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5 Reviews Scarface: The World is Yours Say hello to the most foul-mouthed game since Mario Strikers Unsatisfied by movies where the main character dies at the end? Scarface: The World Is Yours gives you the chance to put things right, glossing over the finale in which murderous anti-hero Tony Montana is shot in the back in his palatial, drug-funded mansion. Instead, Tony gets to blast his way out of the ambush, at the expense of everything he fought so hard to get. The mansion is impounded by the police, the money vanishes into thin air and his precious reputation is left in tatters. Back from the nearly dead, Tony's mission is to win back what he lost, and with the help of old friends who are still intimidated enough to work with him, he sets out to rebuild his criminal empire. You horse! So what we've got is a GTA-style gangster game starring one of the most memorable - and sweariest - gangsters in movie history. You can shake the nunchuk to make him swear randomly as he walks down the street. It's ****ing ace! Tony's Miami adventure isn't set out exactly like a GTA game, though. Instead of completing lots of unconnected missions for different people, spread all over the city, there's a more tightly focused narrative. The aim is simply to earn enough money to fund a return to Tony's former lifestyle, and the only way to do this is by selling drugs. There are dealers all over the place. When you get hold of a new stash, you can sell it in 200g chunks. To get the best price you have to hold the A button while a little meter fills up, releasing it when it's at max strength. Too much or too little and you've blown the deal. The same system is used for talking your way out of trouble with the cops and intimidating rival gangsters. Scarface is underpinned by a mini business sim, in which you take over territory, find the highest price for your merchandise and blow the profits on the luxury items needed to restore Tony's credibility. Gangs and police can be paid off to reduce the two 'heat' meters that make your progress ever more difficult as they build up. Other than that, it's flashy cars, speedboats, guns and women all the way. Red mist When you get into a mission, the gunplay works swiftly and accurately with the Wii remote. There's a free aim function, which is more than adequate, or by holding Z you can lock on to a particular enemy and make small adjustments with the remote to target different areas. Aiming for the nuts (left or right) scores quite highly, as does blowing off a limb, head or kidney. Once your foe is down, shaking the nunchuk gives him some final sweary disrespect. The point is to build up your Balls meter, which can be used to activate Blind Rage mode - ten seconds of first-person invincibility, which is very useful in a tight spot. In fact many missions are extremely difficult if you don't start them with maximum Balls. The best thing about the game is that it manages to be laugh-out-loud funny even while remarkable amounts of crimson pixels spurt forth from those unfortunate enough to cross Tony Montana. Battles are punctuated by shakes of the nunchuk to deliver wittily foul-mouthed ripostes, and even random pedestrians have multiple levels of wisecracks when you start a conversation with them. Luckily Tony refuses to kill civilians, so you can only grin and bear it when a chat-up line goes humiliatingly wrong. The worst thing about the game is the restrictive layout of the city. The visual promise of GTA-style freedom is dashed once you've done a complete circuit around the little islands that make up the map and found that many of the areas around the looping main road are nothing but sealed-off scenery. It's a big game but there are few alternative routes to different areas. 1 2
Royal Wedding 'Too Boring' for AmericaS Just when America's stricken media industry thought it finally caught a windfall in royal wedding hoopla—Collector's edition magazines! Bridezilla-bait TV specials! Ads for Rogaine!Page Six reports this: Hasn't the media suffered enough already? How dare these inbred jerks wed without a single mental breakdown or sexting scandal between them! England, we will give back Piers Morgan, Skins, and Delaware if you can produce even one juicy tidbit from this mindnumblingly bland regal affair. (Sneak laxatives into the royal fruitcake, maybe?) You're the nation that produced Shakespeare and Amy Winehouse. We expect more engaging entertainment from you. [P6, photo via Getty Images]
Thanks Kerry. I get it now. FWIW, in my non-analog capacity I shoot a lot of stitched panoramas so the importance of a level platform is understood. When I asked earlier about it going under a tripod head, I was alluding to mounting either a panning base or a ball head with an incorporated panning base to the leveling head. Are the ballheads' balls marked in any way so that the neutral, vertical position can be found quickly?
Sign up for our newsletters! The women of Monroe High When Yvonne asks all the women who've been whistled at, beaten up by a man, or called a bitch, whore or slut to cross the line, every woman in the room takes a step forward. "I've been in situations where I felt so vulnerable as a woman and I had no power," Lisa says. "Every woman has gone through it." As the men and women face each other, Yvonne asks the men to look into the eyes of their classmates and imagine that these women are their mothers, grandmothers or sisters. Many of the men are surprised that catcalls and sexist "jokes" have had such an impact on the young women in their school. "Watching people cry because they've been whistled at, they've been honked at...it's not funny," Charles says. "It's not fun and games." Riley, a male student who has an older sister and was raised by a single mother, says he would never want to see his family members go through the same thing as his female classmates and teachers. "It was horrible," he says.
Documentation Center • Trials • Product Updates Plot Bode frequency response with additional plot customization options h = bodeplot(sys) bodeplot(..., plotoptions) h = bodeplot(sys) plot the Bode magnitude and phase of the dynamic system model sys and returns the plot handle h to the plot. You can use this handle to customize the plot with the getoptions and setoptions commands. bodeplot(sys) draws the Bode plot of the model sys. The frequency range and number of points are chosen automatically. bodeplot(sys1,sys2,...) graphs the Bode response of multiple models sys1,sys2,... on a single plot. You can specify a color, line style, and marker for each model, as in bodeplot(AX,...) plots into the axes with handle AX. bodeplot(..., plotoptions) plots the Bode response with the options specified in plotoptions. Type help bodeoptions for a list of available plot options. See Example 2 for an example of phase matching using the PhaseMatchingFreq and PhaseMatchingValue options. bodeplot(sys,w) draws the Bode plot for frequencies specified by w. When w = {wmin,wmax}, the Bode plot is drawn for frequencies between wmin and wmax (in rad/TimeUnit, where TimeUnit is the time units of the input dynamic system, specified in the TimeUnit property of sys.). When w is a user-supplied vector w of frequencies, in rad/TimeUnit, the Bode response is drawn for the specified frequencies. See logspace to generate logarithmically spaced frequency vectors. Example 1 Use the plot handle to change options in a Bode plot. sys = rss(5); h = bodeplot(sys); % Change units to Hz and make phase plot invisible Example 2 The properties PhaseMatchingFreq and PhaseMatchingValue are parameters you can use to specify the phase at a specified frequency. For example, enter the following commands. sys = tf(1,[1 1]); h = bodeplot(sys) % This displays a Bode plot. Use this code to match a phase of 750 degrees to 1 rad/s. p = getoptions(h); p.PhaseMatching = 'on'; p.PhaseMatchingFreq = 1; p.PhaseMatchingValue = 750; % Set the phase to 750 degrees at 1 % rad/s. setoptions(h,p); % Update the Bode plot. The first bode plot has a phase of -45 degrees at a frequency of 1 rad/s. Setting the phase matching options so that at 1 rad/s the phase is near 750 degrees yields the second Bode plot. Note that, however, the phase can only be -45 + N360, where N is an integer, and so the plot is set to the nearest allowable phase, namely 675 degrees (or 2360 - 45 = 675). Example 3 Compare the frequency responses of identified state-space models of order 2 and 6 along with their 2 std confidence regions. load iddata1 w = linspace(8,10pi,256); h = bodeplot(sys1,sys2,w); setoptions(h, 'PhaseMatching', 'on', 'ConfidenceRegionNumberSD', 2); Use the context menu by right-clicking Characteristics > Confidence Region to turn on the confidence region characteristic. Example 4 Compare the frequency response of a parametric model, identified from input/output data, to a nonparametric model identified using the same data. 1. Identify parametric and non-parametric models based on data. load iddata2 z2; w = linspace(0,10pi,128); sys_np = spa(z2,[],w); sys_p = tfest(z2,2); spa and tfest require System Identification Toolbox™ software. sys_np is a non-parametric identified model. sys_p is a parametric identified model. 2. Create a Bode plot that includes both systems. opt = bodeoptions; opt.PhaseMatching = 'on'; bodeplot(sys_np,sys_p,w, opt); More About expand all See Also \| \| \| \| Was this topic helpful?
3/30: Slow Motion Match Strike Newer Older With many thanks to Intellectual Ventures, for use of their Phantom V12, and to the various folks at Hackerbot Labs that helped me set up this shot, back in January of 2011. Match was clamped in a vice, and my hand was holding the box. (very clumsy) music by me, done in Garage Band. Someday, I'll get better tools for music creation, and learn how to use them. I hope. New-to-me feature of note: variable speed playback. Yer Photo Xpression, Miguel Vera, and 6 other people added this video to their favorites. 1. 3ricj 32 months ago \| reply ooOOoO, does this let you slowly ramp up or down the framerate? 2. lindes 32 months ago \| reply Yup. :) Pretty schnazzy, eh? Alas, it has less control over the rate of ramping than I might like... or at least, it's clumsy to control that specific thing, but you can speed up and slow down with a great deal of control, and it does do a ramp in between. You can also reverse stuff, which I haven't actually tried just yet, but surely will. :) FCP X is certainly less than "everything I could possibly want" (for one thing, I want more RAM now ;)), but I'm pretty happy with it, for the most part. It's definitely a VAST improvement over any video editing system I've used previously -- with the possible exception of the Sony RM 450. ;) (I'd love to have a modern version of something like that as a custom controller for FCPX... I know there are jog/shuttle wheels out there; I'll probably get myself one at some point.)
Messages in this thread SubjectRe: asm/unistd.h On Thu, Apr 05, 2001 at 09:06:20AM -0400, Bart Trojanowski wrote: > So you ask: "why not just use a { ... } to define a macro". I don't > remember the case for this but I know it's there. It has to do with a > complicated if/else structure where a simple {} breaks. It's for eating the semi-colon after the macro invocation. [unhandled content-type:application/pgp-signature] \ / ©2003-2011 Jasper Spaans
Was anybody around on RE boards during 2000-2003? #1Vegeta1000Posted 10/4/2012 1:40:32 PM I remember there were lots of complaints about the series getting stale and needing to move into a new direction so why are fans complaining about the new direction the series has taken? #2SamA7XPosted 10/4/2012 1:43:57 PM Because some people are born in this world just to complain. (the "I" in "VII" is a capital "i" not a undercase "L") #3Skurv7Posted 10/4/2012 1:47:27 PM I made a topic about this yesterday, and I'll tell you what I said then. The people complaining are the people who would still be complaining if it was the same and Wesker was the main antagonist with pre-rendered backgrounds...all i can say is don't ask for something you don't want ;) If you know wut i mean. #4orphanjohnPosted 10/4/2012 1:48:06 PM 2 huge complaints I remember from I believe RE4 and 5 was that people wanted zombies back, and new controls that don't handle like a tank. Well they get that and still cry about it. It's called being spoiled. No matter what comes along it will never be good enough, and they just cry for something new and better all over again. PSN: orphanjohn/OrphanFromdabloc Currently playing: Dark Souls, UMvC3, Transformers: FoC, NCAA 13, Resident Evil 6 #5JStewVGMPosted 10/4/2012 1:50:17 PM I don't even read those crap comments. Cry moar is all I say #6Orochi_LedePosted 10/4/2012 1:50:51 PM SamA7X posted... Because some people are born in this world just to complain. #7Duffy12323Posted 10/4/2012 1:54:58 PM Well they did away with tense atmospheric environments. There's no suspense anymore, just running and shooting with no exploration at all. #8Vegeta1000(Topic Creator)Posted 10/4/2012 2:18:41 PM You guys may think that the old-school RE games were constantly praised, but this was not the case. It got plenty of hate as well: - Terrible camera angles (fixed with RECV but came back with RE0). - Tank controls - Poor aiming - Backtracking (worst examples was RECV and RE0) - Fetch puzzles - Terrible save system - Poor voice acting (subjective, but the original RE1 was known to have terrible VA) Most of those problems was fixed with RE4, but then fans complained that the series was no longer survival horror and just a TPS. I disagree. Even though RE4 had more action it still had tense moments, creepy atmosphere, creepy looking enemies, fetch puzzles, and backtracking. RE5 I'd admit, wasn't much like the old ones as far as gameplay goes. It's like it's a lose-lose situation for Capcom because fans are going to complain either way. #9edward18Posted 10/4/2012 2:22:41 PM and as I said I NEVER complained Before you die you see the Tails Doll---Backdrop Observer of the Metroid: Other M board Apparently Edward: Wise Old Sage of Korodai #10Vegeta1000(Topic Creator)Posted 10/4/2012 2:24:50 PM and as I said I NEVER complained Well, you're in the minority.
Take the 2-minute tour × When I put images on my blog and they get included in social sites like Google plus it seems Google just grabs the first image it finds to include in posts. However I want it to include a specific image on the page. Is there a specific attribute to set for this on the image tags? share\|improve this question add comment 1 Answer up vote 0 down vote accepted First, make sure you set a "Featured Image" for your post. You don't even need to include it in the body of your post, just set the featured image via the "Add Media" button. Then you can add the og:image meta property to the single post header to have other sites pick up this image automatically. The easiest way to do this is to install an SEO plugin like WordPress SEO by Yoast, which will automatically create the "og:image" property along with a few others targeted at other social networks. share\|improve this answer add comment Your Answer
Take the 2-minute tour × I'm trying to extract specific hard coded variables from C source code. My remaining problem is that I'd like to parse array initialisation, for example: #define SOMEVAR { {T_X, {1, 2}}, {T_Y, {3, 4}} } It's enough to parse this example into "{T_X, {1, 2}}" and "{T_Y, {3, 4}}", since it's then possible to recurse to get the full structure. However, it needs to be sufficiently general so as to be able to parse any user defined types. Even better would be a list of regular expressions that can be used to extra values from general C code constructs like #define, enums and global variables. The C code is provided to me, so I have no control over it. I'd rather not write a function that parses it a character at a time. However, it'd be OK to have a sequence of regular expressions. This is not a problem of getting files into MATLAB or basic regular expressions. I'm after a specific regular expression that preserves groupings by brackets. EDIT: Looks like regular expressions don't do recursion or arbitrarily deep matches. According to here and here. share\|improve this question add comment 7 Answers up vote 0 down vote accepted EDIT: Now that the question has been updated, it appears that my previous answer missed the point. I don't know if you've already searched the other regular-expression-related questions on Stack Overflow. On the chance that you haven't, I came across two that may help give you guidance for your problem (which appears to be a problem, at least partially, of trying to match and keep track of opening and closing curly braces): this one and this one. Good luck! share\|improve this answer It's easy enough to write an expression that matches a specific case, but I'm after something general that preserves groupings while separating the list. Thanks anyway. – Nzbuu Feb 13 '09 at 15:36 Ah, I understand better now from your new edit of the question. The problem appears quite a bit more difficult than the example you gave. Unfortunately, no immediate solution springs to mind. – gnovice Feb 13 '09 at 15:50 add comment Have you looked at the following site which provides extensive tutorials and examples on regular expressions :- share\|improve this answer add comment The formal language that defines brace matching is not a regular language. Therefore, you cannot use a regular expression to solve your problem. The problem is that you need some way to count the number of opening braces you have already encountered. Some regular expression engines support extended features, such as peeking, which could be used to solve your problem, but these can be tough to deal with. You might be better off writing a simple parser for this task. share\|improve this answer add comment Maybe vim's syntax file would help in this matter. I'm not sure whether it has those elements you seek (I don't do C), but it's got a whole lot of elements, so it's definitely a starting point. Download vim (www.vim.org), and in vim/syntax/c.vim look around a little. share\|improve this answer add comment I don't think regexps will work on arbitrary C code. Clang allows you to build a syntax tree from C code and use it programatically. That could be readily used for globals, but #defines are handled by the preprocessor so I'm not sure how they would work. cristi:tmp diciu$ cat test.c #define t 1 int m=5; int fun(char * y) float g; return t; int main() int g=7; return t; cristi:tmp diciu$ ~/Downloads/checker-137/clang -ast-dump test.c (CompoundStmt 0xc01ec0 <test.c:6:1, line:10:1> (DeclStmt 0xc01e70 <line:7:2> 0xc01e30 "float g" (ReturnStmt 0xc01eb0 <line:9:2, line:1:11> (IntegerLiteral 0xc01e90 <col:11> 'int' 1))) (CompoundStmt 0xc020a0 <test.c:13:1, line:16:1> (DeclStmt 0xc02060 <line:14:2> 0xc02010 "int g = (IntegerLiteral 0xc02040 <col:8> 'int' 7)" (ReturnStmt 0xc01b50 <line:15:2, line:1:11> (IntegerLiteral 0xc02080 <col:11> 'int' 1))) typedef char __builtin_va_list; Read top-level variable decl: 'm' int fun(char y) int main() share\|improve this answer No external tools, sorry. But I still don't see how that helps me. – Nzbuu Feb 13 '09 at 15:37 add comment I assume you have access to the C code in question. If so, then define two macros: Wrap all the data you want to extract between these macros. When the C code is compiled, they expand to nothing, so they won't harm there. Now you can use a very simple regexp to get the data. share\|improve this answer add comment This regular expression: seems reasonable, but I don't know if it's enough for you. It's littered with \s* to allow arbitrary whitespace between tokens, from C's point of view that's allowable. It will match stuff that looks more or less just your examples; some kind of identifier followed by exactly two digit strings. share\|improve this answer Do you mean this? \{\s\w+\s,\s\{\s\d+\s,\s\d+\s\}\s\}. That only matches this specific example. I'm looking for something more general. – Nzbuu Feb 13 '09 at 15:35 add comment Your Answer
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Take the 2-minute tour × i've saved my icon as a png-32, with transparency checked and tried saving for web but the black background is still there. i've also saved as a nornmal png and still no good. i fixed this about 6 months ago but for the life of me i can't remember now. any help would be great thanks share\|improve this question What device are you using? I've noticed the Galaxy Tab, for example, will add backgrounds to launchers, but seems to make exceptions. – Nathan Fig May 10 '11 at 12:27 You've set your alpha transparency correctly? – Monk May 15 '11 at 6:56 add comment 1 Answer up vote 1 down vote accepted The actual technique will depend somewhat on the application you're using, but it's very easy to do in Gimp (free). You simply add a transparent layer, select the background and then delete it. Here's a link that explains the process: http://www.fabiovisentin.com/tutorial/GIMP_transparent_image/gimp_how_to_make_transparent_image.asp. If you're using a different tool, such as Photoshop, the exact process will of course be slightly different. Hope this helps. share\|improve this answer i'm using 2 samsung galaxy europas for a bluetooth poker app. if anyone wants to try it out, let me know. i'd love some feedback. cheers for the response but it seems to have fixed itself. black background's gone. i did increase the file size again but that didn't work before so i don't think that's what fixed it. thanks. – jakedemus May 11 '11 at 17:23 add comment Your Answer
Pennsylvania school installs D-Link solutions IP surveillance system provide school with wider and faster coverage, increased storage capacity FOUNTAIN VALLEY, CA--(Marketwire - February 10, 2009) - When SUN Area Career & Technology Center was seeking to replace its unreliable, crash-prone analog video surveillance system, it turned to D-Link for sophisticated Internet Protocol (IP) based security cameras and network switches for improved functionality, reliability and clarity without breaking the bank. "The old camera system recorded frames at four to five frames a second, which didn't capture detail very well. It only allowed us to record two weeks of video before archiving, because the drive for that system could store only 60MB," said Tom Gray, network administrator at SUN. "We'd often realize that data was missing because the cameras were down. And it was a proprietary system that took a lot of time and effort to manage." Located in New Berlin, Penn., SUN Area Career & Technology Center offers adult education classes, vocational education, and technical career training to more than 1500 people each year. The facility is dedicated to providing students with the skills needed to compete in today's job market and receive consideration for advanced college placement. When seeking a new security system, SUN took its cue from another school -- Central Penn Institute -- that had recently deployed D-Link cameras and was very happy with the results. "We were impressed with the quality of the network cameras, and we realized we could get the number of cameras we needed with D-Link's pricing," said Gray. "Cost alone made it very attractive for us, especially considering the benefits it provided." SUN purchased 23 D-Link DCS-1110 Power over Ethernet (PoE) network cameras, and networked them using three D-Link DES-3828P PoE managed stackable switches. "The PoE switches allowed us to put the cameras anywhere without worrying about electrical connections," said Gray. The cameras are all high-quality color devices that SUN runs at 10 frames per second for image quality and storage optimization, which he says is "significantly faster" than the old analog system. Gray evaluated network cameras from Sony and Axis Communications. "Budget was a big issue for us," said Gray, "and those options were just too expensive. We could have gone small with the other vendors, but then we wouldn't have been able to purchase the number of cameras we needed for appropriate coverage." "The D-Link cameras are perfect for hallway coverage," said Gray. The school now has reliable, court-quality video as visual evidence for disciplinary infractions. The students know that the cameras are recording 24X7, which helps curb unwanted behavior. With the D-Link system, SUN doesn't need to hire security personnel to monitor surveillance screens. They record everything to a 2TB server that includes five SATA drives in a RAID configuration. The storage can handle an entire school year of recordings. The MPEG files generated by the cameras are easy to copy onto CD or DVD, and can be immediately played back for court, parents or anyone else that has a Microsoft Media Player installed on their computer. "Since we're already network specialists here in the IT department, the whole system is easy to manage," said Gray. "A network-friendly system like D-Link's helps us reduce the amount of time we spend managing equipment. There's really not much that we have to do. That's important when you have so much other work to do supporting the network and the users." This content continues onto the next page...
Bill summaries are authored by CRS. Shown Here: Passed Senate without amendment (11/05/2009) Recognizes the celebration of National American Indian and Alaska Native Heritage Month during November 2009. Honors the heritage and culture of American Indians and Alaska Natives and their contributions to the United States.
Canadian tourist Doris Roberts blithely smoked a cigarette as she relaxed at a table under cloudy skies in Times Square on Monday, flicking ashes and scorn at the city's new law prohibiting smoking in pedestrian plazas, as well as in parks and at beaches. A new outdoor smoking ban covers all of New York City's parks and public plazas, including Times Square. WSJ's Hilke Schellmann visited the iconic crossroads for tourists and office workers to see if smokers would take heed of the new law. "It's ridiculous," said Ms. Roberts, 47 years old, of Montreal. "We're outside—we should be able to smoke." Ninety days after Mayor Michael Bloomberg signed into law this most recent expansion of the city's smoking ban, it became illegal on Monday to smoke in the city's 1,700 parks and on its 14 miles of beaches. Smoking is now also prohibited along the city's boardwalks, marinas and pedestrian plazas, such as Times Square. Parks Department officials are authorized to enforce the law and may issue fines of $50 per violation. But city officials say they're hopeful the new ban will be self-enforcing, with most people stubbing out their butts when alerted by passersby or city officials. As of Monday evening, officials said no citations had been issued. The new smoking ban—coming eight years after Mr. Bloomberg convinced the City Council to approve a ban in bars and restaurants and other indoor workplaces—drew a mix of praise and disdain from people in the city's parks and plazas. At Times Square: Brittney Lawson, 20, smokes in the public plaza on Monday, the first day of the city's new smoking ban. She put out the cigarette upon being informed of the ban. Michael Nagle for The Wall Street Journal Karin Almonte, a 31-year-old messenger from Washington Heights, bemoaned the ban as he watched a man wave a wand that spawned giant, translucent bubbles near the bandshell just south of Central Park's Bethesda Terrace. "I have to leave the park to smoke and then come back?" he said incredulously. "It's not fair." "They're using people to make more money," he said, referring to the possibility of getting a ticket. "Maybe in the future, they will say you can't smoke in your own home." Others said they were thankful they could enjoy smoke-free parks. "The smoke really bothers me," said Chris Goodwin, 73, a retired doorman who was resting on a bench near Central Park's Great Lawn. "Tobacco is harmful." Thomas Farley, commissioner of the city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, played a key role in convincing Mr. Bloomberg to support the expanded ban. He said New Yorkers deserve to enjoy public places free of smoke and cigarette butts. "Smoke-free parks protect all those who visit from the dangers of secondhand smoke and our children can play without getting a lesson on how to smoke," Dr. Farley said. "It is our hope that smokers, most of whom want to quit, will use this as an opportunity make a quit attempt." Mr. Bloomberg was initially hesitant to move forward with the latest ban, but after examining data about the dangers of second-hand smoke, he became convinced it was the right move for the city, according to aides. A sign at the entrance to Bryant Park notifies visitors of a new smoking ban in New York City. Getty Images During his first term in office, the mayor ignited a firestorm of criticism when he proposed and won council approval to ban smoking in bars and restaurants citywide. The measure has since gained widespread acceptance, and Mr. Bloomberg considers it one of the greatest achievements of his mayoralty. Over the years, he has donated hundreds of millions of dollars to encourage people world-wide to quit smoking. The ban doesn't include the sidewalks immediately adjoining parks, squares and public places, officials said. A smoker could easily hop onto a sidewalk to evade a ticket or disapproving remark. A spokeswoman for the city's parks department said the administration is in the process of erecting 3,000 to 4,000 permanent signs to alert people to the new law. The city is also launching a campaign highlighting the new law with ads on television, in the subway and in print media, officials said Monday. In Times Square, where huge billboards catch the eye, few noticed the tiny signs that the city posted about the new smoking ban. One smoker, when asked his thoughts on the new law as he briskly walked through the pedestrian plaza, replied: "Didn't know it existed." Once informed, he took another puff and kept walking. But Debbie Eastwood, a 46-year-old tourist from Manchester, England, quickly stubbed out her smoke when a reporter told her about the new law. "It's probably best for everybody," she said with a laugh. Ms. Eastwood, who is headed to Las Vegas at the end of the week, then asked, with a twinkle of mischievousness in her eye, "Is there a smoking ban there?" Write to Michael Howard Saul at
Take the 2-minute tour × I have a software that communicates with api of a website. How could I increase its functionality to connect to various other api's without touching the code in it? I think the easiest way is to write a proxy that resides between api and softwre translates incoming messages from other api to the base api that this software "understands". Where should I look for more information on implementing this proxy using c#? Thank you for help. share\|improve this question add comment 1 Answer Hmm sounds like one of the Software design patterns you come across every day. I think what fits best with your "proxy" is actually bridge. From sourcemaking - Decouple an abstraction from its implementation so that the two can vary independently. - Publish interface in an inheritance hierarchy, and bury implementation in its own inheritance hierarchy. - Beyond encapsulation, to insulation “Hardening of the software arteries” has occurred by using subclassing of an abstract base class The example in C# is http://sourcemaking.com/design_patterns/bridge/c%2523 However if you just want the proxy design pattern (which imho doesn't suit your problem) is listed here: 1. Proxy Pattern. 2. Proxy Pattern in C#. EDIT: Ok, for a more generalised solution, go with Proxy pattern and look at existing implementations for proxies. You'll find quite a few answers to that answer question on this site: share\|improve this answer Hi, thanks for reply. I thought more of a real proxy server running on local machine to receive a communication from software (which I did not mention much about but is old and complicated, what makes it extremely time consuming to update) and translate these messages to other api and connect with the other api. I found this: codeproject.com/KB/IP/mywebserver.aspx, and thought this could be a base for this server ... am I correct in my reasoning? – Macin Jun 30 '11 at 22:09 add comment Your Answer
Radical ideas needed to outdo cameraphones Started Jul 31, 2012 \| Discussions thread ForumParentFirstPreviousNextNext unread Flat view Andrew Butterfield Senior MemberPosts: 2,402Gear list Radical ideas needed to outdo cameraphones Jul 31, 2012 Some camera makers seem to be realising that they have to find ways to differentiate their consumer products from cameraphones. But really, they're not thinking that hard if you ask me. Fast lenses and zoom lenses seem to be about the only things they've come up with so far. And now Nokia has shown you can use a huge sensor to provide zoom, things are looking even more precarious for the compact camera. So I'm surprised we haven't seen some more radical thinking. Camera makers are a bit stuck. They think they can't make a camera that doesn't have a huge LCD on the back, for instance. But who really needs that? Get rid of the LCD and the camera could be a more useful shape and size, and there would be more room for better controls. Many photographers would be happy to use just an EVF if it was good enough. A long-zoom camera with just an EVF could be a radically different shape that would be easier to transport. Or you could have an EVF, and a mini projector for when you want to show your friends your photos. Or let the camera communicate with your phone and use that as the LCD. Have a slot in the back of the camera for an iPhone. Or what about having the EVF detachable, and wireless, so you could set your camera up on the bird table and use the EVF as a remote shutter release. And why haven't we seen a compact camera with a super-wide-angle lens and a tilt-shift mechanism so we can take great architecture shots without converging verticals? I'd love a tilt-shift compact camera. And of course there's the obvious opportunity to have apps on your camera like on your phone. How this hasn't happened yet is beyond me. These are just off the top of my head, but it has to happen or camera makers (particularly ones like Casio whose range of cameras seems very vulnerable to the cameraphone) will find themselves out of the compact market altogether. -- hide signature -- Andrew Butterfield's gear list:Andrew Butterfield's gear list ForumParentFirstPreviousNextNext unread Flat view ForumParentFirstPreviousNextNext unread Keyboard shortcuts: Color scheme? Blue / Yellow
Before the Lincoln High School prom last Saturday night, 16-year-old Sammi McCasland and seven of her friends -- a total of four couples -- decided to take photos with their smartphones at the Japanese Friendship Garden at Kelley Park. Having duly paid the $6 per vehicle parking fee, the Lincoln students walked toward the bridges and ponds of the friendship garden in search of the right spot for a memory. That's when a San Jose park ranger told them no. "We get there, and she says, 'Do you guys have a permit?' '' remembered Sammi. "We said 'no.' She said, 'No, you can't take pictures.' '' The Lincoln kids, part of a wave of promgoers descending on the garden, waited until the park ranger had gone and then took their shots without benefit of the $100 permit. Witnesses said other students were simply turned away flat. "People were mad,'' Sammi told me. "Everyone was really annoyed and frustrated.'' Is this really policy? Can the City of San Jose -- which, let's face it, takes in a fair amount of taxes from the students and their parents -- really be in the business of stopping kids from taking prom pictures with their cellphones at a public park? Breaking the rules? And if that's so, shouldn't the city's park rangers stop everyone from taking photos, even the tourists who pose on the bridge by the koi fish? Make room at Elmwood Correctional Center: We have massive lawbreaking at the Japanese Friendship Garden. When I ran this episode past Steve Hammack, the deputy director of parks, recreation and neighborhood services, he said the city's policy was clear. "We encourage photography in the park and only require a permit when conducted for the purposes of doing business,'' he wrote me by email. "This situation as you outlined below does not require a permit. I am following up with staff to make sure we are not misrepresenting the requirements for obtaining a permit.'' And that's fair enough. San Francisco, for example, says that permits aren't needed unless the photographer is being paid -- a wedding videographer, for instance. You can see the reasoning behind that: In a paid gig, the city's grounds are being used as a business backdrop. Yet it may not be wholly fair to blame the park ranger here. When you look up the city's policies online ( the rules appear ambiguous. Under the "Photo Permit'' section, the city says, "Photo permits are necessary for any type of photography or filming in all city of San Jose parks.'' Japanese Friendship Garden, Kelley Park Japanese Friendship Garden, Kelley Park (Mercury News archive) But an FAQ for photo permits has this question: "Do I have to have a permit for photos if I'm just visiting the park and snapping a few pictures?'' The answer is "No.'' So it appears that "snapping a few pictures,'' which is presumably what the promgoers were attempting, is not the same as the "any type of photography'' requiring a $100 permit from the city. Now it might be that the park ranger saw a big group of kids arriving at the park and lumped it in with something like a lavish wedding or quinceañera. If so, put up a few signs outlining the policy. It will help the rangers and picture-takers. And save the rest of us from going mad, in both senses.
> So....my question is, is it always necessary to retrieve a record > before doing save() in order to make it update a record which > already exists? If so, would I do something like: No. Your could do the following. User user = new User(); data.getParameters().setProperties(user); // much easier user.setNew(false); user.save(); // save() UserPeer.doUpdate(user); // or use the peer Try that. Eric
Take the 2-minute tour × Does anyone know any specific or explicit example of a set of $256$ points so that no $10$ are the vertices of a convex $10$-gon? Thanks in advance. share\|improve this question It seems that Erdos and Szekeres claimed an inductive construction for an example, but it is based on $g_{k,1}(1)=g_{1,l}=0$ and $g_{k,l}$ linearly depends on $g_{k,1}(1)$ and $g_{1,l}(1)$, which means all $g_{k,l}$'s are $0$. But then how would that become a valid example? Anyone knows? Thanks. – alicay Jan 10 '13 at 8:03 If the one who edited the question is the same as the OP, he should flag for moderator attention to request merging his two accounts. – Julian Kuelshammer Jan 10 '13 at 21:03 add comment Your Answer Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.
Take the 2-minute tour × I have a database that has a table of Ingredients I and a table of Recipes R. The two tables have a many-to-many relationship, as one recipes uses many ingredients and one ingredient is used in many recipes. I have a third cross-reference table that uses the cross-reference validation pattern to enforce my many-to-many relationship, and is done using string foreign keys (instead of integers). Assuming I have a collection of ingredients C outside of my database, how can I query Recipe table R for every recipe that can be made using ONLY the list of ingredients supplied in C? Other things to consider 1) Speed will (of course) be a concern eventually, but correctness is what I'm stuck on at the moment. 2) The collection of ingredients C might be very large (~100 ingredients). Any answers or even just pointers in the right direction would be greatly appreciated. share\|improve this question What is the DB/Version? – Chandu Jul 25 '12 at 21:15 @Chandu, I haven't figured out any of that yet, I'm just working on this system as a hobby so I haven't laid out any specifications yet. For now, you can just assume the current stable MySQL 5.5.25 . But really, any answer you can provide I will try and port back to MySQL (or whatever DB I decide to use) – pghprogrammer4 Jul 25 '12 at 21:51 add comment 1 Answer up vote 5 down vote accepted One way is to write: select ... from R where ID not in ( select R_ID from RI where I_ID not in ( select I_ID from C That is: start with C. Select all recipe–ingredient cross-references where the ingredient is not in C. This gives you the set of all recipes that cannot be made using only ingredients in C. Then, select all recipes that aren't in that set. share\|improve this answer Good catch on my answer. I read the question to fast. I missed the point about only recipes that can be made with ONLY those ingredients. – RThomas Jul 25 '12 at 21:27 add comment Your Answer
KNOX, Ind. The Starke County Sheriff’s Department arrested 76 people Saturday morning after officers raided an animal fighting contest in Knox, police say. Just before 11 a.m., police responded to an anonymous tip that 50 people were participating in an animal fighting contest west of Knox, at 100 W, south of State Road 8. When police arrived, multiple people ran and abandoned fighting cock paraphernalia and several vehicles parked in the area. Police arrested over 76 suspects after running through muddy fields, ice-covered ditches and wooded areas. Officers found other suspects hiding in ditches and hollowed-out trees. One juvenile that was harbored by an adult was found without shoes. The juvenile was taken to Starke Memorial Hospital and treated for frostbite. Police say they arrested a person who was described as a Hispanic male for organizing the event, and many others were arrested for promoting animal fighting and attending. Twelve of them are facing felonies for bringing the roosters to the fight. The other 64 are facing misdemeanors. It is a class A misdemeanor to attend an animal fighting contest and it is a Class D felony to promote the use of animals or attendance at an animal fighting contest. As of Monday morning, all but one of the people arrested have bonded out. Only the suspects facing felonies were held at the Starke County Jail. The others were released with citations and court dates. A school bus was called to the scene to transport the suspects to the jail. 145 fighting cocks were seized and transported to the Starke County Humane Society for euthanization. Officers also obtained and served a search warrant seizing 13 firearms, 29 vehicles, drug paraphernalia, and cock fighting paraphernalia. Police also say vendors were at the event selling food and drinks. Those arrested traveled from various states including Wisconsin, Illinois and Michigan. In May, 2006, police raided a cock fight in the Grovertown area of Starke County. Police arrested 52 people and seized 60 roosters in that case.
Subscribe English look up any word, like tittybong: 1 definition by bradcoop Delfina (noun) Del-fina (from-fine) 1. Daughter of the Roman god Apollo and Daphne. Delfina is the goddess ruler of the sun. In heathen theology; a cherisher and protector of the polite arts, Inherited Like Apollo she was the god of light, medicine, eloquence, music and beauty. 2 Essentially a female name (Latin) Spanish or European upper class 3. Delfina is from the finest, ultrafine, superfine, and emotionally stable. "Fina" fine in every aspect. 4. All that is good, classy, real and pure. 5. The modern day Delfina has an air of authority; it is an innate right that suits her completely. 6. Anything that comes from the very finest, of superior quality, of high regard 7. from the most precious of all things considered 8. A natural beauty illuminates her surroundings; she is from the finest stock. 9. Fine facial appearance, captivating eyes, long nose, great body, round tight behind, small waist. It was obvious by the lavish clothes they wore that they lived a delfina lifestyle. by bradcoop August 28, 2010 71 6
Take the 2-minute tour × I am writing a script and started working with the install command (for copying files) and it is not working. CMake configure/generate does not show any errors (i.e. it does not stop and no warnings/errors show related to this command) and the command does not seem to be working because I don't see any files being copied. Since I am new, I am wondering: • How can I tell that install failed (perhaps the source directory was wrong, or the destination directory was wrong)? It appears to be failing silently • Are there error codes I can check to see what went wrong? • Ans lastly when is install called? When I click configure? Or when the project is built? I am on Windows. share\|improve this question add comment 1 Answer When you add an install command to your CMakeLists.txt, you get a new target created called "install". In order to actually install the chosen files/targets, you need to build this install target. It's not automatically built as part of the "ALL" target. For example, if you're using Visual Studio, the "INSTALL" target should appear in the "CMakePredefinedTargets" folder of the Solution Explorer. Just selecting this target and building it will cause the solution to be built and the selected items installed. If any part of the build or install process fails, the notifications should then be apparent. share\|improve this answer That makes a lot of sense. Either I am not looking hard enough or the documentation does a poor job at describing these details. – Samaursa Mar 24 '13 at 1:07 This tutorial might help a bit? – Fraser Mar 24 '13 at 2:19 It does! Thanks! – Samaursa Mar 24 '13 at 15:51 add comment Your Answer
Take the 2-minute tour × I have an object $this->user which is of model User. This object is populated by $this->Auth->user in my app controller like so: $this->user = ClassRegistry::init('User'); Works like a charm. If I print_r out $this->user in my controller it gives me: User Object ( [validate] => Array ( blah blah blah A typical object. Now I have a Group model which belongs to a User, and users have many groups. These variables are properly set in the models. Now I want to find all Groups for this particular user who is logged in. So I tried this: $groups = $this->user->Group->find('list', array('fields'=>array('id', 'group_name'))) The key is that I want to use $this->user to automatically filter the Group query based on the owner_id in $this->user. It makes sense to me that if I've got a specific object representing a user and I do a Group query based on that user ... it should only return the relevant groups. The problem is that $groups contains all of the entries in the Groups table, rather than obviously the ones I only want from the current user. I don't see why I would need to add a "conditions"=>"user_id"=$this->Auth->user('id') parameter to the find function because I've already specified what user I'm using via the model chain. Any ideas why this is not working? The sql statment it runs is simply a SELECT on Groups WHERE 1 = 1 (so not filtering at all). share\|improve this question add comment 1 Answer up vote 0 down vote accepted No, the object User really acts more like a class than a object. You can say Cake doesn't fully implement Active Record pattern (I think Cake 3.0 may fix that, not sure). So yes, you still need to set the condition for the find. And you don't have to set($this->Auth->user); You are probably not very familiar with Cake: in Cake, you hardly ever have to instantiate Model objects at all. They are created for you based on the current controller and model relationships that you specify. share\|improve this answer OK thanks for your answer. I am still learning cake, yes. The only reason I had that variable instantiated is because I wanted to use it in this manner - as that is not possible then you're right - I have no use for it. – MikeMurko Aug 26 '11 at 19:21 add comment Your Answer
Subscribe English look up any word, like fuck: Scapulation dumping refers to the process of dumping scapula’s. Little is known about Scapula’s (from the latin word Scapulaiincredabilous) except that they are found at incredible depths within the worlds oceans. It is within their home environment that they creep and crawl over the ocean floors gathering the bubbles from shark farts. Deep sea trawlers net the scapulas, extract the shark farts and encapsulate them in a vat of spirits which are ultimately sold to the manufacturers of spirit levels and used for the bubbles found within those levels. Extreme caution must be applied throughout the action to avoid the shark farts entering the seamen’s blood stream and causing “the bends”. The Scapula’s are not harmed during the process and are dumped back into the sea once their valuable cargo’s are extracted hence the expression “scapulation dumping”. Prof J.S. Miller Scapulation Dumping refers to dumping scapula's and is associated with production of Pioneer Brickies Levels by Ormbo January 22, 2008 2 3 Words related to Scapulation Dumping refers to dumping scapula's: dumping farts levels scapula sharks
Take the 2-minute tour × This seems like an ideal place to ask a question that has been keeping me confused for a little while now. But I apologize if I've posted in the wrong area. My question is that I don't seem to understand the temperature trend that I am seeing from my temperature sensors. I'll start of with my setup: Essentially, I have a metal box with two temperature sensors. 1) Is mounted right at the base of the box [Temp Sensor #1] 2) The second temperature sensor is mounted 2 inches from the top of the box [Temp Sensor #2]. The box is about 6 inches in height. I've placed a heating pad at the base of the box (Temp Sensor #1 lies right in the center of this pad. A graphic showing my setup: I've also implemented a simple on/off temperature controller, that senses when the temperature goes above a certain set-point and turns off (hence you see the highs/lows for Temp Sensor #1). As you can see from the image, the lower sensor (blue) has the peaks/troughs corresponding to when the heater turns on/off. The heater gets triggered every time the sensing temperature goes below the set point. What I don't understand is why the top sensor (red) has a periodically decreasing trend (it doesn't have highs/lows similar to the bottom sensor)? It doesn't seem to be affected by the heater turning on at all? Even though it is merely 4" away from the heater inside the metal enclosure. I understand that Sensor#1 is probably changing immediately due to the heater very quickly affecting the metal base temperature via conduction. Whereas the second sensor is probably measuring the air around the metal enclosure at the top, and since air is an insulator, it takes longer to heat up. But there should be at-least some highs and lows I'd imagine. The continuous decreasing trend doesn't make any sense ... Then, I suspected that perhaps my second temperature sensor was damaged. But that wasn't the case. I've tested both sensors and they work fine. Also here is a graph of the temperature trend, when I place the enclosure (with the sensors) in the freezer with no heater action. Intuitively as you can imagine, there is merely a decreasing trend for both sensors (shown below) due to the effect of the freezer: Any suggestions please as to why I notice no temperature variation at Sensor #2 location when the heater turns on/off? share\|improve this question Here is the trend with no heater and the freezer merely cooling: i47.tinypic.com/2430vp2.png , I couldn't post it in the original post since I do not have sufficient rep points. The heater pad type, I am using is this: winemakersdepot.com/Brewers-and-Wine-Making-Heat-Pad-P700.aspx – c0d3rz Jan 31 '13 at 0:32 I see when the heater is turned on an off, but when is the cooling activated? – mdma Jan 31 '13 at 1:32 What temp are you trying to stabilize at and is this metal enclosure insulated? Especially the lid. – brewchez Feb 2 '13 at 22:19 You've also inappropriately applied a linear fit to data that isn't behaving that way. You state that its a continuous decreasing trend. But it isn't, it has stabilize half way through the data collection period. – brewchez Feb 2 '13 at 22:24 add comment 1 Answer up vote 1 down vote accepted It's to do with thermal inertia. If you look closely at the graph you'll see there are highs and lows for sensor #2 also - just much smaller than sensor #1, and they have the same period (time interval) as sensor #1, indicating they stem from the same heating oscillation. You're of course right when you say that air is a poor conductor, and so it will essentially dampen the effect of the heater - there are rises and falls, just over a smaller, dampened range. I'm not entirely clear on when the freezer switches on and why it would be on when the heater is also on, but it seems that's the case from the graph. Another reason for the imbalance is that the freezer has a far greater cooling effect than the 25W heater can heat. Most freezers are in the order of 120W or more, and have a Coefficient of Performance (CoP) of 2 or more when chilling to beer temperature, so you're getting about 240W of real cooling power vs 25W of heating power (resistance heating has a CoP <= 1) - so a 10:1 difference. I imagine the main reason you're seeing any fluctuation in sensor 2 at all is because of the box, which confines the convection of heated air to within the box. I imagine if you removed the box and did the same thing, you'd see very little change in sensor #2 because of the large volume of cooler air surrounding it. share\|improve this answer Hi mdma: The freezer is always switched on, it is never turned off. Also, I'm using a 120W heater instead, so the heating/cooling difference is not that large I think. If I go with the idea of thermal inertia, why is that the lower sensor (Sensor #1) changes so quickly then? Shouldn't it face the same problem? – c0d3rz Jan 31 '13 at 2:56 The lower sensor changes quickly because the rate of conduction through contact with #1 is much quicker than conduction through the air to #2. – mdma Jan 31 '13 at 2:59 Hmm, just one last question about this CoP. Why is that the CoP is greater than 1 in the case of cooling? – c0d3rz Jan 31 '13 at 20:59 The CoP for compressor/inverter systems like fridges and heating pumps because they are just moving heat from one place to another, so the net heat output can be higher than the energy consumed. With a resistance based heat pad, this turns electrical energy into heat, and so the amount of heat produced can never be more than the electricity consumed. – mdma Jan 31 '13 at 21:09 add comment Your Answer
• By Rockstar Games Image from L.A. Noire Rockstar Games last week released L.A. Noire, a hypnotic detective thriller developed by Australian studio Team Bondi. The videogame has been called groundbreaking for the facial-recognition technology used to create its characters, and the resulting psychological dimensions of gameplay. In witness questioning and interrogation sequences, the player, as young detective Cole Phelps, tries to ascertain the truths and lies in what he’s told. Because L.A. Noire’s cast of characters feature the recorded facial performances of its actors, rather than hand-animated abstractions of feeling, the gameplay carries the emotional ambiguity and weight of a cop show or film noir. We spoke via email with Jeronimo Barrera, VP of product development at Rockstar, about the process of building the game. Speakeasy: The team used maps from the Works Progress Administration, archival photographs from newspapers, and aerial photos as reference material for the environment. Can the eight-square-mile section of Los Angeles recreated in the game be considered documentary or used as research material in its own right? Jeronimo Barrera: We went to a great deal of effort in every area, from the details of the interiors of certain key buildings, licensing classic billboards, and recreating former landmarks, but it’s not a block-for-block recreation—we are trying to make something that feels real, not that replicates reality. We have to make some concessions to game design, alongside more pedestrian things like building licensing. A great example of the lighter side of the issues involved is the fact that in 1947, all the palm trees in L.A. were still roughly head-high. But when they were designed that way in the game, they had the opposite effect to being realistic—they actually distracted players from the experience, so we designed them at full height. We also designed the game to be slightly less smoggy than L.A. was at the time. Past games from Rockstar have featured antiheroes as main characters. In this game, the protagonist is a cop. What level of moral ambiguity is written into the character and the game as a whole? L.A. Noire is very different from our other games in a lot of ways, and one of them is that Cole Phelps is a by-the-book detective, and so the game is designed with that in mind. He can only draw his weapon when fired upon, or to fire a warning shot, for example. That said, it wouldn’t be noir if there wasn’t some complexity to the character, but that’s part of the story arc of the game. We have tried, in the past, to ensure that our anti-heroes have some redeeming qualities, and equally in this game we have tried to give Phelps a few weaknesses so he is far from the whiter-than-white hero he presents himself as at the start of the game. Actors were recorded in an environment akin to a high-tech science-fiction setting. How were they directed to deliver believable, and relatable, performances while sitting alone in a chair and soundproof room? The MotionScan room houses a rig of 32 high-definition 2D cameras that shoot an actor’s head—and only the head—from every angle, and actors would focus their performances on a main bank of cameras set in front of them. It was definitely an alien process at first, but we discovered a way to help humanize the process and help the actors emote just by placing a small print of the Mona Lisa in front of them to act toward and provide a sight line. Using an external monitor and microphone, Brendan McNamara, the game’s writer and director, would feed the actors their lines and direct individual performances. Soon, the actors were accustomed to the rig and delivered incredible performances. It was practically a second home. What limitations does the system have? Right now, the system can only capture facial performances, but there’s a potential for it to capture a lot more in the future. Do you feel that you’ve conquered the uncanny valley? There’s always more work to be done, but the work in L.A. Noire is a huge leap forward—there has never been a greater level of emotion and realism in a videogame. What’s incredible about this is that we didn’t achieve this simply by using CG characters in non-interactive cutscenes. Every character in the game—some 400 in all—was created with this technology, and it is present in every scene, whether you’re talking to your partner during a shootout or searching a crime scene for clues. The character bodies use existing motion-capture technology. There’s thus a disconnect between how their faces and their bodies have been realized. Is this an issue for the believability of the world? For both facial and body animations we have used the best available technology. The facial tech is newer, but we feel this only brings it close to the level of motion capture. Faces were where the great leap in detail is really needed. For years, developers have been able design characters that move realistically. We used modern motion-capture techniques to obtain the information on the bodies, and then connected the heads to them. The difference is, motion capture assembles data on the skeleton of a character—MotionScan is the literal transfer of a real actor’s performance into the world of the game. How explicit is the game’s connection between police procedurals and cinematic or literary noir? The game is designed to play out a lot like a classic police procedural, but styled and themed in the traditions of noir. The game takes place across five “desks” of the LAPD—Patrol, Traffic, Homicide, Vice and Arson. Each desk consists of three to six self-contained cases, each with their own unique challenges. The game itself references classic noir and neo-noir both literally and obliquely, but the key thread here is that almost everyone you meet is hiding something—and the Cole Phelps we meet at the beginning of the game is a very different man than he is when you finally finish. More on L.A. Noire: Dropping Bodies Into Computer-Generated Films Gamer As Gumshoe
Motorola atrix 2 The Motorola Atrix 2 is a powerful smartphone with a unique spin thanks to being able to alter its use through the accessories bundle and hi-res screen, and it's nice to review something that isn't identical to the rest of the market. We liked The Motorola Atrix 2 is certainly a top-end phone. There are several useful accessories such as a GPS car mount, a Lapdock for charging the phone and using a webtop operating system, and another docking station that enables you to connect to an HD TV using an HDMI cable. The 8MP camera is outstanding - videos and photos turned out clear and colourful. The phone is light and portable, with a bright screen, good battery life and a fast processor. We disliked The Motorola Atrix 2 pales a bit in comparison to the lighter and thinner Samsung Galaxy S2, the faster Galaxy Nexus and the iPhone 4S (which runs a bit faster for games). The Motorola Atrix 2 has an older 1GHz processor instead of a 1.2GHz processor, there's no NFC chip and the screen isn't as bright as the AMOLED screen on the Samsung Galaxy S2. The chassis is also a little chunky too - with the slimline business of the iPhones and Galaxys of this world, we can't stand too much heft, although this may appeal to those looking for something other than a wafer thin device. Final verdict The Motorola Atrix 2 falls a bit short of the best Android phones, but is in the same league. The phone runs fast, has a bright screen and lasts all day. But if we had to pick an Android phone, we'd either choose the Samsung Galaxy S2 or wait for the Galaxy Nexus - and the Motorola Razr is probably the superior device coming from the Moto brand.
