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Facebook Home isn't a Facebook Phone, nor is it really "a bunch of apps," or a new operating system. It's an admission: Facebook means a lot to me, and is an interesting view of my life—and I want to look at it all the time, everywhere I go. If that sounds like you, Home is where your heart should be. If not, your phone will become something you hate.
Facebook Home doesn't do much because it's designed to not do very much. When you tap most Android phones to life, you trigger the information equivalent of someone shouting directly into your face, replete with spit flecks. Depending on your setup, you'll see a clock, clouds, weather, emails, news, IMs—a frothing info stew. And that's the point! Android lets you jam as much as you want into it.
Facebook says: no more. Stop. It's time for everyone to chill the hell out. Put your widgets away, stop spreading graphics and boxes and whatever the hell across your screens. You're making your phone and your life more complicated than they need to be. Don't worry about customizing a topography of at-a-glance inboxes and icons. Let Facebook take care of everything.
At least that's the pitch.
Design & Using It
Facebook Home is mostly large pictures with large text sprayed over them. What Facebook purports to be the brightest, shining, most valuable (and relevant!) nuggets from the News Feed are plucked, polished, and smelted into what's called the Coverfeed: a graphical transposition of the normal info digest.
Facebook Home Review: Surrender Yourself Unto Zuck
Turn on your phone. Maybe the first thing you see is three girls in costumes—oh, Margaret changed her cover photo to a recent party. Swipe to the right. Hey, it's Boo the Dog with a friendly message, who now appears on my phone because I follow his Facebook page. He looks furry and svelte as ever. Swipe. Boring. Swipe again. Doug says he had a good weekend. Good update, Doug. Stephanie was at a bar—here's the photo to prove it. Swipe, swipe. A link to an interesting-sounding article from a smart friend.
And that's where Coverfeed stops working mostly as a slideshow screensaver. Click that link, and Chrome pops open, like on any other Android phone.
Tap the comments icon to leave some pithy insight.
Double tap your friend's photo of an attic to like it. Swipe!
It's a diet version of Facebook, sparse in that it's just one photo and a string of words at a time. But it still hits you as tangy and effervescent, with the same Let's make everything big and bright ethos that's been driving FB since Timeline beamed down. You can still participate, though, instead of merely witness. Facebook is an oily, glistening, fragrant spread of tall cakes and red meats, from one end of the table to another. Facebook Home is visual tapas. Or something, I have a stomach ache.
Facebook Home Review: Surrender Yourself Unto Zuck
There's more than just consuming, because just looking at Facebook news would make Facebook Home very limited and not something you'd ever want to swallow your phone's screen. You can message people with it, which is far more important than ever talking to them, as we've learned by now. There's more to do with Home, and your profile picture—yeah, your own pretty face—acts as kind of control joystick.
Facebook Home Review: Surrender Yourself Unto Zuck
Swipe your little portrait to the left and the messaging menu pops up. Select a contact—Google, Facebook, or whatever else you've imported—and fire off a message. FB, IM, and SMS are treated as exact equals, which is how it should be, because who cares about nerdy distinctions between textual protocols? Texting is texting is texting! Once a conversation starts, a "chat head"—what Facebook is strangely and catchily calling it—will remain on your screen for each interlocutor. It's a small portrait of your friend's face that will remain overlaid against any app on your phone, a shortcut that'll bring you back to your conversation and can be positioned wherever you'd like on the periphery. It sounds distracting, but it's not. You can have a whole stack of 'em at once, and it's weird and lovely.
Facebook Home Review: Surrender Yourself Unto Zuck
There are other convenient UI touches as well. You can swipe your face to the right and the last app you were using—say, the full Facebook app, or Chrome—will re-open. Or, if you swipe straight up, you'll pop open a menu of favorite Android apps. Staples like Instagram and Chrome come standard, but you can add anything you'd like.
Facebook Home makes your phone not feel like your old phone anymore, for free. When was the last time you got a new experience for free, short of virginity loss or petting a dog? It's rejuvenating and crazily experimental, and genuinely cleansing. It's nice to exfoliate all the bulk app crap you don't really need, but accumulate because it's free. Facebook Home is simple—maybe stupid simple—and that's a virtue for sure.
If you're not some sort of libertarian anti-Facebook partisan, you'll enjoy the pretty-faced straightforwardness of Home. What do you really do with your smartphone? Send texts, check email, browse the web, and check social updates. Odds are that you're among the billion human beings who get these social updates from Facebook—whose existence has been chronicled and will continue to be by the social network for years and years. It feels oddly natural to have FB take control of your screen, to use it as jumping-off point. It makes your phone feel more familiar. And as much as this is, yes, about Facebook taking control away from Google and HTC and everyone else involved in phones, it makes your phone feel friendlier to you. It's nice to have the first thing you see when you flip it on be the face of someone you know, even if it's someone you hate. Home humanizes the brick.
Above all, Home will make you realize how extraneous most of your current smartphone is. Too much cargo. You really only need a few essentials, and hey, Facebook is here to offer a solution in a way that might eventually raise its stock price!
No Like
If you don't use Facebook—or if you actively dislike it—I'm not sure why you're reading to this point, but it's safe to say you won't enjoy Home. This is for the Facebook devout.
If you are one of these Zuckerbergian pilgrims, you might be frustrated with the occasional UI jitters and lags, which are inexcusable even given the mediocrity of the HTC First hardware. Perhaps a Note II will perform better, or Facebook will iron out animations in future monthly releases of Home. For now, every time something stutters, you'll briefly hate Home.
You'll also be frustrated with fragmented contacts. It's hard to appreciate the holy union of SMS and IMing when you have three different "Laura D" in your contacts list, or five different versions of "Dad." There should only be one dad, unless you have two dads, which is totally cool, but Facebook Home hasn't figured out how to merge its collection of the people you know with Google's in a way that isn't messy. There will be duplicates. Facebook's Adam Mosseri, the man who more or less created Home, knows it's a problem. He says they're trying to make it better. I believe Adam.
And one last point, that you can set aside for the moment but which will rear its head at some point: Home will likely feature ads someday. Ads with big, beautiful, geolocated relevance to your interests, sure. But ads just the same.
Should I Buy It?
If by buy you mean buy the HTC First, which is pre-loaded with Home, no, because Home is a free download and the HTC First is a junker.
Facebook Home Review: Surrender Yourself Unto Zuck
But if you have a compatible Android phone—as of April 12th, that means the First, the HTC One X, HTC One X+, HTC One, Samsung Galaxy S III, Note II, and Galaxy S4—give it a poke. At the very least, it'll knock some of the dust out of our brains, so used to the same plain screens, over and over and forever. |
This 4,000-ton Goliath Crane Has Laser Vision and a Robot Brain
Ships today—even the massive likes of the Emma Maersk and Marco Polo—just aren't big enough to handle the demands of globalized trade. So to quickly and safely build the next generation of super-sized LNG tankers and container vessels, China's Dalian shipyard relies on GE's staggeringly-huge, laser-guided Goliath… » 5/31/13 11:30am 5/31/13 11:30am |
Take the 2-minute tour ×
I would like to extract out the icon in the following screen (mixed with gray background)
enter image description here
enter image description here
Anyone know how I can do that using GIMP?
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Just out of curiosity, where is this image from anyway? I'm wondering why you don't have the original source images to work from and are trying to "reverse engineer" the design. – jhocking Apr 11 '11 at 14:22
I swear. I am not doing anything bad :) This is a logo designed by one of the contributor of a few year back open source desktop project. Recently, I want to use it for another open source android project. Since I no longer able to keep in touch with the previous contributor, I need to do some "reverse engineer" on my own. – Cheok Yan Cheng Apr 11 '11 at 17:22
I am a little confused: how did you post the extracted image you want without first extracting it? – horatio May 6 '11 at 14:18
2 Answers 2
up vote 5 down vote accepted
Personally, I would rebuild the image from scratch because I find it frustrating not to have original source files. But, until you or someone else gets around to doing that, here's the non-destructive quick fix:
1. d (changes default fg/bg colors to black & white)
2. CTRL+SHIFT+n (create new layer) press OK/enter
3. SHIFT+b (selects the path tool)
4. Roughly outline your desired image with the path tool: It works like connect-the dots kinda... click once on your image and then click elsewhere and it creates a straight line. Let the lines clip rounded corners for now. Close the path by going around until you get back to your starting point (click on it).
5. Improve the outline First fix the straight edges. zoom in (shortcut: +) super close so you can see better. Click and drag the dots to get the lines where you want them. (zoom out is -)
6. Finalize the outline Now fix the curved edges. zoom in (shortcut: +) super close so you can see better. Make sure "polygonal" is unchecked in the toolbox (CTRL+B if the toolbox isn't there). Now you can click on the lines between dots and drag it to make it curved.
7. Convert the path to a selection Hold down shift and click selection from path in the toolbox (CTRL+B if the toolbox isn't there).
8. Menu->Layer->Mask->Add Layer Mask and choose "selection", make sure the image layer is selected (everything you don't want is now hidden!)
9. Fix anything you don't like just click on the paintbrush (p) and paint black on the mask to hide things you don't want, or paint white on the mask to show things you accidentally hid.
10. To maintain transparency, make sure you save as a png (for production use) in addition to saving the original GIMP file (for future editing).
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Unfortunately it is never perfect to extract elements out of a raster image. Others will hopefully chime in with the best way to accomplish it in GIMP, but do note that for various reasons (especially anti-aliasing, which smooths out lines by blending pixels on the edge of the line with the background) any attempt to select part of a raster image and delete the rest will always result in either a ragged stair-stepped edge or an ugly halo of the background color.
In this case I would use a layer mask to remove parts of the image. The free select tool with polygon snap (polygonal lasso tool in Photoshop) can be used to paint black/carve off straight sections from the right side of the image, and then use the fuzzy select tool (magic wand in Photoshop) to get around the tricky gaps in the top-left. Not perfect though.
For this reason you always want to keep the original image with either intact layers for later modification or as a vector illustration.
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In order to " ... delete the rest ..." you should really use layermasks. They are magic. You can delete and recover bits of your original image just by painting black or white. This is crucial when you wish to get close to the edge of the object. Working with relatively soft brushes could help you get an acceptably antialiased border. – leugim Apr 9 '11 at 22:21
good point, I'll amend my answer – jhocking Apr 9 '11 at 22:54
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Take the 2-minute tour ×
I started reading The Elements of Typographic Style and found the term "letterfit". I'm unsure as to what it means. It doesn't appear in the glossary of terms of the book. Is it related to kerning?
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Closely related: graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/questions/2606/… – e100 Feb 20 '12 at 13:30
1 Answer 1
up vote 5 down vote accepted
"Letterfit" is a general term meaning "the adjustment of spacing between characters in a piece of text." It is an umbrella word that encompasses two related but different processes, plus a third that is (as far as I'm aware) peculiar to Adobe's applications.
The first is kerning, which is the adjustment of the space between individual character pairs. A character can be a letter, a number, a punctuation mark (period, comma, quotation mark) or other symbol (ornaments, dashes, bullets, etc.). Larstech's answer shows an example of kerning, and "The Elements of Typographic Style" contains many examples of problematic pairs that need individual kerning.
Digital font files contain specific instructions for different character pairs in a "kerning table" which is referenced automatically as you set the text. One of the major differences between a cheap of free font and an expensive professional one is the number of kerning pairs that the designer has specified. In a font family such as Adobe Garamond Premier Pro there are thousands of kerning pairs in each font. When you set the kerning value in your character style to "Metrics," it is these kerning that the software uses to space the text.
The second term that falls under "letterfitting" is what is commonly called "tracking" in design and layout programs. This adjusts the kerning of all the characters in the text (including spaces) in equal proportions. It is a very blunt tool, but useful for headlines (type often looks too "loose" when set at very large sizes) and captions (tiny text usually has to be opened up a little for easier reading). It is easily overdone, and should be used cautiously. You will also find excellent examples of the use of tracking in the book.
The third method of letterfit is active when you set the kerning value in your character style to "Optical" in InDesign, Illustrator, etc.. Optical kerning bypasses the built-in kerning tables. The software "looks" at the geometry of every character in relation to the ones on either side and adjusts the spacing based on a very sophisticated algorithm to give a "best guess" at how things ought to be spaced. If you're using a cheap typeface, this can seriously improved the look of your text. It is not foolproof, as Bringhurst points out in the book, but it can often get you 99% of the way there.
As a special note, don't ever use optical kerning or tracking with script fonts where the letters are supposed to connect with one another. The connectors will "break" and the illusion of continuous writing is destroyed.
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Take the 2-minute tour ×
I am finding this question particular hard to word, so please bear with me. I have a particular vector object that is irregularly shaped (in this case, it is an "r" that I traced with the pen tool), and I want to create another object that is a certain radius out from the original object... Here's an image to illustrate:
enter image description here
The solid-stroke "R" is the original object, and the dotted-stroke "R" is my desired object. Any way in Illustrator to derive this?
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2 Answers 2
up vote 1 down vote accepted
If you want a seperate object that you can then do other things with without needing to expand the original, rather than another stroke that is tied to the same object, you can use Offset Path ( Object menu > Path > Offset Path ).
enter image description here
Note how in the example it's adding a new separate object with its own seperate fill.
The new object will usually be grouped with the original - you can either ungroup, or drag the new stuff out from the group in the layers palette, or double-click into isolation mode then cut and paste it out.
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i come back almost a year later and this is the more useful answer... thanks – AndyPerlitch Mar 30 '13 at 3:59
Add a new stroke via the Appearance Panel.
Highlight the new stroke in the Appearance panel and choose Effect > Path > Offset Path
Tick "preview" and insert a number for the offset you want.
enter image description here
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Awesome, thank you! – AndyPerlitch Apr 25 '12 at 15:06
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hledger-lib-0.21.3: Core data types, parsers and utilities for the hledger accounting tool.
Safe HaskellNone
A Posting represents a change (by some MixedAmount) of the balance in some Account. Each Transaction contains two or more postings which should add up to 0. Postings reference their parent transaction, so we can look up the date or description there.
postingCleared :: Posting -> BoolSource
Is this posting cleared? If this posting was individually marked as cleared, returns True. Otherwise, return the parent transaction's cleared status or, if there is no parent transaction, return False.
postingAllTags :: Posting -> [Tag]Source
Tags for this posting including any inherited from its parent transaction.
transactionAllTags :: Transaction -> [Tag]Source
Tags for this transaction including any inherited from above, when that is implemented.
date operations
postingDate :: Posting -> DaySource
Get a posting's (primary) date - it's own primary date if specified, otherwise the parent transaction's primary date, or the null date if there is no parent transaction.
postingDate2 :: Posting -> DaySource
Get a posting's secondary (secondary) date, which is the first of: posting's secondary date, transaction's secondary date, posting's primary date, transaction's primary date, or the null date if there is no parent transaction.
isPostingInDateSpan :: DateSpan -> Posting -> BoolSource
Does this posting fall within the given date span ?
postingsDateSpan :: [Posting] -> DateSpanSource
Get the minimal date span which contains all the postings, or the null date span if there are none.
account name operations
joinAccountNames :: AccountName -> AccountName -> AccountNameSource
Prefix one account name to another, preserving posting type indicators like concatAccountNames.
concatAccountNames :: [AccountName] -> AccountNameSource
Join account names into one. If any of them has () or [] posting type indicators, these (the first type encountered) will also be applied to the resulting account name.
accountNameApplyAliases :: [(AccountName, AccountName)] -> AccountName -> AccountNameSource
Rewrite an account name using the first applicable alias from the given list, if any. |
network- Low-level networking interface
The Network interface is a "higher-level" interface to networking facilities, and it is recommended unless you need the lower-level interface in Network.Socket.
Basic data types
type HostName = StringSource
Either a host name e.g., "" or a numeric host address string consisting of a dotted decimal IPv4 address or an IPv6 address e.g., "".
withSocketsDo :: IO a -> IO aSource
On Windows operating systems, the networking subsystem has to be initialised using withSocketsDo before any networking operations can be used. eg.
main = withSocketsDo $ do {...}
Although this is only strictly necessary on Windows platforms, it is harmless on other platforms, so for portability it is good practice to use it all the time.
Server-side connections
:: PortID
Port Identifier
-> IO Socket
Connected Socket
Creates the server side socket which has been bound to the specified port.
NOTE: To avoid the "Address already in use" problems popped up several times on the GHC-Users mailing list we set the ReuseAddr socket option on the listening socket. If you don't want this behaviour, please use the lower level listen instead.
:: Socket
Listening Socket
-> IO (Handle, HostName, PortNumber)
Triple of: read/write Handle for communicating with the client, the HostName of the peer socket, and the PortNumber of the remote connection.
Accept a connection on a socket created by listenOn. Normal I/O operations (see System.IO) can be used on the Handle returned to communicate with the client. Notice that although you can pass any Socket to Network.accept, only sockets of either AF_UNIX, AF_INET, or AF_INET6 will work (this shouldn't be a problem, though). When using AF_UNIX, HostName will be set to the path of the socket and PortNumber to -1.
sClose :: Socket -> IO ()Source
Close the socket. All future operations on the socket object will fail. The remote end will receive no more data (after queued data is flushed).
Client-side connections
connectTo :: HostName -> PortID -> IO HandleSource
Calling connectTo creates a client side socket which is connected to the given host and port. The Protocol and socket type is derived from the given port identifier. If a port number is given then the result is always an internet family Stream socket.
Simple sending and receiving
Send and receive data from/to the given host and port number. These should normally only be used where the socket will not be required for further calls. Also, note that due to the use of hGetContents in recvFrom the socket will remain open (i.e. not available) even if the function already returned. Their use is strongly discouraged except for small test-applications or invocations from the command line.
socketPort :: Socket -> IO PortIDSource
Returns the PortID associated with a given socket.
Networking Issues
The Handle returned by connectTo and accept is block-buffered by default. For an interactive application you may want to set the buffering mode on the Handle to LineBuffering or NoBuffering, like so:
h <- connectTo host port
hSetBuffering h LineBuffering
Improving I/O Performance over sockets
For really fast I/O, it might be worth looking at the hGetBuf and hPutBuf family of functions in System.IO.
