text:
Following is a response to a paper written by a Catholic in an attempt to refute my analysis of the Roman Catholic position dealing with justification. I have permission from the author to reproduce the entire paper here and respond to it. My responses to his comments are in green. All original grammar and syntax have been retained.
A refutation of Matt Slick's misrepresentation of the Church's beliefs
Matt Slick is an evangelical Protestant who runs the website ministry Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry. He unfortunately believes that the Catholic Church is apostate, but this belief is based on a misrepresentation of our beliefs. The following is a refutation of his attack on justification.
However, Roman Catholic doctrine denies justification by faith alone and says:
"If any one saith, that by faith alone the impious is justified; in such wise as to mean, that nothing else is required to co-operate in order to the obtaining the grace of Justification, and that it is not in any way necessary, that he be prepared and disposed by the movement of his own will; let him be anathema" (Council of Trent, Canons on Justification, Canon 9).
Here 's the operative phrase in this: in such wise as to mean, that nothing else is required to co-operate in order to the obtaining the grace of Justification. Just what does it mean to cooperate? It means that we must work with God, we must live a Christian life. "You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder. But are you willing to recognize, you foolish fellow, that faith without works is useless? "James 2:19-20. The Church is condemning the belief that all you have to do is put your faith in God, but do nothing else. That you do not need to avoid sin or live the Christian life. That is the heresy condemned.
This Roman Catholic not only fails to understand the biblical doctrine of justification by faith but he also does not understand the Bible's teachings on works in relation to it. I will present the biblical position here and refer back to these biblical truths in this paper.
Justification is the legal declaration by God upon the sinner where God declares the sinner righteous in His sight. This declaration is based upon the work of Christ and nothing else. This means that a person is declared righteous by God based upon nothing more than the person's believing in, trusting in, and receiving Christ. This is so because Jesus, God in flesh, has done all that is necessary to make us right before the Father. We cannot add to the work of Christ. If there were anything that we could add, then it would be required of us. But, we can do nothing which is why it says in Gal. 2:21, I do not nullify the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died needlessly. In other words, Jesus didn't need to die if our righteousness could come, in any way, through the Law, that is, through our own effort or works. Following are several verses that demonstrate these truths:
- Gal. 2:16, "nevertheless knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we may be justified by faith in Christ, and not by the works of the Law; since by the works of the Law shall no flesh be justified."
- Phil. 3:9, "and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith."
- Rom. 3:24, "being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus."
- Rom. 3:28-30, "For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law. 29Or is God the God of Jews only? Is He not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, 30since indeed God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith is one."
- Rom. 4:3, "For what does the Scripture say? "And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness."
- Rom. 4:5, "But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness,"
- Rom. 5:1, "therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,"
Being justified is concurrent with regeneration; that is, God regenerates us and justifies us in His act of saving us. Our regeneration is the work of God in us. It produces a change in us: 2 Cor. 5:17, says "Therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come." This change has a result of doing good works. But, the good works do not obtain our justification, nor do they increase it. They are simply the result of being a new creature. This is why James says, "For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead." (James 2:26). James is demonstrating that true faith brings true regeneration which results in true works. (See my article, Are We Justified by Faith (Romans) or by Works (James)?) False faith brings false regeneration which results in false works. Again, this is why James says, "What use is it, my brethren, if a man says he has faith, but he has no works? Can that faith save him?" (James 2:14). Notice how James begins his comments on this subject by mentioning those who say they have faith but don't demonstrate it by their works. In other words, their works demonstrate whether or not they are truly saved in the first place; that is, they are a result of true saving faith. This is where all the cults and the Roman Catholic church error. They all see our works as contributing to our salvation, and this is why they quote James 2:24, "You see that a man is justified by works, and not by faith alone." But, and this is crucial, they fail to look at the context of James' statement. The context that James is dealing with is that works result from true faith, and those works are before men--not before God. James' whole point is to demonstrate that true faith results in true works, and false faith results in false works or no works at all. James is distinguishing between mere mental acknowledgement and heartfelt trust, the latter, of which, is what Paul speaks of in Romans 3-5. Furthermore, Paul echoes James' sentiment when he says, "For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation; but the sorrow of the world produces death." (2 Cor. 7:10). True faith has a true result. False faith has a false result. If you say you have faith (James 2:24), then let's see your works because your works demonstrate what is in you. But these works do not get us saved or keep us saved or contribute to our salvation in anyway.
Therefore, the Roman Catholic who has written his paper in an attempt to refute my paper does not understand the biblical doctrines of justification and regeneration. This is because he holds to the Roman Catholic teaching which is in serious error.
Let's continue.
"If any one saith, that man is truly absolved from his sins and justified, because he assuredly believed himself absolved and justified; or, that no one is truly justified but he who believes himself justified; and that, by this faith alone, absolution and justification are effected; let him be anathema." (Canon 14).
The same heresy is condemned here. What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him? James 2:14
The Canon is not saying the same thing as James. Canon 14 is condemning justification by faith alone. James is not dealing with this issue. James is dealing with those who say they have faith but have no works when works are what demonstrate the truth of that faith--the faith that has resulted in regeneration also results in true works. This person does not understand what James is saying, and he does not understand the doctrine of justification as demonstrated in the Bible. In fact, throughout his entire paper, he never once refers to Paul's declaration of justification by faith. You'd think that if he wanted to make his position biblical, he would appeal to the scriptures that deal with it. But, he does not. Therefore, his position is weak and incomplete.
We can see that Roman Catholic theology pronounces a curse of excommunication, of being outside the camp of Christ if you believe that you are saved by grace through faith alone in Jesus.
Such a statement brings chills to my soul. Notice how he affirms that the Roman Catholic church condemns the idea that you are saved by grace through faith alone in Jesus. But what does the Bible say?
- Gal. 2:16, "nevertheless knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we may be justified by faith in Christ, and not by the works of the Law; since by the works of the Law shall no flesh be justified."
- Phil. 3:9, "and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith."
- Rom. 4:5, "But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness,"
Again, this person, and the Roman Catholic church, has failed to see what justification is and what James is saying. Justification is by grace through faith that results in regeneration that results in works. The works follow regeneration and in no way contribute to it. They are the result of regeneration, not the cause of it.
Again, a misrepresentation:
Paragraph 1697 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church -a catechesis of grace, for it is by grace that we are saved and again it is by grace that our works can bear fruit for eternal life;
Does the Roman Catholic Church specifically state that we are "saved by grace and works"? Not that I am aware of and neither do the above Catholic Canons state such a thing. But, when the Roman Catholic Church negates justification by faith alone, it necessarily implies that we must do something for justification, for if it is not by faith alone, then it must be by faith and something.
How sad it is to see such false doctrine taught as truth. Notice that he has yet to quote the Bible's teaching on this issue except for James--and that out of context.
So what is it that we must do to be justified? Is there anything that we can add to the finished work of Christ on the cross that would merit for us justification either alone or in combination with what Jesus has done? Not at all. But, this Roman Catholic, like the cults, thinks that we can contribute to our salvation and position before God through our own efforts.
Really? Well then what do we add? If any one saith, that man may be justified before God by his own works, whether done through the teaching of human nature, or that of the law, without the grace of God through Jesus Christ; let him be anathema. (Council of Trent, Canons on Justification, Canon 1)
Of course! The Roman Catholic church does not teach that we are justified before God by our own works. The cults don't even teach that. But, like the cults, it teaches that we are justified before God by His grace and our works--not just our works. This is the whole point, and this critic of my paper has failed to see this distinguishing truth.
"If any one saith, that the grace of God, through Jesus Christ, is given only for this, that man may be able more easily to live justly, and to merit eternal life, as if, by free will without grace, he were able to do both, though hardly indeed and with difficulty; let him be anathema. (Council of Trent, Canons on Justification, Canon 2)
If any one saith, that without the prevenient inspiration of the Holy Ghost, and without his help, man can believe, hope, love, or be penitent as he ought, so as that the grace of Justification may be bestowed upon him; let him be anathema. (Council of Trent, Canons on Justification, Canon 3)
If any one saith, that men are just without the justice of Christ, whereby He merited for us to be justified; or that it is by that justice itself that they are formally just; let him be anathema. (Council of Trent, Canons on Justification, Canon 10)
Of the acts to be performed by Catholics for justification, baptism is the first requirement is: I do not see the Bible saying anywhere that we are justified by baptism.
The admission of this Roman Catholic that baptism is necessary as a first requirement demonstrates two things: that there is more than one requirement to be justified and that baptism is necessary for justification. Both are in error.
Well, perhaps you are skipping those verses: Jesus answered, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. John 3:5.
There are five basic interpretations to this section of scripture in reference to water. This paper is not meant to discuss the issues of baptismal regeneration. Nevertheless, the five views are as follows.
- The water refers to the natural birth.
- The water refers to the Word of God.
- The water refers to the Holy Spirit.
- The water refers to the ministry of John the Baptist.
- The water refers to the water of baptism as a requirement for salvation.
Unfortunately, the Roman Catholic assumes one position---that baptism is necessary for salvation--and goes on to make a case based upon that position. Of course, he ignores the justification verses (listed 1-7 at the beginning of this paper) that clearly state justification is by faith--not faith and baptism and not faith and something we do.
Nevertheless, instead of repeating my paper on John 3:5, I urge the reader to examine it here: Baptism and John 3:5. I will, however, quote one portion of it:
Paul tells us that the gospel is what saves us, and that the gospel is the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus, (1 Cor. 15:1-4). Baptism is not included in the description of the gospel. This explains why he said he came to preach the gospel--not to baptize: "I am thankful that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius, so no one can say that you were baptized into my name. (Yes, I also baptized the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I don't remember if I baptized anyone else). For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel . . . " (1 Cor. 1:14-17). If baptism is necessary for salvation, then why did Paul downplay it and even exclude it from the description of what is required for salvation? It is because baptism is not necessary for salvation. Therefore, John 3:5 must be interpreted in a manner consistent with the rest of scripture and not be held to mean that baptism is part of becoming saved.
He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit. Titus 3:5.
Paul is referencing the visible representation of what it means to be saved. Baptism is the public demonstration of this regenerative work. It is a visible demonstration of the covenant work of God. It is not the thing that saves us since we know that we are justified by faith. Rom. 5:1, "therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." Paul clearly and explicitly declares that we are justified by faith. Baptism is repeatedly left out of the justification formula.
Corresponding to that, baptism now saves you--not the removal of dirt from the flesh but an appeal to God for a good conscience--through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. 1 Peter 3:21.