FORT MEADE, Md. --Bradley Manning, the Army private who sent hundreds of thousands ofsecret U.S. government documents to WikiLeaks, was found not guilty onTuesday of the most serious charge against him -- aiding the enemy --but guilty of several other charges at a military trial in Fort Meade,Md. Col.Denise Lind, the military judge in the case, made the ruling. Manninghad requested that a judge, not a jury, determine the verdict againsthim. Lind found Manning guilty of five counts of theft, fivecounts of espionage, a computer fraud charge and other militaryinfractions. Manning's sentencing hearing is set to beginWednesday. He still faces a potential 128 years in prison if he receivesthe maximum sentence for the charges on which he was convicted. Inhis closing argument last week, military prosecutor Maj. Ashden Fein,told the court Manning was a traitor who joined the Army to stealgovernment documents, turn them over to the anti-secrecy organizationand enjoy adulation as a whistle blower. Manning's lawyer, DavidCoombs, portrayed him as a soldier troubled by what he saw whiledeployed to Iraq and struggling as a gay man to serve before the repealof Don't Ask, Don't Tell, the policy that resulted in more than 14,000gay troops being discharged. Manning, 25, had faced 21 charges,including the most serious - aiding the enemy, which carries a possiblesentence of up to life in prison. Manning has acknowledged givingWikiLeaks some 700,000 battlefield reports, diplomatic cables andvideos. But he says he didn't believe the information would harm troopsin Afghanistan and Iraq or threaten national security. Theprosecution argued that Manning knew a- Qaeda terrorists could benefitfrom the leaks. Some of the information turned up in the search of Osamabin Laden's compound in Pakistan, they said. Manning pleadedguilty in February to charges that he had misused classifiedinformation. Those charges carry a maximum term of 20 years in prison. Manningwas a low-level intelligence analyst, working at a forward operatingbase in Iraq when he gained access to the files. He used his computersavvy to gain access to sensitive government documents andcommunications. The material he released included footage of aU.S. Army helicopter attack in Iraq in 2007 that killed at least ninemen, including a Reuters journalist. Other documents revealed tepid for the government in Tunisia. Manning's supporters say thathelped bring about the revolution there that sparked the Arab Springmovement. The verdict and sentence will be reviewed by thecommander of the Military District of Washington. A hearing on hissentence is set to begin Wednesday.
MATHEMATICA BOHEMICA, Vol. 121, No. 1, pp. 41-54, 1996 Two solutions for a nonlinear Dirichlet problem with positive forcing J. Matos, L. Sanchez J. Matos, L. Sanchez, Universidade de Lisboa, Centro de Matematica e Aplicac oes Fundamentais, Avenida Professor Gama Pinto, 2, 1699 - Lisboa Codex, Portugal Abstract: Given a semilinear elliptic boundary value problem having the zero solution and where the nonlinearity crosses the first eigenvalue, we perturb it by a positive forcing term; we show the existence of two solutions under certain conditions that can be weakened in the onedimensional case. Keywords: semilinear elliptic equations, multiple solutions, shooting method, variational methods Classification (MSC91): 34B15, 35J25 Full text of the article:
Officials of several religious organizations, including the Presbyterian, Lutheran and Episcopal churches, sent an open letter to Congress yesterday opposing the proposed constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. ''Although we have differing opinions on rights for same-sex couples, we believe the Federal Marriage Amendment reflects a fundamental disregard for individual civil rights and ignores differences among our nation's many religious traditions,'' the letter said. The United Church of Christ and the Unitarian Universalist Association, which recognize same-sex marriages, also signed the letter. So did representatives of the Anti-Defamation League, the Union for Reform Judaism, the liberal Alliance of Baptists and the Quakers. The Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, helped orchestrate the letter. As United Church of Christ minister, he said, ''I am disturbed that even though I can perform a religious ritual to unite a same-gender couple, the state won't recognize it because some different religious group thinks I am theologically wrong.'' But Diane L. Knippers, president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy, a group that seeks to push the liberal Protestant denominations in a more conservative direction, called the letter ''a blatant attempt by left-leaning religious leaders to undercut and intimidate other religious voices.'' She said the amendment would define marriage in civil law, not religious ritual.
Frogger Decades Currently Unavailable Recent posts about Frogger Decades Frogger Decades Review Just like Pac-Man, Frogger is a game that’s been remade and rebooted countless times. There have been sequels and spin-offs, but few that match the simple joy of the original. Frogger Decades is an attempt to celebrate the game’s 30th anniversary, and it does so surprisingly well. Decades takes what was great about the original and expands on it, making for a much more substantial experience. There’s actually a story in the game, though it’s really just there to provide an excuse for Frogger to go on his adventure. It works though, and is in keeping with the anniversary theme. A cartoony Frogger– who looks a lot like Kermit the frog– is off to find his birthday surprise when a villainous crocodile rearranges his map, forcing him to take the more scenic, and dangerous, route. At its most basic, the gameplay is the same as in the original Frogger. You can move one space at a time and the goal is to reach the end of the stage while avoiding a host of obstacles. Unlike the original, which had you crossing just a road and a river, Decades spans a total of 10 levels spread across five differently themed worlds. That may not sound like a lot, but completing each stage will likely take some time because Decades is decidedly difficult. As the game so helpfully pointed out, we died more than 70 times in one stage alone. To get to the other side. This is because the number of obstacles thrown Frogger’s way have increased substantially. There are enemies prowling about and moving platforms to deal with, in addition to the steady stream of traffic to navigate. The levels are also quite large but, thankfully, checkpoints are placed rather liberally throughout each. Even still, getting from one red flag to the next is almost always a difficult challenge. To deal with this extended range of obstacles, Frogger’s own abilities have been increased as well. He can jump across gaps, leap high into the air, and even use his tongue to move boxes and crates. These abilities make Decades feel somewhat like a cross between the original Frogger and a more traditional platform game like Super Mario. Unfortunately, while in theory controlling Frogger is quite simple, he doesn’t always do exactly what you want. To jump across gaps, for instance, you need to hold your finger for a moment and then swipe in the direction you wish to move. But sometimes Frogger would leap before we even swiped and in a seemingly random direction. The level design can also make the game harder than it needs to be, as occasionally things like bridges or train tracks will obscure parts of the screen. It’s not so bad when it’s simply hiding a fly, but when an enemy lurks about unseen it can be quite frustrating. With its modern presentation and expanded gameplay, Frogger Decades is a Frogger sequel that’s actually worth playing. But just be sure you’re ready for a challenge, as the titular frog will get squished many, many times before you manage to find his birthday surprise. discussion by
Microsoft's $1 Billion Xbox 360 Recall Problems Caused By Chip Cheapness Microsoft's red ring Xbox 360 problems have cost the company about a billion dollars in warranty repairs, but the research vice president and chief analyst at Gartner said that the hardware problems were caused because Microsoft wanted to be cheap. Instead of using an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) vender to make a graphics chip for the 360, Microsoft decided to design it themselves and have Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing create it. This saved "tens of millions of dollars" in design costs. Yes, only tens of millions. The good news is that when Microsoft said that their red ring problems are fixed on newer units, they were probably right. They went to "an unnamed ASIC vendor based in the United States and redesigned the chip." Probably ATI, is what EETimes thinks. Moral of the story is to not skimp on chip design so you can save tens of millions, because that may come back and bite you in the ass down the road. [EETimes]
Air TV vol. 1 ADV Films // Unrated // $29.98 // August 14, 2007 Review by Todd Douglass Jr. \| posted September 3, 2007 E - M A I L this review to a friend Graphical Version The Show: Air is a show with a rich background which includes visual novel games and manga. Consisting of 13 episodes the series began air-ing (pun intended) in 2005 and went on to receive a movie around the same time. I heard about the show shortly after it was released but I do have to say I wasn't expecting to see the amount of hype surrounding it. It would seem that quite the fan base has been formed within the American audience and though I hadn't seen any of the show I had plenty of expectations when it came time to watch it. Yukito Kunisaki doesn't have much in the way of possessions or wealth. He has the shirt on his back, the dirty puppet in his pocket, and a story about a girl with wings, as told to him by his dead mother. The series begins unsuspectingly enough with Yukito traveling from town to town attempting to make money with his bizarre puppet show. You see, he has a small-ish telekinetic ability that allows him to control inanimate objects and make them walk around or dance. You'd think he'd make a killing with this skill but more often than not he's scoffed at by onlookers. One day Yukito wanders into a seaside town and finds more than he bargained for. While gazing blearily at the sky and bemoaning his lack of food a girl happens by and startles him out of a daydream. The girl's name is Misuzu and she takes a liking to Yukito rather quickly. She offers to buy him something to snack on and even brings him home so that he can sleep beneath a roof for the night. At first he's opposed to it but she seems so genuine and her mother eventually warms up to the idea so he decides to be a freeloader. Misuzu is a strange duck indeed. She has a tendency to make dinosaur noises, behaves much younger than she is, and has virtually no relationship with her mother whatsoever. Through circumstances Yukito basically becomes Misuzu's babysitter and makes sure that she doesn't get into trouble. While she's in school he spends his time trying to earn money with his puppet show, which is less than successful to say the least. Fortunately he manages to meet another strange young girl, her dog Potato, and through these events lands a job with the local doctor. It is quite obvious early on that some things are not all that they seem to be. The latest young girl he has met wears a ribbon on her wrist and merely says that it is there to keep her from using magic. When Yukito and Misuzu stumble upon her at the town's shrine enrobed in light with visions of grassy fields dancing around her we know right away that something is amiss. In between the daily insanity of Yukito's life this is merely another unsolved mystery that continues throughout this introductory volume. As things progress we meet several other characters as well. More of Misuzu's classmates show up and some of the adults in town have their own way of doing things and rewarding people. Throughout the four episodes here you'll get the sensation that something is amiss in this seaside village. There is something beneath the surface that defies explanation and as Yukito spends more time with these people this becomes evident. Air definitely skirts many issues as it tells its serene and somewhat bizarre tale. Things are peculiar, yet comforting, and the world surrounding Yukito is certainly robust enough to draw you in. So far some of the characters are fairly stereotypical but the story is intriguing enough to allow for that. Overall my expectations were met but not exceeded in the case of Air. I'm interested in seeing where the series goes from here since this volume was a great launching point but with such a limited perspective on the show it's hard to gauge the quality at this juncture. The DVD: Air originally aired in 2005 and features a very up to date presentation with pristine artwork and an impressive technical side to things. ADV has released the show on DVD with an anamorphic widescreen presentation and the image is practically flawless. This is one of the most vibrant shows I have ever seen with a color palette that titillates the senses. Quite honestly there are few shows out there as rich looking as Air and from the ground up the design here is marvelous. Technically speaking the video quality suffers slightly from some softness and grain here and there but neither really detracts from the experience. Considering Air is a dialogue driven show devoid of action of any variety I was very surprised to see 5.1 surround sound being available for both English and Japanese. A show like this could have gotten by with a 2.0 stereo track just fine but it seems that the producers wanted to make this project a labor of love. The extra attention to the sound pays off with a well-crafted sound field that draws you in with ambient noise and keeps dialogue and music separated nicely. The sense of immersion isn't the greatest but it's certainly better than I was expecting when going into the show. Clean animations and some trailers for other ADV products are all that you're going to find on the first volume of Air. Final Thoughts: Air is a highly unusual show that capitalizes on its detailed atmosphere and level of intrigue. So many aspects of the first four episodes are minimal in terms of how they are presented, yet somehow they all come together to craft an interesting and somewhat evasive story. The slow pacing and seeming lack of direction gives the world and characters the time they need to grow beyond their stereotypes but nothing satisfactory happens in this installment. I'm certain that every little detail is leading up to something much grander in scope by until we get there Air has the potential to merely string you along with a certain amount of frustration. For now this is a promising looking series with a strong start so we're going to recommend it.
Baptism By Lre J.H. Patel's airbus ministry steadies after a turbulent take-off send via whatsapp WHEN Chief Minister J.H. Patel announced his 45-member cabinet, he thought he had pulled off the ultimate balancing act. Every third party MLA was now a minister, and this was the biggest cabinet in Karnataka's history after Veerappa Moily's 46-member circus. But Patel couldn't have been more wrong. Barely hours after the swearing-in on June 5, four dejected aspirants sent in their resignation letters to Speaker Ramesh Kumar. Rebel MLAs may get plum state posts. Bigger carrots are being dangled in front of Manjunath and the Patils. The next morning the number had swollen to 10. By evening, there were 17, including three incumbent ministers and three MLAs who were ministers under H.D. Deve Gowda. Crisis had struck the six-day-old Patel Government and the jubilation of having a Kannadiga prime minister paled. "I'm not protesting because I wasn't reinducted. My grouse is: the party image has suffered because of the way the jumbo cabinet was constituted," says D. Manjunath, a Dalit leader who was minister for higher education under Gowda. Former ministers A.B. Patil and Vaijyanath Patil latched on to the ruse and said that they were unhappy about the severe regional imbalances caused by the unilateral choices Patel had made. "This council is the result of four paley -gars (chieftains)," quips Manjunath, who is not among those who resigned but is still their rallying point. Though the number of rebellion-minded MLAs who took the cue was surprising, the reaction of Manjunath and Patil was predictable. For, goaded on by pressure groups in the party, Patel had turned things around a bit drastically—dropping nine ministers from Gowda's council of 31 and inducting 23 new faces. Trouble had started brewing the morning before Patel was sworn in. A hurried debate was held to throw up some names to be sworn in alongside him, but in vain. Next morning, Patel and deputy Siddaramaiah flew to Delhi and returned with a list of 35 names, including nominees of Gowda and Hegde. At the swearing-in that evening, the list had swelled to 43. The revolt was obviously unplanned. The rebels had neither a common platform nor an action plan. Even their resignation letters were flawed, leading to doubts about their seriousness. Says the Speaker: "I received 10 resignation letters and four others conveyed their resignation on the phone. But none has given a letter in the prescribed form. Technically, I haven't received a single resignation letter." Instead of a one-line saying that they were quitting their assembly seats, the MLAs had written a page or two about how they had been mistreated. Patel, on his part, waxes belligerent: "Those who want to resign can resign. I won't succumb to blackmail." He even hints at disciplinary action. All this has left the rebels stumped. The Janata Dal, after all, has just a wafer-thin majority of 116 in a House of 224 and the rebels had expected Patel to go on the defensive. Ramakrishna Hegde, still sulking over the 'snub' he received when arch-rival Gowda was elevated, chose to distance himself from the goings-on though Gowda's men accuse him of instigating the crisis to unsettle the prime minister. Says he: "It's a storm in a teacup, it will blow over." Gowda decided on a more hands-on approach. He contacted the Speaker and asked him not to act till he (Gowda) talked to the MLAs. Gowda then assured the rebels that he would hear their case after passing the June 11 vote of confidence in the Lok Sabha. Gowda, says a senior JD leader, offered Manjunath the state party chief's post, and even governorship. Though he declined both, he agreed to wait till June 11 and talk to Gowda. Gowda's headache didn't end here. He had to assuage ministers like Roshan Baig, Leeladevi Prasad and B.A. Mohideen. The first two, ministers of state, were hoping to be promoted and Mohideen, of cabinet rank, was peeved with the small scale industries portfolio, which was manned by a minister of state under Gowda. But that's an aside. The main plot: dissenting MLAs will be mollified with the vacant top posts in the various boards and corporations. And Manjunath and the Patils will be told that their actions would be to the party's detriment. There's also the vacant state party chief's post as C.M.Ibrahim has moved to Delhi. With such feelers, the rebellion began to peter out over the weekend. Says a state minister: "None of the MLAs is prepared to lose his membership for the remainder of the term and risk an election after this charade. All they wanted to do was get Gowda to take Patel to task. In the process, they ended up exposing themselves." Read More In: send via whatsapp Translate into: Post a Comment You are not logged in, please log in or register Or just type in a few initial letters of a topic:
• n. Mutual exchange of food between adults and larvae of certain social insects such as bees or wasps. from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License • n. The mutual exchange of food between individuals, especially in social insects troph(o)- + Greek allaxis, exchange (from allassein, to exchange, from allos, other; see al-1 in Indo-European roots). • The species displays unusual and in one or two cases possibly even unique social behaviours, including the consumption and sharing of infrabuccal pellets, the apparent absence of adult transport, a primarily or exclusively mechanical form of colony defence, and a remarkable form of abdominal trophallaxis. ScienceBlogs Channel : Life Science • Placing a food item would lead to mostly the same behavior as they'd eat enough to bring back to the nest, where they could transfer food through trophallaxis to the nursery workers, but when they realized the fact that they were not getting home soon, they'd instead give mouth-to-mouth to the other members of the spiral until all were fed, regardless of who ate the food originally. what's new online! • Thank you for playing, the game, that is. trophallaxis, merdiverous, hive bottom feeders. the lot. LA Weekly \| Complete Issue • The bait is distributed to other members of the colony through the exchange of food known as trophallaxis. MachineMachine (formerly 'The Huge Entity') • As the adults deny the giving of predigested food to their young, so do they deny it to one another, and thus there is absent one of the strongest bonds which maintains intact the structure of the higher colonies - the bond of trophallaxis. It is indeed questionable whether the body structure of this lowly, semisocial ant would permit of such procedure, for its crop, or "social stomach," which enables the higher ants to distribute ingluvial food to their nest mates by regurgitation, is not well developed. - Caryl P. Haskins, Of Ants and Men, 1939, p. 32 December 4, 2008
Veteran airline captain and GA legend Barry Schiff enters the paper versus electronic chart debate with Senior Editor Dave Hirschman. November 1, 2013 Getting perspective You can’t see that on a screen By Barry Schiff When I accepted Dave Hirschman’s challenge to defend paper charts in a debate against digital charts, I knew that I would be pitching him a softball. The economics and convenience of digital charts make it difficult—but not impossible—to argue against them. Paper VFR charts obviously are best for spreading on the floor to gain a perspective of a planned cross-country flight. Yes, you can squish and expand a chart on your iPad, but detail and perspective are lost. The beauty of paper charts is that they don’t break when dropped or fail when you spill something on them. They don’t fade to black or get hung up for inexplicable reasons. I shiver just thinking about a tablet failure when in the clouds and about to begin an unfamiliar instrument approach. This is why airline pilots using them are required to have backups. A paper chart doesn’t create glare in sunlight, doesn’t need batteries, is easier to use in turbulence, and often has a larger “screen.” It also cannot change function or switch programs by inadvertently touching something on its face. A paper chart is infinitely more reliable than anything electronic. (Notice that Hirschman prints approach plates before departing on an IFR flight. If I’m not mistaken, he prints them on paper.) Another problem with electronic charts is that downloading revisions makes it difficult to detect changes made on commonly used approach charts. Nor can you easily compare charts that seem identical but are not (such as the Yankee and Zulu approaches to San Carlos, California). Also, you can’t use an iPad to swat flies. Well, I suppose you could, but it might be an expensive swat. Nor can it be used as a sun shield or an improvised instrument hood, as can a paper chart. The good thing about a failed iPad is that you can glue mileage scales along its edges and use it to measure distances and draw lines on a paper chart. Tablets can be heavy to hold for long or even short periods, and mounting them in small cockpits is challenging. A chart can be conveniently tucked anywhere. I like writing and making notes on paper charts. You should have seen Hirschman’s face when I wrote on the face of his iPad with a black Sharpie. It wasn’t pretty. Every pilot should have a Plan B, and “B” means “back to basics,” which to me means having paper charts in the cockpit. Someday, though, none of this will matter. Paper charts eventually will be unavailable, another step off the cliff of excessive technological reliance—and I will miss them. Visit the author’s website ( Paper is passé Take a memo (electronically) By Dave Hirschman In case you haven’t seen the memo, the era of navigating with paper charts is over. Sure, aeronautical charts are astonishingly accurate and beautifully drawn wonders of cartography. The hand-painted silk maps they replaced are even more sublime, and a few treasured examples adorn my office wall. But in actual airplanes, electronic charts are far more useful, and they’re getting better and cheaper at a rapid rate. A single tablet computer today can easily store every VFR chart and IFR procedure for the entire country, and digital subscriptions are painless to keep current. Add an ADS-B receiver and tablet computers get even more miraculous with free weather, traffic, pireps, and synthetic vision. Like other aviators of my generation, I learned to fly cross-country with a thumb held to my position on a VFR sectional. That was an interesting and perhaps character-building exercise, but cockpit chart-reading and folding skills are as useless today as typewriter ribbon. Open any aviation app and the blue dot shows your position (as well as heading, altitude, and groundspeed) with updates coming 10 times a second. I’m a pretty decent map reader, but not that good. Also, digital charts are one of those rare anomalies in aviation in which prices are actually falling, and dramatically so. A paper subscription for VFR and IFR charts used to cost in excess of $1,200 a year. Flight bags full of heavy approach plates meant job security for chiropractors, and countless trees paid the price. The same information is available in electronic form for $100 or less per year, weighs nothing, and never gets lost in the mail. No technology is perfect, and tablet computers can stop working when they get too hot, or too cold, or run out of power. But paper charts are no panacea. They get ripped or smudged, lost, attract spilled coffee, and float away from open-cockpit airplanes. (I lost a New York sectional from a Waco somewhere over Saratoga Springs, and an Atlanta terminal chart near Stone Mountain.) Today, tablet computers are our EFBs; handheld and panel-mount avionics contain their own moving maps and navigation databases; and we can print approach plates at just about any FBO for our destination airports, alternate airports, and any number of others. We can even get them in large print if desired. Paper charts had a good run, and they will live on as colorful keepsakes, conversation pieces, and gift wrapping. If Captain James Cook, the greatest cartographer and explorer of them all, were with us today, he’d carry an iPad.
Huffpost Comedy Shira Lazar Headshot Gilbert Gottfried Does Walter White's "Breaking Bad" Monologue (WATCH) Posted: Updated: After the Samuel L. Jackson version of Walter White's famous "Breaking Bad" monologue went viral last week, comedy legend Gilbert Gottfried took a go at delivering his own rendition of the crazy rant. Who did it better?
Step 1: Apply Brakes While approaching a given corner on a track, take your right foot off the gas and rapidly apply the brakes to the desired pressure, while moving your right hand onto the shifter. -This should be as quick as possible, so time lost transferring from throttle to brakes is minimized. -Your left hand should still be firmly placed on the steering wheel. -The instructions here are given for a left hand drive car, so hand movements in a right hand drive car will be opposite of these instructions. -Place your left foot onto the clutch pedal if it is resting off to the side so you are ready for the next step. *Note: Avoid stomping on or mashing the brake pedal, as you do not want to lock the brakes of the car up. Locking the brakes will cause the car to become unresponsive, uncontrollable, and not stop quickly enough (i.e. lost time on track). I know I'm way late but if somebody could help me out that'd be awesome. Man, I have been doing what you described. Haven't experienced any issue. Also wondering why there is a need to put to neutral. Let me know if you have found out the answer. Why do you shift the car into neutral before changing gear? Couldn't you just keep the clutch down, blip the throttle, and go right into the next gear without having to put the shifter into the neutral position? No it's not the same as "American" anything - it is the same as WRX driving! <br> <br> I use the Heel-Toe shifting when drifting :-D Ohh i get it. Thanks! Does engine braking put added wear on the engine? In other words does the benefit of saving brake pads due to engine braking(block, transmission, clutch wear) saves money in the long run. provided you have perfect rev matches.<br>Also, is it better to downshift from 4th gear to 2nd at 6000 rpm or 3rd at 3000rpm(im guessing gear ratios)?<br>@kriley0, I've read somewhere that the ideal(fastest) line for a corner is a somewhat late apex, due to braking power is greater than acceleration power. is this true? its kinda hard to find info online because of noobs in forums.<br>I know that drifting/handbrake turn is better than grip if the corner is too tight, is there any exceptions for this?<br>Thanks a bunch!!!! I cant w8 to get a miata! You downshift when you need more speed to keep the car in line when in a curve.When you feel you don't have enough power to keep it in line it's already too late : the car is already skidding off the road…<br><br>I drive my car using downshift capability every day (I'm in Europe and most of us drive manual cars, so I'm nothing of a hero when saying this !!…).<br><br>What this Inst' doesn't say is that in a tight curve the car will tend to skid : if you control it with you hand brake you can get out of the curve much faster and gain precious seconds by controlling the skid… But then this is car racing at a higher lever than this Inst' and just another matter. DON'T USE YOUR HAND BRAKE ON THE ROAD : YOUR LIABLE TO RUIN YOUR CAR, YOUR HEALTH AND OTHER PEOPLE LIVES !…<br>Also this Inst' is on heel-toe downshifting : this also is for car racing, DON'T DO IT ON THE ROAD, as you may well loose the control of your car by getting mixed up with clutch, brake, speed, etc !…<br><br>This said, downshifting is very handy on daily driving because of 4 reasons why.<br>1) You are always on the good speed / engine rpm ratio : your car will live longer and your mechanic will like you less as he won't see you so often ; <br>2) you have a good use of your engine brake : which is a true benefit as it helps to slow down the car in a very smooth and effective way … plus your brakes will last longer …<br>3) In a curve, when you downshift at the exact moment your car will "engine brake" while coming into the curve and just a spilt second after will gain speed at the crucial moment in the curve when it is needed to keep the car in line and not skid off the road in an uncontrolled manner… <br>Remember speed keeps you in line when in a curve.<br>4) It makes for comfortable driving for passengers : when the driver only uses his foot brake he has to constantly adjust his / her speed in the curve giving small pulses to the brakes which results with a sensation of being constantly jerked… <br>Not so when downshifting a regular car (or with and automatic car !…)<br><br>Downshifting comes naturally to any driver who drives a regular car. You may try it without qualms.<br>Don't worry too much, don't ask too many questions ; just do it (but skip the heel-toe combination : which is meant to keep constant power to the engine in order to gain milliseconds in a curve, you don't need this to drive kids at school…).<br>Practice in curvy back roads, driving slowly (using 3rd and 2nd gear for instance) then you'll gain confidence and it will become second nature.<br>When I taught my daughter how to drive, she could do it the third time she was at the wheel, and she mastered it pretty fast. She was 15 at the time and it was just a taste of how a complex machine as a car could be mastered… Now she's like most Europeans and she uses it moderately I guess … and for the benefit of all !… (But no heel-toe !…) <br><br>Don't rush, don't race… use this as an extra tool that will give you more confidence with your car and your driving abilities.<br><br>Maybe you'll want to do more : at this point this will become heel-toe, and hand brake skidding, car racing and having pleasure on a dedicated circuit. But that is an entirely different matter.<br><br>A personal example, to show you how natural downshifting can become. Last May I rented a car at the Albuquerque N.M. Airport. T'was years I didn't drive an automatic car. At the 1st stop my left foot searched frantically for the clutch as I had the reflex to downshift and engine brake !!!… Resulted in coming too fast at the stop and had to crush the brake pedal and almost stalled the car. No harm done : it was 11:30pm and the road was empty as a dried arroyo in august. Rest of the ride was uneventful … but for a while I remained somewhat uncomfortable with my automatic car !!… <br>So it's all a matter of habit and practice. <br>And practice is mainly common sense !!!!…<br>Best wishes<br>:D I think the "double-clutching" technique is used primarily in drag racing. I'm not really familiar with it and have never understood it....I also am pretty unfamiliar with drag racing. Your both right. Clutching once into neutral and then again into the next gear is a double de-clutch.<br> <br> Using the right foot to press the throttle whilst also applying the brake is a heel-toe. This technique can be used while single and double de-clutching.<br> <br> Shifting without the clutch is skip shifting, which also often uses the heel-toe to rev match. Coincidentally this one of the more preferred drag racing techniques as you only ever upshift.<br> <br> People argue A LOT about double de-clutching in racing, for me personally it boils down to whether you want to put more wear on your synchros (Single) or your clutch assembly (Double). But its a pretty moot point either way, modern drivetrains can take a lot of abuse on both of these components and come rebuild time you'll replace both of them anyway. I prefer single clutching with a rev match as it's the fastest option. Exactly, it is all about staying in the engine's power band. Nothing like coming out of a corner with no power because you are not at correct gear/rpm combination.<br><br>If you want difficult, take a look at the motorcycle road racers who have to do this with the brake and gas on the same hand! love your miata what year is it<br> About This Instructable 74 favorites More by kriley0: High Performance Driving: Heel-Toe Downshifting Add instructable to:
Time to get over my current lover and move on to my next victim. It turns out that I’m not in the market for a noncommital relationship. I want to be with someone who could potentially love me. (I somehow manage to be cynical and ridiculously tender-hearted at the same time.) About Jessica Smith 8 Responses to Romantic 1. François says: I am mildly confused … 2. Jessica Smith says: just venting… the guy i’ve been “seeing” (ehem) is emotionally unavailable, and that bothers me. 3. François says: Ah, yes … Even though I’ve been often on the other side (“emotionally unavailable,” that is), I can kinda see why it could be annoying. 4. Jessica Smith says: I tend to eventually want the whole person, even if it began as a purely physical relationship. It’s annoying when they don’t feel the same way. 5. François says: Go slowly. Otherwise, you might end up very very bored of the person in question. 6. Jessica Smith says: True. I do go through people passionately and quickly. But I’m not really bored with this one yet; in fact, I find him quite interesting, that’s why I want more out of him. 7. François says: As a usually emotionally unavailable person (wow, that was a mouthful), I tend to resist when people want too much (out) of me. But that’s just me. I’m not sure it’s relevant with your boy. 8. Jessica Smith says: Granted, a little resistance is better than being completely open. But eventually I want in those walls. Leave a Reply You are commenting using your account. Log Out / Change ) Twitter picture Facebook photo Google+ photo Connecting to %s
DIY Avocado Foot Scrub Recipe Are your feet rough and calloused? Try this easy DIY avocado foot scrub recipe to soften dead skin and gently exfoliate so your feet are ready for sandal season! The avocado is truly amazing for your skin: The pit exfoliates, the flesh moisturizes, and the peel contains skin healthy oils. DIY Avocado Foot Scrub Recipe What You Need 1 avocado pit 1/2 an avocado 1/4 cup cornmeal 1 tablespoon sea salt Spice mill or coffee grinder Foot basin 1. Let the pit sit for two days until dry. Break in to small pieces. 2. Grind the pit with a spice mill or coffee grinder until it is gritty. 3. Scoop the fruit out of the avocado half, but save the skin and set aside. 4. Mash the avocado and cornmeal. Add 1/4 cup avocado pit powder and sea salt.. 5. Use a foot basin to gently massage the mixture on to your feet and toes. Rise with warm water. 6. Rub any calloused areas with the avocado peel with the inside of the peel next to your skin. The oil will moisturize your skin. Do not rinse off. Your skin may turn green, but keep rubbing and it will go away. 09 10 Subscribe
juliasecunho's picture financial and kids Hi everybody, My name is Julia and I have 2 kids age 7 and 9. My kids are now starting to ask me for extra money, I always give some money for them to take to school, but now that their friends have an allowance, they want it too. At what age do you think they should start to manage their own money? Can you give some advices on that? mayamay's picture If they want extra money, they can do extra work. Taking care of their own stuff doesn't get extra money, but cleaning and vacuuming the car or doing other chores that benefit the whole family could be on a pay schedule. aupair4U's picture It's definitely time for your kids to learn about earning money and the value of the work ethic. It's also a good time to teach them to save some of their earnings. Saving is such an important lesson to include in teaching your children about earning money.
Thursday, December 10, 2009 What Causes Economic Growth? . Thursday, December 10, 2009 Nothing. And everything. William Easterly reviews an important new article: Despite Climategate, even a superficial reading seems to indicate that there is enough evidence for effects of man-made activity on the climate. Surprisingly, there is a lot less evidence for effects of man-made activity on something that actually is completely man-made: the rate of economic growth in each country. I had this frustrating thought as I was reading an important new paper, “Determinants of Economic Growth: Will Data Tell?” [1] The paper gives a conclusive and resounding answer to the question in the title: no. It has taken economists a lot of hard work to attain this level of sublime ignorance. There were three steps in the the great History of Evolving Cluelessness: 1. Economists spent the past two decades trying every possible growth determinant in sight. They found evidence for 145 different variables (according to an article published in 2005). That was a bit too many in a sample of only about one hundred countries. What was happening is there would be evidence for Determinants A, B, C, and D when tried one at a time to explain growth. But the evidence for A disappeared when you also controlled for some combination of B, C, and D, and/or vice versa. (Interestingly enough, foreign aid never even merited inclusion in the list of 145 variables.) 2. The Columbia economist Xavier Sala-i-Martin and co-authors ran millions of regressions on all possible combinations of 7 variables out of the many possible determinants of growth. Skipping a lot of technical detail, they essentially averaged out the millions of regressions to see which determinants had evidence for them in most regressions. There was hope: some were robust! For example, the idea that malaria prevalence hinders growth found consistent support. 3. This new paper by Ciccone and Jarocinski found that every time the growth data are revised, or if the sample is changed to another equally plausible one, the results vanish on the “robust” variables and new “robust” variables appear. Goodbye, malaria, hello, democracy. Except the new “robust” determinants are no longer believable if minor differences between equally plausible samples changes what is robust. So nothing is robust. There is more at the link, including whether we should think of the growth literature as GrowthGate. What Causes Economic Growth? There was an error in this gadget Add to Technorati Favorites
Monday, April 14, 2014 Fine Finishings Boot Camp: Test your Product by Staci Louise Smith No matter what you purchase, chances are, it went through some sort of testing before it was put on the market. I love this picture- the ultimate phone testers, kids! Why should the arts be any different? We as artists want to stand out, to be respected. We ask that people buy handmade, and support small business. If we don't offer them a quality product, then why would they want to? No matter what your medium is, you need to test your product. If you make ceramics for food, you need to test your glazes to ensure they are food safe. If you do mixed media, you want to make sure your papers, your sealers, and whatever else you use, will stand the test of time and not fade or fall apart down the road. And if you make jewelry, testing should be a normal part of your creative process. People wear jewelry. I mean, they WEAR it. Some people wear it harder then others. I learned so much the hard way- using too thin of wire, not securing crimps well, or crimping too tight. I had things returned to me to re-make. There is nothing worse then that. Let me say that again, there is nothing worse then someone returning a broken product. My point is, that, if you plan to sell your product, make sure you really know and understand your medium. You should know all about it, whether it be metal or polymer, ceramic or fibers. You should know what it is made of, how it reacts with other products, and how it wears in the long term. Knowing all this is a great start, so you know what you should be testing for. I remember when I learned to solder from a friend. We painstakingly took time to solder two things together, and after it was done, she said, "now try to break it". and I was like, "are you kidding me???" And she so wisely replied, "do you want it to break for you now so you can fix it right, or break for your customer?" And she was right. (solder needs to flow just right or it will break, even if it feels like it has a hold, if it didn't' flow just right, its not a solid bond. sometimes you don't have a good connection to the metal either...ect) So I try to break my soldered pieces. I also yank my crimp beads after I am done (I have a hate hate relationship with them). I have a long list of things I do, to ensure to the best of my abilities, that things won't come back to me. When I use patina, I seal and seal and seal and wax my metal. And I still found out the hard way that it will wear off if worn against suntan lotion. With the internet, and so much access to new mediums and information on them, many people are branching out and trying new mediums, and that is wonderful. However, if you are trying something new, please educate yourself, before you sell it. You will be happy you did down the road. It will help you to make the best quality product you can. It will help you to know what to test for. Test things, wear them, test them in the environments that they may encounter. I will even give other people samples to try out sometimes, just because everyone wears jewelry different, everyone has different body chemistry. Here are some questions you can ask yourself so you can properly test your product. 1. How and wear is it worn, and does it work well for that part of the body? For example: ankle bracelets, my nemesis. I found that no matter what I did, a crimped, strung ankle bracelet will not hold up for everybody. I have never broken one, but it seemed that everyone else did. So i had to switch to heavy gauge wire and chain, AND make them adjustable so that they can be worn at just the right place on each persons ankle where they won't have stress on them. Another example: Earrings- are they too light, sometimes if they are too light, they catch in the hair and hang sideways. Do they have wild wire frills or things sticking out that will catch in someones hair if it is long or curly? Are they too heavy and unwearable? I could go on and on. So consider your piece of jewelry, and how it will be worn, and how that will look on a variety of people. 2. Does my product need to be sealed? And if so, what is the best sealer to use for longevity, skin sensitivity, and that will NOT react with my product down the road? Certain things like, patina metal, and polymer clay (if it is painted or has a surface treatment added), need to be sealed. In both cases, there are products that are great for this, and products you should never use. In the case of polymer clay, you should stick with water based products. Other finishes can eat away at the clay over time. So it may look good for a week or so, but down the road get gummy. 3. Can I wear it comfortably? This is a big one. WEAR your jewelry every time you make something. even if it is only for a few hours. Wear it, rub your fingers all over it. Make sure there are no wires sticking up, nothing poking, no rough spots. Make sure connections are secure, things hang properly. These are just a few things you can ask yourself, so you can begin to test your product. This is YOU that you are selling. Your art, is a little piece of you. It is more then vision, it is execution. It is tangible. So make it well, make sure it will last, and your business will continue to grow, because people are happy to come back, and buy new jewelry, because they know it is a good investment. I hope you can learn from some of my fails! I will be sharing in the weeks to come some little tid bits and tricks I have learned to avoid these kinds of issues in your work! Is there anything YOU learned the hard way, that you wish you had tested for? What would be your best advice for those just starting to sell their work? Kathleen Lange Klik said... Great article! You touched on a lot of good points that are really important for a designer. I too give my pieces, especially the chunky bold ones, a test run to make sure they lay flat and are comfortable to wear. I also yank at my delicate chain necklaces to make sure the clasps are secure! Thanks for sharing your thought process, it was very educational! Erika said... This is a great post, Staci! lindalandig said... Good post. I used to use thinner stringing wire, than I do now. Some of those older pieces broke. :( Jenny said... What would I tell a new jewelry maker? 1. Not everyone has a lovely long neck. Longer earrings are easier to design and look fantastic on some women, but if it's over 2", it looks strange on me and often catches in my clothing. 2. Not only do I not have a skinny neck, I also have a variety of necklines, so I need every necklace to be adjustable. A necklace that looks great with a v-neck sweater or shirt, is hidden when I wear a shirt with a collar. I get tired of always having to ask to have necklaces lengthened, and often will just pass them by rather than mess with it. stacilouise said... Jenny- GREAT points! I make almost everything adjustable for that very reason. I know that for me personally, if I love a necklace, I want to be able to wear it with many different outfits. It is more worth my money that way as well. Thank you for sharing! Shirley Moore said... Great post Staci! As a matter of fact, I was wearing a favorite bracelet yesterday, and noticed that the beads surrounding the clasp loop were pulling away from the body of the bracelet. As it is a flat peyote weave, it is rather noticeable. I am a 'hard' style of person on my jewelry, so it may not be an issue for others, but it was a good learning moment for me. Artisan Beads Plus said... Great advice! One thing that I ALWAYS do is wear a new bracelet or a necklace. There have been times that I have found something scratches me or it doesn't hang right,etc. It is worth it! The problem with that, however, is sometimes I don't want to give them up and end up keeping them for myself!!! lol! Joy Allford said... Thanks for a great article, do you suggest trying each piece or each design type? Thanks, Joy Liz-Anna said... Such good information and advice! Thank you for sharing. Shel said... Super great article. Putting your designs through the 'research and development' phase is a natural part of customer service, but one of the hardest I believe. My sister is my 'tester'. She wears everything in the shower, the sea water, while washing dishes, puts lotion on over them, etc. Yes, even her leather, cord or ribbon pieces, which is just horrible, but it helps me decide if I want a piece to have any fibers or base metals in it or not. The advice I would give new designers is 'know your clientele'. If they are hard on their pieces or want to keep them for years, or possibly decades to pass down to family members, go for only the highest quality materials available in the market. Also, find out if your clients are up for taking care of base metals vs. fine metals - because the care of each one can be different through the years and if they know in advance, they tend to treat things a little 'nicer' and thus, their jewelry looks better and lasts longer. :-) 13 said... The best thing I did was getting my own ears pierced. It really helped me understand weight and movement issues, as well as sensitivity issues. Bracelets too...try taking a cardigan off whilst wearing one, it's a great test for clasps. Genevieve said... Very good advice! Like Shel my sister is my tester. Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...
Saudi prince proposes oil war with Iran June 30, 2011 at 11:52 AM \| License Photo DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, June 30 (UPI) -- Underlining the escalating cold war between Saudi Arabia and its rival Iran, former intelligence chief Prince Turki al-Faisal proposes the kingdom use its oil power to drive down prices to batter the Islamic Republic's sanctions-hit economy. That would ratchet up tensions in the Persian Gulf and the wider Middle East at a time of unprecedented political upheaval. Iran and other hawks in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries blocked Saudi-led efforts to boost oil production to bring down prices, driven up sharply by the region-wide turmoil, at the cartel's summit in Vienna June 8. But the Saudis have already boosted their production, and industry analysts say Riyadh is likely to reach 9.5 million barrels per day, the highest level in three decades and near the kingdom's maximum capability. Prices have slipped back from $127 a barrel earlier this year to around $100 a barrel. That was due to the Saudi action, and also to the decision by the Paris-based International Energy Agency to release up to 60 million barrels over the coming month from strategic stockpiles. But the effort by the IEA, the West's energy watchdog, is likely to be limited, and it will be up to OPEC moderates like Saudi Arabia to ensure prices remain at a manageable level. The Financial Times said the IEA release of strategic reserves was a stopgap measure until "the oil from the Gulf arrives, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates will still find a market for their extra oil." Turki stressed Saudi Arabia was prepared to replace Iran in the global market, thus depriving Tehran of vital revenues to keep its sagging economy functioning -- and funding its nuclear and long-range missile programs. "To put this into perspective, Saudi Arabia has so much (spare) production capacity -- 4 million bpd -- that we could almost instantly replace all if Iran's production." That currently stands at 4.2 million bpd. Iran invariably favors high prices, but it wants to push them up as high as it can these days to counter the growing impact of U.N. sanctions imposed in June 2010, reinforced by U.S. and European Union sanctions, on its oil-dependent economy. The friction between Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia and Shiite Iran -- one the recognized leader of the Muslim world, the other a fundamentalist challenger -- goes way back to a 7th century religious schism in Islam's early years between mainstream Sunnis and breakaway Shiites. But the two Islamic titans facing each other across the gulf are now locked in a new phase of this struggle that could result in a nuclear arms race in a region that sits on around 40 percent of the planet's known oil reserves. The Wall Street Journal said Turki warned U.S. and British military commanders meeting outside London earlier this month that if Tehran does not curtail its contentious nuclear program, Riyadh will seek to cripple Iran's economy through its oil weapon and will seek nuclear weapons of its own. "Iran is very vulnerable in the oil sector and it is there that more could be done to squeeze the current government," he reportedly told the gathering at an air base outside the British capital on the same day Saudi Arabia butted heads with Iran in Vienna. Iranian acquisition of nuclear arms, the prince said, would compel Saudi Arabia "to pursue policies which could lead to untold and possibly dramatic consequences." Turki did not spell out what those consequences might be, but a senior official in Riyadh said, "We cannot live in a situation where Iran has nuclear weapons and we don't." While most analysts agree Iran is currently vulnerable because of sanctions, some doubt the action outlined by Turki would paralyze Iran's economy. Iran's response to an oil war with the Saudis would probably be to stir up trouble with the Shiite majority in the kingdom's Eastern province, its oil hub. Tehran could also seek to interfere with Saudi oil exports moving through the chokepoint Strait of Hormuz at the southern end of the gulf. Turki, son of the late King Faisal, has no formal government position, but he's often used to float trial balloons regarding Saudi foreign policy. Related UPI Stories Latest Headlines Trending Stories Nobel Prize in medicine awarded to parasitic disease scientists Womb transplants begin in U.K. after Sweden's success Scientists find roadmap that may lead to 'exercise pill'
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Tuesday, August 14, 2007 George Cardenas! Drink Our Water - the Best in America! Tax Bottled Water! 'What are you drinking?' 'What you pay for it?' 'Three Dollars' 'There's a fountain over there - the water's all paid for.' 'This is better; it's in a bottle.' That was a conversation that I had with each of my three children. They, each one of them, believe that McDonald's is haute cuisine because it is packaged and marketed by suits who get obscene salaries and shilledby a Clown right out of Michael Jackson's wildest dreams - that clown really creeps me out! Enter Chicago Alderman George Cardenas. A guy with His head locked on it's swivel! NO GOOSE GUTS - NO NANNY STATE GOOFBALL IDEAS - COMMON SENSE. Tax bottled water. Bring in some revenue without costing the tax-payers a lung! We paid for the water already. Now, we need to bottle it ourselves - horrors for some delicate souls no doubt. Chicago has the best and cleanest water in the nation thanks to the Jardin Water Filtration Plant. It keeps up with the toxins tossed into our Lake by the Brits of BP Oil. Great corporate citizens those beauties. This tax makes sense and it will make solid dollars out the two-bit tax. Too bad it missed LaLaPalooza - plenty of Green Tree Huggers drinking redundant water out of petroleum based by-product toxic vessels! How many empties to make Mt. Vrdolyak even higher along the Bishop Ford? There is so only so much room in that land-fill and with all the disposable diapers, six-pack rings, Pringles Packs, and old polyester suits and softball jerseys - Mt. Vrodolyak is getting tighter than pockets on a fat man's pants. Tax them water bottles. 'Three Bucks A Bottle!???!!!' We, Chicagoans, have perfectly good Lake Michigan Straight! Call it the vain idiot tax -for paying a lung for water in the first place: 'I drink only Aqua Snob!' That certainly makes you smarter, taller and thinner! Gee, where can I toss my hard-earned dollars away like you, Cuthbert? Do Eskimos purchase vanity ice cubes? No doubt the would, if they had an Inuit Idiot like Joe Moore in the Frozen North! Tax Plastic Bottled Water! Alderman Cardenas, you are on! Bottled water - bottled by whom? - comes in petroleum waste products - landfill fuel that tax-salaried employees must haul away. Let's help pay those folks - Tax Bottled Water! We got plenty of the best drinking water in the world, tight here in Chicago. Alderman Cardenas, you are great example of why Mexican Americans deserve their growing leadership position in American Political Life: effective, smart and public spirited ideas that can and should be implemented! Well done, Sir! Now watch all of the nitwits League and Coalition up against you! You'll do fine , Alderman! No comments:
View Full Version : Cthulhu-ish? Soft Serve 12-10-2008, 02:35 AM I don't believe in internet piracy. I just take what I know and add my own systems to it. What I know about Call of Cthulhu (RPG) is practically nothing. BUT I do know that H.P. Lovecraft wrote amazing stories which I am still in the process of reading...rephrase that...enjoying.:biggrin: What I did for this campaign was take recent inspirations and mash them into something beautiful. A 1920's setting, where (seemingly) random cult activities are growing ever more popular all around the world. I have almost completely done away with magic, and the d20 system altogether. On top of that your character will have no statistics such as Strength, Dexterity, Wisdom, etc. No skills, no feats, no nothing. Now for my reasoning behind it. Because to me it seemed unrealistic that a man beat over the head with a lead pipe didn't instantly hit the ground just because the cheerleader who hit him doesn't have a high strength score. Tell your little sister to beat you in the head with a pipe and tell me it doesn't hurt because your bigger than her...And on that note, (remember it's 1923) why must I roll to hit a cultist who is standing in front of me, not wearing armor, when if I have a pistol I have most likely received training on how to use that pistol? And why does the bullet no matter where it hits him, not slow him down in any way, shape or form? Because it only did 1d6 damage? oh ok... My goal was to create a realistic game, where character didn't "level up" and a bullet to the dome is still a bullet to the dome. Your able to take damage just as easily as any of the creatures or people your fighting, and all odds are against you. If this seems unfair, or un balanced, or your too scared to pick it up and try. Then welcome to my redesigned horror genre.:laugh: 12-10-2008, 09:42 AM Very interesting. If you need some suggested resources for helping put together a basic rules formula to run under your game, let me know. I know a few (very) rules lite systems that might be of use to you and which are actually quite awesome in and of themselves. Soft Serve 12-10-2008, 11:13 PM I pretty much set a number you have to beat for everything based on the way everything is developing around it. The creature running straight for the players that's human shaped and sized isn't hard to hit and basically doesn't require a roll unless your aiming for specific parts of it. The kraken which is rocking your boat while swinging you around like a ragdoll in the grasp of one of it's tentacles, which is also partially underwater and hard to judge the distance...that's a harder target. I pretty much have the system down, and there haven't been any flaws in the way I'm running it except the occasional two players trying to do the same thing at once, or them jumping the gun and poofing themselves to the destination instead of anouncing that they are walking to the destination. Little things like that are as easy to correct as a typo though. 12-14-2008, 04:00 AM Sounds interesting. What times are you playing? Soft Serve 12-15-2008, 08:58 AM When we can on Saturday Sunday and Wednesday unless people make schedule changes. Soft Serve 12-17-2008, 07:52 PM Soft Serve 12-21-2008, 06:36 PM haha another bump. I don't want to let this thread die!!