On Unix, when writing to a socket and the reading end is closed by the remote client, the program is normally sent a SIGPIPE signal by the operating system. The default behaviour when a SIGPIPE is received is to terminate the program silently, which can be somewhat confusing if you haven't encountered this before. The solution is to specify that SIGPIPE is to be ignored, using the POSIX library:
import Posix
main = do installHandler sigPIPE Ignore Nothing; ... |
With in a set circle of friends/circles/club, the man has slept with or is in the middle of sleeping with every single viable female within it.
Chris 'Teabag' Bowman has slept with all of these girls, he is such a man-whore!
מאת Bezzzyyy 5 באוקטובר, 2011
A selfish, self-centered, narcissistic, controlling, abusive, womanizing ass-wipe with no money from Egypt who can't wait to get to America to chase and stalk western women who are not interested in them and does so relentlessly while trying to appeal to their sense of compassion and kindness by crying about how poor they are, how much he and his family need money and how truly sensitive, sweet, honest and trustworthy they are while flirting and chasing other women at the same time when their only intent is to use, abuse and abandon them when their done, possibly to marry some unsuspecting virgin, probably his cousin or sister, from his hometown after sleeping with anything that appears female with money because he needs a dowry for the virgin who's been fucked in her ass repeatedly. In short, a lying, cheating, pathetic, feeble excuse for a man; a bloodsucking parasite.
Hey that guy Romeo who works at Subway is a real man-whore.
Get a box of tissues here comes that shit-head Abdelmasieh (Abdo) Ragaa Iskander Ibrahim, he's a real ambitious, persistent Man Whore, he's going to cry and ball to get you to feel sorry for him and give him sex and money.
After that man whore learned those arab women from Egypt and the rest of the middle east wouldn't give him money for sex, he moved to America!
I heard some of the best Man Whores are from El Minya, Egypt!
מאת AlphaRomeo* 28 באוקטובר, 2013
1. A male version of a whore
that shifts 7-8 girls at one disco
Tom omg john shifted 7 ppl at da disco last night
jack omg hes such a man whore !
מאת I<3Tractors 21 בנובמבר, 2012
A man who finds the need to hit on and sleep with just about every female that he comes into contact with.
Steve Studnuts.Steve Studnuts is a TOTAL Manwhore.
מאת Natas-Metronic,Kiwan S.Jaske A 19 באוקטובר, 2012
A male who has sex with a lot of woman
Mikhail, is a manwhore.
-signed his ex girlfriend.
מאת Mikhails ex gf 12 באפריל, 2011
a male slut. someone who seeks attention from multiple lady partners. you don't wanna be seen with one of these. chicks before dicks.
OMG Joe Molica is such a manwhore! He talks to so many girls!
מאת your worst nightmare96 29 ביוני, 2014
A "Man Whore" will do anything for money.
They usually find jobs with insurance companies, in politics, religion, dealing drugs or in prostitution.
A "Man Whore" would eat shit and say it tasted good if there was any money in it for him.
Hobbies and Passions of "Man Whores" include lying, stealing, cheating, and, sometimes, being obsessed with Fundamentalist Christianity.
Reiner is such a "Man Whore," he would eat a dog pooh and say it tasted good if someone gave him 100 Dollars.
מאת Amphitrite's Daughter 30 באוקטובר, 2013
דוא"ל יומי חינם
|
Take the 2-minute tour ×
Daniel 12:4 says "But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased." (KJV)
Now, what does the phrase "run to and fro" mean? In particular, there is a certain interpretation of this verse contained at this page at the Yashanet website. (Since the explanation is lengthy, I won't copy it here.)
Is the explanation given there a possible interpretation for Daniel 12:4?
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Thanks, Kazark, for the edit! – user1539 May 23 '12 at 3:52
1 Answer 1
up vote 1 down vote accepted
shuwt literally means to go to and fro or to run about. It's closely related root (as a pun) 'suwt' means to turn aside, swerve, or fall away.
Here is my bias in answering the question: I believe that God created the only and true Mystery religion. As such, The tree of Life is Christ himself who is the "water, water" or the Living Torah of God in heaven and on earth. What is proposed in the article is a variant of Gnosticism where John has been given a higher knowledge as he goes to and fro.
In all mystery religions there us a way to gain additional meaning from a given text. However, the constraint of that additional meaning is always in the hands of an expert priesthood.
In God's mystery religion, the mystery has been revealed in Christ, and the meaning of the hidden text is so self-correcting that children can discern the truth.
If the meaning of going to and fro, as the article states, means: "Rather, this "going" (or "running") is of the spiritual type, and can mean both, a) angels carrying out the will of God (descent), and, b) people "connecting" with God (ascent) in terms of gaining insight into the mysteries of Torah."
Then when Satan said he had been going to and fro upon the earth, was he doing God's will? Certainly not in any immediate sense, but perhaps in a more esoteric manner. Was he gaining insights into the mysteries of the Torah? Probably not. Where is the 'control on the meaning'? In the hands of those who say it is so.
So I am doubtful of the meaning they propose.
Literally it probably means they ran around, not knowing where to settle. This behavior is uncharacteristic of one who trusts God. Figuratively, it probably means that they were falling away from God (same as the literal, but from a different direction).
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Thank you very much for your answer, Bob Jones! – user1539 May 14 '12 at 8:03
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Take the 2-minute tour ×
T.E.D. commented on this answer:
Sometimes (particularly in developing countries) they literally are printing more money. In the USA typically we increase the money supply to make up for some kind of undesirable market tightening (which in theory should not cause much inflation). In developing countries, it is often done just to inflate away domestic debt. It doesn't hurt the decision makers any, as they can hide their assets in foreign currency. But it absolutely trashes domestic savings.
(Emphasis mine.)
What are the advantages and disadvantages of inflating away domestic debt by literally printing more money?
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closed as off topic by Louis Rhys, Drux, American Luke, Steven Drennon Feb 4 '13 at 2:19
Questions on History Stack Exchange are expected to relate to history within the scope defined by the community. Consider editing the question or leaving comments for improvement if you believe the question can be reworded to fit within the scope. Read more about reopening questions here.If this question can be reworded to fit the rules in the help center, please edit the question.
You really need to be more specific with your question. It is difficult to discern what you are asking and try to answer it. – ihtkwot Aug 12 '12 at 23:13
@ihtkwot - I am sure it is better now, sorry for the inconvenience – Victor Aug 13 '12 at 0:11
@Victor Fixed it for you, and removed the rhetorical flamebait while I was at it. – SevenSidedDie Aug 13 '12 at 0:22
@Victor Don't thank me; I did it for the good of the site. The important part of my comment to you was that rhetorical flamebait is not good for the site and you should take the hint to stop. Besides, the edit isn't even visible yet, so premature thanks ring hollow. – SevenSidedDie Aug 13 '12 at 0:29
Should this question go to an Economics forum? I once analysed this very same topic in a blog post/white paper. Will post an answer if the community agrees that this post deserves to be on the history Q&A site. – Monster Truck Aug 13 '12 at 12:25
3 Answers 3
up vote 6 down vote accepted
The prototypical example I was thinking of when I wrote this was the Weimar Republic. (Decidedely not a developing country, but a very well-studied example of the principle). They got kind of a double-whammy at the end of WWI. The previous government under Kaiser Wilhelm had financed most of the war, acting on the assumption that reparations from the losers would pay it all back.
When they lost instead, the boot was on the other foot. The new Republic that took over found itself with all that internal war debt, plus its own huge bill for reparations to the victorious allies.
Germany's strategy for dealing with this was to print themselves more cash, use it to buy foriegn currency to repay the reparations, and let the ensuing inflation wither away their local debt to worthlessness.
enter image description here
Here's a commemortive coin from the era:
enter image description here
The text translates to:
On 1st November 1923 1 pound of bread cost 3 billion, 1 pound of meat: 36 billion, 1 glass of beer: 4 billion.
It was a fairly effective strategy, except of course that it impoverished the German people, destroyed thier economy, and dramatically strenghtened extremeist political parties.
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How does this relate to the original question? Wasn't the hyperinflation caused directly by external debt, not domestic? – user357320 Aug 14 '12 at 16:34
@user357320 - No. You could argue that it was caused indirectly by external debt. Directly, what caused it was that the currency wasn't backed by anything, and that they kept printing so much of it. Simple supply and demand theory indicates that if you drastically increase supply, demand (or the value of the object in question) drops. – T.E.D. Aug 14 '12 at 17:47
@TED But the original question ask about the results of tackling domestic debt with inflation. The difference between pre war Germany and for example the US in the 80s is that in the latter case all (or almost all) debt was in USD (i.e. their own currency). Trying to print your way out of external debt will certainly lead to a highly devalued currency like we saw in Germany and staggering inflation. The US could still do that today but most other nations cannot as they are straddled with with external debt (debt in another currency) that will not devalue with domestic inflation. – user357320 Aug 14 '12 at 20:25
The US past 2010 is another good example... It's rapidly heading the same way, and the debt isn't decreasing one cent (in fact it's going up faster than the Federal Reserve can issue new money, despite all the "Quantitive Easing" and other money making plans coming out of the white house). – jwenting Feb 2 '13 at 17:18
Since this question deals with economics, I think this blog entry by Prof Paul Krugman provides us with another good (counter-)example. He provides the example of France in the 1920s, and shows that the effect on a country with its own currency is not as severe as it is generally believed.
share|improve this answer
Inflation is perceived as good for the debtor; the value/denomination of the debt remains constant while the value of the currency in which the debt is repaid is diminished. Since there is more money in circulation, there is more money with which to repay the debt.
What are the advantages? Inflation can ease the debt load. Rhode Island chose this as a strategy in the 1770's/80's in the US, which is why it was the last state to join the Union (RI was deeply in debt due to speculators, so they inflated their currency as a strategy ). Nobody wanted Rhode Island dollars
What are the disadvantages? Obviously inflation is bad for the lender. If inflation is rising and likely to continue to rise, then lendors must take this into account. That means that credit may be restricted, which may inhibit large and cooperative projects. Inflation is bad for anyone who is saving. Anyone with cash assets watches their value erode. Spend your money now because it will be worth less tomorrow. Again, this discourages investment in the future. This is the key to the italicized portion of your quote. If the leadership of a developing country inflates the domestic currency they can preserve their assets in foreign denominated currency, but ordinary citizens watch the value of their holdings dwindle away.
Mike Walden summarizes that inflation is bad because
1. Unless you constantly work harder, the value of your wages and savings decline
2. Businesses have trouble investing in new ventures or even just staying stable against competition
3. Interest rates rise, making it difficult to borrow money.
(All of those assume that you don't have the opportunity to anticipate the inflation and shelter the value in foreign denominated currency, which the leaders do in the example you cite).
You restricted the question to domestic, but inflation theoretically causes other nations to change their exchange rates for your currency, which makes it more difficult to buy foreign goods. That can have significant consequences in a world where economies are coupled. (Petroleum in the 70's comes to mind). Developing countries also tend to be somewhat coupled - since most developing countries don't have the infrastructure to permit competitively priced domestic manufacture of industrial goods. (including things like farm equipment, medicine, petroleum, etc.)
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Welcome to History SE! +1 to get you started. Great to have you here. – American Luke Oct 12 '12 at 17:19
Inflation is good for those who owe money, bad for those who own money. Since those making the laws are generally those who own money - inflation is generally seen as bad. – none Feb 2 '13 at 20:41
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Savoury Tofu Pudding Recipe
Savoury Tofu Pudding Recipe - House & Home
A traditional Chinese side dish from Andrea Nguyen's Asian Tofu. "One of the popular tofu snacks in China is warm soft tofu topped with a variety of piquant toppings that range from mild green onion, soy sauce and sesame oil to intensely flavoured chili oil, pickled vegetables and stir-fried meat mixtures. Sometimes tofu pudding is served with noodles, but I prefer to let the custardy tofu take centre stage. At home, buy or simply prepare the tofu pudding and lay out a bunch of different toppings for your guests to choose among."
6 servings
Tofu Pudding
5 cups soy milk, at room temperature
2-1/2 tsp packed gypsum, or 1-1/2 tsp packed gypsum plus 1-1/2 tsp tapioca starch
1/4 cup water, filtered or spring preferred
2 tbsp regular (light) soy sauce
1-1/2 tbsp chili oil, with chili flakes
1-1/2 tsp sesame oil
1 tsp Sichuan peppercorn, toasted and ground
1-1/2 tbsp Chinkiang or balsamic vinegar, optional
1/2 cup chopped green onion, green part only
1/4 cup unsalted roasted soy beans (soy nuts) or peanuts
1/3 cup chopped preserved mustard tuber (zha cai), rinsed if overly salty, optional*
2 oz. wonton or pot sticker skins or fresh flat Chinese noodles or linguine pasta, optional
Canola oil for deep-frying, optional
4 cups Tofu Pudding (see above)
* For wonderful earthy depth, head to a Chinese markets for preserved mustard tuber (zha cai). It is sold in cans labeled "Sichuan preserved vegetable." Maling is a reliable brand.
Tofu Pudding
Step 1: Put the soy milk in a medium saucepan (a lip makes pouring easier). Over medium-high heat, bring to a boil, stirring often with a wooden spoon to prevent scorching and keep a skin from forming.
Step 2: Meanwhile, choose a larger, tallish pot, such as a deep 4-quart pot, to hold the finished tofu. In the pot, whisk together the gypsum and water to create a milky liquid. Position the pot somewhere low enough so you can pour the soy milk into it from about 12" above — on a chair seat or opened oven door. If you like, put the pot on a baking sheet or dishtowel to minimize mess from any splashing. Keep the whisk nearby.
Step 3: When the soy milk reaches a rolling boil, turn the heat off. Whisk the coagulant because the solids tend to settle. Holding the saucepan about 12" above the pot, pour the hot soy milk into the coagulant; the gush of turbulence will mix the ingredients together. (You can start low and raise the saucepan higher as you pour.) Cover immediately with a lid and move the pot if necessary. Let the tofu sit, undisturbed, for 15 minutes.
Step 4: The tofu can be used once it has set. However, let it sit for another 30 minutes and the flavour will have developed further. If there are a lot of residual bubbles on the surface of the set tofu, use a spoon to gently remove them. Once you scoop the tofu, you break it up and it begins releasing whey. That is its nature. The longer it sits, the more it will drain, just like regular tofu. Use a slotted spoon to scoop if you want to leave some of the whey behind. To minimize the amount of whey that seeps out, scoop large pieces of the tofu and do it right before serving as savory or sweet tofu pudding.
Step 5: To store the tofu pudding for up to 3 days, replace the lid on the pot and refrigerate after the tofu has completely cooled. When reheating for warm tofu dishes, gently pour water into the pot around the tofu's edges (to avoid breaking it up) to cover by 1/4". Heat over medium-low heat until the tofu is warm to the touch. Avoid boiling because that may break up the tofu or make it unpleasantly firm. To keep the tofu warm, use the lowest heat.
Savoury Tofu Pudding
Step 1: To make the sauce, combine the soy sauce, chili oil and sesame oil. Add Sichuan peppercorn to taste. If you'd like a hot-and-sour finish, add the vinegar (or set it out and let your guests add it to their sauce themselves).
Step 2: Prepare the garnishes. Put the green onion, roasted soybeans and mustard tuber in separate small dishes. For extra crunch, deep-fry strips of wonton skin or short lengths of noodles. If using wonton or pot sticker skins, cut them into narrow strips, about 1/3" wide. With the noodles, cut them into 2"-3" lengths. Heat about 3/4" of oil in a saucepan over medium-high heat to about 350ºF on a deep-fry thermometer. If you don't have a deep-fry thermometer, stick a dry bamboo chopstick into the oil; if bubbles rise immediately to the surface, the oil is ready. Fry the noodles or wonton strips in batches for 1-2 minutes, until golden brown. Drain on paper towels, then transfer to a serving bowl. Set at the table with the garnishes and sauce.
Step 3: If your tofu pudding is cold, reheat it as directed in step 3 of the tofu pudding recipe above. Use a metal spoon to scoop up shards of the tofu into individual serving bowls. Expect liquid (whey) to accumulate in the bowls. While you can pour it off, it is nutritious and has a tangy flavour that commingles well with the garnishes. Invite guests to add garnishes and drizzle on the sauce themselves. Enjoy with spoons.
Step 4: If you want a spicy meat topping, heat 1-1/2 tsp of canola oil in a wok or skillet over medium heat. Add 4 oz. ground pork or chicken and cook, stirring and mashing the meat into small pieces, for about 1 minute, until it is just cooked through. Add 2 tbsp chili bean sauce and 2 minced garlic cloves. Keep stir-frying for another minute until the mixture is super fragrant. Stir in 1 chopped green onion (use the white and green parts) and remove from the heat. Transfer to a small bowl and offer it along with the other garnishes. Include the sauce too, if you like.
See more recipes from Andrea Nguyen.
Reprinted with permission from Andrea Nguyen's Asian Tofu (2012 Ten Speed Press).
Andrea Nguyen
Maren Caruso
Comment Guidelines
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a small little town in florida, where there is a great river, and nothing to do but get high and drunk. a place where you want to leave as soon as you graduate. on a normal weekend night, you will find all the "cool" kids in the walmart parking lot, or the parking lot right next to the mcdonalds hanging out, trying to find something to do with there night.
bro whats up tonight?
idk, wanna go to walmart til we find something?
i guess so, its the only thing to do in dunnellon
Beküldő: small town usa 2011. március 9.
one of those towns that you dive through on a road trip, and say to yourself, "what the fuck was that?"
a dingle-berry on a map.....dunnellon...
Beküldő: lived there 2010. április 25.
The worst place in the world. A piece of crap town, filled with rednecks, hillbillies, and hicks. Most people drive trucks. You have a choice between 3 resturaunts, 4 fast food places, 3 places to buy your daily nessessities, 2 auto stores, 5 gas stations, 2 bars, and one elemetary, middle, and high school. The high school is located in the middle of a bunch of cow fields. This is your worst nightmare.
person 1: dude, my car broke down, can you come help me?
person 2: where are you?
person 1: I don't know....some shit hole called....dunnellon?
person 2: where the fuck is that?!
person 1: ....I'm fucked, aren't I?
person 2: pretty much...sorry man.
person 1: me too, bro...me too.
Beküldő: rawr_grrrr_143 2011. november 7.