See my paper on Baptism and 1 Pet. 3:21. In short, the key word in this section is the Greek antitupon. It means "copy," "type," "corresponding to," "a thing resembling another," "its counterpart," etc. It is what the NIV translates as "symbolizes," the NASB as "corresponding to that," and the KJV as "like figure." Baptism, then, is a representation, a copy, a type of something else. The question is "Of what is it a type?" or "baptism corresponds to what?"
If we look at the context, an interesting possibility arises, though I will admit, not the favored interpretation among scholars. What does baptism correspond to? Is it the flood? Or, is it the ark? What was it that saved Noah and his family, the flood or the ark? Obviously, it was the Ark. Noah built and entered the ark by faith, and he was saved (Heb. 11:7). The flood waters destroyed the ungodly. Also, Peter consistently refers to the flood waters as the means of destruction of the ungodly (2 Pet. 2:5; 3:6)--not the salvation of Noah and his family. Rather, it was the Ark that saved--the ark that Noah entered by faith. It may very well be that baptism refers to the Ark--not the waters. That is why the rest of the verse says, "not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a good conscience toward God," which is consistent with what Paul said in Col. 2:11-12 where He equates baptism with being circumcised of heart.
Finally, Rom. 5:1, "therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." Paul clearly and explicitly declares that we are justified by faith. Baptism is repeatedly left out of the justification formula.
Good works, according to Roman Catholicism, are also required and are rewarded with going to heaven: "We can therefore hope in the glory of heaven promised by God to those who love him and do his will. In every circumstance, each one of us should hope, with the grace of God, to persevere 'to the end' and to obtain the joy of heaven, as God's eternal reward for the good works accomplished with the grace of Christ" (CCC, par. 1821). The above quote clearly states that heaven is the "eternal reward for the good works accomplished with the grace of Christ."
Does this Catholic believer purposely ignore what the CCC says in par. 1821? Notice that it clearly states that heaven is the reward for doing good works "with the grace of Christ." Now, this is a tricky statement from the CCC. It is trying to appear to be biblical, but it is not. It is trying to maintain that our reward for being good is to go to heaven (works' righteousness) while at the same time stating that our good works are done by the grace of Christ--thereby trying to assert that it is all by grace. This is double-talk and heresy!
Our works do not send us to heaven--period! The blood of Jesus cleanses us of our sins, and by faith we are justified. We are justified by the blood of Jesus---not our baptism, not our works done by the grace of Christ. The CCC is in error and contradicts the word of God.
Really? I suppose that the phrase "accomplished with the grace of Christ" means nothing to Slick. What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him? James 2:14
I suppose that by Mr. Slick's theology we must have only faith, no works.
Catholic theology asserts that works are a predecessor to justification in direct contradiction to God's word which states ". . .that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law",
Without a proper understanding of justification and works, this kind of error he teaches will continue. I have already demonstrated from scripture the proper position on justification and how works are related to it. This Roman Catholic is only continuing to build on the same error.
Ah, distorting our beliefs. What a wonderful thing to see.
1989 The first work of the grace of the Holy Spirit is conversion, effecting justification in accordance with Jesus' proclamation at the beginning of the Gospel: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." 38 Moved by grace, man turns toward God and away from sin, thus accepting forgiveness and righteousness from on high. "Justification is not only the remission of sins, but also the sanctification and renewal of the interior man.
2027 No one can merit the initial grace which is at the origin of conversion. Moved by the Holy Spirit, we can merit for ourselves and for others all the graces needed to attain eternal life, as well as necessary temporal goods.
I am not distorting the beliefs of the RCC. This critic simply does not understand the biblical doctrines in relation to the RCC error; and it is he, along with the RCC, that is distorting the truth of God's word.
And just to pre-empt Matt's attack about merit:
2008 The merit of man before God in the Christian life arises from the fact that God has freely chosen to associate man with the work of his grace. The fatherly action of God is first on his own initiative, and then follows man's free acting through his collaboration, so that the merit of good works is to be attributed in the first place to the grace of God, then to the faithful. Man's merit, moreover, itself is due to God, for his good actions proceed in Christ, from the predispositions and assistance given by the Holy Spirit.
More double talk. "The merit of good works is to be attributed in the first place to the grace of God." In other words, the person does the good works that gain him heaven. But lest this sound like he earns his salvation, all the catholic has to say is that the good works are by the grace of God. In other words, it is just as I have been saying all along on CARM. Catholic theology teaches the infusion of God's grace into a person (CCC, par. 2023) that enables him/her to do good works by which we are judged for salvation (CCC, par. 1821). This is false. We are not judged for salvation based upon our works but based upon the work of Jesus. The RCC double-talk is still false and dangerous.
Roman Catholic theology asserts that God's grace is granted through baptism and infused into a person by the Holy Spirit. This then enables him or her to do good works which then are rewarded with heaven.
Wrong. Heaven is not a reward for our works. It is a reward (though I do not prefer that phrasing) for turning to God and living the Christian life that we are exhorted to by the Bible.
On the contrary, I am quite right because that is what the CCC says: "We can therefore hope in the glory of heaven promised by God to those who love him and do his will. In every circumstance, each one of us should hope, with the grace of God, to persevere 'to the end' and to obtain the joy of heaven, as God's eternal reward for the good works accomplished with the grace of Christ" (CCC, par. 1821).
This is what the Catholic church teaches; namely, that our works merit heaven. Whether or not they are supposedly accomplished with the grace of Christ is immaterial. Nothing of our own hands is worthy to enter into the realm of heaven because our works are touched by sin. It is that simple. The RCC position is nothing more than double-talk that causes Catholics to think they can contribute to the finished work of Christ on the cross and earn heaven through their own works all the while saying that it is by grace, so they can then say they are saved by grace. Anathema to that twisted teaching!
In response, I turn to God's word at Gal. 3:1-3:
"You foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified? 2 This is the only thing I want to find out from you: did you receive the Spirit by the works of the Law or by hearing with faith? 3 Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?" Does not the above scripture clearly state that receiving God's Spirit is by faith and not by what we do?
Yep. But that's not something that we disagree with:
1991 Justification is at the same time the acceptance of God's righteousness through faith in Jesus Christ. Righteousness (or "justice") here means the rectitude of divine love. With justification, faith, hope, and charity are poured into our hearts, and obedience to the divine will is granted us.
Rectitude means, "Moral uprightness." Look at what it is saying. "Justification is at the same time the acceptance of God's "moral uprightness" through faith in Jesus Christ." That is not what justification means. Again, justification is the legal declaration by God upon the sinner where God declares the sinner righteous in His sight. This is based solely and completely on the work of Christ and we receive this justification by faith (Rom. 5:1). Again, the RCC is wrong.
Is [salvation] something we maintain through our effort? Not at all.
Actually, the Bible rather disagrees. but I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified. 1 Corinthians 9:27
To compound his error, this Catholic now asserts that we keep our salvation by our works and quotes 1 Cor. 9:27. This verse is not saying we keep our salvation by our works. Is there any verse that says we keep our salvation by our works? No, there isn't. But there are verses that speak to the contrary: "You foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified? 2This is the only thing I want to find out from you: did you receive the Spirit by the works of the Law, or by hearing with faith? 3Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?" (Gal. 3:1-3). Are we to believe that we can perfect in our works--what God has done on the cross? May it never be!
Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win. Everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. They then do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. 1 Corinthians 9:24-25
I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:14
Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement and the worship of the angels, taking his stand on visions he has seen, inflated without cause by his fleshly mind, Colossians 2:18
I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith; 2 Timothy 4:7 Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, Hebrews 12:1
Fight the good fight of faith; take hold of the eternal life to which you were called, and you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. 1 Timothy 6:12 Also if anyone competes as an athlete, he does not win the prize unless he competes according to the rules. 2 Timothy 2:5
So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; Philippians 2:12
As is typical with those who believe they can contribute to their salvation, they often quote verses that appear to support their position. None of the verses cited above say we keep our salvation by our works. They simply tell us that we are to keep living as Christians and to strive hard in doing this. None of them tell us we earn or keep our salvation.
Is it by doing these acts of penance that the Catholic is able to regain his justified state before God? I am astounded to think that they are taught to believe that by their works of penance justification is regained.
The penance is a symbol of our repentance. It is how we turn back to God and submit ourselves once more to Him. "Therefore bear fruits in keeping with repentance," Luke 3:8
Notice the switch in terms from penance to repentance. This is what the RCC says about penance:
- "It is through the sacrament of penance that the baptized can be reconciled with God and with the Church . . . This sacrament of penance is necessary for salvation for those who have fallen after Baptism," (Catechism of the Catholic Church, par. 980).
- "By Christ's will, the Church possesses the power to forgive the sins of the baptized and exercises it through bishops and priests normally in the sacrament of penance ," (CCC par. 986).
- "To receive Confirmation one must be in a state of grace. One should receive the sacrament of penance in order to be cleansed for the gift of the Holy Spirit," (CCC, par. 1310).
Penance is a sacrament, according to the RCC, necessary for salvation for those who have fallen after being baptized; it is a means of being cleansed.
The way of being cleansed of our sins is by confession of our sins to the Lord and asking the Lord to forgive us (John 14:14; 1 Cor. 1:2). It is God who forgives sins, and this forgiveness is based upon what Jesus has done--not upon what we do in penitential works whether they be works of service, self-denial, or repetitious prayers--as are often required by the RCC for a person to complete/receive forgiveness of sins.
What a foul and ugly doctrine it is that adds to the finished work of Christ the sin-stained works of our hands and heart. Such is the position of the cults and all false systems that have a false understanding of justification by grace and thereby try to contribute to what Jesus has done.
In conclusion, Matt Slick is attacking a straw man version of Catholic belief and our beliefs are quite rigidly backed up Scripturally.
On the contrary. I have established even more the error of the Roman Catholic church. May those who are in it abandon loyalty to that earthly organization and bow at the feet of Jesus--not Mary's feet--and may they not seek to please God through any of their own efforts but rely completely and totally on the grace of God found in the work of Christ on the cross. Christians are, after all, justified by faith (Rom. 5:1), for if it is by works in any way, then it is no longer grace: Rom. 11:6, "But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace is no longer grace."
- Rom. 5:9, "Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him."
- Rom. 10:9-10, "that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved; 10 for with the heart man believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation."
- Gal. 3:24, "Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, that we may be justified by faith."
- Eph. 2:8, "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God."
- Phil. 3:9, "and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith."
- 1 Tim. 1:16, "And yet for this reason I found mercy, in order that in me as the foremost, Jesus Christ might demonstrate His perfect patience, as an example for those who would believe in Him for eternal life."
May Jesus, my Lord and Savior, receive all the glory and praise for His work of salvation. I trust Him alone for the forgiveness of all my sins and put no trust in any work of my heart or hand to obtain or maintain my salvation; for I am a sinner, foul and diseased of soul who has by the grace of God been granted the righteousness of Christ by my faith alone, so that I might stand before the Father--not of my own merit, not of my own sincerity but of the merit and grace of Christ upon which and in which I stand alone. I can do no other.


