the XF18-135mm currently available in the market from other manufacturers. The length, diameter, and the size of the lens are more or less the same, but all other lenses are for DSLRs.
The length is the same, but XF18-135mm is a lens for mirroless camera, which does not require a mirror box. The optical distance is 20mm shorter. This is the greatness of the lens.
The shorter optical distance realizes the comfortable use as a camera system. The compact size makes the multi-purpose lens even more convenient. And to achieve this, we have 3 aspherical lenses in it.
XF18-135mm differs in its character from all other XF lenses.
Other XF lenses are like sprinters or shot putters, they have their specialized field. On the other hand, the XF18-135mm is like a decathlete, an all round-player. But you cannot overlook the decathletes. The top players can sometimes surpass the national records.
Continue to read Episode 11
One lens one story – Episode 11: XF1.4X TC WR Part 1


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Power companies on alert ahead of possible severe weather
Freezing rain could knock out power lines
Power companies told 40/29 Tuesday they were preparing crews for possible power outages with freezing rain expected later this week.
Ozarks Electric said they usually have at least eight crews ready to prepare for severe weather and at least one person in the dispatch center at all times.
"Most of the time when outages happen, we know before the person at home knows that they are having a power outage because we have such sophisticated technology here," Penny Storms with Ozarks Electric said.
Fallen trees into power lines are usually to blame for power outages more often than ice on the lines itself. Drought conditions have made trees even more susceptible to breaking.
"Since we've had such drought conditions, there is a lot of weakened timber throughout our area. Sometimes a whole tree may break and fall over into a line," Storms said.
Smaller towns in mountainous areas like Brentwood or Wyola experience the most frequent power outages in our area. Their power lines often run close to trees making them more likely to snap.
SWEPCO tol 40/29 they also have crews on standby in case freezing rain causes power outages.


text: Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums :: View topic - who wants speak english with me? Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums"The Internet's Meeting Place for ESL/EFL Students and Teachers from Around the World!" FAQ Search Memberlist Usergroups Register Profile Log in to check your private messages Log in who wants speak english with me? Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums Forum Index -> Learning English View previous topic :: View next topic Author Message criJoined: 15 Jun 2003Posts: 11Location: rome Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2003 2:04 am Post subject: who wants speak english with me? HI!!! My name's Cristina, and I'd like to have some foreign friends to talk about all things! I'd like to confide in you my secret and, if you want, making suggestion for your "problem"! If you want to write me, my e-mail address is: [email protected] i'll wait your reply, cri Back to top Display posts from previous: All Posts1 Day7 Days2 Weeks1 Month3 Months6 Months1 Year Oldest FirstNewest First Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums Forum Index -> Learning English All times are GMT - 8 Hours Page 1 of 1 Jump to: Select a forum Student Forums----------------ComputersCurrent NewsCultureEnglish SchoolsFamilyFilm and CinemaFoodHealth and FitnessHelp CenterHobbiesHolidaysLearning EnglishLiteratureMaking FriendsMusicOpinionsPetsScienceSportsThe Strange and MysteriousTOEFL and Other English ExamsTravel You cannot post new topics in this forumYou cannot reply to topics in this forumYou cannot edit your posts in this forumYou cannot delete your posts in this forumYou cannot vote in polls in this forum Dave's ESL Cafe is maintained by the one and only Dave Sperling. Banner Advertising | Bookstore / Alta Books | FAQs | Articles | Interview with Dave Copyright © 2018 Dave's ESL Cafe | All Rights Reserved | Contact Dave's ESL Cafe | Site Map Teachers College, Columbia University: Train to Teach English Here or Abroad Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2002 phpBB Group


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My much-loved father, Dr. T.L. Osborn, the man known around the world as "The Father of the Gospel" entered his eternal rest on Thursday, Feb. 14. He was in no pain and had no sickness. The Lord simply took away his breath.