Netanyahu in silent protest at UN over Iran deal 2015-10-01 22:55 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has savaged the nuclear deal with Iran and has gone on a silent protest at the United Nations General Assembly. President Abbas raises Palestinian flag for first time at UN 2015-10-01 08:05 Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has raised the Palestinian flag at the United Nations for the first time with a promise that it will be raised soon in Jerusalem, 'the capital of our Palestinian state.' Abbas out of synch, options 2015-09-28 16:32 At the UN summit, Abbas finds himself out of options and out of synch with an angry Palestinian public. Abbas heats up Palestinian politics 2015-08-27 17:32 President Mahmoud Abbas is shaking up Palestinian politics by trying to pump new blood into the PLO and some say, cementing his grip. Israeli opposition fears new Palestinian uprising 2015-08-18 19:35 The Israeli opposition leader has called for a joint effort to prevent a possible third Palestinian uprising. Leaked Palestinian documents raise anger 2015-08-12 18:42 Leaked Palestinian government documents have sparked anger online over corruption among its leaders. Israeli expansion blocks any peace deal - Abbas 2015-05-22 15:21 Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas says he is committed to a two-state solution and blames Israel for standing in the way of any peace deal. Nzimande visa refusal insult to SA government - grouping 2015-04-27 20:29 Israel's decision to not grant Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande and three other officials visas to visit Palestine "is a diplomatic insult to the South African government and its people". Abbas against Jewish state bill 2014-11-26 20:40 Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas says he supports Israeli members of parliament who oppose the plan to formalise Israel's status as a Jewish state. SA ready to help Middle East two-state solution 2014-11-26 16:28 President Jacob Zuma has met Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Pretoria, where he pledged South Africa's support for a two-state solution to the situation in the Middle East. Palestinians no longer bound by Oslo agreement - Abbas 2015-10-01 16:24 Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas says that the Palestinians are no longer bound by the 1993 Oslo interim peace accords with Israel. Netanyahu: Abbas speech encourages incitement 2015-09-30 21:15 Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' speech to the General Assembly "is false and encourages incitement and unrest in the Middle East", Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office says. Netanyahu rejects call to take in Syrian refugees 2015-09-06 14:28 Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected a call by Israel's opposition leader to provide refuge to Syrian refugees, saying the country is too small to take them in. Abbas to resign, briefly, from PLO post 2015-08-23 20:55 The official Palestinian news agency is quoting President Mahmoud Abbas as saying he is resigning from the Palestine Liberation Organisation's top leadership body - a move seen as an attempt to tighten his grip on power. Palestinian stabs Israeli trooper, shot 2015-08-15 22:18 A Palestinian has been shot dead after stabbing an Israeli paramilitary policeman patrolling a road in the occupied West Bank. In phone call, Netanyahu, Abbas express peace wishes 2015-07-18 14:00 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas have spoken by phone, a rare exchange amid years of paralysed peace efforts. Vatican recognises state of Palestine 2015-05-13 19:52 The Vatican has officially recognised the state of Palestine in a new treaty. Israel 'satisfied' as Palestinian resolution fails 2014-12-31 11:37 Israel expressed satisfaction after the UN Security Council failed to adopt a controversial resolution on Palestinian statehood setting a 12-month deadline for reaching a final peace deal. Zuma urges halt to Israeli settlements as Abbas visits 2014-11-26 17:54 Israel's settlements policy is "undermining" prospects for a two state solution, President Jacob Zuma says as he welcomed Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas on a state visit. Zuma to receive Palestinian president 2014-11-21 17:04 President Jacob Zuma will meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Book flights Compare, Book, Fly Traffic Alerts Create Profile Please provide a username for your profile page: Location Settings Facebook Sign-In Hi News addict, Join the News24 Community to be involved in breaking the news.
Dave Brillhart's Blog https://blogs.oracle.com/dcb/ Enjoying the Journey... Anticipating the Destination en-us Copyright 2007 Sun, 23 Sep 2007 06:33:57 +0000 Apache Roller BLOGS401ORA6 (20130904125427) https://blogs.oracle.com/dcb/entry/sun_kit Sun "Kit" dcb https://blogs.oracle.com/dcb/entry/sun_kit Mon, 25 Apr 2005 23:47:13 +0000 Computers <p>Have you noticed the increasing use of the term 'kit" to refer to a hardware vendor's products? Articles will refer to, for example, Sun's "kit", when discussing our latest servers or storage and desktops.<br> </p> <p>I really like that term - because it drives home the point that when you are in the market to purchase "kit" from a product vendor, you sign up to be the kit builder. And for the hobbyist out there, that can be really fun and educational, even thrilling to some degree.</p> <p>Many of us grew up <a href="http://hem.bredband.net/thomaskolb/art/models/introduction_e.htm">building kits</a>. I \loved\ building ships, trucks, airplanes, tanks, cars, rockets, etc. It was a blast, and possibly contributed to (and/or was because of) my engineering mindset. The sense of accomplishment of building highly realistic, detailed and customized models, from a bunch of bare parts, is quite rewarding.<br> </p> <p>However, most IT shops I work with are less interested in the process of constructing their own unique one-off configurations from collections of parts (kit). I applaud clients for their increasing demand for solutions built from established patterns and reference implementations. I applaud IT vendors for their increasing portfolios of pre-integrated and hardened solutions.</p> <p>Kit building is a great weekend hobby for kids (and adults). But when it comes to running our businesses and defending our country, we need to leverage, as much as possible, the experience and factory integration of trusted IT solution vendors. For some, it is hard to give up the thrill/challenge of the IT equivalent of "junk yard wars". But there are even more interesting and higher-valued challenges and rewards awaiting those who free up their time from the tyranny of the "nuts and bolts".</p> <p>The following is a great weekend hobby project. But you don't need to let your IT projects look like this...</p> <p><img src="https://blogs.oracle.com/roller/resources/dcb/Kit.gif"></p> https://blogs.oracle.com/dcb/entry/project_lifecycle_cartoon Project Lifecycle Cartoon dcb https://blogs.oracle.com/dcb/entry/project_lifecycle_cartoon Sat, 9 Apr 2005 16:16:33 +0000 Computers While this is intended to be funny, it's a little too close for comfort in many cases. But due diligence up-front <span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">VOC</span> </span>(voice of the customer) needs assessment interviews, and a subsequent translation into well-formed and reconciled SMART (<a href="http://www.lucka.nl/education/downloads/whitepapers/cttnews3q04_smart_requirements.pdf">1</a>, <a href="http://www.win.tue.nl/%7Ewstomv/edu/2ip30/references/smart-requirements.pdf">2</a>) [Specific, Measurable, Achievable/Attainable, Realistic/Realizable, Traceable/TimeBounded] <span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">Requirements</span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">, along with an ongoing <span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0); font-weight: bold;">Risk Log</span>, would have made this a very boring cartoon. A lesson we would be well advised to remember in many contexts.</span><br> <br> <img src="https://blogs.oracle.com/roller/resources/dcb/Proj_LifeCycle.gif"><br> https://blogs.oracle.com/dcb/entry/stocks_sunw_vs_ibm_hpq Stocks: SUNW -vs- IBM, HPQ, MSFT, ORCL dcb https://blogs.oracle.com/dcb/entry/stocks_sunw_vs_ibm_hpq Fri, 8 Apr 2005 15:59:17 +0000 Computers In the following graphs I've compared Sun Microsystems (SUNW) to some of our competitors and/or partners: IBM, HP, Oracle, Microsoft. The charts look at the five companies all the way back to the late 80s, and back just five years. In the first graph, you clearly see the "exuberant" six year ramp that SUNW experienced starting in 1995. That's the year we launched Java and the UltraSPARC processor. I also joined Sun that year :-). The post Y2K dot-com implosion hit us pretty hard, but after a two year slide we've settled down and ended up a significantly better long-term investment than some. In hindsight at least.<br> <br> The second graph looks at the same companies since Y2K. It's interesting to see that we all declined (at various rates) until mid-2002, at which point we all found a plateau that we've pretty much sustained for the last two and a half years.<br> <br> I don't know about you, but I think the market is primed to move again. The IT industry landscape has changed a lot since the Y2K peak. Pressure is building. Innovation has been occurring all along. Which of the five will break out of the horizontal? My bet is that it'll be those companies that successfully combine targeted innovation and exceptional services.<br> <br> <img src="https://blogs.oracle.com/roller/resources/dcb/Stock.gif"><br> https://blogs.oracle.com/dcb/entry/64_bit_smp x86: 64-bit & SMP dcb https://blogs.oracle.com/dcb/entry/64_bit_smp Wed, 30 Mar 2005 12:32:06 +0000 Computers <P>The following news story "<EM><STRONG>IBM, HP take different tack as Xeon MP moves to 64-bit</STRONG></EM>" has some interesting quotes: <A href="http://www.nwfusion.com/news/2005/0330ibmhpta.html">http://www.nwfusion.com/news/2005/0330ibmhpta.html</A></P> <P><STRONG>First</STRONG>: "<FONT color=#990000><EM>HP has decided to cease production of its eight-way ProLiant DL740 and DL760 systems.</EM>..</FONT>". HP is following Dell's withdraw of the 8-socket server space. Apparently Dell and HP believe that there is little market demand for more than a handful of threads (today an OS schedules one thread per core or hyperthread context). Or, could it be that their Operating Systems of choice (Windows and Linux) simply can't (yet) scale to larger thread counts? Hey Dell & HP... you might want to check out Solaris 10. A million of your prospects have <A href="http://www.sun.com/smi/Press/sunflash/2005-03/sunflash.20050328.1.html">downloaded and registered</A> this OS in just the last two months! And it <A href="http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/hcl/data/sol/systems/views/desktop_server_system_all_results.page1.html">runs just fine</A> on your (small and large) x86/x64 servers, up to hundreds of threads.</P> <P><STRONG>Second</STRONG>: <!--StartFragment --> Andy Lees, corporate vice president with Microsoft's server and tools business, said "<EM><FONT color=#990000>If you run a 32-bit application on 64-bit Windows [Windows Server 2003 x64 Edition] on 64-bit hardware, you'll get about a 5% bump in terms of performance," he said. "If you go ahead and add 64-bit [application] capabilities, then things get dramatically better.</FONT></EM>"</P> <P>Hmmm. This is an interesting admission that 64-bit might actually be worthwhile. It is (not really) amazing that up until Microsoft (x64 Edition) and Intel (EM64T) had decent 64-bit offerings, that they told the world that 32-bit was all that anyone would need for the foreseeable future - except maybe for huge databases and extremely large memory footprint compute jobs. I guess "foreseeable" means <EM><STRONG>until we can field a team</STRONG></EM>. Oh, by the way, Solaris has been 64-bit forever (in Internet years), has unmatchable security features and reliability, and a bundled virtualization technology that alone is worth the price of admission (oh yeah, it's free).</P> <P>Combine small and high-thread count performance, security, reliability, and virtualization... and Solaris 10 will allow you to stack multiple applications on a single x86/x64 server with confidence. All of a sudden an 8-socket server (with 16 high-performance cores) looks like an important sweet spot for driving utilization rates up and operation cost and complexity down.</P> <P>HP and Dell have withdrawn from that space (a strategic blunder I believe). It'll be interesting to see who steps up to claim that prize!</P> https://blogs.oracle.com/dcb/entry/itanic_davy_jones_locker Itanic: Davy Jones' Locker dcb https://blogs.oracle.com/dcb/entry/itanic_davy_jones_locker Tue, 29 Mar 2005 07:33:44 +0000 Computers <p><!--StartFragment -->In the year 2000, just as the first Itanium processor from Intel hit the market, <a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/02/28/itanium_04_sales/">IDC predicted</a> that 2004 Itanium server sales would hit the $28 billion mark! But IDC missed their projection slightly. They were off by about $26.6 billion, or ~95%. Ouch!!</p> <p>Of the few Itanium-based servers that were actually sold in all of 2004, HP lead the "crawl" and accounted for 76% of them. But HP, as of mid-2004, joined Sun and IBM in the Opteron-based server market, so expect Itanium sales at HP in 2005 to slow at a faster rate than HP's general server sales numbers. IBM came in 2nd with 10% of the Itanium market, but has strongly hinted that they are killing off their Itanium-based server offerings in favor of Opteron, Power, and traditional Intel processors. Dell captured 3rd place with just 5% of the tiny Itanium pie, and so far Dell has resisted selling Opteron-based servers... but how long will Michael watch from the sidelines?</p> <p>For those who like to look under the hood, it seems to me there are three server-oriented processor families that <a href="http://freespace.virgin.net/m.warner/Roadmap2005.htm">deserve attention</a> and will still be important in 2010:</p> <ol> <li>Sun's (and Fujitsu's) SPARC-based CMT families (US-IV, Olympus, Niagara, Rock, etc)</li> <li>IBM's Power family (Power4, Power5, Power6, etc)</li> <li>AMD/Intel's x86/x64 families:</li> <ol> <li>Opteron/AMD64 [Egypt, Italy, etc]</li> <li>IA-32/EM64T [Nocona, Potomac, Smithfield, Tulsa, etc]</li> </ol> </ol> <p>It will be fun to watch. They all have well funded R&D, aggressive rates of innovation, compelling roadmaps, and market/ISV traction. I believe all three horses will be in the race five years from now, but only two will be perceived as the market leaders. Unpredictable market dynamics and execution challenges will likely cause one of the three to stumble and fall behind. But anyone's guess as to which will stumble would be just that - a guess. Intel can survive a $25 billion dollar mistake, and learn from it; and AMD is actually delivering new processors faster than their roadmaps suggest (an amazing feat for a processor design shop)! IBM's roadmap and processor technology look great, but massive CMT could explode and their Cell Processor could turn into the next Itanic for server applications. Sun has Olympus to compete with Power6, and very exciting new yearlings (Niagara and Rock) that could, well, Rock the world soon. Single-threaded deep pipeline performance processors, throughput-oriented massive-CMT chips, and price-efficient desktop/presentation CPUs are all up for grabs. I doubt one horse will win the Triple Crown. Stay tuned.</p> <p>Of course, OS traction will dictate this to some degree (Solaris, Linux, and Windows64 are all interesting candidates), as will J2EE -vs- .NET adoption and COTS app support. I think that security and efficient/reliable virturalization technology will be key drivers of platform selection in future years.</p> <p>The one thing we can predict with near certainly is that Itanium (aka: Itanic) is headed to <a href="http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-dav1.htm">Davy Jones' locker</a>.</p> <p><img src="https://blogs.oracle.com/roller/resources/dcb/Itanium.gif"></p> https://blogs.oracle.com/dcb/entry/good_enough_vs_gratuitous_upgrades Good Enough -vs- Gratuitous Upgrades dcb https://blogs.oracle.com/dcb/entry/good_enough_vs_gratuitous_upgrades Wed, 23 Mar 2005 05:20:28 +0000 Computers <p>Sun offers a really cool thin-client called the <a href="http://blogs.sun.com/roller/resources/simons/sunray.jpg">SunRay</a>. Check out <a href="http://www.sun.com/software/media/flash/tour_sunray">this flash</a>! We've got 30,000 or so running our desktops throughout Sun. Zero-admin, highly-reliable, energy-efficient clients have saved us millions and driven up productivity. Many of our customers are running these as well. There isn't much to the device... No OS, no disk, no fan, no viruses, no patching, no state... you can almost think of it as a remote/networked frame buffer on steroids. Coupled with USB peripheral support, mobile session capability, Java card security, DoD approved multi-compartment support, VIOP telephony, this is a device that deserves all the attention and acceptance it is getting.</p> <p>Using Tarantella, Citrix, or other techniques, this device can even display full screen Windows (indistinguishable from a Windoze thin client) if desired, or it can run "Windows in a window" from a native GNOME Linux or Solaris desktop. With the Java Desktop System's integration of hundreds of bundled apps (StarOffice [MS Office], Mr. Project [MS Project], GIMP [Photoshop], Evolution [Outlook], etc, etc) some are looking at the oppty to stop payment to Redmond.</p> <p>Whatever your choice of display and environment, just pull your Java Card (your session is preserved on the server) and reinsert it later at home, or the next day in another office, and your session will "instantly" pop up in front of you ready to continue your work.</p> <p>However, a customer recently expressed a concern that the SunRay isn't powered by the latest processor technology, and isn't populated by a huge bank of RAM. Hmmm. I wonder if this person might also consider writing to and asking:</p> <p><font color="#993300"><i><b>Norelco </b>why their electric razors are powered by two AA batteries! When MegaRaz offers your choice of 220V 3-phase or dual-feed 30A single-phase units that can rip thru facial hair and auto-exfoliate the top layer of skin in record time.</i></font></p> <p><font color="#993300"><i><b>Panasonic </b>why their microwave ovens are still powered by radio-wave emitting magnetrons. Don't they know that MicroRad now offers lead-lined plutonium-powered resonant-coupled chamber ovens that can cut food prep time by a factor of 50 over obsolete microwave ovens?</i></font></p> <p><font color="#993300"><i><b>Kenmore </b>why their refrigerators have not kept up with the times. That DeepFrz and many others now offer a turbo-switch option that circulates liquid hydrogen to drop the freezer compartment temp to near absolute zero, extending food storage times to future generations. Many use this feature to preserve small pets during vacations, eliminating the need for pet sitting or boarding.</i></font></p> Those were designed to be funny, and to make the point that often engineering makes design choices that are "good enough". The SunRay has to have enough power to paint pixels. And it does. Future versions might require more capable processors to handle stronger encryption at faster network speeds, 3D Acceleration, etc. But gratuitously incorporating leading-edge technology into a design can increase cost, heat, power, noise, and instability with no added benefit. Be careful what you ask for... because you'll end up paying for it. <u><b>Requirements should be linked to the business value they provide</b></u>,  and not to an emotional "got to have it just because" craving that is fueled by consumer marketing campaigns.<font color="#660000"><em><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"></span></em></font> https://blogs.oracle.com/dcb/entry/debating_our_cto_in_public SOA: Debating our CTO dcb https://blogs.oracle.com/dcb/entry/debating_our_cto_in_public Mon, 14 Mar 2005 04:25:15 +0000 Computers <p>I have the utmost respect for our CTO of <strong><em>Enterprise Web Services</em></strong>, John Crupi. He is a great guy and one of our sharpest arrows. If you get a chance to hear him speak, you will enjoy the time and take away valuable insights. John recently joined the BSC community (blogs.sun.com) and posted a <a href="http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/crupi/20050312#br_br_soa_means_a">brief intro to SOA</a>. Welcome John! I look forward to future updates on this topic on your blog.</p> <p>Me, I'm a Lead Architect with a background built on consulting and systems engineering primarily at the IT Infrastructure level, focused on most of the solution stack - up to but not generally into the functional business logic or S/W app design space. Prior to Sun I spent years as a programmer translating business requirements into S/W solutions... but that's been a while.</p> <p>With that context (the fact that I come to the table with certain biases and experiences that color my perceptions, and I suspect John does as well, to some degree) I'm going to suggest that <font color="#990000"><em>maybe John is slightly off-base w.r.t. his premise about SOA</em></font> and IT / Business Unit (BU) alignment. In the spirit of extracting deeper insights and clarifying positions, I'm going to challenge John with an alternate view (a debate), and ask him to either agree with me or defend his position. Hmmm...is this a <em>Career Limiting Move</em> - publicly challenging one of our Chief Technology Officers? No... not at Sun. We encourage our folks to question assumptions and even our leaders, resolve/align, and then move forward in unity. Okay, with that:</p> <p>John, you suggest that: <em><strong><font color="#990000">one of the critical success factors for SOA is a tighter relationship/alignment between Business Units and IT</font></strong></em>. In fact you say we can not even do SOA without effort on the part of the Business Unit.<br> </p> <p>Now I could not agree more that Business/IT alignment is absolutely paramount. The lack of business focus and alignment is one of the top reasons why so many IT initiatives fail to deliver or meet expectations or provide a higher return to the business than its cost. I've blogged about that very topic.</p> <p>However, that alignment, IMHO, is not related to SOA. In fact, I believe there are benefits to <span style="text-decoration: underline;">isolating</span> service construction techniques from the consumers and owners of those services. To reuse the power utility metaphor:<br> </p> <p style="margin-left: 40px; font-style: italic;">You don't care how <a href="http://www.sargentlundy.com/fossil/">S&L</a> built the power plants that deliver your electric service, or how power distribution provisioning logic taps into multiple grid suppliers and peak-load gas turbines. You simply have specific service level and financial demands, and expect a quality experience when/if you have to interact with the service desk to resolve a dispute, request a change in your service, or report an incident.</p> <p>There are two primary components to IT... the <span style="font-weight: bold;">design/development</span> of services, and the <span style="font-weight: bold;">opertaion/delivery</span> of services.<br> </p> <p>"<span style="font-weight: bold;">Business - IT </span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Development" </span>alignment is driven by business requirements (functional, service level, cost, time-to-market, etc). SOA isn't a "requirement", but a technique that helps IT achieve the desires of the business to support their business processes.<br> </p> <p>"<span style="font-weight: bold;">Business/IT </span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Operations" </span>alignment is properly performed as defined by ITSM/ITIL Best Practices, and as illustrated in my graphic below. Business and IT need to work as a intimate partnership to define, implement, deliver, and continually refine an optimized Service Portfolio at contracted service levels and an established and predictable cost point. Again, SOA is simply a technique that helps IT achieve operational excellence.<br> </p> <p>All other functions are internal to IT. The fact that requirements are fleshed out in an Agile fashion and constructed/deployed using a SOA strategy is meaningless to the Business Unit. They simply want IT to build the capability they need, adjust it when asked, and deliver it as expected.<br> </p> <> <p>As a consumer and purchaser of various utilities (electricity, gas, cable, phone, water, etc) you don't need nor want to know the details of how the utility achieves scale economy or service resiliency or security or efficiency/utilization or adaptability or regulatory compliance. Well, okay, you and I by nature might be curious and like to know how these things work. But, in general, exposing the internal details of how a Service Delivery Platform is constructed is, IMHO, counter-productive to the Business/IT conversation and partnership. Some curious BU stakeholders will likely want to understand and even attempt to influence your model (eg: buy EMC, use .NET, etc). But that kind of inquiry can expose dysfunction and introduce inefficiency in the model. You don't tell Pacific Power to buy GE turbines or supply power at 62 hertz, unless you want to pay extraordinary fees for your own custom power plant. </p> <p>I strongly believe in the principles of Agile development and architecture. Clearly the days of throwing a fixed requirements document over the wall are over. Business Units, IT Operations, and IT Development all must work together in a healthy partnership focused on continuous business process optimization and refinement. However, in my opinion, the true value of SOA is in the benefits it delivers to the <i><b>internal</b></i> IT function w.r.t. scale economy, resiliency, efficiency, adaptability, etc. Business Units don't need nor want to know about SOA... they simply have (frequently changing) requirements and expectations.</p> <p>Bottom line: SOA is a architectural style/technique that IT Shops will employ to quickly respond to changing service level demands, while operating IT as an efficient adaptable business with an ability to tap into (integrate with) <a href="http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/dcb/?anchor=sun_the_nobel_prize">external/outsourced partners</a> (blog on Coase's Law).<br> </p> <p>John - I respectfully invite a reply.</p> <p><img src="https://blogs.oracle.com/roller/resources/dcb/Crupi.jpg"><br> </p> https://blogs.oracle.com/dcb/entry/itsm_transforming_it ITSM: Transforming IT dcb https://blogs.oracle.com/dcb/entry/itsm_transforming_it Fri, 11 Mar 2005 13:50:56 +0000 Computers <p><!--StartFragment --><font color="#000000">Here are two recent letters I sent to customers following workshops designed to map out a strategy to transform their IT organization thru the assessment of their people, processes, and technologies and the application of best practices. I thought that these might be beneficial to others who are attempting to do likewise. There are no great pearls of wisdom here, but it might get you thinking about having the conversation. ITSM = IT Service Management.<br> </font></p> <p>One client is <!--StartFragment -->attempting to synthesize several frameworks (ITIL, Sigma, ISO, and CMM-I) into a multi-year strategy to uplevel their operational capability. They asked for a mapping between ISO and ITIL, to which I replied in the 2nd letter (below).</p> <p><font color="#003300"><i>Hi <--->,<br><br>I'm glad to see you are moving forward with this. As we mentioned during our workshop, some clients choose to perform the SunTONE assessment by themselves. Others seek assistance from Sun or a partner. Still others do both... performing an informal survey themselves and then requesting a formal evaluation from Sun. Either way, since I'm just down the street from you, I would like to keep tabs on your efforts and help ensure you get the assistance you need and the results you desire. If you find there are areas that you'd like to target for improvement, I can also help suggest services and/or technologies and/or best practices that will help improve your "score". Of course, it isn't about the score - but a firm's ability to deliver a quality service and experience that meets documented SLOs at a desired level of security and cost.<br><br>As I've mentioned, your operational capability is already (it appears) at a higher state of maturity than most. A SunTONE "stamp" will certify this capability and is a badge of honor. You'll join hundreds of other firms that have attained this status, and will differentiate yourselves from the other hosting centers.<br><br>If you have a standing meeting to discuss status and actions and gaps associated with this effort, and if you think I could add value to this meeting, I would be more than happy to attend and provide insights and suggestions where appropriate.</i></font> <br><br><font color="#663300"><i>Hi <--->,<br><br>I'm more of a Sigma guy than an ISO guy... But from my investigation of ISO, it seems clear that a clean mapping exists between ISO and Sigma. These are initiatives to create and document and control processes to ensure a high degree of quality and predictability and continuous improvement/refinement. These are wonderful tools to ensure a process continues to be aligned with expectations and goals, and is as efficient as possible.<br><br>ITIL and SunTONE, on the other hand, DEFINE best practices and processes.<br><br>See the difference? ITIL is a set of practices/processes, whereas Sigma and ISO are mechanisms to ensure any process is (and continues to be) optimized.<br><br>So, in that sense, they are HIGHLY complementary, but orthogonal. I don't believe there is overlap or mapping between ISO and ITIL. You really need both the processes (ITIL) and the means to define and measure and analyze and implement and control (Sigma/ISO) those processes.<br><br>Note that both ITIL and Sigma/ISO are systemic/intrusive frameworks that, if done right, will infiltrate the whole organization and will be embraced and promoted from the highest levels. It is a culture change that takes more than a training campaign, MBOs, and a tiger team. You already know this, but many clients fail because they are not prepared to endure the multi-year evolution that this kind of change requires. But, for those that succeed, there are great rewards all along the way... incremental quick-hit benefits that don't require huge time or resource investments.<br><br>Many IT shops, I believe, will be outsourced and/or be "consolidated" over the next few years because they can not control their costs, security, and service levels. ITIL+Sigma/ISO is the path to survival and excellence.<br><br>Hope this helps!!</i></font> <br></p> https://blogs.oracle.com/dcb/entry/java_jingle Java Jingle dcb https://blogs.oracle.com/dcb/entry/java_jingle Fri, 11 Mar 2005 11:09:46 +0000 Computers <p><img src="https://blogs.oracle.com/roller/resources/dcb/JavaLogo.jpg" height="70" width="41"> <strong><font color="#990000" size="4">Java Jingle from 1997</font></strong>:  <a href="http://blogs.sun.com/roller/resources/dcb/Java.mp3">http://blogs.sun.com/roller/resources/dcb/Java.mp3</a></p> <p><em><font color="#330033">I think Sun employees wrote and recorded that song. Anyone recall who? A verse near the end states: "Nobody can tell you what the future may bring...". Well, that was 8 years ago. Check this out!<br> </font></em></p> <p>As Java technology enters its 10th year, the Java Brand is a one of the most powerful technology brands on the planet. You'll see it on your Java powered mobile phone from Sony Ericcson, Motorola, etc or your Palm PDA, on a variety of new PCs from the factory, built into various printers from Ricoh, baked into mobile games, and a part of slew of websites from our partners like Borland, Oracle, and others. Java technology is on over <em><u>2 Billion devices</u></em> and counting! <br><br><strong><em><u>The Facts</u></em></strong> <br>In our most recent study we found that 86% of consumers and 100% of developers and IT recognize the Java brand. In addition we have seen the association of Java and Sun grow by 15% year over year. Over 80% of Developers and IT professionals know that Java comes from Sun. In addition 1 in 3 consumers will buy a product with the Java brand over a comparable product, this is up from 1 in 5 just a year ago. <!--StartFragment --> <a href="http://java.com">Java.com</a> just blew past 10 Million visitors per month, which is more visitors than Nintendo.com, Wired.com, Playstation.com, Time.com, Businessweek.com, and many others. Here are some facts and figures:</p> <ul> <li>2 million downloads of J2EE 1.4 - the most popular release ever!</li> <li>4.5 million Java developers, up 7% from June 2004</li> <li>2 billion Java-enabled devices, up 14% from June 2004</li> <li>750M Java Cards, up 25% from June 2004</li> <li>579M phones, up 65% from June 2004</li> <li>650M PCs, up 8% from June 2004</li></ul> https://blogs.oracle.com/dcb/entry/power_hungry_grids Power Hungry Grids!! dcb https://blogs.oracle.com/dcb/entry/power_hungry_grids Fri, 11 Mar 2005 07:03:47 +0000 Computers <p>I find it ironic that our industry uses Power Generation and Distribution Grids as a metaphor to describe the utility based computing model that is being promoted by vendors and demanded by an increasing number of customers. Actually, it is a reasonable and appropriate analogy. You don't build your own unique power generator for your home or business, and you don't hire a Chief Electrical Officer. Instead you plug into the Power Grid(s)... and leverage standards and scale economics and the variable cost structure of a reliable shared service provider for which you pay for what you consume at a predictable cost per unit. Being a commodity adhering to standards, you can easily switch providers with little or no impact to your operation. You demand a level of service quality, and know what you are willing to pay for that service.</p> <p>I find it ironic simply because it will take a main artery from the Power Grid to, well, <font color="#660000"><strong>power</strong></font> the Compute Grids being designed. There are plans on drawing boards to increase the compute density of future servers such that a standard 19" datacenter rack will (fully populated with the most dense compute servers) consume up to 25KW of power!! That's huge. Consider a data center floor filled with these racks. You can imagine the engineering challenges associated with extracting that much heat from these blast furnaces. And then, of course, it's up to the datacenter to do something with that all that heat. One customer measured hurricane force chilled air speeds underneath their raised floor tiles! To make matters worse, according to p.20 of <a href="http://datacenters.lbl.gov/docs/Data_Center_Facility7.pdf">this report</a> (see the table below), computer equipment accounts for less than half of the power demand for a typical data center.</p> <p>The good news is that you'll have an unprecedented amount of compute power on each floor tile, so in theory, you won't need as many racks. Of course, we all know that the demand for compute capability exceeds the supply. On the other hand, the ultimate realization of the utility model suggests that you might not even have your own datacenter. Like your gas, water, electricity, cable, and phone services, the cost of the building, of powering, cooling, and administering the equipment, of security, insurance, disaster recovery, etc, will all be absorbed by the utility provider. You simply pay for the service at a known rate per unit of consumption.</p> <p>That sure sounds great in theory (unless you are the Chief <span style="font-weight: bold;">Integration</span> Officer, or Chief <span style="font-weight: bold;">Infrastructure</span> Officer). It'll be fun to watch this play out. And watch IT earn the title: "Information Technology".<br> </p> <p><img src="https://blogs.oracle.com/roller/resources/dcb/GridPwr.jpg"></p> <p><img src="https://blogs.oracle.com/roller/resources/dcb/DC_Pwr.jpg"></p> https://blogs.oracle.com/dcb/entry/the_science_of_data_recovery The Science of Data Recovery dcb https://blogs.oracle.com/dcb/entry/the_science_of_data_recovery Wed, 9 Mar 2005 00:19:53 +0000 Computers <p><a href="http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/chrisg/20050308#disk_scrubbing">Chris Gerhard</a> made an off hand comment about the fact that disk scrubbing simply hinders (doesn't necessarily prevent) a motivated attempt to retrieve information from a disk drive. Disk Scrubbing is the process of (attempting to) securely erasing a disk to prevent others from accessing previously stored information. This is typically done by writing (possibly multiple times) random data over the entire surface of a disk.</p> <p>Since I work with various government accounts/agencies/programs, this is an area of interest to me and some of my clients.</p> <p>You might think that a digital medium designed to store only zeros and ones would be immune to forensic recovery of residual data once the zeros and ones are randomly altered. The fallacy with this is that magnetic storage is not a digital medium at all. Magnetic domains are created when the read/write head applies energy to a bit location to align some (not all) of the particles to reflect either a zero or a one. The precise location of the "domain" for each write varys slightly in three dimensions (including depth). This reality provides interesting opportunities or risk (depending on your perspective).<br> </p> <p>A colleague (thanks Joe) pointed me to a <a href="http://www.dataclinic.co.uk/data-recovery/learn-more-about-microscopy.htm">fascinating report</a> on techniques involved in recovering data from ostensibly erased disks and computer memory. This is amazing and spooky stuff for the technically inclined. Here is <a href="http://mareichelt.de/pub/notmine/livegate.netwipe.html">another report</a> (thanks Kurt) that's also very interesting and enlightening. Joe also pointed me to <a href="http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/%7Epgut001/">Prof. Gutman's website</a>, who has a lifetime of security related knowledge to share!</p> <p>Here are a few brief excerpts (read the <a href="http://www.dataclinic.co.uk/data-recovery/learn-more-about-microscopy.htm">article</a> for context):<br><br><font color="#666600"><i>When all the above factors are combined it turns out that each (disk) track contains an image of everything ever written to it, but that the contribution from each "layer" gets progressively smaller the further back it was made. Intelligence organisations have a lot of expertise in recovering these palimpsestuous images.<br></i></font><br><font color="#666600"><i>To effectively erase a medium to the extent that recovery of data from it becomes uneconomical requires a magnetic force of about five times the coercivity of the medium... (</i><i>a modern hard drive has a  coercivity of 1400-2200 Oe).... </i><i>Even the most powerful commercial AC degausser cannot generate Oe needed for full erasure. </i><i>It may be necessary to resort to physical destruction of the media to completely sanitise it (in fact since degaussing destroys the sync bytes, ID fields, error correction information, and other paraphernalia needed to identify sectors on the media, thus rendering the drive unusable, it makes the degaussing process mostly equivalent to physical destruction).<br><br></i><i>One example of an adequate degausser was the 2.5 MW Navy research magnet used by a former Pentagon site manager to degauss a 14" hard drive. It bent the platters on the drive...</i></font></p> https://blogs.oracle.com/dcb/entry/sun_db_the_open_database "Sun DB" The Open Database dcb https://blogs.oracle.com/dcb/entry/sun_db_the_open_database Mon, 7 Mar 2005 09:00:09 +0000 Computers <P><SPAN class=artText><FONT color=#660000><BIG><FONT color=#000000><SMALL><SPAN class=artTitle>Our President & COO recently talked to the press about our plans regarding Sun's Open Source SQL database (see the link and excerpt below).</SPAN></SMALL></FONT></BIG></FONT></SPAN></P> <P><SPAN class=artText><FONT color=#660000><BIG><FONT color=#000000><SMALL><SPAN class=artTitle></SPAN></SMALL></FONT></BIG></FONT></SPAN><SPAN class=artText><FONT color=#660000><BIG><FONT color=#000000><SMALL><SPAN class=artTitle>I believe "Sun DB" (a generic term for the concept) will provide huge value to our industry. Many will continue to choose to deploy their largest, most active, and most mission critical data stores on technology from traditional database vendors. However, Sun DB will provide a supported open standard and open source SQL data store at an extremely attractive price point (free?). IT Shops, Government Programs, Research Facilities, etc, will find this offering to be technically and financially irresistible for many types of deployments. And, I'm guessing that traditional database vendors will find intensified market pressure to readdress license models increasingly irresistible. It's a win-win for everyone... Well, almost everyone.</SPAN></SMALL></FONT></BIG></FONT></SPAN><!--StartFragment --></P> <P><SPAN class=artText><FONT color=#660000><BIG><FONT color=#000000><SMALL><SPAN class=artTitle></SPAN></SMALL></FONT></BIG></FONT></SPAN><SPAN class=artText><FONT color=#660000><BIG><SPAN class=artTitle><A href="http://www.infoworld.com/article/05/02/16/HNsunpresident_1.html"><I><SMALL><FONT color=#000000>http://www.infoworld.com/article/05/02/16/HNsunpresident_1.html</FONT></SMALL></I></A></WEBHEADLINE></SPAN><B><SPAN class=artTitle><WEBHEADLINE><BR><BR>Sun president talks databases, Sparc, and HP</WEBHEADLINE></SPAN></B></BIG></FONT><BR>Jonathan Schwartz talks about Sun's open source plans and offers Fiorina's successor some advice</SPAN></P><SPAN class=artText> <P class=ArticleBody page="1"><STRONG>IDG: Does Sun have a concrete plan to offer an open source database, or was Scott McNealy just being provocative when he suggested that recently?</STRONG> </P> <P class=ArticleBody page="1"><FONT color=#003300>Schwartz: To be a complete application platform you have to have some form of persistent storage. You can achieve that through a file system, a directory engine, a messaging store, the persistence engine in our application server -- those are all forms of databases. What we haven't done is address the SQL access database, which has been served well in the open source community by MySQL and PostgreSQL. We're committed to filling the hole -- all of the hole, not just the file system. We have to address the requirements of the SQL database, so I think we're quite serious about it. </FONT></P> <P class=ArticleBody page="1"><STRONG>IDG: Would you use the same model as you did with Linux on the Java Desktop System, i.e. take an existing open source product, tweak it for your needs and put a Sun label on it?</STRONG> </P> <P class=ArticleBody page="1"><FONT color=#003300>Schwartz: That's to be determined. Customers have said, 'We'd like an alternative to the existing choices we have.' And they are consistently asking Sun to go work on that issue.</FONT> </P> <P class=ArticleBody page="1"><STRONG>IDG: So it's a matter of when and not if?</STRONG> </P> <P class=ArticleBody page="1"><FONT color=#003300>Schwartz: Absolutely.</FONT></P></SPAN> https://blogs.oracle.com/dcb/entry/in_good_company_ceo_cio In Good Company: McNealy/Vass dcb https://blogs.oracle.com/dcb/entry/in_good_company_ceo_cio Fri, 4 Mar 2005 12:15:44 +0000 Computers <P>My 30 minutes of fame! Some of our C-levels came to town to yesterday to present at the IPIC 2005 Conference. Our execs love to meet with customers at every opportunity, so we were given a couple hours of their time before their flights - to host an exec roundtable. We invited some of our top customers. Scott entertained and enlightened the crowd from 10-11am. Bill Vass was on from 1-2pm. And, during our catered lunch, between Scott and Bill's talks, I was asked to talk about "Innovation & Value". It was a blast. Mapquest tells me I'm 2908 miles from Corporate HQ. <A href="http://www.geobytes.com/CityDistanceTool.htm">CityDistance</A> tells me I'm 2443 miles away. But, for 30 minutes... I was on the "A", um "C" team!  :-)</P> <P><IMG src="http://blogs.sun.com/roller/resources/dcb/GoodCompany.jpg"></P> https://blogs.oracle.com/dcb/entry/client_engagement_prep_form Client Engagement Prep Form dcb https://blogs.oracle.com/dcb/entry/client_engagement_prep_form Tue, 1 Mar 2005 18:19:42 +0000 Computers <P><!--StartFragment --><FONT color=#006600>I created this a few years ago when I was an Area Product Specialist, flying into accounts all over the place for workshops and architectural or technology discussions. At the time, I needed a way to synchronize details about the account, the specific challenges/opptys we needed to flesh out at the meeting, and travel logistics. It helps to set expectations and align messaging before a customer facing meeting. Account teams were great at filling these out.... I have 100+ of these in my e-mail archive! I generally used a descriptive subject line, such as:</FONT></P> <P><B>Subject: Brillhart Customer Engagement: Xerox@Rochester [9 May 03]</B><BR><BR><FONT color=#006600>Here is the form. Feel free to adapt and reuse!</FONT></P> <P>This note contains important information regarding our upcoming meeting(s). Please verify that the meeting logistics are correct, and then complete the Meeting Questionnaire (see below).<BR><BR>If you intend on us disclosing any confidential information, please ensure you've completed all the Non-Disclosure (ND) paperwork and secured any approvals in advance. Some account teams believe they have a general bi-lateral ND in place, when in fact each meeting requires a separate approval. Please have the paperwork at the meeting. Thanks!<BR><BR>This Questionnaire doesn't take long to complete, and it really does help ensure success. Sales teams often benefit from this exercise as much as the presenter.<BR><BR><U><B>MEETING LOGISTIC SUMMARY</B></U><BR>I'm scheduled to meet with you and your customer, [<FONT color=#cc0000>Xerox</FONT>], in the [<FONT color=#cc0000>Rochester Area</FONT>] on [<FONT color=#cc0000>Friday, May 9th</FONT>] for [<FONT color=#cc0000>about 2 hours</FONT>]. This engagement [<FONT color=#cc0000>\is\</FONT>] covered by a signed ND agreement. The primary focus of this meeting will be [<FONT color=#cc0000>item #3</FONT>] as described below, with particular emphasis on VCS competitive positioning.<BR><BR>Please let me know ASAP if any of this has changed. It might be useful for your customers to know a little about me before the meeting: <A class=moz-txt-link-freetext href="http://brillharts.com/sig">http://brillharts.com/sig</A><BR><BR><U><B>MEETING QUESTIONNAIRE</B></U><BR>In order to prepare for our upcoming meetings, I'd like you to fill out the following brief questionnaire as soon as possible for my preparation. Please try to fill out everything just to be sure we are all on the same page. I've found this process really helps ensure a successful meeting. Thanks in advance for your time!!<BR><BR><I><B>1. Account Team Contact Info:<BR></B></I>Sales Rep: 10-digit office/pager/cell<BR>Client Solutions Contact: 10-digit office/pager/cell:</P> <P><I><B>2. Customer Name and their Function, Department or Group:</B></I><BR><B><BR><EM>3. Directions to Meeting </EM></B><EM>(<FONT color=#666666>or an address - and I'll use MapQuest</FONT>)<BR></EM>Hotel Recommendations, if an overnight stay is required<BR>Do I need a car, or will you be picking me up at the airport?<BR><BR><I><B>4. Customer Prep Call</B></I><BR>Do we have a customer con call scheduled with one of the key meeting participants to better understand their expectations for this meeting?<BR><BR><I><B>5. Primary \Business\ Challenges/Goals</B></I><BR>What are the primary \business\ challenges/goals we are trying to help them with during this meeting?<BR><BR><I><B>6. Key Discussion Topics & Desired Outcome/Takeaway/Actions/Agreements</B></I><BR>When we leave, what do \we\ hope was accomplished?<BR><BR><I><B>7. How many people will be attending? Who are they?</B></I><BR>What is their experience level or technical competence related to the topic of the meeting? Are they generally advocates, skeptics, or opponents of our approach to or stand on this topic? What level of influence do they have to make commitments and/or decisions? Who else from Sun will be in attendance? Consider inviting SunES personnel and strategic partners. Should someone from Sales Mgmt attend?<BR><BR><I><B>8. Do you anticipate the need to talk about Futures?</B></I><BR>CPUs, Servers, Clustering, Storage/SANs, Solaris, Web Services/SOA, etc.... If so, have you secured ND approval?<BR><BR><I><B>9. Competition / Position / Traps?</B></I><BR>What is the main competitive threat related to the topic of this meeting? Are we the incumbent or the challenger in this space? What "traps" might have the competition set for us?<BR><BR><I><B>10. Service Escalations / Quality Issues?</B></I><BR>Have they had any serious product or service issues that might surface in this meeting?<BR><BR><I><B>11. Odds and ends:</B></I><BR>What is the dress code?<BR>Will there be a laptop projector?<BR>Do they understand the general Sun product line and vision?<BR><BR>A quick FYI: Presentations are often more effective in a "chalk talk" interactive format. Please ensure there is something to write on (white board or easel). Sometimes the best approach is a laptop projector that projects onto a white board to facilitate annotations to the slides that relate to the customer's situation. Also, if we only expect the meeting to last a couple hours, try to secure other meetings to make the most of the day.</P> <P><U><B>MY SERVICES</B></U><BR>1. Engage the customer in an open discussion about their technical and business requirements, goals, and the expectations of both their mgmt and the end-users of the services they plan to deliver. Assist the customer in thinking through the various options and tradeoffs they can choose from during the architecture and design phase. Work with the Sales Team to produce a solution proposal. Continue to provide support to the Sales Team and customer as needed to secure the order.<BR><BR>2. Discuss our Vision and Roadmap and the Technologies that surround Datacenter Architecture and Operations. This can include N1, SOA and Web Services, ITIL Disciplines, Operational Capability, Utility Computing, Managed Services, etc.<BR><BR>3. Discuss High Availability using SunCluster 3, Replication Techniques for Disaster Recovery, and End-to-End Solution Architectures, and help the customer design a solution that solves the business challenge they are facing.<BR><BR>4. Perform an Architectural Review and Systems Performance Audit of the customer's current environment, and propose changes that will optimize their environment for their current and projected business requirements.<BR><BR>5. Deliver an in-depth technical review of our Servers, Interconnects, and Chip Architectures and position Sun w.r.t. competitive offerings, to help guide the customer to a decision that is appropriate for their current and projected needs.<BR><BR>6. Provide a high-level strategic overview of our Vision, Value Proposition, Broad Product and Technology Overview, and Competitive Positioning, to help the customer make an informed and confident decision to partner with Sun.<BR><BR>7. Work with Customer Engineers and SysAdmins at the customer's site to build a Proof of Concept evaluation environment using Best Practices, and then assist the customer in exercising the POC to demonstrate how it's features and functions will enable the customer to succeed.<BR><BR>8. Other. Such as Storage NDs, Blade NDs, Volume Server NDs, etc.<BR></P> https://blogs.oracle.com/dcb/entry/rocket_science_open_standards Rocket Science & Open Standards dcb https://blogs.oracle.com/dcb/entry/rocket_science_open_standards Thu, 24 Feb 2005 15:10:47 +0000 Computers <P>Here is a letter I sent to a Lead Architect I met at a particular "space agency", as a follow up to our discussion about one of their infrastructure redesign projects. I think many clients are wrestling with this topic, so I offer this as an open/anonymous letter for your consideration.<!--StartFragment --></P> <P><FONT face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color=#330033>Hi <----->,</FONT></P> <P><FONT face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color=#330033>It was great meeting with you yesterday. Thanks for sharing some insights into your strategy and challenge. I applaud you for starting to think about your future infrastructure needs and the potential risk of status quo at this point. Too many clients wait until the last minute and then they find themselves in an urgent/reactive mode making poor and costly choices.<BR><BR>I was thinking more about your philosophy regarding the use of non-proprietary open standards. This is very important, and I'm a huge advocate of this approach. I agree that it is critical to architect a solution that promotes choice and permits you to migrate to different products and technologies and vendors without cost, delay, or pain. To me, and I would guess to you as well, this is the reason to select interoperable standards and "open" platforms.<BR><BR>As you know (although many people confuse the two) the "open source" movement is different than the value proposition of "open standards". The measure of whether something is open or not is determined by the cost/pain of extracting that component out of your solution and replacing it with another choice. Examples could include the server vendor (eg: HP to Sun Opteron), the OS (eg: Linux to Solaris), the SAN fabric switches, the J2EE App Server, the SQL Database, the Compilers, etc, etc....  Note that open source does not factor into the measure of being "open".<BR><BR>I do also recognize the value of open source. It can increase the rate of innovation through a global community. It can provide for independent security assessment and validation. It can offer a client the ability to tweak the product for their own needs (although I generally discourage this due to support and quality and complexity reasons). As you know, Sun has open sourced the code to Solaris10! I never thought I'd see that happen, but it has.<BR><BR>There is another aspect that I believe is part of your strategy. If you build the upper layers using interoperable standards, then the layers below are often interchangeable even if they aren't fully open. For example, if you build your business logic using J2EE running in an App Server, then the OS and the H/W choice is much less "sticky". You can switch between SPARC and Opteron or between Solaris and Linux without cost or delay or pain. Also, if you code and compile your own apps, you can choose to use standard library calls that make the underlying platform easy to change.<BR><BR>There are, however, drawbacks associated with choosing products that do not have a well established and directed engineering and support mechanism. The key, in my opinion, is to select partners and products that embrace open standards (and open source) and yet have an auditable and proven support and engineering model. This gives you high confidence in your solution as well as the ability to change at will.<BR><BR>I believe Linux is fine as a personal desktop operating environment. I also think Linux can be a viable choice on which to run stateless replicated (load balanced) presentation tier services. However relying on Linux to host mission critical applications and tier 2+ services, in my professional opinion, will significantly increase the risk associated with your mission support. It just isn't mature enough yet. There are reliability concerns, security concerns,  scalability concerns, functionality concerns, support concerns, bug fix responsiveness concerns, legal indemnification concerns, etc.<BR><BR>I offer the same counsel about the choice of your supplier of Opteron servers and other components in your solution stack. Many have found that the potential initial cost savings associated with building a whitebox generic server, and using freeware software, is often lost many times over in the frustration and hassle of dealing with bugs and quality issues and the lack of features. These issues are highly mitigated when using "open standard" products offered by a partner like Sun that pours billions per year into R&D and QA.<BR><BR>I'll close by reiterating my suggestion that these should probably play a role in your infrastructure redesign:<BR>  - Sun's industry leading Opteron servers (btw, our future roadmap is extremely interesting)<BR>  - Sun's open source Solaris 10 operating environment<BR>  - Sun's open standards "platform software stack"<BR>          (app server, directory server with ActiveX interoperability, portal server, identity server, etc, etc)<BR><BR>We also have an interesting suite of virtualization and automation solutions, including our N1 Service Provisioning Server.<BR><BR>I'd love to support you in learning more about and even evaluating these products and technologies and strategies. I'd also be glad to act as a general sounding board and/or provide architectural review and guidance as desired.<BR><BR>Please feel free to contact me any time. I look forward to hearing from you.<BR><BR>Best Regards,</FONT></P> <P><FONT face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color=#330033>-- Dave</FONT></P> <P><!--StartFragment --> <BIG><SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Dave Brillhart</SPAN></BIG><BR><SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; COLOR: rgb(51,0,153)">Lead Architect - Strategic Government</SPAN><BR style="COLOR: rgb(51,0,153); FONT-STYLE: italic"><SPAN style="COLOR: rgb(51,0,153); FONT-STYLE: italic">Client Solutions Organization</SPAN><BR style="COLOR: rgb(51,0,153); FONT-STYLE: italic"><SPAN style="COLOR: rgb(51,0,153); FONT-STYLE: italic">Sun Microsystems, Inc.</SPAN></P> https://blogs.oracle.com/dcb/entry/superg_2005_paper SUPerG 2005 Paper dcb https://blogs.oracle.com/dcb/entry/superg_2005_paper Wed, 23 Feb 2005 02:00:00 +0000 Computers <P>SUPerG (<I>Sun Users Performance Group</I>) is Sun's premiere technical event for customers interested in large scale solutions architected for data centers and high-performance and technical computing. The program is designed to provide highly interactive and intimate exchanges between Sun's leading technical experts and our customers.</P> <P>You can read more about the event, and register to attend at: <A href="http://www.sun.com/datacenter/superg/">http://www.sun.com/datacenter/superg/</A></P> <P><STRONG>This year, I've been invited to speak</STRONG> at this event. In the spirit of blogging, I've posted my abstract (below). I need to get busy writing the paper and creating a clear, concise, and compelling technology demonstration. If you'd like me to address a particular topic or concern or challenge in the paper (related to the abstract), or have an idea that I might include in the demo, please drop me a line or submit a comment to this entry. If I use your idea, I'll attribute it to you in the published paper, and here in blog land, so please include your name and contact info.</P> <P>Hope you see you at SUPerG in April in Virgina. Stop by and say "hi".