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Wikileaks and Freedom, Autonomy and Sovereignty in the cloud
"We have to be very attentive and united at a state level to fight
against what is a threat to democratic authority and sovereignty,"
- French government spokesman Francois Baroin speaking out against wikileaks releasing US diplomatic cables.
"Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather."
- A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace, John Perry Barlow
Wikileaks represents a new type of (h)activism, which shifts the source of potential threat from a few, dangerous hackers and a larger group of mostly harmless activists - both outsiders to an organization - to those who are on the inside. For insiders trying to smuggle information out, anonymity is a necessary condition for participation. Wikileaks has demonstrated that the access to anonymity can be democratized, made simple and user friendly.
Being Anonymous in the context of Wikileaks has a double promise: it promises to liberate the subject from the existing power structures, and in the same time it allows the exposure of these structures by opening up a space to confront them. The Wikileaks coerced transparency, however, is nothing more than the extension of the Foucauldian disciplinary power to the very body of state and government. While anonymity removes the individual from existing power relations, the act of surveillance puts her right back to the middle.
The ability to place the state under surveillance limits and ultimately renders present day sovereignty obsolete. It can also be argued that it fosters the emergence of a new sovereign in itself. I believe that Wikileaks (or rather, the logic of it) is a new sovereign in the global political / economic sphere. But as it stands now, Wikileakistan shares too much with the powers it wishes to counter. The hidden power structures and the inner workings of these states within the state are exposed by another imperium in imperio, a secretive organization, whose agenda is far from transparent, whose members, resources are unknown, holding back an indefinite amount of information both on itself and on its opponents.
I argue that it is not more secretive, one sided transparency which will subvert and negate the control and discipline of secretive, one sided transparency, it is anonymity. The subject's position of being "a multiplicity that can be numbered and supervised", its state of living in a "sequestered and observed solitude" (Foucault 1979) can only be subverted if there is a place to hide from surveillance. I argue that maybe less, and not more transparency is the path that leads to the aims of Wikileaks.
In 2010, an organization called Wikileaks started to publish hundreds of thousands of secret US diplomatic cables and military documents, acquired from anonymous whistleblowers. The publication of these documents marks the beginning of a new era. While all the critical information within these organizations is already digital, never has the firewall between a secret and a public knowledge been thinner. Sharing secrets and in the same time preserving anonymity seems to be easier than ever. And as the continuous accessibility of Wikileaks so far has proved, even the most powerful sovereign in the world can do little to contain a leak after it has happened. State sovereignty and corporate autonomy needs to be rethought.
But not only their self-determination is in question. Wikileaks itself has also come under attack: their access to the global payment system was cut, their hosting provider stopped serving them and their access to the global Domain Name System was also curtailed, despite the fact that no official charges were made against the organization. These steps have so far been inadequate to make Wikileaks disappear or to stop the dissemination of the confidential materials. But the questions still linger: what are the critical infrastructures that are absolutely necessary for any digital, networked organization to survive? Are there any real gatekeepers on the web, and if there are, who are they, and how powerful they are? How effective is their control over the critical infostructures? To what extent can any organization expect to be sovereign in the cloud?
"You have no sovereignty where we gather." John Perry Barlow's words (Barlow 1996) that declared the independence of cyberspace now mark a full-blown cyber-war between states, corporations and ad-hoc, informal, hacktivist networks over the issues of sovereignty, autonomy, self-determination on both sides of what has been the cyber/real divide. But that distinction does not have any meaning anymore. Cyberspace is not another, distant, secluded space which Barlow envisioned. The declaration of the cyberspace is not the foundation of a sovereign in a far away land. Cyberspace is in the very heart of traditional institutions: the state, economic enterprises, society. And the question now is whether cyberspace can be inserted into the societal order, which - at least in principle - rests on mutual checks and balances, on an equilibrium that ensures that no power is left unchecked. Is it true that states have no sovereignty in cyberspace? And what happens when the citizens of the cyberspace start to gather inside the state, inside the corporations, easily crossing that never-existent border between cyberspace and the "real world"? What is left of the sovereignty of the state, the autonomy of our traditional institutions when they start to gather [and? to?] put these institutions under constant surveillance?
The outcome of this conflict greatly depends on the role everyday citizens will play in this power universe. The digital traces of our online being serve as the most important raw material in the digital economy. Also, (digital) transparency is the key concept in the Foucauldian understanding of power, as it serves to maintain and reproduce power-relations within society. On the other hand, these individually impotent and powerless users can quickly team up into informal, anonymous, ad-hoc action networks that from time-to-time make a powerful impact. Wikileaks is the most recent and most potent tool in the hands of these crowds as it enables resistance to power both by the anonymity it offers and by the leaks which force transparency upon the state. The real question is whether Wikileaks can be a true emancipatory force, which will lead anonymous crowds to a self-aware use of these powers and to fulfill their actual potential?
Does Wikileaks mark the rise of a new sovereign in our world? A new world power which lacks standing armies, natural resources, the strategic geopolitical location, and the financial might that characterized world powers before? A new sovereign, which draws its power from both the ability to disrupt the information flows, and the ability to provide anonymity to its users? A new power which is sovereign because in the fragmented infrastructure landscape of the internet, it can always find refuge from where it can safely operate? A power which is organized unlike any other power so far, because it exists beyond the formal structures of law, economy and society?
Soon we will find out.
A new era of hacktivism
Wikileaks-enabled activism is quite different from the types of cyber activism and hacktivism that were prominent in the last decade. The latter, let's call it hacktivism 1.0, "breaks down into two broad streams of actions: 1. Mass virtual direct actions, which use cyberspatial technologies of limited potential in order to re-embody virtual actions, [and 2.] digitally correct actions, which defend and extend the peculiar powers cyberspace creates. [..]Whereas mass action hacktivists look to networks to do things for them, to be a place in which protest can occur just as roads are places in which demonstrations can occur, digitally correct hacktivists attempt to form the nature of the roads and passages of cyberspace. In doing this they generate actions directly focused on the codes that make cyberspace the place it is" (Jordan and Taylor 2004). Hacktivism 1.0 offers few opportunities for political action. They can be complex technological stunts, committed by highly skilled computer programmers. The results of this type of activism are either the disruption of the infostructure of the target organization or some specialized software tool to aid activists. Such actions are costly and time consuming, therefore relatively rare. On the other hand, hacktivism offers individuals the chance to participate in electronic civil disobedience, like virtual sit-ins, where, along with thousands of others one can try to overload the public web services of the target organizations. In this sense electronic disobedience is closely related to the earlier, non-electronic civil disobedience movements. These attacks ? Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks as they are called now - require no technical skills, and beyond making a website inaccessible for the time of the attack, they yield little more than the attention generated by the news of the attack. Hacktivism 1.0 is torn between highly effective but rare instances of hacking, and relatively frequent cyber-protests with little more than symbolical value.
Wikileaks marks the beginning of hacktivism 2.0.[1] Wikileaks is first and foremost an infostructure provider, with the immense potential to empower mass-scale cyber-activism. Wikileaks offers three crucial factors through which the effectiveness of hacker attack can be merged with the ease and openness of mass actions. First, it offers a highly resistant, autonomous content distribution network, which so far has been able to survive even the most aggressive attacks against its infrastructure.[2] Second, it has all the attention of the world, including key media organizations which participate in the verification[3] and publication of the disclosed information. [4] And what is the most important: it promises anonymity.
Hacktivism 1.0 was the activism of outsiders. Its organizing principle was to get outsiders into the territory of the other. Wikileaks, on the other hand, is an infostructure developed to be used by insiders. Its sole purpose is to help people get information out from an organization. Wikileaks shifts the source of potential threat from a few, dangerous hackers and a larger group of mostly harmless activists - both outsiders to an organization - to those who are on the inside. For mass protesters and cyber activists anonymity is a nice, but certainly not an essential feature. For insiders trying to smuggle information out, anonymity is a necessary condition for participation. Wikileaks has demonstrated that the access to such features can be democratized, made simple and user friendly. Easy anonymity also radically transforms who the activist may be. It turns a monolithic, crystal clear identity defined solely through opposition, into something more complex, multilayered, and hybrid by allowing the cultivation of multiple identities, multiple loyalties. It allows those to enter the activist scene who do not want to define themselves - at least not publicly - as activist, radical or oppositional. The promise - or rather, the condition - of Wikileaks is that one can be on the inside and on the outside at the same time. Through anonymity the mutually exclusive categories of inside/outside, cooption/resistance, activism/passivity, power/subjection can be overridden and collapsed.