My father was wrapped in love, his family surrounding him as he stepped through the veil into eternity. He is now in the presence of Jesus, whom he had served faithfully for 77 years. We can only imagine the sweet reunion between him and his beloved Daisy, three of his children, a granddaughter and a celebrating host of believers who are among the redeemed because of my father's ministry during more than 65 years to every corner of the earth. He was in his 90th year, having passed his 89th birthday on Dec. 23. read more


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N° 5–2006: ESA joins forces with Japan on new infrared sky surveyor
22 February 2006
A high-capability new infrared satellite, ASTRO-F, was successfully launched last night by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). In a collaborative effort involving ESA and scientists across Europe, the spacecraft is now being prepared to start its mapping of the cosmos. Orbiting the Earth, ASTRO-F (to be renamed Akari (light) now that it is in orbit) will make an unprecedented study of the sky in infrared light, to reveal the distant phenomena hidden from our eyes that tell the story of the formation and evolution processes taking place in the universe.
Prof. David Southwood, ESA's Director of Science, said: "The successful launch of ASTRO-F(Akari) is a big step. A decade ago, our Infrared Space Observatory (ISO) opened up this field of astronomy, and the Japanese took part then. It is wonderful to be cooperating again with Japan in this discipline."
"Our involvement with the Japanese in this programme responds to our long-term commitment in infrared astronomy, whose potential for discovery is huge. We are now off and rolling with ASTRO-F/Akari, but we are also working extremely hard towards the launch of the next-generation infrared telescope, ESA's Herschel spacecraft, which will go up in the next two years", he continued.
"This will still not be the end of the story. Infrared astronomy is also a fundamental part of the future vision for ESA's space research, as outlined in the 'Cosmic Vision 2015-2025' programme. The truth is, subjects such as the formation of stars and exoplanets, or the evolution of the early universe, are themes at the very core of our programme."
The mission :
On 21 February, at 22:28 Central European Time, (22 February, 06:28 local time), a Japanese M-V rocket blasted off from the Uchinoura Space Centre, in the Kagoshima district of Japan, carrying the new infrared satellite into space.
In about two weeks' time, ASTRO-F will be in polar orbit around the Earth at an altitude of 745 kilometres. From there, after two months of system check-outs and performance verification, it will survey the whole sky in about half a year, with much better sensitivity, spatial resolution and wider wavelength coverage than its only infrared surveyor predecessor, the Anglo-Dutch-US IRAS satellite (1983).
The all-sky survey will be followed by a ten-month phase during which thousands of selected astronomical targets will be observed in detail. This will enable scientists to look at these individual objects for a longer time, and thus with increased sensitivity, to conduct their spectral analysis.
This second phase will end with the depletion of the liquid helium needed to cool down the spacecraft telescope and its instruments to only a few degrees above absolute zero. ASTRO-F will then start its third operations phase and continue to make observations of selected celestial targets with its infrared camera only, in a few specific infrared wavelengths.
ESA's involvement:
Only two decades have passed since the birth of space-based infrared astronomy; since then, each decade has been marked by the launch of innovative infrared satellites that have revolutionised our very perception of the cosmos.
In fact, infrared satellites make possible the detection of cool objects, including planetary systems, interstellar dust and gas, or distant galaxies, all of which are most difficult to study in the visible part of the light spectrum. With infrared astronomy, it is also possible to study the birth of stars and galaxies, the 'creation' energy of which peaks in the infrared range.
The European Space Agency and Europe have a strong tradition in infrared astronomy, which is now being continued by the participation of the UK, the Netherlands and ESA in ASTRO-F. ESA is providing network support through its ground station in Kiruna (Sweden) for a few passes per day.
ESA is also providing expertise and support for the sky-survey data processing. This includes 'pointing reconstruction' – which means measuring exactly where the observed objects are in the sky, to help accelerate the production of sky catalogues and ultimately produce a census of the infrared universe.
In return, ESA has obtained ten percent of the observing opportunities during the second and third operational phases of the ASTRO-F mission, which is being allocated to European astronomers to perform their proposed observations.