text:
PDP Night Markets bring an awesome outdoor pop-up shopping market and festival to Downtown, featuring some of Pittsburgh's most creative independent vendors. Join us every Saturday from May 12 through October 27 for a night of live music under the City Paper Stage, along with artisan goods, games, food, and more. As part of its Downtown Sound Initiative, the PDP will present a 25 week-long, free, live music series at the Night Markets in collaboration with community partners presenting diverse styles of local music. Partners include 91.3 WYEP-FM, MCG Jazz, Deutschtown Music Festival /Northside Leadership Conference, Boom Concepts, LiveBurgh Studio, Mr. Smalls Funhouse, Blues Society of Western PA, The Pittsburgh City Paper, and more.
Selling Your Product
Downtown Night Market
Market SquareWebsite

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Home > JSTE > Vol. 39 (2002) > Iss. 1
JITE Fall 2001
From the Editor
Four Decades of Scholarship
George E. Rogers
The 1960s
Rupert N. Evans
The Functions of Industry as the Basis for Industrial Education Programs
Willard M. Bateson and Jacob Stern
The 1970s
Dennis R. Herschbach
Rationale for Career Education
Rupert N. Evans and Gordon McCloskey
The 1980s
Frank C. Pratzner
The Role of Vocational Studies and Training in General-Liberal Schooling
Angelo C. Gilli Sr.
The 1990s
David C. Bjorkquist
An Emerging Perspective on Policies for American Work and Education in the Year 2000: Choices We Face
Arthur G. Wirth
NAITTE: What Is Our Niche?
George E. Rogers


text:
Day- 11
Date- 4-24-16
Location- Next to giant boulder on side of trail
Elevation- 4,295
Distance Traveled Today- 16.7 miles
Distance Traveled Total- 144 miles
Weather/Temp- Clear, 80s
Injuries- none
Pain level- low
Spirits/Morale- High
Days without shower- 5
Hunger/craving- low
Today was hot, hotter than usual it seemed. We got a later start, between 7 and 8 am, which was aggravating, because it meant less hiking time for Katana. I woke up at 6 to my alarm, but feel back to sleep, and didn't wake back up until the hot sun was on my face.
I got a good 6 miles out of the 10 total we did before noon, from Katana. That ten put us at an unexpected water cache, where we refilled, and decided to lay low for a couple hours. I just wasn't messing with the heat and sun today at high noon.
I set up my hammock rain fly as a tarp to create shade using Schweppes's trekking poles. Myself, katana, Schweppes, and another hiker named "Hollywood," laid underneath it until almost 3 pm, before heading out. My dreams of a 25 mile day evaporating by the minute.
It was stifling hot still, but the plus side was that the wind had picked up considerably, more so than it had since I've been on the trail. It was definitely doing its part in combating the heat. This desert stretch would be incredibly more difficult if the air was dead every day.
Around 4:30, Dillon was leading, I was in the middle carrying katana, and Hollywood was about 15 paces behind me. I had just rounded a tight horseshoe curve in the trail when I heard the unmistakable, raspy vibration of a rattle. I spun around quick to see Hollywood take two or three, quick leaping steps further down the trail. "Snake?" I quickly asked. "Yup!" He just as quickly replied through a tight grin.
I set katana down, leashed her to my pack, called to Schweppes, who was still hiking, then made my way towards the sound, about 50 feet back down the trail.
The rattler was about 3 feet long, maybe slightly less, and a very light beige color, with a darker, mottled, yellowish tan pattern on its back. The only species that came to mind was the "Mojave," I can't be totally sure though.
I used my staff to manipulate the snake back onto the trail, pinned its head, then quickly grabbed the neck with my right hand, and the bulk of the body with my left hand. This was my first west coast rattlesnake, and my first hand caught rattlesnake since my thru hike of the Appalachian Trail in 2014. I surprised myself at how quickly I'd captured it, too quickly for Schweppes to even pull out his phone to record it. In a way, this was a good thing. It meant I was focused only on the snake, no hesitations. Hesitating is dangerous when it comes to venomous snake capture; you have to react exactly as everything unfolds (correctly), before the snake has a chance to get the upper hand, or you have a chance to second guess yourself. If you second guess yourself, just let the snake go, or don't mess with it in the first place. That's exactly how my last rattlesnake capture went in Pennsylvania on the AT; I left it alone because I hesitated and second guessed myself, even though I'd done it many times before.
After some pictures and videos, I released the snake a little ways off the trail and continued on. I kept Katana on leash for the next 4 miles, until we decided to camp in a field of giant boulders overlooking the sunset.
The wind continued to pick up, so I set my hammock up as a ground bivy for some extra protection and crawled into bed, Katana once again curled up by my feet.
I don't know what the plan is for tomorrow. We'll hit a road in 8 miles that has a cafe on it; I know we'll go that far at least, but after that…we'll see
Go to my book, "Racing Winter on the Pacific Crest Trail"


text:
09 December 2010
Renewable energy developers will get an indication from mid-2011 of the support they will receive for large-scale renewable energy projects staring electricity generation from April 2013.
Hendry says: "We are determined to increase significantly the amount of renewables in our energy mix and we want to remove barriers to this goal. The previous timetable for reviewing support for large-scale renewable electricity developments created some uncertainty for investors, so we've decided to bring it forward.
"Taking this action will help us realise our full potential for growth in renewable electricity. We think we've found the right balance between speeding up the process and making sure our decisions are based on solid analysis."
The new bands will be confirmed by autumn 2011, and will take effect on 1 April 2013, subject to State Aids and Parliamentary approval.
This article is featured in:
Policy, investment and markets


text:
Photographers - Canada
• The Canadian Art Database: Artists File
Compiled by the Centre for Contemporary Canadian Art/Centre de l'art contemporain canadien. Currently [2010] contains 44,838 images of images of work by 575 contemporary Canadian visual artists in all media including painting, sculpture, printmaking, drawing, photography, collage, mixed media, bookworks, audio-visual, film, performance work, conceptual work, and applied arts (fibre, ceramics, glass, metal, wood and furniture). Each entry usually contains the artist's CV.
• Royal Canadian Academy of Arts / Académie Royale des Arts du Canada
Contains profiles of the c.700 members of the RCA. Includes artists working in 20 visual arts disciplines including painting, sculpture, architecture, architecture, photography, craft, and filmmaking.
Photographers - Switzerland
• Fotostiftung Schweiz
Compiled by the Fotostiftung Schweiz Schwizerische Stiftung für die Photographie. In Winterthur, Zurich, Switzerland. Contains profiles of several thousand Swiss photographers. [Text in German].


text:
Reward Yourself
If you are an account holder, check out some of the rewards that are available.
Refer-a-Friend referral rewards program
- If you have enjoyed your banking experience with us, share it with a family member or a friend. And if they open an account with us, we will award you and the person you refer 3,500 UChoose® Rewards points each! With those points, you can get a $25.00 gift card.
- Want to try it? Simply download this form, fill in your information and give it to your friend or family member. They bring in the form when they open their account and you each receive your reward! It's that simple.
- If you have any questions about UChoose Rewards or your debit card, please contact us at 800.436.6300.
Endless Visa debit card rewards
Shop at your favorite retailer and simply use your Liberty UChoose Rewards Visa Card.
- Tell the cashier you want to run the transaction as credit. Then, sign the receipt. It's an easy, safe way to pay. Earn points each time you use your card and sign for your purchases.
- Plus, you'll earn additional points when you shop at participating retailers in the program.
- What can you get? Concert tickets, computers HDTVs, plane tickets, hotels, car rentals, cruises, gift cards and millions of other exciting options!
- Once you have your card you can simply redeem your points for gifts by visiting www.uchooserewards.com
- Need a checking account? Liberty is a small community bank that packs a value wallop. Especially when you compare us to the mega-banks.
- LEARN MORE about the Liberty UChoose Rewards Visa Card.
Liberty UChoose Mastercard
You Shop. You Earn. You Choose. It's that simple.
- LEARN MORE about the Liberty UChoose Mastercard.
Freedom Gold member cashback rewards
- You can earn 10% cashback on your everyday purchases – such as groceries, household supplies, entertainment.
- Save receipts and submit quarterly for cashback rewards. You are eligible to submit receipts totaling up to $125 each quarter for a total cashback of up to $12.50/quarter or up to $50 annually. (Registration/activation required. Additional terms and conditions may apply.)
- Curious about the Gold Upgrade? We are not surprised. It's loaded with features that make it a great value.