Anonymous is a name frequently appearing in articles about Wikileaks. It refers to a group of hacktivists (from the 1.0 type), who organized mass cyber-attacks against companies that severed their ties with Wikileaks in the tumultuous last weeks of 2010. According to their self-description: "Anonymous is not a person, nor is it a group, movement or cause: Anonymous is a collective of people with too much time on their hands, a commune of human thought and useless imagery. A gathering of sheep and fools, assholes and trolls, and normal everyday netizens. An anonymous collective, left to its own devices, quickly builds its own society out of rage and hate. [..]They have no leader, no pretentious douchebag president or group thereof to set in stone what Anonymous is and is not about. This makes them impossible to control or organize. Not really a collective at all ? more like a stampede of coked-up lemmings. [..] Anonymous is not a single person, but rather, represents the collective whole of the internet. As individuals, they can be intelligent, rational, emotional and empathetic. As a mass, a group, they are devoid of humanity and mercy." (Encyclopedia Dramatica 2011)
This type of Anonymous (let's call it Anonymous 1.0) is the fuel of (h)acktivism 1.0. They are a group of outsiders who are rallied against something. They are on the outside, trying to get in, but if they get in, they have little more in their minds than to wreak havoc. In the last months of 2010 Anonymous was credited for launching DDoS attacks against those companies that severed their business relationship with Wikileaks, including Paypal, Mastercard, Visa, as well as OpenDns and Amazon. These attacks gained little more than some press attention. Their effectiveness in terms of disrupting the everyday operations of these companies, or inducing a shift in their policies was nil.
There is, however, another, much more important Anonymous (Anonymous 2.0) in the Wikileaks story that needs to be discussed: those powerful individuals in privileged positions within the existing power structures, who now can safely subvert the very power structures that they define (and that define them). If Anonymous is to be feared, it is not because some rascals with short attention span download a crudely written software tool to attack websites, but because of those, for whom such anonymity lowers the costs of exposing and confronting power from within. Lowering the cost of safe opposition is exactly what Wikileaks is for.
Being Anonymous in the context of Wikileaks has a double function: it liberates the subject from the existing power structures, and in the same time it allows the exposure of these structures by opening up a space to confront them.
Anonymity offers the chance for the individual to - at least partially - remove herself from the pre-existing discursive determinations and power relations and consider alternatives. "If governmental rationalities operate through the nomination and specification of a positive identity through a series of constitutive exclusions, rarefactions and restrictions, then the practices of freedom are enabled by withholding the knowledge of oneself, resisting the injunction to a 'confessional' self-expression, declining the incitement to active participation in the governmentally sanctioned discourse. Anonymity may then serve 'to encourage freedom by increasing the scope of actions not susceptible to official observation, records and interpretation'" (Prozorov 2007, citations ommitted). Anonymity is important because it liberates insiders.
Being Anonymous is an identity play, and as an identity play, it is a loyalty play. As an identifiable member of the society, the individual is bound by formal and informal attachments and hierarchies, the breaches of which are severely and instantly punished. Being Anonymous means that one's identity and loyalty is up for grabs, it is fluid, it is independent, it is freed from it social base. Wikileaks, being the key anonymity-providing infostructure, supports new loyalties that are detached from the corrupted and failing national identities, the debilitating chorus of corporate anthems, historical determination and the normalizing judgment of Facebook peers. "People are asked to identify personally with organisations who can either no longer carry historical projects worthy of major sacrifices or expressly regard their employees as nothing but expendable, short-term resources. This [..] creates the cognitive dissonance that justifies, perhaps even demands, the leaker to violate procedure and actively damage the organisation of which he, or she, has been at some point a well?acculturated member (this is the difference to the spy). This dissonance creates the motivational energy to move from the potential to the actual." (Stalder 2010) When this happens, one's 'proper' identity, one's real name turns into a mere pseudonym that serves to hide one's 'real' identity, one's true loyalties.
Wikileaks, the same space which allows the individual to liberate himself promises him the chance to liberate others. It is in fact designed in a way that it only liberates those who are willing to 'liberate' others. The big Wikileaks promise is that the exposure of how power is structured, organized, the exposure of how "the great systems of exclusion which forge discourse - forbidden speech, the division of madness and the will to truth" (Foucault 1981) operate will break these systems down and force them to change for the better.
This claim is, however, unfounded. The Wikileaks coerced transparency is nothing more than the extension of the Foucauldian disciplinary power to the very body of state and government. While anonymity removes the individual from existing power relations, the act of surveillance puts her right back to the middle.
Eben Moglen, in his ?Freedom in the cloud" talk (Moglen 2010) outlined a grim vision of individual freedoms in the cloud age. He argued that individual freedoms are severely limited when Facebook-, and Google-like central entities hold all the information about us and users have no access to, or chance to control that information and limit the access of others to it. He argued that by trusting commercial third parties to provide us with free services in exchange for our personal data, we surrender all the information about who we are and how we behave in the digital universe. We are disempowered by being spied upon, we are disempowered by our lack of information-autonomy, we are disempowered by voluntarily surrendering ourselves to the invisible observer in this digital Panopticon.
By putting Moglen's arguments parallel to the Wikileaks story we need to ask ourselves: in what way are the two transparencies different? Are we expecting the Wikileaks-induced transparency to do to corporations and governments what we are afraid of being done to us? Does transparency on the state, corporate and on the individual level serve the same goal: pure, internalized control?
Assange's quest for a better government suggests that in some sense the answer is yes. A well mannered and well-behaving, ethical, productive and accountable government created by the Wikileaks transparency[5] is very similar to the benefits Bentham assigned to his Panopticon design, as cited by Foucault: "Morals reformed - health preserved - industry invigorated - instruction diffused - public burthens lightened - Economy seated, as it were, upon a rock - the gordian knot of the Poor-Laws not cut, but untied - all by a simple idea in architecture!"
But it would be a misunderstanding to equate the state with power, the secrets with how control operates. Also, it is a misunderstanding to expect better governance from transparency. Nowhere is it said, that the discipline of the Panopticon would in any way result in any of those ideals that Assange is longing for. It is true that the Panopticon produces more efficient, more productive, more obedient, and more controlled subjects, but this has nothing to do with the state, the society, or power turning more just, enlightened, ethical or truthful. Even if the chain of events would stop at Wikileaks, there would be little reason to believe that "[t]he public scrutiny of otherwise unaccountable and secretive institutions forces them to consider the ethical implications of their actions" (wikileaks.org 2008). The only apparent and possible outcome of panopticism is more panopticism. The consideration of the ethical implications of one's actions is nowhere guaranteed.
The way the US state apparatus has reacted to Wikileaks clearly illustrates this point. In a memorandum on January 3rd, 2011, the National Counterintelligence Executive and the Director of the Information Security Oversight Office detailed the procedures by which they hope to prevent any further leaks. The document is a 14-page long checklist covering all aspects of keeping secrets: "the measures in place to determine appropriate access for employees to classified information"; the existence of counterintelligence programs; the use of back-up media; "a trend analysis of indicators and activities of the employee population which may indicate risky habits or cultural and societal differences other than those expected for current employees for security clearances" and the "use [of] psychiatrist and sociologist to measure [the r]elative happiness as a means to gauge trustworthiness [, and the d]espondence and grumpiness as a means to gauge waning trustworthiness" (Lew 2011).
This document is the blueprint of an internal total transparency program that is designed to maximize the control over the state apparatus in order to detect potential leakers and prevent information breaches. The state reacted to the transparency of Wikileaks by creating a transparency of its own. This is the classic example of internalization: the state, under surveillance has internalized the expectations and now is busy learning how to make sure that what is not to be shown stays truly hidden. Secrets to outsiders can only be protected through total transparency on the inside. This is the problem with total control: it does not annihilate undesired behavior, it does not mute and reform inappropriate and prohibited desires, it only suppresses them, and fosters secrecy and deceit. Transparency will not break the logic of power based on panopticism: "The panoptic schema, without disappearing as such or losing any of its properties, was destined to spread throughout the social body; its vocation was to become a generalized function. [..] While, on the one hand, the disciplinary establishments increase, their mechanisms have a certain tendency to become 'de-institutionalized', to emerge from the closed fortresses in which they once functioned and to circulate in a 'free' state; the massive, compact disciplines are broken down into flexible methods of control, which may be transferred and adapted. [..]'Discipline' may be identified neither with an institution nor with an apparatus; it is a type of power, a modality for its exercise, comprising a whole set of instruments, techniques, procedures, levels of application, targets; it is a 'physics' or an 'anatomy' of power, a technology.[..] On the whole, therefore, one can speak of the formation of a disciplinary society in this movement that stretches from the enclosed disciplines, a sort of social 'quarantine', to an indefinitely generalizable mechanism of 'panopticism'" (Foucault 1979). The transparency of Wikileaks does not counter this process, it reinforces it. By putting the locus of sovereign power under surveillance it simply draws the state under this form of control, putting the last missing piece of the puzzle to its place. Wikileaks in same sense only propagates the control it wishes to subvert. It only helps the logic of panopticism to fold and close upon itself.
Sovereignty, in its strictest definition is the supreme authority within a territory. The three components of sovereignty: being supreme, having authority and territoriality have all been transformed by the rapid rise of supranational, supra-governmental political, economic, legal institutions, the formation and the consolidation of global networks of information, telecommunications, finance, logistics, extraterritorial corporations, and (private) justice systems. Since such external authorities limit or determine state actions in the fields of finance, economics, social policy, foreign and internal politics, military, or human rights, globalization was seen as a threat to the traditional concept of post-Westphalian sovereignty. Such external authorities made state sovereignty to be less and less absolute. But as Saskia Sassen argues, the interplay between sovereignty and globalization is more complex than that. "The strategic spaces where many global processes take place are often national; the mechanisms through which the new legal forms necessary for globalization are implemented are often part of state institutions; the infrastructure that makes possible the hyper-mobility of financial capital at the global scale is situated in various national territories. Sovereignty remains a feature of the system, but it is now located in a multiplicity of institutional arenas: the new emergent transnational private legal regimes, new supranational organizations (such as the WTO and the institutions of the European Union), and the various international human rights codes"(Sassen 1996). The institutions that override sovereignty build upon the land and the institutions of nation-states. But Sassen's observations about the transformation, rather than the diminishment of national sovereignty only hold true because the supranational frameworks are always legitimized and authorized in one way or another by the sovereign states[6], and some key elements of sovereignty are kept intact.