"The cooperation offered to ESA by Japan in ASTRO-F will help keep up momentum for European astronomers as they build on their past work with ISO, and look forward to the launch of ESA's Herschel infrared mission, in early 2008," commented Prof. Southwood.
With the largest and most powerful space telescope to date (3.5 metres in diameter), Herschel will build on the ASTRO-F census of the infrared universe and on the legacy left by other satellites such as ESA's ISO and NASA's Spitzer. It will reveal the deepest secrets of galaxies and of star formation and evolution, while also studying the chemistry of the cold, hidden cosmos.
Note for editors
ASTRO-F is the result of a truly international effort. It was developed by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (ISAS/JAXA), with the participation of Nagoya University, the University of Tokyo, the National Institute of Information & Communications Technology and other Japanese universities and institutes. Including South Korea, the project also draws on the involvement of ESA and a consortium of UK universities (Imperial College, London, the Open University, the University of Sussex) funded by the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (PPARC), as well as the Netherlands Institute for Space Research and Groningen University (NL).
ESA's ground-station support will be managed by the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC). ESA's European Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC) is in charge of pointing reconstruction and user support for European open time observations.
ASTRO-F is carrying onboard a cooled telescope with an approx. 70 centimetre aperture. It is also equipped with two instruments: the Far-Infrared Surveyor (FIS) and the Infrared Camera (IRC). Together, they will make possible an all-sky survey in six infrared wavelengths. These instruments will also perform detailed photometric and spectroscopic observation of selected astronomical targets over the 2–180 micrometre wavelength range in 13 bands.
During the survey, ASTRO-F will provide a complete infrared map of our galaxy with its stellar nurseries, which are only observable in infrared because their visible light is obscured by the dust in which they are embedded.
ASTRO-F will also detect dead stars in the solar neighbourhood and failed stars known as "brown dwarfs", emitting their dim light in the infrared. It will also search for planetary systems within a distance of 1,000 light years from our sun and will enable scientists to study their formation from the discs of dust and gas in which the 'protoplanets' are enshrouded.
It is expected that the all-sky survey alone will detect about a million galaxies. ASTRO-F will also trace the large-scale structure of the universe, observe its most luminous objects which are rapidly moving away from us and observe star formation in nearby and distant galaxies.
During selected observations, ASTRO-F will provide comprehensive, multi-wavelength coverage of a wide variety of sources, such as solar system asteroids, brown dwarf stars, debris discs and stars in our and other close-by galaxies; it will also study many extragalactic sources.
The response from European astronomers to the call for observing proposals issued by ESA over the available observing time (10%) has been overwhelming. Fifty proposals were received from 42 different principal investigators from 32 institutes in nine European countries.
For more information, please contact:
ESA – Communication Department
Media Relations Office
Tel: +33 (0)126.96.36.199.55
Fax: +33 (0)188.8.131.52.90
Alberto Salama, ESA ISO and ASTRO-F Project Scientist
E-mail: Alberto.Salama @ esa.int
Göran Pilbratt, ESA Herschel Project Scientist
E-mail: gpilbratt @ rssd.esa.int
For further information:
ESA Media Relations Division
Tel: +33(0)188.8.131.5255
Fax: +33(0)220.127.116.1190


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In the summer of 1998, Americans raced into movie theaters for not one, but two major Hollywood productions featuring giant asteroids about to smash into Earth.
The films – "Deep Impact" and "Armageddon" – had plots so similar, many people confuse the two.
Now 13 years later, a newly discovered, real-life comet named Elenin is racing toward our home planet.
No, it's not an asteroid, and no, it's not on a crash course, but it is expected to be at its closest point to us – some 21 million miles – during the culmination of God's annual holy days mentioned in the Bible.
This has sparked a wave of speculation that it could be some sort of miraculous sign possibly heralding the long-anticipated return of Jesus to Earth.
It's coming!" thunders Paul Begley, a preacher at Community Gospel Baptist Church in Knox, Ind., in a YouTube video. "It's on its way and right in the middle of the Feast of the Trumpets, it is going to come through and get in between the Earth and the sun."