text:
We are a leading integrated services company for upstream, midstream and downstream assets
With a long and successful history of projects and relationships, we work with our clients to implement the best technologies and services to improve asset uptime and performance.
See every inch of every pipe, every minute of its life.
Shawcor's iLINE solutions add a layer of digital technology to our pipeline offerings to integrate tracking, traceability, asset management and other informative capabilities to help drive better decisions and streamline your operations.
We look for individuals who embody our values.
Our cultural values include integrity, execution and technology, with a foundation of accountability, respect and doing the right thing.
See how our market-leading NDT services and expertise can maximize your safety and operational uptime in even the most challenging environments.
Automated ultrasonic testing (AUT)
Our new generation AUT platform features automatic sizing, calibration and set up functions which reduce time and improve repeatability.
Real-time radiography (RTR)
Our next generation RTR equipment improves sensitivity and the speed of inspection.
When fast, accurate inspections are needed for the world's most challenging offshore pipe installations, Shawcor keeps the pace. Whatever your challenge, Shawcor can work with you on a custom, turnkey solution to attain and sustain the desired pipeline condition.
Shawcor combines in-house product and project expertise with field-proven technology and processes to deliver solutions to the client that can help achieve first oil faster, enhance production and reduce down-time to maximize the financial return on investment.
Let us help you with our inspection and NDT services
Offshore Inspection Services


text:
Mamallapuram – The Workshop of the Pallavas
Dharmaraja Mandapa
Located near the unfinished penance panel, this cave temple falls under the category of the early Pallava cave temples. The reason for this is its very primitive design and style resembling very much with the early caves of the Mahendravarman period.
This cave temple faces east. Its façade has a heavy cornice in front however it is devoid of any decoration such as dormer windows (kudu arches) or miniature shrines. The excavation is in form of a hall with three cells at its back wall. The hall is supported on two rows of pillars, dividing it into two bays. Both the rows have two pillars and two pilasters. The pillars in both the rows are of the same design, with characteristic square at the top and the bottom and an octagonal section in between. The pilasters in both the rows are tetragonal throughout.
On the back wall of the cave, three shrines are excavated. All these shrines are raised above the floor of the hall and provided with a staircase of three steps. The central cell is given different treatment, suggesting its importance. It is extended further into the hall in comparison to the other two shrines. Its stair case is provided with parapet while others are not.
Presence of three shrines suggests that the excavation was dedicated to the Hindu Trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. However, as the temple name suggests, the central cell would have been dedicated to Shiva. The dvarpalas adoring the central shrine are chiseled off, most probably during the Vaishnava resurgence during the Vijayanagara period of 14th-15th centuries1.
From the outlines of the dvarpalas, it can said that they were two armed, one arm is rested on their waist, and one arm is holding on to some object of no clarity. During the same period of insurgence, a conch and a shell was carved on the outer pillars of the cave.
As with other excavations at Mamallapuram, this one is also not bereft of its controversies. The main controversy is with the authorship of this cave, and this topic is dealt in detail below.
Inscriptions – We have only one inscription, engraved at a lateral wall at the entrance, found in this shrine. This inscription is of much importance as well as shrouded in controversies. It is published in Epigraphia Indica vol. X, no 1 and South Indian Inscriptions vol. 1.
For the benefit of readers, I am providing here the full translation of the inscription. This inscription is a copy of the inscription found at Ganesha Ratha.
(verse 1) Let (Siva), the destroyer of Love, (who is) the cause of production, existence and destruction, (but is himself) without cause, fulfill the boundless desires of man!
(verse 2) let him be victorious, who is (both) without illusion (and) possessed of manifold illusion (Chitramaya), who is (both) without qualities (and) endowed with qualities (Gunabhajana), who is self-existent (Svastha) (and) without superior (Niruttara), who is without lord (and) the highest lord (Paramesvara)
(verse 3) Srinidhi bears on (his) head that Aja (Siva), pressed by the weight of whose great toe, the Kailasa (mountain) together with the ten-faced (Ravana) sank down into Patala
(verse 4) Let that Sribhara be victorious for a long time, who bears Bhava (Siva) in (his) mind which is humbled with devotion, and (who bears) the earth on (his) arm like a coquettish ornament!
(verse 5) King Atyantakama, who has subdued the circle of (his) foes, is famed (by the name of) Ranajaya – he caused to be made this abode of Sambhu (Siva)
(verse 6) Let (Siva) be victorious, who is (both) sentient (and) motionless (Sthanu), who is (both) undivided (and) the moon, who has (both) the nature of fire (and) a body of air, who is (both) terrible (Bhima) (and) kind (Siva, who is (both) beneficent (Samkara) (and) the destroyer of Love!
(verse 7) Let Tarunankura be victorious, who is a king of kings (Rajaraja), (but) is not ugly (like Kuvera), who is an emperor, (but) does not distress people, (while Vishnu is both Chakrabhrit and Janardana), who is the lord of protectors (and) independent (Svastha), (while the moon is the lord of stars, but is waning in the dark half of month and subject to eclipses)!
(verse 8) Just as in a large lake, filled with water (which is fit) for bathing, (and) covered with various lotus-flowers, handsome Samkara (Siva) abides on the massive head – sprinkled with the water of coronation (and) covered with bright jewels – of the glorious Atyantakama, who deprives (his) enemies of (their) pride, who is a receptacle of wealth (Srinidhi), who possesses the charm of Love (Kamaraga), (and) who assiduously worships Hara (Siva)
(verse 10) He, desiring (to attain) the glory of Samkara (Siva), cased to be made this lofty dwelling-house of Dhurjati (Siva), in order (to procure) the fulfillment of (their) desires to )his) subjects
(verse 11) Six times cursed be those in whose hearts does not dwell Rudra (Siva), the deliverer from the walking on the evil path!
(verse 12) The Isvara )Siva) temple of Atyantakama-Pallava.
The controversy associated with this inscription is about its authorship. As the inscription does not carry a proper name for the Pallava king, but his titles, resulting in this controversy. The following titles are found in this inscription, Srinidhi, Sribhara, Atyantakama, Ranajaya, Rajaraja, Tarunankura and Kamaraga.
Pallava king Mahendravarman and Rajasimha have left their innumerable titles in their various inscription, however the Pallava king have not left such rich information with respect to their titles.
Among the titles found in this inscription, Srinidhi, Sribhara, Atyantakama, Ranajaya, Rajaraja and Kamaraga are found in the inscriptions of Rajasimha2 as his titles. However we do not find Tarunankura among his titles, though he had left more then two hundred and fifty of his titles. In this situation, can this inscription be assigned to the reign of Rajasimha?
Another challenge with Rajasimha is that in his Reyuru grant3, he is mentioned to be a staunch devotee of Vishnu, Shiva and Subramanya. A later grant, Uadyendiram of Nandivarman II4.
However, there of course is a possibility that though Rajasimha was religiously tolerant during his early years but in his later years, he might have been devoted only to Shiva. If we see other edifices he constructed, we find that he only raised temples in honor of Shiva but no one else.
E Hultzsch, who edited the inscription in Epigraphia Indica vol. X, suggests that the proper name of the king should be taken as Paramesvara, corresponding to the Pallava king Paramesvaravarman I, as evident in verse 2. The issue with Paramesvaravarman is that we have very few of his inscriptions, at other places than Mamallapuram, and in none of these his titles are enumerated. In the later inscriptions of the Pallavas, Paramesvaravarman is referred with other titles but not with these found in this inscription.
Many scholars including Mahaligam5, Srinivasan6 have accepted Hultzsch's view and assigned the construction to Paramesvaravarman I. However, Nagaswamy7 differs and based upon epigraphical studies, assigns the excavation to Rajasimha.
Ignoring the resemblances in the titles of Rajasimha and the ones found in this inscription would be very tough except the case with Tarunankura as mentioned above. However, in Saluvankuppam inscription, which is for sure of Rajasimha, we do not find the imprecatory verse though the excavation is dedicated to Shiva.
In such situation, I would go with Paramesvaravarman I, who in his own grant8 is referred as staunch Shaiva and therefore would be a good candidate to be assigned to this imprecatory verse. Therefore this excavation should be assigned to the reign of Paramesvaravarman.
1 Dehejia & Davis. Addition, Erasure and Adaptation: Interventions in the Rock-cut Monuments of Mamallapuram. Archives of Asian Art vol. 60 (2010) p15
2 Mahalingam, T V. Inscriptions of the Pallavas, no 55 and no 64
3 Mahalingam, T V. Inscriptions of the Pallavas, no 53
4 Mahalingam, T V. Inscriptions of the Pallavas, no 76
5 Mahalingam, T V. Inscriptions of the Pallavas, no 49
6 Srinivasan, K R. Cave-Temples of the Pallavas. p 125
7 Nagaswamy, R. Mahabalipuram.
8 Mahalingam, T V. Inscriptions of the Pallavas, no 45


text:
Efforts Persist to Contain Oil Spill
Because of a major oil spill, the shrimp season along the U.S. Gulf Coast was closed on Sunday, one day before it was scheduled to open. Video Courtesy of Reuters.
This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.
... the shrimp season along the U S Gold Coast was closed on Sunday ... one day before it was scheduled to open ... as the oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico ... slowly made its way closer to shore ... I want to read in Horus Louisiana Shrimpers prepare for the possibility ... that he will be sidelined for a ribbing ... for some time ... we also ... know there's ... been no ... we can go fishing for Fun you know ... where no one was legal ... I know but ... I knew it would add that ... definition isn't everything ... we lost every Kiwi benefit of the Fed's then ... low for Katrina so ... the major thing ... British Petroleum has claimed full responsibility for the oil spill ... which continues to caution estimated five thousand barrels of crude oil per day ... into the goal ... the company is already opened several claims offices throughout states in the region ... Dutch settled says EPC chief operating officer ... Ditto one of the line is to project there will be out working ... but we have the process and we can help them pay their bills ... it is in many cases they can be single and an action filed a claim and receive their Czech homes bought ... the team suffered a setback on Saturday eight ... as it tends to contain the oil with the meddled del ... Valle ... we tried the continued over we had the problem with the hike rates which would have ... effectively what were working on downs were gatherings of data ... to help us with two things one is another way to the containment in seconds ... other ways to achieve stop the flow and well environmentalists warned that if this oil is not stop from flowing soon ... this split could become one of the worst environmental disasters ... in US history ... John decker ... Reuters ...


