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The Stellenbosch Reserve Moederkerk Chardonnay
Free Delivery with Orders over £75
The Stellenbosch Reserve Moederkerk Chardonnay is round, creamy and bold yet not over blown like so many other Chardonnays. It is the colour of fresh straw, with aromas of fresh citrus, lime and hints of lemon zest plus elegant pineapple notes that support the initial tropical impression. Deliciously balanced Stellenbosch Chardonnay on the palate, with a great follow through of citrus and pineapple from the nose. There are undertones of guava and papaya which add to the creamy style of the wine. This is a complex Chardonnay with a good balance of fresh acidity and creamy roundness, and an amazingly elegant finish.
Country: South Africa
Region: Coastal Region
Subregion: Stellenbosch
Vintage: 2014
Colour: White
Grape Variety: Chardonnay
Bottle Size: 75cl
Closure: Natural cork
Style: Complex and balanced
Drink With: Spaghetti carbonara
Stellenbosch has a warm, dry growing season and the different soil types and climatic conditions of the Devon Valley and the Helderberg allow for warmer fruit flavours to develop whilst adding complexity to the wine. Half of this Chardonnay was fermented in stainless steel tanks and the other half in French oak barrels, 15% new. The portions of wine were then matured separately for 6 months before being blended just prior to bottling.


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Bronze Moon Goddess Pendant.
Set on Sterling Silver with accents of:
Bronze Jaguar
Hand of Fatima to Ward off Evil
& a Petrified Shark's Tooth that is over 7,000 years old.
Jaguars are sacred to many different cultures around the world. They are worshipped by the Olmec, the Aztec and the Mayan peoples of Central America and by the Inca in the jungles of South America also. They are a Mystical Totem Animal - a symbol of Power, Strength, Beauty and Danger.
Hand Made Sterling Silver Chain is included.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
April 14, 2015 - The federal criminal justice system needs rethinking to reduce the prison population and to help former inmates reintegrate into society, U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee and the head of the nation's prison system advocated recently at the University of Houston Law Center on April 9.
Jackson Lee, D-Houston, a senior member of the House Judiciary and Homeland Security Committees, hosted Charles E. Samuels, Jr., director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, April 9 in a discussion called "Prison Reform & Re-Entry."
"Criminal justice is the infrastructure of lives of so many people," Jackson Lee said.
"In the jail system of America, there are about 2.3 million people. There are individuals who are able-bodied, but they are incarcerated."
The total annual budgets for the nation's prison and jail systems – at the federal, state and local levels – is $75 billion, she said, with the federal system alone accounting for $6 billion.
Both Jackson Lee and Samuels pointed out that from the 1940s, when the federal prison system was made into a single entity, to the 1980s, the total inmate population remained at an average of about 20,000 inmates.
But beginning in 1980, a nationwide push to get "tough on crime" and the so-called "war on drugs" resulted in policies such as mandatory minimum sentences that led to an explosion in the prison population. Today, there are 209,000 people in the federal prison system.
Since there are no paroles in the federal criminal system, Jackson Lee for many sessions of Congress, starting with the help of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, has introduced a "Good Time Early Release" bill aimed to allow federal inmates to be released earlier than their mandatory minimum sentences would allow. The current version, H.R. 71, called the "Federal Prison Bureau Nonviolent Offender Act," remains in committee.
"H.R. 71 is a valuable piece of legislation to begin to move people out of prison," she said.
Samuels, who began with the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) as a corrections officer in 1988 after receiving a B.A. in criminal justice from the University of Alabama (Birmingham), said he became interested in the prison system as a young child after seeing the classic road-gang movie "Cool Hand Luke."
"I had a lot of questions. I wanted to know what did prison actually mean?" he said.
Samuels said the Federal Bureau of Prisons today comprises 121 prisons, as well as other facilities called Regional Release Centers, across the nation, and employs 39,000 people.
"We're in the business of helping the individuals become productive, law-abiding citizens so they do not return to a life of crime," he said.
"Contrary to what you might have heard, we do not want to see the Bureau of Prisons continue to grow," Samuels said. The primary drivers of the federal prison population, he said, are the rates of prosecutions and the lengths of sentences – neither of which the BOP controls.
In 1980, the bureau had a budget of $330 million, an inmate population of 26,400, and 10,000 employees, he said. In the most recent fiscal year, the BOP budget was $6.8 billion – about 30 percent of the entire Department of Justice budget. To build a high-security prison now costs $500 million, he said.
"We are on a path that's unsustainable, he said. "We're also in the business of doing what we can to help. We do not want to be a burden on the taxpayers. We have a duty and an obligation to do everything we can to reduce those numbers."
Samuels said the BOP also has "a duty and obligation to the children of incarcerated parents, male and female." The federal prison system is 93 percent male and 7 percent female, he said, with women prisoners numbering 13,900. The bureau faces a large challenge in ensuring that it provides equity to all prisoners it its programs and policies, he said.
"The prison system should never be used to enforce punishment on an individual to make their lives miserable. The punishment should be the time they serve. We should be doing everything to ensure that the programs that are being taught serve these individuals, because we are a nation of second chances. If we fall short of that, then we're only hurting this issue. We are not being part of the solution," he said.
Samuels pointed to several recent initiatives the bureau has undertaken to help inmates connect with their families and other people important in their lives. Research shows that inmates who have such connections have a much lower recidivism rate, he said.
Among those programs are a recent "Dads and Daughters" dance at a BOP facility in Miami and a "Mom and Me" event at a facility in Kentucky.
"We also provided, for the first time, an opportunity for children to spend the night with their mother at our facility in Brooklyn," he said. While many people might express concerns about children spending the night in a jail, he said, "I can assure you that for those children who have that opportunity to spend that quality time with their mother, it was priceless."
Samuels noted that the BOP releases approximately 40,000 people back into the nation's communities.
"We want these individuals when they're released to be better off," he said. "Reentry begins in the federal prison system the moment an individual enters our system. We believe it's important those conversations start very early on."
Samuels said the BOP's reentry programs, which cost an average of $600 million annually, are evidence-based and cost-effective. He encouraged people to learn about the programs at the bureau's website.
Samuels said that under the "Smart on Crime" programs initiated by Attorney General Eric Holder, BOP in fiscal year 2014 saw its first population decrease – by 10,200 inmates – in 34 years. "This is huge," he said. Overcrowding at federal prisons has fallen from 40 percent over capacity to 28 percent, he said, reducing the propensity for violence among inmates.
These initiatives, which focus on reducing the number of low-level, nonviolent drug offenders as well as "compassionate releases" based on medical and other factors, are not putting the public at risk, Samuels asserted.
"When inmates leave our custody and our staff members wish them luck and encourage them to make good decisions, fortunately most do," he said. "I'm proud that only 20 percent of individuals that are released from the BOP return. And when we look at the overall recidivism rate for federal, state and local, that number is 40 percent. Which tells you we still have work to do, and we will continue to do our best in that area."
In a question-and-answer session that followed Samuels' presentation, Jackson Lee said that there is "a great movement afoot" in the Congress to reduce mandatory minimum sentences, which many see as a key driver of the large inmate population. But, she said, there are some high-ranking members of Congress who are "not ready to deal with mandatory minimums."
Both Jackson Lee and Samuels urged the audience to make the case – including talking to legislators and writing opinion columns – for prison reform.
The UHLC discussion was one of the last stops in a whirlwind day in Houston in which Jackson Lee and Samuels talked with local officials and community leaders at the downtown Mickey Leland Federal Building and with faculty and students at Texas Southern University.