"We've only known about this thing six months, folks," he continued, reflecting the fact the comet was discovered here in the U.S. by Russian astronomer Leonid Elenin on Dec. 10, 2010, at International Scientific Optical Network's robotic observatory near Mayhill, N.M.
Begley wondered aloud what sort of physical effect the comet might have.
"Will there be some type of magnetic pull? Will the poles shift? Will there be some type of pull of gravity that creates earthquakes and tsunamis and volcanoes and hurricanes and tornadoes and cyclones and mudslides, forest fires? What's gonna go on?"
He notes the comet's nearest point to Earth will take place Oct. 16, during the Feast of Tabernacles, according to today's Jewish calendar.
"I'm here to tell you right now, we're getting closer and closer and closer and closer to the Second Coming of Jesus Christ," Begley said.
In the New Testament, Jesus predicted celestial signs concerning the end of this current age and His return to Earth to govern the kingdom of God.
- "And the stars of heaven shall fall, and the powers that are in heaven shall be shaken. And then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory." (Mark 13:25-26)
- "And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven." (Luke 21:11)
A Space.com article noted, "Internet rumors about Elenin began spreading earlier this year. Its approach to Earth was blamed for shifting the Earth's axis by 3 degrees in February, precipitating the Chile earthquake, then shifting the pole even more to trigger the Japan quake in March."
David Morrison, a planetary astronomer at NASA's Ames Research Center and senior scientist at the NASA Astrobiology Institute, wrote, "Ignoring plate tectonics as the cause of earthquakes, they suggest that the comet exerted strong gravitational or electromagnetic effects on our planet."
When it was pointed out how small the comet actually is – just 2 to 3 miles wide – with no magnetic field and that it won't even pass very near Earth, rumors began to circulate about NASA withholding information about Elenin.
"Ironically, the inconspicuous nature of this comet plays into some of the conspiracy theories," Morrison told Space. "For people who are convinced the comet did cause the earthquakes, this proves that Elenin is not a comet at all, but a much more massive, and dangerous, interloper."
Astronomer Colin Johnston at the Armagh Planetarium in Northern Ireland is among those trying to put disaster fears and 2012 hysteria to rest.
"As Elenin will not hit Earth," he said, "some have claimed instead that its gravitational effect on the Earth's interior will cause earthquakes and similar cataclysms on our planet, offering the recent disasters in New Zealand and Japan as harbingers of the horrors to come. This is nonsense. I estimate the comet's nucleus to have a mass of about 20 billion tons, which is vast in human terms, minute in astronomical terms. Compared to the gravitational effects of the moon and other planets, Elenin's effects will be immeasurably small. In fact, Dear Reader, your gravitational influence on the Earth as you sit reading these words is greater than Comet Elenin's will be at its strongest!"
Others agree.
Astronomer and blogger Ian Musgrave in Adelaide, Australia, has posted a frequently-asked-questions page online about this celestial glob of ice and rock that has less than a billionth of the tidal force of the moon.
"If the moon can't cause the poles to tip, cause massive tidal floods or earthquakes, Comet 2010 X1 Elenin won't. We've been closer to other comets before with no ill effect," Musgrave said.
"The comet will pass no closer to us than 84 times the Earth-moon distance," said Ray Villard at Discovery News.
"The effects of the comet on Earth at closest approach will be as inconsequential as that of a mosquito slamming head-on into an ocean-going supertanker."
This is certainly not the first time some in the Christian community have made connections between the biblical feast days and events in outer space.
As WND previously reported, a minister who promotes the Old Testament roots of Christianity suggests a rare string of lunar and solar eclipses said to fall on God's annual holy days in 2015 could signal the return of Jesus.
Pastor Mark Biltz of El Shaddai Ministries in Bonney Lake, Wash., noted a coming rare phenomenon of four consecutive total lunar eclipses, known as a tetrad, and often called "blood moons" since the moon often takes on a bloody color.