<BR><BR><U><B><FONT color=#993300>\SUPerG 2005 Abstract\ </FONT></B></U><BR><FONT color=#663366><B>Effective Deployment & Operational Practices for Dynamically Scaled SOA and Grid Environments<BR><BR></B><I>Scalability is taking on a new form and introducing new challenges. The traditional "vertical" platform with dozens of powerful CPUs bound by local memory offering (nearly) uniform memory access, is being threatened by a new model - networked grids of powerful but low cost compute nodes. <BR><BR>Grids are not new. But powerful new techniques are emerging that allow commercial workloads to take advantage of this style of computing. This includes SOA-based application design, as well as auto-deployment and provisioning to drive efficiency and utilization in infrastructure operation. <BR><BR>Modern designs provide for on-the-fly horizontal scaling with the push of a button.... in which new containers join the grid into which a distributed app may expand to offer new levels of performance and service level. A side effect of this approach is a highly-resilient platform, such that bound dependencies can fail without a catastrophic impact on the running service. <BR><BR>This talk will provide an update on the State of the Technology with respect to SOA and Infrastructure Provisioning, and how these can be leveraged to offer Adaptable, Scalable, and Resilient services. <BR><BR>I may also include a demonstration that will show how a collection of bare metal servers can be established into a Grid using N1 SPS (integrated with JET). Following this provisioning phase, the demo will then show a sample app deployed and executed across multiple nodes. Finally, it'll show a node being added to the live Grid using SPS, and how that app can then expand, at run-time, to leverage this new node, increasing its work rate.</I></FONT> </P> https://blogs.oracle.com/dcb/entry/boycotting_oracle Boycotting Oracle dcb https://blogs.oracle.com/dcb/entry/boycotting_oracle Tue, 15 Feb 2005 04:26:43 +0000 Computers <p>So the news (<a href="http://news.com.com/2102-1006_3-5572958.html">news.com.com</a>) is reporting that Intel and HP are getting into the game... joining the ranks of multi-core chip vendors and their customers who see Oracle's license strategy (to charge by the core) as misaligned with the times. These are times of virtualized resources that are consumed and funded as needed, they say.<br><br>I was thinking of an analogy for Oracle's position... Consider how you would feel about a policy at Blockbuster Video if, when you rented a DVD, you had to pay $10.00 per seat (your sofa counts as three - being multi-seated). No, it doesn't matter if it'll just be you and your spouse watching the movie. Since you have 15 seats that you \could\ utilize (the bar stools and folding chairs count too) you will pay $150.00 per night for that movie. Oh, you'd like to display that movie in PARALLEL in your family room and in your entertainment room? Sure, you can do that with their "shared disc" technology. But now add up all the seats in both rooms (25), and that'll be $20.00 per seat! So please pay us $500.00 per night for that movie.<br><br>Now, why in the world would Oracle change that policy? They've maximized their revenue pull - and customers are still writing checks. They are in business to extract as much from their "value" as the market will bear, not offer charity discounts to a world that can't rationalize the price tag assigned by a market share leader (I won't use the other "m" word). Oracle reports having $10B in cash, about equal to their annual revenue. It would take less than a thousand E25K customers to decide to run Oracle RAC on their servers to deliver another $10B to their warchest. Not bad, for the price of DVD blanks :-)<br><br>Choice in this market segment is the only lever that will work. Customers are demanding choice. And they will respond when it appears. Oracle should note that when choice knocks, many will answer even if they then respond with a competitive position. It takes a long time to get a bad taste out of your mouth. Many will boycott Oracle just because they finally can.<br><br>There are some hints that choice might be <a href="http://techrepublic.com.com/5102-10585-5563417.html">just around the corner</a>.</p> https://blogs.oracle.com/dcb/entry/the_fall_and_rise_of The Fall and Rise of IT: Part 1 dcb https://blogs.oracle.com/dcb/entry/the_fall_and_rise_of Sat, 12 Feb 2005 14:15:15 +0000 Computers <P>Here's a collection of charts, graphs, and images that provide insight into the abyss of the typical datacenter operation. It's scary out there, when we apply benchmarks used to measure utilization, efficiency, and contribution from other part of the business.</P> <P>But there is hope. For example, just this month Sun released a valuable and comprehensive (and free) <A href="http://www.sun.com/blueprints/0205/819-1693.html">BluePrint</A> book called "Operations Management Capabilities Model". We've been working on this one for some time - so check it out. In addition, you can sign up (for free) with our <A href="http://www.suntone.org/">SunTONE Program</A> for self-assessment guides and self-remediation activities related to our ITIL-plus Certification program. It is based on, but extends ITIL. Thousands of companies are registered. We'll help if you'd like. Finally, the <A href="http://www.sun.com/products-n-solutions/sodc/">Service-Optimized DataCenter</A> program will act as a Center of Excellence for putting these concepts into practice along with innovative new technologies in virtualization, provisioning, automation, and optimization, and other best practices. As you read about the state of IT below, realize that there is an escape from the pit of mediocrity. Part 2 will explore the oppty.</P> <P>For now, for this post, I'll survey some of the problems that need fixing...</P> <P>Let's assume that the prime directive for a datacenter is simply to: <FONT color=#990000><STRONG>Deliver IT Services that meet desired Service Level Objectives at a competitive cost point</STRONG></FONT>. There are all kinds of important functions that fall within those large buckets [Service Level and Financial Mgmt], but that'll work for this discussion.</P> <P>In my experience working with customers, there are two primary barriers that prevent a datacenter from being as successful as it might be in this mission. First, there is <FONT color=#000099><STRONG>rampant unmanaged complexity</STRONG></FONT>. Second, most <FONT color=#000099><STRONG>IT activities are reactive </STRONG></FONT>in nature... triggered by unanticipated events and often initiated by unsatisfied customer calls. The result: <B>expensive services that can't meet expectations</B>. Which is the exact opposite of the what an IT shop should deliver!</P> <P>Here are some related graphics (with comments following each graphic):</P> <P><IMG style="WIDTH: 629px; HEIGHT: 363px" height=389 src="http://blogs.sun.com/roller/resources/dcb/stovepipes.jpg" width=656></P> <P>This illustrates the typical "silo" or "stovepipe" deployment strategy. A customer or business unit wants a new IT service developed and deployed. They might help pick their favorite piece parts and IT builds/integrates the unique production environment for this application or service. There is often a related development and test stovepipe for this application, and maybe even a DR (disaster recovery) stovepipe at another site. That's up to four "n"-tier environments per app, with each app silo running different S/W stacks, different firmware, different patches, different middleware, etc, etc. Each a science experiment and someone's pet project.</P> <P>Standish, Meta, Gartner, and others describe the fact that ~40% of all major IT initiatives that are funded and staffed are eventually canceled before they are ever delivered! And of those delivered, half never recover their costs. Overall, 80% of all major initiatives do not deliver to promise (either canceled, late, over budget, or simply don't meet expectation). Part of the reason (there are many reasons) for this failure rate is the one-off stovepipe mentality. Other reasons are a lack of clear business alignment, requirements, and criteria for success.</P> <P><IMG src="http://blogs.sun.com/roller/resources/dcb/complexity.jpg"></P> <P>This is a interesting quote from a systems vendor. While 200M IT workers seems absurd, it describes the impact of accelerating complexity and the obvious need to manage that process. We saw the way stovepipe deployment drives complexity. We're seeing increasing demand for services (meaning more stovepipes), each with increasing service level expectations (meaning more complex designs in each stovepipe), each with increasing rates of change (meaning lots of manual adjustments in each stovepipe), each with with increasing numbers of (virtual) devices to manage, each built from an increasing selection of component choices. The net result is that each stovepipe looks nothing like the previous or next IT project. Every app lives in a one-off custom creation.</P> <P><IMG src="http://blogs.sun.com/roller/resources/dcb/utilization.jpg"></P> <P>If all this complexity isn't bad enough, as if to add insult to injury, each of these silos averages less than 10% utilization. Think about that.... say you commit $5million to build out your own stovepipe for an ERP service. You will leave $4.5M on the floor running idle! That would be unacceptable in just about any other facet of your business. Taken together, high complexity (lots of people, unmet SLOs) and low utilization rates (more equip, space, etc) drive cost through the roof! If we could apply techniques to increase average utilization to even 40% (and provide fault and security isolation), we could potentially eliminate the need for 75% of the deployed equip and related overhead (or at least delay further <!--StartFragment --> acquisitions, or find new ways to leverage the resources).</P> <P><IMG src="http://blogs.sun.com/roller/resources/dcb/outages.jpg"></P> <P>We've seen what complexity and utilization does to cost... But the other IT mandate is to deliver reliable IT services. This graphic summarizes a few studies performed by IEEE, Oracle, and Sun as to the root cause of service outages. In the past, ~60% of all outages were planned/scheduled, and 40% were the really bad kind - unplanned. Thankfully, new features like live OS upgrades and patches and backups and dynamic H/W reconfigurations are starting to dramatically reduce the need for scheduled outages. But we've got to deal with the unplanned outages that always seem to happen at the worst times. Gartner explains that 80% of unplanned outages are due to unskilled and/or unmotivated people making mistakes or executing poorly documented and undisciplined processes. In theory, we can fix this with training and discipline. But since each stovepipe has its own set of unique operational requirements and processes, it nearly impossible to implement consistent policies and procedures across operations.</P> <P><IMG src="http://blogs.sun.com/roller/resources/dcb/opr_maturity.jpg"></P> <P>So it isn't surprising, then, that Gartner has found that 84% of datacenters are operating in the basement in terms of Operational Maturity... Either in Chaotic or Reactive modes.</P> <P>Okay... enough. I know I didn't paint a very pretty picture. The good news is that most firms recognize these problems and are starting to work at <!--StartFragment --> simplifying and standardizing their operations. In Part 2, I'll provide some ideas on where to start and how to achieve high-return results.</P> https://blogs.oracle.com/dcb/entry/the_cell_processor The Cell Processor dcb https://blogs.oracle.com/dcb/entry/the_cell_processor Wed, 9 Feb 2005 03:27:25 +0000 Computers <P>The <A href="http://www-1.ibm.com/businesscenter/venturedevelopment/us/en/featurearticle/gcl_xmlid/8649/nav_id/emerging">latest buzz</A> on the streets, at least around those neighborhoods frequented by the eXtreme crowd, seems to be about the <A href="http://www.blachford.info/computer/Cells/Cell0.html">Cell Processor</A>. I wrote a little <A href="http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/dcb/?anchor=the_fallacy_of_ibm_s">blog</A> on the Power 6 recently and one reader warned me to watch out for The Cell.<BR><BR>Well, I have to admit, I'm a bleeding edge junkie myself at times. And the theory of operation around The Cell is pretty compelling. The problem is that theory doesn't always translate to reality! In fact, it seldom does. Especially when S/W is a critical component of the translation.<BR><BR>Gartner suggests that only 1 in 5 major initiatives that Sr. Mgmt funds and resources ever delivers to promise... 80% fail to meet expectations. IBM talks about a recent <A href="http://www.standishgroup.com/sample_research/chaos_1994_1.php">Standish Group</A> report that suggests only 16.2% of S/W projects are delivered to promise. <A href="http://www.knowledge-advantage.com/your_why.asp">Another study</A> suggests that > 40% are canceled before delivered (and most that are delivered are late and/or way over budget, often never recovering costs).<BR><BR>If you read the reports about Cell, it isn't about the H/W... That's the point really. The H/W is made up of standard building blocks (cells) of Power cores. A socket holds a Processor Element which contains a main Processor Unit (core) and several (often 8) Attached Processor Units (cores). However, the interesting part is the "Cell Object", which is a S/W construct that includes code and data that can migrate around looking for a "host" Cell system on which to execute. There is talk of dynamically-orchestrating pipelines. Of S/W self-healing properties. Of dynamic partitionability with multiple native OS support. All S/W ideas.<BR><BR>So it isn't really about H/W.  The H/W "Cells" are simply the "amino acids". The more interesting question might be: <STRONG><EM>is there an "intelligent designer" who can breath life into a soup made up of these "single celled" organisms?</EM></STRONG> There is a precedent for doom - where advanced life forms failed to thrive due to a lack of S/W life support (eg: EPIC/VLIW, Stack Machines, etc).</P> <P>We saw earlier the dismal failure rate of projects using well established S/W development paradigms. It'll be amazing if Sony/Toshiba/IBM can turn the PlayStation3 engine into a viable <STRONG><U>general purpose computing platform</U></STRONG> that can threaten AMD, Intel, and SPARC at home and in the datacenter. From what I hear, the development tools and processes for PlayStation2 are an absolute nightmare.</P> <P>It'll be fun to watch this pan out. One thing is for sure... at least PlayStation3 will ROCK, if they can deliver a reasonable flow of affordable immersive networked games. I hope so.</P> <P>The Cell makes for great reading. Unfortunately, when it comes to a general purpose platform, this one might never recover from Stage 3:</P> <P><IMG src="http://blogs.sun.com/roller/resources/dcb/HypeCycle.jpg"></P> https://blogs.oracle.com/dcb/entry/chips_cores_threads_oh_my Chips, Cores, Threads, OH MY!! dcb https://blogs.oracle.com/dcb/entry/chips_cores_threads_oh_my Sun, 30 Jan 2005 12:47:55 +0000 Computers <P>I don't know about you, but the whole mess around the emerging lexicon associated with modern processors is very frustrating. Terms are frequently redefined and twisted based on each vendor's whim and fancy. But words (should) mean something and obviously it's important that we all talk the same language.</P> <P>A perfect example... you might have been approached by a <A href="http://www.carm.org/jw/nutshell.htm">Jehovah's Witness</A> in the past. Or have a friend who is a <A href="http://www.carm.org/lds/nutshell.htm">Mormon</A>. I do. They are wonderful people in general. When they talk about their faith their words and themes sound very similar to Biblical Christianity. But dive a little deeper and you'll find the belief systems are radically different. I'm not making a statement on value or correctness or anything like that (so don't bother starting a religious debate). My point is that two people can talk and maybe even (think they) agree, when in fact they are as far from each other as heaven and hell (so-to-speak).</P> <P>When it comes to the engines that power computers, people talk about CPUs, and Processors, and Cores, and Threads, and Sockets, and Chips, and n-Way, and TEUs, and CMT, and Hyper-Threading, and and and... Whew!</P> <P>I like to use three terms... Chips, Cores, and Threads. Note that this is pretty much what SPEC.ORG uses: <A class=moz-txt-link-freetext href="http://www.spec.org/cpu2000/results/rint2000.html">http://www.spec.org/cpu2000/results/rint2000.html</A></P> <P>I stay away from Sockets and Processors and CPUs and n-Way, as these are confusing or ambiguous or redundant.</P> <P><U><STRONG><BIG>Here are some examples [Chips/Cores/Threads]:<BR></BIG></STRONG></U>V880:          8/8/8<BR>V490:          4/8/8<BR>p570:          8/16/32<BR>V40z:          4/4/4<BR><A href="http://www.sun.com/processors/throughput/MDR_Reprint.pdf">Niagara</A>:      1/8/32  (for a system with just one of these chips)</P> <P><BIG><U><B>Here are my definitions:</B></U></BIG> </P> <P><STRONG><U><FONT color=#009900>Chips </FONT><BR></U></STRONG>This refers to the laser scribed rectangle cut from a semiconductor wafer, which is then packaged in a plastic or ceramic casing with pins or contacts. A "chip" may have multiple processing "cores" in it (see: Cores). The US-IV and Niagara and Power5 and Itanium and Opteron are all single "chips".</P> <P><STRONG><U><FONT color=#009900>Cores</FONT><BR></U></STRONG>This term refers to the number of discrete "processors" in a system or on a chip. Some chips, such as Power5, US-IV,  Niagara, etc, have more than one core per chip. A core is also know as a TEU (thread execution unit). Each "core" may also be multi-threaded (see Threads), which can support concurrent or switched execution. Some cores have more than one integer, floating point or other type of "execution unit" that supports instruction level parallelism and/or more than one concurrent thread.</P> <P><STRONG><U><FONT color=#009900>Threads</FONT><BR></U></STRONG>Threads are really a S/W construct. These are the streams of execution scheduled by the OS to do work driven by the computer's processor(s). Some cores can handle more than one thread of execution. Some cores can execute more than one thread at the same time. Other cores can be loaded with multiple threads, but perform H/W context switching at nanosecond speeds. The Thread Count of a processors equals the number of cores multiplied by the number of threads handled by each core. The US-IV has a Thread Count of 2\1=2. The Power5 has a Thread Count of 2\2=4. Niagara has a TC of 8\4=32.</P> <P><STRONG><U><FONT color=#cc0000>Sockets (avoid)</FONT><BR></U></STRONG>This term is designed to communicate the number of processor "chips" in a system. However, in reality it is an ambiguous term, because IBM's MCMs (multi-chip modules) have four "chips" per motherboard "socket". And, a long time ago, some sockets were stacked with more than one chip. Regardless, this term is supposed to equate to the number of "chips", so why confuse the issue. Just use "chips".</P> <P><STRONG><U><FONT color=#cc0000>Processors (avoid)</FONT><BR></U></STRONG>This is technically equal to the number of cores. However, marketing has corrupted this term and some vendors (like Sun) equate this to the number of chips (or sockets), while others equate this to the number of cores. Vendors also use the term "n-Way". But since the number "n" equals the number of processors, this means different things depending on the vendor. For example, a 4-way V490 from Sun has 8 cores, and Oracle will charge you $320,000.00 (list price) to run Oracle on it.</P> <P><STRONG><U><FONT color=#cc0000>CPUs (avoid)</FONT><BR></U></STRONG>This suffers from the same marketing overload problem as Processors. </P> https://blogs.oracle.com/dcb/entry/soa_jsr_208_reality_check SOA & JSR 208: Reality Check dcb https://blogs.oracle.com/dcb/entry/soa_jsr_208_reality_check Sun, 30 Jan 2005 11:22:16 +0000 Computers <p>A friend recently asked me what I'm hearing about SOA adoption and the buzz around JSR 208.</p> <p>"JSR 208" might be a new term for some. Here is a brief overview: <a href="http://www.bijonline.com/PDF/Chappell%20oct.pdf">http://www.bijonline.com/PDF/Chappell%20oct.pdf</a></p> <p>SOA is so over hyped these days that everyone probably has something different in mind when they hear that TLA (three letter acronym). Kinda like "Grid" - the concepts are real and useful, but the hype around SOA and Grid is running years ahead of reality.</p> <p>Remember when N1 was first discussed... the vision of heterogeneous datacenters managed by a meta-OS that auto-provisions virtual slices into which services are deployed and managed to sustain business-driven SLOs based on priorities and charge-back constraints. Just roll in new equip and N1 will "DR" (read: dynamically reallocate) services into the increased capacity. If something fails... no problem... N1 will detect and adapt. We'll get there... eventually. And we've made important steps along the way. Investing almost $2B/yr in R&D will help. But it'll take (a long) time.</p> <p>In some circles I'm hearing similar visions of grandeur around SOA. They talk of business apps described at a high level of abstraction (eg: business process models) loaded into an "application orchestrator" that broadcasts descriptions of the various components/services it needs, and then auto-builds the business app based on services from those providers (both internal and external) that offer the best cost point and service level guarantees. As new "service" providers come on-line with better value (or, if existing providers go off-line), business apps will rebind (on-the-fly) to these new service components.</p> <p>Now, combine N1 and SOA and ITIL, and we could paint a beautiful picture of Service Delivery based on self-orchestrating business apps made up of discrete reusable and shared (possibly outsourced) components that each exist in their own virtual containers that are auto-provisioned and auto-optimized (based on SLAs and Cost and Demand) to maximize asset utilization and minimize cost, all while meeting service level objectives (even in the event of various fault scenarios).</p> <p>Okay - back to reality :-) I'm finding there is a common theme from many of my customers/prospects. Many are seeking to increase efficiency and agility thru "horizontal integration" of reusable building blocks (eg: identity, etc), a shared services platform (grids, virtualization, etc), and higher-level provisioning (automation, SPS).</p> <p>That isn't SOA, per-se, but is a good first step. The "building blocks" most are looking to share today are infrastructure services, rather than higher-level business app components. There is a maturity gradient that simply takes a lot of hard technical and political work to negotiate. Every customer is at a different place along that gradient, but most are embarrassingly immature (relative to the grand vision). It takes strong leadership and commitment at all levels, and a synchronization of people, processes, technology, and information, to even embark on the journey. It takes a tight coupling of S/W engineering, IT Architecture, and Business Architecture.</p> <p>So, yes, I'm passionate about SOA, and JSR 208 will help integrate discrete business services. There are some firms that are pushing the envelope and building interesting business/mission apps from shared "service providers". But, in general, SOA is an abused term and the hype can derail legitimate efforts.</p> <p>I'd be curious if others are sensing "irrational exuberance" around SOA, which can lead to a <a href="http://www.wordspy.com/words/hypecycle.asp">"Trough of Disillusionment"</a> and a rejection of the legitimate gains that an evolutionary progression can provide. As Architects, we can establish credibility and win confidence (and contracts) by setting realistic expectations (hype-busting) and presenting not only a desired state "blueprint" (something that gets them existed about the possibilities for their environment), but a detailed roadmap that demonstrates the process and the benefits at each check point along the way.<br> <img src="https://blogs.oracle.com/roller/resources/dcb/HypeCycle.jpg"><br> </p> https://blogs.oracle.com/dcb/entry/sun_the_nobel_prize Sun & The Nobel Prize dcb https://blogs.oracle.com/dcb/entry/sun_the_nobel_prize Thu, 27 Jan 2005 06:44:09 +0000 Computers <p style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;"><font size="3">Back about 15 years ago, an economist named Ronald Coase won the Nobel Prize based on some very interesting ideas that we're just starting to see drive serious considerations and behavior in the the world of IT. Sun is well aware of this and responding with initiatives (that I can't talk about here). Like the "perfect storm", our industry is at an inflection point driven by the confluence of various trends and developments. These all add up to an environment that is ripe for <a href="http://www.strassmann.com/pubs/cw/outsourcing-it.shtml">Coase's Law</a> to be enforced with prejudice.</font></p> <p style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;"><font size="3">Coase's Law states that: <strong><em>firms should only do what they can do more efficiently than others, and should outsource what others can do more efficiently</em></strong>, after considering the transaction costs involved in working with the outside suppliers.</font></p> <p style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;"><font size="3">There is nothing earth shattering about that simple and intuitive statement. However, back in the 90's, when this idea was explored in theoretical circles by bean counters, the "escape clause" related to transactional costs rendered the idea impotent, or at least limited, in the IT world. A captive internal service (eg: payroll) might not be highly efficient, but the thought of outsourcing a business function was quickly evaporated under the heat of a financial impact analysis. It just cost too much per transaction to realize a worthwhile return. And the incredible growth and prosperity of the "bubble years" leading up to Y2K was not a climate that drove consideration of the business value of outsourcing.</font></p> <p style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;"><font size="3">But all that is changing. You are familiar with many of the <a href="http://mstm.gmu.edu/mstm720/Articles/TechnologyLaws.htm">various "laws"</a> that describe trends in IT, such as:</font></p> <ul style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;"> <li> <font size="3"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Moore's Law</span> (fab process trends that underpin cheap powerful compute infrastructures)</font></li><li><font size="3"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Gilder's Law</span> (the ubiquity of high-bandwidth network fabrics interconnecting businesses and consumers)</font></li> </ul> <p style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;"><font size="3">You are also familiar with concept of Web Services that leverage standard interfaces and protocols and languages to facilitate secure B2B and B2C transactions over these networks.</font></p> <p style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;"><font size="3">Taken together, the cost of an outsourced transaction is now <strong>dramatically</strong> lower than it was pre-bubble. Today, outsourcing is not only a viable consideration for certain business functions, but a necessary competitive reality. Here's the way I interpret and apply Coase's Law... Every business has a strategy to capture value and translate that value into revenue and profit. But the realities of running a business require common support functions. Every company had to build their own network of these supporting services (think: Payroll, HR, PR, Legal, Marketing, Manufacturing, etc, etc, etc). Think of these as chapters tucked away in the back of a company's Business Process handbook... necessary ingredients to implement the Business Design, but not part basic value capture. Many of these necessary support functions operate with limited efficiency and effectiveness, because delivering these services is not part of the company's DNA.</font></p> <p style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;"><font size="3">But there are provides that live on Gilder's external network fabric, operating grids of Moore's compute capability, offering highly efficient Web Services based business functions. These providers specialize in specific support services and can drive efficiency (and lowered cost) by aggregating demand. Their core competency is delivering secure reliable business functions at contracted service levels at a highly competitive transactional cost point. Wow! Think about that.</font></p> <p style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;"><font size="3">And moving forward, as we begin to explore the implications of Service-Oriented Architectures, as we implement business processes by orchestrating applications that are built from loosely coupled networked "services", it is not unreasonable to expect some or many of these SOA-based business components to be supplied from one (or more) outsourced suppliers.</font></p> <p style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;"><font size="3">Some people believe that targeted outsourcing will drive massive deconstruction and reconstruction, and that this will be THE major disruptive catalyst in business designs over the next several years. If so, IT will play a major part in this transformation. Sun needs to aggressively tap into this oppty (and we are). To do so will require building B2B/B2C services (and the underlying distributed service delivery platform) that integrates & optimizes business processes beyond the four walls to include the external value chain.</font></p> <p style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;"><font size="3">In his 1997 book, <b><i>The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail</i></b>, Harvard business professor Clayton Christensen posited that, thanks to the Internet, companies are becoming more vulnerable than ever to a competitor wielding a disruptive technology - a technical process or business model so transformative that it could shake a Fortune 500-sized corporation, or even an entire industry, to its foundation. The lesson is that companies must structure themselves so they can rapidly build a new business around a disruptive technology even as they sustain their core competency.</font></p> <p style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;"><font size="3">IBM's OnDemand Enterprise is described as: "An Enterprise whose business process â€“ integrated end-to-end across the company and with key partners, suppliers and customers â€“ can respond with speed to any customer demand, market oppty or external threat".</font></p> <p style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;"><font size="3">Like Coase's Law, the expression of IBM's OnDemand vision is really common sense. It is the confluence of technology and economics today that has caused these ideas to become very interesting. Now it all comes down, as it always does, to execution.</font></p> <p><font size="3"><span style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;">And one of the initiatives we're driving at Sun that I can talk about is the </span><a style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;" href="http://www.sun.com/products-n-solutions/sodc/">Service Optimized Data Center</a><span style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;"> (SODC).  The Sun Service Optimized Data Center program is comprised of an extensive set of services and technologies. Sun creates a comprehensive roadmap, which is used to transform your data center into an efficient, risk-averse, and agile service-driven environment that emphasizes IT operation as a strategic business driver and competitive weapon</span>.</font></p> <p style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;"><!--StartFragment --></p> https://blogs.oracle.com/dcb/entry/oracle_tech_day_ny_cabbies Oracle Tech Day & NY Cabbies dcb https://blogs.oracle.com/dcb/entry/oracle_tech_day_ny_cabbies Wed, 19 Jan 2005 15:41:46 +0000 Computers It's been awhile since I've visited New York. Last time I was there I met with customers in the World Trade Center. Yesterday I was in <span id="textEdit0">midtown Manhattan at the Grand Hyatt, attached to Grand Central</span> Station.<br> <br> I presented at an <a href="http://www.oracle.com/webapps/events/EventsDetail.jsp?p_eventId=34998&src=3226594&src=3226594&Act=181">Oracle Technology Day</a>. Over 500 people registered for the event to hear about technology and solutions from Sun and Oracle. I discussed, among other things, our ERP Grid <a href="http://www.sun.com/products/architectures-platforms/referencearchitectures/">Reference Architecture</a> that combines Oracle's 10g RAC with our Opteron-based Servers and Infiniband. Sun is sponsoring five cities. Over 700 are registered for the Atlanta session, to whom I'll be presenting next week.<br> <br> On the way back home from the NY session, I was dropped off at LaGuardia. I had to cross a two lane street to get across to the main gate/check-in curb. It was a clear (but cold) day, 100% visibility. In front of me was a wide brightly painted cross-walk. Several people were standing there waiting to cross (which should have been my first clue that things are different in New York). Finally a natural break in traffic... the next group of vehicles is about 70 feet away, lead by a black limo approaching at about 20mph. Great! It's our turn... I step out and start to cross. Suddenly someone yells out to warn me... "Hey Buddy, Watch Out"! I look to my right and the limo driver apparently has no intention to respect the <b>inalienable </b>rights of pedestrians in crosswalks! He slows down just enough to allow me to back up onto the curb and get out of his way!<br> <br> The term "inalienable" is apropos to this experience :-) The root, <a href="http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=alien">alien</a>, has this definition:<br> <span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(153, 0, 0);"> Adj. Belonging to, characteristic of, or constituting another and very different place, society, or person; strange</span><br> <br> I think I saw the cabbie mutter: "you're not from around here, are you". Or, something like that :-) I'm reminded of Morpheus' line in <span style="text-decoration: underline;">The Matrix</span> when he explains to Neo that: "Some rules can be bent, others can be broken". Seems to be the creed of the <a href="http://www.nycabbie.com/">NY cabbie</a>.<br> <br> Anyway, New York is a lot of fun. Just look both ways before you cross. And then, run like hell.<br> <br> <img src="https://blogs.oracle.com/roller/resources/dcb/NYCab.jpg"><br> https://blogs.oracle.com/dcb/entry/cio_longevity_and_it_execution CIO Longevity and IT Execution dcb https://blogs.oracle.com/dcb/entry/cio_longevity_and_it_execution Sat, 15 Jan 2005 06:35:33 +0000 Computers This is a little longer than I generally like for a blog entry. So, I tell you what to expect... I quickly review the essence of IT, then consider why many IT groups are considered ineffective, and finally what can be done to improve execution.<br> <br> The essence of Information Technology is to create, deliver, and sustain high-quality IT services that meet (on time and within budget) the <b><font color="#006600"><i>functional specs</i></font></b> and the on-going <b><font color="#006600"><i>service level agreements</i></font></b> (SLAs) as established thru a partnership with the owners of the requested services. This is, in a nutshell, the role and ultimate responsibility of the CIO.<br> <br> The <b>creation </b>of IT services generally focuses on functional requirements (the purpose of the application - what the service needs to do for the consumer/user). The <b>delivery and support</b> of those services focuses more on quality of service (QoS) attributes, such as performance, as well as the non-functional or systemic qualities (aka: the "ilities") such as reliability, availability, maintainability, securability, manageability, adaptability, scalability, recoverability, survivability, etc. A quick Google search found <a href="http://www.objs.com/aits/9901-iquos.html">this</a> paper among many on the topic.<br> <br> Unfortunately, achieving success is often doomed from the start. And is probably why the average <a href="http://www.strassmann.com/pubs/cw/jobholding.shtml">CIO survives for just 30 months</a> (a new <a href="http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=20712">Gartner report</a> even suggests that 2/3rds of CIOs are worried about their job)! Quality is sacrificed on the alter of expedience. Developers focus exclusively on the functional spec. For example, it is rare to find developers who are concerned with <a href="http://roc.cs.berkeley.edu/papers/ROC_TR02-1175.pdf">Recovery-Oriented Computing</a> techniques (ref: Berkeley's David Patterson, et al) that can help mask infrastructure faults by, say, performing run-time discovery and binding of alternate dependencies. It is too easy for a developer to assume their target platform is failsafe, or that recovery is outside their area of concern. That's just lazy or ignorant, IMHO.<br> <br> Just as guilty are the teams responsible for the implementation of those services. Too often new services stand alone in a datacenter as a silo, constructed using a unique set of components and patterns. Often, even if there is an <b>IT Governance Board</b> and/or an <b>Enterprise Architectural Council</b>, their strategic vision, standards and best practices are ignored, ostensibly to achieve time-to-market goals. In reality, it's just easier to not worry about the greater good.<br> <br> What am I leading up to? Well, I believe there are <span style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">two key areas</span> that IT must take more seriously in order to increase their value to shareholders and to those who desire their services. These might even help the CIO keep his or her job.<br> <br> <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">The first is the effective leadership and influence of an Enterprise Architecture Council</span>. One that has a clear and compelling vision of a shared services infrastructure, and has established a pro-active partnership with the developer community and strategic vendors to realize that vision. One that fights hard against human nature to ensure that IT services meet standards in quality, adaptability, observability, platform neutrality, etc.<br> <br> <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">The second is a focus on the disciplines associated with running a world-class datacenter operation</span>. There is a well established set of standards that are useful as a framework around which these disciplines can be built. It's called the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) and is widely adopted in Europe and increasingly being pursued in the States across business, agencies, and institutions.<br> <br> There are 10 ITIL "Best Practice" disciplines associated with the Delivery and Support of IT Services. These prescribe relevant and desirable processes that an IT group should seek to implement if they desire to evolve to a higher level of Operational Maturity. ITIL is highly focused on building a working partnership between IT and the associated Business Units, on increasing the quality of IT services, on reducing the true cost of operations, on establishing communications and execution plans, on the promotion of the value of IT, on understanding the cost and priority of services, etc.<br> <br> Of the ten focus areas, the ITIL discipline that is probably the most important to start with is "Change Mgmt". This is a key area with a significant ROI in terms of service quality and cost. The cost of sloppy change control is huge. In a Fortune 500 acct I visited recently, the S/W developers all have root access to the production machines and make changes ad hoc!! Unfortunately, this isn't uncommon. The introduction of structure and discipline in this area is a great test case for those who think they want to implement ITIL. While the benefits are self evident, it isn't easy. The change will take exec level commitment. There will be serious pressure to resist a transition from a cowboy/hero culture to one that produces repeatable, consistent, predictable high-quality service delivery. The "heroes" won't like it, and they often wield influence and power. But, if this ITIL discipline can be instilled, the other nine have a chance. It's a multi-year effort, but the results will be a highly tuned and business linked competitive weapon.<br> <br> The journey that many IT shops will have to take to achieve higher levels of maturity as suggested by Gartner and Meta, and described by the ITIL Best Practices, is a systemic culture change that fills gaps, eliminates overlap, aligns effort, and establishes structure and methods, designed to increase quality and lower costs. But, ultimately, it is a journey to prosperity and away from dysfunction. ITIL isn't to be taken lightly. It isn't for all IT departments (well, it is to some level, but many aren't ready to make the commitment). These charts show that most (>80%) have stopped and camped on the shore of mediocrity way too early in the journey.<br> <br> <img src="https://blogs.oracle.com/roller/resources/dcb/OMCM.jpg"><br> <br> <img src="https://blogs.oracle.com/roller/resources/dcb/Meta.jpg"><br> <br> There is a certification track for ITIL. A 3-day ITIL Essentials class is available to provide an introduction and "conversant" knowledge of the various discipline areas. A multiple choice cert test validates this level of understanding. This class is a pre-req for the very intense two-week ITIL Managers (aka: Masters) class. More than 50% fail the two 3-hour Harvard Business School type essay exams that are taken to achieve this level of certification. This is a respected certification and actually demonstrates true command of the principles of IT service excellence.<br> <br> Sun also has offerings around our <a href="http://www.sun.com/products-n-solutions/sodc/">Service Optimized Data Center</a> program, a new comprehensive roadmap of services and technologies to help customers deploy and manage IT services faster, smarter and more cost-effectively in their data centers. EDS Hosting Services is <a href="http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/041115/sfm125_1.html">pleased</a> with it. SODC leverages, among other things, our Operations Management Capability Model, based on principles from the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) and the Controls Objective for Information and Related Technology (COBIT).<br> <br> I believe Sun can establish itself as more than a parts and technology vendor by demonstrating value in helping our customers address the "Process of IT", into which our Technical Solutions are best delivered.<br> https://blogs.oracle.com/dcb/entry/the_fallacy_of_ibm_s The Fallacy of IBM's Power6 dcb https://blogs.oracle.com/dcb/entry/the_fallacy_of_ibm_s Fri, 14 Jan 2005 09:00:54 +0000 Computers <p>IBM is leaking FUD about its processors again. The Power5+, it is said, will be released later this year, ramping to 3GHz. The Power6, according to a "leaked" non-disclosure preso discussed by <a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/08/07/ibms_power5_to_hit_3ghz/">TheRegister</a>, will sport "<i><b>very large frequency enhancements</b></i>". At the end of another <a href="http://news.com.com/2102-1006_3-5091294.html">news.com</a> article, IBM suggests the Power6 will run at an "<i><b>ultra-high frequency</b></i>".</p> <p>In engineering terms, those kinds of phrases generally imply at least an "order of magnitude" type of increase. That's [3GHz \ 10\^1], or an increase to 30GHz! But let's view this thru a marketing lens and say IBM is only talking about a "binary" order of magnitude [3GHz \* 2\^1]. That still puts the chip at 6GHz.</p> <p>And therein lies part of the problem. First, even <a href="http://news.com.com/2102-1006_3-5409816.html">Intel can't get past 4GHz</a>. In an embarrassing admission, they pulled their plans for a 4GHz Pentium and will concentrate their massive brain trust of chip designers on more intelligent ways to achieve increasing performance. More on that in a minute. Now I know IBM has some pretty impressive semiconductor fab processes and fabrication process engineers. But getting acceptable yields from a 12" wafer with 1/2 billion transistor chips at 6GHz and a 65nm fab process is pure rocket science. They can probably do it, at great shareholder expense. But even if that rocket leaves the atmosphere, they are still aiming in the wrong direction. As Sun, and now Intel, have figured out, modern apps and the realities of DRAM performance (even with large caches) render "ultra-high" clock rates impotent.</p> <p>I've also got to hand it to IBM's chip designers...Here is an interesting technical overview of the<a href="http://www.research.ibm.com/journal/rd/483/slegel.html"> z990 (MainFrame) CPU</a>. The Power6 is targeted as the replacement for the z990, so it'll have to meet the z990 feature bar. The Power6 is rumored to be a common chip for their M/F zSeries and Unix pSeries platforms... (but they've been talking about a common chip for 10 years now, according to <a href="http://regionals4.gartner.com/regionalization/img/gpress/pdf/2004_chapter_datacenter.pdf">Gartner</a>). Here is an excerpt of the z990 description:</p> <p><small><font color="#990000"><i>"These include millicode, which is the vertical microcode that executes on the processor, and the recovery unit (R-unit), which holds the complete microarchitected state of the processor and is checkpointed after each instruction. If a hardware error is detected, the R-unit is then used to restore the checkpointed state and execute the error-recovery algorithm. Additionally, the z990 processor, like its predecessors, completely duplicates several major functional units for error-detection purposes and uses other error-detection techniques (parity, local duplication, illegal state checking, etc.) in the remainder of the processor to maintain state-of-the-art RAS characteristics. It also contains several mechanisms for completely transferring the microarchitected state to a spare processor in the system in the event of a catastrophic failure if it determines that it can no longer continue operating."</i></font></small></p> <p>Wow! Still, they are continuing to fund rocket science based on the old "Apollo" blueprints. And that "dog don't hunt" any longer, to mix metaphors. Single thread performance and big SMP designs are still important. Sun leads the world in that area, with the 144 core E25K. And our servers with US-IVs (et al), AMD Opterons, and the engineering collaboration we're doing with Fujitsu should continue that leadership. But extreme clock rates are not the answer going forward.</p> <p>In the benchmarketing world of TPC-C and SPECrates, where datasets fit nicely inside processor caches, performance appears stellar. But the problem, you see, is that for real applications, especially when micro-partitioning and multiple OS kernels and stacked applications are spread across processors, the L1/L2/L3 caches only contain a fraction of the data and instructions that the apps need to operate. At 6GHz, there is a new clock tick every 0.17 ns (light only travels about 2 inches in that time)!! However, about every 100 instructions or so, the data needed by a typical app might not appear in the processor cache chain. This is called a "cache miss" and it results in a DRAM access (or worse - to disk). Typical DRAM latency is about 150-300ns for large/complex SMP servers. Think about that... a 6GHz CPU will simply twiddle it's proverbial thumbs for over 1000 click ticks  (doing nothing but generating heat) before that DRAM data makes it way back up to the CPU so that work can continue. If this happens every 100 instructions, we're at <10% efficiency (100 instructions, followed by 1000 idle cycles, repeat). Ouch!! And that ratio just gets worse as the CPU clock rate increases. Sure, big caches can help some, but not nearly enough to overcome this fundamental problem.</p> <p>What to do? The answer is to build extremely efficient thread engines that can accept multiple thread contexts from the OS and manage those on chip. And we're not talking 2-way hyper-threading here. Say a single processor can accept <b>dozens </b>of threads from the OS. Say there are 8 cores on that processor so that 8 threads can run concurrently, with the other threads queued up ready to run. When any one of those 8 threads need to reach down into DRAM for a memory reference (and they will, frequently), one of the H/W queued threads in the chip's run queue will instantly begin to execute on the core vacated by the "stalled" thread that is now patiently waiting for its DRAM retrieval. We've just described a design that can achieve near 100% efficiency even when DRAM latency is taken into account. <a href="http://www.aceshardware.com/read.jsp?id=65000333">Ace's Hardware</a> reports that "<font face="trebuchet ms,tahoma,arial,helvetica" size="-1"><strong><em>Niagara has reached first silicon, and is running in Sun's labs</em></strong>".</font></p> <p>I won't comment on the veracity of that report. But if true, we are years ahead of competition. We're orbiting the Sun, and IBM is still sending its design team to the moon.</p> <p>An analogy - consider an Olympic relay race... There are 8 teams of 4 runners. Each runner sprints for all they are worth around the lap once, and then hands the baton, in flight, to the next runner. We've got 32 "threads" that are constantly tearing up the track at full speed. On the other hand, a 6GHz single threaded core is like a single runner who sprints like a mad man around the track once, and then sits down for 15 minutes to catch his breath. Then does it again. Which model describes the kind of server you'd like running your highly threaded enterprise applications?</p> <p><img src="https://blogs.oracle.com/roller/resources/dcb/Niagara.jpg"></p> https://blogs.oracle.com/dcb/entry/solution_consulting_sun Solution Consulting @ Sun dcb https://blogs.oracle.com/dcb/entry/solution_consulting_sun Thu, 13 Jan 2005 13:21:45 +0000 Computers <p>I just met with a large customer up here in Virginia. The rep I was with spoke of a colleague who has an amazing ability to sell complete solutions (not just a collection of parts). He delivers Solution Proposals with the not so subtle expectation that they will not be broken down into component parts with line item veto authority on the part of the customer. Somehow we need to bottle that sales behavior... The benefit of a proven solution w.r.t. cost, risk, complexity, support, etc, is self-evident. Too often, I believe, Sun's field is conditioned to (or we've conditioned the customer to think that we) offer solutions as strawmen that we expect will be hacked up and put back together (with many pieces left on the garage floor).</p> <p>Client Solutions (read: Professional Services from Sun and our Partners) needs to be part of the total Solution Package. And we need to present the package with the clear expectation that we'll assist in the design, test, deployment and on-going mgmt/support, be committed to our customer's success, share in the risk, etc. But that the solution stands as a whole... If the customer simply wants a miscellany of parts, then we'll need a note from their mom :-) (eg: the CIO) that they understand the increased risk to their project's cost, timeline, and ultimate success. That they are "skiing outside the boundary area".</p> <p>I've noticed that about half of the customers I deal with have senior techo-geeks on their staff. They often go by the title "Architect". Often they are far from it... but they've been there forever, and they are often brilliant technologists that can integrate "creative" solutions from random piece parts. In fact, this is how they thrive and how they (think they) sustain their value add... They become threatened by and obstacles to a solution sale in which the integration work is done for them. Somehow we need to figure out how to make these "technical grease monkeys" feel comfortable with a custom automobile that comes from Detroit already well tuned and ready to run. Sun can't survive being in the auto parts business.  We need to leverage their brilliance and secure their vote of confidence. There is an art to getting folks like this to "come up with an idea" that you already have :-) If they become the "owner" of the reference architecture (upon which the proposed solution is built), and still get to play with the technology and learn new techniques, and they can still look like they came up with the idea, then I think we can get past that common roadblock.</p> <p>However, I think there is a development gap in Client Solutions that we have an oppty to address... We have a lot of people who can talk the talk... but we have fewer people that have actually implemented complex solutions such as N1 SPS, Trusted Solaris based SNAP solutions, Retail-oriented SunRay POS gigs, comprehensive ITIL compliance audits, strategic BCP consultation, etc... This is a natural fallout of the fact that most of us came from the pre-sales side of the merged Client Solutions organization. As we become even more successful in securing solution architecture and implementation gigs, we'll need to step up and hit the ball out of the park - not just talk about being able to do it. I encourage everyone to get as much hands on experience as possible with our strategic solution offerings. I know I'm doing that with N1 SPS, SOA, and Sol10. I know we're all are ramping our skills. That's goodness. Thankfully, I think it is easier to engage partners and teach (or remind) bright technical pre-sales "SEs" how to architect and implement solutions, than it is to teach implementation gurus the inter-personal skills and acumen needed to talk to CIOs about business value and relevance.</p> https://blogs.oracle.com/dcb/entry/original_think_pad Original "Think Pad" dcb https://blogs.oracle.com/dcb/entry/original_think_pad Sun, 9 Jan 2005 21:53:58 +0000 Computers <p>As an Electrical Engineering undergrad, I worked for IBM for four semesters as an intern/co-op student back in the very early 80's in Boca Raton, FL, just as the first IBM PC was brought to market. It was an incredible experience, in many ways. Today, about 25 years later (wow, I can't be that old!!) I was cleaning out my attic, preparing to put back all the Christmas boxes for another year. I opened some of the boxes to figure out what I had up there... And came across something from my days at IBM. An original IBM "Think Pad". Measuring just 3" x 4.5", this is the pocket-sized progenitor of the now ubiquitous lap-sized room heater.</p> <p>You know... there is something to be said for the utility and durability and availability and cost-effectiveness of the original. Where will your "modern" ThinkPad be in 25 years? I'll still have mine, and it'll still be as useful as it was in 1980 :-) No upgrades and no viruses.</p> <p><img src="https://blogs.oracle.com/roller/resources/dcb/ThinkPad.jpg"></p> https://blogs.oracle.com/dcb/entry/cobalt_qube3_w_sunrays_redhat Cobalt Qube3 w/ SunRays, RedHat 9 dcb https://blogs.oracle.com/dcb/entry/cobalt_qube3_w_sunrays_redhat Wed, 5 Jan 2005 13:17:19 +0000 Computers <P>I've got a Cobalt Qube 3 Professional Edition computer. Remember those cute blue cube Linux appliances?  Sun was handing these out to SEs at one point.</P> <P><IMG src="http://blogs.sun.com/roller/resources/dcb/cobaltqube.jpg"></P> <P>They only have a 450MHz processor. But they are the perfect little home file server and networked backup device. The Business and Professional Editions also have a SCSI port to which additional storage can be attached. In fact, the Professional Edition has two internal disks and a built-in Raid1 Controller. It's headless, but has nice features for a server. Problem is (well, you might consider this a problem) it runs an old Linux release (based on a 2.2 kernel) and has been EOL'ed. But in true Open fashion, there is a grassroots community of developers and advocates, and there are instructions for how to refresh this device to a 2.4-based RedHat (v7.2)kernel here:</P> <P><A href="http://www.gurulabs.com/rhl-cobalt-howto/index.html">http://www.gurulabs.com/rhl-cobalt-howto/index.html</A></P> <P>I just exchanged e-mail with <!--StartFragment -->Dax Kelson of Guru Labs, who told me that this procedure can be used to install RedHat 9 or even <!--StartFragment --> the newer Fedora releases.</P> <P>I think I'm going to give this a try. I'll let you know if/how this works out. Hmmm, with the new Linux-based SunRay Server Software, I could even potentially drive a couple wireless SunRays around the house, using an 802.11g Wireless Bridge, such as: <A href="http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=241">http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=241</A></P> <P><IMG src="http://blogs.sun.com/roller/resources/dcb/HomeNet.jpg"></P> https://blogs.oracle.com/dcb/entry/big_sun_clusters Big Sun Clusters!! dcb https://blogs.oracle.com/dcb/entry/big_sun_clusters Thu, 23 Dec 2004 15:34:02 +0000 Computers <font face="TimesNewRomanPSMT"><font face="TimesNewRomanPSMT"> <p align="left"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">The Center for Computing and Communication (CCC) at the RWTH Aachen University has recently published details about two interesting clusters they operate using Sun technology. <!--StartFragment --> RWTH Aachen is the largest university of technology in Germany and one of the most renowned technical universities in Europe, with around 28,000 students, more than half of which are in engineering (according to their website).</font></p> <p align="left"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Check this out!</font></p> <p align="left"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">First, there is a huge Opteron-Linux-Cluster that consists of 64 of Sun's V40z servers, each with four Opteron CPUs. The 256 processors total 1.1TFlop/s (peak) and have a pool of RAM equal to 512GB. Each node runs a 64-bit version of Linux. Hybrid Programs use a combination of MPI and OpenMP, where each MPI process is multi-threaded. The hybrid parallelization approach uses a combination of coarse grained parallelism with MPI and underlying fine-grained parallelism with OpenMP in order to use as many processors efficiently as possible. For shared memory programming, OpenMP is becoming the de facto standard.</font></p> <p align="left"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">See: </font><a href="http://www.rz.rwth-aachen.de/computing/info/linux/primer/opteron_primer_V1.1.pdf"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">http://www.rz.rwth-aachen.de/computing/info/linux/primer/opteron_primer_V1.1.pdf</font></a></p> <p align="left"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Another Cluster is based on 768 UltraSPARC-IV processors, with an accumulated peak performance of 3.5 TFlop/s and a total main memory capacity of 3 TeraByte. The Operating System's view of each of the two cores of the UltraSPARC IV processors is as if they are separate processors. Therefore from the user's perspective the Sun Fire E25Ks have 144 â€œprocessorsâ€, the Sun Fire E6900s have 48 â€œprocessorsâ€ and the Sun Fire E2900s have 24 â€œprocessorsâ€ each. All compute nodes also have direct access to all work files via a fast storage area network (SAN) using the QFS file system. High IO bandwidth is achieved by striping multiple RAID systems.</font></p> <p align="left"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">See: </font><a href="http://www.rz.rwth-aachen.de/computing/info/sun/primer/primer_V4.0.pdf"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">http://www.rz.rwth-aachen.de/computing/info/sun/primer/primer_V4.0.pdf</font></a></p></font></font> https://blogs.oracle.com/dcb/entry/big_vs_small_servers Big -vs- Small Servers? dcb https://blogs.oracle.com/dcb/entry/big_vs_small_servers Thu, 23 Dec 2004 13:57:51 +0000 Computers <p>Big Iron -vs- Blades. Mainframe -vs- Micro. Hmmm. We're talking Aircraft Carriers -vs- Jet Skis, right?</p> <p>Sun designs and sell servers that cost from ~$1000 to ~$10 million. Each! We continue to pour billions into R&D and constantly raise the bar on the quality and performance and reliability and feature set that we deliver in our servers. No wonder we lead in too many categories to mention. Okay, I'll mention some :-)</p> <p><img src="https://blogs.oracle.com/roller/resources/dcb/val.jpg"><br><br>While the bar keeps rising on our "Enterprise Class", the Commodity/Volume Class is never too far behind. In fact, I think it may be inappropriate to continue to refer to our high-end as our Enterprise-class Servers, because that could imply that our "Volume" Servers are only for workgroups or non-mission-critical services. That is hardly the case. Both are important and play a role in even the most critical service platforms.<br><br>Let's look at the next generation Opterons... which are only months away. And how modern S/W Architectures are fueling the adoption of these types of servers...<br><br>Today's AMD CPUs, with on-board hypertransport pathways, can handle up to 8 CPUs per server! And in mid-2005, AMD will ship dual-core Opterons. That means that it is probable for a server, by mid-2005 or so, to have 16 Opteron cores (8 dual-core sockets) in just a few rack units of space!! If you compare SPECrate values, such a server would have the raw compute performance capability of a full-up $850K E6800. Wow!<br><br><span class="moz-txt-link-freetext">AMD CPU Roadmap:</span> <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/ProductInformation/0,,30_118_608,00.html">http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/ProductInformation/0,,30_118_608,00.html</a><br><span class="moz-txt-link-freetext">AMD 8-socket Support: </span><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.amd.com/us-en/Corporate/VirtualPressRoom/0,,51_104_543%7E72268,00.html">http://www.amd.com/us-en/Corporate/VirtualPressRoom/0,,51_104_543~72268,00.html</a><br><span class="moz-txt-link-freetext">SPECint:_Rate:</span> <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.spec.org/cpu2000/results/rint2000.html">http://www.spec.org/cpu2000/results/rint2000.html</a><br><span class="moz-txt-link-freetext">E6800 Price: </span><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://tinyurl.com/3xbq2">http://tinyurl.com/3xbq2</a><br><b><br></b>Clearly, there are many reasons why our customers are and will continue to buy our large SMP servers. They offer Mainframe-class on-line maintenance, redundancy, upgradability. They even exceed the ability of a Mainframe in terms of raw I/O capability, compute density, on-the-fly expansion, etc.<br><br>But, H/W RAS continue to improve in the Opteron line as well. One feature I hope to see soon is on-the-fly PFA-orchestrated CPU off-lining. If this is delivered, it'll be Solaris x86 rather than Linux. Predictive Fault Analysis detecting if one of those 16 cores or 32 DIMMs starts to experience soft errors in time to fence off that component before the server and all the services crash. The blacklisted component could be serviced at the next scheduled maintenance event. We can already do that on our Big Iron. But with that much power, and that many stacked services in a 16-way Opteron box, it would be nice not to take a node panic and extended node outage.</p> <p>On the other hand, 80% of the service layers we deploy are already or are attempting to move to the horizontal model. And modern S/W architectures are increasingly designed to provide continuity of service level even in the presence of various fault scenarios. Look at Oracle RAC, replicated state App Servers with Web-Server plug-ins to seamlessly transfer user connections, Load Balanced web services, TP monitors, Object Brokers, Grid Engines and Task Dispatchers, and SOA designs in which an alternate for a failed dependency is rebound on-the-fly.<br><br>These kinds of things, and many others, are used to build resilient services that are much more immune to component or node failures. In that regard, node level RAS is less critical to achieving a service level objective. Recovery Oriented Computing admits that H/W fails [<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://roc.cs.berkeley.edu/papers/ROC_TR02-1175.pdf">http://roc.cs.berkeley.edu/papers/ROC_TR02-1175.pdf]</a>. We do need to reduce the failure rate at the node/component level... but as Solution Architects, we need to design services such that node/component failure can occur, if possible, without a service interruption or degradation of "significance".<br><br>In the brave new world (or, the retro MF mindset) we'll stack services in partitions across a grid of servers. Solaris 10 gives us breakthrough new Container technology that will provide this option. Those servers might be huge million dollar SMP behemoths, or $2K Opteron blades... doesn't matter from the architectural perspective. We could have dozens of services running on each server... however, most individual services will be distributed across partitions (Containers) on multiple servers, such that a partition panic or node failure has minimal impact. This is "service consolidation" which includes server consolidation as a side effect. Not into one massive server, but across a limited set of networked servers that balance performance, adaptability, service reliability, etc.</p> <p><img src="https://blogs.oracle.com/roller/resources/dcb/sc.jpg"></p> <p>Server RAS matters. Competitive pressure will drive continuous improvement in quality and feature sets in increasingly powerful and inexpensive servers. At the same time, new patterns in S/W architecture will make "grids" of these servers work together to deliver increasingly reliable services. Interconnect breakthroughs will only accelerate this trend.<br></p> <p>The good news for those of us who love the big iron is that there will always be a need for aircraft carriers even in an age of powerful jet skis.</p>