Wikileaks poses a new, so far unprecedented threat to sovereignty. Its power rests on three pillars: on the immunity to intervention, on the authority its supporters vest in it, and on its ability to interfere with the internal affairs of others.
As the ineffective actions against its infrastructures have shown, Wikileaks is immune from technological, financial, infrastructural, and legal interventions. There have been several attempts to cut Wikileaks of the financial network, weaken its physical infrastructure or curtail its accessibility. None of these efforts could render Wikileaks inaccessible, and there is no sign of a more effective method to erase a service from the web other than those already used. States and governments, just like corporations, are as defenseless and exposed to Wikileakistan as much the entertainment industry is exposed to Kazaastan and Torrentia.[7] I do not wish to underestimate the intellectual power behind the Wikileaks infrastructure, but from a government perspective one of the most frightening aspects of the whole Wikileaks affair is that it is so easy to set up a network that is so difficult to take down or to engage with. At the moment it seems Wikileaks cannot be woven into the complex web of institutional inter-dependencies. ?In light of this redistribution of power, what would the solution for conventional/"atomic" power's reassertion of hegemony? This would be to contain the rise of informatic power by containing its means of distribution. This would be by the means of national firewalling, and trunk-line disconnection or limited Internet disabling, disrupting infopower, but also crippling the flow of digitized material capital as well. This is problematic at best, as conventional power and informatic power are in symbiotic, the latter being more nimble and a step ahead of the former, and to attack a symbiote always means to cripple its partner as well. The logical result of such actions would be the elimination of net neutrality (the free and open flow of data across the Internet) or even the severance of typologies and flows of information across the networks. The symbiotic effect is that conventional power/capital is also hobbled, as the physical is dependent on the same flows of information across the distributed nets, disabling itself in the process. It is for this reason that it cannot engage in this means of retaliation, as it would be the digital suicide of the First World nation-state." (Lichty 2010) As long as Wikileaks exists on thousands of mirrors and in thousands of copies circulating on p2p networks, the debate on whether Wikileaks is a terrorist organization[8] or a group of freedom fighters, and whether such a quest for total transparency is misguided[9] or a necessary step in the development of information society remains academic. Until the point where it can be proved that Wikileaks can be controlled - and if that happens, it ceases to exist altogether - Wikileaks is free to follow its own agenda and as a consequence is the utmost authority of the information era.
The second source of Wikileaks' power is the authority its supporters vest in it. States do not enjoy the supreme and ultimate authority over their territory anymore, because their citizens as the source of that authority now enjoy multiple citizenships - one being that of Wikileakistan -, and have the potential to act upon multiple loyalties.[10] If citizens and corporate employees decide to break the laws of the land and follow the laws of their conscience and leak the secrets entrusted upon them to Wikileaks, it means that in the given situation they deny the supreme authority from the state and subscribe to the abstract ideals of Wikileakistan in order to preserve what loyalty they feel towards the 'nation', the 'country', the 'constitution', the 'democratic ideals' or any other notion which they think Wikileaks represents and which they hope to regain by turning to it. If Wikileaks would be Wikileakistan, another territory-bound sovereign, there would not be any problems: it could be bombarded or sanctioned into submission. But that lawless fringe, that barbaric kingdom, that pirate utopia is not somewhere else. It is exactly where we are. Confrontational, non-conciliatory action against such idealists hardly yields anything else but more disenchantment, alienation and ultimately disloyalty. By turning against such double citizens the state turns against, and ultimately eliminates itself.
Third, immunity and authority is now coupled with an unparalleled might to interfere with the internal affairs of states and corporations alike. External sovereignty is exercised "with respect to outsiders, who may not interfere with the sovereign's governance." (Philpott 2010) Wikileaks poses a different kind of threat to the external sovereignty than the internet, in general. (Boyle 1997) It seems possible to exercise authority with an aterritorial entity like the internet in place, but it does not seem possible to exercise any authority if the sovereign cannot control its internal processes, data and communication. Within the core of any sovereignty there is the ultimate capability to control the internal communications, information collection and interpretation processes. Assange describes the effects of exposing internal communications in his essay dating back to 2006: "The more secretive or unjust an organization is, the more leaks induce fear and paranoia in its leadership and planning coterie. This must result in minimization of efficient internal communications mechanisms (an increase in cognitive "secrecy tax") and consequent system-wide cognitive decline resulting in decreased ability to hold onto power as the environment demands adaption. Hence in a world where leaking is easy, secretive or unjust systems are nonlinearly hit relative to open, just systems. Since unjust systems, by their nature induce opponents, and in many places barely have the upper hand, mass leaking leaves them exquisitely vulnerable to those who seek to replace them with more open forms of governance."(Assange 2006)
The ability to place the state under surveillance limits and ultimately renders present day sovereignty obsolete.
It can also be argued that it fosters the emergence of a new sovereign in itself. I believe that Wikileaks (or rather, the logic of it) is a new sovereign in the global political / economic sphere. If everyday citizens have an autonomous zone (Bey 1991), a safe haven, hiding in the discontinuities of cyberspace, from where they can oversee and control the state apparatus; if such an organization is safe from interventions and can continuously enjoy the ethical and ideological support if its "citizens"; if the information it distributes cannot be filtered by any country, then such an organization is a new sovereign, not in cyberspace but in the real world, even though it lacks the territorial dimension.
But as it stands now, Wikileakistan shares too much with the powers it wishes to counter. As The Economist's commentator put it: ?To get at the value of WikiLeaks, I think it's important to distinguish between the government?the temporary, elected authors of national policy?and the state?the permanent bureaucratic and military apparatus superficially but not fully controlled by the reigning government. The careerists scattered about the world in America's intelligence agencies, military, and consular offices largely operate behind a veil of secrecy executing policy which is itself largely secret. American citizens mostly have no idea what they are doing, or whether what they are doing is working out well. The actually-existing structure and strategy of the American empire remains a near-total mystery to those who foot the bill and whose children fight its wars. And that is the way the elite of America's unelected permanent state, perhaps the most powerful class of people on Earth, like it."(W. 2010) This is against what Wikileaks has risen. But the hidden power structures and the inner workings of these states within the state are exposed by another imperium in imperio, a secretive organization, whose agenda is far from transparent, whose members, resources are unknown, holding back an indefinite amount of information both on itself and on its opponents. The mantra of Wikileaks supporters and the mantra of state and corporate executives are shockingly identical: "We share no information on ourselves; we gather information on everyone else. Only our secrets are valid secrets." The Eye of Providence on the reverse side of the Great Seal of the United States, surrounded by the words Annuit C?ptis (He approves our undertakings), and Novus Ordo Seclorum, (New Order of the Ages) could very well be the seal of Wikileaks as well.
This leads to the question of who the parties in this conflict are. Is it the state against Wikileaks? Or maybe what we are seeing now is a battle between different secretive organizations for the control of the state and through it, the body politic? With Wikileaks the state has finally entered the Panopticon. But within, the freedom of those who are under surveillance is lost, whether they be individuals or states.
It is not more secretive, one sided transparency which will subvert and negate the control and discipline of secretive, one sided transparency, it is anonymity. The subject's position of being "a multiplicity that can be numbered and supervised", its state of living in a "sequestered and observed solitude" (Foucault 1979) can only be subverted if there is a place to hide from surveillance. There are two types of Anonymity, that of the observer, and that of the subject, both immensely empowering. The true potential of the cyberspace is not that it enables anonymous observation of the state power, but that it offers its citizens the chance to hide from observation. In other words the identity-protecting side of technology has more emancipatory power than its capability to obtain and expose secrets. Maybe less, and not more transparency is the path that leads to the aims of Wikileaks.
We have also seen how Anonymous can turn into a "stampede of coked-up lemmings". But how to be truly free in the age of ubiquitous surveillance? Is it enough if we put the observers under surveillance? Maybe we need to leave the oppositional power relationships behind, and be what Anonymous really means: invisible. Invisible in its strictest sense: being beyond the determinations that define the identity and the discourse. Because, as Pozorov (2007) so aptly said: "freedom is not a guarantee for the ful?lment of any desire but rather the condition of possibility of its pursuit." Wikileaks, the latest manifestation of cyberspace offers this freedom for individuals, but its proposition on how to act upon it is disturbingly similar to what it defined itself against in its Declaration of Independence. I salute Wikileaks as the first - and potentially only - truly independent sovereign of the information age. "May it be more humane and fair than the world [?] governments have made before." (Barlow 1996)
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Foucault, M. (1981). The order of discourse. Untying the text: A post-structuralist reader. R. Young, Routledge.
Gladwell, M. (2010). Small Change. The New Yorker. New York, NY, Condé Nast. October 4, 2010.