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When it comes to fashion, New York gets the spotlight but Los Angeles gets the job done.
A new analysis from real estate website Trulia confirms what we've said before: L.A. is America's fashion capital. Our rationale is that more clothing is manufactured here than anywhere else in the United States.
Trulia analyzed the number of fashion businesses and real estate opportunities in several American big cities to crown the "most fashionable" city in the United States — Los Angeles.
We beat New York, which came in at No. 2, but check out the details: Southern California also includes No. 3 Anaheim and No. 4 Riverside. Austin, Texas, came in fifth.
USC professor Elizabeth Currid-Halkett, a cultural economy expert, says L.A. is a longtime fashion-industry underdog that deserves these laurels.
"I'm not surprised by this result," she said. "The fact that Los Angeles is arguably the country's biggest manufacturing center for fashion will have spillover in terms of what's actually available. What L.A. is really good at is high-end casual sportswear. L.A. is gaining in reputation."
Trulia released its "Fashion Index" report ahead of New York Fashion Week, which officially kicks off tomorrow. It also found that "the most coveted celeb closets" all belonged to Angelenos — Kendall Jenner, Chrissy Teigen, Yolanda Foster and (of course) Kim Kardashian.
For its ranking of the "Most Fashionable Cities in the U.S.," the site looked at "Yelp data on local businesses and Trulia's real estate listing data," a spokeswoman said.
"We [also] counted the number of businesses in Yelp that were categorized as fashion, personal shopping or bespoke clothing," she said. "We controlled for how big each metro area is by dividing the total count of Yelp businesses related to fashion in each metro by the number of occupied households in each metro."
If you like this story, consider signing up for our email newsletters.
You have successfully signed up for your selected newsletter(s) - please keep an eye on your mailbox, we're movin' in!
"Hollywood is very much a lens by which the whole world views L.A.," the professor said.


text:
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Edible water beadsNovember 13, 2014 at 8:17 am | Posted in Homeschool, Kids activities, Preschool plays, Uncatogorized, xuen and Lyn | Leave a comment
Today's weather was windy and partly cloudy, it is just a wonderful day for children to carry out a fun outdoor activity. My girls have cousin E to join the fun play today. They wanted to have a mini camping and fun games. The three cheeky pies wanted to play with mix water beads with colors. They seen this activity from Pinterest a few days ago. Go ahead kids!
We had a great fun and messy play outdoor.
We used big pearl sago. Cooked it for abot 30 minutes or until it swell up. Leave it cool down or rinse it with cold water so that children can place their hands in to play it.
Sago is a starch taken from the center of sago palm stems. Sago has similarities to tapioca, including its look, taste and feel. However, sago is not tapioca, which comes from a different plant. You can, however, substitute tapioca for sago in many recipes.
The kids mixed sago beads with food coloring.
Time to get mess!
Mess is Fun,
."….so, what are we going to do with these beads?"
"Kids, you got to help to clean up the mess. Tell me what can you do with it?"
" We had a great idea! Lets add it into the compost."
Wishing you have a lovely DIY day!
Cute mini bunny bao / steam bunAugust 12, 2014 at 4:26 am | Posted in Asian foods, food, food art, Foods, Homeschool, Kids activities, Kids cooking, Kids foods, Party foods, Preschool plays | Leave a comment
Little sweet pea loves mini bunny bao (steam bun). This morning little sweet pea and I had fun playing with the boa dough and our mini bunny bao turned out lovely and yummy.
Here is the recipe that I use with Thermomix machine. This recipe was taken from 'easily cook for you own.blogspot.com', I have a problem of linking it here.
130 g water
1 tsp yeast
15 g sugar
15 g oil
250 top flour*
Pinch of Salt
*Not high protein / multi-purpose flour
|Temp (°C)
|1) Add water, yeast, sugar and oil into TM bowl
|2) Add flour and salt to mix
|3) Knead the mixture
|Knead function
|4) Roll, cut and shape into pieces, place them on oiled Varoma dish and tray. Leave it to rise for 30 mins
|5) Add 500g water to boil
|6) When temperature reached V, remove measuring cup and put on Varoma dish to steam
|Varoma dish with mantou
|Balance of at least 10 mins
If you do not use Thermomix. Please follow this recipe that I taken from China Sichuan Food.com.
- 300g all-purpose flour
- 2 and 1/2 teaspoon instant yeast (one packet instant yeast)
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 150g water or milk
- Prepare warm water around 35 °C and melt the sugar in. And mix the yeast with the water. Mix well and set aside for around 5 minutes. If you do not want sugar, just skip it.
- Prepare the flour in a large bowl. Pour the water with yeast slowly to the bowl with flour and stir with a chop sticker.
- Then knead the flour into smooth and soft dough. At the very beginning, it might be a little bit sticky.
- Cover the bowl and let the dough rest for around 1 hour or until the paste ball doubles in size. This process can be done by mixer.
- When the dough is double in size, get paste ball out and punch the air out.
- Then roll the dough into a long log around 1 inch in diameter or any size you want.
- Scatter some flour on your board and cut the log to small sections you like. Brush some oil on the bottom of each bun.
- Add cool water in wok and put the buns in the steamer to steam. Continue to steam for around 15 minutes after the water boils.
Read more at http://www.chinasichuanfood.com/chinese-steamed-buns/
Have a Lovely DIY day!
Simple bread SticksJune 3, 2014 at 1:17 pm | Posted in DIY gift, food, Homeschool, Kids activities, Kids cooking, Kids foods, Party, Party foods, Preschool plays | Leave a comment
This is a good recipe for using up the excess bread crusts. I taught my daughter to use the crusts to make simple bread sticks. Today she made this simple toasted bread sticks for her dad :). We all love it especially when we have it with hot tea.
Coat the crusts with melted butter.
Pop them in to oven for 10-15 minutes at 130 C until golden brown
Remove, allow to cool.
This is an awesome father's day gift.
Have a Lovely DIY Day!
DIY colored saltMarch 22, 2014 at 5:34 am | Posted in Home deco, Homeschool, Kids activities, Uncatogorized | 2 Comments
Salt, food color
Put one small drop of food color into the salt.
Mix them well. It take a little bit of time to stir and mix until color is evenly mixed.
My DIY colored salt in 15 minutes. Aren't they beautiful. Mt kids are going to use it for making sand art.
Fun Preschool Activity-build with scrap feltFebruary 20, 2014 at 9:46 am | Posted in Homeschool, Kids activities, Preschool plays, Uncatogorized | Leave a comment
Recycle scrap felt. Cut the felts into different sizes and shapes for children to play and build. This is an easy DIY preschool activity that you can carry out at home. The felts are washable. All you need to do is place the felt pieces into a small cloth bag, tied it then put it in the washing machine.
My girl loves to play building with the felt.
Set up fun outdoor activity for kidsApril 26, 2013 at 1:22 pm | Posted in Homeschool, Kids activities, Preschool plays, Uncatogorized | Leave a comment
Tags: activites for kids, Homeschooling, preschool home play
Staying outdoor is fun! My girls have been asking us to build a tent in our garden for them. Instead of setting up a camping tent, I was thinking of a simple and lovely tent set up by using mosquito netting. Anyone can build this anytime, anywhere. I am sure kids will have fun playing inside this little netting tent.
Picnic in the tent. What a beautiful day!
DIY valentine's gift ( CD case photo frame)January 22, 2013 at 3:40 am | Posted in DIY gift, Homeschool, Kids activities, Preschool plays, Uncatogorized | Leave a comment
Tags: DIY valentine gift
Are you looking for unique valentine's gift? DIY gifts can be the most meaningful presents for someone you love.
All you need to do are:
1. Prepare an empty disc casing.
2. Remove the cover and replace it with the photo that you had selected.
3. Decorate your cover photo by putting on some stickers or message. Done!
I absolutely love this idea. I had made a few for my friends as well as to decorate my home. Hope you will love this too.
DIY gifts shows thoughfulness. A simple DIY gift will make the best gift!
Happy Valentine's Day to all.
DIY Valentine's gift ( Forever love- coffee for valentine)January 18, 2013 at 7:51 am | Posted in DIY gift, Homeschool, Kids activities, Preschool plays, Uncatogorized | 1 Comment
Tags: DIY valentine gift
Forever Love Coffee for Valentine
Happy Valentine's Day to all
Bread lolliJanuary 8, 2013 at 2:04 pm | Posted in Foods, Homeschool, Kids activities, Kids cooking, Kids foods, Party foods, Preschool plays, Uncatogorized | Leave a comment
Tags: activites for kids, Cooking, Homeschooling, kids cooking, preschool home play
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Designed to please fans of Soldier of Orange and Showgirls (and perhaps to apologize for their transgressions), Paul Verhoeven's Black Book may end up disappointing everyone. Based on true events but not a true story (at least according to a sly Verhoeven), the film imagines Nomi Malone's vagina dentata laying waste to the Nazis. This is an enticing proposition, except this voluptuously directed epic crumbles beneath the weight of its well-oiled but mechanical plot. Clarice van Houten is Rachel, a pretty young Jewish girl whose hideout in the Netherlands is bombed while she sunbathes on a nearby wharf. With the help of a man who claims to be part of the resistance, she goes deeper into hiding only to see her entire family (and boyfriend) shot down by the SS. From there it's one impossible close call after another, a two-hour-plus thrill ride that has Rachel joining forces with the resistance, changing her name to Ellis and dying her hair (and pubes) in order to spy on the Nazis, and falling in love with a high-ranking SS officer. Staked to the rafters with double-crossings and red herrings (no stamp collection or chocolate bar will be without purpose), Black Book does not starve for intrigue, but its thrust can be exhausting. Because Verhoeven allows for little feeling between his tightly-wound set pieces, asking us to marvel at the film's machinations as we might a cute boy or girl thrusting up against a pinball machine (which is to say with great physical desirability but a discernable lack of emotional attachment), the characters do not scan beyond archetypes. (From the periphery of Ellis's adventures, we catch flip cartoon glimpses of characters suffering through personal crisis, as in the young Catholic man who goes berserk after he kills a man for cursing.) Verhoeven is interested in the idea of Ellis's sexual agency as a weapon of mass destruction but doesn't care to clarify where the woman's natural feminine wile ends and where her artificial Mata Hariness begins. And though there is always a sense that Ellis is exercising her leverage as a woman on her own terms, it's still a confounding road from the moment she hitches up her skirt to tease a cat-calling group of soldiers and the humiliating spectacle of a cauldron of shit being dumped on her naked body. In the end, she is not unlike the film itself—a creature of fierce action but vague instincts.
Color saturation is bold, skin tones are accurate, and shadow delineation inspires awe-in short, an image that is as voluptuous as Carice van Houten's performance. The audio is immersive, with great dynamic range and active surrounds.
After curiously rattling off a list of some of his films, Paul Verhoeven settles for explaining whatever is happening on the screen at any given time. Stick with it and you'll be rewarded-by the director's pronunciation of "vagina" and "balls" and remembrances from his youth. During an early kitchen-set sequence, Verhoeven recalls the awful watery soup he had to drink during war, made of sugar beets or tulips; later he remembers the rapture of dancing around a sausage when he was seven, though it remains unclear if it was a single sausage link or an entire cartoon-like chain of them. Rounding out the disc is a standard making-of featurette and a bunch of previews.
Finally, a Verhoeven film your mother and father can rally behind. Compromised, yes, but still a necessary experience for anyone who's been starving for a new film from the director since 2000's Hollow Man.