Sign up × it's a similar source I've uploaded yesterday but solve some problems thanks to your help. it's a little bit shame asking another question about somewhat same problem:( but though I deliberated what is the problem all day,I failed to find. So, it looks good and do work,but the problem is, some thread never terminate themselves for a long time. I waited even 10 minutes but 6 threads are still alive. it's the biggest mystery thing since I started learing programming... would you please teach me what's wrong with it? import os import threading import multiprocessing def finder(path, q, done): for root, dirs, files in os.walk(unicode(path)): for dirname in dirs: if target in dirname.lower(): for name in files: if target in name.lower(): #print "good bye",threading.current_thread() #print threading.active_count() def printer(q,done,worker_count): total = 0 while 1: try: done.get_nowait() except: pass else: total += 1 try: tmp=q.get(timeout=1) except: pass else: print tmp if total == worker_count: if __name__ =="__main__": results = multiprocessing.Queue() done = multiprocessing.Queue() root, dirs, files = os.walk(u"C:\\").next() for dirname in dirs: if target in dirname.lower(): for name in files: if target in name.lower(): target=raw_input("what you wanna get\n") for i in xrange(thnum): full_path = os.path.join(root, dirs[i]) t=threading.Thread(target=finder,args=(full_path, results, done,)) share\|improve this question It could be that it really takes that much longer. For example large cache folders from mail clients like thunderbird or outlook express, and from web browsers, may make this take very long (????) Or you could be looking at cycles somehow. Can you build in code somehow to signal the existing threads that they should print out their status? – Andre Blum Jul 10 '12 at 0:26 by comparing the result with that of my another program, it just find all the file but the thread just stop but not exit... – from __future__ Jul 10 '12 at 0:37 Um… you're walking the filesystem and putting every file in the tree into the queue, and then for each file in the queue you're walking the entire tree again and pushing every file in that tree into the queue. All this pointless repetition is going to take a very, very long time for even a modest subtree. – abarnert Jul 10 '12 at 1:13 Actually, hold on a sec… you're using target without ever defining it. So, unless your C: drive is completely empty, this is obviously not the code you're running, because this code will throw a NameError and quit immediately. – abarnert Jul 10 '12 at 1:17 can you try and run in a shallower and overseeable subdirectory, instead of your hard disk's root? – Andre Blum Jul 10 '12 at 2:09 1 Answer 1 up vote 0 down vote accepted [ First, of course, I had to make some trivial changes to make this code 'compile'] The good news is: it just works as you think it should work. Well done. The bad news is: it doesn't work as fast as you had expected. On my machine, running it on my home directory alone already takes approx 10 minutes: [andre@hp ~]$ time python what you wanna get ... results removed ... real 9m39.083s user 0m30.368s sys 0m22.664s [andre@hp ~]$ The question is whether implementing this in processes and threads is a good idea. I think not. Chances are the performance suffers from this massive multithreading. share\|improve this answer I finally make it work with coroutine. make a connection with coroutine instead of using "done" with Queue.put, but it just 2 seconds faster:( I agree with you. it was not a good idea. thank you! – from __future__ Jul 11 '12 at 6:23 Your Answer
Search Form First, enter a politician or zip code Now, choose a category Public Statements Floor Speech Location: Washington, DC Mr. WATT. I move to strike the last word. The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from North Carolina is recognized for 5 minutes. Mr. WATT. Mr. Chairman, I don't come to the floor very often anymore to debate. I have kind of changed my pattern. Eighteen years ago, 19 years ago, when I saw egregious things, I would be right here in the heart of the debate, ranting and raving, some people would say. When my colleagues and sometimes my constituents now ask me, Have you lost your passion, I tell them that there are some reasons that I don't come to the floor anymore. One is that I find that most of the time, my colleagues on the opposite side are tone deaf. They are not really listening to what anybody is saying to them. They are off on some radical right undertaking, falling off the right edge of the Earth, and they are not listening to anything I say. They don't share my values, and they don't really care about this debate that we had, 3 hours of talking about women, infants, and children going hungry. They really don't much care about that, I say to my constituents. And, third, they just make up stuff. You know, they have this--you know, if we repeat it enough, it's got to be true, and we will convince the American people of about anything if we just keep saying it over and over again. Or they ..... have convenient memories that forget that it was President Bush---- The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman will suspend. For what purpose does the gentleman from Nebraska rise? Mr. FORTENBERRY. The gentleman has accused our side of the aisle of lying. Is that a cause for having his words taken down? The Acting CHAIR. The Chair construes that as a demand that words be taken down. All Members will suspend. The gentleman will take his seat. The Clerk will report the words. [Time: 20:20] Mr. WATT. Mr. Chairman, in the interest of time, some people have said that I called somebody a liar and, obviously, that would be in violation of the rules. I am aware of that. So if I did, I ask unanimous consent that those words be removed from the RECORD. The Acting CHAIR. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from North Carolina? There was no objection. The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from North Carolina may proceed in order. Mr. WATT. Can the Chair tell me how much time remains in my 5 minutes? The Acting Chair. The gentleman from North Carolina has 3 minutes remaining of his 5 minutes. Mr. WATT. All right. Well, let me try to pick up essentially where I was without offending anybody else. There's some conveniently forgotten items that I think we need to be reminded of. Number 1, that it was President Bush who requested the government bailouts. That occurred on his watch. It was President Bush that was responsible for the tax cuts for the rich that got us out of surpluses as far as the eye could see and into this deficit spending. And it was rampant speculation and abuse of derivatives on Wall Street that resulted in a meltdown that made Dodd-Frank and the CFTC regulation that we're here debating necessary. Those are the three important things that I think we need to take note of. It also resulted in a tremendous economic downturn that resulted in more people needing food stamps and the benefit of the WIC program. So these two things are really not disconnected from each other, the 3 hours of debate that we had previously and the debate on whether we are going to adequately fund the CFTC, which has been given authority under the Dodd-Frank legislation to rein in the speculation that is taking place that's driving up food prices, oil prices, and if we're not careful, will result in the same kind of economic meltdown that we experienced that got us into this in the first place. So this whole process of being in denial about this and ignoring the facts is something that I think we should not countenance on this floor. We need the CFTC to regulate derivatives and speculation. And to the extent that we cut the staff and the funding of the CFTC, we could be replicating exactly what led President Bush to say we needed a bailout in the first place. So, that's what this debate is all about. I think it's terrible that we are cutting funds under this bill for women, infants, and children, the most vulnerable in our society. But it's even more terrible that we are going to run the risk of allowing the same kind of rampant speculation, unregulated, to get us back into another meltdown that will result in our being back here trying to figure out how to dig ourselves out of this ditch. A year from now, 18 months from now, 2 years from now we'll be right back here again. Now, this is not rocket science. It's all just connected to each other. And my colleagues can deny it all they want. They can say that this is about drilling for oil in the United States. That's not what it's about. All of the science I've seen says there's more supply of oil now than there is demand, and if we were operating in a regular domestic market on regular economics, the price of gas would be going down. We need to regulate the CFTC. We need to have them regulating derivatives and speculation. 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Phil Shaw, victim's brother Phillip Shaw was born on January 7, 1975, in Taylor, Mississippi, the eldest of two children born to Jane and Chad Shaw. He was seven when his little brother Jerry was born. The age difference between the boys meant Phil spent a lot of time watching over his brother. He tried to teach Jerry the importance of honesty and integrity, but as the boys got older, Jerry increasingly resisted Phil's guidance. Their parents held Phil responsible whenever young Jerry acted out, which Phil considered unfair, especially since he couldn't find any way to get Jerry behave, no matter how much he tried. Other than his inability to control Jerry, Phil excelled in everything he did. He made top grades and had a lot of friends. When Phil graduated from high school, he wanted to go to college but there wasn't enough money so he got a job as a busser at Taylor Grocery & Restaurant. He put every penny he could spare in a savings account that he planned to use one day to pay for college. In 1994, his parents went to Memphis, Tennessee for the weekend to celebrate their 20th anniversary. Tragically, they were murdered during that trip, and the case remains unsolved to this day. Phil became Jerry's guardian and used his share of their parents' large insurance policy and sizable savings account to support the smaller, sadder version of his family and to pay for his classes at Ole Miss. Phil invested some of the insurance money, and when he graduated, he still had a large bank account. He leveraged that nest egg to build his own tax firm, which became a very successful business. When Jerry dropped out of high school and proceeded to squander his inheritance like the proverbial prodigal son, Phil avoided him. After that, the only time he heard from Jerry was when he came asking for money because he'd gotten himself into yet another financial jam. Phil always refused to lend him a dime and told him to get a job if he needed money. Phil is single and lives alone. By his own account, he and Jerry hadn't seen each other for years at the time of Jerry's death. Subscribe to read more Please login to comment People in this conversation • Phil wasn't much of a brother to Jerry. It appears that Jerry was on his own totally when he dropped out of school. He was probably 16 years old. Who knows what kind of life he had besides the gambling. Crime Scene 3440 N 16th St, Suite #4 Phoenix, AZ 85016 Voice (623) 565-8573 Fax (602)-274-7280 Find us on Google+ Get weekly updates on the investigation. Click to view previous updates Go to top
Boiler Room Safety Large industrial and commercial facilities often have dedicated boiler rooms that house boilers, water pumps, heating, ventilating and air conditioning (HVAC) equipment, and other mechanical equipment required to run a facility. The heated water or fluid used in boilers can be used in a variety of processes or heating applications, including central heating and local power generation. As boilers have been modernized to burn natural gas or a combination of fuels that are less expensive and more flexible than coal and oil, there are significant risks of leaks occurring in the gas plumbing and from the burners at the front of a boiler. Such combustible gas leaks create the hazardous condition of a potential explosion. An additional risk is the production and leakage of Carbon Monoxide (CO), an odorless, colorless and toxic gas that results from incomplete combustion, which occurs when there is not enough oxygen mixed with the fuel. All improperly ventilated or malfunctioning boilers have the potential to produce CO in varying concentrations. Consequently, the building facility manager must ensure that the boiler room is instrumented with a comprehensive gas detection, alarm, and mitigation system to protect the facility and its personnel. Gas Detection Hazardous gases found in boiler rooms include: • Combustible Gases such as Methane • Carbon Monoxide Combustible gas leaks rapidly disperse throughout a boiler room, creating a hazard for any worker, who can act as an ignition source, by walking into the room. Fixed point combustible gas sensor modules are used to monitor boiler fronts and associated natural gas supply lines. The gas sensor modules are connected to controllers that provide relays to enable activation of visual and audible alarms for warning conditions and for boiler shutdown at emergency levels. Typical set points are 40% lower explosion limit (LEL) for warning and 60% LEL for emergency. In addition, fixed point toxic gas sensors are used to monitor for CO leaks in boiler rooms. If not detected, the buildup of CO can pose a threat to any worker walking into the room. The sensor modules can be connected to the same controllers used for combustible gas, creating a complete hazard detection system. Personal gas monitors are generally not appropriate for boiler room applications because they cannot detect buildup of combustible and toxic gases in a non-occupied area. Automation and Integration Strategies A gas detection system usually incorporates a controller that can drive various alarming devices such as strobes and horns to indicate hazard. However, as boiler rooms tend to not be accessed frequently, facility managers often need a remote monitoring solution as well. It is common for facility managers to connect the boilers to the central Building Automation System (BAS) so they can monitor the functioning and efficiency of the boilers remotely. But it is also necessary to integrate the gas detection system in the boiler room with the BAS so that the alarms can be displayed within the central facility management console and can be acted upon as part of a facility-wide control strategy. Codes and Regulations Various national and international codes pertain to the safe manufacturing and placement of boilers. In the United States, manufactured boilers and the rooms in which they reside are designed to comply with one or more of the codes written by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). Other approval bodies, such as the Underwriters Laboratories (UL), National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), and International Code Council (ICC), could also be a regulating body. Major codes governing boiler rooms include: Products for Boiler Room Safety Boiler rooms require a gas and fire detection system that includes gas and fire detection modules, a method to communicate to a controller, an ability to collect large amounts of data for subsequent analysis and flexible alarm handling with a method for communicating data to higher-level systems. Gas Detectors Fire Detectors Fire and Gas Detection Controllers Unlike most fire and gas vendors, we also include our leading FieldServer multi-protocol gateways within our controller to connect our Sentry IT system to the facility’s local BAS, and to the cloud for remote monitoring, control, and big data analytics. FieldServer Gateways
Feb 23, 2010 (09:02 AM EST) In-Home Telemedicine Study Launched Read the Original Article at InformationWeek 1 2 Mayo Clinic, GE Healthcare, and Intel have launched a new initiative to study the care and cost benefits of home-based health monitoring for elderly patients with chronic illnesses. During the year-long study, 200 high-risk patients over the age of 60 who suffer chronic conditions such as heart failure, diabetes, and lung disease will daily use at-home medical devices to take their vital signs, such as blood pressure, peak air flow, weight, or blood sugar readings. The medical devices transmit the information to an Intel Health Guide remote patient monitoring system located in the patient's home. Depending on the particular medical device, data is transmitted to the Intel Health Guide system either via wired or wireless connection, such as Bluetooth. Then, the Intel system electronically transmits to Mayo the patient's vital sign data, as well as the patient's answers to several disease-specific questions asked via text or audio by the Intel system. The Intel Health Guide system features a touchscreen for patients to easily answer the questions, which can be personalized by clinicians based on the individual's particular medical issues, said Ray Askew, Intel Health Guide marketing manager. Those inquiries could include things like asking a patient how many cups of water they've consumed that day or whether the individual is feeling better compared to the prior day. The data is collected into a central Mayo database. Preset data "thresholds" determine whether a medical reading -- such as weight -- is within a normal range for that patient, said Dr. Gregory Hanson, a principal Mayo researcher in the study and a physician in Mayo's department of primary care internal medicine. A team of Mayo clinicians, including nurse practitioners, accesses the patient data online for review via a dashboard. Color codes help clinicians recognize which of their patients are experiencing out-of-range vital sign readings. "The system red-flags problems, "said Hanson. Yellow codes mean a patient hasn't provided data yet for the day, and green means a patient's readings looks within normal range.
Take the 2-minute tour × Why electrons in low lying levels of individual atoms stay localized in their own atoms in a crystal? Doesn't this contradict Bloch's theorem? share\|improve this question 1 Answer 1 They do not stay localized actually. It's only that their eigenstates (which are non-local) are very close in energy, and we can choose the basis of localized states and they would be close to eigenstates with high accuracy. You can consider the tight-binding model, and take it to the limit of zero overlap of orbitals of neighboring atoms, and zero overlap integrals. That would be close to what low-level electrons in a crystal behave like. share\|improve this answer So if there was only one electron in the crystal with lowest possible energy (1S orbital) it could be found on all nuclei with the same probability? – richard May 9 '13 at 9:24 Yes (that would be the lowest state in the energy band, to which 1s energy level would expand to). But in that case the crystal would be unstable, because the average charge density would be positive then. To make a zero average charge density, you need to take as many electrons as protons in the nuclei. For the simpler model, consider 1 electron per 2 protons - an $\mathrm{H}_2^+$ hydrogen molecular ion. – firtree May 9 '13 at 10:03 and why these electrons couldn't conduct in Insulators if they are extended?(thanks) – richard May 9 '13 at 10:07 Ha! That's a great question! That's because all the band is completely filled with electrons, and it consists of a complete set of wave vectors (quasimomenta). Thus, there are as many electrons moving from left to right, as moving from right to left. The total current of these electons is zero, and such bands take no part in conductivity, just the same as completely empty bands. Only partially filled bands can conduct anything, and those appear only in metals, semiconductors and such. See Fig. 1 in en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_band_structure – firtree May 9 '13 at 11:30 then by applying an electric field you can destroy this balance and have current! no? – richard May 9 '13 at 11:39 Your Answer
Video Reports Embed this video Copy Code Link to this video Get LinkEmbedLicenseRecommend (-)Print Bookmark and Share By Jason Stipp and Christine Benz \| 05-09-2013 03:00 PM 401(k) Pros and Cons Jason Stipp: I'm Jason Stipp for Morningstar. As company defined-benefit pension plans become a rare species, the 401(k) has become many investors' primary investment vehicle. But they are not all cut from the same cloth. Here to talk about the pros and cons of 401(k)s is Christine Benz, our director of personal finance. Thanks for being here, Christine. Christine Benz: Jason, great to be here. Stipp: So 401(k)s can be a great vehicle for investors. In fact, it’s maybe the only choice through your employer for a lot of investors. There are some pros and cons you should keep in mind about investing in 401(k)s. Let's start with the pros of 401(k)s. You say one of the biggest is just the discipline that a 401(k) brings to the retirement-investing process. Benz: Right. It's enforced discipline. Your contributions go in without you having to lift a finger except to initially get the thing going. So it does keep you investing in good markets and in bad, and that I think tends to serve as a safeguard against investors' own worst behavioral tendencies. The other thing is that they really make it easy for people who are a little bit lazy about their investments. So you can add on nice features that can get your plan back into whack. So you can put in place auto-escalation in a lot of plans, so your contributions bump up if you get a raise in salary. You can also auto-rebalance if you want to have your portfolio periodically scaled back to your target allocation. So those are additional features that a lot of plans have these days, and they really make it quite easy to stay disciplined and stay on track with your plan. Stipp: Another very important feature of many 401(k) plans is some form of employer match, which can really make your money work a lot harder. Benz: Absolutely. So regardless of the quality of your plan, once you've done a little bit of homework on what the investment options are like, you do want to contribute at least enough to earn that match if your company is indeed offering one. That's something that you will not get, obviously, if you invest outside of the confines of a plan. Stipp: One thing that a plan can bring to investors is because it may be a bigger company you might have access to funds you wouldn't necessarily have access to otherwise, or you might get a better deal on some of those funds perhaps? Benz: Absolutely. So there are institutional share classes of mutual funds. They often feature very, very low costs alongside the share classes that are available to retail investors buying the funds on their own. So that is a nice perk for 401(k) investors. If they are in a larger plan where the management company has swung a nice deal on behalf of participants, your total cost load for owning that plan can be very, very low. An additional thing, Jason, is that there are investment types that only appear within 401(k) plans. You won't find outside of them. So stable-value funds, for example, would be one option. The key feature there is that you do typically get a higher interest rate than you would earn on your cash, but you get all of the safety or nearly all of the safety of cash, or you get cashlike attributes, I should say. People who invest in the Thrift Savings Plan that is available to federal government employees have a nice option that is somewhat similar called the G Fund, where you have higher interest rates, but again a lot of safety built in. You will not get these particular funds outside of the 401(k)/403(b) plan confines. Read Full Transcript {0}-{1} of {2} Comments {0}-{1} of {2} Comment • This post has been reported. Please create a username to comment on this article
IMF fiscal policy and income inequality paper Oxfam spokesperson Nicolas Mombrial said: "This is the final judgment on inequality being bad for growth." "The IMF says it does not endorse particular policies for redistribution, but their evidence is clear: The solutions to fighting inequality are investing in health care and education, and progressive taxation." "Austerity policies do the opposite, they worsen inequality." "It’s concerning that the IMF does not identify corporate tax dodging as a driver of inequality. For growth to be sustained it must be shared more equally, and companies must pay their fair share." "We hope this signals a long term change in IMF policy advice to countries - to invest in health and education and more progressive fiscal policies." Contact information: Caroline Hooper-Box + 1 202 321 2967
Export (0) Print Expand All SqlDataReader.Close Method Closes the SqlDataReader object. Namespace: System.Data.SqlClient Assembly: System.Data (in System.Data.dll) public override void Close() You must explicitly call the Close method when you are through using the SqlDataReader to use the associated SqlConnection for any other purpose. The Close method fills in the values for output parameters, return values and RecordsAffected, increasing the time that it takes to close a SqlDataReader that was used to process a large or complex query. When the return values and the number of records affected by a query are not significant, the time that it takes to close the SqlDataReader can be reduced by calling the Cancel method of the associated SqlCommand object before calling the Close method. Caution noteCaution Do not call Close or Dispose on a Connection, a DataReader, or any other managed object in the Finalize method of your class. In a finalizer, you should only release unmanaged resources that your class owns directly. If your class does not own any unmanaged resources, do not include a Finalize method in your class definition. For more information, see Garbage Collection. The following example creates a SqlConnection, a SqlCommand, and a SqlDataReader. The example reads through the data, writing it out to the console window. The code then closes the SqlDataReader. The SqlConnection is closed automatically at the end of the using code block. private static void ReadOrderData(string connectionString) string queryString = "SELECT OrderID, CustomerID FROM dbo.Orders;"; using (SqlConnection connection = new SqlConnection(connectionString)) SqlCommand command = new SqlCommand(queryString, connection); SqlDataReader reader = command.ExecuteReader(); // Call Read before accessing data. while (reader.Read()) reader[0], reader[1])); // Call Close when done reading. .NET Framework .NET Framework Client Profile Supported in: 4, 3.5 SP1 © 2014 Microsoft
Ultimate Puzzle Games Game Boy Advance No score yet - based on 2 Critics Critic score distribution: 1. Positive: 0 out of 2 2. Negative: 1 out of 2 1. Is this game for you? Why bother? Pick up a newspaper and flip to their crossword puzzle. You'll end up with more money in your wallet and less frustration in the long run. There are no user reviews yet.
What is meta? × I came across this suggested edit today. The only edit was to change variable names in the code sample. (probably to make the code sample easier to read) The rest of the question was unedited. Is this acceptable? It sure doesn't seem right to me at all. enter image description here Permalink to the edit in question share\|improve this question After seeing ChrisF's reply, I re-read this question and realized - you think this edit was made to a question! That doesn't really change my answer, but it does make me wonder if the review page needs to make this a bit more obvious (right now, the only major distinction is "answered" vs "asked" next to the original author's name). – Shogging through the snow Nov 22 '11 at 0:01 4 Answers 4 up vote 11 down vote accepted When in doubt, read the edit in the context of the question! Note how the asker edited her question shortly after asking it, shortening all those long class and variable names down to things like "abc" and "ABC"? The suggested edit did the same thing to the answer. So far as I can tell, it was a perfectly appropriate edit, preserving the intent of the answerer while removing the confusion introduced by the edit to the question. On a more general note, there's nothing inherently wrong with editing code to make it easier to read (whether by reformatting whitespace, adding comments, or simply renaming variables). When evaluating an edit, try to determine if it actually improves the post - don't look for hard and fast rules by which you can accept or reject without thought. share\|improve this answer As implied by Shog9's answer, I allow these edits when made by the OP to the accepted answer. In fact, I usually "Improve" the edit, as this automatically "Accepts" the OP's changes. Otherwise, they are usually rejected by people who don't check the whole question-context. share\|improve this answer Changing variable names in code could substantially improve the question/answer by making the code much easier to understand. Every case needs to be evaluated on its own merits, and I have no opinion on the case you cite, but in general, I believe that renaming variables can constitute a legitimate, constructive edit. share\|improve this answer Always take care with editing code in questions. It's all too easy to correct the mistake that's the cause of the problem. In the context of this question it might be that the OP has reused a variable incorrectly, or mistyped it a second time for example. In these cases reject the edit and leave a comment for the OP asking if the error is just a typo in the question. share\|improve this answer In this particular case, the edit was made by the asker to an answer (a fact I now realize was missed by the OP here as well... Perhaps the suggested edits page does not do well at distinguishing between questions and answers?) after making a corresponding edit to the question itself. – Shogging through the snow Nov 21 '11 at 23:53 @Shog9 - I realise that and perhaps should have made it clearer that I was addressing a slightly tangential issue. – ChrisF Nov 22 '11 at 9:13 You must log in to answer this question. Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .
Sign in to comment! Nicole Kidman Diplomatic About Tom, Katie Nicole Kidman (search), star of the upcoming movie "Bewitched," is carefully not casting judgment on ex-husband Tom Cruise's (search) relationship with Katie Holmes (search). When asked in early May about Cruise's very public romance with Holmes, Kidman didn't address the subject directly. However, when asked about photographic publicity stunts in general, Kidman tells Vanity Fair in its July issue, on newsstands June 14: "In terms of your life, if you start to exploit it, then what's real, and what's not? What's yours, and what isn't?" Kidman and Cruise divorced in 2001 after almost 10 years of marriage. "When it all exploded and we were in Cannes with 'Moulin Rouge.' ... `My sister and I slept in the same bed together. She would just hold me," Kidman told Vanity Fair. "When we came out of the big screening and there were swarms of people, I felt like I couldn't breathe. So I just sort of eyeballed her as if to say, 'Help! Help!' Taking absolute control, she took me into the bathroom, unlaced my corset and the dress I was wearing, took my shoes off, and said, 'You're going to be OK.'" Cruise and Holmes were photographed together in Rome in April and later confirmed they were dating. During an appearance on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" last month, the 42-year-old actor exuberantly professed his love for the 26-year-old actress. He stars in Steven Spielberg's (search) upcoming "War of the Worlds" and Holmes will co-star with Christian Bale (search) in "Batman Begins."
Badge TV & Radio Blog A debate on disability and beauty, or just trash TV? Is BBC3's contest to select a disabled model really concerned with the issues, or is it simply an exploitative entertainment? Britain's Missing Top Model contestant, Jess Jess (left), contestant on Britain's Missing Top Model. Photograph: BBC/Love Productions I expected to hate Britain's Missing Top Model. But we are now three weeks into the show, part of BBC3's beauty season, and I'm still watching. In fact, having watched a sneak preview of tonight's show I can confirm I now care who wins. As with every other reality television programme we've had tears, late night squabbles, and a double elimination. In tonight's show there's the "catwalk challenge", the judges fall out and there are yet more shots of creepy "mentor" Jonathan Phang looking wistfully into the distance as he says "I just wonder if the public is ready for a disabled model". Last week Debbie was booted out for daring to have hint of a stomach, giving the impression that even in fashion, having a disability is one thing, but having curves is another. So far, so very fashion. Of the five remaining contestants, four are blonde, and all conform to traditional western ideals of beauty. (There hasn't been a single non-white model in the show, presumably because whoever chose the contestants decided that a model who was both disabled and black just wouldn't have a cat in hell's chance so let's not even bother giving her airtime.) And yet there is something compelling about the programme - the trouble is I can't figure out what. Is it because it's good television or because I'm a sucker for trash? Here is a show with no subtlety, a distinct lack of irony or humour, and in casting director Mark Summers a man so lacking in social skills that he makes Wayne Hemingway look suave. When the judges discuss whether a deaf woman has as much right to be there as a paraplegic contestant, I'm left feeling a bit grubby. Why so? Is this a serious debate about society's attitudes to beauty and disability, or is it just trash TV dressed up as something worthy? And if so, does watching it make me a willing participant in the exploitation of others or am I being exploited myself? Today's best video
U.S. v. JUAREZ-ORTEGA No. 88-2547 Summary Calendar. 866 F.2d 747 (1989) UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Esau JUAREZ-ORTEGA, Defendant-Appellant. United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit. January 31, 1989. Ron Barroso, Corpus Christi, Tex., for defendant-appellant. Paula Offenhauser, Henry K. Oncken, U.S. Atty., Robert A. Berg, Asst. U.S. Atty., Houston, Tex., for plaintiff-appellee. Before CLARK, Chief Judge, JOHNSON and JOLLY, Circuit Judges. The defendant, convicted of two counts of distribution of cocaine, challenges the district court's consideration during sentencing of his possession of a handgun, on the grounds that the jury acquitted him of a substantive count of carrying a firearm during a drug trafficking offense. Finding that the district court could properly consider all the evidence during sentencing, we affirm. On January 22, 1988, two undercover detectives purchased six one-hundredths of a gram of cocaine for $20 from Esau Juarez-Ortega, the defendant, at his apartment in Corpus Christi, Texas. Three days later the detectives returned to Juarez-Ortega's apartment where, when asked for more cocaine, Juarez-Ortega told codefendant Rogelio DeLuna to get the substance. DeLuna then produced a small package containing one-tenth gram of cocaine and sold it to the officers for $20. During the transaction, one of the officers observed what appeared to be a small-frame handgun in Juarez-Ortega's waistband. Later that afternoon, the officers returned and found only DeLuna at the apartment. DeLuna produced a plastic bag of cocaine from under his sweater. After the officers saw a handgun in DeLuna's waistband, he was arrested. A struggle ensued as DeLuna reached for the gun. When Juarez-Ortega returned to the apartment, approximately five minutes later, the officers arrested him. Juarez-Ortega was not carrying a gun at that time. After being advised of his constitutional rights, Juarez-Ortega stated that he was illegally residing in the United States and that he had been selling marijuana and cocaine from that apartment. Juarez-Ortega admitted that he had possessed and carried the gun found with DeLuna, a Charter Arms .38 caliber revolver, which had been given to him by his "supplier" for his own protection. DeLuna stated that Juarez-Ortega had transferred possession of the revolver to him "to keep for protection" while he was conducting drug sales outside Juarez-Ortega's presence. Juarez-Ortega was indicted on three counts, two counts of distributing cocaine (violations of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) and (b)(1)(C), and 18 U.S.C. § 2, Counts 1 and 2), and one count of carrying a firearm during and in relation to a drug trafficking offense (a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1), Count 3). After a jury trial, he was convicted of Counts 1 and 2 and acquitted of Count 3. Juarez-Ortega was sentenced to seventy-six months on each of the two counts, to run concurrently, followed by a term of five years supervised release. If Juarez-Ortega is deported the release is to be unsupervised; if he is not deported, the court imposed 200 hours of community service on each count. Juarez-Ortega's codefendant DeLuna was convicted of the two distribution counts and the firearms count (§ 924(c)(1)). He was also sentenced to concurrent sentences of seventy-six months. Juarez-Ortega's sentence on each of the two counts, although exceeding the guidelines and the recommendation of the presentence report, was within the statutorily permissible limits. This court will generally not review the severity of a sentence imposed within statutory limits, "and the trial court's broad discretion in determining the appropriateness of a sentence will not be disturbed absent a finding of arbitrary or capricious action resulting in a gross abuse of discretion." United States v. Adi, 759 F.2d 404, 411 (5th Cir.1985). Furthermore, the court may properly consider past crimes, including those for which a defendant has been indicted but not convicted, as well as the factual basis of dismissed counts. See United States v. Johnson, 823 F.2d 840, 842 (5th Cir.1987). Prior convictions overturned on appeal may be considered. See United States v. Butler, 680 F.2d 1055, 1056 (5th Cir.1982). In the instant case, Juarez-Ortega is challenging the use by the sentencing judge of the facts surrounding his possession of a firearm even though he was acquitted of that offense. Those facts are not disputed as false or unreliable; rather, the appellant is arguing that the judge used those facts to impose on Juarez-Ortega the same sentence imposed on his codefendant. The following colloquy occurred between the sentencing judge and defense counsel regarding the basis for Juarez-Ortega's sentence. THE COURT: The jury could not have made — the jury could not have listened to the instructions. MR. BARROSO: Your Honor, — THE COURT: The testimony was so strong. The gun was even in the apartment. That's all they needed. There was no dispute of that fact. The mere fact that that gun was in the apartment, being used in association with — he didn't have to have it on his person. MR. BARROSO: They perhaps didn't believe it was being used in association with drug-related activity, your Honor. THE COURT: Well, I'll tell you something: I have been disappointed in jury verdicts before, but that's one of the most important ones, because what it did, it set up a disparity in result between the two defendants. Your client was consistently selling cocaine from his apartment and using a firearm. The fact is that the officers came in and testified that it was in your client's waistband and described, had an officer on the stand, a man who is an ATF agent, who is capable and knows what a firearm looks like, telling them, "This is what I saw." There is no reason for him not to have seen that, since it's undisputed that the firearm was in the apartment and it's undisputed that the firearm was used in connection with drug sales and used [for] the purpose of protecting drug sales. And then here in number twelve, there is no doubt at all that the firearm was brought for him. It's all a pattern. This firearm was used. They had to absolutely disregard the testimony of a government agent for no reason — no reason. MR. BARROSO: Perhaps they considered the testimony of the other agent who testified that he couldn't be sure, your Honor. THE COURT: Well, you can take it up with an appellate court, because I've made my findings on the record. Do you have anything further you'd like to say? MR. BARROSO: No, your Honor, other than we would hope the court would follow the guidelines as set forth in the pre-sentence investigation, that being the guidelines of from twelve to eighteen months of determining the sentence of Mr. Ortega. THE COURT: All right. The court is going to disregard the guidelines in this case. Juarez-Ortega argues that the sentencing action of the trial judge "in effect overrode the jury's determination of a fact issue with regard to the question of the firearm." This argument is without merit. Although the jury may have determined that the government had not proved all of the elements of the weapons offense beyond a reasonable doubt, such a determination does not necessarily preclude consideration of underlying facts of the offense at sentencing so long as those facts meet the reliability standard. The sentencing court was not relying on facts disclosed at trial to punish the defendant for the extraneous offense, but to justify the heavier penalties for the offenses for which he was convicted. See, e.g., United States v. Bowdach, 561 F.2d 1160, 1175 (5th Cir.1977). The other aspect of Juarez-Ortega's argument, that receiving the same overall sentence as his codefendant after being convicted of fewer offenses was per se an abuse of discretion, is also without merit. It is within the sentencing court's discretion to treat codefendants differently. See, e.g., United States v. Wheeler, 802 F.2d 778, 783 (5th Cir.1986). A defendant convicted of fewer substantive counts may receive a heavier sentence if justified. See, e.g., United States v. Beecroft, 608 F.2d 753, 761-62 (9th Cir.1979). A defendant cannot rely on his co-defendant's sentence as a yardstick for his own. United States v. Castillo-Roman, 774 F.2d 1280, 1284 (5th Cir.1985). Because the district court did not abuse its discretion in considering evidence of Juarez-Ortega's possession of a handgun despite Juarez-Ortega's acquittal of the substantive firearm offense, the sentence imposed by the district court is 1000 Characters Remaining User Comments Cited Cases • No Cases Found Citing Cases
Follow Slashdot stories on Twitter Forgot your password? Comment: Live free or die (Score 2) 186 Banning cars could save more lives - Does that mean we should ban cars? What effects would that have on the economic productivity of the country ? In turn, how much poverty will that create ? How many extra people will die as a result of not affording medical care ? And this is a simple utilitarian exercise where you compare lives lost with lives lost. What about more complex dilemmas (see title of post) ? Should a nation never send troops in any conflict and accept any onerous terms the adversary imposes, for the sake of preserving all lives ? Should we ban all individual choice and responsibility, ban all sugary drinks, impose a state-controlled healthy diet ? The notion that "lives can be saved" is not and cannot be used as the sole deciding argument on a societal issue. We are free individuals, we associate in a community seeking to improve our perceived welfare - one cannot treat the welfare as a goal in itself segregated from what we as individuals want. Anything dumb your lawyer says can't be used against you (since he cannot be witness against his client) or against himself (since he's not the suspect). A really really dumb lawyer can be charged with conspiracy and end up next to the defendant but it's exceptionally rare and the burden of proof is monumental (mafia lawyers involved in the same operation with their client). You, on the other hand, are already a suspect, the tiniest slip ('I didn't like him, but I did not kill him !') can send you to the gauntlet ('Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the defendant despised the victim - by his own official testimony'). The greatest trick your lawyer has is that he isn't you. Talking to the police while suspected of a crime is like performing brain surgery on yourself. Comment: Re:Castle Doctrine Defense (Score 4, Insightful) 358 by Stellian (#47306067) Attached to: Florida Man Faces $48k Fine For Jamming Drivers' Cellphones he was acting in self defense to prevent an idiot driving while on a cell phone from causing an accident "The signal is bad around these parts... let's switch to message chat !" This is a prime example of why we have societies, laws and regulations - in this case those designed to stop mobile phone usage. Going for an individual solution quickly devolves into mayhem: thousands of bystanders affected, emergency calls interrupted, and probably not a single accident prevented. Comment: Re:HOPE to exploit it (Score 1) 106 by Stellian (#47280301) Attached to: Researchers Find "Achilles Heel" of Drug Resistant Bacteria More importantly, is this something fundamental to how gram-negative bacteria develop, or is it simply the current solution evolution has produced ? It would be nice to develop biotechnology that takes evolution into account and is ready to predict a few moves ahead and minimize the probability of a helpful mutation. It seems to me that from a computer security point of view, the human biological computer has low entropy keys and we are dealing with a massively parallel adversary that tries trillions of keys every second (billions of people infected with thousands of strains of bacteria). Meanwhile, our current "cyber defenses" (drugs) are rather crude pattern match filters that look for things like <script>, SELECT *, and other static characteristics of what we consider to flag an attacker. Luckily, biology has endowed us with a key switch defense algorithm that ensures a "rooted" system does not compromise the whole network; unluckily, the mechanism will also take unrecoverable systems offline. Comment: Solutions to the wrong problems (Score 1) 396 by Stellian (#47247005) Attached to: "Super Bananas" May Save Millions of Lives In Africa The "root cause" of malnutrition is societal dysfunction. We have more than enough food, energy, water, fertilizers or the potential to obtain them in every country on earth, enough to feed the world ten times over. Every person on earth prefers a balanced and diverse diet, if it's a available. When people starve or go sick it's because they are trapped in a low productivity economy, caused by corruption, war, mismanagement of public resources and usually enabled or instigated by some western power friendly to the local chieftain. This is techie myopia at it's finest, from the "give laptops to the poor" or "internet balloons" to "vaccines via mosquitoes". We know how to make the internet work and we know how to deliver vaccines: just like we do it in the rich countries. Poor people don't need technical solutions designed to work in anarchy, they need societal reform and functional public services. While the intention behind these schemes is laudable, we should not believe for a moment they are more than bandaids in lieu of peace, democracy and working governments. Comment: Re: This reminds me of a great Simpsons episode (Score 5, Informative) 625 by Stellian (#47228021) Attached to: EU's Top Court May Define Obesity As a Disability Yet, the vast majority of obese people have perfectly working thyroids. This is not about recognizing that some medical conditions can derail your metabolism, which I believe no one is arguing, and should be covered by existing disability laws. This is about treating all obese people, the vast majority of which are so because of their own choices, as disabled. Inability to control your own actions becomes a valid form of disability. It's a slippery slope because it legitimizes self harm and forces society to take responsibility. If obesity is a form of disability, so is tobacco or gaming dependence. And if treating obesity is not about making people eat less, then clearly treating dependence is not about smoking or gambling, we as a society should hold together and provide comfort: smoking places and breaks, subsidies for food when all the person's paycheck is lost in the casino, job protection when the addiction interferes with work performance, free medical coverage for resulting problems etc. BTW, I write the above as a 220 pound man, who use to be as large as 260 pounds, and knows full well how hard it is for an obese person to control her appetite and weigh. But I fully understand it's MY body and MY choices, I'm fat because I love food, it's one of the great pleasures of my life and I wouldn't dream to blame nature or society for my fate. Comment: Re:Yes, good idea. (Score 2) 322 by Stellian (#47191511) Attached to: Fixing China's Greenhouse Gas Emissions For Them Actually, the US is twice as efficient at GDP/ton of GHG, about the same as Canada, Australia, and Finland. That's because a whole lot of that 15 trillion GDP is produced on Wall Street, Redmond and Hollywood - non tangible goods. As the GP said, per inhabitant USA produce far far more CO2 than China, and a CO2 tax would absolutely cripple US manufacturing and exports. Comment: Embryo (Score 2) 323 by Stellian (#47121373) Attached to: 'Curiosity' Lead Engineer Suggests Printing Humans On Other Planets Comment: Re:I got tired of waiting (Score 5, Insightful) 213 by Stellian (#47106613) Attached to: PHP Next Generation JS on the server is clearly big contender for PHP: it's great for quick and dirty prototyping, awful for large projects, and significantly faster than PHP. JS is the perfect recipe for language lock-in that's even stronger than PHP: front end developers already "know" it, they write a botched version of the backend code that 10 years later turns into an incomprehensible behemoth; any attempt to rewrite it will be rejected for "performance" reasons. Comment: Re:Duh... (Score 1) 265 by Stellian (#47064459) Attached to: IT Pro Gets Prison Time For Sabotaging Ex-Employer's System Anyone in IT that might be disgruntled? What you need to expect in a case like this (assuming you can pull the perfect crime, technically speaking, and leave no digital tracks) is be prepared to face the most vicious face of law enforcement. The officers will know you did it, but they will have no proof, so they will push you to the extreme, for months or years, until they get a confession. They will ransack your home, multiple times, harass your employers and loved ones, etc. All in all, not a good side project for a geek with no soft skills. I mean, if you can pull the perfect cybercrime and resist the best prosecutors in town, then why not hack into City Bank and transfer a billion dollars to some nice old lady in Russia ? Surely a billion dollars is better than some momentary satisfaction. You can even set aside 500 million for the purpose of bankrupting your ex employer. Comment: Re:Cue "freedom" NRA nuts in 3.. 2.. 1... (Score 1) 274 by Stellian (#46952783) Attached to: First Arrest In Japan For 3D-Printed Guns Because guns don't kill people. People with guns kill people 2 hundred times lower, actually. You can point all you want at countries like Canada and Norway but the truth is the much lower GINI and higher equality of these countries produces an overall violence level that US can only dream of. Still, they are at the same order of magnitude to US at gun violence (when adjusted for ownership rates) debunking the "cultural factor" hypothesis (Bowling for Columbine, etc.) The dominant factors for a country's violence level are gun availability and inequality: unequal countries with lots of guns, like US, some African and some South-American countries have significantly more homicides, and by significant I mean statistically significant at the > 99.99% confidence level and pretty much an established scientific fact. Comment: Re:It's a government contract job. (Score 1) 288 by Stellian (#46876653) Attached to: Decommissioning Nuclear Plants Costing Far More Than Expected With respect, the state can go straight to hell. Spent fuel storage is a national emergency, not a political issue. Than the nation should pay for it. Every affected state should bid for storage in the Yucca mountain repository, and if it reaches a reserve set by Nevada, they can use it. All proceeds go to Nevadians, after expenses. If no one is willing to pay what Nevada is asking, then no one is allowed to store their shit in Nevada. What you are proposing is that the Government can step right it, declare your backyard a nuclear waste repo and all their industry lobyist can dump toxic shit there because it's "a national emergency". As a staunch nuclear proponent, you can go straight to hell. MS-DOS must die!