He says during this century, tetrads occur at least six times, but what's interesting is that the only string of four consecutive blood moons that coincide with God's holy days of Passover in the spring and the autumn's Feast of Tabernacles (also called Succoth) occurs between 2014 and 2015 on today's Gregorian calendar.
"The fact that it doesn't happen again in this century I think is very significant," Biltz explained. "So then I looked at last century, and, believe it or not, the last time that four blood red moons occurred together was in 1967 and 1968 tied to Jerusalem recaptured by Israel."
He then started to notice a pattern of the tetrads.
"What's significant to me is that even before 1967, the next time that you had four blood red moons again was right after Israel became a nation in '48, it happened again in 1949 and 1950 … on Passover and Succoth. You didn't have any astronomical tetrads in the 1800s, the 1700s, the 1600s. In the 1500s, there were six, but none of those fell on Passover and Succoth."
When checking the schedule for solar eclipses, Biltz found two – one on the first day of the Hebrew year and the next on the high holy day of Rosh Hashanah, the first day of the seventh Hebrew month. Both of these take place in the 2014-2015 year.
Biltz says, "You have the religious year beginning with the total solar eclipse, two weeks later a total lunar eclipse on Passover, and then the civil year beginning with the solar eclipse followed two weeks later by another total blood red moon on the Feast of Succoth all in 2015."
In February of last year, the astronomical community was dazzled with a spectacular unknown object that some felt could be a sign from God, as it they said it resembled a flying cross or a Star of David.
"The truth is, we're still struggling to understand what this means," comet expert David Jewitt at UCLA told Britain's Daily Mail. "It's most likely the result of a recent collision between two asteroids."
Jesus said that prior to His return we would see signs in the sun, the moon and the stars. We need to always be looking up becuase the heavens were given to us as a sign way back in Genesis until Satan perverted that also with Astrology and the like.


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Student Services
Student Services
Hastings College exists to serve students!
In order to make your life as meaningful and productive as possible, Hastings College provides services dedicated to your success and wellbeing. From academic counseling to a great first-year advising program to career services, you'll have people on your side encouraging and supporting you from the moment you step on campus.
Many student services are coordinated through the Office of Student Life, which you can find in Hazelrigg Student Union.


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Do you have a startup that serves other small businesses with a product or service? Would you like that startup to grow?
Then you may be interested in applying to Constant Contact's 4-month startup accelerator program. The company's "Small Business Innovation Program," with a facility known as the Innovation Loft or InnoLoft, is designed to give a boost to help startups and entrepreneurs that serve other small businesses.
And now the first class of startups are about to take advantage of the Program, July 1st through Oct. 31st. The four companies in the inaugural class are mosaicHUB, OmniLync, SideWalk, and The High Bar.
These four lucky startups in the first class will benefit from mentoring from marketing and technology experts. They get access to members of the angel and venture communities, $10,000 to spend on marketing activities, and more.
The startups will get access to office space and meeting space in the company's InnoLoft, a 30,000 square foot lab with facilities such as a kitchen, playroom and showers. But that's not all they get. The website says that "in four months, you'll take your company further than you ever expected" with the Program's strategic advantages:
"In four-month sessions, startups get the run of the InnoLoft, from our UX lab to reconfigurable meeting and work space to showers for those late nights. And they get the run of our network, too. From our internal marketing, social media, tech and small business experts, to advisors, investors, and potential customers. They'll meet everyone critical to the growth, scalability and success of their startup."
Constant Contact is a technology company known for its marketing solutions. It serves over 600,000 small businesses and non-profits worldwide. The company started out with email marketing in the 1990s. Later it added social media marketing tools, event marketing and online surveys. Under the leadership of CEO Gail Goodman, the company went public in 2008 (NASDAQ: CTCT).
Today, the company offers an all-in-one online marketing platform. And now it is giving back to the small business community even more with its startup accelerator.
Constant Contact does have some entry requirements, though, for its startup accelerator. You must already be operating your startup and have some kind of a user-base, even if small. Your startup must help small businesses in some way.
You must temporarily relocate to the Innoloft facility in Waltham, Massachusetts. "No Skyping or emailing it in." That's the company's words, not ours.