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The end of capitalism as we know it
Long before the word globalisation entered the language of the media in the Eighties, a group of scholars had been insisting on a holistic treatment of politics, economics and history. The class, the nation, the state or the economy—each of these was too narrow, the wrong unit of analysis, they insisted.
It all had to be looked at as part of a world system, extensive and interlinked.
Immanuel Wallerstein has taken Marxism as the base for his theoretical superstructure. He began his career by studying the political economy of West African states in the early Sixties, meeting Frantz Fanon along the way and writing a defence of the heterodox theorist in the face of scepticism from traditional leftists.
By 1974 Wallerstein published the first of a trilogy, titled The Modern World-System, vol. I: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century. He has since added two more volumes to the series which, with scores of further books, make for an intimidating oeuvre.
A professor of sociology at a string of universities, including Binghamton and Yale, Wallerstein, not quite retired, delivered two speeches at Wits and the University of Johannesburg recently, outlining the past and present of capitalism and predicting a dire future for humans all over the globe. Born in New York City 79 years ago, his air of authority drew deference from local luminaries, with prominent academics and activists posing serious questions to a scholar who has been exploring his field since the early Fifties. Wallerstein was president of the International Sociological Association between 1994 and 1998 and, until 2005, head of the Paris-based Fernand Braudel Centre for the Study of Economies, Historical Systems and Civilizations, a school that from its inception looked at la longue durée, against the short-termism of much social science.
Wallerstein sees the period from 1945 to 1970 as having gone through the largest economic expansion in history. He says we are still enmeshed in the downturn that followed and we are unlikely to emerge until an entirely new form of social organisation takes the place of capitalism, a process likely to take 50 or so more years.
Capitalist cycles recur because two factors underpin the system: a process of monopolisation, which facilitates super-profits, and a hegemonic process that secures the conditions for monopolisation. But both of these are cyclical and under certain conditions they fall apart: the entry of new producers brings more competition and breaks up the monopoly, while, more slowly, world orders dissolve when other superpowers emerge.
Wallerstein says the world was profoundly transformed by the events of 1968. Revolts in major cities of the world as well as in more peripheral locations were all connected, a series of apparently local happenings all produced by a major structural shift in world capitalism between 1966 and 1970. One of the first signs of this came in 1967 when the dollar underwent a crisis from which it has never quite emerged.
Wallerstein presents several theses with regard to 1968: that it was a revolution against US hegemony; that the "more passionate" protests were directed against the "old left". The counterculture, he avers, was a product of revolutionary euphoria, secondary to the main event, its high point being Woodstock. It had a long history, 200 years to be precise, and, believe it or not, even in post-1917 Russia free love was to be had.
May 1968 in Paris was the scene of the most brazen confrontation between the old and the new left, the authority of the former effectively dissolved. Communist parties and national liberation movements lost their pre-eminence. The assumptions of 150 years of radical thought were overthrown: the central one being that capturing the state could be the basis for the transformation of society. In the developing world it was Mexico that experienced some of the most intense protests, a country where the oldest national liberation movement had been in power since its revolution in 1910.
For Wallerstein, everything works in cycles; hegemonies also alternate. Modern capitalism has had only three hegemonic powers: the United Provinces established their world order in the mid-17th century, the United Kingdom in mid-19th century and the United States in the mid-20th century. And for a decade now the professor has been saying that US hegemony is on the way out. Once secured as top dog, the hegemonic state "is able to set the rules by which the interstate system operates".
Today, he says, capitalism has reached a stage so depleted that not even capitalists defend the system. Costs of every factor of production have risen so steeply, amid a period in which all the traditional methods of replenishing the system have been exhausted, that capital will one day cease to yield returns.
His argument is complex. Three major costs are incurred in production: personnel, material inputs and taxation. Each of these has become more expensive. When unskilled labour becomes too expensive, capital relocates. But there are fewer and fewer places to which to relocate. When relocation takes place, it is, initially, a win-win situation for both capital and labour. But labour soon realises that it is being exploited and agitates for higher wages.
Inputs have become more expensive also. When costs rise, the problem for the capitalist is to find ways of not paying the bill. If factories produced waste, this was a cost passed on to the state. But environmental imperatives see states demand that capital bears the costs of "collateral damage".
State taxes and private taxes have gone up. Businesses have to pay their local mafiosi and corrupt officials continue to extract their pounds of flesh, the weight of which increases as the cost of living pushes up. And governments have to bear the costs of increasing demands for education, health and pensions.
Turning to possible alternatives to capitalism, Wallerstein says the current depression will "continue now for quite some time and go quite deep". Governments will print money and seek to avert uprisings of workers and middle classes whose pensions evaporate.
We are headed for gridlock. Ever wilder fluctuations will make short-term predictions impossible. And when equilibrium is so remote, small events are likely to have a greater effect on the whole than they would under equilibrium.
So interventions by activists are more likely today to give birth to the new than during periods of stability. Wallerstein contrasts two camps of reformers, the harbingers of the new system: those who want something new, more egalitarian and less hierarchical and those who want to salvage the system. But each of these camps is itself divided in two, so the conflict is fourfold.
In the ruling Davos camp there are those who want a return to an inegalitarian, hierarchical system, like Dick Cheney, opposed by meritocrats who want to secure the road to privilege using persuasion and a minimum of force, promising a multicultural, green utopia.
The resisters, the Porto Alegre camp, are divided into egalitarians and vanguardists, the latter believing that some see more clearly than others and arguing for a merely formal egalitarianism. So the battle between the two camps rages as the battle within each camp continues.
Wallerstein says it is impossible to set out specific proposals for a kinder world, but he "does not sniff" at more traditional forms of struggles. Winning elections is still important, as is securing judicial rights and survival plans. But these will not bring us closer to a new systemic alternative.
The construction of decommodified modes of production would go some way towards developing real alternatives to our problems. And he prescribes endless intellectual and moral debate, sharpening of our senses and struggle against all forms of inequality, especially those of gender, class and race. This is the hardest, he says, for we are all guilty of these sins.
And, he says, run as if from the plague from any conviction that history is on your side, a sentiment he sees as the greatest instigator of inequality and injustice. His conclusion: we have a 50-50 chance of creating a better system, odds that aren't half bad.