Briton Broady into round two • Last Updated: June 23 2014, 20:50 BST Naomi Broady bucked the trend of British frustrations at Wimbledon by claiming a first-round victory over Hungarian Timea Babos. Naomi Broady celebrates her victory over Babos Naomi Broady celebrates her victory over Babos The 24-year-old Brit fended off a fast start from the world number 94 to eventually ease home 2-6 7-6 (9/7) 6-0. Broady's win lifted British spirits on the opening day of Wimbledon after first-round exits for Johanna Konta, Dan Cox and James Ward. Broady has moved into the world's top 200 this year - she is currently just below her career-high at 164 in the WTA list - but had looked up against it against a player ranked 70 places higher. The Briton was two points defeat in the second-set tie-break but took it on her fourth set point. Having missed her chance, Babos seemed demoralised and, playing some impressive tennis, Broady dominated the decider to book her place in round two where she will face either former world number one Caroline Wozniacki or Shahar Peer. Broady was famously stripped of LTA funding after posting a raunchy picture of herself on a social-networking site when a teenager and has gone it alone in the tennis world since. "This time last year I was lucky enough to get a wild card into the qualifying for Wimbledon," said Broady, who ground down Babos 2-6 7-6 (9/7) 6-0. "But the week before that, I was researching how to become an au pair, and I was going for Paris. "I was looking at doing first-aid courses, language courses, to become an au pair because I couldn't afford to play tennis. "Last year I won a round through qualifying and that gave me enough money for the next few tournaments. "I didn't want to stop at all: I've played some of the French money tournaments, to fund the national tournaments. "It was literally to the point where I've won the tournament, cashed the cheque, bought my ticket and flown off to the next competition the next day. "Finally wins started coming, and the difference a year can make is amazing: if you keep going, you never know when it's going to switch." Dan Evans, Kyle Edmund, Dan Cox, James Ward and Johanna Konta all failed to advance to the second round, leaving just Broady and Murray progressing of the Brits in action on Monday. Broady admitted her £43,000 second-round windfall will fund the best part of another year's professional tennis. Unfazed by adverse reaction to that Facebook fuss seven years ago, Broady did admit she hopes the LTA will not try to muscle in on her new-found success. "It quite went over my head, the whole incident, it happened and I still to this day don't particularly see what was the big deal," she said. "It was just a stupid, jokey pose that looked horrible: it's not really disrupted my tennis other than financially. "I don't think they (the LTA) will try and take credit for it. I think it's pretty clear I've been the only person at every practice session for the past few years. "I'm the only one that's been there every single day. I'll laugh in someone's face if they try and say it was them. "It's definitely made me hungrier: if I don't win, I don't have any money." Broady toasted victory by hoisting young niece Lola Rose in front of the Court 16 crowd. "She has just turned five," said Broady. "We are very close: she let me give her kisses today. Normally she wipes them off, but I was allowed to give them today."
Take the 2-minute tour × I have a perl script that sends mail out to a mailing list. On my old dedicated server, it worked fine, and sent one email per second basically. I recently switched to a new dedicated server, with about the same specs, and it's going extremely slow, about one mail every 30 seconds. I set up a test script to watch what part takes the longest: open(MAIL,"\| /usr/sbin/sendmail -tv -d8.7 $recipient_email"); print MAIL <<EOF; From:Test Sender <$sender> Justw ant to see how long this takes The -d8.7 there is a debug option that lets me watch the output of the script. I will paste that here, there are 3 spots which both hang for too long, I will mark them here: dns_getcanonname(receiving_server.com, trymx=1) dns_getcanonname: trying receiving_server.com. (A) 5 second delay here YES dns_getcanonname: receiving_server.com getmxrr([], droplocalhost=1) andrew@receiving_server.com... Connecting to [] via relay... 220 my_server.com ESMTP Sendmail 8.13.8/8.13.8; Fri, 18 May 2012 06:55:04 +0200 >>> EHLO localhost.localdomain 250-my_server.com Hello localhost.localdomain [], pleased to meet you 250 HELP >>> MAIL From:<root@localhost.localdomain> SIZE=115 10 second delay here 250 2.1.0 <root@localhost.localdomain>... Sender ok >>> RCPT To:<andrew@receiving_server.com> >>> DATA 5 second delay here 250 2.1.5 <andrew@receiving_server.com>... Recipient ok >>> . 250 2.0.0 q4I4t4Lu014501 Message accepted for delivery andrew@receiving_server.com... Sent (q4I4t4Lu014501 Message accepted for delivery) Closing connection to [] >>> QUIT 221 2.0.0 my_server.com closing connection As far as I can tell, my /etc/hosts and /etc/resolv.conf seem fine, and these are the only things that Google suggests might be broken, anyone have any ideas? share\|improve this question 1 Answer 1 It looks like 1. Delay to resolve name via DNS 2. Recipient check by remote SMTP server 3. Sender check by remote SMTP server Is the remote server the same as before? Do you have any visibility of that server? Have you run tcpdump on that interface to see if there is any protocol activity during the gaps? Try this (as root) - # tcpdump -vvv -w output.pcap -i eth0 'port not 22' This will capture all traffic except your SSH session traffic and output to the file 'output.pcap'. I don't suppose there's any chance you've moved to an IP that is on a blacklist somewhere? Sites like the following can help you find out - share\|improve this answer This is the same across multiple different remote SMTP servers - Gmail, Hotmail, a bunch of university servers, all of them have the same delay on step 2. Also the DNS delay seems to happen no matter what DNS servers I put in (my providers, or ones I have on another server). I have to figure out the tcpdump thing, I'm not very good at sysadminning, I'll look that up, thanks! – Cocorico May 18 '12 at 5:40 No problem! I'll put a command in the answer for tcpdump. – Andrew H May 18 '12 at 5:44 Also, it would be interesting to know how quickly 'dig g.co' returns on your server - it's a dns lookup which will use the servers in /etc/resolv.conf. – Andrew H May 18 '12 at 5:49 109 msec for the g.co thing.. I have used nslookup to look up a bunch of servers and they're all similarly fast. I'll go run the tcpdump stuff and whatnot, thanks! – Cocorico May 18 '12 at 6:25 Ahh, I am on 6 blacklists. I will look into getting off those, but in the meantime, would that actually slow things down? I mean, I understand it would for some servers, but do you think ALL the servers are checking those lists? Cause it's literally this slow on every single one I sent to - AOL, prodigy, msn, hotmail, etc etc etc. Oh yeah, I actually just tried sending to a server I have somewhere else, and it's slow to that too, and I know it doesn't check any lists. – Cocorico May 18 '12 at 6:30 Your Answer
Skip to main content 5 things that could still complicate budget deal By Leigh Ann Caldwell and Paul Steinhauser, CNN updated 8:36 PM EST, Mon December 16, 2013 • The Senate is expected to take up the budget on Tuesday • 2014 and 2016 politics will play into Senate budget vote • The fallout from the filibuster rule change has left hard feelings in the Senate • Fear of another government shutdown has pushed some to support the deal Washington (CNN) -- The federal budget has always been a tool for partisanship, but never more so than in the past few years. Like the awkward and irreverent distant relative at the dinner table, the Senate tried for several years to ignore it. But everyone knew it was in the room, helping to create a permanent state of partisan gridlock. But the government shutdown in October caused so much political fallout that most Republicans and Democrats in a Congress already rated poorly by the public didn't want to go through it again with midterm election campaigns just getting off the ground. Passing a budget became an imperative. Two ideologically opposite lawmakers agreed to the same spending plan -- a notable feat considering Congress has lurched from fiscal crisis to fiscal crisis since President Barack Obama took office, deeply at odds over taxes and spending. Perhaps more miraculously, the House, which has been the hotbed of partisans, passed the two-year budget plan last week overwhelmingly before leaving town for the holidays. Republicans and Democrats supported the deal, even though neither side swooned. Some of the most liberal and conservative members opposed it. But for the first time in years, a core of the House came together to support federal spending. The vote was 332-94. The proposal then traveled across the marble corridor of the Capitol to the Senate, where bipartisanship is usually more common. But this is where the whole thing gets more difficult due to arcane rules of the Senate, political realities ahead of midterms and the 2016 presidential race, concerns about spending, and a bruising fight over how the Senate operates that has sharpened partisan feelings. Senate supporters think they have votes Most insiders believe the bill that aims to avert a possible shutdown in mid January, relax sweeping spending cuts under the so-called sequester, and give everyone some political breathing room from the issue for two years, will ultimately pass and be sent to Obama for his signature. Those chances seemed to improve by the hour on Monday as supporters gained some conservative backing needed to clear a 60-vote procedural hurdle on Tuesday. Still, there are a number of Republicans who oppose the measure and nothing's certain yet. A confluence of factors -- both relating to the budget and not -- will influence the outcome. Here's how things look: 1. 2014 reelection worries The numbers tell the story. Seven of the 12 GOP Senators running for re-election next year are facing primary challenges from the right. And that list includes the top two Republicans: Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Minority Whip John Cornyn of Texas. McConnell will not vote for the agreement. Cornyn appears skeptical. Some major conservative groups have criticized the budget agreement, including Americans for Prosperity, Club for Growth, Heritage Action for America, Freedomworks, and Senate Conservatives Fund. They are influential with tea party activists and other grassroots advocates who vote in big numbers in the Republican primaries -- aka, the kind of voters these Senators will need to win reelection. "Yes. I think the primary challenges and the threat of future primary challenges is a factor when Senators go to the floor to vote. It may not be the biggest factor, but to ignore the impact of primaries would be silly," said Nathan Gonzales, political editor of the non-partisan Rothenberg Political Report. One other factor that could be at play when it comes to Senators in the GOP leadership: This is not their deal. There is not Senate equivalent to the agreement struck by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan and his Senate counterpart, Democrat Patty Murray. 2. 2016 politics Sentiments of those same Republican primary voters could be why three GOP Senators not up for re-election in 2014 quickly opposed the deal last week. Marco Rubio of Florida, Rand Paul of Kentucky, and Ted Cruz of Texas are all considered possible contenders for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. Because of that, just about every vote they take will be scrutinized by outside conservative groups influential with core voters in presidential primaries and caucuses. Durbin says 2014 and 2016 politics is a factor when it comes to Senate Republican opposition. "A handful of members of the Senate are vying for the presidency in years to come and thinking about this vote in the context. And others are frankly afraid of this new force, the tea party force, the Heritage Foundation force, that is threatening seven out of the 12 Republican senators running for re-election," Durbin told "Face the Nation." Don't expect Boehner to totally change his tune 3. Read the bill Members on both sides of the aisle aren't enthusiastically supporting the budget deal -- a good sign that it is a true compromise. On the left, some are opposed to the fact that it doesn't include an extension of unemployment benefits, cutting off 1.3 million Americans three days after Christmas. "It's really unconscionable," Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa said on Radio Iowa last week. On the right, Republicans oppose the amount of government spending. It preserved about 60% of the automatic sequester cuts that went into effect in March, reducing them by about $45 billion. With proposed federal spending at $1.012 trillion for this fiscal year and $1.014 for next, some Republicans say that's too high. "I'd really like to stay within the (spending) caps," complained Sen. John Boozman, an Arkansas Republican about limits imposed by a 2011 budget law. Others oppose cuts to military retiree pensions as a way to save money. "We need to find a better way to save $6 billion than take it out of the hides of our retired veterans," said Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Mississippi, who said he would vote against the bill. Opinion: Obama's very tough year 4. Filibuster fallout After Democrats changed the Senate rules to weaken the ability of minority Republicans to block presidential appointments, the GOP may not be in the mood to play nice. The Senate was locked in fierce partisan bickering over this while the House was passing the budget. Angry over the rules change, Republicans took advantage of Senate procedure and forced two consecutive all-night sessions, an attempt to prove a point and annoy Democrats. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid responded to Republican tactics by telling them he can't "heal hurt feelings" and said he would press forward to pass the budget and other items before the waning time left before Christmas. "I understand that Republicans are still upset," Reid told reporters last week. "I can't wave a magic wand and heal hurt feelings, but I can appeal to my colleagues to be reasonable and work with us and to schedule votes in a timely manner on the important work we have left to do." Republicans, who don't love the budget deal, might feel like making things a little more difficult. 5. Fears of another shutdown The 16-day government shutdown was a political disaster for the GOP. Conservative Republicans triggered the political debacle by insisting that money to fund the government be tied to defunding Obamacare, which they despise. The public mainly blamed them, and their poll numbers quickly dropped in the so-called generic ballot, a key 2014 metric in the battle for control of Congress. Republicans currently control the House and Democrats, the Senate. Many Republican lawmakers are quietly worried the GOP brand would suffer further damage if they take the blame for another shutdown even though Democrats and Obama have their own problems with voter sentiment on their job performance. Opinion: Democrats lose on budget deal Ryan, in touting his deal on Sunday, highlighted that "we're preventing two government shutdowns from possibly occurring." Republicans say they plan to campaign against the Obamacare health reforms under the Affordable Care Act as they work next year to try and regain the Senate, which Democrats hold by 10 seats and keep their double-digit majority in the House. Another government shutdown would sidetrack them from their mission. "Democratic political strategists would like nothing more than for the GOP to take the focus off Obamacare again and to shoot themselves in the foot with another government shutdown," said Brian Walsh, a GOP strategist and communications director for the National Republican Senatorial Committee in the 2010 and 2012 election cycles. "This agreement takes that scenario off the table and keeps the Democrats firmly on defense with their disastrous healthcare law heading into 2014." 5 reasons why Congress might (finally) pass a budget CNN's Ted Barrett contributed to this report
HOME > Chowhound > Home Cooking > What parts of a pig should I ask for: not the meat, tho? DB is butchering a pig this week, what parts should I ask for? I want his family to get the meat, but I want all the other parts. So far I will get the head, hopefully split. I've also asked for all the bones, tail, trotters, liver, pancreas. Should I ask for the skin? Belly? I'm sure there's more. 1. Click to Upload a photo (10 MB limit) 1. I'm not able to give you advice about the parts that you mentioned, but I had pork liver only once many years ago. It had a very gamy flavor which I did not like, and have not had it since that time. It will needs some special rub or mixture of herbs to get rid of the gamy flavor. 2 Replies 1. re: ChiliDude I've never had pork liver by itself, but my father makes an old family recipe for a dish that was always eaten for breakfast - think "scrapple" kind of thing, but different. I love it, and have noticed no gamy flavor. 1. re: ChiliDude i prep for pig liver is to thinly slice it then make a soup of it with ginger, scallion and not much else... the fresher the better and the ginger, my guess is, takes away some of the gaminess... http://chowtimes.com/2008/08/30/pork-... 2. Did a little searching and found this useful link. Scroll down and you will see plenty of variety meats, including rectum (which I've seen packaged for sale in my Asian market). About por liver, it is an essential ingredient in Louisiana boudin. My family made and sold it when I was growing up. Here's the link (pdf is safe): 1. If you get the head (helllo, head cheese) -- you'll also get the cheeks -- the treasure of the whole pig. 8 Replies 1. re: sunshine842 Are pork cheeks akin to beef cheeks--meaning they would have a very singular kind of texture/structure? I found beef cheeks flavorful but not especially appealing as regards texture for something like pot-roast. Of course, if you shred the meat finely for some other purpose, that wouldn't be an issue. 1. re: Bada Bing guanciale comes from the pork cheeks. 1. re: hotoynoodle Yes. Love guanciale for Bucatini (or other pasta) all'Amatriciana. But it does require being cured, which is, for people, in most climates, doable. I wonder what similarly cured beef cheeks would be like? 1. re: Bada Bing Beef cheeks, or cachete de res, are so tender they really don't need much help. They are usually a premium priced taco meat when you can find them. 1. re: Veggo Tender, no doubt. But they lack the kind of muscle structure that one finds in even the most cartilaginous cuts of beef, like chuck or shank or short rib. The one time I made a pot roast from beef cheek, the taste was fine, but the meat texture was halfway between tender chuck and jello. Not that there's anything intrinsically wrong with that, but it made me feel that I wouldn't re-do beef cheek for a preparation in which some structural interest is part of the picture. Or maybe I overdid them.... 1. re: Bada Bing I think that is why they are best suited for tacos rather than a stand alone plated item. 2. re: Bada Bing Pig cheeks are very suitable for a long braise. I find them fairly easily in the supermarket (although not free-range or organic ones) and they're so cheap. I usually cook them to this Mark Sargeant recipe (although the amount of honey needs consdierably cutting down to around 2 tablespoons): http://uktv.co.uk/food/recipe/aid/586366 1. re: Bada Bing I make braises from both pig and beef cheeks -- they're succulent, have nice texture, and wow flavor. 3. Well I'd get the all the lard I could and have him separate out the leaf lard from the rest. 1. If you can get the Belly, grab it! Make your own Bacon.
AAPL and momentum Posted by: FSM AAPL and momentum - 02/20/08 06:33 AM most stocks tend to move in trends. there's a chart that measures this momentum called the MACD. if you look at AAPL over the past year and past 3 months you can see the trends in momentum:<br><br><br><br><br><br>actually, AAPL has very little momentum below the red line so they aren't a good stock for this MACD (i even mislabeled when to buy in the chart above because i was just looking at the 3 month rather than the whole year chart). but right now, AAPL is in it's down trend . . . presumably it will head up soon; although, it had UP UP UP for so long that it's hard to tell. i am reading a new book on short term stock trading. the book is trying to make things safer (also reduces the potentially for a big gain). they recommend waiting until the momentum hits the the middle in this chart, so not buying now is what they'd suggest even though the stock is priced so low (perhaps now is the time for long term traders though). so i'd be buying at a little higher rate and selling probably a little lower than i could make, but i'd be playing the momentum trends and i'll typically gain in this model over the shorter term (though, Poly and others will hate me). many people use this MACD for selling short (so they can make money when the stock drops in price, for example). my book explains that, but i don't understand it enough to trade that way yet . . . plus, it's apparently not very accurate so i likely won't do that.<br><br>i am far from using this for trading (maybe 6 months or so of playing with paper money), but i think it's interesting to see how these momentum swings work even if i was just using it for simple straight forward short term trading (e.g., 1 day to a few months). here's more info on MACD -- http://www.streetauthority.com/terms/macd.asp<br><br>
WAMU 88.5 - American University Radio Now Playing Study: Many Could Face Obstacles In Voter ID Laws A new report finds that millions of potential voters in states that require photo ID at the polls live more than 10 miles from the office that issue IDs. Nearly half a million of these people don't have access to a car or other vehicle. With the new requirements, "it certainly looks and feels like a poll tax," says one voter advocate.
Social Fortress cofounder Adam Ghetti wants to protect us all from our social-media-loving selves. His company, which launched at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference today in San Francisco, makes it so that no matter how you communicate—Facebook, Gmail, Google+, or Twitter—your stuff can never be seen by anyone but the intended recipients. Communications are encrypted so electronic eavesdroppers just see a bunch of bits. There's a key difference between virtual private networks and other security tools: If you send a Facebook message, the copy stored on Facebook's servers will be encrypted, too, and even Facebook can't decode it. The company says that it is targeting both enterprises and consumers and is free for consumers to use. There is a catch: Your friends and family have to install a viewer to read your encrypted messages—similar to the way Adobe Acrobat works. It's unlikely to become very popular with consumers because of that. But it's true potential is with the enterprise. Businesses can install it on all the devices employees use and then never need worry that an employee will be snooped on. In June, Social Fortress raised $2 million from Sig Mosley, an Atlanta-based venture capitalist, and other investors. Ghetti said that it is already being tested by several large, security-conscious enterprises. It's an interesting concept. Services that allow us to protect and control our own data is something the average person just might want, if a startup can make it painless to use.
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Harmoni Sandlin knows so much about her husband — that he likes licorice tea, for example, and mango She's comfortable enough to chat with him on her cellphone while she's using the restroom (sometimes she tells him; sometimes not). During the day, odd little occurrences remind her of him, and she makes a mental note of them. Thinks, I've got to share this with For his part, Tim Sandor knows much about his wife. He knows the faces she makes when she slips into photo booths. He knows her affinity for wordplay, indie bands and macaroni and cheese. He knows she's drug-free, a teetotaler, spiritual but not religious. Sadly, he knows that if he were to climb into his car and drive to her, it would take 37 hours. Harmoni lives in Las Vegas, and Tim lives in West Palm Beach. They first met 2 1/2 months ago in an online debate room. Now, they communicate in some way every day. They may e-mail, chat over the phone or exchange music and photographs. They've even talked about creating a calendar together (her poses would include a dominatrix-type shot of her in a Catholic school uniform, another perhaps as a cheerleader; he'd pose as a priest, he says, and a gritty farmer sitting on a They're at that point in their relationship where they've got pet names for one another — he's her Analog and she's his Apron — and yet they've never met face-to-face. Theirs is a fictional union, a digital farce. One online personality "wedding" another. There is no legal backing behind their union, no long-term commitment, no signed marriage certificate, no tax benefit to reap or prenup to deal with. Just a guy who likes an online girl and a girl who likes an online Together, they're exploring what could be the latest frontier in relationships: online marriage. The unions are increasingly common, thanks to highly interactive online games (i.e. World of Warcraft), social-networking sites (like MySpace.com) and virtual worlds (such as SecondLife.com). One Beijing-based publication estimates there are 100,000 online married in China, a country where the practice seems to be mushrooming. "They're not looking for monogamy or any kind of serious deal," say online dating gurus Jamie Kiffel ("Miss Gemini") and Larisa Fuchs ("Miss Scorpio") of geminiandscorpio.com. "They want a chance to lay claim to someone they found online without any of the real-life, dirty-sock-and-underwear-on-the-floor problems that real relationships Most virtual spouses fall into the under-18 set. Among adults, the unions go a step beyond chat room friends, e-mail acquaintances and instant messenger buddies. They range from farcical, spur-of-the-moment unions (a role-playing dwarf in San Francisco might marry an orc from Miami in World of Warcraft, for instance), to long-lasting, substantive Or, as in the case of Tim and Harmoni, two Gen-Xers might genuinely identify with one another, get "married" on a whim, and, whether they intended to or not, end up experiencing real feelings — like tension, bliss, passion and longing. "A part of me realizes that this whole thing is just ridiculous, but I'm so fascinated with it," he says. "I'm very much attracted to this girl, and I'm fascinated by that attraction. Whether or not there's a point . . . I can't really speak to the long term for that because I don't know. I can't see that far ahead. But as for right now, it's like, I'm happy with things as they are." There's no doubt that Tim and Harmoni have a meaningful relationship, but their interactions raise questions: Are they wasting their time in a fantasyland? Are they afraid of real-world interactions? Why invest so much time in something that promises no physical intimacy? They didn't get into a relationship expecting romance, and they've deconstructed their behavior every step of the way. That's partly what attracts him to Harmoni, he says, her ability to step outside of herself and analyze what they're doing. "We're both into sociology and well-versed enough in human interactions to know that there's definitely a lot of unreality to the whole virtual community," Tim says. Their development of feelings for one another, that just sort of happened. It's a new form of love, perhaps, in a digital age. Call it binaric swooning, cyber enchantment, avatar amore. Whatever it is, the two are ready to take it a step further, toward reality.
You are here Favorite Find Friday: Pixi Endless Silky Eye Pen in Oyster Glow A true testament to a product's greatness is when it elicits compliments every time you wear it. Pixi Endless Silky Eye Pen in Oyster Glow is one of those rare specimens. We trace the pinky-beige gleamy pencil along our bottom lashline no matter what eye shadow, liner (or lack thereof) we're wearing-- it lends an ethereal brightness to tired eyes and distracts from dark shadows. Its eye area-awakening abilities trump all forms of caffeine and any eye cream we've ever used. People are constantly asking us what the magic liner is, and now the secret's out. Tell us: What beauty product always earns you compliments? Love it? Share now! Loading comments...
Psalm 90 (Ives) Psalm 90 (Ives) Idiosyncrasies of Psalm 90 Characteristic of Ives' style, this piece is rich with tonal clusters, rhythmic complexities, and layers of dense harmonies and polyphonic material. Another outstanding characteristic of this piece is the vivid text declamation, or text painting that the music endeavors. The musical line clearly evokes the tone and message of the text. This is the text as printed in the score, taken from the King James version of the Bible, numbers indicate verses1: • 1. Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place from one generation to another.1 • 3. Thou turnest man to destruction; and sayest, “Return, ye children of men.”1 • 5. Thou carriest them away as with a flood; they are as a sleep; in the morning they are like grass which groweth up.1 • 6. In the morning it flourisheth and groweth up; in the evening it is cut down, and withereth.1 • 7. For we are consumed by thine anger, and by thy wrath are we troubled.1 • 8. Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins in the light of thy countenance.1 • 9. For all our days are passed away in they wrath: we spend our years as a tale that is told.1 • 11. Who knoweth the pow’r of thine anger? even according to thy fear, so is thy wrath.1 • 12. So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.1 • 13. Return, O Lord, how long? and let it repent thee concerning thy servants.1 • 14. O satisfy us early with they mercy; that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.1 • 15. Make us glad according to the days wherein thou hast afflicted us, and the years wherein we have seen evil.1 • 16. Let thy work appear unto thy servants, and thy glory unto their children.1 Verse by Verse Analysis via Text Declamation and Musical Intricacies The piece begins in C, in four four time, with a five bar introduction for the organ. Beneath the several chords in the organ part is a C pedal that is consistent throughout, not only the intro, but the entire piece. This constant C pedal mimics the eternal and ubiquitous nature of God(), ever-present and unchanging, against the backdrop of the piece, immediately establishing one of the psalm’s themes. Above the measures of organ intro are printed seemingly random captions, reading in order: “The Eternities;” “Creation;” “God’s wrath against sin;” “Prayer and Humility;” and “Rejoicing in Beauty and Work.” No written directions in the score explain these phrases’ purpose and whether or not they are to spoken and/or included in the performance in some way. However, one discovers as the Psalm begins that these are the five major themes upon which the text focuses and expounds. Perhaps Ives meant to provide a tool for the singers’ and instrumentalists’ benefit, implying that an understanding (if only rudimentary) of the messages within the text would enhance the overall performance. In the second to last intro bar, three bells and a low gong trickle into the accompaniment their ethereal strains to leave a reverent impression on the audience before the chorus begins. Verse 1 The chorus enters in four parts (SATB) in measure six with the first verse and sings in unison until the last syllable of “generation,” and then split apart into complex and dissonant chords that decrescendo and become more convoluted as the phrase “to another” repeats thrice, with a final dynamic of pppp (pianissississimo, if you will). Meanwhile, a consistent pedal-like accompaniment continues in the organ, a sustained I chord (CEG) that dissolves into the ubiquitous C pedal by the end of the verse. The effect of the spreading vocal parts with the decrescendo paints the image of human beings throughout the echo of their countless generations, establishing themselves with their diversified vocal lines, but then fading into the fabric of time, represented by the fading voices. Verse 2 This verse is set more like a traditional psalm, as it appears as a component of a mass or service- with an entire phrase intoned or chant-sung freely on a single pitch, with the following phrase chanted on a second pitch, and a third phrase that follows on another single, logically proceeding note- until meter is restored in m. 19 for the final powerful statement, “Thou art God.” The freedom with which the first three phrases are sung serves as a strong contrast to the final phrase, to which Ives clearly wanted to bring emphasis. Verse 3 The full chorus sings the first half of this verse (“Thou turnest man to destruction”). Beginning in unison, as a collective address from mankind to God, the chorus sings the first three words, but then splits apart into a series of cacophonous chords, as in the first verse (a device used frequently in this piece), to align with the text, “to destruction,” which is repeated thrice (another thematic gesture), and accompanies the seeming destruction of harmonic convention. A tenor soloist takes the rest of the verse, “and sayest, ‘Return, ye children of men.’” The solo voice is most appropriate here because it delineates the voice of God as singular2 and separate from the mass and chaos of mankind. Verse 4 All four parts of the chorus sing entirely in unison for this whole verse, with the organ providing some supporting chords beneath along with the C pedal. The voices unison symbolizes the voices of humanity speaking together, in accord, acknowledging the eternity of God, as compared to the mortality of the individual.2 The lack of separate parts illustrates that, when measured against the existence of God and earth, the relatively short span of human existence seems diminutive and insignificant; therefore no individual voices seek distinction because of such implied insignificance. Verse 5 This verse sees the return of tonal clusters and complex rhythmic patterns. The phrase, “as a flood,” repeats twice, and by the second repeat, the excess of accidentals precludes any chord tones from the cadence, which indicates a key modulation (though the confusion of accidentals makes it near impossible to establish the new key). The repetition of flood with the richly textured dissonance mimics the surge and chaos of an actual flood. This piece defies the normal rules of key structure and harmonic convention continuously tempting one to say that it does not have a concrete diatonic key in which it stays, but rather a home key around which it freely revolves. After the accelerando into a mini-climactic cadence point (on “flood”), the regular tempo resumes with a pianissimo conclusion to the phrase, “they are as a sleep.” The next phrase emerges as the first polyphonic gesture in the piece. Ives has offset the SA voices and the TB voices on the phrase, “in the morning they are like grass which groweth up,” the SA voices begin half a measure before the latter. This layering effect implies the similar manner in which human generations grow and overlap as the text describes, comparing man to blades of grass, which constantly renew and reseed.2 Verse 6 The polyphonic layering from Verse 5 carries over into this verse, with the SA and TB parts set a beat off from each other to begin the verse. To match the text in the most literal way possible, all four parts leap up considerably (+7ths in all parts) on the word, “up.” The contour of the line continues to match the implications in the text as the tenors descend to the word “withereth,” and the basses echo the word on ritard in ppp. The vocal line withers, diminishes almost to nothing, just as the blades of grass, mankind in his mortality, at the hand of God. Verse 7 This verse’s violent diction (ex. “consumed,” anger,” “wrath”) is met by the equally abrasive dissonance, driving rhythm, and fortissimo in the music. The chords spread and peak on a high G# for the sopranos, the highest pitch of the piece thus far, on the third repeat of the word “wrath” to obviously convey the power and intensity of the therein. The last words of the verse, “are we troubled,” a continuation of the previous phrase, are separated from the aural assault of the word “wrath” by an 8th rest and a dynamic change to piano, a dramatic change to convey the humility instilled by God’s power (for the words are still addressing God from the voice of mankind). Verse 8 The basses have the first half of this verse to themselves, “Thou has set…our secret sins,” in a descending line that spans an octave (G3 to G2). The descent of this line coincides well with the negative self-degradation in the text and serves as a bold contrast to the ascent of the rest of the line. The ascent occurs while describing “the light of [God’s] countenance,” showing how submissive and reverential man proves in God’s presence, humbling himself and elevating any mention of God. Verse 9 Perhaps the most singular verse of the piece, Ives totally abandoned convention in verse 9. Little numbers are printed above each individual word, beginning with 9, all the way down to 1. These numbers indicate the durations of each note. Thus the phrase accelerates while it ascends in pitch and splits apart into a divisi of 22 separate notes on the word “wrath,” which is held with a fermata. As the larges, most complex chord, coupled with the ascent to tutta forza, this moment stands out as one of the climaxes of the piece. There is pleasing symmetry in the following descent, a reverse of the action that just occurred, the durations of each note lengthening from 1 to 9 as the line goes back to C (E for the tenors) where it began. The ascending line accompanies the statement that human life is forever at the mercy of God’s judgment.2 This terrifying thought is expressed by the music in the building of tension with dissonance until the climactic moment when all pitches are blurred into an eruption of cacophonous angst. The parts melt back together on the way back down to the starting point, as if erasing the previous phrase. This serves to illustrate the idea that all of the suffering and fear of God’s judgment is meaningless in its brevity and in its inability to affect our verdict. Verse 10 Like verse 2, verse 10 complies with the traditional setting and form of psalm from its origins in church service. The first half is chant-sung with whole phrases on single notes, from “The days….fourscore years.” The free chant-like quality and long phrases of these lines suits the text because it speaks of man desiring long life. But a change occurs when the chorus sings, “yet…” because here the speaker(s) realizes that a longer life means more trials and sorrows, and here the line descends and breaks after the words, “cut off” (literal text painting). The sopranos conclude the verse with the line, “we fly away,” an ascending phrase in pianissimo that seems literally tossed away, thus mimicking the flight of the soul after death. Verse 11 If there is another climax in the piece, this verse fits the description in that it ends on an A in the soprano part, the highest note in the piece, and the concept it conveys is truly fearsome. The text describes how the depth of God’s fury is inconceivable to man, and even our greatest fears cannot do justice to the actual wrath He can inflict. The words “anger,” “fear,” and “wrath” are rightfully emphasized and assigned to the highest notes in the phrase, each one successively higher than the last. Triple forte characterizes the final word and helps express the loss of composure one feels in the face of such fear and powerlessness to the will of God. Verse 12 This short verse expresses man’s submission, the consequent desire for peace with one’s mortality, and a petition for God’s help and guidance through the struggles of life.2 Verse 13 A soprano solo takes this verse, calling one’s mind back to the 3rd verse with its tenor solo. This solo strikes a similar chord with the tenor, as it begins with the word, “Return,” however, this time it is the people requesting God’s return, rather than God mandating to them.2 This voice pleads to be heard by God, therefore rises out of the mass of other voices to make the direct appeal for His mercy. Verses 14,15,16,17 These verses mark a transition into the last theme of the piece, introduced at the beginning, that of “Rejoicing in Beauty and Work.” The tone and mood of the music shifts to a more serene, peaceful chorale, almost in unison. The church bells and gong return in the accompaniment, further transforming the previous tension and explosiveness of the previous verses into a blending, consonant prayer/resolution. The new tone assists in declaiming the text, as the psalm itself asks for satisfaction, peace, and due happiness as God sees fit to bestow. The psalm here accedes to God’s power, stating the outright submission of the human soul to his will by referring to humans as “servants,” and in this submission man hopes to achieve the beauty and salvation God offers to the faithful.2 The softness of the vocal lines imitates the revered tone reserved for church, while the bells also allude to a church service. Thus as mankind resolves to submit to God, the music clearly evokes an image of church as the venue for his servitude, the setting of his penance. Lasting Impressions According to Ives' wife, Harmony, his Psalm 90 was "the only one of his works that satisfied him."3 Why this is, one could only speculate. Ives came from a devoutly Protestant background. He worked as a church organist and choirmaster for many years, throughout his youth and maturity. Perhaps he felt that this piece not only communicated to the soul, a principle by which he resolutely lived and worked, but that it also communicated from his own soul the private fears and beliefs amassed from a strong religious tradition and an afflicted artistic spirit. 1Ives, Charles. “Psalm 90.” Ed. by John Kirkpatrick and Gregg Smith. Bryn Mawr, Pa: Merion Music Inc., 1970. 2Spurgeon, Charles H. “Treasury of David: Psalm 90.” Pilgrim Publications. 1885. 12 Feb. 2008. 3Swafford, Jan. “Charles Edward Ives.” Peer Music, Ltd. 1998. 12 Feb. 2008. Search another word or see Psalm 90 (Ives)on Dictionary \| Thesaurus \|Spanish Copyright © 2014, LLC. All rights reserved. • Please Login or Sign Up to use the Recent Searches feature
'The Orphan Master’s Son' by Adam Johnson: Review With the death of Kim Jong-il all eyes are on the bizarre North Korean regime, but the best way to understand the country is probably Adam Johnson’s remarkable new novel, “The Orphan Master’s Son.” By Taylor Antrim. Why don’t more novelists write about North Korea? The morbid fascinations are endless—a police state with an automaton citizenry, a landscape of Stalinist gulags and eerily empty superhighways, a (departed) Dear Leader fond of kidnappings and cognac who famously shot 38 under par on his first round of golf. Celebrated works of journalism on the DPRK abound, but the fiction shelf (notwithstanding a few potboiler thrillers and, ahem, my first novel—about a North Korea-obsessed boarding-school headmaster) is pretty bare. Or was. Now there’s Adam Johnson’s magnificently accomplished, slightly lunatic The Orphan Master’s Son—which arrives miraculously timed to the news cycle. With footage of Kim Jong-il’s funeral capturing national paroxysms of showy grief, with the apple-cheeked heir, Kim Jong-un, and his poker-faced uncle in a presumed power ballet with the military, our North Korea interest is at a high pitch. And Johnson, whose debut collection Emporium was one of the best books of the early aughts, gives it to us with a fiction writer’s eye for detail: the blast of “shock-work whistles” at a cannery, the clammy feel of seawater in the hold of a fishing boat, the delicate flavor of a soup made with scavenged herbs. Part thriller, part coming-of-age novel, part romance, The Orphan Master’s Son is made sturdy by research—Johnson traveled to Pyongyang in 2007—but what makes it so absorbing isn’t its documentary realism but the dark flight of the author’s imagination. Nothing here will challenge the prevailing American view of the DPRK—a human nightmare, deserving of its pariah status—but Johnson’s novel is rich with a sense of discovery nevertheless. The plot might be called picaresque if it wasn’t so deliriously grim. Our protagonist, Pak Jun Do, grows up in an orphanage, where his father, the orphan master, won’t acknowledge him, and then he’s recruited by a military DMZ tunnel squad and taught to kill in the dark. Next he’s put on a series of kidnapping missions to Japan, then tasked with collecting radio intelligence aboard a fishing boat, then brought along on a diplomatic mission to Texas. Johnson describes these hectic, frightening chapters in Jun Do’s life with extraordinary skill and economy. It’s a breathlessly exciting 175 pages that establishes North Korea as a ghastly funhouse of paranoia, violence, and absurdity. For instance, when the second mate defects from Jun Do’s boat, the captain decides the best way to throw their government minders off the scent of treachery … is to feed Jun Do’s (still attached) arm to a line-caught shark. Jun Do survives that ordeal, along with a vicious debriefing by an official whose occupation has turned his fists into mangled clubs. Heroically Jun Do retains a core of goodness through his beatings and mistreatment—he’s curious and empathetic in a world where both qualities can get you killed. Midway through, the novel abandons its linear structure. Time fractures, new characters are introduced—including a nicely drawn pair of rival torture squads—and a series of government radio bulletins cleverly interrupts the storytelling. Jun Do—spoiler alert!—has remade himself as Commander Ga, an apparatchik with a movie-star wife and a government position that puts him in routine contact with the Dear Leader himself (here a clever, ruthless manipulator who’s unambiguously villainous). It’s a long book, but only feels so when Johnson lets a strained, Casablanca-inspired romance dominate his final 100 pages. Johnson is much too inventive and daring to rely on Hollywood clichés—and yet he hammers a "love conquers all!" theme to mawkish effect in the final act. It’s a finishing-straight stumble, but the book succeeds in spite of it. The Orphan Master’s Son is potent with visions of oppression and generalized fear. Johnson is unflinching (even a bit enthusiastic) rendering torture, but his sensitivity to Jun Do’s resilient spirit makes his work as big-hearted as it is horrifying. A few images have haunted me for days—Jun Do, at sea, dazzled by a trans-Pacific cargo ship carpeted with new cars: “the moonlight flashed in rapid succession off a thousand new windshields.” And starving scavengers glimpsed in a government graveyard: “in the long shadows cast by the bronze headstones moved occasional men and women. In the growing dark, these ghostly figures, keeping low and moving quickly, were gathering all the flowers from the graves.” Nothing here will challenge the prevailing American view of the DPRK—a human nightmare, deserving of its pariah status—but Johnson’s novel is rich with a sense of discovery nevertheless. The year is young, but The Orphan Master’s Son has an early lead on novel of 2012.
Syria crisis widens faultlines at divided UN As 120 world leaders make annual trip to UN headquarters, unusually bitter atmosphere has been compared to cold war UN general assembly Ther UN general assembly meets this week in New York, but seldom since the end of the cold war has the institution seemed so biitterly divided. Photograph: Shen Hong/ Shen Hong/Xinhua Press/Corbis The police barricades are up and the traffic has begun to congeal across midtown Manhattan as more than 120 world leaders make their annual pilgrimage to the UN headquarters to declaim, appeal, cajole and sometimes threaten each other. It is seldom an edifying spectacle but the mood this year is so sour it is being compared to the cold war. The root of the bitterness lies in the worsening Syrian conflict, which has divided the security council to the point of paralysis along familiar faultlines. Russia and China have vetoed three resolutions in a row aimed at curbing the slaughter, and the council has not even been able to agree on humanitarian relief. The conflict is already spilling over Syria's borders, at a time when another Middle East conflict, possibly with even darker consequences, is constantly threatening to break out between Israel and Iran. Binyamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are both in New York this week to deliver speeches more likely to stoke than soothe the gathering fear of war. The world's powers have no coherent response. France's UN ambassador, Gérard Araud, setting the scene at the UN Turtle Bay headquarters before this week's general assembly, said the security council "has never been as paralysed as it is today since the end of the cold war". The key players are distancing themselves from the unfolding debacle. Vladimir Putin and Hu Jintao are not coming at all. Barack Obama is expected to make a "drive-by" appearance, with a stern speech on Tuesday very much with UN-averse American voters in mind. He will not stick around for lunch or for the customary round of bilateral meetings with other leaders, leaving that to Hillary Clinton. Even the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, normally a byword for courtesy and euphemism, is expected to issue an impatient rebuke to the global statesmen in the chamber for their fecklessness when he opens the session. Aides are describing the address as "no more Mr Nice Guy". If there was ever a moment for speaking out, this is probably it. The security council is no stranger to impasse, but seldom has the deadlock come at such a high human cost. The death toll in Syria by UN estimates is 20,000 and climbing sharply, and 1.5 million civilians, probably far more, have fled their homes. Abeer Etefa, a World Food Programme officer who visited Homs and other areas last week, said: "People are constantly on the move. Some have moved two or three times trying to escape the violence. There are 35 people in an apartment in some places, living in places with no doors or windows. They badly need blankets and baby milk." Leila Zerrougui, the UN special representative on children in conflict, warned the security council last week that children were suffering disproportionately, saying UN agencies had "documented government attacks on schools, children denied access to hospitals, girls and boys suffering and dying in bombardments of their neighbourhoods and also being subject to torture, including sexual violence". Human Rights Watch has reported that government forces appear to be deliberately targeting bread queues, citing 10 cases of artillery bombardment or air strikes outside bakeries in Aleppo province in August alone. Reporting by human rights groups and the UN itself has consistently found that the overwhelming majority of atrocities in the Syrian conflict have been committed by forces loyal to the president, Bashar al-Assad, although abuses by the fragmented rebel groups are also on the rise as the conflict spirals. In the face of clear evidence of abuses by the Syrian regime, however, both Russia and China have adamantly refused to support any security council resolutions that pressure Assad, even when the wording excludes military action. They are also not prepared to discuss authorising an international criminal court investigation into the war crimes committed by all sides. Even after Zerrougui gave her chilling briefing last week on the killing and torture of children, the response of the Russians and Chinese, together with Pakistan and Azerbaijan, was to seek (unsuccessfully) to restrict the scope of the UN envoy's inquiries and to refuse to back an annual resolution condemning the use of child soldiers and the deaths of children in conflict. Michael Williams, who served both as UN special co-ordinator for the Middle East peace process and for Lebanon, said: "I hope that in the margins in New York there would be some possibility to engage with the Russians and Chinese, but I'm not going to hold my breath." There are many factors underpinning Moscow and Beijing's hard line. Damascus has long been a Russian ally, and a buyer of Russian arms. The Syrian port of Tartus is the only Russian military base outside the former Soviet Union and its sole foothold in the Mediterranean. Both Russia and China feel badly burned by allowing security council resolution 1973 to pass in March 2011 authorising "all necessary measures" to protect Libyan civilians, which was then used by Nato as a mandate to help topple Muammar Gaddafi. The ghosts of the 2003 Iraq invasion and the furious debates that preceded it still hang in the air. Even though it was not fought on humanitarian grounds but rather on spurious claims of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, the fiasco and subsequent US and British attempts to justify it helped reverse what was arguably one of the great moral advances of the post-cold-war era: the UN-backed principle that the international community had the "responsibility to protect" civilian populations when their own states were unable or unwilling to. "The whole concept of responsibility to protect has been forgotten and no one among the statesmen here has the courage to utter the words," Williams said. He also criticised the west for giving up on diplomacy in the face of Russian and Chinese resistance. "Even compared with the old cold war days, there doesn't seem to be much active diplomacy to engage Russia and China. And there is a complete absence of the EU as a political actor," Williams said. "The tragedy is that the security council has not given diplomacy a chance in the case of Syria," Mark Malloch Brown, a former UN deputy secretary general, said. He argued that a tentative deal between the west, Russia and China in Geneva in June – by which the specific demand for Assad to step down was omitted in favour of the backing for a new government in Damascus by "mutual consent" – could have provided the basis for a settlement. "There was a road map forward," Malloch Brown said, adding that the US, Britain and France "got caught up in the theology" of trying to pass a "chapter 7" involving sanctions, and so divided the security council once again. Western diplomats counter that the Assad regime has shown it would use any agreement not enforced by sanctions as cover to buy time and intensify its counter-insurgency. Wherever the exact balance of blame lies, it is directed at the major powers in the security council rather than the UN as an institution. UN agencies such as the high commission for refugees and the World Food Programme are widely agreed to have performed as well as could be expected in Syria, hampered by severe restrictions on access and a critical lack of emergency funding from donors. However, Richard Gowan, an expert on the UN at New York University, said the security council had been effective on other fronts. "The paradox is that while the council has been paralysed over Syria, it has worked pretty efficiently on other issues this year. It has headed off a war between Sudan and South Sudan, and has provided a lot of co-ordination of peacekeeping operations in Africa. In Libya, it has helped the creation of the post-Gaddafi state," Gowan said, adding that, notwithstanding the ominous echoes over Syria: "We are not back in the cold war." But he admitted: "Everything else is absolutely overshadowed by Syria. Let there be no doubt that for many countries the Syrian crisis is really corroding high-level trust in the security council. And what is really looming on the horizon is a crisis over Iran."