Harding, L. (2010). "Julian Assange should be awarded Nobel peace prize, suggests Russia." The Guardian. Retrieved January 11, 2011, from http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/09/julian-assange-nobel-peace-prize.
Jordan, T. and P. Taylor (2004). Hactivism and Cyberwars ? Rebels with a Cause? London, Routledge.
Lessig, L. (2010). "Against Transparency." The New Republic. Retrieved January 10, 2011, from http://www.tnr.com/article/books-and-arts/against-transparency.
Lew, J. J. (2011). Initial Assessments of Safeguarding and Counterintelligence Postures for Classified National Security Information in Automated Systems EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET. Washington, DC.
Lichty, P. (2010). "Digital Anarchy and Wikileaks. (Or, Skynet doesn't look anything like we thought it did.)." Retrieved January 10, 2011, from http://patricklichty.wordpress.com/2010/12/11/digital-anarchy-and-wikileaks-or-skynet-doesn%E2%80%99t-look-anything-like-we-thought-it-did/.
Moglen, E. (2010). Freedom in the Cloud: Software Freedom, Privacy and Security for Web 2.0 and Cloud Computing. New York, NY, New York Greater Metropolitan Area chapter of the Internet Society.
Philpott, D. (2010). Sovereignty. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. E. N. Zalta.
Prozorov, S. (2007). Foucault, freedom and sovereignty. Hampshire, Ashgate.
Rosen, J. (2010). "The Afghanistan War Logs Released by Wikileaks, the World's First Stateless News Organization." pressthink. Retrieved January 11, 2011, from http://archive.pressthink.org/2010/07/26/wikileaks_afghan.html.
Sassen, S. (1996). Losing control? : sovereignty in an age of globalization. New York, Columbia University Press.
Stalder, F. (2010). "Contain this! Leaks, whistle-blowers and the networked news ecology." eurozine.com. Retrieved January 18, 2011, from http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2010-11-29-stalder-en.html.
The Guardian (2010). "Bradley Manning, in his own words: 'This belongs in the public domain'." The Guardian. Retrieved January 11, 2011, from http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/01/us-leaks-bradley-manning-logs.
Virilio, P. (1995). The art of the motor, Univ Of Minnesota Press.
W., W. (2010). "In defence of WikiLeaks." The Economist. Retrieved January 11, 2011, from http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2010/11/overseeing_state_secrecy.
wikileaks.ch (2010). "About ? 1.3 Why the media (and particularly Wiki leaks) is important." Retrieved January 14, 2011, from http://wikileaks.ch/About.html.
wikileaks.org (2008). "Wikileaks:About." Retrieved January 10, 2011, from http://web.archive.org/web/20080504122032/wikileaks.org/wiki/Wikileaks:About.
[1] I share Malcolm Galdwell's opinion on Facebook and Twitter as an ineffective tool for resistance and achieving social change. (Gladwell 2010) These tools are still for outsiders, and unlike Wikileaks they separate the place of impact from the place of resistance. ?[I]t is simply a form of organizing which favors the weak-tie connections that give us access to information over the strong-tie connections that help us persevere in the face of danger. It shifts our energies from organizations that promote strategic and disciplined activity and toward those which promote resilience and adaptability. It makes it easier for activists to express themselves, and harder for that expression to have any impact. The instruments of social media are well suited to making the existing social order more efficient. They are not a natural enemy of the status quo."
[2] It would be interesting to learn how the internal organization and governance of Wikileaks helps them to survive the attacks from the outside. However, at the time of writing this, little is known about how Wikileaks manages its defense and ensures its survival.
[3] The verification of leaked information is crucial in the success of Wikileaks. No wonder that one of the tactics proposed by intelligence agencies to counter Wikileaks was to flood them with false information.
[4] See a critique of the relationship of Wikileaks on the mainstream media at (Chossudovsky 2010).
[5] The Wikileaks mission statement clearly defines its aims: "Publishing improves transparency, and this transparency creates a better society for all people. Better scrutiny leads to reduced corruption and stronger democracies in all society's institutions, including government, corporations and other organisations. A healthy, vibrant and inquisitive journalistic media plays a vital role in achieving these goals. We are part of that media" (wikileaks.ch 2010).
[6] This is of course an oversimplified, naive interpretation: the Wikileaks cables reveal some of the coercive tactics used in international diplomacy. But even if such tactics could amount to blackmail and plain coercion, the actual supranational institutional framework is always there to mask these actions and legitimize the outcome.
[7] The parallels with the p2p technology and the music industry are more than apparent. Despite the tens of thousands of legal actions against individual downloaders, technology developers, service operators, despite co-opting some ISPs, despite the immense lobbying efforts and the continuous push for more stringent regulation, the music industry could not suppress unauthorized file sharing, and eventually had to come to terms with the loss of tight market control. Only now, more than ten years after the first conflict, the industry starts to realize that file-sharing can be regarded as an asset. It can be used for market research, it is an effective distribution channel, it can be used to serve certain target groups, it can be marketed and its users can be converted to paying customers. The industry will probably never control file-sharing, but if it changes its practices, it can harness some of its resources. (Bodó 2011) I see no reason to think that the relationship of Wikileaks to states would be any different.
[8] The US Department of Defense defines terrorism as "The calculated use of unlawful violence or threat of unlawful violence to inculcate fear; intended to coerce or to intimidate governments or societies in the pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious, or ideological" (http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/dod_dictionary/data/t/7591.html)
[9] We heard arguments that secrecy is a necessary component in conducting state affairs as well as international diplomacy. The state cannot and should not bear the burden of total transparency, because without some level of privacy, the state cannot fulfill its functions. Lawrence Lessig argued in the pages of The New Republic that some facts deserve privacy, because the public has a short attention span and is, in some sense ignorant, and therefore is doomed to oversimplify, misunderstand, and/or misinterpret complex phenomena, if they are simply laid bare in front of it. (Lessig 2010)
[10] It is believed that a low level US military analyst, Private Bradley Manning leaked classified information to Wikileaks. The source of this information is the log of unknown authenticity, of an online discussion, recorded and released by another whistleblower Adrian Lamo. Manning summed up his motivations in the discussion: "Manning: its sad [..]i mean what if i were someone more malicious i could've sold to russia or china, and made bank?/Q: why didn't you?/Manning: because it's public data. [..] it belongs in the public domain. information should be free. it belongs in the public domain. because another state would just take advantage of the information? try and get some edge. [..]im not sure whether i'd be considered a type of "hacker", "cracker", "hacktivist", "leaker" or what ? im just me? really." (The Guardian 2010)


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Algebra and Geometry Challenges for year 6
If your 5th grader doesn't need to know his algebra and geometry yet, it's coming soon. Help him get ahead of the game with these worksheets. While many students are intimidated by these subjects, others find them an exciting new way to use maths.Download all (11)
Click on a worksheet in the set below to see more info or download the PDF.

subset: commoncrawl


text: In a series of tweets, Podesta said, "Get a grip man, the Russians committed a crime when they stole my emails to help get you elected President. Maybe you might try to find a way to mention that to President Putin." He added: "[By the way], I had nothing to do with the DNC… Dude, get your head in the game. You're representing the US at the G20." Read more at TWITTER.


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Social housing goes for gold: 168 rue de Crimée by Metek Architecture
A bold and unusual social housing project in Paris by Metek Architecture has an eye-catching golden exterior — but it's hidden away in two redesigned off-street courtyards
Words by Francesca Perry
Off an unremarkable residential street in Paris' peripheral La Villette neighbourhood, through a non-descript door, behind the facades of typical Parisian townhouses, you emerge into two linked courtyards dominated by what feels like a golden ark.
Designed by Metek Architecture for the City of Paris' social housing landlord Élogie-Siemp, the 168 rue de Crimée project comprises 31 units of social housing spread across three new buildings — all boasting a striking gold and black aesthetic — and two renovated existing buildings: a restored printshop and a reconfigured traditional 'faubourien' townhouse.
The renovated townhouse (left) and printshop (right) also form part of the development. Photo Credit: Irina Productions
These 31 homes — all designed with dark-grey PVC flooring and bright white painted walls — range from studios to four beds; seven of them, located within the printshop, are affordable live-work studios for artists registered with the Maison des Artistes association. In total the project comprises 1,060 sq m of renovated space and 1,100 sq m of new build.
The development, which had a €5.2m budget and was officially launched in December, joins two formerly separate residential plots, creating a community space of two interconnected courtyards. The primary courtyard is envisioned as a 'pedestrian street' that serves all the surrounding homes and forms a gathering space for the residents, complete with young trees, benches and sleek exterior lighting from iGuzzini.
'The architectural intent is, above all, social,' explains founding partner Sarah Bitter as we walk around the development on a crisp and sunny winter afternoon, 'reinventing an urban courtyard shared by all the inhabitants.'
The central courtyard is envisaged as a pedestrian 'street'. Photo Credit: Didier Boy De La Tour
It is the largest of the three new buildings — the ark-like 'Pivot Building' straddling the two courtyards — that arrests you as you enter the development; in any city, such a bold, modern, gilded structure would pack a punch, but in the context of a highly controlled and largely aesthetically homogenous place like Paris, the effect is even more impressive.