text:
Created by W.Langdon from gp-bibliography.bib Revision:1.4524
@InProceedings{Krawiec:2010:cec2, author = "Krzysztof Krawiec and Bartosz Kukawka and Tomasz Maciejewski", title = "Evolving cascades of voting feature detectors for vehicle detection in satellite imagery", booktitle = "IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation (CEC 2010)", year = "2010", address = "Barcelona, Spain", month = "18-23 " # jul, publisher = "IEEE Press", keywords = "genetic algorithms, genetic programming", isbn13 = "978-1-4244-6910-9", URL = "http://www.cs.put.poznan.pl/kkrawiec/pubs/2010CECVehicleDetection.pdf", size = "8 pages", abstract = "We propose an evolutionary method for detection of vehicles in satellite imagery which involves a large number of simple elementary features and multiple detectors trained by genetic programming. The complete detection system is composed of several detectors that are chained into a cascade and successively filter out the negative examples. Each detector is a committee of genetic programming trees that together vote over the decision concerning vehicle presence, and is trained only on the examples classified as positive by the previous cascade node. The individual trees use typical arithmetic transformations to aggregate features selected from a very large collections of Haar-like features derived from the input image. The paper presents detailed description of the proposed algorithm and reports the results of an extensive computational experiment carried out on real-world satellite images. The evolved detection system exhibits competitive sensitivity and relatively low false positive rate for testing images, despite not making use of domain-specific knowledge.", DOI = "doi:10.1109/CEC.2010.5586155", notes = "WCCI 2010. Also known as \cite{5586155}", }
Genetic Programming entries for Krzysztof Krawiec Bartosz Kukawka Tomasz Maciejewski


text:
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Hi I'm Scott
I am a business owner and a village clerk. I love the outdoors. I have a wonderful wife and three sons. I'm a Mormon.
About Me
I own a small business. I am active in my community and have served as a village clerk for over 20 years. My greatest love and that which makes life worth living, is my family - my wife and three boys. (Families ARE forever!) I love to fish, play tennis, fly r/c airplanes, get on the Ham Radio (KC8IRR) and just simply be outdoors. Two memorable occasions were High Adventure Scout trips to Minnesota's Boundary Waters where my boys and I canoed and portaged over 50 miles.
Why I am a Mormon
I chose to became a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints when I was 20 years old. It was due to a young lady I was dating. Every time I went to her house for dinner, her family would talk about their church. I met with the missionaries for quite some time until finally one wise missionary asked if I really would like to know, without any doubt, if what I had been taught was true and if I would like to be baptized. Something inside me prompted me to tell him, "Yes." We went to the living room, knelt down and prayed. We took turns praying and when it got to be my turn, I hesitantly began to pray. God lives - That much I knew. So, as I began to pray, I prayed specifically about Joseph Smith - did he really see God the Father and His son Jesus Christ? Was he called to be a prophet? I prayed to know if the Book of Mormon was really a translation of an ancient record. It was during that prayer that I felt a great peaceful feeling come over me. The missionaries helped me understand that the feeling I experienced was the Holy Ghost answering my prayer. I have come to recognize and rely on the Holy Ghost to help me throughout my life. Even though life is wonderful, it can sure give a nasty knock-out punch. It is on these occasions that I am thankful for the scriptures, prayer, the teachings of Latter-Day Prophets and my faith in my Savior, Jesus Christ. Revelation is not dead. God does speak to a prophet. God does speak to us. Many truths that have been hidden from the world for centuries have once again been revealed. It is my knowledge and understanding of these truths that help me understand who I am, what my purpose is on earth, where I came from and what is my eternal potential.
How I live my faith
I currently serve as the Bishop of the ward (congregation). All positions in the ward are unpaid and serving as a Bishop is no exception. As a Bishop I oversee all the organizations of the ward and help in the spiritual and temporal welfare of the members. A typical ward can have well over 125 service positions (callings). These opportunities to serve help members grow as they exercise their faith. Over the 30+ years that I have been a member, I have served in many different callings. I love to serve the Lord. He has blessed me and my family very much. I know I can never pay him back, but I can try my best to help others come unto Him and feel the incredible joy that I feel. I have found, with much trial and error, that I am the happiest when I work on my relationship with my Heavenly Father. For this purpose, His son and our Savior, Jesus Christ, gave us commandments to develop this love, to keep us safe and to give us joy. Hard to imagine, isn't it? I found these words to be true: "When obedience ceases to be an irritant and becomes our quest, in that moment God will endow us with power". In a world full of turmoil and uncertainty, I need that endowment of power to help give me the assurance in the existence of the things I cannot see. The more effort I give - the greater assurance I receive. I know, without doubt, that Jesus is the Christ and that He is my Savior and Redeemer!


text:
If you were just walking into Omnia Nightclub on Tuesday night, would you have believed that by the end of the evening, you'd see Celine Dion in the DJ booth with Steve Aoki?
Of course not. Las Vegas nightclubs are notorious rumor mills—there's always someone claiming "Celebrity X" is going to be in the building or "Celebrity Y" is somewhere in VIP.
Not this time. This time it was all true. Celine was there with Aoki, and so was Tiësto, Zedd, the Cash Cash boys, Party Favor, Kaskade, NGHTMRE, Lil Jon, NEVA, DJ Five and Eric D-Lux, Turbulence, Crooked—they were all in the house, and it's not EDC weekend.
That's the power of community. Or, to put it another way, that's #VegasStrong.
This night, Omnia served as a cathartic release for all of us struggling to get past the October 1 attack on the Strip. If you've been outside or to your workplace, you know it's business as usual, as most of us have resumed our lives in the weeks since the shooting. And we should be proud that we rallied to keep Las Vegas in business, welcoming visitors and putting on that brave face even when it's a struggle to smile.
We haven't felt much like dancing lately, at least not until Tuesday night, when the combined star power of Hakkasan Group's DJ roster brought us to our feet, performing back-to-back sets in the main club and sister venue Heart of Omnia.
Tiësto and Zedd even sported Vegas Golden Knights jerseys during the show. That's some real local love right there.
The concert, announced last month in response to the attack, raised more than $1 million through donations, ticket sales and revenue, according to Hakkasan Group. That's on top of the individual donations already made by many of the city's DJs—Tiësto and Aoki pledged $200,000 each—in the last month. All of the money will benefit the Las Vegas Victims' Fund.
And we're still in awe of the night's most unlikely star—unlikely because who would have thought Celine would be the one to bring us out of our funk? Though she's been part of the Las Vegas community for nearly 15 years, we never took her for a club kid.
But there she was—a surprise to everyone—joining Aoki onstage and stepping into the spotlight for a rendition of "My Heart Will Go On."
Odd as the setting was, we can admit that's the song we needed to hear.
We can't say the Uber driver needed to hear it on the way home, and we can't say our cubicle mates like hearing it right now, but that's the way it is.
We'll never let go.