User reviews: Overwhelmingly Positive (7,578 reviews) Release Date: Sep 8, 2010 Buy Amnesia: The Dark Descent HOLIDAY SALE! Offer ends January 2 Packages that include this game Buy Amnesia Collection HOLIDAY SALE! Offer ends January 2 Recommended By Curators Read the full review here. About This Game It is getting closer. Something emerges out of the darkness. It's approaching. Fast. Do you have what it takes to survive? System Requirements Mac OS X SteamOS + Linux • OS: Windows XP/Vista/7 • Memory: 2 GB • Hard Drive: 3GB • OS: Mac OS X 10.5.8 or newer • Processor: 2.0Ghz • Memory: 1 GB RAM • Hard Drive: 2GB space free • Memory: 2 GB • Hard Drive: 3 GB Helpful customer reviews 354 of 388 people (91%) found this review helpful 9.5 hrs on record Posted: October 26 Get Amnesia they said, it will be fun they said. Was this review helpful? Yes No 256 of 285 people (90%) found this review helpful 31.2 hrs on record Posted: October 3 I was constipated all week. Then i played this game. Would recommend this game to anyone with severe bowel movement disfuctions Was this review helpful? Yes No 239 of 269 people (89%) found this review helpful 10.2 hrs on record Posted: September 30 Pros: Not scary when there's no monsters nearby. Cons: There's monsters everywhere. Was this review helpful? Yes No 261 of 303 people (86%) found this review helpful 4.1 hrs on record Posted: October 17 -Recipe for playing this game- - 1 cozy blanket (2 is also good) - 1 computer or laptop - 1 installed Amnesia game - 2 nice chairs - 1 Dark room - 1 willing boyfriend who has experience with the game - 1 pillow or stuffed animal to hug (or the arm of the boyfriend, but he might disagree about that when he got puncture wounds from your nails after the first jumpscare) 1. Start up the computer, it may take a while depending on how good your system is. Use the startup time to go on a treasure hunt for the other ingredients. Also make sure that the room is dark enough. 2. Persuade your boyfriend to play Amnesia. It could be that he declines, if so, capture him with a Pokéball. 3. Wrap yourself and the boyfriend in a blanket and sit in the chairs in front of the Computer. 4. Now it's safe to start Amnesia, make sure you keep your distance. 5. Let the boyfriend play it, specially when he is experienced with the game, just sit back and ask silly questions which he probably already gave the answer to but you were too spooked to listen. 6. Enjoy! Was this review helpful? Yes No 134 of 141 people (95%) found this review helpful 3.8 hrs on record Posted: November 5 Click for Gameplay Trailer - Review + detailed equipped rooms + right light atmosphere - simple architecture + good introduction to the game with help text + automatic notebook + objects stand out + many automatic save points + great surround effects + good english speaker + atmospheric music - not all texts has voice output + clean inventar + interface does not disturb the atmosphere - sometimes complicated + great tense situations + panic and helplessness + good switching between quiet and haunted passages Game Size: + solid playtime + many different locations + 3 endings + 1 secret ending + nice physic puzzle - not replayable Amnesia: The Dark Descent is to date, the only game that has ever scared me. Not scared as in a short burst of shock, but in a heart-pounding, sweat-inducing, I need to stop playing so I can calm down kind of scared. The player takes the role of Daniel, the main character who wakes up in a dark castle with no memory of who he is or why he's there. That's the entire setup, and the simplicity of this concept lends itself brilliantly to the sense of isolation that Amnesia conveys so well. Completely alone in the castle, Daniel must contend with all the things going bump in the night on his own, with no map and completely unarmed save for a lantern. It understands that the imagined far outweighs the known in its psychological punch, and it gives you enough audio and visual cues to imagine a very carnival of horrors. This is every part the worthy successor, with considerably higher production values, bags more atmosphere, and a deeper exploration of the parallel themes of horror and insanity. There's not a weapon in sight: it's all about the puzzles, exploiting the neat physics engine, combining items to apply to the environment, and hiding when the nasties come. Spooky, shadowy castle rooms add to the uncanny feeling that something awful is about to happen any second. Most of the rooms provide subtle chills, through the presence of ruined walls, smashed-open ceilings letting in rain, and lone candles sputtering in the middle of lonely cellar chambers. Going insane comes with interesting visual effects as well, including smearing colors, teetering camera angles, and bugs crawling across the screen. You never know what's really there. Spend too long in the gloaming, and madness beckons. As Daniel's sanity starts to stutter, imagination plays merry hell. Insects skitter across your vision, the input-lag between mouse-gesture and action goes to hell, the ground lurches sickeningly, and you'll hear things – whispers, cries and horrid noises, one of which can only be described as someone pulling crabs apart. Actually solving the puzzles shouldn't be too difficult for anyone who's played adventure games before. Despite the bizarre and often disturbing states of the sewers, morgues, and downright revolting torture chambers later on, the solutions often require you to collect a few objects and combine and apply them in simple ways. The game makes this easily manageable by confining solutions to set areas, meaning you don't need to worry about backtracking all the way to the start of the game if near the end you worry that a particular puzzle might require an overlooked item. This is one of the scariest games in recent memory. The loading screen recommends you turn the lights off and play with headphones, something I'll strongly echo. It was without a doubt one of the most difficult, draining, and stressful gaming experiences I have ever had, but it's also an absolute masterpiece. Your help is greatly appreciated :) My Curator Page:Sub My Steam Group:GameTrailers and Reviews My YouTube Channel:Steam Reviews Was this review helpful? Yes No 120 of 129 people (93%) found this review helpful 35.7 hrs on record Posted: November 12 By far, the strongest laxative ever made. Was this review helpful? Yes No 84 of 89 people (94%) found this review helpful 8.2 hrs on record Posted: October 26 Similar to the Penumbra games, Amnesia: TDD is all about atmosphere and storytelling. The biggest difference between the two series is that Amnesia does include more of the classic horror induced moments of being chased and hunted. Not that Penumbra didn't have a bit of that, but I'd say in Amnesia, there were specific moments designed to inject some action. Overall however, the game is paced similarly. I could wander about, sip some coffee, read my notes and mementos and take in my surroundings. This may sound casual but what Amnesia succeeds in doing is creating a sense of dread. Brennenburg Castle is a miserable place and rarely do you find yourself feeling too comfortable. When an enemy does discover you and then gives chase, it is probably one of the more scary moments I've experienced in a game. The music, the blurriness of your view, the sound of the monster chasing you...not to mention, when you do finally get behind a closed door and find a hiding spot, you then get to watch as the door is violently brought down into pieces. All you can do is hope you're not spotted as you stare at the wall (there is a "sanity" element if you're new to these games). IRL, I am guilty of some audible "gasping" during these moments. During one particular chase I couldn't find an adequate path to get away from my pursuer and let out a frightened yelp that I am ashamed to even admit. Though, it is important to mention that I allowed the game to get under my skin purely because it was better that way. I could have played it and completely steeled myself from letting it get to me (e.g. left the lights on, lowered the sound, casually approached the objectives), but what's fun about that? For me, nothing. As far as the story is concerned, I felt compelled to move forward to find the next clue. I could feel a bit of excitement (or perhaps it's better described as relief) every time I saw a new note to read or completed a puzzle. Naturally I won't reveal any spoilers just in case someone does read this review. I must emphasize that this is not a game full of jump scares and over the top gore. With that being said, there are some very disturbing scenes that you come across. I walk away from this game still thinking about some of what I experienced. Not just from the imagery but the story in general. Per the recommendation from the developers when you first start the game, play with the lights off, don't worry about saving and allow the story to drive you forward. Was this review helpful? Yes No 125 of 149 people (84%) found this review helpful 66.9 hrs on record Posted: October 7 All the dead people have real ding dongs, ten outa ten! Was this review helpful? Yes No 104 of 127 people (82%) found this review helpful 58.7 hrs on record Posted: October 9 The only person who is not naked in this game is you. 10/10 would stand on a pile of dead naked men again. Was this review helpful? Yes No 39 of 39 people (100%) found this review helpful 38.8 hrs on record Posted: October 6 I actually do reviews for games on Giant Bomb and PC Gamer... and one game I have trouble reviewing is Amnesia Dark Decent. It's not that I'm indecisive it's just, I can't find the proper words to ever describe this game. You couldn't possibly understand what this game means to me. You might like it and the horror genre would say it's a great game but to me it's more. This game single handedly restored my faith in horror games and got me playing them again. After Resident Evil 5/6 and after Silent Hill Homecoming and Downpour I stopped. Stopped playing, stopped reading up on, stopped caring about horror games. Resident Evil I saw coming but Silent Hill too? This mass appeal mindless action ♥♥♥♥♥♥*t needs to stop. Survival horror was the genre that got me into gaming and then I saw the genre just up and leave us fans for more sales from the Call of Duty players. Action is where it's at? As the head developer for Resi 6 said "Survival Horror games are no longer popular, we needed a new direction and new ideas" well guess what... Amnesia proved Survival Horror still has plenty of new ideas to bring to the genre and proved that the genre is not dead. Amnesia is art.... it's artwork crafted by brilliant minds. Look past all the fun scary chases and the jumpscares, just look at the game. A first person game that doesn't have weapons? Yeah imagine that. You hide and run from monsters, much like people would do in real life. But if you break down the level design, the choice of imagery, the methodically detailed environments. You will see true beauty within. If I may quote some negative reviews here "water monster wasn't all that great of an enemy, he doesn't even have a character design. It's lazy...." yes they had limited resources however this isn't lazy design choices. The fact that you cannot see the water monster is more terrifying than any other creature in the game. It plays off your imagination, the fear of the unknown. Your mind subconsciously filled the blank with your worst fear which gave this monster so much memorability. The water monster is one of the most memorable moments, everyone talks about it and that's the reason. After such a horrifying experience with the water monster, what happens? You walk into a well light room with a fountain that supplies the calming sound of running water, a hole in the ceiling with light seeping through (one of the first times you see the light of day in this game), beautiful music plays softly in the background and the room has a tint of blue in the air. This is no randomly designed room, no this is a reward. This is saying "Hey you made it through that horrible experience, breathe relax a bit. You deserve it" and that is something I haven't seen before. No stupid achievement unlocked, no legendary loot, no high score and no misspelled CONGRADURATIONS. In a game that plays on your fear and emotions, they reward with such. They made you crap your pants, now they're making you feel relaxed. And that means more than any achievement. The story is rich and it plays along with the tension in the game. The enemies aren't scary on the level of a jumpscare but rather the fear of being chased. Jumpscares are cheap thrills, true fear is much harder to achieve in a gamer and much more satisfying for the gamer. They accomplish this in many ways. Never knowing what danger lurks beyond the glow of your lamp, the dark abyss continuously hunts you down, the monsters are not just some scary looking monsters for the sake of "boo look at me I'm scary" they're people you tortured and sacrificed for your own safety against the darkness, their disfigured bodies are representations of the guilt you bare in the deepest parts of your conscious despite suffering Amnesia you still feel it, led astray by someone you thought you could trust, no escape or easy way out the only path is down and it's bathed in darkness as you descend slowly into your past with each step you lost sanity, walls are shaking, the crackling sound of your own mind is louder than your beating heart as you're chased by a horrifying disfigured creature you created, the sound of screeching can be heard when they're getting closer letting you know how close you are to death. Oh... jeez I... I can go on and on about this game. Hell I want too... but if this gets any longer it will be considered a novel. The best thing I can say about this game? Play it... please. I beg you if you're a fan of horror games, if you like being scared, if you like a good story or immersion or hell if you just want to play a damn good game; play this game! This is without a doubt my favorite game of all time. The favorite game, not one of. That's hard to say, but it's true. I never game 10 out of 10. I always made fun of other reviewers who did, saying no game is perfect. 10 out of 10 is saying it's the masterpiece of all gaming and cannot be improved in any way, shape or form. However, I've seen my mistake. You don't give it a 10 based on some score that means nothing to anyone else other than you. You're giving it a 10 based on the experience the game gave you. And based on that, Amnesia The Dark Decent was given my very first 10 out of 10. Was this review helpful? Yes No 56 of 67 people (84%) found this review helpful 11.7 hrs on record Posted: July 27 "My name name is...........Daniel" and that's the start to this dark and totally engrossing horror game that grab's you by the scruff of the neck and refuse's to let go of you until you have finished it and seen all the horror's that it has to offer. This is one game i had on my radar for a long time and one i had heard a lot about,either written or from friend's who have played it and the word's "CLASSIC" and "GENRE DEFINING" have been mentioned on more than one occasion. But i allways take this with a pinch of salt and allways make up my own mind,but trust me when i say that the two phrase's that i just mentioned dont do this game justice as it is both of these and so much more. Amnesia: The Dark Descent - Trailer - YouTube You start to play not knowing much other than your name and that for some reason you are here to do something that will affect not only your life but that of other's as well,and as the game progress'es you will come to learn not only the nature for your being here but that of the scream's that haunt the castle you find yourself stuck in. And that's all i will say on the story of the game as you should find the secret's this game hold's and the many twist's it take's on your own as nothing is more horrifying or scary as not only hearing but witnessing these thing's for yourself first hand instead of after the fact. The sound and music in game is top notch and really help's in setting that "OH MY GOD" type atmosphere that a lot of games like this seem to lack,this is down to the work of the composer Mikko Tarmia without who's music the game would (to be honest) not have the impact it does. He is currently working on Frictional Game's next project SOMA which i for one am waiting for with eager anticipation!!!! Amnesia The Dark Descent - Soundtrack - (Mikko Termia) - 04 All the spoken dialogue in game is delivered to perfection as well by the voice cast and some of it just has to be heard to be believed as to how good it actually is (and for a game like this that's all about delivering a powerfull story that's what was needed,not some half baked ham handed attempt-"HAMMER HORROR" movie's anyone). The gameplay range's from puzzle solving (finding items that are laying around in the castle) which can be quite frustrating as some puzzle's can be quite offbeat to running and hiding from the monstrositie's that pervade in this dark and forboding castle from hade's (a lot has been said lately about game's using this mechanic but here it suits the game and makes it more nerve wracking to play). Amnesia The Dark Descent: Closet Hiding! - YouTube So would you like this game and the answer is yes if you are looking for a classic and one of the best game's the horror genre of games has ever had to offer but if you are not one for this type of game and want something a little more action packed instead of full of story and an interesting and horrific tale then i would look elswhere. Was this review helpful? Yes No 47 of 54 people (87%) found this review helpful 2.8 hrs on record Posted: November 19 You go insane after looking at bald, naked men. What even. Was this review helpful? Yes No 24 of 25 people (96%) found this review helpful 7.8 hrs on record Posted: November 17 Your enjoyment of Amnesia: The Dark Descent hinges almost entirely on what you expect to get out of it. As a horror game, certainly what it’s advertised and probably considered by most to be, it shockingly comes across as rather...uninteresting. It does an amazing job setting a tense, foreboding atmosphere, layering on copious amounts of disturbing exposition and twisted imagery. And then sort of throws it away when it attempts to bring it all to boiling point and scare you out of your wits, relying on a sluggish, rather dimwitted monster which is rather less than frightening and scare tactics which all too quickly become predictable. The sense of dread I felt when I first awoke in the mysterious castle that makes up Amnesia, was lost after just a few hours, as it became dreadfully easy to guess exactly when and how the game would attempt to scare me, no matter how much I kept hoping that it would reject my expectations. Picking up key items, opening a particularly unappealing door, or finding a note; Amnesia’s list of triggers is short and used liberally, making for an experience that quite frankly left me a bit annoyed at how little it managed to get to me. I was practically begging to be scared by the end, but aside from a few very brief standout sections Amnesia almost does more to set you at ease than it does to freak you out. I say all this, and yet, Amnesia is still immensely compelling as something completely atypical of what I would have guessed: a traditional adventure game. Behind the gruesome imagery and very effective atmosphere, the excellent puzzle designs and exploration were what kept me intrigued and wanting to come back to the game. Though they’re often simple in design, there’s a rewarding logic to each puzzle that makes them unexpectedly enjoyable to solve. Frictional Games manages to make blind exploration and continual backtracking interesting and continually stimulating, with each area you visit being visually distinct and engaging, and often holding within contextual exposition that creates a great sense of place and causes the castle to feel far larger than just the areas you explore. When you’re not solving puzzles, the disorganized narrative compels you forward, leaving you vague notes that give just enough information to make you want to learn more while rarely telling you the whole story until the very end. Finding the details of this plot are often disturbing and thoroughly unpleasant, leaving me feeling rather mixed about my protagonists actions but nonetheless complacent as I couldn’t leave this story unfinished. The flashbacks/hallucinations that your character often witnesses gives a look into how the castle used to operate, horribly inhumane and driven by some mysterious supernatural element, but all the same a place I wanted to learn more about if only so I could make sense of my character’s madness. This madness is perhaps the game’s strongest achievement, distorting the world around you and causing you to see things that may very well not be there. Staying too long in the dark wears on your sanity, requiring you to ransack every room you come across so you can be sure to have enough oil for your lantern and tinderboxes to light candles and torches. I was a bit disappointed that these resources came in such large supply, as it made darkness less of a threat and more of an occasional hindrance to your view, but the mechanic was still engaging enough to cause me to pay more attention to the environment and as a result find things I may otherwise have missed. It’s a little funny to me that despite being let down by the aspect that I expected would have prevented me from even finishing the game, what I found underneath it proved more than enough to push me through the game. If you’re hoping Amnesia will leave you terrified and sleeping with the lights on, you’ll most likely be let down by the underdeveloped, somewhat lazy frights found here. But if you can appreciate the game without those prerequisites, there’s an eerie and twisted adventure game waiting to swallow you whole into its brilliantly realized darkness. Was this review helpful? Yes No 35 of 44 people (80%) found this review helpful 1.0 hrs on record Posted: July 10 get chased by a bunch of bondage enthusiasts through an abandoned disney funhouse Was this review helpful? Yes No 26 of 31 people (84%) found this review helpful 0.8 hrs on record Posted: October 12 one of the greatest mind messing games i've ever played, and that is while i played it during the day, and at night a total nightmare , the sounds and atmosphere created will have you quivering in your onesies Was this review helpful? Yes No 20 of 21 people (95%) found this review helpful 13.9 hrs on record Posted: October 4 I enjoyed this game a lot! For the right atmosphere it is utterly important that you play it with headphones on in a totally dark room. If you don't, you are missing out. Recommended for all fans of the horror genre. Was this review helpful? Yes No 24 of 30 people (80%) found this review helpful 65.2 hrs on record Posted: November 5 The best horror game ive ever played. :D Was this review helpful? Yes No 15 of 15 people (100%) found this review helpful 25.2 hrs on record Posted: October 29 Amnesia : The Dark Descent is a blend of adventure game elements such as exploration and physic based puzzles in a horror themed environment. They complement each other well, as the places you wander through get gradually more terrifying, the fairly unconvoluted riddles help you ease the tension that can become almost unbearable at times. This is where this game shines, the pace is skillfully mastered, even if you have difficulties persisting in horror games you might very well finish this one. The design is tighly knot around exploration, lightening candles and torches to ward off the darkness, finding the scattered pieces of the story and a death mechanic inconsequential to your progress. The game manages to fill you both with a sense of curiosity as you descent further into the abyss to unravel its mysteries, and a sense of dread to what awaits you in its darkest recesses. You won't be disappointed by its climax. Amnesia : The Dark Descent is a very enjoyable and rewarding experience, yet a highly unpleasant one, reaching that difficult balance each horror game aims to find. It lasts 7 to 8 hours, and there is the possibility to play custom stories, which I might review here as I go through them. Was this review helpful? Yes No 14 of 14 people (100%) found this review helpful 11.6 hrs on record Posted: October 30 Very atmospheric, very scary. Definitley play alone, in a dark room, with headphones on. If you're looking to be scared, you won't be disappointed. Was this review helpful? Yes No 47 of 75 people (63%) found this review helpful 11.3 hrs on record Posted: November 2 0/10 not enough tinderboxes. Was this review helpful? Yes No
cover art White Rat Gayl Jones (Harlem Moon) As a writer, Gayl Jones is a canny recorder of verbal communication. All of the 12 stories which compose White Rat are told in the first person, and each character presents a different voice. Every bit of exposition is filtered through dialogue. As such, there’s very little attention paid in these stories to anything but people: the things they do, the things they think and the things they say to each other. To a large degree many elements of these stories, elements such as setting and even in certain instances the narrators’ identities, are left intentionally vague and unresolved. The reader is left no choice but to construct these stories themselves out of nothing but the raw materials provided by Jones, that of people’s utterly subjective narration. How the reader arranges these elements in their own mind can be a particularly revealing exercise, shining a light on unexamined prejudices, in particular in relation to the way speech is used to define—and obscure—identity. Gayl Jones is a black woman, and this fact is an absolutely inescapable element of her work. Like Zora Neale Hurston (with whom she is inevitably compared), Jones is a connoisseur of dialect. Allowing her characters to reveal themselves almost exclusively through their speech, she unpacks a potent and surprisingly dense field of subtext through the varying degrees in which these voices present an accurate or inaccurate view of reality. A lot of it has to do with subverting readers’ expectations, and doing so in such a way as to cause them to question their own assumptions about how racial identity is defined through language. From the very beginning, Jones telegraphs her preoccupation with the liminal spaces where racial identity is defined. The first story, “White Rat”, is told by a black man who, because of his pale skin, can easily pass for, and is often mistaken for white. The “white rat” defines his blackness very simply: his family is black, his parents are black, therefore he is black. Similarly, the narrators in “The Women” and “Jevata” are easily defined by their speech and their behavior—perhaps, the wary reader thinks, too easily. Jones’ mastery of black southern dialect brings the reader uncomfortably close to a tacit understanding of linguistic differences as shorthand for racial barriers. It’s such a simple metaphor that one can almost be forgiven for being lulled into a false sense of empathy based solely on the semiotic content of a person’s speech: racial identity solely identified as colorful language (“color” in this instance containing multiple meanings). And then Jones muddies the water. Later stories in the volume are told with far less extravagant diction, in what might be considered a “normal”, almost entirely deracinated dialect. Already attuned to see Jones’ stories as pure reflections of racial identity, the reader is cast adrift when Jones eschews any overt racial signifiers in stories like “The Return: A Fantasy” and “A Quiet Place For The Summer”. Are the characters in these stories black or white? Why does it matter to the reader, why does this become such a compelling question? Because Jones has already created such a definitive image of black identity through dialect, she forces the reader to question the underlying assumptions behind the way language identifies us. When we read a grammatically-neutral first person dialogue with no mention of race, under what assumptions do we assume whether or not the speaker is black or white? If we’re attuned to see everything through a prism of race, how does that distort the readers’ perceptions? Jones explicitly tackles this question in “Your Poems Have Very Little Color In Them”, an examination of the (tacit) expectations created by audiences—in this case, presumably white academic audiences—to tailor the linguistic identity of a speaker or writer. It is not a coincidence that, again, the word “color” can have two different meanings in this context. Color can, and often does, refer to vibrant, allusive language, but it also often means simply the color of a persons skin: identity reduced to cultural shorthand, a reduction that implies the dismissal and not entirely unintentional pidgeonholing of persons based on ethnic identification. In any case, linguistic definitions only serve to make it easier to regard subject persons as objects instead of sentient actors. An old definition of force holds that force is the action that results when one person defines another as merely an object; in this instance, the classifying of persons based on dialectic eccentricity (defined from grammatical “norms”, often resulting from educational deprivation and social ostracism) acts as an unconscious but irresistible force, warping and distorting the lives of those affected. If other people talk differently, they must therefore possess less of what makes us “human”, and should be treated accordingly. Although race is undoubtedly her chief preoccupation, it would be a mistake to dismiss Jones as solely a “black writer” (whatever that means). The facility with which she cleaves through the basic assumptions that underlie our racial identities points to a far more nuanced, and disturbing, picture of humanity. The other main preoccupation of these stories is mental illness. Insanity recurs in “The Return: A Fantasy” and “Asylum”, and a mentally retarded boy narrates “The Coke Factory”. More than merely the way the perception of language frames racial identity, Jones is after the way in which people define their own lives through subjective experience. In regards to race, what effect does poverty and deprivation have on an otherwise rational mind? How exactly do forces of societal disapprobation—institutionalized and socialized racism—warp and distort the lives of those effected? To further confuse the matter, Jones links several of her stories together in such a way that events and persons in one story are revealed in a decidedly different manner elsewhere. Supposedly familiar people become strangers, leading the reader to reexamine almost everything taken for granted or assumed in the course of previous overlapping sections. At its heart, there is something hard and distrustful in Jones’ work. It seeks to probe and question, intentionally overturning preconceived notions in favor of a larger, more quarrelsome but much more accurate understanding. Rather than simply portraying the miseries of poverty, racism, class division and insanity, Jones uproots traditional notions of narrative empathy in the hopes of breaking down a readers’ resistance to tragedy—obscuring the line between subject and object to achieve a greater degree of identification than that provided merely by observing suffering, a passive activity that can be seen as tacit dismissal. Like the best American literature, Jones desires nothing less than to disturb and displace a pacified readership, using the tools of a guerrilla insurgent to place harmful truths behind otherwise settled borders of authorial remove. White Rat isn’t very long but it’s the type of book to which you can look forward to returning many times, unpeeling new layers of meaning behind the facade of prickly hostility with each reading. It’s a violent book, but violence can sometime have a transformative effect. Now on PopMatters PM Picks of PopMatters Media, Inc. PopMatters is wholly independently owned and operated.
Today on Blogcritics Home » TV » TV Review: The Walking Dead – “Pretty Much Dead Already” AMC’s The Walking Dead ends its fall run with “Pretty Much Dead Already,” the seventh episode, with six more to begin in mid-February. In this week’s entry, Rick (Andrew Lincoln) confronts Hershel (Scott Wilson) about the Walkers in the barn, whom Hershel thinks of as people. Hershel considers letting the group stay, as Rick begs, if they will respect his opinions on the undead. But before Rick can appeal to his party, Shane (Jon Bernthal) takes matters into his own hands, leading a slaughter of every zombie in Hershel’s barn. The last Walker out (SPOILER ALERT!) is the little girl the whole group has been searching for: Sophia (Madison Lintz). One interesting, nagging question: why do most zombies stay away from Hershel’s farm, and how is he able to protect it without keeping constant watch? How come only a couple of stragglers get stuck in his swamp? Where are the crowds that decimate surrounding lands? Is there more to this mystery, or is it happy coincidence that he is able to keep his family safe? The Walking Dead spends this entire batch of episode searching for Sophia, only to learn she is a zombie in a barn on the property they are staying at the entire time in “Pretty Much Dead Already.” This isn’t exactly a shocker, since comic book readers already know that Walkers are in the structure, and the barn is within the vicinity that Sophia could be in. It might be assumed, even if not confirmed, that Sophia is one of the captives before this episode. Of course, the one person who would have been able to tip off the group as to Sophia’s whereabouts is killed by Shane before he even knows that they are looking for the lost girl, and Daryl (Norman Reedus) discovers enough clues to keep some off balance. But whether Sophia’s sudden appearance in “Pretty Much Dead Already” is a shocker to you or not, there is much impact in the reveal. Hershel is watching the group kill his family, friends, and neighbors, as he still sees them as such, as Shane and the others shoot the Walkers in the head. These people mean nothing to them. But when Sophia emerges, they all stop shooting. Suddenly, both the main characters and the audience are really given a face to the tragedy of the epidemic. Sophia is not the first actress shown before and after turning zombie in the series, but it is done with such raw emotion, that one cannot help but be moved. Of course, she must die, too, and does. But now none can deny understanding Hershel’s stance on the Walkers, even if they don’t agree, Will Hershel kick the group off of his farm now, since they murder his loved ones, or is he finally seeing the Walkers for what they are? This is a debatable point that will not be answered until February. He is still insisting it’s only a sickness in “Pretty Much Dead Already,” which may someday be cured, as the zombies are released. But he gets a first hand look at a hoard of hungry flesh eaters, and it must be very scary. Also, watching Rick take down one of his own has got to mean something, and maybe Hershel will take pity on the travelers, despite what they do. The people who suffer the most over Sophia’s death are Rick, Carol (Melissa McBride), and Daryl. Carol’s grief is obvious, being Sophia’s mother. Rick takes the loss as a father himself, and the leader who cannot protect everyone. But Daryl’s connection is less obvious. He invests a lot of himself into the search for Sophia, and one cannot help but think that Daryl sees finding Sophia as a chance to really be an appreciated member of the group. Often an outsider, rescuing the missing girl would allow everyone to separate him from his also missing, good-for-nothing brother, as Carol begins to. It also gives him a chance to do something good and selfless, something his brother does not approve of. Sophia’s death is a set back for Daryl, and there is no telling how he will respond to it. Shane is going down a very, very dark path in The Walking Dead. He thinks that he can make the tough choices that Rick can’t, and only be being completely logical and ruthless, does anyone stand a chance to survive. He applies this theory when he kills Otis, and continues to bellow it throughout. He is the one who gets the guns and opens up the barn, even when others try to convince him not to. Can he recover from such bad choices? Yet, Rick is the one who must kill Sophia in “Pretty Much Dead Already.” Despite Shane’s insistence that he is a better protector, Rick saves the group from one of their own. Why doesn’t Shane act first? Might his theory falter when confronted with a living person that he cares about? If so, then maybe he isn’t too far gone to be saved. No one will convince Dale (Jeffrey DeMunn) that Shane is salvageable, though. Dale is the one who tries to hide the guns from Shane, and cautions Andrea (Laurie Holden), who shares sex with Shane, not to follow the former cop down his chosen path. Dale tries to act as father and conscience to everyone, but his biggest challenge is Shane. It isn’t likely that Dale is strong enough to help Shane, given the way that Dale backs down in “Pretty Much Dead Already.” But maybe he can help Andrea see the truth, even if she likes the way that Shane makes her feel, not being a victim anymore. Is Lori’s (Sarah Wayne Callies) baby Shane or Rick’s? Does it matter? Can she ever know for sure? In the world of The Walking Dead, a DNA test to determine paternity will be nearly impossible to come by. Lori’s resolve to raise the baby as Rick’s, no matter what the truth is, also determines that Rick will be the dad, whether he is the biological father or not. Maybe someone can use a calculator after the baby is born to give a good guess. But given Lori’s decision to cut Shane out, as well as Rick’s forgiveness towards his wife for sleeping with Shane, given the circumstances, it probably doesn’t matter anyway which genes the baby has. In the midst of all the darkness in “Pretty Much Dead Already,” love finds a way to bloom. Which is kind of a metaphor for the hope that springs in each character in The Walking Dead, no matter their conditions they endure. Of course, the couple referred to is Maggie (Lauren Cohan) and Glenn (Steven Yeun). Despite Maggie’s insistence that their relationship only be physical, and her anger at Glenn for telling his friends about the barn, the two manage to forge a bond that seems strong. Especially after Glenn expresses some real care for her. Maggie may love Hershel, but she isn’t above questioning him. If the group is allowed to stay on the farm, Maggie will be a big influence in the decision. And she will be so because of how she feels about Glenn. The Walking Dead will return in February to AMC. Powered by About JeromeWetzelTV • Pedro Each episode has way to little action. Getting bored of it. • Randy I find it interesting that Herschel calls the Walkers in the Barn by name, whilst insisting on referring to Glen as “That Asian Boy”. • Boss Pedro- that means you’re probably a kid or young teenager
Gingrich pledges $2.50 gas, Obama: 'it's easy to make phony promises' • close President Barack Obama waves from Air Force One upon arrival at Andrews Air Force Base, Md. on Friday, Feb. 24. View Caption Obama sought to deflect growing Republican attacks over rising prices at the pump, blaming recent increases on a mix of factors beyond his control, including tensions with Iran, hot demand from ChinaIndia and other emerging economies, and Wall Street speculators taking advantage of the uncertainty. Recommended: World's cheapest gas: Top 10 countries In a visit to the University of Miami less than nine months before the presidential election in which he will seek a second term, Obama offered a modest series of proposals aimed at diversifying fuel supplies and increasing energy efficiency. Obama's speech was part of a broader White House strategy to try to regain the upper hand in the debate and deflect blame, but the president's arguments may fall on deaf ears if gas prices continue to rise and cause financial pain for voters. Republicans have made rising gas prices one of their main attack lines against Obama, sensing an electoral vulnerability for the president. His re-election prospects depend in part on his ability to keep a fragile economic recovery afloat and to continue reducing high unemployment. Republicans seeking to dislodge Obama from the White House are seeking to pin the higher prices on the president's tax and environmental policies they say have hindered domestic production and kept the United States at the mercy of imports. They cite his decision to block the Keystone pipeline that would transport Canadian oil to refineries in Texas as proof he is beholden to environmentalists . The Obama administration has delayed a final decision on Keystone until after the election, saying the proposed route could pose a danger to water supply in the nation's breadbasket. Obama needs to win the war of words to gain an upper hand over Republicans in Western battleground states including Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico, where people drive a lot and feel the sting of rising prices acutely. Gasoline prices have climbed alongside crude futures, the major component in determining the price of gasoline, due to concerns about a potential disruption of supplies from Iran, which is locked in a standoff with the West overTehran's disputed nuclear program. U.S. crude prices have jumped 9 percent this year, nearing $108 a barrel on Thursday, the highest level since May, 2011. As gasoline prices become an increasingly important election issue, Republicans are scrambling to prove they can offer relief. On Wednesday, Republican candidate Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House of Representatives, promised gasoline prices of $2.50 a gallon if he won the White House. While Obama said he had asked officials to look for opportunities to help consumers in the short term - in areas such as permitting and delivery bottlenecks - he repeated there would be no "silver bullet" for America's energy crunch, and said real change would come only in the long run. The trio of proposals announced in Miami included a $30 million competition in natural gas technologies and a $14 million program to development algae-based fuel. Obama highlighted steps already taken to expand domestic production and improve fuel efficiency. He also repeated calls to roll back tax incentives for the oil industry and urged renewal of a clean energy tax credit in Congress, where lawmakers are deeply divided and little legislative action is expected this year. His remarks were met with disdain from top Republicans. "Facing an election, the President would like everyone to forget that gas prices have doubled over the past three years while he consistently blocked and slowed the production of American-made energy," said Brendan Buck, a spokesman for John Boehner, the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives. While Republicans blame high oil prices on actions such as Obama's Keystone pipeline decision, an oil boom led by North Dakota is expected to push U.S. crude output this year to its highest level since 1999. Lawmakers from Obama's own party are asking him to take steps to ease the price pressure in the short term. Democratic lawmakers on Wednesday urged the White House to signal it is ready to tap the country's strategic petroleum reserve, which contains about 696 million barrels of oil. Obama made no mention of taking that step in his speech. Share this story: Make a Difference Follow Stories Like This Get the Monitor stories you care about delivered to your inbox.
[an error occurred while processing this directive] BBC News Launch consoleBBC News in video and audio Last Updated: Sunday, 25 March 2007, 09:34 GMT 10:34 UK Welsh links to slavery abolition Iolo Morganwg Poet Iolo Morganwg was an anti-slavery campaigner First Minister Rhodri Morgan has called for Wales to remember its contribution to the anti-slavery movement. He said the abolitionist cause was taken up by working class people and eminent figures like poet Iolo Morganwg and preacher John Elias. Mr Morgan also highlighted the links between the industrial revolution in Wales and profits from the slave trade. Events are being held across Wales on Sunday to mark the 200th anniversary of the abolition of slavery in Britain. Mr Morgan warned against pointing the finger of blame for slavery at others. "What we must guard against is smug self-satisfaction," he said. "While the slave trade is mainly associated with the ports of Bristol, London and Liverpool, it must be remembered that the Welsh industrial revolution and profits from the slave trade went hand in hand." It is an opportunity to demand to know why slavery still exists in some parts of the world today Rhodri Morgan Cyfarthfa Ironworks in Merthyr Tydfil, south Wales were founded by slave trader Anthony Bacon and historians believe its success was built on the profits of the slave trade. The fortune gained from slave plantations in Jamaica by their owner Richard Pennant was crucial to his development of the slate industry and Penrhyn Castle in north Wales, it has also been claimed. He was also an anti-abolitionist MP. "Welsh planters, agents and sea captains were directly involved, and ships used in the trade were built at Cardiff, Newport and Swansea," Mr Morgan added. "Many ordinary working-class people were also indirectly connected - the seamen on the ships and the workers employed by the slave owners and industrialists." But he also had praise for the people who took up the abolitionist cause in the last quarter of the 18th century, including preacher John Elias from Anglesey, who spoke out against slavery in Britain's biggest slave port, Liverpool. And poet Iolo Morganwg, founder of the Gorsedd of Bards, who was an anti-slavery campaigner. Moral conviction Mr Morgan also highlighted the work of Robert Everett from Flintshire, north Wales, who encouraged the Welsh in America to join the abolition campaign. The Abolition of Slave Trade Act, which made it illegal to trade slaves throughout the British Empire and banned British ships from involvement in the trade, was passed by British Parliament on 25 March 1807. Mr Morgan said the bicentenary was an important opportunity to reflect on the struggles of the past and to pay tribute to the courage and moral conviction of all those - black and white - who campaigned for its abolition. "It is an opportunity to demand to know why slavery still exists in some parts of the world today," he said. An event in St David's Hall, Cardiff entitled 'Valuing Freedom', will be one of a number of bicentenary events in Wales and the rest of the UK. Slavery: The Welsh Connections is on BBC Radio Wales, 25 March and 1 April at 1330 GMT and both are repeated the following Monday at 1800 GMT. Slave painting goes on view again 24 Mar 07 \| North East Wales Brutality of Picton past examined 20 Mar 07 \| South West Wales Has China's housing bubble burst? How the world's oldest clove tree defied an empire Why Royal Ballet principal Sergei Polunin quit Americas Africa Europe Middle East South Asia Asia Pacific
Cyclists' GPS system uses music to guide you +VIDEO It's called 'Oh Music Where Art Thou' and the designers claim it makes navigation fun by nick_rearden September 12, 2011 Oh Music Where Art Thou.jpg A group of students from the Netherlands is working on a development that combines existing GPS data and the music on a mobile device to steer you towards your destination without onscreen arrows or voice commands. The four User System Interaction trainees from Eindhoven University of Technology have designed their variation of a GPS navigation system in combination with a small portable computer, in this case an Android-based smart phone, along with a pair of headphones to help cyclists navigate without distraction from the road ahead. The system named 'Oh Music Where Art Thou?' relies on the human brain's ability to detect tiny differences in audio balance between the left and right ears and the students have worked on artificially altering the perceived direction of this stereo image audio to guide the user to a predefined location. "At the moment the prototype only works for predetermined locations," the team's Daniel Tetteroo told the technology website Gizmag. "However, we are busy developing it into a full application that supports navigation to basically any place in the world. The finished application will be available soon through the Android market. Some of us have already used the limited application in real life and we're very enthusiastic about the concept. It's not just that it is an intuitive and easy way to navigate; it also has a certain fun-factor to it. More adventurous than just following direct instructions which turns to take, as you can just choose directions yourself, and still end up at your final destination." At we're aware that the cycling world is strongly divided on the issue of music-on-the-move, many arguing with some justification that environmental sound is not only a large part of the pleasure of cycling but also a potential life-saver amongst the hurly burly of city traffic or even (especially!) out in the lanes. We've been carrying out our own experiments with an app called Awareness! which uses, in our case, an iPhone's microphone to detect sounds above a predetermined level to mix in the potentially useful sound of an approching car, say, while reducing the music level. It seems to us the combination of the two apps might eventually be interesting, not least when they work on the same platform. 1 user comments Oldest firstNewest firstBest rated Nice idea but gives absolutely no consideration to hearing impaired riders. I have tinnitus in my left ear that reduces my hearing at higher frequencies by 30dB SPL (5 times quieter than my right ear). I cannot wear headphones for any length of time. A friend of mine has an issue with the bones in his ears that they are disintegrating. (he has had surgery to replace the ones in his right ear) and his hearing is greatly impaired in his left. Also, this encourages people to wear headphones when riding which reduces their awareness of their surroundings. zanf's picture posted by zanf [603 posts] 13th September 2011 - 10:52
The return of Silvio Berlusconi Mamma mia Italians may come to regret electing Silvio Berlusconi once again See article Readers' comments While the Economist has not always been right on everything, reading this article reminds me why I've been a subscriber of the Economist for the last 25 years. Belrusconi's picture in this article, depicts a facial expression and demeanor, that speaks louder than the article itself. Now, the onus is Belrusconi's to prove the Economist wrong, 'casue till then, like the Economist, myself and millions of Italians still believe, that Berlusconi is not fit to lead or govern. Serenissimo, Maurizio if you read the Economist that should probably mean that you are actively looking for grounded and objective opinions. Honestly, things that this newspaper has been quite successful in delivering. So, what have you read in the past years? Just the advertisements? You guys don't get it. The man is simply unfit! He should not be there! Beyond the evident reasons the Economist puts forward, there is the fact that the man did nothing to grow and liberalise the italian economy in the 2001-2006 term. Again, what do you read? Where do you look for information? There are tons of data that show his government did ZERO to reform and modernize the country. He spent the time to solve his personal issues. Again, what do you rely upon to make your opinions? Saying that the alternatives are worse is not an argument, as the man should not be there. I am one of those italians who left the country in the recent years, disgusted by him and by those who keep on believing to his burlesque promises. You will never find a mention of these italians in your "free" press. I don't believe that The Economist or any one else is implying that Italians who voted for Berlusconi are stupid. Unwise, scared, and cowards perhaps, would be more appropriate nouns. I put the name of Barak Obama , yes I know.., on the voting ballots after crossing all the other names, because none of the politicians on the list in the voting papers, are competent to introduce the reforms necessary to make the "Made in Italy" products competitive overseas, and improve the living standards that Italy so much deserves. Labor, pension, fiscal, bureaucratic, political, REFORMS are needed to bring Italy in line with the G7 countries.I'm skeptical that Berlusconi III will succeed, he lacks the balls to bring forward these badly needed reform. During Berlusconi II regime, he had a tremendous oppotunity with his larger Parliamentary majority to chance everything, and lost it. Instead Berlusconi II and his cronies were enriching themselves further, while the average Italian family's living standard declined. So,Italy became the laughing stock of every conversation amongst the dinner tables of Europe. Berlusconi's propensity to say cazzate ,gaffe, solidified the prevalent notion that Italy is not a serious European partner.The economic challenges facing Berlusconi III are more dire than when he started Berlusconi II, a lot stake is here. Failure to address these economic challenges, Italy could loose it place in the G7 club, also it could risk its ejection ( this would please Bossi) from the Euro zone, and cement Italy into a second tier status within the EU. As we ALL love Italy, lets us wish Berlusconi III good luck, as for my self, I'll keep praying, and my fingers crossed. Dear Oldwisdom,Do you have a name to suggest in place of Berlusconi that would be good for Italy?We'd appreciate to know your ideas... A wise man by the name of Indro Montanelli, definitely not left oriented, once said that the Italians needed to be vaccinated against Berlusconi, therefore needed to try him once before deciding to cross him out. Sadly, Montanelli underestimated the ability of Berlusconi to dupe the crowds with his ill sense of humour a subtle use of communication. Also, he overestimated the ability of the Italians to understand when they are being screwed by a clown full of hot air. Did he not marginally lower taxes at the expense of logal governments, did he not increase deficits and national debts... etc... etc? What a saviour! To those that voted him, on the basis of having no viable alternative, here is a thought on just one case that reveals the mentality of your man: are you prepared to put more public money into Alitalia, a company that failed despite huge public subsidies and is by all means out of the market? Just consider Berlusconi's attitude on this case and ask yourself if this is the champion of liberalism that you want in your wallet for the next five years. I am afraid he is already in people's underpants, so perhaps shifting to their wallet is an improvement. Your choice... Even if I did not vote for Berlusconi, I agree with Maurizio! Italians are not stupid. Simply, they have fear and don't risk enough: it's a pity, but it's perfectly rational. Supply-side reforms are necessary but menace all insiders: professionals, for-life full-time workers, olygopolist entrepreneurs like Berlusconi himself! So many people prefer stay relatively poor but secure!! And stop, please, stop, stop stop to offend dozens of millions of people simply for having a different opinion from yours! You don't seem living in a democratic world!!!! Maurizio, I'm one of the millions Italian mafiosi that voted for Berlusconi as well...What stupid people we must be! Dear SirsI am one of those millions of people that voted for Silvio Berlusconi, blinded by his TV network and by his grip on Italy's media. Given that I am completely stupid and, together with some other millions of Italian mafiosi, I have no clear knowledge of my interests, I will gone on reading your kind magazine and the interesting reader%u2019s comments that bring so vast inspiration to my narrow mind. I'm not sure if the comments received so far come from real Italian people, or just people that know about Italy only from the Economist.You guys don't like Berlusconi and I might agree with that, but what real alternative did we have?Veltroni? Wasn't he a sponsor of the Prodi government?I think the real problem of Italy is that we have more than half of the Country that contributes almost nothing to development of Italy since the end of the second World war.Not even the great statist of the World would have a chance to get something done in Italy.... for stillme - in the last 50 years (13 competitions) 7 went to South America and 6 to Western Europe. Argentina and Italy both won twice. :-\|Is football an opium of the masses, an escape from the chill winds of competition?Has South America had the same corruption issues in professional football as Italy?For Italy - here's hoping (yet again) "He will lead Rome to the ruins and the Romans will love him for this" (Gladiator by Oliver Scott, 2000) Quote:"This year Italy's GDP per head has fallen below the EU average for the first time. Next year, it will fall below Greece, after being overtaken by Spain in 2006."Italy won the World Cup in 2006, why should they worry? :-) Rather that make reforms, Berlusconi will ruin the Italian financial situation by lowering taxes without amministration expenditures decrease and structural expenditures reforms. The italian public debt will blow again...How it is possible that the Italian left wing parties have always such a work to do in equilibrateing public finance after every Berluskoni's legislature end? It is easy to lower taxes without financial cover,it is not responsable and socially descructive. I am so glad that you have stuck to your gun and you have hit the nail on the head in your analysis of Silvio Berlusconi's fantastic electoral success.Mr Berlusconi keeps on repeating that he is a liberal but he did not carry out any major liberalisations during his previous full term government when he also had a large majority in both houses of parliament.Moreover, his Finance Minister Giulio Tremonti and the Lega Nord partners are mostly anti-globalisation, anti-free trade and Euro sceptics.So let us hope for a miracle for the good of Italy and its citizens! Berlusconi's slogan "I love Italy, I fly Alitalia" will be a good test of his conviction in free trade and market economy. Italians who supported Berlusconi were clearly upset by foreign news papers like the Economist's interference into Italians domestic politics. Accusing this news paper and others of communism, arrogance, and lack of understanding of Italians politics and Italians. Ironically these sane Italians fail to understand that Italy is part of Europe and has to adhere to treaties and obligations for the privilege to belong to the EU.Berlusconi personifies the puerile nationalism and "Italy for Italians" only immaturity that most insecure Italians exude, without realizing that Italy without Europe will join the banana republics club. Ok, now that this clown is back in power, everyone should give him a chance to do something meaningful. The first thing would be to let Alitalia collapse and allowed another European carrier set up hubs at Milan-Malpensa or Rome-Fiumicino. Italy really needs a Margaret Thatcher (someone con le palle quadrate) to take on the vested interest and uproot all what ails Italy. Otherwise, it will all be a huge waste of time, money, and effort. Kenosha Kid I really cannot believe this jackass is back. I feel like the rest of the world felt when W was re-elected in 2004-as in I want to ask an actual Berlusconi voter what the hell they're thinking. Products and events Take our weekly news quiz to stay on top of the headlines