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Gallery: WASTED: Artist Alex White Mazzarella’s New Exhibit Explores So...
INHABITAT: Do you have any other projects on the horizon that we should know about?
Alex White Mazzarella: Yes, I'm going to Delhi in April for an artists residency. Then looking to go to Cologne to collaborate on a performance-based project that will engage diverse individuals of all different classes in an inquiry into work, labor, and capital.
INHABITAT: The show is really centered on “A Working Class”, your most recent piece, which is also a big departure from your other works. Can you tell us a little about that piece?
Alex White Mazzarella: “A Working Class” is a wall installation of plastic liquor nips, oil and refreshment containers excavated out of the underserved streets of Willets Point, Queens. It speaks towards not just the Willets Point workers but the low and middle classes worldwide who are increasingly seeing their wealth diminished and even undermined by private powers. In Willets Point, eminent domain is being used by the city to transfer this land to another class of private interests who will manifest their idea of development. Free enterprise – what this country is supposedly built to achieve – turned Willets Point into what is now a regional automobile repair destination. Workers are incredibly innovative , creative and above all invested in Willets Point. If the city were to take a democratic approach of listening and developing a redevelopment plan around their skills and their needs, those workers would be capitalized as assets. But instead the EDC’s new development is disregarding them and their well being. As a result, they say they will either be on unemployment or be deported. These are real jobs being destroyed to make money for the ultra wealthy and working poor waged jobs at the mall that will be WASTED. This is just short sighted and speaks to why income distribution is becoming everyday more skewed to the 1%. In fact a worker now tells me that India is feeling more like our notion of “America” than the United States does as he’s constantly getting fined and harassed by city workers. These people are taxed without receiving roads, water and waste management. WASTED. Meanwhile high-rise luxury condominiums are getting 25-year tax abatements. “A Working Class” is a tribute to these workers that struggle for democratic representation and a reflection on the course of increased inequality that our current foundations of private power is producing.
INHABITAT: What was your main inspiration for WASTED? What are the underlying messages you wanted to convey?
Alex White Mazzarella: Wasted is a way of defining a wide range of conversations on the discarded and disregarded that I’ve been spurning through my artwork over the past three years.
INHABITAT: Can you tell us a little bit about why you choose to work with recycled materials over new?
Alex White Mazzarella: Largely because these materials come out of certain processes that stain them with the stamp of social systems and life functions. They are the materials that make things go round, and indicative of the time and age in which we are living. These materials and objects are more than just their composite – they can carry stories if used intelligently to articulate stories, emotions and narratives. Recycling materials into artwork also mean that people are familiar with them because they are there in people’s lives. When taken out of a certain context of everyday life and put into another more spiritual one, the everyday familiarity sticks and brings the viewer a little bit closer to what is being articulated. We live in a material world but are driven by immaterial souls. That in a way is what the material art is all about.
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Gallery: Solar Geodesic Dome-Covered Cob House Rises in the Far Reaches...
Ingrid Marie and Benjamin Hjertefølger are building a cob house topped by a glass solar dome in Norway
Ardent followers of permaculture, the couple and their three children are lucky to be surrounded by a host of like-minded families who often come by to help with the building. They are also vegetarians, so it was important for them to find a way to be self-sufficient all year despite their northerly latitude. As a result, they have built a small greenhouse that is irrigated using waste water treated by plants and sand in the greenhouse. They can even grow tropical fruits!
The basement was constructed using Leca – lightweight bricks of extruded clay. A system of long buried pipes leading down to the beach bring fresh air into the home. Since the temperature of the earth is constant, these pipes bring in warm air during winter and cool air during the summertime. Vents at the base of the house, mid-level windows and windows near the roof ensure that the air circulates at all times. Plus, the glass dome ensures that very little maintenance will be required during winter months.
“It is truly wonderful to work “inside” on our house,” Ingrid told Inhabitat. “We have quite a lot of wind and rain here, so coming in to the glass dome is such a pleasure! You still feel like you are outside, but the air is still, and we are dry even when it rains. It is fascinating to see the rain flow in a large curve around us. Every time the weather is bad I know why we did this.”
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1. Ivica Barbić October 29, 2014 at 3:50 am
2. valérie lamboley July 15, 2014 at 10:14 am
i’d like to see and know more about you and your house;
Could you send me more photographs , it’s really fun and interesting;
Valérie from france
3. Bryan Leyenbeck June 30, 2013 at 9:31 pm
Let readers be aware that this is not a corn cob house. Obviously, it is a cob house.
4. Lunzie October 6, 2012 at 5:52 pm
How is the house/dome heated at night when the sun goes down and the temperature falls? Does the dome lose heat quickly? What type of glass is used in the dome?
5. Heartfollower October 5, 2012 at 12:24 pm
Our blog (it’s in Norwegian, google translate can be used) :)
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It's Roger Corman melodrama at its finest! Dr. Paul Kettering's wife has been taken over by alien parasites, in the climax to The Brain Eaters. This calls for a husband-wife scenery-chewing contest! But there's more!
Here's secret footage of a meeting of the U.S. Congress' secret UFO committee, where chain-smoking men get together to watch stag films about mysterious 50-foot cones, and "fiery horse-drawn sky chariots." Your tax dollars at work! [IMDB] |
Helo Leads Syfy Up The River, In Search Of The Next BSG
Dollhouse and Battlestar Galactica star Tahmoh Penikett has landed another major science fiction role, this time in a TV-movie adaptation of Philip José Farmer's Riverworld, as the Syfy Channel attempts to replace, well…BSG, mostly.
The Riverworld books are set on an alien (but Earth-like) planet in the far future where, for some unknown reason, everybody who has ever lived is simultaneously resurrected as healthy, twenty-five year old versions of themselves. The various stories set in this universe explore both how famous historical figures interact with each other and their strange new surroundings, as well as the larger attempts by the thirty-six billion people on the planet to recreate human society.
Penikett plays Matt Ellman, a war correspondent who is killed and resurrected along with his fiancé, played by Smallville's Laura Vandervoort. The two characters, who as far as I can tell are being newly created for the miniseries, will serve as the protagonists and audience identification figures as they attempt to discover Riverworld's secrets and discover the sometimes surprising identities of the famous people they now meet. Joining them in the cast are Jeananne Goossen, Mark Delkin, and Alan Cumming as "The Caretaker."
Riverworld is just one of three four-hour movies, along with new adaptations of The Phantom and Alice in Wonderland, that RHI Entertainment is producing for the Sci Fi channel; RHI was previously behind the Tin Man miniseries that aired in 2007. All three are being considered as backdoor pilots, in that they may become regular series if ratings and reviews are strong enough, similar to Battlestar Galactica. (It's particularly fitting Penikett would now be the star of such a movie, considering Helo was never even supposed to survive past the BSG miniseries.)
Of the three, Riverworld is considered the best candidate for a follow-up TV series, although the other two are not without potential. The Phantom adapts the long-running comic strip, which follows Kit Walker, the twenty-first member of his family to bear the mantle of the Phantom in a tradition that stretches back to the 1500s. Screenwriter Daniel Knauf explained the TV-movie's particular take on The Phantom story to Newsarama back in 2008:
"In our story, we have a break in the lineage. The 22nd Phantom, the one we all know and love, his wife and his son died in an automobile accident. So when he died, there was no one to take over…But it turns out the son survived and has been raised by a foster family and has no idea who he is. They find him through a fluke when he's arrested on a trespassing charge, and he ends up getting his DNA into CODIS [the national DNA database]. The people in Bangalla who are still part of the Jungle Patrol — which we call Bpaa-Thap (which literally translates to 'Jungle Patrol') — they find him and decide to bring him in and train him. So it's a whole new game for this kid. So he's very conflicted, as far as who he was and who he thinks he is."
Desperate Housewives actor Ryan Carnes is set to play the Phantom, with Isabella Rossellini guest-starring as Lithia, a mind-control experiment's evil director (but then, is there any other kind?). Cameron Goodman and Sandrine Holt have also joined the cast. Less is known about Alice, RHI's third project. (Although we found a scary-looking photo of Whoopi Goldberg as the Cheshire Cat on RHI's website.) As one could probably guess, it promises to be a darker, more adult revamp of Lewis Carroll's classic along the same lines of how Tin Man reworked The Wizard of Oz.
Of course, there's one question that hangs over any Tahmoh Penikett casting announcement - what does this mean for Dollhouse? The short answer is "not much." Riverworld and The Phantom started production yesterday, with planned air dates set for 2010. Considering the Syfy Channel's usual lag between miniseries and series (there were ten months separating the BSG miniseries and the first episode of the series proper), any regular series that would require a substantial time commitment from Penikett wouldn't likely materialize until 2011. As much as the latest wild Internet rumors are rather positive for Dollhouse's future, the show would have to make it all the way to a third season before there would be any potential conflict, and that's assuming Riverworld is successful enough to launch a series. In any event, this shouldn't be taken as an indication that the Dollhouse cast is already looking for other work.
So, for now, it's best to take this news at face value - that Tahmoh Penikett continues to get roles that he richly deserves. It only makes sense that you'd need a veteran of Battlestar Galactica to replace Battlestar Galactica.
['Battlestar' actor to star in 'Riverworld']
[Sci Fi orders 'Phantom,' 'Riverworld,' 'Alice'] |
Millions of years ago, Earth's atmosphere had almost no oxygen
We all know how important carbon and oxygen are in the development of life on Earth. But millions of years ago, there wouldn't have been enough oxygen for animals to exist. What changed?
Between 750 and 580 million years ago, the Earth was almost entirely encased in thick glaciers and ice sheets. When the ice finally started to recede, the oceans were now oxygen-depleted. This made them poor candidates to support life, or at least anything more complex than simple anaerobic bacteria. If complex life was ever going to emerge, then the oceans would need a massive spike in its oxygen levels.
That's where phosphorus enters the picture. Conventional wisdom had long held that phosphorus has been scarce on this planet throughout its history, but new work on ancient minerals has revealed at least one period when the element was plentiful - 750 and 635 million years ago, which is when complex life began to develop.
Researchers say that isn't a coincidence. Phosphorus was probably washed into the oceans by glacial debris, and the element would have jump-started the growth of cyanobacteria, also known as blue-green algae. That algae creates oxygen as a byproduct of its own metabolic process, which would have slowly raised oxygen levels in the oceans. Given enough time, there was finally enough oxygen for animals and other complex forms of life to develop - all thanks to phosphorus.
Read the full scientific paper via Nature |
Henry Cavill opens up about playing Superman. Plus Tron 3's story begins to take shape!
Christopher Nolan chooses a key location for The Dark Knight Rises. An absurd Superman casting rumor is back, and sillier than ever. A Flight of the Conchords star returns to The Hobbit. Plus the most spoiler-y Fringe set photos ever!
Spoilers from here on out!
Top image from Real Steel.
The Dark Knight Rises
Christopher Nolan has confirmed that the film will be shooting in Pittsburgh. This may mean that New Orleans is out of the running as a shooting location, although I don't think we know for sure exactly where all the locations will be. Another report says Nolan may have scouted the English mansion Kedleston Hall, with the obvious (but purely speculative) possibility being that this will be the new Wayne Manor. [IGN]
Marion Cotillard says, "I have a project for the summer. Different thing that I don't wanna talk about." This has already been widely interpreted as referring to this movie, but there's nothing in her statement that actually suggests that, so I'd advise against reading too much into this. [The Independent]
Superman Reboot
Henry Cavill confirmed he has read the script, and he described his approach to the character:
"It's basically just a re-imagining and modernization of an iconic character...Superman is Superman, after all. There's only so much of a change you can make to that. It's certainly, as I say, it's going to be different, but not so different that it's unrecognizable."
[MTV Splash Page]
He also offered this hint on the Superman suit:
"I haven't worn the actual film suit yet.. no, not yet. The [costume] team is still working on it. I've done fittings.. and from what I've heard it's coming together wonderfully. It'll be fresh and new but immediately recognizable."
[Daily Blam]
Finally, he explained his comic book research for the role:
"I'm just picking out as much as I possibly can from the comic book history because obviously it's plastered across there as to who this man is and whatever part of his life you're playing; whatever part of his ultimate journey you're playing, you just need to put in either the building aspects, the building blocks to how he ends up, all those key characteristics that are carried through and so it's just picking up a general idea of what he is and then working from there."
[MTV Splash Page]
File this item under "Things that are obviously not true", but that silly Lindsay Lohan rumor apparently isn't going away. The original Supergirl rumor has been dropped in favor of the new "report" that Lohan is auditioning for the main female villain. I wouldn't put a lot of stock in this. Slightly more interesting is the part of the story that claims Lohan is reading alongside largely unknown actor Adam Harris, who is supposedly in the mix for Luthor. Harris does look the part, but again, I wouldn't trust any of this. Moving on... [Radar Online]
Real Steel
Some plot details have emerged for Hugh Jackman's robot boxing movie, directed by family movie stalwart Shawn Levy. Jackman is obsolete human boxer Charlie Kenton, who reconnects with his estranged son while preparing a seemingly busted robot for a big fight with the World Robot Boxing champion Zeus. Jackman and Levy discuss the portrayal of Kenton, and how he straddles the line between good and bad:
Levy: He doesn't want this kid and this kid is dumped on his doorstep. He's trying to just go day to day and now he's got a frickin' 10 year old in his backseat. Really, that's the turn. It's not that he gets materialistic, they do start to win, but if anything, that's when the better Charlie starts to emerge.
Jackman: Really, this is a character that doesn't believe in himself in the beginning, and he disappoints people ultimately because of that. The movie is a redemptive tale of someone who actually gets a second chance. That can be more frightening sometimes than the first, particularly when you know what's at stake. I think that's what really we loved about this story. The son, he just believes in him.
Levy: He believes in him and he believes in this frickin' robot, this junkyard sparing bot that Hugh's character's like, "It's a piece of sh*t. Sell him off for parts." The kid is like, "There's something to this thing." The movie never confirms nor denies the truth of that, but it flirts with that edge of suggestion.
There's more at the link. [ComingSoon.net]
Tron 3
Director Joseph Kosinski says he hopes he'll return for the sequel, and wants to do with this movie:
We're working on the story right now. Now that we've got the backstory out of the way and we know this world and we know these characters, there's a lot of freedom that comes with the next film. When you look at "Empire Strikes Back" or "The Dark Knight," sequels that were able to take the stories and characters to whole new places because you'd done all the hard work ahead of time, that's a really exciting thing. For now, I'll just say it's very exciting...For us, the storytelling will be easier because we won't be saddled with 28 years of backstory. From a technical standpoint, in order for it to be a "Tron" movie, we're going to have to push the envelope. I'm sure we won't make it any easier."
The Hobbit
Flight of the Conchords star Bret McKenzie is reprising his Lord of the Rings role as an elf. While his eye-catching cameo in Fellowship of the Ring earned him the fan nickname Figwit, but director Peter Jackson is now give him an actual canonical role by making him Lindir, who has a minor role in The Hobbit as an elf who listens to one of Bilbo's songs. [Variety]
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II
Ginny Weasley portrayer Bonnie Wright discusses filming the epilogue and what she's most looking forward to in the final film:
"It was really weird. People said, 'Don't worry, you look good for 35!' Being a mother with three children suddenly when you're young is quite a big [change]. It's strange, because obviously [when] I started, my first scene ever filmed was on the train platform 9 3/4, and then we came back to shoot some more before Christmas, and it was back at platform 9 3/4, so I finished, and it was like this amazing cycle...I think I'm mainly looking forward to the epic battle that is to come," she said. "See[ing] the power of good triumph over evil is going to be satisfying."
[MTV Movies Blog]
Doctor Who
View gallery »
BBC America sent out a press release, including some new promo photos, plus a ton of new information about season six. Steven Moffat says:
The over-arching plot will be a bigger player this year. More than hints and whispers – we're barely ten minutes into episode one before our heroes face a dilemma that they'll be staring at months from now. And there will be no easy answers... [New monsters include] the Silence in 1 & 2, the Siren, in episode 3, the Gangers in 5 & 6, all these are more than just freaky costumes and masks; there are SCARY ideas here.
Adds Karen Gillan:
There were clues planted in the last season that are going to become major storylines in this one... There's a really interesting arc in this season that involves all of the major characters and it's evident from the first episode that everyone on the TARDIS is withholding secrets from one another... I think The Silence, which are the new monsters in the opening two episodes, actually rival the Weeping Angels in terms of scariness and they look disgusting! The concept behind them is ingenious because it feels like they are undefeatable, and this season also sees the return of some of the Doctor's oldest foes, but with an interesting twist...
And Matt Smith says:
I think The Silence are one of the greatest monsters of recent years and certainly one of the scariest. They're also very clever and I love the fact they've been silently working since the dawn of time to make The Doctor come unstuck. Steven has a grand plan and some of the seeds he planted in the last season start coming to fruition and affecting the characters in drastic ways. Every character is faced with the most seismic and high-stakes choices we've seen so far.
[BBC America]
Deadwood and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest actor Brad Dourif has reportedly been cast as Moreau, a mysterious character who shows up in the season finale. Weirdly enough, the original casting call was looking for a Japanese actor, so apparently that was either misinformation or not an essential part of the character. [TV Line]
View gallery »
Further to yesterday's super spoiler-y scene description, here come the actual set photos of that scene. View at your own risk, as this looks like a pretty major plot development. [SpoilerTV]
Here's a very short description of episode 20, "6:02 AM EST": "With only three episodes left this season, the beginning of the end is triggered when Walternate finds a way to wreak havoc 'over here.'" [SpoilerTV]
Executive producers Jeff Pinkner and Joel Wyman promise Leonard Nimoy will play an "unexpected role" on the show. Make of that what you will. [EW]
Game of Thrones
Executive producers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss say the project started out as a movie, but they said even a three-hour adaptation would require cutting 90% of the first book's material, which is why they went to a TV show. They explained that there were some warfare aspects that had to be cut down, however:
Weiss: We've had to simplify some of the warfare stuff to make it comprehensible to people who don't have a table full of maps and charts and family trees in front of them.
Benioff: And Ned's lieutenant, Jory, basically gets all of the lines of the lesser lieutenants.