text:
Soccerex Ranking: See List of Top Richest Football Club As Man City And Arsenal Tops
A new study has shown that Manchester City have more financial power than any other club in world football.
The Soccerex Football Finance 100, which ranks the world's top teams based on both their playing and fixed assets, money in the bank, owner potential investment and debt, was published on Wednesday.
City, who are currently top of the Premier League, lead the way ahead of Arsenal with English clubs dominating the top 10.
"Manchester City, one of the most famous cases of significant foreign investment changing a club's status and potential, top the rankings.
"Their owner's high potential investment value is complimented by a strong performance by the club across each of the verticals.
"Arsenal's second place in the rankings, ahead of PSG, will surprise many and is certainly a talking point in light of criticism the club receives from some quarters for its perceived lack of spending in the transfer market.
"Their ranking is a reflection of the club's professionalism and a sound business model. The position of financial strength means Arsenal could invest significantly should the hierarchy of the club choose to change their business strategy," the study concludes.
See Top 20 List Below:
1. Manchester City
2. Arsenal
4. Guangzhou Evergrande
5. Tottenham
6. Real Madrid
7. Manchester United
8. Juventus
9. Chelsea
10. Bayern Munich
11. Zenit St Petersburg
12. RB Leipzig
13. Barcelona
14. LA Galaxy
15. Atletico Madrid
16. Liverpool
17. Borussia Dortmund
18. Lyon
19. Monaco
20. Leicester


text:
Looking stunning on the cover of the June 2013 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine, Sofia Vergara opens up about her desire to have a baby some day with fiance Nick Loeb. Despite wanting a baby, The Modern Family actress admits… [Continue Reading]
Jennifer Love Hewitt Wants To Freeze Her Eggs
Jennifer Love Hewitt is thinking about freezing her eggs, so she will have the possibility of having children in the future. According to Us Weekly, the actress who has been dating her Client List costar Brian Hallisay, since last spring, "… [Continue Reading]


text:
When you think of Hausa Hip Hop, Morell readily comes to mind and he returns with the visuals for his latest tune – Ba Wani Bugatti, the first single off the "Musa Is Coming" Album.
This is one tune I actually do love and the video just adds the final gloss!
Peep below!
The post VIDEO: Morell – Ba Wani Bugatti appeared first on notjustOk.
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text:
They say there are two types of IT sales people, the "hunters" and the "farmers". Most users of computers could probably easily identify these sales stereotypes. Hunters help their organisation secure new clients. These are the people who send you unsolicited mail or call you up out of the blue to try and excite you about their company's IT offerings. Farmers manage and cultivate existing business relationships. They are probably best known as account managers and their challenge is to secure a larger proportion of your total IT investment.
Whatever their role, the major challenge for any IT sales person is qualifying every potential sales opportunity. Because a lost sale is such an unprofitable and unrewarding investment of their time, most of the best technology representatives tend to be extremely cautious when deciding whether to pursue a particular sale. Above all, most reps recognise that few IT customers are willing to be guinea pigs; they will demand to see evidence of similar implementations by the vendor.
This can mean that many potential uses for IT solutions take a considerable time to be realised. Often both vendors and customers can recognise that a certain technology has other applications in new areas. However, the customer is usually reluctant to be the pioneer while the sales person recognises that this hesitancy will make a sale unlikely.
I came across a case in point on a recent visit to New Zealand. I was the guest of a good friend who is a salesman for a geographic information system (GIS). I mentioned to him that a number of members of IDC's InTEP management group recognised that a GIS could assist in their marketing activities. For example, it could help chart the locations and profiles of customers and so assist in decisions such as where to site premises such as shops and branches.
While recognising these applications for a GIS, his response was that these uses of the technology are still relatively embryonic. His major clients primarily use the system to map infrastructure items such as pipes and wires.
He saw that the initial function for which GIS was developed, namely to automate the drawing offices of utilities, local governments and railways, still represented the bulk of his company's GIS business.
This experience is borne out in IDC Australia's annual survey of local IT Managers, the "Forecast for Management" study. Respondents were asked to identify whether they were using a GIS or whether they had plans to use it in the next two years. The major users of it were from local and State government.
Just under 37 per cent of GIS users came from these categories. On the other hand only 1 per cent of GIS users came from the retail sector while just over 2 per cent came from banking or credit unions.
At first glance low usage of a GIS in these sectors appears surprising. After all, nearly all the major banks are currently embarking on a major rationalisation of their branches. It would seem that a GIS could help them identify the location of key customers to ensure they are not impacted unnecessarily by any branch closures. Similarly, shops live or die by the old real estate maxim of "location, location, location". Without using a GIS to pinpoint the appropriate socio-economic groups, population thresholds or competitor locations, how on earth can a retail organisation be sure of where best to site their stores?The issue, of course, is that if none of your competitors are using a GIS for this purpose you have to be the guinea pig who proves or disproves the concept.
In the turbulent working environment of the 1990s that is a position few of us would relish. However, until someone is game enough to test the waters it seems that the potential benefits of many technologies like GIS will remain unfulfilled.
Maybe IT vendors need to think about how to mix a few pioneers among their farmers and hunters to help open up these new markets for their solutions.
Join the CIO Australia group on LinkedIn. The group is open to CIOs, IT Directors, COOs, CTOs and senior IT managers.


text:
Labor leader Bill Shorten's acclaimed budget reply was raked over and put under the microscope shortly after he received a standing ovation in parliament.
No sooner had Mr Shorten raised both thumbs high in the air as he finished his counter to Scott Morrison's maiden budget, he was being grilled by the ABC's Leigh Sales.
The host took Mr Shorten to task over his long-standing attack on the federal government's decision to remove $57 billion from hospitals.
Sales pressed the opposition leader as to whether Labor would commit to restoring the health funding, but Shorten, who more than held his own throughout the interview, was evasive.
"We've committed to funding the education fully. We'll unveil our hospital and health policies in coming weeks," Mr Shorten said.
But Sales would not drop the question and continued to demand confirmation from the opposition leader.
"We're not going to announce our final number tonight… what I can commit right here on television tonight is that we will fund to a far greater level than what the Turnbull Government's doing," Mr Shorten conceded.
Despite polling lower than the Prime Minister Turnbull as the preferred leader, Mr Shorten was confident Australian voters would favour his party's policies.
"I think that when Australians see our positive policies, our commitment to Australian jobs, properly funding our schools, our TAFE, our child care and our universities."
During last night's budget reply, Mr Shorten vowed to legislate to save Medicare, declaring the election on July 2 a referendum on its future.
In an election-rally like budget reply speech on the floor of the House of Representatives, he said a future Labor government would act to protect Medicare within its first 100 days.
As well, a Labor government would crack down on dodgy private colleges which saddle students with debt and fail to deliver qualifications.
Delivering Labor's reply to Tuesday's budget, he said Labor could save $71 billion over a decade through winding back negative gearing, superannuation concessions and programs such as the baby bonus and the direct action environment plan.
Mr Shorten said this was a budget for big business over battlers, punishing those who can't afford it and rewarding those who don't need it.
The opposition leader said Labor would support the government's modest measures to limit bracket creep and a tax cut for small businesses with a turnover of less than $2 million a year.
In the face of continuing deficits, now was not the time to give the richest three percent of Australians another tax cut.
Mr Shorten said the Liberals had always wanted a private model of health care like the US, spending $5 million on a taskforce to investigate the fastest way to privatise parts of Medicare and that was just the beginning.
"Make no mistake, July 2 will be a referendum on the future of Medicare," he said.
"We will not support the privatisation of the Medicare system. Full stop."
Mr Shorten said Labor would make education, training and skills a national priority.
The pendulum had swung too far to private providers.
"We will restore integrity to the training system by cleaning out the dodgy private colleges who have been ripping Australians off for too long," he said.
Mr Shorten said in 2014, the 10 largest private training colleges received $900 million in government funding but less than five percent of their students graduated.
He said tens of thousands were being loaded with massive debt but not the qualification they needed to find a job.
A Labor government would cap vocational education loans at $8000 per student, he said.
Mr Shorten attracted the loudest cheer from supporters packing the public galleries when he repeated his promise to speedily legislate for marriage equality.
Finance Minister Bill Mathias Cormann said Mr Shorten's speech was "all politics and no plan."
"Bill Shorten had three years to get ready for tonight and all we got was another Labor push for higher taxes which hurt jobs and growth. What the Australian economy needs right now is a national economic plan for jobs and growth," he told reporters in Canberra.


text: Roger: My understanding of the site is that the bones are somewhat intermingled, and that a _Deinonychus_ tooth may actually be in one of the _Tenontosaurus_ bones. I'm not sure, but it may be that the _T._ fell on some of the _D._'s - and at minimum, broke some of their (_D._'s) legs. (This is mostly from a quick discussion with John Ostrom last year). (By the way, I remember that cartoon - and the theme song.... "...Roger Ramjet, he's our friend, hero to the nation; for his adventures, please be sure and stayed tuned to this station...) Allan Edels -----Original Message----- From: Roger Compton <firstname.lastname@example.com> To: firstname.lastname@example.com <email@example.com> Date: Saturday, May 01, 1999 10:32 AM Subject: Tenontosaurs & Dromie teeth >Has anyone considered the time frame for the deposits? The teeth >may have been shed years before or after the Tenontosaur died. In >fact, from what I know of our understanding of deposition they >could be separated by hundreds of years. What evidence is there >that these events took place simultaneously? Maybe coincidence is >the most parsimonious explanation for the proximity. >


text:
Abt Card
This Viper Keyless Entry system offers features like Ignition Controlled Door
Locks and Domelight Supervision, two 4-button remotes and parking light flash
confirmation. System comes with 2 auxiliary outputs for optional remote control
Approximate Weight:
Warranty Information:
Fill out the form below to request Better Price for this product.
Enter your zip code for a more accurate delivery estimate.