The golden, ribbed cladding — used on all three new buildings — is, in fact, a combination of copper and aluminium, set over plywood, that gently reflects the sun and creates a warm, constantly shifting play of light. The client tried to push for a cheaper material, but Metek insisted on the alloy. What's more, the aluminium largely prevents the oxidisation of the copper, ensuring relative material longevity ('It'll be OK for about 30 years,' reflects Bitter). The cladding forms an outer shell — cut back in parts, overlapping terraces in others — over sleek black brick and plaster below.
The angular and asymmetrical envelopes of the three new buildings form striking irregular shapes in the setting. The resulting sloping walls and ceilings of some rooms make for exciting, if at times dizzying and disorientating, spaces. Outside, these unusual building shapes create a visual dynamism and shifting spatial experience as you move around the development. 'We wanted to play with the existing Parisian roofscape,' says Bitter of the surprising play of line.
The copper aluminium alloy used on facades creates a shifting play of light. Photo Credit: Metek
Bitter speaks more generally of wanting 'to create a dialogue between the old and new' across the site. Far from seeking to simply upstage their neighbours, the new buildings pay careful attention to this relationship to heritage and existing use — as does the renovation work in the townhouse and printshop.
This relationship is present in elements both subtle and overt. The paving stones of the original courtyard have been reused, set alongside sections of new wooden decking. A sensitive new oak and brick facade — reconstructed according to historical documents — has breathed life into the printshop.
The 'faubourien' townhouse was retained to keep the street facade consistent, but dramatically reconfigured inside to adapt the rooms and staircases to current regulations. The structural wooden beams of the printshop and townhouse have been retained, exposed and freshly painted in pale grey.
A series of exterior passageways, staircases and landings connects the existing townhouse to the new buildings. These, like all the development's stairways, balconies and terraces, have an industrial — if somewhat raw and unforgiving — design of galvanised steel with grated railings, softened by Ipe wooden decking. Nevertheless, they become a unifying aesthetic tool across the development, bridging the divide between old and new — quite literally, at points.
The exterior passageways and staircases are also intended as a tool to enhance interaction and sociability among residents. Bitter explains that the project is envisaged as a 'small village'. In the new Pivot building, the apartments are accessed off two exterior staircases, with a maximum of two entrances per landing, thus avoiding any long antisocial corridors.
The restored printshop boasts a new oak and brick façade. Photo Credit: Didier Boy De La Tour
This focus on social space is present in the renovated printshop too, which arranges seven live-work artist studios (of various sizes) around a full-height atrium space, topped by a large skylight built into the roof. This atrium is intended as an 'extension of the street' and a place for communal events.
The only shortcoming of the printshop, as a result of the original structure not being intended for residential use, is the limitation on natural daylight: some residential units only have windows out into the atrium, and rely on second-hand light from this skylight-lit interior space.
But the residential units within the three new buildings certainly get better daylight, added to the fact that each has an exterior terrace or balcony and most are double or triple aspect. There are two duplexes on the upper two floors of the Pivot building: a four-bedroom 99 sq m apartment and a two-bedroom unit at 71 sq m. In the larger of these, the living spaces are bright and spacious, with high ceilings and views over the local Parisian roofs. Shafts of winter sunlight pierce the space.
Several of the slim terraces across the Pivot building, overlooking the main courtyard, have sections overlapped by the golden exterior, subtly perforated to let light through. While this renders an interesting boundary between inside and out, light and dark, it also creates nooks for pigeons to nest in — and, consequently, make mess in. What's more, where the perforated detailing of the overlapping cladding stops, the plywood backing begins, which — while invisible from the exterior — when viewed from within an apartment, looks like quite a startling design error. Not only does the raw plywood have the aesthetic of something both unfinished and low quality, but already, mere months after being installed, one could see significant weathering of the raw wood, with damp patches.
Natural daylight and social spaces are offered by the printshop's central atrium. Photo Credit: Didier Boy De La Tour
It's not the only instance of premature material weathering: the underside of the wood used for the exterior staircases and passageways is already visibly suffering. Along with perhaps the simple plastic flooring, these are the only noticeable instances where the restricted budget of the project becomes visible, in a development which otherwise bucks the expectations we might saddle upon social housing.
There is otherwise great attention paid to sustainability in the project. It is a low-energy development — photovoltaic panels and solar panels are installed on the roofs of the rehabilitated buildings for domestic hot water and power generation, and a power-pipe system generates energy from used water.
Overall, what Metek has done on a restricted budget is impressive — and the introduction of bold, mould-breaking architecture to the Paris townscape (albeit hidden from immediate view) is a welcome one, especially as its use for social housing contributes to the broad rethinking of what affordable homes should, or could, look like. It's a shame to see particular elements of material degradation already, and the design of the exterior staircases and passageways could have certainly been softer, but the focus on community and public shared space — alongside ample individual outside space — promises to make this 'small village' in Paris' northwest edge a successful one. Metek will be an interesting practice to watch.


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The Mailmaster 565HS envelope inserter, in common with all KAS envelope inserting systems, combines a unique design with proven technology, backed by over fifty years experience in mailing.
It handles C5 to DL envelopes, inserting at speeds of up to 7,200 completed envelopes per hour.
Designed and manufactured in Britain, it is available in a number of configurations with a host of features.
The equipment's durable build quality means that it can handle long runs whilst its ease of set-up and quick changeover between jobs makes it equally viable for short runs.
Insert stations can handle a wide variety of materials including single sheets, card, reply envelopes, pre-folded items and booklets. Each system has one bookfeeder as standard, capable of handling books up to 4mm thick.
Each insert station has miss, double and jam detectors. There are further sensors throughout the machine to check the path of the documents through the system. Any error automatically stops the machine and the location is displayed on the screen.
A choice of touch screens are available that controls the machine operation. The screens give station selection, speed control, re-settable counter, help pages, output speed and error location display.
A variety of end feeders can be added to feed and fold cut sheet or continuous forms, with or without reading facility, and giving the choice of folding separately or nest folding.
Optical Mark reading, 1D and 2D Barcode reading or OCR are available to facilitate batching of the prime document, selection of inserts and Mailsort batching.
Click here to see the Mailmaster 565HS
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Business immigration
Cancellation of Removal
Criminal Immigration Issues
Deportation/Removal Defense
Employment Authorization Card
|Executive Action of President Obama
Family-Based Immigration
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)
Green Card
Government Agencies
Investor Immigration (EB-5)
Employment Green Cards
Employment-Based Visas
|Immigrant Visas
Non-Immigrant Visas
Motion to Reopen/Reconsider
Prosecutory Discretion
Provisional Waivers
Student Visas
Withholding of Removal
LGBT Immigration Issues
Employment Green cards or Green Cards attained by virtue of one's employment.
There are many ways to get a green card based on one's job or activity.
A) Green card got by virtue of a permanent job in U.S. EB1, EB2 and EB3 are the Green card types included in this category. This requires the potential or present employer to get a Labor certification through Program Electronic Review Management (PERM) by which the employer has to get certification that the employment of his foreign employee doesn't displace an American citizen from his job. Labor certification outcome is based on preference system with points for the type of job, availability of American citizens for that job and many other parameters and cut-off limit for Green cards issued to each nation.
B) Obtaining Green card through self-petition (EB-2). This facility is available for some immigrant category like people with extraordinary ability, individuals granted with National interest waiver, etc.
C) Green Card through Investment (EB-5). Some entrepreneurs/investors get Green card by virtue of the investment they make in U.S. market/economy which is bound to create significant amount of new U.S. jobs.
D) Green cards given to people with special type of jobs (EB-4). Examples are: Translators of foreign language who worked for U.S. Armed forces or government abroad or in United States, Any International organization employee, Religious worker, Any Person who worked for U.S. government or armed forces abroad, etc.
Most cases of attaining green card by virtue of one's permanent employment (E category) involve the procurement of Labor certification and filing of Form I-140 (Immigrant Petition for Alien Worker) for the employee by the employer.
After the above both steps get cleared the employee has to either apply for "adjustment of status" or go through "consular processing" depending on whether the employee is situated in the United States or outside.
3 types of Employment-based Green Cards are explained in concise below.
EB-1 These visas are meant for specific high profile category of people including Executives and Managers of MNC's; outstanding researchers and professors; persons of extraordinary ability in sciences, arts and education etc. (in short priority workers).
EB-2 This category of green cards is for is for professionals with advanced higher studies degrees; people with "exceptional ability" in the sciences, business or arts.
EB-3 This category is for 'professional workers' with a bachelor's degree not falling under the priority category; skilled workers and unskilled workers.
Apart from all this the USCIS classifies all professions or jobs into preference categories (1, 2, and 3) based on the availability of American citizens for that job and importance of that job to national interests of the U.S.
Gavlin & Associates, P.C., NY is one of the best immigration lawyers specialized in Employment Green cards and we confidently invite prospective clients to fulfill their dreams along with our assistance and guidance.


text:
Why $4 a Gallon Gas Wouldn't Last Long
One of the reasons prices at the pump may fall is that gasoline futures have collapsed. The Wall Street Journalreports that "Gasoline prices tumbled 7.6% to $3.1228 per gallon after the U.S. Department of Energy surprised traders by reporting a buildup of gasoline stockpiles in the previous week. Crude oil fell 5.5% to $98.21 a barrel."