Here are some images from the first three episodes. [multipleverses.com]
Here's a promo for episode 20, "Chuck vs. the Family Volkoff." [ChuckTV]
Ryan MacPartlin discusses Captain Awesome's upcoming return to the spy world:
"It was really tricky because the first time Awesome got into the spy world, it was a little self-centered to be honest. You know, married life does have its lulls. He wanted to spice things up a little bit and get that adrenaline rush. If he did that now with a baby, it would be really selfish. So [the writers] had to be really careful bringing us into the spy world and making it out of necessity rather than desire."
The Event
Here's a short synopsis for episode 18, "Strain":
Illness strikes the White House, leaving Chief of Staff Peel and Sterling to investigate; Michael helps Leila; Sean and Vicky work to prevent Sophia's weapon from being shipped to the United States.
The April 15 episode "My Heart Will Go On", which is set in a world where the Titanic never sank, will examine all the fallout of such a huge change to reality - including, as one might expect from the title, the career of Celine Dion. The episode is also quite emotional, particularly the material that deals with the return of Samantha Ferris as Ellen. [EW]
Being Human
Here's a sneak peek at the season finale, "A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To Me Killing You."
Star Sam Witwer discusses what lies ahead in the finale:
"There are actually a few cliffhangers, and there are a few provocative questions, primarily with Josh and Aidan," Witwer says. And some of those new questions are likely to be raised in the flashback scene to two years ago that "explains something that Josh did earlier this season. There's a vengeful move that Josh does at the urging of [Josh's jerk were-buddy] Ray. We learn a little bit more about why he did that. And we're also catching Aidan right as he's about to pull away from the vampires; he's already starting to feel quite alone and isolated. So that, more than anything, allows him to identify Josh as someone else who has the same problem. By the end of the season, the question of are they better together or better apart is answered - or begins to get answered. We have a lot of moments that are designed to remind us - sometimes literally and sometimes in a metaphoric way - how far these characters have come with each other."
Warehouse 13
The show's executive producers are still studiously refusing to weigh in on whether Myka will return, not even weighing in on whether she will appear in the season premiere. [EW]
Additional reporting by Katharine Trendacosta and Charlie Jane Anders. |
Medicine doesn't work properly in space
Here's one more unexpected challenge for space travel: drugs crucial for treating everything from a mild headache to a serious infection don't work properly in the radically different environment away from Earth...and yes, radiation might be part of the problem.
On Earth, medicine can generally remain effective for about two years, as long as it's stored correctly. Proper storage generally involves keeping it away from direct sunlight and in a cool, dry space. But there are plenty of conditions that we take for granted on Earth that are nothing like those we find in space, where "radiation, excessive vibrations, microgravity, a carbon dioxide rich environment and variations in humidity and temperature" are all potential issues.
To figure out what effect all that might have on medicine, the researchers sent up four boxes of drugs containing 35 different medications up to the International Space Station. At the same time, they kept the same set of drugs in ideal conditions at the Johnson Space Center. The space drugs came back at different times - some just a couple weeks later, some more than two years later - but they all consistently showed reduced effectiveness at much faster rates than if they had remained on Earth.
This means that Earth-made medicines may not be useful on long-term space missions, such as a first crewed mission to Mars. In all likelihood, the drugs will need to be modified to take into account the vastly different conditions of space. Still, space drugs can have their advantages, as Dr. Colin Cable, the science information adviser at the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, explains:
"On Earth, medicines are tested to assess the effects of, for example, temperature, moisture, oxygen and light, and are packaged and stored to ensure they remain stable and effective over their shelf life. Repackaging of medicines into containers that do not give the medicines the protection required to moisture, oxygen and light can have a detrimental effect on their stability. One potential benefit of keeping medicines in a Space Station is that the medicines will be exposed to a carbon dioxide-rich environment, this may help minimise the degradation of those medicines prone to oxidation, such as adrenaline, vitamin C and vitamin A."
Via BBC News. |
Did Chris Nolan clean up Bane's mumble mix for The Dark Knight Rises?
A few weeks ago, there was a bat-rumor that Warner Bros. was freaking out over the public's reaction to Bane's muffled voice. Getting Chris Nolan to bend to studio will is a pretty difficult task, but this time it seems the studio has won. Bane apparently got a voice job.
Collider is reporting that all new soundtracks have been sent out for The Dark Knight Rises IMAX sneak preview. From their unnamed source:
"A friend of mine who is an IMAX projectionist told me they received a new soundtrack for the Dark Knight Rises prologue. He said it's now a combo soundtrack with Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, but the cool thing about this is that they've cleaned up the dialogue. They've gone in and lowered the background noise of the plane and other things, thus making Bane's dialogue clearer and more understandable. He asked some people after they left the movie if they could understand Bane and they all said they had no issue understanding him, and were excited for the movie."
More importantly, does this mean Nolan is cleaning up Bane's chatter in the movie itself? Or was this an isolated, "only sounds like crap in the IMAX theater" incident?
UPDATE: Apparently this whole story is false. No one has changed Bane's sound mix. |
Parasites wage war against zombie-ant fungus
Back in March of last year scientists reported finding a "zombie fungus" that was affecting ant colonies in Brazil, the details of which sounded something straight out of a George A. Romero film. Nicknamed the "zombie-ant fungus", it invades an ant's brain and takes control, forcing the ant march to its death at a mass grave near the ant colony. Once there, fungal spores erupt out of the ant's head in an effort to infect a passing victim. But just when you thought things couldn't look more grim, it now appears that a parasite has come to the ants' rescue — one that's waging a war against the disease itself.
The parasite was discovered by a team led by David Hughes of Penn State University. The research is helping scientists understand how entire ant colonies have been able to survive the onset of the zombie-ant fungus. It turns out that the newly discovered parasite is itself a fungus — a hyperparasitic fungus that specializes in attacking the very parasite that turns the ants into zombies.
According to Hughes, the parasite effectively castrates the zombie-ant fungus such that it cannot spread its spores. Because the hyperparasitic fungi prevents the infected zombie-ant fungus from spreading its spores, fewer of the ants contract the infection. And it appears that the parasite is winning.
Parasites wage war against zombie-ant fungus
The scientists report that only about 6.5% of the spore-producing organs of the zombie-ant fungus remain viable after infection by the hyperparasitic fungus. What this means is that, even though there are many infected ants in the colony, only a few of the spores of the zombie-ant fungus will become mature and able to infect healthy ants. Hughes' research indicates that the danger to the ant colony is much smaller than the high density of zombie-ant cadavers in the graveyard might suggest.
To help them in their research, the scientists created a model that revealed details of the interactions between the fungus-infected ants and the parasite-infected zombie ant fungus. Scientists had previously observed that ants can defend themselves against diseases by grooming each other and by changing their interactive behaviours. But the Hughes-led study now indicates that a third-party can also tilt the balance in the war against infection.
The research will be published in the journal PLoS ONE.
Source. All images via Penn State Science. |
Lightspeed Presents… “Flowing Unimpeded to the Enlightenment” by Robert Reed
io9 is proud to present fiction from Lightspeed Magazine. Once a month, we'll be featuring a story from Lightspeed's current issue. This month's selection is "Flowing Unimpeded to the Enlightenment" by Robert Reed. Enjoy!
Top image: R.J. Palmer
Flowing Unimpeded to the Enlightenment
Robert Reed
The Rude Man
Kartar is forty and Irish-Indian, blessed with an avatar's sterling looks and a fine deep voice that lingers in the mind. He wears a piezosuit and a bright necktie advertising Chinese wetware, and a new Everything is pinned to his broad lapel. Twenty admirers have him surrounded. They seem like a pleasant bunch. Standing with his back against the brick wall, Kartar expertly manages his audience. When someone asks about recent travels, he launches into brief descriptions of an AI birth in Christchurch and an earthquake milking at Palmerston North. A few insider details give the show its tech-steroid heft, and then he generously throws out one fresh idea: New Zealand should bioengineer its native tuatara, creating a forty-foot reptile that swims like a sea serpent, working its way up and down that scenic, tourist-infused coastline.
Oohs and laughter lead to another question: How does he like the conference so far?
"Business Opportunities Through SETI," is the official theme. Kartar gives away nothing about his keynote address, concentrating on happy noises about the other guests and his gracious hosts. But he admits that he could use some free time. Walking is his passion and San Francisco is so beautiful, at least what he sees through his hotel room window. And someone immediately takes the bait, warily confiding that they aren't in San Francisco. This is Cincinnati.
"Oh, I forgot," Kartar deadpans. "The maid must have dinked with my virt-setting."
People laugh hard while the half-circle moves closer. More questions are offered, but Kartar answers one that he hasn't heard yet. Next month is a quick trip to China, where he gets to kick the proverbial tires on the Long March 12 nuclear rocket. That leads to a few pointed comments about the Martian mission and why Ceres would be the smarter target. "But at least our colon flora finally get what they want, a free ride to an empty, vulnerable world," he concludes.
Minds chew on that poignant notion.
Kartar smiles, waits a beat, then warns everyone that he shouldn't tell them this, but he has a five-day contract job with a game company that he doesn't dare name, what with the draconian contracts he had to sign. And he certainly can't talk about the game that he might or might not be building for them, or when it might be released, and why would anyone even attempt to keep secrets in the modern superfluid world of data? But the topic of clandestineness puts him in the mood to say a few choice words about . . .
A single bright tone emerges from his Everything.
The famous man seemed ready to discuss immersion games or the public life of incandescent secrets, or maybe he was going to make an oblique mention about his consultancy work for Langley. Audiences are always hungry for insider stories about the CIA. But no, without a word, Kartar deploys his Everything. Short fingers dance inside the bright holo cloud. Abstract symbols need to be pushed and dragged. No one speaks. Genius is allowed its important silences, and the man lends mesmerizing grace to an everyday chore. And after twenty seconds of shoving and herding-just as the first gazes wander-Kartar says, "I am sorry."
To nobody in particular, he says, "I don't mean to be rude."
"Oh, really?" one man yells out from the back row.
Some turn to look, but polite people keep their faces forward, pretending to be deaf. In his fifties, maybe older, the loud man has white hair mixed with black and a gaunt, chiseled face built around a pair of close-set dark eyes. He wears what might be a smile. His voice is sturdy and quick. "When you say that you don't want to be rude, you surrender two bits of useful information: You know exactly how rude you are, and you want to underscore your poverty of manners."
Bystanders look at the ceiling and walls and the suddenly fascinating floor.
No one else speaks.
"You should pay attention to us," says the heckler, "and not your next dental appointment, or whatever."
It is hard to tell what Kartar notices. A few more pushes at jellyfish and important arrowheads, and then he looks up, considering everyone else before meeting the challenger's eyes.
"You're right," Kartar says. "I'm totally in the wrong here."
"An opinion held by two."
Kartar deploys two facial recognition packages.
"Dominick," the heckler says.
"Excuse me?"
"Ask me. I'd tell you my name."
"All right, Dominick. Hello."
"Hello to you."
"Do I know you, Dominick?"
The man grimaced. "How can I say? I can't see your brain."
People begin to back away.
Keeping his voice even and slow, Kartar asks, "Have we met before, Dominick?"
"Yes. We certainly have."
Kartar clucks his tongue, signaling his security software, and he stares at the narrow, slightly wild face that needs a life story.
"So ask me your next question," Dominick says.
"Where did we meet?"
"No. There's a much better question waiting."
The audience has parted in the middle, save for three individuals who have decided to put themselves closer to the troublemaker-two beefy fellows, and for some reason, a girl who looks like a skinny seventeen.
"You seem rather angry," says Kartar.
"Maybe I am."
"Are you angry with me?"
The man shrugs.
"Why do you feel this way, Dominick?"
"Well, maybe because of what you do."
"And what do I do?"
"You're a professional thief," Dominick says. "You steal ideas for a living."
Kartar winks at his self-appointed bodyguards, and the men smile back at him, glad for this sign of approval.
"Except I'm not a thief," Kartar says. "Thieves take objects of intrinsic value. They pocket money, jewels, what-have-you. What I deal in is knowledge, in memes, which is an entirely different business. Once created, there is no practical, sober way to keep a good meme from being owned by every person."
"‘Ideas are mutable and graceful and slick,'" Dominick begins to quote.
Then half of the audience helps finish the famous line. "‘And knowledge is happiest when it flows unimpeded to the Enlightenment.'"
Kartar gives more winks and a smile. "Well, I can guess what's going on here. You think I stole some idea of yours. Isn't that right?"
The heckler doesn't react.
"You're a bright fellow, Dominick. I have a nose for quality, and sure, maybe I have taken one or two gems from you in the past, and now you're pissed. And for what it's worth, I can see your point of view. But none of us made today's world; we just have to live in it. And this is how things are done."
Dominick snorts. "Yeah, that says a helluva lot."
A security alert flashes in privacy-mode. Kartar reads the first sentence and skims the highlights, learning a tiny amount about this man. What matters are the weapons that Dominick carries, and the most dangerous object is inside his left front pocket-a pointed car key belonging to an elderly Ford.
The heckler steps closer.
Kartar waves his right hand, and his Everything retreats back into its vial.
"You don't understand," says Dominick. "You think you do, but you don't."
"What don't I understand?"
"You're not looking at this in the proper light."
"No?" The brick wall presses against Kartar's back. "Maybe I don't see what you see. True enough. But I want to tell you something, Dominick. I intend to be rude now. I don't like you, and I don't want to be near you, and you need to turn and walk away. Right now, before this situation gets out of control."
The older man sighs, and then with weary resignation takes another step forward.
The two male bodyguards grab Dominick under the arms, lifting him off the floor. But he squirms and starts to kick, and maybe on purpose he cracks the one young man hard in the shin.
That's when the girl steps up.
Her tiny right fist strikes the heckler in the chin, and his head leaps back. Then she dives in close with her left fist and another right and a second left, battering the chest as the unprepared bodyguards drop Dominick in order to reach for her. But the girl uses her feet, kicking her victim's legs out from under him, and she slaps aside every hand as she dives low, punching and jabbing at the exposed face while those amazingly strong legs cling to the gasping, useless body.
The Goddess
She doesn't know who the important guy is. That's the funniest part of this story.
She hears that smart voice performing and sees all of those backs, a bunch of people hanging on the guy's words. The guy likes to boast about this and that. God, he sounds busy, going everywhere and seeing every damned thing in the world. She guesses that he can't be married, and he's probably rich, which interests her. A lot of things interest her. She's not the idiot that people usually think she is. That her parents think she is. College was a bit of a disaster, sure. She admits that now. But not everything about her life is her fault. Besides, she reads plenty, and she knows how to read people, which is a surprisingly rare talent in this world, and pushing her way to the front row, she finds herself getting interested in the goofy guy with his power suit and billboard tie and the fancy floating Cloud-of-Knowledge, or whatever they're calling these auxiliary brains this week.
Her name is Rhonda, but she hasn't used that ugly business since she was ten.
Artemis is a name pulled from myth, and that's what friends call her, and strangers, and it's how phantoms refer to her when she's walking inside her own dreams.
Artemis is standing up front when the crazy guy starts complaining. In some ways, the power-suit guy seems cool and sharp under fire. He probably gets a ton of shit from people, and he knows how to handle most idiots. Call them by their name, for instance. Dominick this, Dominick that, my dear goddamn Dominick. But as she watches him, and as she listens deeper into his voice, it becomes obvious that he doesn't have control of the situation. Not like he believes he does. With all those fancy tools in the Cloud, this rich, lonely travel-everywhere guy feels invulnerable, amusing himself before his next speaking appearance or lunch date or jump in the sack.
When the two fat guys move toward the crazy guy, she joins in.
No, she doesn't have a plan. If you run on instinct, you never need plans. At least that's the way Artemis figures it.
Then the traveling man tells the crazy man to leave, which is stupid. And then the fat guys, working from some shared misunderstanding of what needs to be done, pick the troublemaker off the floor.
The world gets messy fast.
Her first swing is harmless enough. Give Mr. Crazy one good pop, and win the war. But Artemis doesn't have many off switches, which can be a problem. After that first swing, her head comes up with reasons why battering the guy is a fine idea. Maybe Mr. Crazy is dangerous. He might have a knife, a gun, or weapons-grade uranium up his ass. But the best thought comes later, after she lets the fat boys pull her off and her victim is rolling in pain. That's when she catches the traveling man staring at her, like he's never stared at any woman before. He is stunned. He feels lost. His little boat is bouncing in the rapids, and he doesn't know what's ahead, maybe there's a big waterfall after the next bend, and this is going to be a neat opportunity, if she plays it right.
"Shit," says the traveling man.
"Twice a day, whether I need to or not," Artemis says.
He looks at the bloody face on the floor and then at her again, and she tells him, "I don't know. Maybe I saved your life here."
"He doesn't have weapons," the man says.
She wonders about his name. But instead of asking, she says, "You can't know what the guy has."
"Yes, I do," he says. Then he launches into this long song about his fancy see-through-everything software, and the traveler believes his noise, too. That's what Artemis keeps seeing and seeing. Not a clue that he's an idiot, and the idiot words keep running wild.
People are helping the bloodied, crazy man. These aren't the same people who were part of the audience, and they have no trouble pushing paper towels against the wounded face, making soothing noises when they aren't asking the man for updates about his pain.
"A car key," says the traveling man. "That was the most dangerous thing on his person."
"Really," says Artemis.
"Yes," he says.
She says, "Okay, use the same tricks and look at me."
The half-smart Cloud crawls out of its genie bottle again, letting loose who-knows-how-many kinds of tricks.
"What are my weapons?" she asks.
But the traveling man isn't watching her. One of the convention center's cops is talking to someone on a phone, begging for the real police.
And that's when Artemis gives her new friend one clean shot to the diaphragm-not hard and not even half-hard-and the traveling man bends in the middle.
She puts her face in front of his face.
Nothing else exists in the world but her.
"You've got a lot to learn," she says. "And lesson one is that you can steal all the knowledge you want, but you just aren't that smart."
The Traveling Man
Problems want solutions. That's the nature of nature. But these ugly problems don't belong to Kartar. Representatives from the conference promise as much. Witnesses have come forward to tell what happened, and at least two security cameras offer vantage points-and that's before anyone counts the phones and tablets and Everythings that were absorbing the scene. The local police act as if Kartar had no role beyond the incidental, the accidental. And even though the afternoon is rolling past, it seems unlikely that he'll have to miss his early dinner with the Goldilocks Project.