text:
the sun is making a special guest appearance, but there's no one else around to share it. quiet town. desserted town. almost ghost town, except for the old silent man sweeping leaves out of the gutter. here i am sitting out the front, hoping for a glimmer of a soul. but nothing. it's ghost city.
c h a l k talk
live model: marie ponsot
Who wouldn't rather paint than pose—
Modeling, you're an itch the artist
Doesn't want to scratch, at least
Not directly, and not yet.
You think, "At last, a man who knows
How bodies are metaphors!" (You're wrong.)
First time I posed for him he made
A gilded throne to sit me on
Crowned open-armed in a blue halfgown.
I sat his way, which was not one of mine
But stiff & breakable as glass,
Pale still, as if
With a rosetree up my spine.
We had to be speechless too,
Gut tight in a sacring thermal
Hush of love & art;
Even songs & poems
Were too mundane for me to quote
To ease our grand feelings
So I sat mute, as if
With a rosetree down my throat.
Now I breathe deep, I sit slack,
I've thrown the glass out, spit,
Evacuated bushels of roses.
I've got my old quick walk
& my big dirty voice back.
Why do I still sometimes sit
On what is unmistakably like a throne?
Why not. Bodies are metaphors
And this one's my own.
consider me: langston hughes
Consider me,
A colored boy,
Once sixteen,
Once five, once three,
Once nobody,
Now me. Before me
Papa, mama,Grandpa, grandma,
So on back
To original
(A capital letter there,
Being Mystery.)
Consider me,
Colored boy,
Downtown at eight,
Sometimes working late,
Overtime pay
To sport away,
Or save,
Or give my Sugar
For the things
She needs.
My Sugar,
Consider her
Who works, too—
Has to.
One don't make enough
For all the stuff
It takes to live.
Forgive me
What I lack,
Caught in a crack
That splits the world in two
From China
By way of Arkansas
To Lenox Avenue.
Consider me,
On Friday the eagle flies.
Saturday laughter, a bar, a bed.
Sunday prayers syncopate glory.
Monday comes,
To work at eight,
Consider me,
Descended also
From the Mystery.
if you wish we stayed in ghost city, tell us. if you'd like to join us and make ghost city disappear, tell us that too.
iceberg roses, folds of petals - tutus around rose hips. bees slowed by the cold, i hear them while i read. i holler at the dogs that bark, and ruin the perfect quiet. they hush, rush back, sit at my feet panting as though it's the hottest day, then run off and bark again.------------------------------------------------------------