Hydra Rocket System Integration Information Document Sample Hydra Rocket System Integration Information Powered By Docstoc Hydra-70 Rocket System Integration Information HYDRA-70 Rockets are free flight rockets which mate either unitary or cargo warheads with the MK 66 Rocket Motor. The MK 66 motors use a longer motor tube (than the MK 40/MK 4) fins are of a spring loaded, wrap-around design and are attached around the circumference of the single nozzle. The propellant grain is longer and of a different formation than for the MK 40/MK 4, however, the stabilizing rod and igniter are essentially the same design. The MK 66 motors have a substantially higher thrust, 1335 lbs, and a longer range. The current generation of the MK 66 in use by U.S. Armed Services are the MK 66 MOD 3 for the Army and the MK 66 MOD 2 The RF filter is mounted onto the igniter can and allows the aircraft’s direct current firing pulse to May 1987 documents the HERO suitability of the MK 66 MOD 3 motor. A brass EMR shield is used over the fin and nozzle to prevent the DC energy produced by electrical arcing encountered inventory of available rockets. MK 26 MOD 0 Initiator bridgewire. Tabulated data: Weight, shipped: 13.6 lb Igniter resistance: 0.7 - 2.0 ohms Burn time: 1.05 - 1.10 sec Propellant Type: Extruded double base, Average thrust (77 oF): 1300 - 1370 lb ethylcellulose inhibited, Impulse (77 oF): 1472 lb/sec cartridge loaded Motor burnout range: 1300 ft (397 m) Propellant Weight: 7 lb Motor burnout velocity: 2425 fps Propellant Configuration: 8-point internal Launch spin rate: 10 rps burning star Velocity at launcher exit: 148 fps Temperature Limits: Acceleration: 60-70 G (initial), Storage: -65 oF to +165 oF 95-100 G (final) (-53.35 oC to +73.15 oC) Range, max @ QE 43o Operation: -50 oF to +150 oF w/ MPSM whd: 11,407 yd (10,426 m) (-45 oC to +64.9 oC) M151 Warhead M229 Warhead Both the M151 and M229 use the M423 Fuze, making them High Explosive Point Detonating (HEPD) warheads. The M151 uses 2.3 pounds of composition B-4 High Explosive. The 10 pound warhead gains lethality from the nose section which is fabricated using nodular, pearlitic malleable, or ferritic malleable cast iron. The 17 pound M229 uses 4.8 pounds of composition B- 4 High Explosive. The performance of the M229 is roughly a 50 percent increase in lethal area over the M151. Temperature limits for storage and firing the M151 and M229 are -65 oF to +150 F (-53.35 oC to +64.9 oC). The M423 Fuze consists of four major assemblies: firing pin and body assembly; fuze body; safe and arming (S&A) device; and the booster assembly. The S&A device consists of a rotor housing assembly and unbalanced rotor assembly, an escapement assembly and set-back weight. The unbalanced rotor assembly houses the primer and detonator and is maintained in the unarmed (out-of-line) position. When the rocket motor is fired, sustained acceleration permits the set-back (inertial mass) weight to move rearward, releasing the unbalanced rotor, which in rotating drives the escapement and gear assembly to the armed position. The rotor reaches the armed (in line) position when the rocket has traveled 43 to 93 meters and then is locked into the armed position by a spring-loaded pin. The rotor will return to the unarmed position if the minimum rocket energy (product of acceleration and time) is not sensed throughout the arming distance. Upon impact, the firing pin body walls are crushed between the target and the oncoming fuze body. The firing pin contained in the firing pin body then impacts the oncoming S&A mechanism within the fuze body, initiating the explosive train. The explosive consists of the M104 primer, M85 detonator, lead, booster and warhead explosive which are initiated in sequential order. The M423 is used for launch from low speed aircraft. The M427 is a variation used for launch from high speed aircraft and requires 180 to 426 meters rocket travel to arm. The PD fuzes do not require an umbilical connection to the launcher. Tabulated data: M151 HEPD Rocket w/ MK 66 MOD 3 Motor DODIC: H583 Hazard Classification: Quantity-Distance Class 1.1, Storage Compatibility Group E UNO Serial No. 0181 DOT Label "Explosive 1.1E", Proper Shipping Name "Rockets" M151 Warhead w/ M427 NSN: 1340-00-725-8382 DODIC: H842. M229 HEPD Rocket w/ MK 66 MOD 2 Motor NSN: 1340-01-309-8300 DODIC: H642 UNO Serial No. 0181 DOT Label "Explosive 1.1E", Proper Shipping Name "Rockets with Bursting Charge". an integral fuze, 9 submunitions, and an expulsion charge assembly. The nose cone assembly, a of 80% M10 double base propellant and 20% Class 6 black powder. The expulsion charge is stack of submunitions through the nose cone. The primary cargo warhead fuze is the M439 Fuze. It is a resistance-capacitance electronic variable time delay fuze. The time delay is remotely set for the desired functioning distance (time) by charging the circuit from the fire control center, providing a variable range of 0.5 to 7.2 kilometers. The fuze does not have an internal battery; instead energy is supplied from by the aircraft setter at the time of fuze setting. The energy is stored in a capacitor and will operate the electronic timer and fire the M84 electronic detonator. The charging cycle takes place approximately 50 milliseconds prior to rocket motor firing. The fuze begins timing at the first motion of the rocket and will function at the prescribed time if the Safety and Arming (S&A) device is armed. The S&A mechanism also prevents the fuze from being charged if it is in the partially-armed or fully-armed position. The S&A is a mechanical acceleration integrator with an unbalanced rotor holding the M84 electric detonator and a runaway escapement. An acceleration greater than 27G is necessary to arm the fuze. The M439 Fuze is a base mounted, forward firing fuze. The fuze connector cable extends from the fuze, through the warhead in a lengthwise channel, and exits the ogive for connection to the launcher by an umbilical connector. The HE, MPSM M73 Grenade consists of a steel body with a fragmenting wall filled with Composition B explosive incorporating a shaped charge liner, LX14 booster, explosive lead charge, M230 omnidirectional fuze with M55 detonator, wave shaper, and fabric drag device (RAD). The fragmenting body produces 10 grain fragments with a maximum velocity of approximately 5,000 feet per second. The shaped charge sprays lethal fragments nearly horizontal 360 degrees. The submunitions consistently impact within a 40-meter radius of each other. Submunition self destruct has not been a consideration. EOD procedures obviate the need for self destruct. Lethality (penetration) is classified and can be made available through licensed agreement. The performance is roughly a 70 percent (SMCAR-CCH-A Memorandum, 23 Jun 1988) increase in lethal area over the M151. Tabulated data: M261 MPSM Rocket w/ MK 66 MOD 3 Motor NSN: 1340-01-269-1447 DODIC: H165 Hazard Classification: Quantity-Distance Class 1.2, Storage Compatibility Group E UNO Serial No. 0182 DOT Label "Explosive 1.2E", Proper Shipping Name "Rockets". Temperature Limits: Firing: -50 oF to +150 oF Storage: -50 oF to +160 oF The M255A1 Flechette Warhead is intended to be used against light material and personnel targets. The warhead is also a cargo warhead, using the M439 Fuze, and functionally equivalent to the M261 cargo warhead. At expulsion, 1,179 flechettes separate and form a disk-like mass which breaks up with each flechette assuming an independent trajectory, forming a repeatable produce the desired impact and penetration effect on the target. Tabulated data: M255A1 Flechette w/ MK 66 MOD 2 Motor NSN: 1340-01-309-5799 DODIC: H462 Flechette: 60 grain, steel, phosphate coated Hazard Classification: Quantity-Distance Class 1.4, Storage Compatibility Group G UNO Serial No. 0191 DOT Label "Explosive 1.4G", Proper Shipping Name Rockets" The M264 RP Smoke is also a cargo warhead. The warhead is used as a red phosphorus (RP) filled smoke rocket propelled by the MK 66 motor and functions at a remote settable range from 1000 to 6000 meters. Upon functioning, the M439 Fuze ignites the expulsion mix which rows of 4 each and are separated by felt pieces impregnated with a phosphine gas adsorbent mixture, manganese dioxide/cuprous oxide. Tabulated data: M264 RP Smoke w/ MK 66 MOD 3 Motor NSN: 1340-01-289-4719 DODIC: H184 RP: JXS-10 Smoke Composition Pellets, 0.035 kg/wedge (31.5 gms) UNO Serial No. DOT Label "Explosive 1.4G", Proper Shipping Name Rockets" The M257 illuminating warhead consists of an ignition system, flare, main parachute, drogue feet at 3000 meters downrange. The M257 candle descends at 15 feet per second, burns for Except for the illuminent, the M278 is identical to the M257 warhead. At the aft end of the Separation and Drogue Assembly is the Motor Adapter which is the threaded interface for the launch rocket motor. Inside the adapter is the M442 fuze which initiates the firing sequence for the M278 flare. The fuze must sense an acceleration of at least 17-22 G for about 1 second prior to arming. Upon deceleration of the burnt-out rocket motor the armed fuze fires, directing its output into a 9-second pyrotechnic delay column which in turn ignites a separation charge. The separation charge produces a rapid increase in pressure inside the motor adapter which is reacted by a pusher plate on top of the Drogue Housing. This shears 12 holding pins that are evenly spaced around the circumference of the joint. The pressure also provides an accelerating force for the flare and a decelerating force for the launching rocket motor with the Motor Adapter attached. This ensures positive separation for the flare, and a Deflector plate pulls the expended motor out of the flare flight path. When the Pusher Plate falls into the airstream it pulls the Drogue Chute out of the aft end of the Drogue Housing. Attached to the shroud line bridle of the Drogue Chute is a nylon cord which is attached to the Pull Wire “Quickmatch” of a 2-second delay “Gas Generator.” The Quickmatch ignites the delay, which in turn fires a Secondary Expulsion charge. This charge functions as the first, producing pressure that shears another set of 12 pins, evenly spaced around the circumference of the flare. Once again the pressure provides an acceleration/deceleration force to the Drogue Housing and the Candle & Parachute Assembly. Attached to the Pusher Plate is the cord for the Pilot Chute. As the Pilot Chute deploys, it pulls the Main Chute assembly out of its housing (Parachute Insert) for Main Chute deployment. Attached to the Main Chute support cable is a Lanyard that runs through an internal raceway in the Candle and is attached to the Slider assembly in the Igniter assembly. As the main chute is deployed, it pulls the Lanyard with a minimum force of 40 pounds. This force shears a shear pin and moves the slider assembly into the firing position, cocks and releases the firing hammer and fires the ignition primer. During launch of the Rocket, acceleration forces of at least 17 G for duration of approximately one second withdrew the weight assembly of the “Zig-Zag” ignition safe/arm mechanism from its saving position in the slider assembly, allowing Slider movement. The output of the ignition primer is directed into a cavity containing boron pellets. The fire from the boron pellets is directed on the forward face of the flare’s illuminant Candle and also on a small propellant wafer which acts as an ignition booster. The Candle produces light in the near IR spectrum for about 180 seconds. The main parachute allows for a descent rate of approximately 13 feet per second. Tabulated data: M257 Illumination Flare w/ M442 Fuze Operating temperature limits: -25 oF to +140 oF (-31.35 oC to +59.40 oC) Candle composition: Magnesium Sodium Nitrate Candle weight: 5.44 lb (2.47 kg) Illumination intensity, visible: 817.19 CP (avg.) infrared: 250.02 watts/sr (avg.) Illumination duration: 197.38 sec (avg.) Function time: 14.23 sec (avg.) Shipping and storage data: Storage class/SCG: 1.2 G DOT shipping class: A DOT designation: Rocket Ammunition with Illuminating Projectile Field Storage: Group D NSN: 1340-01-268-7175 DODIC: H183 UNO Serial No. M278 IR Flare w/ M442 Fuze DODIC: H154 UNO Serial No. the 7-tube launcher continues to use a laminated stack. experiences from the fire control is 0.06 seconds. minimize the heat signature of the launcher after rocket firings. RMS Display Unit RMS Operations Unit The M138 Rocket Management Subsystem (RMS) is a pilot-operated subsystem that interfaces with the wing stores subsystem in the helicopter. The RMS operates from power supplied by the aircraft and consists of one Display Unit and four Operations Units. The RMS enables the aircraft pilot to select and launch MK 40 or MK 66 rocket motors with the desired warhead/fuze combination from two or four 7- or 19-tube launchers mounted under the aircraft stub wings. The RMS automatically senses the quantity and type of launcher installed and automatically sets its firing sequence to agree with the tube numbering of the launcher on board. Should one or more launchers be disabled, the RMS will cause the corresponding launcher on the opposite side of the fuselage to become inactive to maintain in-flight stability by equalizing the load of unfired rockets. Rockets are loaded according to type (warhead/fuze) in up to five loading zones, and the types loaded in each zone are indicated by manually setting five 12-position thumb wheel switches on the Display Unit panel. The switch positions are marked with two- or three-letter descriptors that represent the available warhead/fuze configurations. When power is applied to the RMS, it automatically inventories the rounds loaded in each zone and provides the pilot with a numeric display of the quantities available for launching from each zone. By setting switches on the face of the Display Unit, the pilot can select the rocket types to be launched, set the fuzes according to the tactical situation, and determine the quantities of rockets to be launched in each volley. Rockets are then launched when the pilot or copilot/gunner squeezes the trigger switch on the cyclic stick. Should the trigger switch be released before the entire volley has been launched, the numeric display on the face of the Display Unit is immediately updated to continuously reflect the quantities of rockets remaining in each loading zone. Refer to TM 9-1090-207-13&P for additional information pertaining to RMS components. The primary objectives of the remotely settable fuze concept were to use very inexpensive components in the fuze itself, eliminate any battery required to run the electronics during the fuze run time, and accomplish the accuracy goals throughout the total environmental range. The solution was to select a resistance-capacitance technique wherein relatively inexpensive, broad- tolerance (+/- 20 percent) components could be used for high-volume production of relatively inexpensive electronic fuzes. To accurately set the capacitance-charged fuzes for the desired run time throughout the environmental range requires a compensating setter located in the aircraft. The setter, immediately prior to launching a rocket, determines the amount of energy required by the fuze timing capacitor for the component variations existing along with temperature effects to run the fuze timing circuitry for the range selected. The setter then charges the timing capacitor and the storage capacitor used as both the power source to run the electronics and the power source to initiate the pyrotechnic train through initiation of the electric detonator in the fuze safeing and arming device. The setter must be capable of compensating for 20 percent variations in component value and for variations in fuze run time due to temperature effects on individual fuzes. Since each fuze is unique, each fuze must receive a different amount of energy in its timing sequence, whether it be singles, pairs, or quads, fuzes must therefore receive different amounts of energy to accomplish the same set time. Therefore, just prior to firing, the individual fuze and its setter compose an integral subsystem which must perform its function accurately across the entire environmental spectrum, compensating for inherent errors in individual fuzes. The Display Unit is a cockpit-mounted line-replaceable unit that presents the pilot with controls and displays for inventorying and controlling the launching of aerial rockets. It also contains the power supply and other common circuits necessary for the RMS components to operate as a subsystem. The Display Unit transmits the electrical command signals selected by the pilot to the Operations Units. One Operations Unit is used for each launcher and contains the circuitry that sets the fuzes and the circuitry that provides the rocket motor squib firing pulses for the rockets loaded into the associated launcher. Additional description of the RMS is contained in enclosure 1. This is an early system description as taken from material used for training (extraneous pages have been extracted) of what eventually became the M138 RMS. It was originally fitted into the AH-1S model of the Cobra helicopter. The weight of the display unit is 6 pounds and of the operations unit is 2 pounds each. The NSN for the M138 RMS is 1090-01-077-8939. A variation of this system known as the Armament Management System was fitted into the AH-1G model of the Cobra helicopter. It uses two zones and was intended as an interim solution for an eventual upgrade to the M138 RMS. 1.1 & 1.2 Physical Characteristics of the rocket system. The lengths, weights, centers of gravity and moments of inertia of the various rockets (MK 66) as measured are as follows: The length of the M261 LWL was previously defined as 66.190" (max). The weight, CG and moments for the M261 LWL are as follows: M261 Lightweight Empty Loaded Weight (lbs.) 82 596 CG aft of nose (in.) 35.8 28.3 CG above center line (in.) 0.78 0.14 CG left of center line (in.) 0.033 0.004 Pitch moment (slug-ft2) 7.12 54.37 Yaw moment (slug-ft2) 7.28 54.52 Roll moment (slug-ft2) 0.629 3.37 Weight, lbs CG from base Moments of Inertia, lb-in2 Rocket Length (inches) Live Fired Warhead Live Fired (inches) Live Fired Axial Transverse Axial Transverse MK66 Motor ---- 13.65 6.43 41.750 18.89 15.70 15.80 2032 9.30 1371 M151 9.30 22.95 15.73 55.125 29.96 33.55 26.20 6248 19.70 5008 HE/M423 PD w/ MK66 M229 16.87 30.43 23.19 65.240 36.55 41.20 37.60 10479 29.60 7840 HE/M423 PD w/ MK66 M261 13.50 27.15 19.93 66.100 35.26 40.02 29.40 9868 23.30 7595 w/ MK66 M255A1/M439 13.87 27.51 20.34 66.100 35.36 40.00 28.80 9848 22.10 7529 w/ MK66 M257/M442 10.57 24.22 17.00 70.400 34.75 40.04 27.60 10607 21.70 8383 w/ MK66 M264/M439 8.00 21.65 14.43 66.100 30.84 35.11 23.70 7639 17.00 6209 w/ MK66 Physical Characteristics of Rockets The centers of gravity for the M261 LWL when fully loaded with the following rockets are as Configuration CG (in. from front) Weight (lbs.) Empty 35.8 82.0 M151/M423/MK 66 33.1 518 M229/M423/MK 66 27.2 660 M257/M442/MK 66 29.0 542 M264/M439/MK 66 32.4 493 M261/M439/MK 66 28.5 598 M255A1/M439/MK 66 28.4 604 1.3 Aerodynamic data of the M261. Please refer to excerpts of MIL-A-8591 at enclosure 2 for calculation and modeling methods for aerodynamic loads. An example calculation performed by Hughes Aircraft, the designer of the LWL, is attached at the back of the enclosure. Airflow information would be unique to the aircraft platform and should be available from the U.S. Army Aviation and Troop Support Command (ATCOM). 1.4 Qualification standards. Specifications which control the acceptance of rockets are listed in the chart below. The specification for the LWL is MIS-34583. The RMS is per enclosure 3. 1.5 Environmental influence to the helicopter. The MK 66 motor can eject the ignition wire upon launch. On more rare occasions, the MK 66 MOD 2 motor can eject the stabilizing rod upon launch. Observance of this occurrence indicates that approximately 50 percent are just after the rocket has left the launcher. The MK 66 MOD 4 motor has a more robust design for the stabilizing rod that should preclude ejection. Chemical and thermal effects are taken from IHSP 89-289. Theoretical combustion products appear in Table IV of this document and is shown below. The exhaust-induced pressure experienced in each launcher tube is 318 psi, measured near the aft end of the launcher. 2.1 Electrical Interface. The LWL electrical continuity shall be as specified in drawing 13048860 for the M261 launcher (Type II launcher). When a device that selectively simulates the electrical characteristics of an electrically shorted motor of either the MK 40 or MK 66 type is loaded in a launcher tube, the total circuit resistance from that launch tube connector pin in connector J1 to the ground pin in the J1 connector shall not exceed 1 ohm with an applied current of not less than 1 milliampere or not more than 700 milliamperes. Resistance will be tested with both the MK 40 and MK 66 motors. The resistance of the electrical circuits between J2 and P, and J2 and ground shall not exceed 0.20 ohm with an applied current of not greater than 700 milliamperes. The insulation resistance between isolated circuits and ground shall be equal to or greater than 500,000 ohms at 500 volts direct current (Vdc). With the negative return connected to pin Z of connector P, application of the system fuzing signal from the RMS to pins A through V of connector J2 shall supply fuze set voltage to rockets loaded in tubes 1 through 19 respectively. With the negative return of ignition circuit connected to pin Y and/or Z of connector J1, the application of a fire signal of a minimum of 1 ampere for a minimum of 10 milliseconds from the RMS to pins A through V of connector J1 shall supply ignition voltage to rockets loaded in tubes 1 through 19 respectively. 2.2 Description of the functional sequences. The pilot dials in the rocket type and quantity to be fired on the RMS. The RMS designates this data to the Fire Control Computer (FCC) of the aircraft, and the FCC selects the trajectory data from memory. The electronic fuze setter in the RMS will set the fuze when the pilot depresses the firing trigger. The gunner in the front seat of the Cobra sights in on the target through the telescopic sight unit and lases to obtain constantly updated range data. The aircraft FCC processes this data along with aircraft speed, relative wind, temperature and flight characteristics of the rocket, and computes the point at which the fuze must function for the intended target. The computer then presents a solution reticle through the heads up display (HUD) to the pilot in the back seat. The pilot must match the solution reticle to the boresight reticle on the HUD by maneuvering the aircraft and firing the weapon system. The computer continues to constantly update the solutions as the aircraft moves along. The pilot pitches the aircraft up, aligns the boresight reticle with the solution reticle and depresses the firing trigger. The fuze receives the latest ranging data about 50 milliseconds prior to the rocket motor being fired. The following is a listing of Field Manuals used in the employment of rockets: Explosives and Demolitions FM 5-25 Ordnance General and Depot Support Services FM 9-4 Ordnance Ammunition Service FM 9-6 Attack Helicopter Gunnery FM 17-40 Attack Helicopter Operations FM 17-50 2.3 Power consumption. The rocket management system requires 24-28 VDC. Electromagnetic Environmental Effects (E3) Management, Design, and Test Requirements and SARD-DO Memorandum, Subject: Army Acquisition Executive Policy Memorandum 91-3, Army Electromagnetic Environmental Effects (E3) Program Implementation establish design requirements. As stated previously, the MK 66 MOD 4 Rocket Motor is HERO, 300 KV and 25 therefore do not present any E3 concerns. The M255A1 and M264 warheads are recent the potential to be affected by E3. Naval Surface Weapons Center (H22-BF/RFM) Letter, dated 22 Jan 87, Subject: Hazards of Electromagnetic Radiation to Ordnance Test Report of the Rocket Management System showed that the M439 Fuze is “HERO SAFE ORDNANCE” and will not be affected by the HERO environment during presence, handling and loading. The M439 Fuze was tested for Electrostatic Discharge (ESD) susceptibility with an inert warhead and found to be sufficiently hardened to personnel-borne ESD. As a result, there are no E3 concerns associated with either warhead/fuze combination. While documentation does not exist for older designs, similar results can be expected for warheads fuzed with the M439 Fuze. A fact to consider is that the M439 Fuze is inherently shielded by the warhead case and by the motor when mated as a 3. Software Modification. Software modifications are conducted by the host aircraft and may be discussed with the U.S. Army AMCOM. The ballistic tables are established for rounds as they are developed by U.S. Army engineering centers and are submitted to AMCOM. Language and bus interfaces are determined by the developer of the aircraft fire control computer. 4. Test Equipment. The Rocket Management Subsystem Test Set, M135 (RMS Test Set), is a manually operated portable test set which automatically tests Line Replaceable Units (LRU) of the RMS, using programmed test routines initiated, as applicable, by the test set operator. The test set is used at the AVIM level to verify equipment failures that were detected by the built-in-test circuits in the RMS LRUs and to isolate troubles in these units to a shop-replaceable assembly. It is also used for verifying the performance of a unit after repair or at any other time. The maintenance manual for the M135 is “Operator’s Aviation Unit, and Intermediate Maintenance Manual with Repair Parts and Special Tools List for Test Set, Rocket Management Subsystem, M135, TM9-4933-227-13&P.” 5. Rocket system electrical checks are performed in accordance with the following procedures.
• Options Mobile Device Privacy Act is what will put smartphone privacy concerns to rest 0. phoneArena 01 Feb 2012, 03:41 posted on Presented in the U.S. House was a bill titled The Mobile Device Privacy Act. If it passes, the law will require carriers and manufacturers to inform customers about any tracking software that may be installed on a device that they offer... posted on 01 Feb 2012, 15:54 First. Only on Android phones since Google allows you to do anything to them. posted on 02 Feb 2012, 01:39 2. Forsaken77 (Posts: 542; Member since: 09 Jun 2011) I'm so glad something is being done to protect consumers' privacy rights. Instead of the carriers having to inform customers of tracking software and getting permission, they should just make tracking software illegal all together. What happens if all 4 carriers have the software on all of their phones? Then you have the choice of taking a phone with tracking and info collecting, or no phone at all. That's what these greedy companies will do. Make it illegal to collect any data from a consumer at all. Want to comment? Please login or register. Latest stories
• People, hard to see, but there were some mountain bikers. There is a trail to hike down into the gorge. Newer Older The second stop on my motorcycle adventure was at Whirlpool State Park. I hadn't been along the US side of the Niagara River since I was probably 10 years old. This is a picture of the upper whirlpool, which is much easier to photograph. Note: This is the natural color of the river. I only adjusted the white balance because I was using a circular polarizer to get rid of glare. mysticalmaven, Linden Tea, and 14 other people added this photo to their favorites. 1. Eye Phunky [deleted] 71 months ago \| reply Gorgeous! Color of the water is stunning! 2. jeffrey.mills 71 months ago \| reply nice shot, zac. i am a little disturbed by the color of the water. i've been there, so i know that the color is accurate. as a scientist, i'm disturbed by why the water is that color. does anyone know? did you see blinky swim by? it does look nice though :) 3. flyingdutchee 71 months ago \| reply Ali peed in the water, which explains the toxic color ;) 4. +David+ 71 months ago \| reply Excellent shot of this exciting area. I am still try to get someone to take the Spanish Areo Car across. At least one person said she'd wait for me if I wanted to take it. Yes, the water there is pretty much that color all right. I live much closer to the American side of the falls, but have only been to the Canadian side for decades. Seen on your photo stream. (?) 5. MJ² 71 months ago \| reply stopping while riding?.....that's so hard to do....even to shoot ;) 6. Dregster 71 months ago \| reply Wonderful blue!!... 7. History 2 [deleted] 66 months ago \| reply Hi, I'm an admin for a group called Nature of Niagara, and we'd love to have this added to the group!
Installing Puppy Linux to a Live CD is easy. You will need: - a CD/DVD (+R, -R, +RW or -RW) - a CD/DVD burner (a CD burner can only burn CD's, but a DVD burner can burn both) - a Puppy Linux ISO If you are running Puppy Linux, you can use Pburn to burn an ISO to disk. 1. First, make sure you have a burnable CD/DVD in your disk drive, and that your disk drive is NOT mounted. 2. Run Pburn from the menu. (Menu -> Multimedia -> Pburn) 3. If this is the first time you have used Pburn, it will ask for your disk drive that you wish to use. Select it and click OK. 4. Select "Burn ISO-image" in the top left, and browse to where you downloaded the ISO. 5. Unless, for some reason, you have to have a closed disk, select "Multisession". 6. Click the burn icon in the bottom right. If you are running Windows, you can use ImgBurn to burn an ISO to disk. 1. Run ImgBurn from the start menu. 2. Click "Write image file to disk". 3. Beside "Please select a file", click the "Browse for a file..." icon (a folder with a magnifying glass) and browse to the ISO you downloaded. 4. Select your CD/DVD burner in the drop down menu, and make sure "Verify" is checked. 5. Make sure the "Write Speed" is 1x, and "Copies" is 1. (unless you want more then 1 copy) 6. Insert a CD or DVD into your drive 7. Click "Write" (the big button). 1. Make sure the CD/DVD is in the drive, and that the computer is off. 2. Turn on your computer, and see if Puppy Linux boots. 3. If Puppy Linux doesn't run, read This. There are no comments on this page. Valid XHTML :: Valid CSS: :: Powered by WikkaWiki
Take the 2-minute tour × How many tab I can add on one tab bar controller ? share\|improve this question add comment 1 Answer up vote 2 down vote accepted as many as you want - any more than 5 and there will be displayed a "more" tab in the 5th place which will let users choose which tabs they want to see on the Tab bar controller, but all will be accessible. share\|improve this answer thanks thomas . – Abhijeet Barge Oct 5 '10 at 10:27 add comment Your Answer
Take the 2-minute tour × I have a datastore that is querying a database and outputting JSon... something like this: $data[] = array('id' => $i, 'prod_id' => $product_id, 'link' => $link); I'm wondering how you can pass back a link using the $link variable. If I had this for example: $link = "<a href=\"google.com\"> Clicky </a>"; The datagrid would display Clicky and not the actual html link... Is there anyway to pass back html? share\|improve this question add comment 2 Answers I would suggest passing the link URL and the link text separately, then reconstructing them into an anchor link in JavaScript on the client-side. You could also try escaping the HTML, then unescaping on the client-side. I have no idea why it won't send links- perhaps the browser is trying to parse the sent HTML too early? share\|improve this answer add comment You can use formatter in dojo grid to format the HTML displayed in each cell. When creating the grid, you can set a formatter for each column. The formatter is a JavaScript function that takes two parameters, the first one value means the value of the cell, the second one rowIndex means the index of current row. The return value of the formatter function is the HTML content displayed in the cell. For your case, I would suggest that you use a single column for both the link URL and anchor text. You can use a simple encoding, like http://www.google.com$$$Clicky, where $$$ is used to separate these two fields. The PHP code would be: $link = "http://www.google.com$$$Clicky"; Then in your formatter function, you can use : function(value, rowIndex) { var parts = value.split('$$$'); return "<a href='" + parts[0] + "'>" + parts[1] + "</a>"; If you prefer to use one column for each field, e.g. url for URL and anchorText for the anchor text. Then you need to get the value of another column when formatting the cell. Suppose the grid uses the url field. Then the formatter function may look like below: function(value, rowIndex) { var item = grid.getItem(rowIndex); // Get the store item by index, need the reference of the grid. var anchorText = grid.store.getValue(item, 'anchorText'); return "<a href='" + value + "'>" + anchorText + "</a>"; share\|improve this answer Thanks for the awesome explanation. I ended up using the escapeHTMLInData="false", however.. but will keep the formatter function in mind for later! :) – Paul Dec 1 '10 at 22:48 Ah, escapeHTMLInData='false', I didn't know that before. Thanks for the information. :) – Alex Cheng Dec 2 '10 at 9:38 add comment Your Answer
Take the 2-minute tour × I'm collecting some basic stats from a Google Calendar feed with DOM and Php. I have been trying to get the event endTime using the following: `$times = $entry->getElementsByTagName( "when" ); $startTime = $times->item(0)->getAttributeNode( "startTime" )->value; $endTime = $times->item(0)->getAttributeNode("endTime" )->value;` Which results in an end time of 04:00:00 for every appointment. I was trying different things and entered 1 instead of 0 in item() this results in a correct end time, but only three of the 50 appointments are displayed. My feed is private, full, ordered by start time, singleevents=true, and start-min/start-max are set. Is there a different way to get event endTime? share\|improve this question add comment 1 Answer up vote 0 down vote accepted Never did find the answer to this question. Went ahead and went the Zend/Gdata route. Took a little to get up to speed but it works now. share\|improve this answer add comment Your Answer
Upscale Denver hotel installs new surveillance system Visao, NUUO solutions used in CCTV upgrade project How does a premier luxury hotel with 241 rooms and 6 restaurants salute their guests while offering the finest in modern luxury accommodations and personalized service? With a high degree of internal security, the Brown Palace Hotel seated in Denver, Colorado, makes their guests feel like being at home, which is already far from common service. From the Spa, dinning, lobby and seating areas the Brown Palace imbues a sense of security while allowing guests the freedom to relax and enjoy the luxurious surroundings. The Brown Palace Hotel has hosted nearly all US presidents since itâ€™s inception in the late 1800â€™s â€“ Including Heads of State, Kings and Queens from over 50 Countries, numerous dignitaries and celebrities. Including Tzu-Hsi (Empress Dowager) during her trip across the US, who said it was the finest Hotel she had visited. It is considered one of the Grandest Hotels in the US. Forty channels of analog cameras are installed around the lobby, restaurants, check-in areas, and ballrooms. All cameras are managed by a Visao DVR with NUUO H.264 DVR cards & software, featuring NUUOâ€™s innovative I-guard video analysis, intuitive and broad applications that are very useful for hotel surveillance environments. In the main lobby and entrance, foreign and missing object detection react at once with on screen and audio alarms, especially during night hours. Once an "I-guard event" is detected it is recorded on all selected cameras in the software and played easily through the graphical user interface (GUI). Finally, another very useful function that deserves mention is "motion detection", simple to use and powerful. Select a specific area to detect motion and the software will react to that motion in any one of 8 user defined ways. "Before there were only 16 cameras with low quality video in CIF resolution, unreliable operation really straightened our surveillance job, in a grand hotel our mission is to assist to avert any possible fraud or offense before it really occurs , and gladly we did it." said Gene Frailey, the chief technical officer of Visao. Hotel management is very happy about the added level of security. Security personnel have expressed great confidence in the new system, and believe it has strengthened their ability to respond to an incident quickly and more efficiently. The Brown Palace anticipates adding 4 external IP PTZ cameras located at the four mains entrances, for additional security during the Democratic National Convention (DNC). DNC VIP guests will stay at the Brown Palace Hotel for the duration of the Convention. The Hotel plans to expand the use of Visao DVRsâ€™ using NUUO cards & Software in the future, adding at least one more DVR this year.
Traveling in your reliable car with no working lamp switch is undesirable. If your Buick Skylark headlight switch acts up, you won't have power over your headlights and this also poses numerous complications specifically if you frequently drive in the evening. Driving with no control over your system lights under any condition is extremely unsafe and makes your trusty vehicle an disaster ready to happen. In order to keep you and your passengers safe, better get a fresh new headlight switch for Buick Skylark immediately before something horrific happens. At present, you'll find many headlight switches for your swell ride traded in the market and they come in diverse forms. When finding a brandnew automotive part, it is good to acquire a component that matches all the requirements of your ride to ensure a painless and stress-free set up. In case you're seeking for a spankin' new Buick Skylark headlight switch that features effortless installation and is going to operate for a very long time, don't check anyplace else because Parts Train undoubtedly offers just what you're in search of. Backed by the most popular names in the automotive market like Lucas, Vemo, and OE Aftermarket, our webpage provides you nothing else but the most reliable parts in the marketplace immediately. Do not put off your upgrades anymore and begin looking around our store to see the Buick Skylark headlight switch that you have to have.
Bully for Us You talkin' to me, world? You talkin' to me? I'm the only empire around. These are the three key elements of Republican belief and election strategy. Bush wants to expand the military into the major instrument in foreign policy. When you come right down to it, there probably is not that much difference between Kerry and Bush on Iraq. Because of tradition, Democrats ought to be able to take the initiative on jobs, but this is difficult because Clinton-Gore basically dissed what's left of the rank-and-file labor movement and scorned the assorted mix of liberals and leftists because they were, as the Democratic Leadership Council never fails to point out, a bunch of sorehead losers who caused the party to crumble during the 1980s. Instead of instituting bold programs to revive manufacturing and directly seeking to stop outsourcing, Clinton introduced a tax write-off here and there. Women, on the other hand, hold out real promise for Kerry in the election. In recognition of their importance, the Bush strategists at last week's convention in New York went out of their way to offer a smidgeon of enticement to women, allowing that there was room to discuss abortion within the party and offering up their admiring support for a parade of the plutocratic women of the Bush family at a reception at the Waldorf-Astoria. Laura Bush came forward to explain what a vulnerable guy her husband really is and how much he cares. The press took this as a gesture to married women—who might be wavering because of the war—to see just what a terribly conflicted man her husband has been on this subject. In the 2000 election, women represented 52 percent of the total electorate, but the Kerry campaign says 22 million unmarried women didn't vote. The Democratic campaign claims that nearly three-quarters of this group of nonvoters are for Kerry this time around. A survey of Gallup polls over the first half of 2004 shows that registered women voters are pretty much split between Kerry and Bush, with married women tending to favor the president and unmarried women going for Kerry. On the face of it, women ought to be fed up with Bush, in part because of his attacks on abortion and stem cell research and his continuing assault on women who don't fit into the social-policy niche of the nuclear family—on all aspects of choices for women, including health care issues and the problem of poverty and ill health among elderly women. In this jobless "recovery," more women than men are unemployed and stay unemployed longer than men. Perhaps the most insidious attacks on women have come from Bush's clever manipulation of government reports, which on issues such as health care simply have cut women out of the loop. Information that might help them figure out matters relating to health has disappeared from federal websites. This is one area where Kerry appears to be consistent and focused, and where the DLC, the center left, minorities, and labor—the party's foundations—seem to be united. Additional reporting: Laurie Anne Agnese « Previous Page My Voice Nation Help
Checks and balances? What checks and balances? I. Cybersecurity Bill - Down, But Not Out Homeland Security [Image Source: CyTalk] II. Continuing the FDR Legacy Executive orders per year [Image Source: Jason Mick/DailyTech] Source: The Hill Comments Threshold RE: I fear for the future... By JPForums on 8/8/2012 11:42:34 AM , Rating: 2 What about instead of money being handed out, they are simply given the food needed to survive - fresh vegetables, fruits, milk, bread. Then if they want to live better, they need to work for it. Unfortunately, because it would cost more per person to do it that way. I'm almost convinced that it would be cheaper in the end, though, as those who think TV, cigarettes, alcoholic beverages, etc. are indispensable necessities would find a way to work. Also, presuming higher quality food (you said fresh) is provided, some formerly obese recipients could conceivably get themselves back into working shape. Believe it or not, it is hard to shake obesity with the quality of food many welfare recipients eat in the name of saving money. I am sure the great majority use the money for what they need, but if even 10% blow the money, it is too much. Honestly, I thing your estimate is low. While I know people who try to act as responsibly as they can, I see far to many people buying large quantities of Tenderloin, Fillet Mignon, or other pricy items entirely off of their EBT card. I can't even afford to do that and I'm not exactly struggling. There is apparently also a way to pull cash off of the EBT card to buy things you can't purchase with the EBT (for instance, alcohol). By anti-painkilla on 8/8/2012 5:19:58 PM , Rating: 2 I would imagine the easiest way is buying something, returning it and being given a cash refund, not sure if they can refund to the EBT card. RE: I fear for the future... By MentalVirus on 8/8/2012 7:02:55 PM , Rating: 2 My parents own a business in the ghetto. There is a family of 10 that lived around there who would purchase food (product to sell) for the small local market WITH their EBT card in exchange for cash. With 8 kids, we're talking an upward of $2500 in food stamps a month. That's just a bit short of my monthly salary after taxes. If that is not the most perfect way of jerking off the system, I don't know what is.
We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks Dir/scr: Alex Gibney. US. 2012. 127mins One of the surprises in We Steal Secrets, the latest nonfiction movie from the ever-prolific filmmaker Alex Gibney (Taxi to the Dark Side), is that it’s not the story of Julian Assange. While the infamous white-haired Australian hacktivist and Wikileaks founder is the star of this political documentary thriller, the film expands its reach to feature two important supporting players, most notably Bradley Manning, the US private who leaked massive amounts of classified documents to Wikileaks, as well as Adrian Lamo, the hacker who betrayed Manning’s trust. Fans of Assange might be surprised to find that We Steal Secrets comes down fairly hard on the revolutionary figure, ostensibly blaming him on the organisation’s downfall. We Steal Secrets lacks the emotional weight of Gibney’s Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God, about child abuse and cover-ups in the Catholic Church, but it has the same high level of exhaustive research and engaging storytelling (though a few minutes could be shaved off the two-hour-plus running time.) When Focus World releases the movie day-and-date on digital platforms and in cineamas in the US, it could generate some moderate interest and sales online, though piracy could be an issue for a film with this subject matter. Likewise, international audiences—particularly in Europe and Australia, where Assange is renown—will also take an interest in the documentary on television and other outlets. (And the material promises to only get more topical, with Manning’s trial date set for this summer.) Gibney follows a largely chronological account of Wikileaks, which conveniently follows the neat narrative trajectory of a classic rise-and-fall story. Beginning even before the founding of the information-sharing website, the film starts off with a terrific pre-title prologue about the early “WANK worm” cyberattack in 1989 against the launch of NASA’s Galileo spacecraft. While no one has ever been held responsible for the computer virus, Gibney, pumping up the intrigue, speculates that Assange may have been involved. The movie, then, explores several key incidents in Wikileaks’ ascent, from the releasing of bank documents in Iceland in 2009-2010, which revealed the wide extent of financial corruption within the country, to the dissemination of the infamous U.S. Apache helicopter kill video in Iraq, titled “Collateral Murder,” which fueled anti-war sentiment and brought wider international attention to Wikileaks and Assange, whose reputation seems to build at the same rate as his ego and paranoia. But then the film pivots to the story of Manning. A troubled young Midwestern boy with gender identity issues, Manning gets sent to Iraq, despite his superior’s better judgment, and becomes further isolated and disgruntled, while wishing he could be a woman. Gibney effectively employs text messages exchanged between Manning and Adrian Lamo to get into the young soldier’s troubled mind. Manning comes across as a sad and lonely person, using the emoticon of a crying face ;’( and seeking out companionship even if it means getting caught. Returning to Wikileaks, Gibney recounts other mammoth leaks, from the Afghan and Iraq War logs to the State Department diplomatic cables, while also probing the sensationalistic Swedish rape allegations against Assange that coincidentally erupted at the same time. But the film shrewdly squashes the conspiracy theories and reveals the banal truths behind the sex case. We Steal Secrets is impressively researched, including interviews with nearly everyone involved, from a former CIA director to Assange’s second-in-command to one of the Swedish women who accused Assange of rape. However, the filmmakers did not have direct access to Manning, who is in a military prison, and Assange, who is hiding out in Ecuador’s consulate in the UK. For a story about “information,” Gibney successfully keeps the story moving, both narratively and cinematically. There’s a great bit, for example, when Manning relates how he exfiltrated hundreds of thousands of documents, while listening to Lady Gaga’s song “Telephone”—which Gibney cranks on the soundtrack along with a dazzling digital display of transferring data. Fans of Assange might be surprised to find that We Steal Secrets comes down fairly hard on the revolutionary figure, ostensibly blaming him on the organisation’s downfall. Still, at the same time, Gibney’s film remains sympathetic to the cause. Indeed, it’s this complexity that makes We Steal Secrets more than just a standard profile of a famous man and his infamous and celebrated mission. Production companies: Global Produce, Jigsaw Productions International sales: Universal International Producers: Alex Gibney, Marc Shmuger, Alexis Bloom Cinematography: Maryse Alberti Editor: Andy Grieve Music: Will Bates
Athlete's foot From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - View original article Athlete's Foot Classification and external resources A severe case of athlete's foot Jump to: navigation, search Athlete's Foot Classification and external resources A severe case of athlete's foot Athlete's foot (also known as ringworm of the foot,[1] tinea pedis,[1] and moccasin foot[2]) is a fungal infection of the skin that causes scaling, flaking, and itch of affected areas, and in severe cases, swelling and amputation of the foot. It is caused by fungi in the genus Trichophyton. The disease is typically transmitted in moist communal areas where people walk barefoot, such as showers or bathhouses,[citation needed] and requires a warm moist environment, such as the inside of a shoe, in order to incubate. Although the condition typically affects the feet, it can infect or spread to other areas of the body, including the groin, particularly areas of skin that are kept hot and moist, such as with insulation, body heat, and sweat, e.g. in a shoe, for long periods of time. While the fungus is generally picked up through walking barefoot in an infected area or using an infected towel, infection can be prevented by remaining barefoot as this allows the feet to dry properly and removes the fungus' primary incubator - the warm moist interior of a shoe.[3] Athlete's foot can be treated by a very limited number of pharmaceuticals (including creams) and other treatments, although it can be almost completely prevented by never wearing shoes, or wearing them as little as possible. Globally it affects about 15% of the population.[2] Signs and symptoms[edit] Athlete's foot left untreated. Athlete's foot causes scaling, flaking, and itching of the affected skin.[4] Blisters and cracked skin may also occur, leading to exposed raw tissue, pain, swelling, and inflammation. Secondary bacterial infection can accompany the fungal infection, sometimes requiring a course of oral antibiotics.[5][6] Some individuals may experience an allergic response to the fungus called an "id reaction" in which blisters or vesicles can appear in areas such as the hands, chest and arms. Treatment of the fungus usually results in resolution of the id reaction. Microscopic view of cultured athlete's foot fungus Athlete's foot can usually be diagnosed by visual inspection of the skin, but where the diagnosis is in doubt direct microscopy of a potassium hydroxide preparation (known as a KOH test) may help rule out other possible causes, such as eczema or psoriasis.[10] A KOH preparation is performed by taking skin scrapings which are covered with 10% to 20% potassium hydroxide applied to the microscope slide; after a few minutes the skin cells are degraded by the KOH and the characteristic fungal hyphae can then be seen microscopically, either with or without the assistance of a stain. The KOH preparation has an excellent positive predictive value, but occasionally false negative results may be obtained, especially if treatment with an antifungal medication has already begun.[7] If the above diagnoses are inconclusive or if a treatment regimen has already been started, a biopsy of the affected skin (i.e. a sample of the living skin tissue) can be taken for histological examination. A Wood's lamp(black light), although useful in diagnosing fungal infections of the scalp (tinea capitis), is not usually helpful in diagnosing tinea pedis, since the common dermatophytes that cause this disease do not fluoresce under ultraviolet light.[7] However, it can be useful for determining if the disease is due to a nonfungal afflictor.[citation needed] From person to person[edit] Athlete's foot is a communicable disease caused by a parasitic fungus in the genus Trichophyton, either Trichophyton rubrum or Trichophyton mentagrophytes.[11] As the fungus that cause athlete's foot requires warmth and moisture to survive and grow, the primary method of incubation and transmission is when people who regularly wear shoes go barefoot in a moist communal environment, such as a changing room or shower, and then put on shoes. Due to their insulating nature and the much reduced ventilation of the skin, shoes are the primary cause of the spread of Athlete's Foot.[3] As such, the fungus is only seen in approximately 0.75% of habitually barefoot people. Always being barefoot allows full ventilation around the feet that allows them to remain dry and exposes them to sunlight, as well as developing much stronger skin and causes the fungus to be worn off and removed before it can infect the skin. Also, people who have never worn shoes have splayed toes due to them not being forced to grow firmly pressed together by a shoe. This even further minimizes the chances of infection as it ventilates the warm moist pockets of skin between the third, fourth and fifth toes in shoe-wearing people.[12][11][13][14] Athlete's Foot can also be transmitted by sharing footwear with an infected person, such as at a bowling alley or any other place that lends footwear. A less common method of infection is through sharing towels. The various parasitic fungi that cause athlete's foot can also cause skin infections on other areas of the body, most often under toenails (onychomycosis) or on the groin (tinea cruris). Since shoes are the primary mode of infection and incubation and since the fungus is almost non-existent in always barefoot cultures due to the prevalence of strong, dry, feet that are very well ventilated, not wearing shoes at all is almost 100% effective in preventing the fungus.[12] People who regularly wear shoes should try to walk barefoot as much as possible in order to prevent infection. Simply remaining barefoot for a few hours after walking through an infected area is usually enough to prevent the fungus growing and wear it off your feet.[3] When moving through an area that is likely to be infected it is important to remember that the fungus requires the foot to remain moist in order to grow. Since fungi thrive in warm, moist environments, keeping feet as dry as possible and avoiding sharing towels aids prevention. Always dry the feet thoroughly if you wish to put on shoes and ensure that both the shoes and socks are clean and dry and have been regularly washed. In shoe-wearers, hygiene and minimization of shoe use play important roles in preventing transmission. Public showers, borrowed towels, and, particularly, footwear,[15] can all spread the infection from person to person through shared contact followed by incubation in a shoe.[15][16] Without medication, athlete's foot resolves in 30–40% of cases[17] and topical antifungal medication consistently produce much higher percentages of cure.[18] Conventional treatment typically involves daily or twice daily application of a topical medication in conjunction with hygiene measures outlined in the above section on prevention. Keeping feet dry and practising good hygiene is crucial to preventing reinfection. Severe or prolonged fungal skin infections may require treatment with oral antifungal medication. Zinc oxide-based diaper rash ointment may be used; talcum powder can be used to absorb moisture to kill off the infection. The fungal infection may be treated with topical antifungal agents, which can take the form of a spray, powder, cream, or gel. There exists a large number of antifungal drugs including: miconazole nitrate, clotrimazole, tolnaftate (a synthetic thiocarbamate), terbinafine hydrochloride,[4] butenafine hydrochloride, and undecylenic acid. A solution of 1% potassium permanganate dissolved in hot water is an alternative to antifungal drugs.[19] The time-line for cure may be long, often 45 days or longer. The recommended course of treatment is to "continue to use the topical treatment for four weeks after the symptoms have subsided" to ensure the fungus has been completely eliminated. However, because the itching associated with the infection subsides quickly, patients may not complete the courses of therapy prescribed. Anti-itch creams are not recommended, as they will alleviate the symptoms, but will exacerbate the fungus; this is because anti-itch creams typically enhance the moisture content of the skin and encourage fungal growth. If the fungal invader is not a dermatophyte, but a yeast, other medications such as fluconazole may be used. Typically, fluconazole is used for candidal vaginal infections (moniliasis), but has been shown to be of benefit for those with cutaneous yeast infections, as well. The most common of these infections occur in the web (intertriginous) spaces of the toes and at the base of the fingernail or toenail. The hallmark of these infections is a cherry red color surrounding the lesion and a yellow thick pus. A number of oral antifungals may be used. For severe cases oral terbinafine or itraconazole has greater effectiveness than griseofulvin.[2] Other prescription oral antifungals include fluconazole.[5] The most common adverse effects from these treatment is gastrointestinal upset.[2] Alternative treatments[edit] Tea tree oil improves the symptoms but does not cure the underlying fungal infection, according to a double-blind study of 104 patients.[20][21] 2. ^ a b c d e Bell-Syer, SE; Khan, SM; Torgerson, DJ (2012 Oct 17). "Oral treatments for fungal infections of the skin of the foot.". The Cochrane database of systematic reviews 10: CD003584. PMID 23076898. 3. ^ a b c Howell, Phd, Dr Daniel (2010). The Barefoot Book. Hunter House. 5. ^ a b Gupta AK, Skinner AR, Cooper EA (2003). "Interdigital tinea pedis (dermatophytosis simplex and complex) and treatment with ciclopirox 0.77% gel". Int. J. Dermatol. 42 (Suppl 1): 23–7. doi:10.1046/j.1365-4362.42.s1.1.x. PMID 12895184. 6. ^ Guttman, C (2003). "Secondary bacterial infection always accompanies interdigital tinea pedis". Dermatol Times 4: 23–7. 7. ^ a b c Al Hasan M, Fitzgerald SM, Saoudian M, Krishnaswamy G (2004). "Dermatology for the practicing allergist: Tinea pedis and its complications". Clinical and Molecular Allergy 2 (1): 5. doi:10.1186/1476-7961-2-5. PMC 419368. PMID 15050029. 8. ^ Hainer BL (2003). "Dermatophyte infections". American Family Physician 67 (1): 101–8. PMID 12537173. 9. ^ Hirschmann JV, Raugi GJ (2000). "Pustular tinea pedis". J. Am. Acad. Dermatol. 42 (1 Pt 1): 132–3. doi:10.1016/S0190-9622(00)90022-7. PMID 10607333. 10. ^ del Palacio, Amalia; Margarita Garau, Alba Gonzalez-Escalada and Mª Teresa Calvo. "Trends in the treatment of dermatophytosis" (PDF). Biology of Dermatophytes and other Keratinophilic Fungi: 148–158. Retrieved 10 October 2007. 11. ^ a b "Athlete's Foot – Cause". WebMD. 2 July 2008. Archived from the original on 6 March 2010. Retrieved 13 March 2010. 12. ^ a b SHULMAN, Pod.D,, SAMUEL B. (1949). "Survey in China and India of Feet That Have Never Worn Shoes". The Journal of the National Association of Chiropodists. Retrieved 27 September 2012. 13. ^ "Athlete's foot". Mayo Clinic Health Center. 14. ^ [1] Risk factors for athlete's foot, at WebMD 15. ^ a b Ajello L, Getz M E (1954). "Recovery of dermatophytes from shoes and a shower stall". J. Invest. Dermat. 22 (4): 17–22. doi:10.1038/jid.1954.5. PMID 13118251. 16. ^ Robert Preidt (29 September 2006). "Athlete's Foot, Toe Fungus a Family Affair" (Reprint at USA Today). HealthDay News. Archived from the original on 15 October 2007. Retrieved 10 October 2007. "Researchers used advanced molecular biology techniques to test the members of 57 families and concluded that toenail fungus and athlete's foot can infect people living in the same household." 17. ^ Over-the-Counter Foot Remedies (American Family Physician) 18. ^ Crawford F, Hollis S (18 July 2007). "Topical treatments for fungal infections of the skin and nails of the foot" (Review). In Crawford, Fay. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (3): CD001434. doi:10.1002/14651858.CD001434.pub2. PMID 17636672. 19. ^ "Potassium Permanganate". Archived from the original on 14 May 2011. Retrieved 31 March 2011. 20. ^ Tong MM, Altman PM, Barnetson RS (1992). "Tea tree oil in the treatment of tinea pedis". Australasian J. Dermatology 33 (3): 145–9. doi:10.1111/j.1440-0960.1992.tb00103.x. PMID 1303075. 21. ^ Satchell AC, Saurajen A, Bell C, Barnetson RS (2002). "Treatment of interdigital tinea pedis with 25% and 50% tea tree oil solution: a randomized, placebo-controlled, blinded study". Australasian J. Dermatology 43 (3): 175–8. doi:10.1046/j.1440-0960.2002.00590.x. PMID 12121393. External links[edit]
Take the 2-minute tour × I want to wrap the following code into a function using jQuery and call that function from inline (eg: onclick, onchange etc.). function some_function() { alert("Hello world"); Called by (example): <input type="button" id="message" onclick="some_function()" /> This question is simple for a reason. I can't seem to find a proper jQuery how-to. • Should I wrap that function into a jQuery $(document).ready() ? • Should make a normal javascript function and use $(document).ready() in that function? share\|improve this question The reason why you don't find how-tos explaining how to do it is because inline events are not the best way to do event handling, and jQuery has made the cross browser compatibility reason obsolete. – Yi Jiang Aug 27 '10 at 10:31 add comment 1 Answer You should not use that inline event handler to go with jQuery. Use unobtrusive code: function some_function() { alert("Hello world"); share\|improve this answer add comment Your Answer
Take the 2-minute tour × I am going through a Spring book to learn Spring. Having gone through sections about the JDBCTemplate i was surprised to find that Spring handles most of the SQLException exceptions differently. For example, all checked exceptions are converted to unchecked exceptions. What exactly is the benefit of this? In my experience, the majority of SQL exceptions should be handled. For example, we have an application that talks to an Oracle PL/SQL procedure. The call to the PL/SQL procedure can return an ORA-01403: no data found exception. This kind of exception is one that you usually recover from by displaying an error message to the user. e.g. A search result did not return anything. How would this kind of a checked exception be handled in Spring if all exceptions are unchecked i.e. Spring wont force you to handle them? I know that you can catch RuntimeExceptions but i quite liked the idea that you are forced to handle checked exceptions. What benefit does converting some of the checked exceptions to unchecked exceptions provide? share\|improve this question add comment 3 Answers up vote 1 down vote accepted Some people don't like checked exceptions, as they force you to do some exception management. I guess the Spring guys are of this kind. Personally I prefer to do things as they were intended to be made: try { // execute some SQL } catch (SQLException ex) { if (ex is an expected condition) { // deal with it: for example with a "no data found" condition // this might mean returning null, or throwing some kind of business exception, such as // NoEmployeeFoundException, or whatever } else { // this is a programming / environment error // throw as unchecked exception throw new RuntimeException(ex); Of course the downside of this approach is that is more work. The upside is that you have explicitly stated in code which are the "expected" circumstances and which ones should not happen ever. share\|improve this answer add comment Yes, the exceptions should be handled, but in Spring design, on higher level then the each DAO method. In fact the design where in every method there is SQLException handling is unclean copy-paste design, and when you change something, you must apply the change in every place. There are various demands, and various places where you handle unchecked exceptions. One of these are aspects, where you can for example convert Spring's exceptions to your exceptions (uncatched exceptions need not be declared in method signature, so this convertion is very elegant). In REST method you can add generic handler that will return the error responce to the caller, and you write exception handling in only one place. In JSF/JSP based technologies you can add own error page whenever error occures. share\|improve this answer You don't need to handle it in the DAO, you could just declare your DAO interface as throws SQLException (or whatever exception you want your DAOs to raise). – gpeche Jan 15 '12 at 20:05 Yes, but still you have to handle it somewhere. And even if you handle it in aspect, still throws declaration stays and you must handle exception you never get... – Łukasz 웃 L ツ Jan 15 '12 at 20:56 Well you always have to handle exceptions, except in development. Otherwise your program terminates in a uncontrolled way. – gpeche Jan 15 '12 at 21:55 Yes, but you can do it in aspect, or in task dispatcher, or in queue, or anywhere else where the tasks are called. – Łukasz 웃 L ツ Jan 16 '12 at 8:11 add comment The benefit is not being forced to catch or declare them. I'm not convinced that not finding data during user searches is exceptional, particularly at the SQL level. Turning that into a checked exception amounts to using exceptions for generalized flow control. I would consider that an anti-pattern to be avoided; YMMV. Many SQL-related errors are code-related; IMO it's better to fail fast--during development. share\|improve this answer add comment Your Answer

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