text:
Watch Blake Shelton and 'The Voice' Coaches Perform "Honey Bee"
The superstars take over Hollywood Blvd on Halloween!
What do you get when Batman, Robin, Catwoman, and a penguin take over Hollywood Boulevard? Well, The Voice coaches gathering together to perform for a live crowd on Halloween.
Related: Watch Blake Shelton Perform "Turnin' Me On" Acoustic
Blake Shelton along with Kelly Clarkson, Jennifer Hudson, and Adam Levine performed "Honey Bee" together. The country superstar's 2011 tune is featured on his sixth studio album, Red River Blue.
Although it's even harder to take them seriously in costume, "every word was right on the money." There's no denying the chemistry between these four is just simply off the charts and you can catch more of The Voice coaches on Monday and Tuesday at 8/7c on NBC.
Blake Shelton will hit the road in 2019 for his 'Friends and Heroes Tour' with special guests The Bellamy Brothers, John Anderson, Trace Adkins, and Lauren Alaina.


text:
The idea of "work" is changing
Then next generation are shaping the nature of work and it is not as you know it.
If you think back 10, 20, 30 years and remember what you work life was like you'd have to agree that the way you do work is different. Not only that you probably thought about work differently then because your priorities were different.
30 years ago I was starting my first job. I was sold a job that would last me my life if I wanted it. I had to decide if I wanted to work there a long time and think about all the opportunities that employer would give me. I didnt think about what I would give them. I was looking for a career and money. In those days I worked for a bank. I saw centralisation then decentalisation, restructuring, take overs by other banks and finally I took redundancy and went overseas.
I changed careers and fought my way into a new job in a new city accross the ditch. I gained heaps of experience but I didnt have kids and I had a good income so I wasnt thinking beyond starting a family. After my family I was faced with another career change to work around my growing family. I didnt want to work full time anymore but employers dont get it. They dont have structures for working parents….I know there are some companies that do but I didnt work there. I couldnt understand why more companies didnt see the value I had to offer….just part time. I had to change again.
My definition of work has changed over the years and I am sure yours has too. Like me you may have changed jobs and careers many times already. Well I hate to tell you this but the idea of what work is and how it is presented is changing all the time. The sooner you get your head round it the better.
What did I do? I opened up a business working for myself. I now have 3 businesses, all working from home and the first biggest thing that I had to get used to was budgeting. These days I still hate the numbers stuff so I leave it to my accountant most of the time. I love being social though so I have upskilled on my social media marketing skills. I am reaching more people than ever before and learning and collaborating with poeple to change the way I work all the time. It takes work on your mindset too in order to roll with the punches. Be flexible and learn to keep ahead of the game. What is it you really want to do? Maybe it is time you called the shots and ran your own business? Running your own business could be offering a service. Packaging your skills up and selling them to businesses on contract. Maybe you have a hobby you want to start making money from.
Sounds like you need to change your mindset, find out more about what is possible and seek some advice or join a community to see what others are doing.
Need help?
We specialise in helping businesses succeed. Check out all the great blogs we have written. Check out our website www.anywherebusines.co.nz and see who we are and how we can help you. Heaps of free stuff.
Kerri Bainbridge
One half of the Anywhere Team NZ


text:
UFC 225: Dos Anjos vs Covington Betting Odds
The interim welterweight title will be on the line when Rafael dos Anjos and Colby Covington face off at UFC 225 in Chicago on June 9. As of the morning of the fight, Covington found himself as the -140 favorite with dos Anjos coming back at +110.
Dos Anjos has found renewed life since jumping to the welterweight division, rattling off three straight victories over Tarec Saffiedine, Neil Magny and Robbie Lawler. RDA's main wheelhouse is his grappling – though his pressure-based striking is not to be underestimated. Dos Anjos is a third-degree black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu and has nine career victories via submission.
Covington comes into this match riding the momentum of his five-fight winning streak and controversial remarks on the mic. The former D1 wrestler enters the Octagon looking to grapple with his opponent and suffocate them, slowly zapping their energy. His striking is aggressive but not the most technically refined, serving as a way to initiate his grappling.
This looks like it could very well be a grappling affair. Covington will certainly want to get on top of dos Anjos – especially considering he will be the bigger fighter – but the Brazilian is no slouch on the mat.


text:
Rapid Catalyst LLC
A Digital Consulting Firm
Janet L.Parnes, Social Conversation & Etiquette Consultant
As a social conversation & etiquette consultant. I offer programs for a wide range of clients. My clients who are adults/professionals (and aspiring professionals) learn the social and business skills
Strategic Adrenaline
Strategic Adrenaline works with small business owners and entrepreneurs who are looking to define or redefine their business and/or marketing strategies for optimum growth.
Parzenn Partners
Business Advisory Services for Marketing and Operations.
Dynol Consulting
Offering Human Capital Consulting services.
Fridman Strategies
Consulting, training and coaching for values-driven organizations and leaders.
Schooley Mitchell
We are professional independent consultants helping you to profit by staying on top of the Telecom, Merchant Services, Waste and Small Package Shipping marketplace on your behalf.
MomUp connects organizations looking to accomplish project-based work with high-level, experienced women looking to re-enter the workforce.
Romano Strategic Communication
Brand strategist and marketing writer with extensive experience serving B2B and B2C clients, from small start-ups to Fortune 500 global leaders in healthcare, financial services, education, technology
CMIT Solutions of Boston, Newton, Waltham
We help you achieve your goals, whatever your business, by making technology work for you. We provide IT consulting and computer support services so you no longer have to worry about IT.
Levine, Caufield, Martin & Goldberg, PC
''LCMG'' is a full-service public accounting firm. Our clients include a diverse base of individuals, business entities and not for profits. We do more than just prepare your tax return.
ArtScience Group - Executive Coaching and Exchanges - Because Leading is Both, Art and Science
Executive Coaching and Team Facilitation
Bonnie Katz Design
Bonnie Katz Design is a full-service web and graphic design firm. We create websites, logos, brochures, announcements, fundraising packages, and marketing materials of all kinds. Let's talk.
LiveWire Collaborative
Angela is Founder and CEO of LiveWire Collaborative, a digital marketing consultancy. Services includes training for corporations, one-on-one Executive Coaching, Strategy and Implementation, Facebook.
Penzo Consulting
Environmental Consultant Sole Practitioner offering Massachusetts LSP services, Hydrogeological Services. Environmental Site Assessment and Remediation Services. Our clients include but are not limit
Trinity Law Group
Practicing the broad spectrum of business law and strategy for Needham/Newton, Boston and global clients for 35 years. Special interests in start-ups, mergers, technology, contracts, HR and strategy.
A1 Real Estate Solutions
A1RE Solutions is a professional, full-service real estate solutions firm, including Design and Build services.
Crackerjack Communications
Full-service, award-winning marketing communications firm: copywriting & graphic design services for digital, print, and video
Conway, Inc
Conway is a trusted advisor to government economic development and investment promotion agencies around the world. We are a service and solutions company, facilitating new investment.
Adviser Investments
Wealth-management firm with ~80 employees and $5-billion of assets under management.
Tranquility Systems
Effective, Energizing IT Application & Network Strategies
Pracademic Solutions
Building, Fire, and Access Code Consulting; urban planning and public health consulting
ICO Energy and Engineering, Inc.
ICO Energy and Engineering guides and helps our clients navigate the energy markets to viable and sustainable solutions. We offer a full spectrum of energy-consulting services.
Mitzi Weinman, founder of TimeFinder offers practical approaches to personal productivity. She is a speaker, author, trainer & coach.
A commercial and industrial solar advisory firm. We ensure that your company's switch to solar is seamless. Our clients save more than 30% on their switch to solar energy.


text:
Looks like Samsung has already uploaded the user manual for the impending 12-inch NC20 netbook that's supposed to launch soon. A quick perusal through the 200+ page guide (you can download it here) doesn't reveal much startling information, but we do get a look at some product photos and a full spec list.
As previously reported, Samsung will go with a VIA Nano processor over Intel's Atom chip, the screen will be 12.1 inches at 1280×800, and the machine will come with a six-cell battery.
The NC20 is expected to launch next month starting at around $500 or so, depending on the configuration.
[via SlashGear]


text:
If you need to add that surreal moment to your event….
The impressive Niagara Falls booth
This rental couch is available, btw, in pink
It's no secret that the meetings and incentives business is huge in Canada. But if you needed proof, the Metro Toronto Convention Centre was the place to be last week. It was the venue for the annual Ignite Business Event Expo, a massive undertaking showcasing the services of dozens of destinations, airlines and, yes, cupcake providers.
"We estimate we have 175 exhibitors representing some 400 suppliers," Ignite's Richard Elliott told me. This is the first time they have partnered with the Special Events Show to showcase all-things-meetings-and-incentives for buyers from across the country.
Here are a few tasty tidbits gleaned from exhibitors:
Porter: The famous tunnel to Billy Bishop Airport? "By June," Porter's Brock Dale assured me. And jets? "We're hoping for September."
VoX: Guess who has just signed Jumeirah Hotels, Resorts & Residences? Truly jaw-dropping properties throughout the Middle East as well as in Europe, the Maldives and Shanghai.
Ripley's Aquarium of Canada (located near the CN Tower): They accommodate up to 1,200 for a buyout, a popular option for banks and insurance companies. But sorry, "We get asked, but no one is allowed into the tanks." (Darn.)
Bermuda: Look for more emphasis on experiential tourism, including guided nature walks along the island's charming former railway trail. Elbow Beach, one of the island's legendary hotels, makes families welcome with free sailing instruction for kids at the local yacht club and free art classes at Masterworks Museum of Bermuda Art. Outside Magazine has found 40 great adventures on this tiny isle.
At the adjacent Special Events show, booths promoted everything from apps to mechanical bulls, staging to entertainment, furniture rentals to sailing adventures. And one adorable photo booth in a vintage VW van.