Administrative offices have been borrowed for purposes of the investigation. Kartar sits in the small lobby. Dominick isn't here. The poor man-and that's how Kartar thinks of him now-is safe in a side office, receiving stitches. Witnesses are being brought through the lobby door and past Kartar. Everybody wants to smile at him. One by one, they are led into a sunny office where indoor tomatoes grow in living pots and images of two nameless children drift across the white walls. Each witness is interviewed in brief, and Kartar eavesdrops. The accounts are more similar than not, but there are differences. Kartar never teased Dominick, and he resents the implication. He never claimed to remember the man, and he didn't mean to insult anybody when he talked about wanting to be rude. Then one woman from the front row claims that Kartar works for the Central Intelligence Agency. At that point Kartar has to stand and shove his face into the unfamiliar office, telling the two officers, "That's not true, not at all."
"Please, sir," says the female officer. "We'll get to you in a few moments."
But this is stupid. Everything is ridiculous. They have the videos, and even if the audio is poor, there's excellent software that can wring the words said by the people out of the video. Besides, Dominick wasn't badly injured. Faces like to bleed, but the man was soon sitting up and talking, and he never lost consciousness.
The girl is the danger here. That much is obvious. For some reason they stuck her in the lobby with Kartar, sitting across from him and looking only at him, and whenever he foolishly looks her way, she smiles with an eerie expression.
Her name is Rhonda. The police checked and found that real name hiding behind some ludicrous Artemis label. Kartar can do the same trick and probably better, but he keeps his Everything inside the vial. This is one of those rare occasions when he has no desire to know more about another person.
"Who are you?" asks the smiling girl.
He drops his gaze, saying nothing.
"I call you Traveling Man, but I bet that's not your name."
She sits handcuffed to her chair, and she wears a drop-bracelet, of course. Two private security guards are sitting nearby, enjoying the adventure and their coffee.
"By the way," says Rhonda, "I really liked that one line of yours."
Kartar watches the worn carpeting, then the back of his left hand.
"‘Flowing unimpeded to the enlightenment.' Did I get it right?"
"Yes." God, did he actually respond to her?
"So, Traveling Man . . ." she begins.
Something here is funny. One guard laughs, which makes Kartar self-conscious. His irritation causes him to glance at the girl, who looks small and safe when she's cuffed to her chair.
". . . what brings you to Ohio?"
"The conference brought me," he says.
"Yeah, but I can't figure something out. Why did they put the conference here?"
"Because of the WOW! signal," he says.
She says nothing, waiting for enlightenment.
Kartar can't help but explain. "Back in 1977, astronomers in Ohio saw a radio signal from the constellation of Sagittarius. It was loud and narrow, and it moved in intriguing ways. So it might have been extraterrestrial. Maybe."
He paused, and she waited.
So he said, "People have watched that part of the sky since, for short periods but with better radio telescopes. Only nothing has been heard. And maybe it was nothing. But the signal's strength and frequency were very close to what we imagine finding, when we finally identify a genuine ET signal."
She laughs loudly, apparently at him. "Yeah, I already know everything about the WOW!"
"You do?"
"I just wanted to know why Cincinnati. Did this convention get a deal on the hotel, or what?"
Both guards laugh.
"I don't know why," Kartar admits.
"I suppose you wouldn't." The girl is halfway pretty and older than Kartar first imagined, and she smiles at him, acting as if maybe she's hoping for more than conversation.
"Ask me a question," she says.
"Why are you so strong?"
"You're smart; make a guess."
"Adrenal implants," he says. "Or neural enhancers for quick-twitch reactions. Or maybe you've grafted synthetic muscles onto what's real."
"Everything is real," she says mysteriously.
"Each of those solutions has health dangers," he says.
"How nice," she says with a hopeful tone. "You're worrying about me."
Kartar looks at the carpet again. "No."
Rhonda/Artemis shakes the handcuffs. "Don't worry, Mr. Traveler. You're way too old for my tastes."
He wants to take solace from that, but can't.
"Ask me something else," she says.
"Why are you here?"
The young woman leans forward, making sure that she has his eyes. "I read a lot. You don't believe it, but I know a lot about a lot. Life is inevitable and should be common in the universe, and if the sky isn't jammed full of smart old aliens, then nothing about our universe makes any damned sense."
Kartar finds himself nodding. "Actually, I disagree with you."
"Sure you do."
"The best evidence shows that life might be very common, but intelligence is a rare and often fragile result. The distance between us and our nearest neighbors is on the order of five thousand light-years."
She shrugs, saying, "Now that sounds like crazy talk."
He bristles. "But why are you at this conference? Do you have some business proposal, an investment that pays off when the next WOW! arrives?"
"You're trying to make fun of me."
"No, I'm not."
"You're right. You aren't." She sits back in the chair. "I'm here because aliens are common. They just damn well have to be. If I was one of them, and if I happened to be visiting the earth, this is exactly the sort of place I would visit. You know, just to see what the new dogs in the neighborhood are doing."
He almost laughs. "You're looking for aliens, you mean."
"You aren't?"
He does laugh, hard, glancing at the security guards. But the men seem to have lost all interest in the conversation.
"You don't mean that," Kartar says.
"Maybe not," she responds. "Or maybe I thought you were an alien."
"Tell me you aren't."
"I'm not from outer space, no."
"And that's got to bother you," she says.
Kartar feels suddenly tired and very bored. The real police are reviewing the digitals and talking to each other. He can't make out words but the tone has changed. Sitting back in his chair, he looks at the Everything riding his lapel, thinking of fifty tiny chores that might be accomplished in the next two minutes. And then the cuffs rattle, and Rhonda/Artemis dips her head, eyes fighting to meet his eyes.
"I know something else," she says.
He stays silent.
"Something you don't know but you should."
"I don't care."
"You would, if you knew."
"Leave me alone," he says.
"Don't worry, I wasn't going to tell you," she says.
He doesn't say anything.
"Later," she says.
"There is no ‘later,'" he says.
Laughing, the girl asks, "How can you know there won't be?"
What Kartar knows is that this ugliness has to be over soon. Closing his eyes, he wishes hard for rescue, and that's the moment when the police officers step out into the lobby.
But his joy evaporates in an instant.
"This is what we think happened," says the woman officer. Then before explaining anything, she adds, "And this is what the victim wants in lieu of charging both of you with assault-and-battery."
His face hurts, and one eye keeps tearing, and several teeth seem to have migrated along the bottom jaw. But the pain isn't important. The pain is bearable, and it's sure to weaken with time. What matters is how this beating will affect his sleep habits. Is he going to have bad dreams? Night terrors? Or will he just lie awake for hours on end, alone in bed with his racing brain?
Dominick is curious about the aftereffects.
That is the best word: Curious.
The man knows depression and he knows mania, and his adult years have been spent managing the first when he isn't riding the second. Not that he would admit this to anyone, but he's wondering if today's stress is going to pay dividends: feelings of vulnerability and mortality allowing him fresh perspectives in areas that he had never noticed before and should have cared about.
Seeing possible gain, he laughs to himself.
"This isn't funny," Kartar says.
But all of this is humorous. Obviously. Dominick nearly says as much, but when he looks across the borrowed office-looks at somebody's two kids gliding along the squidskin wall-he decides on a different course. "I liked what you said about the tuataras," he says. "That was a nice thought, making them into the local sea serpent."
Kartar sits on a hard little sofa, warily staring at Dominick's bloody face. "Okay," he says. "Thank you."
"Where did you steal that idea?" Dominick asks.
Kartar grimaces.
Dominick lets the quiet mature. Then when the moment feels right, he says, "A conversation. That's what I want, and then I won't insist on charges."
"I didn't hit you," Kartar says, and not for the first time.
"But you had your people hit me."
"They aren't my people."
"You nodded at them," Dominick says. "The video shows it clearly."
"I was glad for the help. I thought. But I didn't know their names, and I certainly had no idea who, or what, that girl was."
"You have an Everything."
"So what?"
Dominick sits on an office chair pulled from behind the desk. Whoever owns those children in the wall is shorter than him, judging by the chair's setting. But he doesn't change anything, long legs stretched out into the middle of the room. "You have the world's best facial recognition software. You can learn as much as you want about anybody, which means that you have a difficult-maybe impossible-task of proving that you're ignorant about anyone."
"Deeply unfair," Kartar says.
"It's the world we live in," Dominick reminds him. "We all have the mind of God."
Kartar sighs and crosses his arms in front of his chest.
"The tuatara," says Dominick.
"There was a boy in Christchurch."
"How old?"
Kartar frowns. "Does it matter?"
"I bet he was a bright middle-schooler."
"Lucky guess," says Kartar.
"Hardly. That's the good age for boundless thinking."
This meeting has rules: Half-an-hour of civil conversation and nobody gets to use his Everything. But that doesn't keep Kartar from glancing at the machine on his lapel, presumably counting the minutes left in this unbearable sentence.
Twenty-seven minutes remain.
"Of course I knew you stole that tuatara idea," Dominick says. "It was too fresh and original for you. You're what I like to call a ‘harvester.' You are a big, busy machine that rolls across a field, picking up the grains and fruits grown by others."
"And what are you? A fruit tree?"
Unperturbed, Dominick shrugs his shoulders. "Who got you thinking about human bacteria on Mars?"
"Is that where we're heading? Retracing my sources?"
"I hope not."
Kartar leans forward. "What do you want?"
"You harvest ideas," Dominick says again.
"I freely admit that."
"Gather up other people's crops."
"And I stole one of your oranges, didn't I?" Kartar glances into the lobby. The private guards are supposedly ready to jump in if these egos come to blows, but it's impossible to tell which guard is closer to sleep. "I stole your best idea and ran with it as if it was my own. Isn't that right?"
"You didn't steal anything," says Dominick. "I gave it to you, free and clear."
"Well then. What's wrong?"
"You don't remember me."
Kartar looks at the floor, then his Everything, and then into the lobby again. "I meet a huge number of people, practically every day."
"On that day, you were twelve years old."
Kartar acts as if he isn't listening. But he seems to slowly piece together what should be a simple concept, and when nothing makes sense, he looks at the battered face, saying, "I still don't know who you are."
"My nephew was your classmate."
"Oh, we're talking about school days."
"An honors science class," Dominick says. "I was invited to talk about my work. I was thirty and you were sitting in the front row with your notebook open, ready to write down anything that struck you as interesting."
The dimmest, frailest hint of recognition confuses his face.
"I was talking about memes and how ideas have lives of their own and how humans aren't important except as carriers of memes that are retained by nature only if they're valuable, and thrown away if they're not."
Kartar squints. "What's your nephew's name?"
"I won't tell you."
"I'll find out after this," he says.
"Certainly so," Dominick says. "But this is my point: You were sitting up front, and I talked about ideas as being vivid organic beings, how they collect together to form communities, and some of these communities are strong and enduring, while others perish in a day or twenty years. You were the only student who was truly paying attention, which is why I remembered you. That and because your teacher got defensive when I talked about religion being a toxic set of memes that survive by relentlessly murdering their opponents."
"Oh," says Kartar. "Now I remember you."
"And now do you see why I'm in a lousy mood? The linchpin of your life, and the idea came partly from me-maybe entirely from me-and like any pickpocket working the crowd, you don't have a goddamn clue whose pocket you got the treasure from."
Dominick feels angry all over again.
Yet Kartar acts impressed and maybe even happy, nodding as he lets his eyes dip, ignoring his companion's mood.
"By the way," says Dominick. "Walking around the conference today, attending the lectures and workshops, I had an insight. Something became obvious, something that should be very interesting to a person like you."
Kartar leans forward, flashing a glorious smile.
"Yes?" he says.
"No, no," says Dominick. "I'm going to savor this meme for myself."
And without another sound, he pulls the car key from his pocket and leaves Kartar sitting with those two strange children.
Sixteen years later, the one bioengineered tuatara is scheduled to be released into the open sea. The first invitation to this historic event is sent to the project's author and initial champion, who also happens to be a Big Name who brought attention to what is a one hundred million dollar publicity stunt.
Kartar flies to New Zealand on the Maser Albatross. The subsonic flight is very green but very slow, and he doesn't appreciate the long boost phases where the craft punches into the stratosphere, its wings/collection dishes gathering up enough juice for the next three hundred miles. But at least he has a supreme-class seating and time to work. Another ten thousand words of his memoir grow from his logic-thread, and he has productive conversations with various friends, half of them human, and the Everywhere woven into his skull gives him an assortment of articles and blogs and overheard conversations from the world and from orbit, each of which has to be studied with an expert eye to see what notions are ripe for the harvesting.
A three-hour wave-sleep takes his tired mind hostage-a late-middle-aged mind now-and then it is released again, back in working order.
Kartar is enjoying one of the revamped Stephen King classics during the descent into Auckland. He had already written and spoken extensively about the blessings to come from ending most copyrights. No artist should have a chokehold on his property, certainly not one lasting for decades. This particular version of The Shining was created by a robot and aimed at a robot audience. The faces from the original cast have been retained-appearance is another property that shouldn't be fortified-and the author reworked the outdated text and rewrote the songs while pretty much playing hell with the plotline.
No, eighteen months was plenty of protection for intellectual property.
Eighteen months is certainly long enough for Kartar's purposes, and those fools that push that barrier always learn that Kartar has endless tools, and he is willing to keep an exceptional team of legal software very busy.
Down goes the plane and a call from a very good friend finds him, and what is most promising are her opening words: "Is this line secure?"
Everything that Kartar does is wrapped in twenty cloaks of security.
"Of course this isn't for release now," she says.
"We're talking about the Far Eye?"
"Maybe," she said.
Which means, "Yes."
"Sightings?" he asks.
"When I call again, you'll have a one-hundred-second jump on the official channels. Just don't make too much of your lead, okay?"
What does "too much" mean? "I promise to be good," he says.
Far Eye is moving past Jupiter's orbit, and after years of technical troubles and brilliant fixes, the array is gathering data in ways and in quantities never seen before, beyond the scope that anyone hoped to imagine.
"How many sightings?" Kartar asks.
She says, "I'm only talking about confirmed sightings."
"Is it a thousand?"
She hesitates. Then she asks, "Does a thousand sound like a lot to you?"
"A thousand living worlds, Earth-like and otherwise? And each world showing traces of civilized life, of industrial life, or agriculture or terraforming, or whatever?" He laughs for many fine reasons, but mostly because this was going to be the best day in his life. "Yeah, a thousand civilizations in our wing of the galaxy does sound like a lot to me."
"Not to me," she says cryptically.
Kartar looks around the cabin. None of the other dozen passengers has a clue that everything is about to change.
"It's more than a thousand," he says.
"Make a guess."
"Ten thousand."
"Come on, boy. Get brave."
"Okay. One hundred thousand worlds."
She hesitates. Then with a careful tone, she says, "Remember, Kartar. What I'm talking about are confirmed sightings. Worlds and structures that Far Eye AIs have analyzed in detail, finding no fault with them at all."
"Give me some help," he says.
"Why not guess fifty million?"
"Is it?"
"And then multiply that number by one thousand."
Kartar leans forward, waiting for his voice to return.
"And these are just the definite, undeniable sightings. Sun-washed planets, sunless rogues, terraformed bodies of every size. None are cloaked, which is why we can see them. But with few exceptions, each one is technologically advanced and very efficient with energy use. Fifty billion worlds and the only radiation leaking out of them is the drabbest trace of waste heat."
"How close?" he manages.
"You mean to us?" she says. "Well, the nearest thousand are inside our Oort cloud. Little ones, each following its own trajectory."
"Aliens," he whispers.
"And those fifty billion are the obvious few," she adds. "Far Eye can't handle all of the candidates, but we're guessing it's in excess of six trillion."
"Inside our galaxy."
"Just rattling around inside our one little arm of the galaxy," she says. "Which is amazing, and mortifying, and do you know what's most astonishing? At least to me, a girl who likes to talk all day and all night?"
"What?" he asks.
"We have no evidence, none, that anybody is talking to anybody out there. Which makes you wonder if it isn't worth it, chatting it up with your neighbors and all that. A lot of Big Lessons at play here, and I have no idea which one to pick."
Once again, Kartar can't find his old voice.
"Anyway," she says, "I have to make a few more calls. I've got friends that deserve a thirty-second jump on the networks."
The secure line closes.
Kartar remains pitched forward, staring at the carpet between his feet.
Maybe this is the enlightenment, he thinks. Life inevitably cloaks itself in blankets and a relentless silence.
For the first time in years, he finds himself dwelling on that crazy man and the crazier woman he met in Ohio. Both of them claimed some epiphany that they didn't want to share with him. Was this it? That the sky is thick with aliens, but nobody talks because the gains don't equal the costs?
What were the names of those two people?
But after a few moments, and for many small reasons, Kartar decides to put the question aside, focusing instead on this uninvited, mystifying enlightenment.
© 2012 Robert Reed
Please visit Lightspeed Magazine ( to read more great science fiction and fantasy. This story first appeared in the October 2012 issue, which also features original science fiction by Benjamin Parzybok ("Bear and Shifty"), along with SF reprints by Pat Cadigan ("Nearly Departed") and Nancy Kress ("Art of War"). Plus, there's original fantasy by L.B. Gale ("Spindles") and Megan Arkenberg ("The Suicide's Guide to the Absinthe of Perdition"), and fantasy reprints by David Barr Kirtley ("The Black Bird") and Brian Ruckley ("Beyond the Reach of His Gods"). For our ebook readers, our ebook-exclusive novella is "Dragonfly" by Ursula K. Le Guin, and of course we have our usual assortment of author and artist spotlights, along with feature interviews with Ursula K. Le Guin and David Brin. And our excerpt this month is from Gwenda Bond's debut YA novel, Blackwood. You can wait for the rest of this month's contents to be serialized online, or you canbuy the whole issue right now in convenient ebook format for just $3.99. It's another great issue, so be sure to check it out. And while you're at it, tell a friend about Lightspeed! |
Did China's ban on time travel make Looper a bigger hit there?
One of the reasons Looper has turned out to be such a profitable film: It's one of the year's most successful films in China, where some scenes were shot and a longer version opened in theaters. Now, one observer suggests there could be a surprising reason for Looper's success. Chinese audiences, writes Zhang Zihan in the Global Times, are "starved of time travel movies" due to a ban by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT).