Full requirements are in listed in the startup accelerator FAQs.
"The Innovation Program's inaugural class covers the spectrum of the small business landscape, with solutions ranging from hardware to community marketplaces and offerings targeted at B2Bs, B2Cs, and nonprofits" said Andy Miller, chief innovation architect at Constant Contact. "Now, the real fun begins. We can't wait to have these entrepreneurs join us in the same collaborative space and share the power of Constant Contact's resources and small business expertise with them."
If you are interested in applying, just head on over to the InnoLoft website and leave your email address. New classes get accepted every January and July.
Images: Constant Contact InnoLoft


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Kentucky Teacher Hall Of Fame
Nominate a Teacher
Inquiries and/or additional information also may be directed to Mrs. Tammy Spinks, College of Education and Behavioral Sciences, Western Kentucky University, 1906 College Heights Blvd., #11030, Bowling Green, KY 42101-1030 or email@example.com (270-745-4664).
Each nominee must have a minimum of nineteen (19) years teaching experience, ten (10) of which should have been in a P-12 Kentucky school. Nominees may be living or deceased. All nominees must have a completed nomination packet submitted by the deadline (July 15 each year). All inductees (or their representative, if seriously ill or deceased) must be available to attend the annual Induction Ceremony to accept the award.
Teachers may be nominated and recommended by their individual school districts, fellow educators, or former students. The nomination packets should address the nominee's impact on students and young people in Kentucky. Page limitations are strictly adhered to by the selection committee. Each nomination packet should include:
- A completed nomination form (PDF)
- A maximum of five (5) one-sided 8½ x 11 pages of supporting documentation outlining the nominee's qualifications for inclusion in the Kentucky Teacher Hall of Fame. This may include an essay, photographs, testimonials from students, honors and awards, professional activities, career highlights, newspaper clippings, etc. Please keep in mind that the information provided will generally be the only source of information given to the selection committee and should be thorough, yet concise;
- A maximum of five (5) letters of recommendation describing the nominee's qualifications (this is in addition to the five (5) one-sided pages of supporting documentation described above);
- A black/white or color photograph (5x7 preferred) of the nominee to be used for the program if the nominee is selected. The photograph will not be returned.
Selection criteria will be determined by a committee composed of higher education faculty members/administrators, P-12 teachers and administrators, representatives from various state agencies and professional organizations, and/or prior Kentucky Teacher Hall of Fame inductees. Consideration shall be given to ensure a diverse representation on the selection committee, including gender, race, ethnicity, and geography.
The committee typically meets in the fall of the year to select a minimum of three (3) and a maximum of six (6) individuals to be inducted into the Kentucky Teacher Hall of Fame. All members of the class must receive a majority vote of those present and voting on the selection committee. Additionally, the committee will select and rank two (2) alternates to be considered in the event that a recipient is unable to accept the honor.
An honoree will not be inducted into the Kentucky Teacher Hall of Fame unless he or she attends the induction ceremony (unless seriously ill or deceased) to be held in a location and on a date to be determined, generally January or February. Those not selected will remain in consideration for induction for three years, including their initial nomination year, after which they are not eligible to reapply.
Some of the links on this page may require additional software to view.


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Vice City 1984. Construction is everywhere as a shining metropolis rises from the foundations of crime and betrayal. As a soldier, Vic Vance has always protected his dysfunctional family, his country, himself. Kicked out onto the streets of a city torn between glamour and gluttony, Vic is faced with a stark choice - build an empire or be crushed.
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Sleepless Nights
- Artist Name: D. R. Das
- Art Details: Acrylic on Canvas Board | 16.00" x 20.00" Inches | 2015
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Do you think an art work hanging in your house or office is the "Status & Intellectual" Symbols!
What is Art? and/or What is Beauty? "Everyone Should Smile. Life Really isn't that Serious. We Make it Hard. The Sun Rises. The Sun Sets. We Just Tend To Complicate The Process." Love You, Friend!