text:
Sylvia Hoeks attended a photocall for 'The Girl in the Spider's Web' on Monday (June 11) in Barcelona, Spain.
The Dutch actress has always given us uber sleek, modern looks on the red carpet, and this Carmen March Fall 2018 bustier and draped trousers combo was no different.
I'm fully celebrating this look for its sensual tailoring, beautiful drapery, uniqueness and effortless styling.
Credit: Vogue.com & Getty


text:
| 7.3°C Belfast
A Danish man shot dead his three children but then failed to kill himself with an overdose of pills.
Police went to the man's home in Birkeroed, north of Copenhagen, after a call from his estranged wife.
She was worried by a text message from the man saying he would take the children "on a journey".
The couple had split custody of the children.
When police arrived at the father's home, they found two boys, aged two and 10, and an eight-year-old girl shot dead.
The father was conscious but ill, apparently from an overdose of sleeping pills. Police believe he tried to kill himself after the attack.
Police refused to identify him in line with Danish privacy rules
Belfast Telegraph


text:
Mitsubishi LT-3050
Today's Best Tech Deals
Picked by TechHive's Editors
Top Deals On Great Products
Picked by Techconnect's Editors
Mitsubishi LT-3050
Mitsubishi's LT-3050 captured first place in our April 2005 wide-screen LCD TV roundup on the strength of superior image-quality scores and a solid set of features: If price is no object, this set--the most expensive one we looked at--is the way to go.
A few of the LCD TVs in our roundup did a good job of rendering programs shot in broad daylight but struggled with shaded or dimly lit scenes; the Mitsubishi, however, excelled in displaying all types of lighting.
Though it lacks preset picture modes (such as movie, sports, and video game) the LT-3050 provides individual settings for both primary (red, green, and blue) and secondary (yellow, magenta, and cyan) colors, permitting precise calibration. Like most of the other models we saw, the LT-3050 remembers color and other image settings for each input type--digital, component video, and so on. You also get six picture format sizes: standard, expand, zoom, stretch, narrow, and wide.
This 30-inch set is the only model here with a height-adjustable stand (you can raise or lower it by up to 2 inches) and the only one with a small subwoofer integrated with a stereo sound system that has 13 watts total--fine for a small space, but in a larger area we'd prefer more power. On-screen menus and universal remote functions are relatively simple to use, and the comprehensive manual includes an index and a troubleshooting section.
Excellent adjustability and top-notch picture quality put the LT-3050 at the top of its class.
Richard Jantz
This story, "Mitsubishi LT-3050" was originally published by PCWorld.
Mitsubishi LT-3050


text:
Judicial Selection in the United States
Judges in the United States are selected through a variety of methods, from popular elections to appointment by chief executives, legislatures, or other judges. Some of these methods are more effective than others in assuring public confidence in the integrity and quality of our courts.
- To identify and promote models for choosing state and federal judges that promote and preserve fair, high quality, and trusted courts.
Through empirical analysis and recommendations, thought leadership, and substantive support, IAALS works to identify and promote models for choosing state and federal judges that emphasize qualifications and experience, limit political considerations and special interest influence, and provide transparency.
IAALS formerly housed this work under its Quality Judges Initiative until 2018.
Changes to existing processes for choosing, retaining, and evaluating judges are on the legislative agenda in states around the country. Lawmakers and fair courts advocates in a handful of states are working to replace politicized judicial selection systems with processes that better ensure judicial impartiality and accountability and public confidence in the courts. At the same time, in other states, lawmakers and special interests want to alter or abolish processes that achieve these goals.
With legal and empirical analysis and research-based recommendations, IAALS supports state efforts to promote and preserve fair, high quality, and trusted courts.
According to Article II of the United States Constitution, the President "shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint" most federal judges. In processes for selecting some of these federal judges, an additional component may be in place—one that resembles the judicial nominating commissions used in 33 states and the District of Columbia to choose state judges.
IAALS has conducted research on two such components:
- The federal judicial screening committees used by some U.S. Senators to vet potential judicial nominees and recommend individuals that the Senators might then submit to the White House; and
- The merit selection panels used by U.S. Court of Appeals judges in each circuit to screen applicants for bankruptcy judgeships and make recommendations regarding potential nominees.
- Non-Administrative Law Judges (Non-ALJs), who are executive branch adjudicators not governed by the Administrative Procedure Act.
Click here for information about Federal Judicial Screening Committees in place as of August 2017.


text:
The BBC have released 3 more 'movie-style' posters for the next few episodes of Doctor Who - still keeping details (and the name of) Steven Moffat's finalé under wraps for now. Click through to see the posters for Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS, The Crimson Horror and Nightmare in Silver!
Update: Pictures are now available in high-res/wallpaper-sized editions. Click to expand, then open the images in a new tab to get the full sized images!
Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS:
The Crimson Horror:
Nightmare in Silver:


text:
390157 - Coaches G & H, Manchester Piccadilly
390157 - Chad Varah
The final Pendolino to wear cast metal nameplates, with all being replaced by Vinyls during the Pendolino repaint programme.
390157, Manchester Piccadilly, 1A49 MAN-EUS
The final original liveried Pendolino sits at Manchester Piccadilly, preparing to work 1A49 to London Euston.
319385 & XC Voyager, Manchester Picadilly
Northern class 319 & CrossCountry Voyager at Manchester Picadilly. In the background, 390157, the final original liveried Pendolino, can be seen.
390046 Virgin Trains arrives at Manchester Piccadilly
Working 1H10 London Euston to Manchester Piccadilly.
Virgin Trains - Old and New, and now history
A shot that I was more than pleased to be able to get. What nearly turned into me being bowled in photographing 390157 lead to one of the last opportunities to get such as shot. Two fully branded Virgin Pendolino's, side by side in new and original livery. 390046 was arriving working 1H10 London Euston to Manchester Piccadilly, as 390157 was departing working 1A49 Manchester Piccadilly to London Euston.
One of my last day time phots of this unit, and the original VTWC Pendolino livery.
319369, Manchester Piccadilly
319369 working 1Y62 Blackpool North to Manchester Airport
Northern (Unbranded) 319364, Manchester Piccadilly
2F17 Wilmslow to Liverpool Lime Street
397007, Transpennine Express, 1S71
TPE 397007 working 1S71 Manchester Airport to Glagow Central.
220018 (XC), Manchester Piccadilly
1M42 Southampton Central - Manchester Piccadilly.
220018 & UID Voyager, Manchester Piccadilly
1M42 Southampton Central - Manchester Piccadilly / 1O24 Manchester Picadilly - Southampton Central (right to left)
185149 (TPE), Manchester Piccadilly
1P76 Middlesbrough to Manchester Airport
Passing TPEs - Manchester Piccadilly
Two TPE class 185s pass on the approach roads to Manchester Piccadilly - one working 1M97 Middlesbrough to Manchester Airport, the other working 1P31 Manchester Airport to Newcastle.
390011, Manchester Piccadilly
1H11 London Euston to Manchester Piccadilly
158857 (EMR Regional), Manchester Piccadilly
1R82 Norwich to Liverpool Lime Street
175107 (TfW), Manchester Piccadilly
5D36 Manchester Piccadilly - Manchester Piccadilly (A/W 1H85 from Chester, T/W 1D36 to Chester)
Possibly my last ever day time phot of the Virgin Trains Flowing Silk Livery. 390046 departs Manchester Piccadilly working the 15.35 to London.
158783 (EMR Regional), Manchester Piccadilly
1L13 Liverpool Lime Street to Norwich