Second, Japan's massive earthquake and tsunami have blunted its demand for oil -- and that nation, too, is a huge net importer. Gas demand there is likely to drop as well, especially in the quake-savaged north of the country.
Gasoline demand in the U.S. has fallen as well, and it could keep dropping. Over the past five weeks, drivers have started to cut back, log fewer miles than they did at this time last year. If that trend continues into the summer driving season, it will become clear that prices had in fact reached the levels necessary to change the behavior of American drivers.
Some industries are also trimming their fuel use -- most notably, the airline industry. Delta recently said it would cuts its capacity by 4% because of fuel costs. Other airlines are likely to follow suit for the same reason.
Even if gas does top $4 a gallon, expect its time at that level to be brief: With such strong factors coming into play to put downward pressure on prices, a drop in the near term seems almost inevitable.


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Digital Detoxx was formed in 2016 by our Founder Chaitanya Kirti Girish Akolkar, to showcase social issues by believing in transforming human thinking via entertainment.
Being an independent thinker, Mr. Chaitanya Akolkar knows the Value & Importance of talent, so he decided to give exposure to the new talents in the field of entertainment industry. Digital Detoxx is a platform for giving exposure to new and existing ventures and individuals by producing films, short films, dramas, ads, Etc.
Digital Detoxx created Global Digital Technology Platform for Media and Entertainment Industries to run your Business Virtually for Exponential Growth.
Producer – Chaitanya Girish Akolkar
Original Writer – Meher Pestonji
Translator & Director – Ashish Kulkarni
Music – Yogesh Khadikar & Mukesh Parmar
Actress – Kishori Shahane & Varsha Usgaonkar
स्मार्ट अॅन्ड ब्युटिफुल वर्षा उसगांवकर-किशोरी शहाणे यांच्याशी गप्पा| एबीपी माझा
Red Carpet For The Premiere of Piano For Sale
Kishori Shahane & Varsha Usgaokar announce the Play "Piano For Sale"
Beti (Daughter) is an internationally recognised short film about women empowerment and a woman's basic right to live. The short film that has been directed by director Raja Ram Mukerji has been highly appreciated at its screening.
The storyline of the short film that's produced by Chaitanya Akolkar of Digital Detoxx deals with the female foeticide issue that still prevails in rural India. Apart from Neetu Chandra in the lead, the short film also stars actors Aditi Singh, Shalini Arora, Vishal lallwani, Dr. Mukesh Hariawala and Chandralekha Mukherjee.
The film highlights this concern as a cry for help in saving a girl child. The story revolves around a poor woman, Reema who is married into a backward and orthodox Gujarati family that forces her to bear a son. Soon their expectations are crushed by a series of baby girls born to their daughter-in-law. Their disappointment leads to distasteful events, having a deep negative affect on Reema. Actress Neetu Chandra who plays the lead role in the short film helps Reema lead her life as an independent, fearless woman.
Beti depicts how a woman can sacrifice and if need be fight back to gain the respect and their right to live.


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[Previous section] [Next section] [Back to the index]
In this section we are going to define a topology with four nodes in which one node acts as router that forwards the data that two nodes are sending to the fourth node. I will explain find a way to distinguish the data flows from the two nodes from each other, and I will show how a queue can be monitored to see how full it is, and how many packets are being discarded.
V.1. The topology
As always, the first step is to define the topology. You should create a file 'example2.tcl', using the code from section IV.1 as a template. As I said before, this code will always be similar. You will always have to create a simulator object, you will always have to start the simulation with the same command, and if you want to run nam automatically, you will always have to open a trace file, initialize it, and define a procedure which closes it and starts nam.
Now insert the following lines into the code to create four nodes.
The following piece of Tcl code creates three duplex links between the nodes.
You can save and start the script now. You might notice that the topology looks a bit awkward in nam. You can hit the 're-layout' button to make it look better, but it would be nice to have some more control over the layout. Add the next three lines to your Tcl script and start it again.
Note that the autolayout related parts of nam are gone, since now you have taken the layout into your own hands. The options for the orientation of a link are right, left, up, down and combinations of these orientations. You can experiment with these settings later, but for now please leave the topology the way it is.
V.2. The events
Now we create two UDP agents with CBR traffic sources and attach them to the nodes n0 and n1. Then we create a Null agent and attach it to node n3.
The two CBR agents have to be connected to the Null agent.
We want the first CBR agent to start sending at 0.5 seconds and to stop at 4.5 seconds while the second CBR agent starts at 1.0 seconds and stops at 4.0 seconds.
V.3. Marking flows
Add the following two lines to your CBR agent definitions.
Now add the following piece of code to your Tcl script, preferably at the beginning after the simulator object has been created, since this is a part of the simulator setup.
Now you can start the script again and one flow should be blue, while the other one is red. Watch the link from node n2 to n3 for a while, and you will notice that after some time the distribution between blue and red packets isn't too fair anymore (at least that's the way it is on my system). In the next section I'll show you how you can look inside this link's queue to find out what is going on there.
V.4. Monitoring a queue
You only have to add the following line to your code to monitor the queue for the link from n2 to n3.
You can see the packets in the queue now, and after a while you can even see how the packets are being dropped, though (at least on my system, I guess it might be different in later or earlier releases) only blue packets are being dropped. But you can't really expect too much 'fairness' from a simple DropTail queue. So let's try to improve the queueing by using a SFQ (stochastic fair queueing) queue for the link from n2 to n3. Change the link definition for the link between n2 and n3 to the following line.
You can download the full example here.
[Previous section] [Next section] [Back to the index]ns-users


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Your whole family will enjoy this cozy and easy trader joe's recipe: Chicken Broccoli Quinoa Casserole. Six ingredients and 10 minutes prep!
One recipe request I've gotten time and time again is for kid-friendly quinoa recipes. And Chicken Broccoli Quinoa Casserole is JUST that.
I love that you guys love quinoa as much as I do, seriously. As much as we love quinoa, I've found that everyone in our family enjoys quinoa more when it's part of a dish, than when it's just served on the side of a meal. It's why I keep making quinoa as the base of casserole-type meals. Our other favorites are: Pizza Quinoa Casserole and One-Pot Mexican Quinoa. These quinoa casseroles are filling, easy to throw together, and typically enjoyed by the whole family. (And for the record, NOT easy to photograph.)
I want to explain what I mean by kid-friendly. When I use the term kid-friendly, I don't mean kid-food. I don't really do kid food. Sure, we have quesadillas, and mac & cheese, but most of the time I serve Demi the same food that we eat – the same meals that we eat.
Whenever people ask me if there is anything that Demi doesn't like, I don't really have an answer. Mostly because I assume that she likes everything! It doesn't mean that she never refuses food – she does. On a regular basis. But when she does? I don't discount it as something she'll never eat again. It's just that she didn't eat it for that meal.
It's completely natural for kids to refuse foods and go through picky phases. (Demi's still very young, I'm fully aware that she'll get pickier as she gets a little older.) But, before you really say that your child doesn't like a food, you really have to give it 10-15 times. It's a lot and a little overwhelming, I get it. Just don't stop offering foods your kids have refused in the past!
All this is to say, that when I give the kid-friendly approval, it means that sometimes it's approved, sometimes it's not. 😉
This chicken broccoli quinoa casserole is divine, hearty, and satisfying. I love that it covers all of the nutritional bases that I look for: whole-grain, protein, veggies, flavor!
I think your family will love it, even if they don't love it each and every time you serve it. 🙂
Want more easy trader joe's recipes? Here are a few of my favorites:
- 15 Easy Trader Joe's Recipes
- 9 Healthy Items You Need to Buy from Trader Joe's
- Easy Trader Joe's Recipe: Carne Asada with Pepper & Corn Salad
- Easy Trader Joe's Recipe: Harvest Chili Stuffed Delicata Squash
Chicken Broccoli Quinoa Casserole
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 45 minutes
- Total Time: 55 minutes
- Yield: 4 servings 1x
- Category: Dinner
- Method: Bake
- Cuisine: Casserole
Your whole family will enjoy this cozy and easy trader joe's recipe: Chicken Broccoli Quinoa Casserole. Six ingredients and 10 minutes prep!
- 1 Tbsp olive oil
- 1.5 lbs. chicken thigh meat
- 1 cup uncooked quinoa
- 12 oz bag of broccoli florets
- 11 oz condensed cream of mushroom soup (2.5 cups)
- 1/2 cup sour cream
- 1 cup water
- 1/4 cup parmesan
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
- Cut chicken into 1 inch pieces and season with salt and pepper. (Using a kitchen shears makes this process fast and easy!)
- Heat large sauté pan over medium-high heat.
- Add oil to pan and when hot, add chicken pieces.
- Cook, stirring occasionally, for about 3-4 minutes, until lightly browned.
- Add quinoa to pan, and cook another 2 minutes.
- Remove from heat and stir in broccoli, soup, sour cream, and water.
- Pour into medium baking dish, sprinkle with parmesan cheese, and cover with foil.
- Bake for 30 minutes.
- Remove foil and bake for an additional 10 minutes.