Top image: Yao Ming, via Looper Movie Tumblr.
This ban was huge big news last year — but at the time, we heard that this was actually based on a mistranslation. The Chinese authorities hadn't actually banned anything, just "discouraged" certain forms of entertainment — and they were objecting to over-the-top representations of historical figures, not so much actual time travel.
Now, Zhang Zihan, writing for a Chinese publication, seems to be suggesting that the ban is real, and that Looper may have satisfied a demand for time travel stories that's had no outlet in China. Writes Zhang:
Even today [time travel] remains especially popular, despite the time travel ban for TV and film productions from SARFT that was imposed in April last year.
A search using the Chinese term for time travel, chuanyue, on qidian.com, China's largest online literature portal, yields 74,000 results. Novelist Tong Hua's debut story Startling by Each Step (2005) about a modern young woman who travels back to the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) and fascinates princes was adopted into TV series Scarlet Heart before the restrictions were introduced and was easily 2011's most discussed TV drama.
Chinese time travel fiction usually follows a similar plot that involves protagonists traveling back to past and showing off their knowledge of 21st century history, literature, art and science to win the heart of their lover, who is invariably a well-known historical figure.
The interesting thing about Looper is that it involves time travelers visiting from the future, rather than people from the present going back to the past — which Zhang says is the usual mode of time-travel stories in China. Going back to the past is romantic, and Chinese people have 5,000 years of pretty well-known history to visit. And it allows for a particular type of escapism: fleeing the oppressive present, for an idealized past. (Which may be one reason why these sorts of TV shows and movies were banned, or at least not encouraged, by the government.) In any case, Looper may have benefited from China's attempt to place the fourth dimension off limits. [Global Times] |
We could be watching The CW's answer to The Hunger Games this fall
On paper, The CW's show The Selection sounds like a slam dunk: a TV version of Hunger Games, set 300 years in the future, where the reward for winning is to marry a handsome prince. But when The CW actually filmed a pilot last year, the results were apparently not satisfactory — perhaps not surprising, given some major flaws with the book source material.
But now, The CW has retooled The Selection and feels good enough about it to film a brand new pilot. No word if Aimee Teagarden is still playing America Singer (yes, that's really her name) but apparently showrunners Elizabeth Craft and Sarah Fain (Dollhouse) are still on board. And here's the retooled synopsis for the TV version:
Set 300 years in the future, an epic romance centering on a working class young woman chosen by lottery to participate in a competition with 25 other women for the Royal Prince's hand to become the nation's next queen. Balancing her loyalty to family, true love, and kingdom, she must attempt to remain true to herself as she navigates the cutthroat competition and palace intrigue, all while a budding rebellion threatens to topple the crown.
So now there are 26 contestants, instead of 35, for the crown. And hopefully they've tightened it in other ways as well. [EW] |
12 Aliens That Were Supposed to Be Cute But Are Actually Terrifying
Making aliens look cute is a tricky thing to get right in kids' entertainment. Make them too weird-looking, and you could freak out your audience. Make them too adorable, and you run the risk of them looking more like plush toys than creatures from another planet. And then sometimes you make them look cute — but forget to prevent them from acting like hideous, depraved monsters.
Many kids' entertainers have tried to walk this line between cute and otherworldly, and many have failed abysmally. Here are 12 supposedly "adorable" aliens that should have given everybody nightmares.
1) Mac, Mac and Me
The alien star of this cult non-classic is clearly trying to be E.T., just with a shameless lust for Coca-Cola and McDonald's food instead of Reese's Pieces. He looks like a far cuter alien was thrown out an airlock into the vacuum of space, and pulled back in just seconds before explosive decompression. His pudgy body and long legs make him look less like an alien and more like an unattractive nudist. He watches children in wheelchairs roll off cliffs, without so much as lifting an elongated finger. As the AV Club rightly points out, he has the mouth of an inflatable sex doll. Mac is disgusting.
2) Teletubbies
Tinky Winky, Dipsy, Laa-Laa and Po are four brightly colored aliens whose sole mission is to occupy the minds of toddlers and begin their process of becoming mindless slaves of the television. They are a fever dream come to terrifying, Technicolor life; their dead, black eyes are belied by the TV sets in their stomachs, which frequently displays the souls of the actual children they have abducted. Also, according to their opening credits, they have set a baby's head on fire and are using it as their sun. We always assume Cthulhu and his ilk with look like tentacled squid monsters; I would posit that Tinky Winky, Dipsy, Laa-Laa and Po are the Elder Gods we ought to be worrying about.
12 Aliens That Were Supposed to Be Cute But Are Actually Terrifying
3) Podlings, The Dark Crystal
Jim Henson wasn't always interested in making aesthetically pleasing creatures, as one can easily tell by the disgusting Skeksis in The Dark Crystal. However, the Podlings — the peaceful, agrarian creatures that take in Kira — are clearly supposed to be adorable, especially since they're so kind and good and one with nature. It is unfortunate, then, that they all look like Muppets who have been microwaved for too long. Their bulbous heads, misshapen eyes and coarse hair should have terrified Kira — had she not been squatting in the lowest point of the Uncanny Valley herself.
4) The Creatures, Galaxy Quest
Admittedly, these aliens from the cult classic Galaxy Quest were designed specifically to be cute and terrifying, but even when they're in their "cute" phase they're actually revolting. These creatures look like kindlier, less LSD-happy Teletubbies; they're actually even cuter, with their child-like bodies and adorably cartoonish faces. Long before they open their mouths, revealing the dozens of razor-sharp fangs inside, they're already super disturbing.
12 Aliens That Were Supposed to Be Cute But Are Actually Terrifying
5) Tribbles, Star Trek
I don't think people are disgusted enough by Tribbles. Sure, they multiply endlessly, they're fuzzy and cute, whatever. But can you really imagine what it would be like to hold a ball of warm, living flesh, covered in hair, in your hand? It would be creepy as hell. It would be like finding the hair clogging your shower drain had developed its own circulatory system, and picking it up. Furthermore, thanks to their insane reproductive abilities, it is literally possible to suffocate in a pile of Tribbles. To imagine what that would be like, remember the end of Akira, where blob Tetsuo's mountain of flesh basically eats his girlfriend? Imagine that… but with lots more body hair.
6) Pod People
Pod People was originally supposed to be a horror film about a group of aliens with tiny ape bodies and anteater heads who kill a bunch of stupid, obnoxious humans. But apparently the producers, believing that the movie's aliens had some kind of charismatic marketing potential, decided at the last minute to include a nice alien and a dumb kid who named him Trumpy, essentially sticking another shameless E.T. rip-off into a shitty horror flick. Imagine if while E.T. was playing with Elliott, another E.T. was out on a killing spree — that's Pod People.
7) The Great Gazoo, The Flintstones
This little green alien from The Flintstones — assuming he's real and not the byproduct of some kind of brain tumor in Fred Flintstone's head — is like a cuter, more cartoon-y version of Mr. Mxyzptlk. He may not have Mxyzptlk's complete control over reality, but he has enough alien tech to make anyone's life a living hell, and thanks to his imperfect understanding of human society and his basic dickishness, he generally does. And did you know why the Great Gazoo was exiled to Earth by his people in the first place? BECAUSE HE MADE A DEVICE THAT CAN DESTROY THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE. ON A WHIM. So one day, when all of creation suddenly ceases to exist, chances are it'll be the "Great" Gazoo's fault.
8) Boobah
Have you ever felt the Teletubbies were too high-brow? Then you might need to park your children in front of Boobah, the other brightly colored alien-centric British show for toddlers. The Boobah are morbidly obese and covered in fur, except for the fleshy, nub-like heads that peek out of their torsos like a dog's retractable penis. These heads have their own nubs, indicating that the Boobah may be carrying some kind of horrible, disfiguring disease. But the most terrifying thing about the Boobah? They eat children's laughter. Yes, wherever children are laughing, the Boobah's Booball appears so that the Boobah can feed parasitically on those children's joy. At least the Teletubbies only made kids watch the TVs surgically implanted into their torsos.
12 Aliens That Were Supposed to Be Cute But Are Actually Terrifying
9) Adipose, Doctor Who
Like the cute creatures from Galaxy Quest, the Adipose are supposed to be cute but evil — but in fact, they're just revolting. There's no way to talk around this, so… the Adipose are sentient balls of fat. They look like happy marshmallow people, but they are made entirely of one of the most disgusting substances in the human body. Remember that scene in Fight Club, when Edward Norton and Brad Pitt steal the bag of fat, and it gets caught on the fence, and spills out in a flood of bloody, fleshy goo? That's what's inside the Adipose. All it would take is a small squeeze to make them explode like a giant, anthropomorphic zit.
12 Aliens That Were Supposed to Be Cute But Are Actually Terrifying
10) Puckmarin, Flight of the Navigator
Although this little alien was supposed to be David Freeman's adorable alien pet in the Disney classic, that doesn't change the fact that the Puckmarin looks like a naked mole rat with bulimia. I know you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but this cover looks like Jabba the Hutt's fetus, so I'm judging it anyways.
11) E.T.
E.T. is a scrotum. E.T.'s torso is a giant, winkled, hairless scrotum, and his head is a terrifyingly misshapen penis, which we know because he can (and does) extend it whenever he gets excited. Although everyone talks about how cute and nice E.T. supposedly is, here's his entire itinerary once he gets to earth: 1) drink beer, 2) play dress-up with Drew Barrymore's clothes, and 3) try to abduct Elliott by pretending he's his friend. Do you know what other people try to pretend to be children's friends? Men with thin mustaches who offer them candy from unmarked vans, that's who. And let's not forget, when E.T. gets captured by the heroic government forces, he tries to kill Elliott through their symbiotic link purely out of spite. E.T. is history's greatest monster.
12 Aliens That Were Supposed to Be Cute But Are Actually Terrifying
12) Ewoks, Return of the Jedi
Oh, you think they're adorable little teddy bears, don't you? Wrong. First of all, like it or not, they did take down a trained Imperial legion with very little help from the human Rebels. These teddy bears are merciless killing machines that could fuck up just about anyone and anything. Second of all, they eat people. They eat humans. They were absolutely going to eat Han Solo — after cooking him alive — before Luke pulled out his Jedi shenanigans. Which means those helmets that Ewok was drumming on during the celebration at the end? Chances are the Ewoks ate the people who once wore those helmets, unless they also happened to have some Jedi powers or a golden protocol droids on hand, and they probably didn't. So while Luke and Leia and Lando and everybody was celebrating in the Ewok village, know that the Eowk's were playing their music to cover up the screams of captured Stormtroopers as they were being cooked alive. |
What movie or TV show did you dread, only to wind up loving it?
Sometimes you can see a trainwreck coming from a mile off... only to have it arrive and turn out to be a wonderful train ride instead. What TV show or movie have you been convinced you would hate, until you saw it and fell in love instead?
This question was inspired by commenter Nathan Ford's Evil Twin, who points out the universal critical praise being heaped on The LEGO Movie, and asks, "Has there ever been a movie so dreaded from the concept that turned around and became so embraced by everyone?"
Please include a picture, clip or poster for your chosen TV show or movie. And please mention the name, why you dreaded it, and why you changed your mind. Thanks!
Top image: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. |
The 11 Most Bizarre Frankenstein Monsters Ever Created
Since the beginning of time, man has sought the ability to create life by means other than hot, hot sex. Those who have achieved this goal have generally been named Frankenstein, and their experiments have mostly resulted in monsters (advantage: hot, hot sex). But sometimes these creations aren't evil, they're just bizarre — here are almost a dozen who put the "mad" in "mad science."
Before we start, let me clarify what constitutes a Frankenstein monster for this list: it must be made of parts of deceased flesh and it must be made through science, and it cannot involve robotics. No cyborgs or clones allowed.
1) Edward Scissorhands
Let's begin with the odder of Tim Burton's two Franken-movies. Vincent Price creates himself a young companion but dies before he can give Edward proper hands. How he had enough time to outfit Edward with dozens of scissor-fingers he can operate manually but not regular hands is a bit of a mystery, as is what if anything Price planned to do about Edward's unfortunate hair (because I'm pretty sure it wasn't finished either). Either way, according to the movie Edward has spent the last 60 years in total isolation in the ruins of the scientist's creepy house, so he has bigger problems to worry about.
The 11 Most Bizarre Frankenstein Monsters Ever Created
2) Thomas Wayne, Castle of the Bat
One of DC's most insane Elseworld comics (which is saying something). After his parents are killed by a thug, 19th century Bruce Wayne decides to become a doctor like his father, determined to restore his parents to life. He starts by creating a Bat-hound, i.e. a dog with sonar built in. Eventually he recreates his dad Thomas, using his original brain, which was preserved and given to Bruce's university. For various reasons, Bruce puts his dad's reanimated body in a Batman costume, and Thomas goes out and starts beating up criminals and trying to solve his murder. And he also starts turning into a giant anthropomorphic bat, because why not.
The 11 Most Bizarre Frankenstein Monsters Ever Created
3) Frankie Stein, Monster High
Creating a teenage girl out of corpses sounds like the recipe for an arrest for necrophiliac sex offender conviction, but luckily, Monster High cartoon star and purchasable doll Miss Frankie Stein was created by her two happily married parents because they wanted a child. Here's what I think is weird: I can get not wanting to deal with diapers and potty-training, but why go straight to the teenage girl? Why immediately head into the hassle of hormones and drama and boys? The Steins might not have created their daughter for their sex games, but there's still something sinister going on here.
4) Venturestein, The Venture Bros.
This former minion of the Monarch was killed by Brock during one of his rampages. Dr. Venture's initial plan is to use him as menial labor, but quickly decides to sell him to the military as an expendable soldier — one that can be packed with explosives and told to self-destruct. Venturestein is sent to a South American dictatorship but refuses his orders, learns Marxist doctrine, and travels around to all the labs of mad scientists hiding in South America, collecting their monsters and forming their own "Abomi-Nation." It's not in the 50 of weirdest things to happen on The Venture Bros.
The 11 Most Bizarre Frankenstein Monsters Ever Created
5) Fran Madaraki, Franken Fran
Created by the scientist Dr. Madaraki — you might be able to tell by the two enormous bolts on the side of her head — Fran is an excellent scientist in her own right with the ability to raise the dead and create new creatures out of dead flesh and tissue. However, she doesn't really have any aesthetic sense, so she tends to create horrible, Xenobite-esque monstrosities that she has no idea are visual abominations, which is kind of a bummer when you come to her looking for a little cosmetic surgery.
6) Boltz, My Babysitter's a Vampire
In this episode of the Canadian kids series titled "Jockenstein," Coach Steinerhas takes a pile of limbs and body parts to create the greatest high school hockey player in… wherever the hell My Babysitter's a Vampire is supposed to be set. Grave-robbing and stealing dead people's limbs — not to mention attempting to steal the brain of main character Ethan — seems like a lot of work just to win the state hockey championship, but to each his own.
7) Deucalion, Dean Koontz's Frankenstein Series
Dean Koontz's five-volume Frankenstein books series is kind of insane. So, it starts out like the original novel, Doc creates the monster, monster kills his wife, they hate each other. But in this book, Dr. Frankenstein puts a bomb in the monster's head, which doesn't kill it, just scars half of his face. Both survive for hundreds of years, but while the monster starts pretentiously calling himself Deucalion (Prometheus' son in Greek mythology) and looking for redemption, Dr. F decides his "new race" of synthetic people should replace all the old ones and basically tries to kill the human race. Deucalion, of course, tries to stop him with some local New Orleans cops, because he was programmed not to hurt his creator (back in the 1800s). Oh, and Deucalion can teleport and make small things like coins disappear, because he's so smart, you see.
8) Frankenstein's Monster, Super Friends
Honestly, when the Super Friends met Frankenstein and his monster in "The Super Friends Meet Frankenstein," the monster is quite traditional, with green skin, flat head, and bolts on his neck. What makes this monster so unusual is that Dr. Frankenstein strikes Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman and the monster with lightning simultaneously, which gives the monster all of their powers — by which I mean the monster gets Superman's outfit, Batman's cowl and Wonder Woman's lasso, by which I mean the lightning makes duplicates. Also, I assume the lightning gives the monster a fat bank account, because I have no idea what other powers he could have received from Batman.
9) Frankenstein, Frankenstein Conquers the World
To be fair, the Frankenstein of the American-Japanese movie co-production wasn't built as much as Nazis found the Frankenstein monsters heart in World War II and shipped it to their pals the Japanese, where scientists studied it at Hiroshima until America dropped the bomb on them. This caused the monster's heart to turn into a young boy who lived in the radioactive ruins, until he's found in the '60s, given protein, and turns into a giant, brutish monster, which is pretty lucky because another giant monster named Barugon pops up at about the same time, and Frankenstein (that's what the movie calls him, chill) is around to fight it.
10) The Monster, The Frankenstein Papers
Fred Saberhagen's novel picks up where Mary Shelley's Frankenstein ends, as the monster starts a world tour that involves him meeting Benjamin Franklin and having sex. It may not seem weird until you get to the final chapter, which was written aboard a flying saucer because the monster was actually an alien with amnesia that Dr. Frankenstein somehow how thought he had raised from the dead. So yeah, I'd say that's pretty weird.
11) Shaggy, "Mad Professor" by Insane Clown Posse
You might have thought that the duo known as the Insane Clown Posse were begotten by an angry god trying to punish us for our sins, but apparently not. According to this video — and I use that term very loosely, Violent J was a clown-faced murderer/masturbator/scientist who wanted a "homie" and thus assembled his partner Shaggy out of the parts he collected his victims. WARNING: Do not watch the above music video unless you need a new definition for the word "wretchedness." |
1 definition by Funky Brewster
Axxo is a group that releases dvd-rip movies, usually before that movie is out. Axxo are well known among the torrent community for their flawless quality and great speed.
Some people feel Axxo releases alot of dull movies, but to be honest they release nearly EVERYTHING, so don't complain, give them your thanks and seed.
Frank: "Hey, I just got the new Spider-Man movie!"
Paul: "Yea? Another lame cam I bet.."
Frank: "Hell no, it's an axxo bitch."