text:
Are you looking for a quick and effective way to optimize your carefully-crafted JavaScript files without having to perform the whole process from scratch? If your answer is yes, I suggest you take an in-depth look at a new web service released in the last few weeks by Google, called Closure Compiler Service API. This service will let you compile your JavaScript snippets in a truly painless fashion through a set of POST arguments, which will allow you control the format (text, XML or JSON) in which the compiled files will be sent back to the client, and the level of optimization that will be applied to them.
If you think, however, that the abilities of the Closure Compiler Service API are limited to striping white space from JavaScript code, I should say that you're underestimating it. The service is capable of performing a more advanced optimization process on target files. Quite possibly, you'll be wondering how, right? Assigning the value "SIMPLE_OPTIMIZATIONS" to the aforementioned "compilation_level" parameter will cause the compiler to remove white space and make variables and functions names much shorter (when possible, of course).
Having explained that, in this fourth part of the series I'm going to develop another approachable example, which will illustrate how to apply this more sophisticated level of optimization to the JavaScript file coded in the previous tutorial.
Eager to learn how this will be accomplished? Then start reading right now!
Review: basic optimization of a JavaScript file with Google's Closure Compiler Service API
Before I begin demonstrating how to more efficiently compile a JavaScript file by using the "SIMPLE_OPTIMIZATIONS" option mentioned in the introduction, first I'd like to spend a few moments reintroducing all of the sample PHP classes developed so far. They are the building blocks of the PHP backend that interacts either directly or indirectly with the Closure Compiler Service API.
That said, here are the first two classes, which are tasked with handling HTTP requests via the "fsockopen()" PHP built-in function. Check them out, please:
abstract class HttpRequestHandlerAbstract
protected $_data = array();
protected $_url;
protected $_port;
protected $_method;
protected $_headers = array();
protected $_responseHeader;
protected $_responseContent;
// constructor
public function __construct(array $data, array $settings = array())
if (array_key_exists('url', $settings)) {
if (array_key_exists('port', $settings)) {
if (array_key_exists('method', $settings)) {
// set the data that will be passed with the request
public function setData(array $data)
if (empty($data)) {
throw new HttpRequestHandlerException('The request arguments are not valid.');
$this->_data = $data;
return $this;
// get the specified request data
public function getData()
return $this->_data;
// set the URL the request will be made to (implemented by subclasses)
abstract public function setUrl($url);
// get the given URL
public function getUrl()
return $this->_url;
// set the TCP port the request will be made on (implemented by subclasses)
abstract public function setPort($port);
// get the given port
public function getPort()
return $this->_port;
// set the request method (GET or POST)
public function setMethod($method = 'GET')
$method = strtoupper($method);
if (!in_array($method, array('GET', 'POST'), TRUE)) {
throw new HttpRequestHandlerException('The request method is not valid.');
$this->_method = $method;
return $this;
// get the request method
public function getMethod()
return $this->_method;
// add a new request header
public function addHeader($key, $header)
$key = strtolower($key);
if (!array_key_exists($key, $this->_headers)) {
$this->_headers[$key] = $header;
return $this;
// remove a specified request header
public function removeHeader($key)
$key = strtolower($key);
if (array_key_exists($key, $this->_headers)) {
return $this;
// get a specified request header
public function getHeader($key)
$key = strtolower($key);
if (array_key_exists($key, $this->_headers)) {
return $this->_headers[$key];
// get the header included in the response
public function getResponseHeader()
return $this->_responseHeader;
// get the content included in the response
public function getReponseContent()
return $this->_responseContent;
// send an HTTP request to the specified URL and TCP port
public function sendRequest()
// parse and urlencode the request data
$data = ";
foreach ($this->_data as $key => $value) {
$data .= '&' . $key . '=' . urlencode($value);
$data = trim($data, '&');
// parse the given URL
$url = parse_url($this->_url);
if (!isset($url['host']) OR !isset($url['path'])) {
throw new HttpRequestHandlerException('No host or path was specified.');
$host = $url['host'];
$path = $url['path'];
// open a socket connection on the specified TCP port
if (!$fp = fsockopen($host, $this->_port)) {
throw new HttpRequestHandlerException('Error opening socket connection to the URL '. $this->_url . ' on port.' . $this->_port);
fputs($fp, "$this->_method $path HTTP/1.0rn");
fputs($fp, "Host: $hostrn");
fputs($fp, "Content-type: application/x-www-form-urlencodedrn");
fputs($fp, "Content-length: ". strlen($data) . "rn");
fputs($fp, "Connection: closernrn");
fputs($fp, $data);
// get the response of the request
$response = ";
while(!feof($fp)) {
$response .= fgets($fp, 128);
// close the socket connection:
// process the response
$response = explode("rnrn", $response, 2);
$this->_responseHeader = $response[0];
$this->_responseContent = $response[1];
return $this->_responseContent;
// send the specified header
public function sendHeader($key)
if ($header = $this->getHeader($key)) {
class ClosureCompilerHandler extends HttpRequestHandlerAbstract
protected $_url = 'http://closure-compiler.appspot.com/compile';
protected $_port = 80;
protected $_method = 'POST';
protected $_responseHeader;
protected $_responseContent;
protected $_headers = array(
'js' => 'Content-type: text/javascript',
'xml' => 'Content-type: text/xml',
'json' => 'Content-type: application/json'
// set the URL of the closure compiler API
public function setUrl($url)
if (strpos('http://closure-compiler.appspot.com', $url) !== 0) {
throw new HttpRequestHandlerException('The specified URL for the closure compiler API is not valid.');
$this->_url = $url;
return $this;
// set the TCP port of the closure compiler API (throws an exception, as it's been already set)
public function setPort($port)
throw new HttpRequestHandlerException('The specified TCP port for the closure compiler API has been already set.');
As you can see from the previous code snippet, the two classes above make up a simple hierarchy that allows you to send HTTP requests to a given URL on a TCP port. While the abstract parent encapsulates most of the generic functionality required to perform this task, the concrete "ClosureCompilerHandler" subclass is responsible for interacting specifically with the Closure Compiler Service API.
Now that you've grasped the underlying logic of these classes, it's time to show the definition of a couple more. The first one is charged with reading and writing data to a given file, and the last one is tasked with lazy-loading classes via the PHP SPL stack. Here they are:
class FileHandler
protected $_path = 'function.js';
protected $_data;
// constructor
public function __construct($path = ")
if ($path !== ") {
// set the path to read/write data
public function setPath($path)
if (!file_exists($path)) {
throw new FileHandlerException('The specified path is not valid.');
$this->_path = $path;
// get the specified path
public function getPath()
return $this->_path;
// set new data to be written
public function setData($data)
$this->_data = $data;
// get the stored data
public function getData()
return $this->_data;
// read data from the specified path
public function read()
if (!$this->_data = file_get_contents($this->_path)) {
throw new FileHandlerException('Error reading from the target file.');
return $this->_data;
// write data to the specified path
public function write($data)
if (!file_put_contents($this->_path, $data)) {
throw new FileHandlerException('Error reading from the target file.');
$this->_data = $data;
class Autoloader
private static $_instance;
// get the Singleton instance of the autoloader
public static function getInstance()
if (!self::$_instance) {
self::$_instance = new self;
return self::$_instance;
// constructor
private function __construct()
spl_autoload_register(array($this, 'load'));
// prevent cloning instance of the autoloader
private function __clone(){}
// load a given class or interface
public static function load($class)
$file = $class . '.php';
if (!file_exists($file)) {
throw new ClassNotFoundException('The file containing the requested class or interface ' . $class . ' was not found.');
require $file;
if (!class_exists($class, FALSE) AND !interface_exists($class, FALSE)) {
throw new ClassNotFoundException('The requested class or interface ' . $class . ' was not found.');
Mission accomplished. Even though the first impression is that developing all of the classes that you just saw is a rather time-consuming process that isn't worth the hassle, the truth is that when they're put to work together with the Closure Compiler API, they make optimizing JavaScript snippets a breeze. Of course, the best way to demonstrate this is by example, so in the following lines I included the one created in the previous tutorial, which optimizes the JavaScript file below:
function createDiv(idAttr, classAttr) {
// create the div
var div = document.createElement('div');
// assign the 'id' attribute to the div element
div.setAttribute('id', idAttr);
// assign the 'class' attribute to the div element
div.setAttribute('class', classAttr);
// append the div element to the document
// call the previous function
createDiv('divid', 'divclass');
In this case, the target JavaScript file is really trivial, as it's only tasked with creating a div element on the fly, which is appended to the DOM afterward. However, the most interesting aspect of this example is the PHP script that uses the Closure Compiler Service API behind the scenes to optimize the file in question. Here it is:
// example using optimization level = WHITESPACE_ONLY
try {
// include the autoloader class
require_once 'Autoloader.php';
// create an instance of the file handler class and read the specified JavaScript file
$fileHandler = new FileHandler;
$js = $fileHandler->read();
// build the array of arguments that will be passed to the closure compiler API
$data = array(
'js_code' => $js,
'compilation_level' => 'WHITESPACE_ONLY',
'output_format' => 'text',
'output_info' => 'compiled_code'
// create an instance of the ClosureCompilerHandler class
$compilerHandler = new ClosureCompilerHandler($data);
// query the closure compiler API and get the compiled JavaScript function
$response = $compilerHandler->sendRequest();
// print to screen the compiled JavaScript function
echo $response;
displays the following
function createDiv(idAttr,classAttr){var div=document.createElement("div");div.setAttribute("id",idAttr);div.setAttribute("class",classAttr);document.getElementsByTagName("body")[0].appendChild(div)}createDiv("divid","divclass");
catch (Exception $e) {
echo $e->getMessage();
From the previous code sample, it's clear to see that the Closure Compiler Service API does remarkable work when optimizing JavaScript files programmatically. In this particular case, the API has been called with the value "WHITESPACE_ONLY" assigned to its "compilation_level" argument. This process not surprisingly removes all the white space and comments included in the target file, in this way significantly reducing it from its original size.
It's valid to note, though, that the API is capable of compiling JavaScript files more "cleverly." It's possible to assign different values to the aforementioned "compilation_level" parameter and get even better results. In consonance with this concept, in the section to come I'm going to set up an example similar to the previous one, which will show you how to accomplish this with the API's SIMPLE_OPTIMIZATIONS option.
To see how this brand new example will be created, jump ahead and read the next few lines.
{mospagebreak title=Using the SIMPLE OPTIMIZATIONS option}
To be frank, making the Closure Compiler Service API optimize JavaScript code in a more clever way is a straightforward process limited to assigning the value "SIMPLE_OPTIMIZATIONS" to its "compilation_level" parameter, and nothing else. As usual, the best way to see the real functionality of this option is by example, so below I coded one that employs the option with the JavaScript file shown in the previous section. Here it is:
// example using optimization level = SIMPLE_OPTIMIZATIONS
try {
// include the autoloader class
require_once 'Autoloader.php';
// create an instance of the file handler class and read the specified JavaScript file
$fileHandler = new FileHandler;
$js = $fileHandler->read();
// build the array of arguments that will be passed to the closure compiler API
$data = array(
'js_code' => $js,
'compilation_level' => 'SIMPLE_OPTIMIZATIONS',
'output_format' => 'text',
'output_info' => 'compiled_code'
// create an instance of the ClosureCompilerHandler class
$compilerHandler = new ClosureCompilerHandler($data);
// query the closure compiler API and get the compiled JavaScript function
$response = $compilerHandler->sendRequest();
// print to screen the compiled JavaScript function
echo $response;
catch (Exception $e) {
echo $e->getMessage();
As you'll agree, the above example looks very similar to the one developed before, doesn't it? Don't get confused by this first impression, however, as there's a small –yet relevant– difference worth spotting. In this case, the SIMPLE_OPTIMIZATIONS option has been passed via the corresponding POST request to the Closure Compiler API.
According to the API's official documentation, when the compiler is fed this option, it not only will remove all of the white space and comments from the target JavaScript file, but it'll shorten all of its function and variable names when possible. But is that actually happening with the earlier JavaScript file? Well, the only way to find out the answer is to take a look at the file after it has been processed by the compiler.
That's exactly what I plan to do below, so keep reading.
Finishing the example: the compiled version of the target JavaScript file
If you're anything like me, you want to see the results generated by the previous PHP script, right? Well, here's the output that the Closure Compiler API returns to the client when used with the SIMPLE_OPTIMIZATIONS option:
function createDiv(b,c){var a=document.createElement("div");a.setAttribute("id",b);a.setAttribute("class",c);document.getElementsByTagName("body")[0].appendChild(a)}createDiv("divid","divclass");
Bear with me if I sound like I'm overreacting a bit, but this file definitely looks good! As you can see, not only have all of its white space and comments been properly removed, but all of the variable names has been shortened to a single character (a, b, c).
While this is nothing but a simple (not to say simplistic) example of how to use Google's Closure Compiler, it shows in a nutshell how powerful it can be for to optimizing JavaScript files painlessly. In the example above, the SIMPLE_OPTIMIZATIONS option has been utilized to compile JavaScript code a bit more "strictly;" nevertheless, the compiler is capable of performing more advanced optimizations, as usual via its "compilation_level" parameter.
However, this ability will be covered in detail in the following article of the series. So, in the meantime feel free to introduce your own tweaks to all of the code samples developed before. Doing so will arm you with a better understanding of how to use Google's Closure Compiler API in a truly effective way.
Final thoughts
In this fourth part of the series, I provided you with a concrete example that showed how to apply a more rigorous level of optimization to a JavaScript file by passing the SIMPLE_OPTIMIZATIONS option to the Closure Compiler API. As you just saw, this process removes white space and comments and also makes function and variable names considerably shorter, which significantly reduces the size of the target file.
In the next chapter, I'm going to explain how to instruct the Closure Compiler API to optimize JavaScript code even more efficiently via a brand new option called "ADVANCED_OPTIMIZATIONS." Want to see how to put this option to work for you? Then don't miss the upcoming tutorial!