text:
Skip to 0 minutes and 11 seconds In this lesson we're going to talk about attribute selection using the wrapper method. D'you remember way back in Data Mining with Weka, in the first class, you looked at glass.arff, you ran J48, you removed some attributes and – much to your surprise – you sometimes got better results with fewer attributes? Well, that was a laborious manual process, where you started with the full attribute set and removed the best attribute by selectively trying all possibilities; then you carried on doing that. You probably remember the pain involved. Well, of course there's a better way, and that's what the Select Attributes panel does.
Skip to 0 minutes and 50 seconds We're going to go to Weka, and I've opened the glass data set – there it is: 214 instances. I'm going to go to the Select Attributes panel. We're talking here about the wrapper method of attribute selection, and that involves wrapping up a classifier. We're going to wrap up J48, which is exactly what you did back then all those weeks ago. I'm going to use 10-fold cross-validation, which actually is what you did – although in Class 1 of Data Mining with Weka you'd never heard of cross-validation. That looks pretty good to me.
Skip to 1 minute and 24 seconds I'm going to select a threshold of –1: I'll explain that later on. Then we have a search method. We're going to use the BestFirst search, but we're going to search backwards – I'll talk about that later on. And we're going to have a search termination … yes, we're going to leave it at that. OK. Let's just run it. Now it's running, doing all those cross-validations. And, lo and behold, it's got the same attribute subset as you got before, and it's got a "Merit of best subset" of 74%. Going back to the slide here, that's really the same thing as we got before. Same subset, and the "merit" is the same as the accuracy.
Skip to 2 minutes and 11 seconds It's a little bit of a coincidence that we got the same results, because Weka doesn't do exactly the same thing, you know, the setting of the random number generator and so on. But anyway, we did get the same result here in this situation.
Skip to 2 minutes and 25 seconds A good question is: how many subsets we had to evaluate? How many attributes we had to evaluate? How much experimentation we had to do? I'm going to go back here, and I'm going to set the searchTermination to 1 – and again I will explain that in a minute – and run it again. And here it tells me that it's evaluated 36 subsets. Back on the slide, you can count these subsets. It took the complete attribute set and then it tried removing all of the 9 attributes, one by one. That's 9 more evaluations. Then it removed another attribute, 8 evaluations, and another one and another one, which gave it the final attribute subset.
Skip to 3 minutes and 5 seconds But to check that it was the final attribute subset and you couldn't do better by removing another attribute, it had to do a further 5 evaluations. And if you add up all of those, you get 36 subsets evaluated. The wrapper method involves an evaluation method and a search method. Let's talk about search. We were doing backwards searching. We started with all 9 attributes, and selected one to remove, and so on and so forth until we decided to stop; the searchTermination criteria. It would be equally viable to do forwards search, starting with a 0-attribute subset and adding the best attribute each time until you decided to stop. Or you could do bi-directional search.
Skip to 3 minutes and 53 seconds You could start with some random attribute subset – actually, Weka allows you to specify what attribute subset to start with – and then either add or subtract an attribute depending on which gives the most performance improvement.
Skip to 4 minutes and 7 seconds Or you could do exhaustive search: in this case there are 512 possible subsets of 9 attributes and you could simply try them all. The searchTermination criterion is interesting.
Skip to 4 minutes and 18 seconds When we did this manually, we stopped as soon as the results started to get worse: we got a local maximum in the search space. But you might do better by plowing on through that minimum that you get, going a little bit further to see if perhaps you might reach an even higher peak further on. If you set the searchTermination criterion to something greater than 1, then Weka will try a little bit harder, go a little bit further, before deciding to abandon the search. Now, I'm not going to show you all these different searches, but here are some results. It's a pretty [lengthy] process. I showed you Backwards search, and we got that first subset at a 0.72 evaluation.
Skip to 5 minutes and 7 seconds And then we set the searchTermination up to 5 which gives us a chance of powering on past a local maximum, finding an even bigger maximum in the search space, and that gives us a better evaluation. Or with Forwards search, you get that 3-attribute subset RI, Al and Ca. If you search on a little bit further instead of terminating the search prematurely, you can get a better subset with better accuracy. And Bi-directional search will give that 3-attribute subset, and again you can improve that by setting the searchTermination criterion to search a little bit further.
Skip to 5 minutes and 50 seconds Note that we are always finding a local optimum, but setting the searchTermination criterion to more than 1 gives you a chance of traversing a valley in the search space to find a better local optimum. I turns out that, on this dataset, "Al" is the single best attribute to use (OneR will confirm that for you), so all Forward search results will include "Al". Curiously, "Al" is the best single attribute to drop. So if you start with a full set, the best one to drop is "Al". This sounds pretty strange, and I must admit it is pretty unusual. But nevertheless it's true, and it's certainly not impossible. Let's go back to Weka here. I'm going to set cross-validation and see what happens.
Skip to 6 minutes and 40 seconds What it's doing now is doing the attribute evaluation 10 separate times. It's showing us here how many times this attribute, RI, appeared in the final attribute subset. In this case, it appeared in 9 out of the 10 attribute subsets.
Skip to 7 minutes and 0 seconds Coming back to the slide: in how many folds does this attribute appear in the final subset? You can see that RI and Mg and Ba appear in all 10 of the folds, and Al, Si, K and Fe appear in not too many, 2 or 3 of the folds. This gives you an indication of the stability of the attribute selection method. For this dataset it's not really very stable, as we've seen by getting all those different subsets when we try different parameters of the wrapper method. If we do forward search, of course, we will definitely choose Al, so this was done with Backwards search. The gory details of the Wrapper method.
Skip to 7 minutes and 50 seconds In general, Weka implementations follow descriptions in the research literature, so these parameters came from the research literature. It tries to do a 5-fold cross-validation by default, not a 10-fold cross-validation, but it doesn't necessarily do all 5 folds. It does at least 2 and up to 5 runs, and stops when the standard deviation is less than a user-specified threshold. Setting a negative threshold, which is what we did, forces a single cross-validation each time. The BestFirst search method is the default, and the searchTermination defaults to 5 for traversing valleys. The Wrapper method uses cross-validation to select the best attribute to add or drop at each stage. If we go back to Weka, there's another attribute evaluator, which is called the ClassifierSubsetEvaluator.
Skip to 8 minutes and 42 seconds That allows us to specify a classifier and also a hold-out file, so here we would use the hold-out file to evaluate each subset in turn. That's attribute selection using the Wrapper method.
Skip to 8 minutes and 58 seconds We use a classifier to find a good attribute set: we used J48. We wrap the classifier in a cross-validation loop.
Skip to 9 minutes and 7 seconds There are two components here: the attribute evaluator, which evaluates a subset of attributes; and the search method, which searches through the attribute space. Searching can be forwards, backwards, or bidirectional starting from any subset.
Skip to 9 minutes and 23 seconds It's computationally intensive: m^2 subsets need to be evaluated for m attributes, and there's an exhaustive method which evaluates 2^m subsets. Greedy search always finds a local optimum in the search space, and you can traverse valleys by increasing the searchTermination parameter.
"Wrapper" attribute selection
Fewer attributes often yield better performance! In a laborious manual process, you can start with the full attribute set and remove the best attribute by selectively trying all possibilities, and carry on doing that. Weka's Select Attributes panel accomplishes this automatically. The "wrapper" method wraps a classifier in a cross-validation loop: it searches through the attribute space and uses the classifier to find a good attribute set. Searching can be forwards, backwards, or bidirectional, starting from any subset.
© University of Waikato, New Zealand. CC Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.


text:
continues to be a priority as we strive to make it meaningful and
relevant to ourselves and the world around us. Guided reading and the
Accelerated Reader program are utilized to make these "connections."
Writing skills are developed daily in our Writers Workshop, which gives
us the opportunity to apply the writing process. Math is hands-on and
interactive as we apply these concepts to our daily lives to make it
more meaningful and fun. Literature, hands-on activities, study trips,
on-line videos, and group work are all used to assist in developing an
understanding of various topics in science and social studies. These two
subjects are taught on a rotating basis and are integrated into our
spelling and reading units.
appreciate parent help and support both in school and at home. We work
hard, study hard, and learn a lot in the third grade. It is an awesome
place to be, and we look forward to working with everyone for a
successful and fun year of learning.


text:
Tintin vs Cthulhu
There is something I have in common with Wilbur Waitley, I have a twin brother. As the same has said, we are both very much like our father and this is another Lovecraftian inside joke.
Anyway, my dear brother has brought my attention to a hilarious mash-up between the Cthulhu Mythos and Tintin, the much beloved classic Belgian comic book hero.
So here is one example, there are more. Just follow the link at the bottom of the post.
And now, for this and several related artworks please visit:


text: Sophie first qualified in Holistic Massage in 2006, after years in the publishing industry. She trained with the highly regarded Clare Maxwell-Hudson. Once qualifying in Holistic Massage she soon realised that many people not only need a relaxing treatment, but also seek help in reducing pain and often have injuries that benefit from treatment. This lead her to completing the BTEC level 4 Sports Injuries and Massage qualification in 2007. With many of her friends and family having babies she then embarked on a APNT Pregnancy Massage Course in 2009 and following that a Postnatal Massage diploma. In 2011/12 she completed a Neal's Yard Remedies Indian Head Massage Diploma. This is a fantastic treatment for reducing stress, headaches and insomnia amongst other benefits and can be done sitting up. She says, "Through my studies and life experience I appreciate the demands on the body and the mind. Massage is often seen as a relaxation tool, but it is so much more than that. It can alleviate acute and chronic injuries and make you more aware of your body for long term health. It is also a lovely way to bond with the baby and speed up recovery post birth. We all give cars a service, so why shouldn't we treat our bodies in the same way and regularly maintain it with massage. Each treatment is tailored to the client's individual needs. I love seeing the difference in a client from start to finish after each treatment and get tremendous satisfaction from seeing clients health and well-being improve over a course of treatments." For more information about Sophie please visit her website at sophiebower.co.uk


text:
I have been trying a lot of foods lately that I wasn't able to eat before, and they have all been a great success. Mostly I'm trying vegetables and spices since I'm going to continue to eat healthy from now on, but I did splurge on pizza for my birthday with no consequences! I really think my fructose malabsorption is gone. I don't really want to take the test again, since I'm afraid of that liquid fructose you have to drink, but I'm curious. Would anyone else want to know if my FM is gone?
This is one of my favorite treats and I eat it daily. Cashew bread is an excellent bread alternative. The texture is like a cross between white bread and cake, so it lends itself perfectly to jam. You can use any kind of jam you want, of course, but I like blueberry because I don't have to add any sugar to it. Also there's a lot of pectin in blueberries, so you don't need a lot of gelatin (but gelatin is good for you so this isn't actually a plus, it's just kind of cool).
This recipe is for two loaves. You can use a regular bread pan, but I like using two of these. It makes it really easy to pack for lunch.
Bread Ingredients
- 20 oz of cashews
- 1 teaspoon of salt
- 1 teaspoon of baking soda
- 2 heaping teaspoons of tapioca starch (optional)
- 4 eggs
- 1 cup of water
Jam Ingredients
- 12 oz of blueberries
- 1 tablespoon of lemon juice
- 1 teaspoon of gelatin
Jam Directions
Make sure you make the jam first, so it has time to firm up before you use it. I usually do it the day before.
Wash blueberries and blend together with lemon juice in a food processor.
Thoroughly mix the gelatin in the blueberry puree in a small pan and let sit for 10 minutes.
Put over high heat and mix until gelatin is dissolved (usually when the jam is heated through).
Poor into jars (I like these) and cool in the refrigerator.
Bread Directions
Preheat the oven to 300˚.
In a food processor, chop up the cashews.
Put the eggs and water into a measuring cup.
Add the baking soda, tapioca starch, and salt to the nuts and turn on the food processor.
Slowly add the eggs/water until everything is smooth.
Add evenly to your bread pans.
Bake for 50 minutes and then let cool on a cooling rack for an hour.
Elimination Diet safe: No.