- Remove from heat and let sit for 5-10 minutes and serve.
I used a 9″ x 7″ baking dish.
Keywords: casserole, quinoa, healthy dinner, chicken casserole, chicken quinoa casserole
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Product Marketing Solutions
It might be the release of a new product range, a special trade event or that corporate gift package Wallara Industries can cater for your special requirements, provide a cost effective solution on time and on budget.
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- Event showbags, trade packs.
- Conference packages


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6 Benefits of Online Applications
Online applications are providing several advantages over other systems, advantages which recommend it as an ideal tool for companies.
Web & Mobile Application for Managing, Listing and Promoting Ads
Allows you to locate IP or browser-based locations and display results according to the user's location.
Through relevant attributes and filters, can be made relevant searches within unlimited categories and ads.
The chat system allows users to interact by exchanging messages, files or images in real-time.
Users can quickly access or navigate among the ads categories, payment packages or account system.
The administration panel provides relevant data on user activity, earnings or payment status.
The promotional packages system can set rights or limitations depending on the purchased package.
The users can create an account according to it's purpose on the platform: provider (to promote his services) or as user (to search for ads).
Users can pay for promotional packages through the platform on a secure online payment processor page.
The ads page provides all the necessary details the user needs: photos, description, location, price and so on.
Integrate web with mobile application for taking and managing in a centralized manner of accounts, announcements and information.
Once finished, the app is published and managed from our account on Apple Store and Google Play platforms..
Apps allow you to create an account and login through social networks for quick connection of users (facebook, google +, linkedin)
The solution is already developed and tested so the costs involved become lower and affordable.
Features like the "favorites" system in your user profile or share on social networks are provided free within the project.
Throughout the project, the customer has technical support for the use of the platform and extracted information.
Step 1: Send us a brief project description or system specification
Step 2: Our experts will contact you to learn more about your needs
Step 3: We'll send you our proposal and case studies to prove our competenceGet a Quote
Xfactorapp, thanks for the development and successful implementation of management and parking application. This project with huge complexity help us now to get the business at a very high level as I wanted. Really make a...difference. I would highly recommend a long-term collaboration!Read more
IT Manager, Skyparking
SoccerKeep.com has brought a new level of service to data-hungry punters through its "unique" algorithm and comprehensive provision of statistics. SoccerKeep's push for improvement – which is very visible on...the site itself – means it could well become an increasingly useful tool for punters.... We are proud to say that our website is mobile friendly, so you can have all data at a fast speed without needing a mobile app.Read more
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My views about XFactorApp company and all the staff is that they are very talented and fast responsive dedicated people with good team work. I appreciate the professional skills of Cristi, Marius, Corina and owner of the company.
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In search of an IT firm to do our project, I met XFactorApp. Of all the companies we discussed with, they presented us a professional and detailed plan of the actions that were to be carried out for the realization of the project we...wanted. We knew from the beginning how long the project and the costs would be. We could communicate with the team as many times as we needed. They responded promptly to any request. I would trust them whenever I have a project that I want to accomplish without delay and without any problems. Thank you.Read more
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We searched a lot to select a programming firm that understands the profile of the web site we want. I chose XFactor App for their approach and demonstrated dedication from the beginning and throughout the project. Always available,...involved and efficient, I warmly recommend them and wish them success.Read more
PR & Marketing Department, Pachiu and Associates
We had an excellent collaboration with the XFactorApp company for the various functionalities we wanted implemented in the pizzicato.ro website. They were always available and promptly in execution of our requests.
Operations Manager, Restaurant Pizzicato
The decision to work with the XFactorApp team came on its own, after the first meetings where I discussed my needs and the solutions proposed by them. They impressed me in a pleasant way, from the beginning, by asking the right questions...to understand my project and having solutions for every detail. What I have appreciated, however, at the XFactorApp team, was the flexibility and adaptability they demonstrated throughout the process. I could say that the final idea of my project was a common effort and I never felt any limitation when we needed to change or improve this project along the way. I thank them for the opening and congratulate them for the passion they put in what they do!Read more
General Manager, Find and Go
There is a time when you ask yourself where you are wrong. You have the best service in the field and yet clients choose someone else. You have the best products but in the "on-line" showcase they can not be seen. Someone...somehow pulled the curtain. What to do? No big deal. Gor to them. To XFactorApp. They have a great talent to discover and provoke you to be creative. Listen to them! They are the best online directors of your business scenario.Read more
Managing Partner, Daune Direct
Since the first meeting with Valentin and the XFactorApp team we have been convinced that we can offer the best quality services and that we will be in a fruitful collaboration. Our project required multiple changes throughout development...and the XFactorApp team has always been with us, showing flexibility. Always understanding our needs, they have always offered us the technical solutions and the necessary consultations for the project. Professionalism, kindness, prompt response time and quality of service are the main strengths of this company. Thank you XFactorApp!Read more
Director, Clinical Operations, Eastern Biologix
The ATVROM SPORT EXTREM team congratulates XFactorApp for the quality services it offers, the professionalism and the promptness with which it handles each request from us. We have successfully implemented with XFactorApp multiple...projects consisting of over 15 websites for which we received an original and attractive design as well as state-of-the-art web development services and leading technology in the web industry. We also thank XFactorApp for the involvement and advisory approach in developing our online business and implementing the related marketing plans.Read more
General Director, ATVROM
We have answers to all of your questions:
After signing the contract and paying the advance, the client-company relationship will be managed by a project manager who will manage transparently all stages of the project.
The internal task management application allows the client to access the XFactorApp platform, having the opportunity to view information on the status of the project implementation.
Depending on the complexity of the application, the standard delivery time may increase from 30 days to several months.
Additional features not included in the initial estimate of the project will be additionally charged on an hourly basis.
Company : XFACTORAPP SOFTWARE SOLUTIONS LIMITED
Company Number : 11881748
RO Office: Timpuri Noi Square, TN Offices 02, 165 Spailul Unirii, 1st Floor, District 3, Bucharest, Romania
UK Office: 1st Victoria Square, Birmingham E-mail : firstname.lastname@example.com
Telephone: +4 0217 95 54 00, Mobile: +4 0729 11 11 29
Online applications are providing several advantages over other systems, advantages which recommend it as an ideal tool for companies.
Many managers fall into the trap of their usual procedures and refuse to automate work through custom softwares.
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LE POISSON: Barry Melton and his band played in Paris earlier this year. Not bad for a bunch of old hippies. -->
Line on the Fish
Psychedelic relic Barry Melton's dual life
By Bruce Robinson
Lawyer by day, rock and roller by night. No, it's not the premise for another lame high-concept television series, it's the real-life duality for Barry Melton.
Melton, the long-time musical partner of Country Joe McDonald, is still "the Fish" when performing, wearing the nickname proudly as an artifact of the '60s. It first surfaced when the duo cut a record for a Berkeley antiwar teach-in they held in 1965. "It was a joke," Melton recalls. "We were looking for a silly name that fit the occasion."
But the Fish stuck and, at times, expanded. "Being both singular and plural, whatever band we had at the time would be known as the Fish," he explains. "But we had a dozen different bands over the years, and I'm the only consistent element of those. I suppose that Joe and I as 'Country Joe and the Fish' are sort of like Fleetwood Mac being Mick Fleetwood and John McVie and whoever they happen to be playing with."
These days, when Melton performs, he is usually flanked by a cadre of other alumni from the Summer of Love's musical scene, including Peter Albin (Big Brother and the Holding Company) on bass, Banana (Youngbloods) on keyboards and Roy Blumenfield (Blues Project) on drums. They'll hold forth together at the Los Robles Lodge in Santa Rosa on Friday, Oct. 1.
As for the music they share, "It's fairly straight-ahead rock and roll, but we leave a lot of room to improvise," Melton says. And he sees that structured spontaneity as the psychedelic era's most enduring musical contribution. "I think that we took rock and roll, which was pretty rigidly ordered back then, and we stretched it out a little, kind of like a rubber band, in the sense that we made lots of room for improvisation." The old band's famous "Fish Cheer" ("Gimme an f, gimme a u . . .") was immortalized when Country Joe and the Fish performed at Woodstock, and 35 years after the fact, Melton admits to retaining "a hodgepodge of vague recollections" about the event. "I do remember flying over to the concert itself on the day of the concert with Joe Cocker in a helicopter, looking out over the treetops and seeing people dotted throughout the woods for miles before we got to the festival site itself," he says. "And I remember looking out at the size of the crowd and thinking how enormous it was and what a big deal it was.
"But of course," he adds with a chuckle, "the thing that made it a big deal is that it got filmed."
But Melton does not see Woodstock as the celluloid peak for Country Joe and the Fish, assigning that honor to the less widely seen Monterey Pop, shot two years earlier. "I think of Monterey Pop as being the more historic of those movies, because Monterrey Pop was at a more idealistic time, at the beginning of the counterculture '60s musical movement, instead of the end, which Woodstock was."
About a decade after Woodstock, Melton started to tire of the rock and roll lifestyle, and began taking law school correspondence courses as a path to a more stable life with his wife and kids. "What musicians do on the road is watch TV or read books anyway," he shrugs, "so this was just reading books that were more boring." After five years, he got his degree, passed the bar and went to work.