Paul: "Oh fasho."
di Funky Brewster 04 giugno 2007
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When a thug ass Blood is gangbanging, he often sports a red bandana to alert fellow American citizens of his "Thug Nature" and his affiliation to bloods, esp. LA Pirus. IF you where blue around these folks, they will blow your head off.
Stupid White Boy- "Oh shit that person is wearing a red bandana, he must be a thug."
Another white boy wearing all blue: "Nah they are just posers"
(Gunshot and white boy wearing blue is killed)
di KripKilla 10 luglio 2008
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Bletchley Park is now a museum, the original buildings originally a secret government site built on the grounds of a stately home near the town of Milton Keynes in Buckinghamshire, England, about 50 miles north of London. It is situated in the town of Bletchley.
During World War II, Bletchley Park was the site of the United Kingdom's efforts to break Axis ciphers, particularly the Enigma and Lorenz ciphers used by Nazi Germany. The estate was conveniently located midway between the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, which supplied many of the codebreakers.
Bletchley Park has been attributed with reducing the war by 2 years, ending the bombing of Pearl Harbour by sending information of the location of Yamamoto the head of the Japanese North Atlantic Fleet. Montgomery would often talk of how the code breaking efforts of Bletchley Park enabled him to 'know what the Jerry's are having for breakfast'.
The Government Code and Cypher School (GC & CS), the intelligence bureau responsible for interception and decryption of foreign transmissions, moved into the Park in 1938. The radio station constructed in the park for its use was given the codename "Station X" — this term is often erroneously applied to the code-breaking efforts at Bletchley as a whole. Station X was soon moved south to Whaddon Hall, to prevent any attention being drawn to the Bletchley site. To further the disguise of bletchley park it was built to appear as a Hospital from above so to deter bombing by German planes, however there was a bomb dropped next to the despatch riders entrance shifting the whole of Hut 4 (the Naval Intelligence hut) 2 meters on its base. The bomb was thought to have been dropped to hit the Bletchley Train station.
The first Government visitors to Bletchley Park somewhat clumsily (and suspiciously) described themselves as members of Captain Ridley's shooting party. The code-name for the intelligence produced via decrypts at Bletchley was "ULTRA".
Among the famous mathematicians and cryptanalysts working there, perhaps the most influential and best-known was Alan Turing. In 1943, the computer Colossus computer was designed at Bletchley Park by Max Newman and his team; it was the world's first programmable digital electronic computer. The computer was designed and built to help break the Lorenz cipher. Tommy Flowers is said to be the biggest influence on the building of an electronic computer as he introduced the electronic valve - a device, until use in the colossus, considered as being unreliable.
It is thought that at the height of the codebreaking efforts during the war, more than 10,000 people worked at Bletchley Park. Those who worked in Bletchley park were selected for various intellectual acheievements whether they were chess champions, crossword experts, multilinguists or great mathematicians. The workers were known to complete a 5 year course of Japanese in just 6 months.
The codebreakers would enter the park by coaches or train, it is rumoured that there were a series of inter-connecting tunnels and chambers below Bletchley park which allowed workers to get in secretly. It is rumoured one tunnel was for the use of Winston Churchill, which started in the Park grounds and emerged in the local pub. It is also said Eisenhower and Churchill had a meeting in one of the rumoured chambers.
The Bletchley Park effort was comparable in influence to other WW II-era technological efforts, such as the crytographic work at Arlington Hall/Naval Communications Annex, the development of microwave radar at MIT's Radiation Lab, and the Manhattan Project's development of nuclear weapons.
At the end of the war, much of the equipment used and its blueprints were destroyed by order of Churchill. Though thousands of people were involved in the decoding efforts, the participants remained silent for decades about what they had done during the war, and it was only in the 1970s that the work at Bletchley Park was revealed to the general public. After the war, the site belonged to several owners, including British Telecom and the Civil Aviation Authority 1.
The Bletchley Park Trust has been founded to further the maintenance of the site as a museum devoted to the codebreakers. The Trust is volunteer based and relies on public support to continue its efforts.
Before Station X
The Bletchley Park estate had been a manor since the Norman invasion. The earliest known reference is in 1308 2, when it was owned by the de Grey family. It is also known that Browne Willis was lord of the manor in the early 18th century, some of his buildings (now lost) dating from 1711. The manor was at some time appropriated by the Crown. The present mansion was built between 1883 and 1926 by Herbert Samuel Leon (1850-1926), a financier and Liberal MP, who extended the red brick farmhouse of 1860 3. Its style is a mixture of Victorian Gothic, Tudor and Dutch Baroque and was the subject of much bemused comment from those who worked there, or visited, during WWII. Leon's estate covered 581 acres (235 hectares), of which Bletchley Park occupied about 55 acres (22 hectares). Leon's wife died in 1937 4, and in 1938 the site was sold to a builder, who was about to demolish the mansion and build a housing estate when the War began, and the Government Property Agency 5 requisitioned the site.
Hugh Sebag-Montifiore, author of the recent book "Enigma", is Leon's grandson. His book contains several photographs of the manor, before, during, and after WWII.
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Gumba Gumbaによって 2004年04月13日(火)
6 Words related to Bletchley Park
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That one person you know on Facebook. Typically a guy who will comment on a hot girl's Facebook status writing an essay long defense against someone who may have said something offensive. This is only a means to get the attention of the hot girl when in reality that person is just some loser behind a computer with no social life.
Girl status: "OMG, totally had a bad day. Nothing is right :("
Random person: "You always complain. Go kill yourself"
Knight in cyber armor: "This is uncalled for! It's hurtful and rude. I apologize if I hurt your feelings, but I'm not going to tolerate anyone being attacked with something like this. You're posting personal jokes on a public forum, you can't expect everyone to sit silently. If someone were attacking you, and it they meant what they said, wouldn't you want someone to step in? I would. So I did."
You (in your head): "Oh here we go. Another knight in cyber armor trying to save the day . News flash: At most, you'll get a "like" from your mom and will still be a virgin behind a computer."
Spearmintsによって 2011年12月30日(金)
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10 Years' Reform? In Russia, 15 Years Reforms YOU!
RIA Novosti political commentator Alexander Yurov takes on the somewhat perilous state of the Russian auto industry, using the example of the Changfeng press conference at the Detroit Auto Show to illustrate while the Chinese are moving forward with export plans, Russia's auto industry is sitting stagnant, assembling and selling more and more knockdown kits from foreign manufacturers. Somehow, we think, if AvtoVAZ holds a press conference in Detroit next year, it'd be the hit of the show. Just don't forget the Stoli, guys.
When will Russian cars go to Detroit? [RIA Novosti]
Waiting for the Great Leap Sideways: Changfeng Motor Takes On Detroit; Partition Number One! Retro Russian Lada Ad [Internal] |
It's every teenage driver's dream to one day be a pro racer, but how many kiddos can say that's their mom's goal too? Well, 15-year old Madison Snow for one. In this year's Porsche IMSA GT3 Cup Challenge by Yokohama, the 4-time winner has to deal with some serious parental attention—mainly because his mother, Melanie Snow, is out for the prize as well.
But the Snows aren't the only folks with their eyes on the finish line. The Challenge features 40 racers, every one of them clenching the wheels of possibly the most successful racecar out there—the Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car.
However, winning at the Road America track, isn't just about becoming a pole-sitter. Killing the competition at the race means seizing an opportunity that's every Porsche owner's fantasy—a chance to move up past the hobbyists and eventually race professional-level in the American Le Mans Series.
Check out the video above to see a whole mess of Porsches try to dust each other, a mom and son rivalry, some significant crashes, oh yeah, and the outcome of the race.
Plus, head here for full results, upcoming race schedules, and all the behind the scenes grit at the Porsche IMSA GT3 Cup Challenge by Yokohama. |
Driving Tips From The Woz
Steve Wozniak is, of course, one of the two Steves that founded Apple, and the one that did all the technical work. The guy that soldered a 6502 and a bunch of other chips together into a computer that essentially started the personal computer revolution. More recently, he's known for his love of Segways and his generally being a Good Guy in an industry that doesn't always reward that.
But I bet what you're really wondering is does this guy have any driving tips?
You're in luck, because Mercury News asked the Woz just that. If you're reading this on a Woz-signed Apple IIgs, this will be a special treat.
Let's start with the big one. What's Woz' Golden Rule of Driving?
Don't offend other drivers. This falls into what I said above. Choose your lane appropriately. The general rule is that slower traffic should stay in the rightmost lanes — in our country. Although we all hate reckless drivers racing and cutting in and out of lanes, I don't want to interfere with motorists who simply want to go faster, even faster than the speed limit. Road conditions are better at some times and they might have somewhere important to get to, like an airport. Assume that other drivers are good like you. We all want to get somewhere. Let everyone in. It's OK to touch your own brake. We all help each other get to where we are going.
That's a pretty fitting assessment from a man who didn't want to murder Steve Jobs after learning about that whole Atari Breakout thing. If more people were like Woz on the road, life would be easier.
Wozniak also uses his turn indicators religiously and actually reads his car's manual. Even to the point of using post-it notes to bookmark the good bits. Wozniak comes off as a bit less of a glowing model citizen when you hear about his tough-love teaching methods he uses to school his wife on remote-entry key habits:
I try to educate Janet from my own learning but she doesn't remember subtle things that one never uses. So one time, to better educate Janet, I pushed the button by the driver's left knee (2009 or earlier models), which disable the keyless entry system, and the ability to start your Prius without putting the key into the ignition. As I drove toward home in my Prius my cellphone rang. It was Janet screaming that I was driving away with her key. I'd just driven her Prius to a parking spot by my own Prius. But now her Prius would not start. I calmly told her that I did not have her key. It took awhile to ask where she'd put her key and to calmly tell her to look there (her purse) and she found it. Then I told her calmly to put it in the ignition. When she got home I showed her the button. She will NEVER forget that lesson. I consider it an example of good teaching.
Tough, but effective, I suppose. His car collection ranges from the predictable (four Prii despite his troubles) to the implausible (an original Hummer?) to the hopeful (an unspecified Mercedes-Benz convertible— I'm hoping it's a pagoda). The Hummer may be explained if it's the hydrogen-powered one Woz took to the south pole with his pal, moonwalker Buzz Aldrin.
Also, no Black Gold Datsun?
Woz also says he's interested in a Tesla Model S, but so far the Priuses have worked just fine for him. I think as Jalops we can totally accept Woz' Prius love, because if there was ever an equivalent in the computer world to a gearhead, this man is it.
(Thanks, BoingBoing!) |
Can We End Drowsy Driving By Making Boring Cars More Exciting?
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention came out on Friday with some pretty sobering information about people falling asleep at the wheel that indicates about 4 percent of drivers have admitted to dozing off while driving, and experts say the real percentage is much, much higher. More than 300,000 crashes in 2009 were linked to driving while drowsy.
Can We End Drowsy Driving By Making Boring Cars More Exciting?
The question I pose to you Jalops: Are there ways technology actually makes you more alert while driving? Mercedes-Benz and Volvo tell you it's time for a coffee break if computers that live in the steering wheel and in other controls determine your reflexes are lazy like you've had too much scotch. The seat in the Cadillac XTS vibrates pretty much any time the car thinks you're doing something wrong, like drifting out of your lane or about to back into someone.
So is the solution to fit nannying devices on cars that are boring to drive? I say, why not? These devices tend to be fitted on large cars that are typically bought by older people and are not usually that exciting to drive. But according to the study, it's mostly men between the ages of 25 and 44 (and Texans, oddly enough) who admitted to driving when they're too sleepy. So why not have the driver's seat in, say, a Scion FR-S that threatens to prod your butt if you're falling asleep? Why doesn't the Mercedes actually make you coffee if it's so adamant you need a cup?
Think about this too: According to an Associated Press story from August, the average age of a 2012 Toyota Camry buyer was 51-52 years old in 2012, 9 years younger than it was in 2011. The "sporty" SE model has an average buying age of 45 years old. That means there are a lot more young people buying what has to be the one of the most sleep-inducing new cars on sale.
I know when I'm too tired to drive. It's never a good idea to get into a car when I can barely keep my eyes open, which means my night ends on a friend's couch with his dog trying to lick my face off. It's just a hunch, though, but wouldn't alert handling and responsive steering of something that isn't a big Caddy keep you awake more than if it buzzed and shook your backside?
Photo credit TheTruthAbout |
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Richard Neil Ilagan is Technical Lead, Solutions Architect, and developer for Hewlett Packard's Microsoft Practice in the Philippines. He specializes in front-end software development for the web, and provides strategic consult for pursuit, software architecture, user experience, and UI design.
He mostly dabbles with .NET and related Microsoft technologies, but is also adept in Javascript/jQuery, HTML5, CSS, PHP, and Wordpress.
He shoots photos, plays the guitar and drums, wastes time on Starcraft, and does freelance work during his loose hours. He writes regularly at Tech+Life+Music. |
Sarah Palin Is More Than A Little Confused About, Well, EverythingWith the first Presidential debates and a week of Pali-blunders under our collective belts, it was time to breathe easy and have a few drinks this weekend in honor of Maureen Dowd having been kicked off the "Straight" Talk Express for talking less straight than either John McCain or Sarah Palin. But then there were polls! Rumors of a new October surprise that could keep Bush from bombing another country! And a trip to Geno's in Philly, even though everyone knows Pat's is the place to be because Geno's is biased against non-English speakers (but, presumably, Germans and Italians would get a pass). Luckily, my friend Kay Steiger, who blogs for Campus Progress, is here to help me parse all that and appreciate the occasional reference to Britney Spears.
MEGAN: Good morning! Was your Saturday night as "opulent" as McCain's? I mean, I know eating on the road sucks, but it doesn't seem like he had to come all the way back to D.C. after the debates to eat at a good hotel restaurant. KAY: I know. This sort of puts Obama's claim about a Katrina-like response. I think what Obama meant was McCain's Katrina response. You know, when he and Bush were having a birthday party. MEGAN: "Let them eat cake?" Oh, wait, that was Barbara Bush, never mind. I also love that he flew all the way back here after the debate to hang out in his Congressional office and call people, but that he couldn't be bothered to walk down to the Senate floor to vote on a spending bill that contained earmarks. I think he really has turned into a complete wuss. He didn't want to be seen voting for earmarks, nor voting against a spending bill that contained offshore drilling provisions, so he just went to dinner 5 minutes away. KAY: Seems like a good use of time. Maybe he played some craps while he was at it —with the $700 billion bailout money. MEGAN: I mean, who doesn't like a good Indian casino? Not McCain, that's for sure. Although, I'm just putting this out there, I haven't been in a casino yet, Indian or otherwise, that didn't make me grind my teeth. I don't think an alcoholic beverage should cost me $8 in the middle of nowhere in Connecticut. KAY: Yeah, casinos tend to be filled with a lot of sad old people. I guess that includes McCain. MEGAN: A lot of sad old people that aren't nearly drunk enough to be entertaining because they can't afford $6 beers and quarter slots at the same time. Sorry, I digress. I really, really hate casinos. KAY: Don't worry, me too. In any case, we should probably say something about how McCain's debate performance on Friday was a big FAIL. MEGAN: Oh, yeah, there's all kinds of evidence that he didn't play well with the crowds. I personally think it was because most Americans tuned out — figuratively or literally — once the discussion turned to foreign policy, so that most of them missed the preconditions/preparation debacle. KAY: Well, it's easy to misspeak. McCain said we were at an "existential" crisis with Iran. I'm not even sure what that means. Did he just take freshman philosophy? MEGAN: I know, I thought the same thing! But then I realized that he just meant that he thought Iran would be a threat to the existence of Israel, i.e., nuke it, and I wondered why the McCain camp is so obsessed with nuclear war and yet its Vice Presidential candidate can't correctly identify the purpose of the Bush Doctrine, which is to allow us to nuke people without provocation. KAY: Well, if we're going to put nuclear war on the table we want to make sure we have at least one person "a heartbeat away" who has no clue about foreign policy MEGAN: I mean, right? Palin's so bad even McCain's staffers are telling reporters that she's "clueless". And Jack Cafferty — no bastion of liberalism — had this to say:
"If John McCain wins this woman will be one 72-year-old's heartbeat away from being President of the United States. And if that doesn't scare the hell out of you, it should."
KAY: I know, even the right isn't so sure about her anymore. But at least we have Tina Fey to make us laugh. The thing is, those sketches are getting less funny the more true they are. I feel like this sketch was eerily similar to Palin's actual answer about the bailout. MEGAN: I really thought some of what Tina Fey said early on was a direct quote, but I'd been drinking for 11 and a half hours at that point. I did find it uproariously funny. KAY: It's always prudent to drink for 11 and a half hours. MEGAN: It was a wedding! I was less amused at the part where she agreed with Obama on Pakistan and then McCain retracted it for her, though. Well, that and that she went to Geno's instead of Pat's. Geno's is the cheesesteak place with the signs requiring that you order in English. KAY: Don't worry, I think the "October surprise" this year is going to be Bristol's wedding. MEGAN: Well, it can't be that much of a surprise if we're already talking about it. Also, the thought of Steve Schmidt and Rick Davis dreamily talking about how marrying off Bristol Palin on her 18th birthday (it is a Saturday, after all!) is sort of incredibly creepy. Especially as a way to have the first-ever pre-election wedding in history. That's just, like, ewww. KAY: So ewww. Well, we all know that you're not a real woman until you're married, right? MEGAN: Well, you become a woman when you start bleeding out your cooch but only a real woman when you lock a man down to it for life or until the inevitable, painful and public divorce. I'm so glad that I'm not a girl and not yet a woman. And yes, I did just make a Britney reference. Seemed appropriate. KAY: So appropriate. |
Woman Grows Nails For 18 Years, Is Honored Accordingly
Yesterday Guinness World Records named Chris Walton of Las Vegas the woman with the world's longest fingernails. Her nails measure 10-feet-2-inches on her left hand and 9-feet-7-inches on her right hand. Perhaps Walton does have the longest nails in the world, but the folks at Guinness should really take style and presentation into account. We can't help feeling that Jazz was robbed!
Earlier: Woman Grows 24 Inch Nails In Hopes Of Meeting Oprah
Lady With 24-Inch Fingernails Explains How She Wipes Her Butt |
Kickass Openly Gay Native American Woman Elected to State Legislature
Nine Native Americans have served in the Minnesota state legislature since the state's founding, and all of them have been men. But on Tuesday, The Land of 10,000 Lakes chose via special election its first ever Native American woman to serve on its state legislature, and the first Native American lesbian to ever serve in any state legislature anywhere.