text:
As many of you know, I'm the world's biggest Martha Stewart Fan. She is a true inspiration. In my living room, stacked ever so lovingly in a tall column, is every single Martha Stewart Living Magazine ever printed. No lie. The stack is taller than I am and I am not a short girl. So, please if you will, imagine my squeal of excitement when a fine web editor sent me an email asking if I'd like to send her some of my plush toys to be featured on the website. I think I smiled even when I went to bed that night. A small part of my life's wish had come true!
That's our very own Mr. Alligator proudly strutting his stuff on the Living daily inspiration! (quite inspiring, don't you think?!) This was the perfect way to round out the year. You won't believe what's coming in 2013!


text:
Q: How many bass players does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Only one - but the guitarist has to show him first.
Q: How many bass players does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Six. One to change it, five to fight off the lead guitarists who are hogging the light.
Q: Did you hear about the bassist who locked his keys in his car?
A: It took him four hours to get the bass player out.
Q: How many bass players does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. The piano player can do that with his left hand.
Q: What do you call a bass player without a girlfriend?
A: Homeless.
Q. What do you call a bass player with half a brain?
A. Gifted.
Q: What do you call a bass player that only knows two chords?
A: A professional.
Q: What do you call a guitar that's made of sodium hydroxide?
A: Base guitar.
Q: How do you get a million dollars?
A: Start off with 2 million and buy a bass guitar.
Q: What's the first thing a bass guitarist says when he knocks on your door?
A: "Pizza!"
Q: What do you throw a drowning bassist?
A: His case.
Q: Did you hear the joke about metal music?
A: I don't remember how it goes, but the punchline is "the bass player got hit by a car".
Q: What do you call twenty bass guitars at the bottom of the ocean?
A: A good start.
Q: What is the perfect weight for a bassist?
A: 3 and a half pounds including the urn.
A young child told his mother "When I grow up I'm going to play the bass guitar."
His mother responded "Well honey, you know you can't do both."
Q: What does a bass guitar and a lawsuit have in common?
A: Everyone is relieved when the case is closed.
Hi, I'm here to tune your bass guitar.
I didn't call a guitar tuner.
Yeah I know, but the neighbors called.
Q: How do you keep your jewelry from being stolen?
A: Leave it in a bass guitar case.
Q: What do you call a successful bassist?
A: A guy whose wife has 2 jobs.
Q: What's the difference between a bassist and garbage?
A: The garbage gets taken out once a week.
Q: What's the definition of an optimist?
A: A bassist player with a mortgage.
Q: Why do bassists tour the most in the summer?
A: So they can visit all their kids.
Q: What do all great bassists have in common?
A: They are all dead.
Q: What does a bass guitar and a baseball have in common?
A: People cheer when you hit them with a bat.
Q: What's the best thing to play a bass guitar with?
A: A razor blade.
Q: What's the difference between a bass guitar and a trampoline?
A: You take your shoes off before you jump on a trampoline.
Q: Why do bassists leave their cases on the dashboard?
A: So they can park in handicap spaces.
Q: What's the difference between a bassist and god?
A: God doesn't think he's a bassist.
Q: Why did the bass player get mad at the timpanist?
A: He turned a peg and wouldn't tell the bass player which one.
Doctor's Office
A guy walks into the doctor's office and says, "Doc, I haven't had a bowel movement in a week!" The doctor gives him a prescription for a mild laxative and tells him, "If it doesn't work, let me know."
A week later the guy is back: "Doc, still no movement!"
The doctor says, "Hmm, guess you need something stronger," and prescribes a powerful laxative.
Still another week later the poor guy is back: "Doc, STILL nothing!"
The doctor, worried, says, "We'd better get some more information about you to try to figure out what's going on. What do you do for a living?"
"I'm a musician, I play the bass guitar."
The doctor looks up and says, "Well, that's it! Here's $10.00. Go get something to eat!"
Saint Peter
St Peter is checking ID's at the Pearly Gates, and first comes a Texan. "Tell me, what have you done in life?" says St. Peter.
The Texan says, "Well, I struck oil, so I became rich, but I didn't sit on my laurels--I divided all my money among my entire family in my will, so our descendants are all set for about three generations."
St. Peter says, "That's quite something. Come on in. Next!"
The second guy in line has been listening, so he says, "I struck it big in the stock market, but I didn't selfishly just provide for my own like that Texan guy. I donated five million to Save the Children."
"Wonderful!" says Saint Peter. "Come in. Who's next?"
The third guy has been listening, and says timidly with a downcast look, "Well, I only made five thousand dollars in my entire lifetime."
"Heavens!" says St. Peter. "What instrument did you play?
A group of terrorists hijacked a plane full of bassists. They called ground control with a list of demands.
Then they told the negotiator if their demands aren't met they will release one bassist an hour.


text:
Taken from atop the DoubleTree by Hilton near the Central Station, Amsterdam, this one came out really nice. I actually have a 60 by 40 aluminized print of this one hanging in my living room.
Tag: amsterdam
Basilica of Saint Nicolas, Amsterdam
The Basilica of Saint Nicholas (Dutch: Sint-Nicolaasbasiliek) is located in the Old Centre district of Amsterdam, Netherlands. It is the city's major Catholic church.
Officially the church was called St. Nicholas inside the Walls, i.e. the oldest part of the Amsterdam defence works. The basilica has a collection of religious murals.
In the 125th year of its existence, St Nicholas' Church elevated to "basilica minor" or basilica. That happened on 8 December 2012.
HDR shot with Canon 5D II with 35mm f/2.0


text:
Well no promises but I will reach out to Toks. If that doesn't work, I will bug her husband Sean which is how I know her. Give her a few days as she has to get it past her publicist and what not.
Well no promises but I will reach out to Toks. If that doesn't work, I will bug her husband Sean which is how I know her. Give her a few days as she has to get it past her publicist and what not.
Still, English version is better. I still need to find those "The life of Scrooge Mcduck 1-10" comics somewhere. The one we had were all torn up from reading.
some of the parts were very similar to the English lyrics, and then I think there was also a line like "All that you have ever dreamed about happens in DuckTales" or something like that.
Last edited by Peter1986; 12-22-2016 at 12:06 AM.
I've yet to see a good reboot of a cartoon from my childhood but here's hoping.
I love the theme song to this show.
"Excuse me Miss, do you like pineapple?"
It's nice to see that the majority of you seem to be looking positively at this (though, I respect the opinion of those who aren't). I think remakes/reboots/adaptations should be looked at positively myself, as they usually aren't made to spite the original or anything. I think doing your own take on something can be fun, so maybe at least some of the people who have done remakes/reboots/adaptation feel the same way?
I have never seen the original, but seeing Bobby Moynihan and Beck Bennett in this kind of makes me wanna see this since I love both of those guys so much!
That looks pretty cool! Glad they're obviously unafraid to deviate from the original series to some extent, that's a good way to dissuade people from getting too hung up on comparisons.
Looks pretty good actually. So far it appears to be capturing the spirit of the original without simply being a carbon copy of it.
Proud to be the Unofficial Secret Illegal Enforcer of Eyes on Final Fantasy!
When I grow up, I want to go to
BovineTrump University! - Ralph Wiggum
That's one crisp looking cartoon.
It's already been approved for season 2.
The original is pretty wild.


text:
Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish
I love finding a new meme, and although I don't post them every week, I try to do something every now and then.
Nor Cal Book Blogs top ten favorite authors (in no particular order)
1. Micheal Crichton (Jurassic Park, Prey)
2. J.K. Rowling (Deathly Hallows)
3. Cassandra Clare (City of Glass)
4. Jim Butcher (New favorites! Harry Dresden Files)
5. Richelle Mead (Vampire Academy, Sucubus Series)
6. Stephanie Meyer (may I note that I LOVE Twilight, but didn't like Breaking Dawn?)
7. Melissa Marr (Wicked Lovely)
8. Stephen King (Dreamcatcher - scared me to death!)
9. Rick Riordan (Percy Jackson Rocks!)
10. Scott Westerfeld (Uglies)
I know my like are a little off and on in various subjects..what do you think??