"I've been doing criminal defense work for the 22 years that I've been a lawyer," he says, numbering five of those as the pubic defender for Mendocino County. These days he holds that office in Yolo County, northwest of Sacramento. "My office handles 10,000 cases a year, so in some way I'm involved in the entire gamut of antisocial behavior from driving without a license to first-degree murder," he observes. And he still gets to deal with some of it firsthand. "During the budget season I have a lot of administrative work to do and when that's done I get to be a lawyer again for six or eight months of the year."
Is it hard to reconcile his legal duties with being an old hippie playing rock and roll? Melton says no.
"I think they balance each other really well," he says. "It's like the right and left sides of my brain. I get to deal with my linear side and my nonlinear side. It's actually kind of cool."
The public defender for Yolo County and his band play on Friday, Oct. 1, at the Los Robles Lodge as part of their 'Roots' series. 1985 Cleveland Lane, Santa Rosa. 8:30pm. $10-$13. 707.588.0707.
[ | Metroactive Central | ]
From the September 29-October 5, 2004 issue of the North Bay Bohemian.


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Bars & Restaurants
Grenada, the Spice Island, has plenty to offer in the bar, restaurant and nightlife scene from fun nightclubs where the locals and the tourists hang out to high end restaurants with top shelf menus. You're on an island, and the local fishermen are going on the daily so you can expect your seafood to be fresh and well spiced!
Casual and Fine Dining $$
phone: 473 444 410
located in Point Salines near the airport, the Aquarium is right on the beach where you can enjoy the cool sea breeze while sipping cocktails under the stars at the beach bar or while enjoying fine dining in the rock-side restaurant.
Sports Bar, Restaurant, NightClub $
phone: 473 444 4662
Bananas certainly has something to offer everyone. The Bar and Restaurant opens at 4pm and the club opens at 10:30pm. Wood Fired Pizza, Angus Burgers, chicken wings and a cold beer are hard to beat here. Sundays and Mondays are sports days with games playing on every TV screen!
Bar & Restaurant $$
phone: 473 435 7058
BBs Crabback is located directly on a prime location in the Carenage in St George. Great view of the harbor and authentic island cuisine is what you will find at BBs.
Bar, Restaurant, NightClub $
phone: 473 232 2337
The Brewery (aka West Indies Beer Company) is located in L'ance Aux Epines. It is a weekend hotspot especially amongst the Med/Vet School students and is a great bar to hangout, have a beer, and get some good bar food. Opening up at noon daily and staying open until the early morning hours, you can be sure to have a good time at the Brewery.
Carib Sushi
Sushi Restaurant $$
phone: 473 439 5640
Carib Sushi is located just off of Grand Anse Beach in the Le Marquis Complex and is a favorite among many and known as a great sushi restaurant. Reviews are always great from Carib Sushi.
Coconut Beach Restaurant
Bar & Restaurant $
phone: 473 444 4644
Coconut Beach offers a beautiful location to relax and have a cocktail on the beach as well as French Creole Cuisine. Located on Grand Anse Beach it offers up a great sunset view while sipping on a cocktail or enjoying your dinner.
Dodgy Dock
Bar & Restaurant $
phone: 473 443 8783
Dodgy Dock is a casual spot that is located right at True Blue Bay Resort and is right on the water in the bay. Offering Mexican and Caribbean Cuisine and great cocktails. Usually they have live music on the weekend so it's sure to be a good time. Open daily 7am to 11pm.
Island Fever Tropical Tavern
Bar, Restaurant $$$
phone: 473 444 2400
The Located at the Le Phare Bleu Boutique Hotel and Marina, you are sure to get a wonderful view and cool breeze while sipping on your cocktails and having a great meal here.
Junction Bar & Grill
Bar and Restaurant $
phone: (473) 537-1087
Located in L'ance Aux Epines, Junction has great food and typically live music as well on the weekends. Open Wed-Sat 5pm-1am, Junction's menu offers Grenadian and Mexican inspired Cuisine as well as custom built burgers.
Fine Dining $$$$
phone: 473 439 0001
Laluna Restaurant is located on it's own beach opening up to an amazing view and some of the best sunsets on the island. Laluna offers Italian Cuisine with a Caribbean twist as well as a wine cellar with plenty of wines to choose from. Great food and drinks as well as good service at LaLuna.
Bar & Restaurant $$
phone: 473 440 9747
Sails is located directly on the scenic Carenage in St George and offers a great view of St. George's Harbor. Good food, good drinks, and great atmosphere. What more could you want?
Spice Affair
Fine Dining $$$
phone: 473 444 4424
Spice Affair, located right near Calabash Resort in L'ance Aux Epines, is a new restaurant that offers delicious Caribbean and Indian Cuisine. Open for lunch and dinner 7 days a week.
Bar & Restaurant $
phone: 473 439 9149
Located directly on Grand Anse Beach, this beach bar and restaurant is one of the more popular spots. Great drinks, and great food, it's a must go to bar and restaurant that offers open air dining and live music.
Venus Restaurant
Sports Bar, Restaurant, NightClub $
phone: 473 439 1800
Located in Grand Anse, Venus is a Restaurant and Sports Lounge offering two pool tables and sporting events playing on the TV Screens. Simple hangout.
Victory Restaurant
Bar & Restaurant $
phone: 473 435 7263
Located at Port Louis Marina, Victory offers open air dining in a relaxed atmosphere with a well rounded menu sure to suit anyones taste buds especially their thin crust pizza!. Live music on the weekends makes this a hot spot.
Sushi Restaurant $$$
phone: 473 435 7263
Located in Port Louis Marina, YOLO offers your fix of sushi on the island. Quite possibly the best spicy tuna rolls anywhere, they have plenty of sushi and seafood options on the menu as well of any cocktail to your liking.


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This popular LA facial bar is bringing upscale but affordable facials to NYC.
Make Up For Ever just opened their NYC flagship featuring a bar with seven makeup stations.
New York's top female fitness instructors connect the mind, body and heart in revolutionary workout classes.
My hair needed some sort of pick-me-up, and it appeared that Fox & Jane was the salon flavor-of-the-month.
MassageNow offers an easy way to schedule last-minute spa appointments. Plus, get a discount!
Experience a "Geek Massage" at Haven Spa, designed to alleviate stress and tightness from too many hours behind a computer screen.
The Ling Spa in Union Square is a delightful contrast to its environs. Outside, the area is bustling. Inside, the Asian-inspired spa offers a peaceful haven.
Housed in small, elegant spot on E. 57th Street, Federico Hair & Spa is an impressive salon that offers a wide array of hair services, all helmed by Federico Calce
This lipstick accomplishes all four things it promises to do: it has the pigment of a lipstick, the moisture of a lip balm, the shine of a lip gloss and the staying power of lip stain.


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We decided to see if we could replicate the video of the woman in Canada who threw a cup of hot water into the air and watched it turn to snow.
It worked!! While our temperatures were not the -45' temps seen in the video, it is certainly cold enough to see this sudden change in water - turning from liquid to solid nearly instantly.
Here is a nice article with a link to the original YouTube video.
Today is a one day serious cold snap in New England - so today is the day!
Monday, January 24, 2011
Friday, January 14, 2011
5 Fun Things to do in the Snow
Here in New England we just had a lot of snow and I know we are not alone - lots of other places in the country have plenty of the white stuff on the ground! While it is too cold to spend a ton of time outside, there are plenty of fun things to do. Here are some older posts with ideas:
1. Blow bubbles! The weather is cold enough now to try blowing bubbles in the cold. Blow the bubble and catch it on your wand. What might happen?
~I posted a challenge last January here.
~Check out my results here.
2. Grab some snow and melt it in a coffee filter. Take two snow samples, one clean and one dirty. Melt them in separate containers. How long do you think it will take? Once melted, pour the water through a white coffee filter. Was the "clean" snow really clean?
3. Paint the snow. Grab some water colors and a big brush. You can paint the snow. The snow will seem to absorb the painting. What is really going on?
4. Track. Check out the animal tracks in the snow. At my house, there are tons of tracks under my bird feeders. There are small birds, big birds, and two kinds of squirrels. The other tracks are my mom's from when she fills the feeders every day!
5. Have fun with Ice. Where does ice melt better? There are some really fun ideas here.
Sunday, January 2, 2011
January Dates!
All our programs are at the Millbury Public Library at 10:30 and are geared for preschoolers aged 3-5 and their parents.
We are going to do BEARS on Jan 4 and Simple Machines on Jan 18.
Check out Bears from 2008.
Go Science!
Posted by Michele at 12:38 PM No comments:
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Les Mills Body Pump
Monday, 19 October 2020
The original barbells class that strengthens your entire body. This workout challenges all your major muscle groups by using the best weight-room exercises like squats, presses, lifts and curls.
Event Details
WhenMonday, 19 October 2020
9:30am - 10:15am
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Mat vich ratan jawahar manik je ik Gur ki Sikh suni
sikhni777 posted a topic in SAKHIAN | BOOKSWhat do you understand by the pangti above? I thought I understood it. However despite having recited it for a number of years, I realised it has a much deeper meaning. The words ratan jawahar manik actually mean veraag, gyan and naam which come into the budhi when we listen to the bachan of the True Guru.