text:
Issue hunting party
The Issue Hunting Party is used by the QA project to work concentrated on special tasks in the QA project. The first chat was used to reduce the number of open 'unconfirmed' issues. It is planned to give the Parties always a special topic like 'working on fixed/verified issues, bug hunting on new features etc.
The Issue Hunting Parties will take place on IRC on freenode in channel #qa.openoffice.org. The time will be announced here, on the qa @ dev.openoffice.org mailing list and in a blog on blogs.sun.com/gullfoss.
Issue hunting party 15th of July 2008
The focus on this chat was to reduce the number of 'unconfirmed' defects in IssueTracker.
Working on 'unconfirmed' defects
The QA team should take always a look at the unconfirmed defects. These are the new incoming issues, which aren't re-checked by a community member of the QA project. If the issue is valid it has to be set to state 'new'. Perhaps the summary should be adapted to a more feasible meaning and if possible the description should be shortened to a useful and clear description.
- unconfirmed defects in Framework => starting number = 412
- unconfirmed defects in Writer => starting number = 319
- unconfirmed defects in Spreadsheet/Chart => starting number = 295
- unconfirmed defects in Graphics (Presentation and Draw) => 26
- unconfirmed defects in Data Base => 49
- unconfirmed defects in other components => 281
Please take also a look at the blog by Thorsten Ziehm from Friday, 11th of July 2008. There you will find also links for the submission date of the 'unconfirmed' defects. http://blogs.sun.com/GullFOSS/entry/status_of_unconfirmed_defects_in
The overall number at startup of the chat : 1376 The overall number at the end of the chat : 1263
The number of issues could be reduces by more than 110 issues. If you add also the new incoming issues from that day on more than 120 issues was worked.
Working on 'fixed/verfied' issues
Working on fixed and verified issues (in a [CWS]), which are integrated into the product. A final check if there as still and also fixed in the final product is needed. If it is, than close the issue.
fixed and integrated issues in OOo 2.2.1 and older versions of OOo 2.x => starting number = 3
fixed and integrated issues in OOo 2.3/OOo 2.3.1 => starting number = 221
fixed and integrated issues in OOo 2.4/OOo 2.4.1 => starting number = 383
fixed and integrated issues on the way to OOo 3.0 => starting number = 889
The numbers doesn't changed in that chat. The focus was on reducing the 'unconfirmed' issues.
- You can edit the query, when you click on the link in the list. After that scroll to the end of the list and click 'Edit this Query'. For example than you can add the 'component' of your choice.
- some issues are 'developer issues', which cannot be verified easily by a QA person. So do not invest so much work in such issues.
- issues from QA persons by Sun can be verified often more easily (who are the QA persons there?)
- it is better to start with the newest issues, because they aren't often checked by a QA until now; older 'unconfirmed' issues are often checked by many people, but nobody take the responsibility to close the issue or send it as valid issue to a developer


text:
The mobile phone company said Prime Minister Samuel Hinds informed that the Telecommunications and Public Utilities Commission (PUC) bills would be debated.
Commenting on this recent update, Digicel's Chief Executive Officer, Gregory Dean says "Digicel is pleased to learn of this new development which is great news for Guyana."
"The Bills have been on the Parliamentary agenda since August 09, 2012 and while the wait has been a long one, we welcome the decision to progress following fruitful discussions between the Government and stakeholders," Dean said.
Digicel said it would now engage preparations with more certainty to introduce a number of incredible products and services especially in the areas of international calling and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) as the company seeks to become Guyana's leading communications network instead of only providing mobile communication services.
"The people of Guyana deserve to have the benefits of full and open competition in all sectors including the telecommunications sector," Dean concluded.
The Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company (GT&T) had for years held a monopoly on international voice and data, resulting in Digicel's international calls having to be routed through the incumbent provider.
GT&T has in the past also sought to block international calls via the Internet, saying that such providers were breaching its monopoly status and robbing it of billions of dollars annually.


text:
DOSI Group Photo (November 2015)
Principal Investigators
|Tom O'Sullivan, Ph.D.
Director, DOSI Lab
DOD Breast Cancer Fellow
|Bruce Tromberg, Ph.D
Director, Beckman Laser Institute
Principal Investigator, Laser and Medical Microbeam Program (LAMMP)
Professor, Biomedical Engineering
Affiliated Faculty
|Robert G W Brown, Ph.D.
Adjunct Professor, Beckman Laser Institute
3D endoscopy
APD photon-counting – and optical fiber sensors
Photon-correlation and Dynamic Light Scattering
Photonic systems engineering
|Anthony Durkin, Ph.D
Associate Professor (In Residence)
Characterization of human skin with DOSI
Research Staff
|Christopher Campbell, BS
Junior Specialist
Development of Low-Cost H. Pylori detector
|Kyle Cutler, M.S.
Biomedical Engineering
Handheld 3D tracking system for DOSI optical probes
|Amanda Durkin
Optical Instrumentation Specialist
DOSI instrument design and construction
|Brian Hill, M.S.
Research Programmer
EZDOS data acquisition platform
SSFDPM data analysis
|Alex Matlock, BS
Junior Specialist
DOSI Instrument Construction and Development
|George Philipopoulos, BS
Junior Specialist
Data Processing and Instrument Testing
|Hossein Seddighzadeh Yazdi, M.S.
Junior Specialist
Diffuse Correlation Spectroscopy (subsurface flow)
Time Domain Optical Spectroscopy
Postdoctoral Scholars
|Anais Leproux, Ph.D.
Optical technology translation Breast Cancer
ACRIN #6691 Clinical trial
Breast tumor detection with DOS
|Robert Wilson, Ph.D
Hewitt Fellow
Model-based tomography with DOSI
Visiting Scholars
|Alice Giardini
Graduate Student, Polytechnic University of Milan (Italy)
|Shwayta Kukreti, MD PhD
Radiologist (UCLA)
Spectral imaging of tumors
|Ylenia Santoro, Ph.D
Postdoctoral Scholar
DOSI in Colorectal Cancer
|Siavash Yazdi, BS
Graduate Student, Electrical Engineering
FDPM Circuit Design
Graduate Students
|Alex Jabbari
Biomedical Engineering
3D Endoscopy
|Jesse Lam
Biomedical Engineering
Minimally Invasive DOSI Probes
Instrument Calibration Methods
|Robert Warren
Biomedical Engineering
CARE Fellowship Recipient (ICTS)
Hemodynamic and cardiovascular applications of DOSI
Undergraduate Students
|Craig Nishita
Biomedical Engineering
Real-time optical spectroscopy
|Seraphim Telep
Biomedical Engineering
Minimally invasive DCS


text:
Images and text by Carter.
This book, Silence, was created by artists from the Barcelona-based illustration studio Lemniscates and published by the American Psychological Association. This struck me as such an unusual pairing, but then the story took over, and it just struck me as stunning. The words are gentle, lyrical, and full of wonder. We absorb the role of a black-haired and rosy-cheeked girl, mindful of the sounds that play in the silence. She represents a kid's point of view, but I saw myself in her just the same. I can hear my heart when running and my breath when still. I'm curious about what the stars say at night and what the birds sing in the morning.
Silence is profound in its stillness, but bold in its style, and that combination is so striking. I've grown so accustomed to living in a loud, bright, and bustling city. Sometimes I wander with a screen-lit face, turned away from noticing my true surroundings. Do you take time for quiet? Do you slow down to hear it? When I read Silence, I found myself in an elaborate daydream of wishing I were someplace else. But then I thought – Carter, you sure are missing the point of this story! So I stopped. I slowed down. I hoped for a more active practice of listening. And now I'm going to carry the charge from the final spread around in my pocket: Be still. Listen. How many things can you hear?


text:
Dallas Hangover: How Jerry Jones' Drunken Mishap Impacts the NFLApril 15, 2010
Most people call alcohol "liquid courage" because it gives them the unusual ability to approach attractive people of the opposite sex without a second thought.
Others, and now Jerry Jones, know alcohol for its more general ability to allow what we wouldn't ordinarily say to seep through the mental filters.
What might have been, for you and I, just an incidental slip of a silent distaste became a mind-numbing PR nightmare for Jerry Jones and the Dallas Cowboys.
There are the obvious ramifications that directly relate to the words that slurred out of Jones' mouth.
If he would bring in Parcells simply to help raise the necessary funds for Dallas Spaceship, what kind of relationship does he really have with his head coaches? A coach with the esteem and respect of Parcells was nothing more than a pre-game shot of whiskey. He got things headed in the right direction.
But what about the terrible example this sets for the players on his roster?
Jones is no stranger to a locker room divided. His 2008 Dallas Cowboys were a mish-mash of too many big characters. With all the work that's gone into overhauling that problem, the dismissals of Terrell Owens, Adam Jones, and Tank Johnson, could this be a step in the wrong direction?
Moreover, what about league-wide repercussions?
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has become notorious as a stickler for the rules, especially when it comes to the players. Although he has punished coaches in the past (see "Spygate, Belichick"), he has punished far more athletes.
Sure, there were no legal issues that came from Jones' loose lips, but Goodell needs to remember that he's enforcing anything that damages or threatens the integrity of the NFL.
Goodell needs to come down on Jones to continue to set the precedent in the NFL league-wide: players and front office personnel alike.
If he doesn't, the entire Cowboys roster will get the idea that it's okay for them to pull similar stunts. More importantly, the perception will grow of the NFL as an "owner's league," where management is pardoned for their mistakes while players suffer harsh consequences.
A lack of action by Goodell could further open the riff between the owners and players. With a lockout on the distant horizon, Goodell doesn't have time to wait. He needs to act swiftly to get this ship steered back in the right direction.
Needless to say, both Jones and Goodell need some time to let the hangover wear off before they try to clean up the drunken mess that Jones has made.
What would have been just another Tuesday night on the town for you or me was obviously much more than that for Jones.