Susan Allen (not to be confused with the wife of Republican Virginia Senator George Allen) is the polar opposite of her fellow Minnesota countrywoman Michele Bachmann. She's a progressive rather than a Tea Partier, she lives in a mixed income Minneapolis neighborhood rather than a McMansion in the exurbs, and she's a lesbian rather than a lesbian-fixer. Additionally, Allen has vowed to fight for defeat of Minnesota's constitutional marriage amendment, which would effectively make same-sex marriage illegal in the state. Michele Bachmann is one of the leading architects of a previous failed attempt to legally define marriage as between one man and one woman.
Allen's credentials are the sort of thing that makes the average privileged person living in comfort feel like a slouch. MPR reported back in December that Allen, now 48, grew up on South Dakota's Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, one of the most poverty-stricken swaths of untenable land in the US. Her father was an Evangelical priest, and the family frequently moved. When she was a single mother in her early 20's and on government assistance, she relied public transportation to get to and from her law school classes. She's got experience working in tribal and tax law, and as of last year was a partner in her firm. By all accounts, she's an all-around intimidatingly kickass, groundbreaking lady.
She doesn't get to rest on her laurels for long, though. Allen's up for reelection already in November.
If Michele Bachmann and Susan Allen are ever in the same room at the same time, they're fated to an epic arm wrestling match. My money's on Allen. |
Calling an Athletic Woman Manly Accomplishes Nothing But Making You Sound Like an Asshole
Brittney Griner, the 6'8" powerhouse who lead the Baylor Bears to the NCAA women's basketball championship last night, is a phenomenal athlete and a helluva ball player. So good, in fact, that her detractors have found a totally original and hilarious way to insult her: by calling her a man.
Griner could probably kick the ass of most other human beings if the situation called for it. She's got arm muscles that appear to be bigger than my head, and she can dunk over your dad. She's so dominating on the court that Notre Dame coach Muffett McGraw said she played "like a guy" (not that she looked or acted like a guy; that she played basketball like she was bigger and stronger than the players around her). She's unquestionably one of the best women's college basketball players in recent years.
Brittney Griner also talks with a low voice and doesn't wear makeup while she plays, which means she looks a little different than her beponytailed teammates. Is this everyone's cue to go act like a dickhead about it on the internet?! YES! It is!
Before, during, and after the game last night, the good people of Twitter took it upon themselves to act like the collective butthole we know they're capable of being by snickering at how manly man mcman Griner is. They offered such tidbits of genius like, "it's a shame Brittney Griner's sanctimonious basketball skills are overshadowed by her sounding/looking like a man," "Why is Brittney Griner so good at basketball? Because she's actually a man. #haveyouheardhertalk," "My prediction: Baylor's national championship will be vacated once it is confirmed that Brittney Griner is, in fact a man...", and "I hope @SkyDigg4 walks up to Brittney Griner at the end of this game n asks her - MAN pull your D*ck out!? *Pun Intend #NCAAWomensBasketball." First, "sanctimonious basketball?" I'm not sure I gather. Second, calling Brittney Griner — or any woman who demonstrates proficiency at a typically "masculine" skill — a man doesn't accomplish anything but make you sound like an asshole with sour grapes shouting into the great white nothing of the internet. An insult's only an insult if the person you're insulting cares. And a woman at the top of her game with a trophy case full of awards to prove it probably doesn't give a flying phallus if you, a male Twitter user, don't want to go to fuck her, or if you, a female Twitter user, have prettier hair or more frequently wear lipstick.
Brittney Griner is a big, strong woman who can ball. Get the fuck over it.
Grow Up Folks; Lay Off Brittney Griner [Newser] |
If you were lucky but not too lucky, you probably knew someone when you were a kid who had a pool that they'd either a) let you use or b) wouldn't guard very well. Just imagine, for a moment, if your neighborhood pool parents just so happened to be Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick, who do adorable things like film their dog jumping off their sweet rock diving board. Suddenly your childhood pool parties seem pretty stupid, huh? Rumor has it that Mr. Bacon also has a Sunny D fountain and, if you ask real nice, he'll dance to "Let's Hear It for the Boy," but not around the pool — there's no dancing around the pool.
via Buzzfeed |
Tamiflu Might Be a Lie
I never get flu shots — not because I'm lazy or have a blatant disregard for my health and the health of those around me, more because I just...don't. Preventative, blah blah. But maybe I'll reconsider: Tamiflu, the flu treatment included in a list of "essential medicines" by the World Health Organization and stocked by governments in case of global flu outbreak, is under fire from the British Medical Journal (BMJ) because there's "no evidence the drug can actually stop the flu." Dang.
Tamiflu is not the same as the flu shot; the flu shot is a vaccine whereas Tamiflu is taken when you actually come down with the flu. According to ABC News, the BMG is "asking the drug maker Roche to release all its data on Tamiflu, claiming there is no evidence the drug can actually stop the flu."
The BMJ and researchers at the Nordic Cochrane Centre in Copenhagen requested the Tamiflu documents and data from Roche in 2009, but the company didn't comply. That did not go over well with the BMJ, as you can imagine. Tsk tsk, Roche.
For their part, Roche claims they released all the data they could, barring legal or confidentiality constraints. That's not enough for the BMJ.
"I suggest we boycott Roche's products until they publish missing Tamiflu data," wrote Peter Gotzsche, leader of the Nordic Cochrane Centre. He said governments should take legal action against Roche to get the money back that was "needlessly" spent on stockpiling Tamiflu.
According to ABC News, the CDC recommends Tamiflu as one of two medications for treating regular flu in the United States. However, since the Cochrane Centre scientists who were commissioned by Britain to evaluate flu drugs found no proof that Tamiflu reduced the number of influenza complications, that's kinda scary, right?
Because Tamiflu is known to have sometimes dangerous side effects, especially in kids, I'm interested to see what else comes of this story.
British Medical Journal Slams Roche on Tamiflu [ABC News] |
Research Suggests That Poor Sleeping Habits Will Transform You into an Ungrateful Monster That No One Could Possibly Love
A new study from the big brains at UC Berkeley suggests that spouses or live-in paramours who complain of feeling unappreciated probably aren't getting enough sleep, which is turning them into selfish sourpusses too sleep-deprived to offer simple tokens of gratitude like saying, "Thank-you my dearest dearie dear, my honey pot of sweet, sweet love, my jigsaw counterpart, my talking orgasm machine, for not stuffing chicken bones down the garbage disposal."
Lead researcher Amie Gordon, a UC Berkeley psychologist investigating the ways in which sleep deprivation can impact gratitude among couples, is presenting her findings today, probably as we're all still wiping the sleep out of our eyes, at a convocation of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology in New Orleans. "Poor sleep," explained Gordon, "may make us more selfish as we prioritize our own needs over our partner's." The findings show that partners who slumber together are often emotionally interdependent to such a degree that if one partner is restive one night, their sleep deprivation will negatively affect their partner. Not sleeping well makes partners less attuned to each other's moods and sensitivities, so instead of your SO, say, stubbing his toe and reciting an alphabetical litany of swear words like a normal, well-rested human, he flips over the kitchen trash can, covers himself in used coffee filters, and screams, "I AM THE SWAMP THING! FEAR ME, SHARP TABLE LEGS!"
Gordon, along with fellow Berkeley psychologist Serena Chen, studied more than 60 couples with ages ranging from 18-56. Gordon and Chen first had these couples record a sleep diary, in which they were instructed to make note of how their sleeping patterns (whether good or bad) affected their appreciation of their significant other. Couples were also videotaped trying to collaborate on problem-solving tasks. Guess which couples sucked at problem solving? That's right — the poor sleepers sucked at problem solving because they were busy complaining about how too goddamn tired they were to participate in a stupid experiment so that some Berkeley Ph.D. candidates can go to New Orleans and party at a scientific convention.
Poor sleep can leave romantic partners feeling unappreciated [EurekAlert]
Image via Alina Wegher/Shutterstock. |
ASU Professor's Brutal Arrest: When Minor Offenses Lead to Major Abuse
On May 20, Dr. Ersula Ore, an English professor at Arizona State University was stopped in the middle of the street by ASU Police Officer Stewart Ferrin for obstructing a public thoroughfare—jaywalking. When Ferrin asked for her identification, she refused to provide it, having been warned she faced arrest for not presenting it. Ore resisted arrest, dented and scratched a police vehicle, and kicked the arresting officer in the shin. She was arrested and is being charged with a class five felony aggravated assault and two misdemeanors. She has claimed that she was acting in self defense, and the story appeared to end there.
But footage released this weekend shows that the altercation went down very differently than described. In the dash camera video, Ore, whose only threat was walking across a street to avoid construction on the sidewalk, clearly attempts to reason with the police officer, but is met with disregard which escalated into violence.
Ferrin: Let me see your ID or you will be arrested for failing to provide ID
Ore: Are you serious?
Ferrin: Yes, I'm serious. That is the law. If you don't understand the law I'm explaining the law to you right now. You're walking down the middle of the road, which is a public thoroughfare—
Ore: Which I have no problem with abiding by the law, but all I'm asking, do you have to speak to me in such a disrespectful manner? That's all I ask of you…I have been here for over three years and everybody walks this street…I never once saw a single solitary individual get pulled over by a cop for walking across a street on a campus, in a campus location. Everybody has been doing this because it is all obstructed. That's the reason why. But you stop me in the middle of the street to pull me over and ask me, 'Do you know what this is? This is a street.'…
Ferrin: Are you aware this is a street?
Ore: Let me finish
Ferrin: OK, put your hands behind your back
Ore: Don't touch me, get your hands off me…
Ferrin: …Put your hands behind your back right now. I'm going to slam you on this car. Put your hand behind your back
Ore: You really want to do that? Do you see what I'm wearing? Do you see?
Ferrin: I don't care what you are wearing.
ORE: Don't talk to me like that. This entire thing has been about your lack of respect for me as a citizen, as a professor of...Arizona State University.
Here's a video of the raw footage. It's all audio until 2:15—it is shocking, so be warned.
Ferrin throws her to the ground, exposing her as she was wearing a dress. When the officers pull her to her feet and Ferrin attempts to adjust her dress and pull it back down, she kicks Ferrin in the shin. As Ferrin cuffs her, the other officer tells her to relax.
Clearly, the footage is painting a very different picture of the situation than what was largely reported and considered a closed case by ASU, the ASU PD, and media. And it's very clear that ASU is distancing themselves from the situation. They released a statement to 3TV, saying:
"ASU authorities have reviewed the circumstances surrounding the arrest and have found no evidence of inappropriate actions by the ASUPD officers involved. Should such evidence be discovered, an additional, thorough inquiry will be conducted and appropriate actions taken..."
The Arizona Ethnic Studies Network has called out ASU on their response to the matter, demanding that they launch a "comprehensive investigation into this matter as well as an audit on the conduct of its police force vis-à-vis racial profiling."
Dr. Ore will be fighting the charges, and there is currently a petition, calling for the ASU Police Department to drop all charges and "issue an unquantified apology." We reached out to Dr. Ore and were able to get in touch with her lawyer Alane Roby to discuss the situation. When we asked for her response to ASU deeming the situation not a case of racial profiling, she told Jezebel:
I think as far as liability goes it would be in their best interest to hope that it's not a case of racial profiling. That being said, I have several witnesses that were there that evening that were also crossing the street, and none of them happened to be black and none of them happened to be women. One of them called 911.
This is not Roby's first case of abuse at the hands of police in Arizona. It's not even her first case of a white police officer antagonizing and assaulting black civilians over minor offenses. Roby went on to emphasize the indiscretion of the police officers, highlighting the need for a forum to address police abuse, and a realistic way to address how police officers respond to the idea of respect, saying:
"I think the bigger issue is that there needs to be an open discussion about the way that officers respond to the general public, how they treat them, the type of respect that they demand and [how they] respond to the type of respect they get initially. The situation was exacerbated for no reason. It was jaywalking—[it] shouldn't have ended up with a woman on the ground with dress over her head, being told she'd be slammed on a car. It's just inappropriate, it's oppressive…
Regardless, if he didn't like the way that Ore was speaking to him or if she was jaywalking, the reality is that these officers should be trained to diffuse the situation instead of exacerbate it…When it's contentious from the beginning, when the civilians are treated with disrespect, when they're treated as criminals right away, things like this happen and it's dangerous for everybody. But we need to have a discussion about how to prevent it…" |
Rosie Napravnik Might Become First Woman to Win Kentucky Derby
In the male-dominated sport of horse racing, there's currently one female rising star to cheer on: Rosie Napravnik, who is a favorite to win the Kentucky Derby tomorrow.
Since riding onto the scene nine years ago, Napravnik has more than proved her worth in the sport. As covered by the Associated Press:
Nine years later, Rosie Napravnik is one of the rising stars in the sport, having long ago discarded her ruse. Now the 26-year-old from New Jersey will try to make history this weekend and become the first woman to ride a Kentucky Derby winner.
She's achieved firsts before. She was the first woman to win the Louisiana Derby, and did it twice. She also was the highest-placing female rider in the Kentucky Derby, finishing fifth last year aboard Mylute. She was the first woman to win a riding title at the Fair Grounds in New Orleans in 2011, with 34 more victories than the runner-up.
She was the first woman to win the Kentucky Oaks, a $1 million race run on Derby eve, and has a strong chance to win it again Friday with early 4-5 favorite Untapable. Her mount in the Derby on Saturday is 20-1 long shot Vicar's In Trouble.
Napravnik has also made strides for her gender in the sport. Our previous coverage has outlined her struggles in being taken seriously as a woman; the AP article notes how she used to ride under her initials, like JK Rowling disguised her gender so that it wouldn't get in the way of sales for Harry Potter.
As for tomorrow, Napravnik has her work cut out for her. The horse she is riding, Vicar's In Trouble, is in the tough No. 1 spot at the starting gate. She has to account for the course's railing cutting into Vicar's In Trouble's path, while fighting with 19 other outside riders for a good position. Good thing Rosie is known for being an aggressive rider. After the Derby, she's serving a four-day suspension for making contact with another horse during the Derby Trial, a move that also caused officials to bump her horse from first to second place.
Image via Getty. |
Skip Navigation LinksHome > January 2012 - Volume 112 - Issue 1 > Preparing successful grant proposals
AJN, American Journal of Nursing:
doi: 10.1097/01.NAJ.0000410171.13777.c1
Preparing successful grant proposals
Pullen, Richard L. Jr., EdD, RN; Mueller, Sheryl S. MSEd, MSN, RN
Free Access
Article Outline
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Author Information
Richard L. Pullen, Jr., and Sheryl S. Mueller are professors of nursing at Amarillo College in Amarillo, Tex.
The authors have disclosed that they have no financial relationships related to this article.
AN EFFECTIVE grant proposal must demonstrate that an organization has carefully planned a project. This article describes how to tackle this project and the parts of the proposal that you'll need to present.
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Getting started
If this is your first grant proposal, consider attending a grant-writing workshop before beginning your project. Next, schedule brainstorming sessions with everyone who'll be involved in the process. At these sessions, participants can identify statements of need and develop a clear, concise description of the proposed project. Also determine goals, time-tables, and how to evaluate the effectiveness of the project during these initial planning sessions.
Include industry partners from the community in the grant-planning process because letters of commitment can easily be obtained from those initially involved. The purpose of a letter of commitment is to express the institution's support of the project. This letter should convince reviewers of the grant application (the grantor) that the project will be successful. Include the project title, a brief summary of the project, and all partners and collaborators in the letter. Show your enthusiasm here!
Explore sources of grant funding early. Resources include the federal government, state and local agencies, and professional organizations.
A request for proposal (RFP), the primary source of information about each grant, provides an outline of criteria for development of the grant proposal. Consult it early and often to meet the requirements of the granting agency for the proposal. Generally, each grant proposal includes the following sections: cover letter and summary, statement of need, project objectives, project methods and design, evaluation, budget narrative, and proposal appendix.
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Let's begin: Cover letters
Write a one-page cover letter on the applicant's letterhead. The letter includes a brief overview of the organization and its purposes and serves as an introduction to the proposal. A brief statement of the project's purposes and amount of funding requested are included. It's usually best to write this letter after all components of the grant proposal have been written. It should be signed by the highest official in the organization seeking the grant.
After the cover letter comes the abstract or proposal summary, which is usually no longer than three or four paragraphs. Develop the proposal summary after the proposal has been written, and include:
* a description of the applicant
* the definition of the problem
* a statement of objectives
* an outline of activities and procedures to accomplish the objectives
* a description of the evaluation design
* plans at the end of the grant
* a statement of the cost
* any other funding sources.
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Statement of need
Provide information to the grant-funding agency or source about your organization. Most proposals will require your organization's statement of purpose and a description of its past and present operations. In the introduction to the grant proposal, include a brief history of the organization, the qualifications of the professional staff and board of directors, and a discussion about other funds that may be available for the grant project. Include a succinct résumé of each principal grant author.
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Stating the problem and project objectives
The problem statement (or needs assessment) is a key element of any proposal; it provides a clear, concise picture of the problem(s) to be addressed. Some issues to document include the purpose of the proposal, project beneficiaries, the social and economic costs, and the nature of the problem.
The project objectives, or outcome statements, are specific activities designed to address identified problems. If the grant proposal is funded, the stated objectives will be used to evaluate progress and the project's overall effectiveness.
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Presenting project methods and design
Once the outcome statements have been identified, be sure to walk the potential grantor through each step of the project. The methods and design section is the blueprint that will be used to solve the stated problems. Carefully review this segment to ensure that the activities proposed are realistic in terms of resources and designated timelines. Write a plan of action for each objective that delineates a sequence of justifiable activities, including the proposed staffing and timetable for each task. Highlight innovative features of the project in this section.
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Evaluating the project
To assess a grant project, the proposal writer will need to perform both product and process evaluation. Product evaluation addresses whether or not the project achieved its objectives. Process evaluation addresses whether the project was conducted consistent with the stated plan of action and whether its activities were effective. For process evaluation, clearly describe common measures or “outputs” at each stage of the project. Federal grants typically require a detailed process evaluation to be reported quarterly and annually.
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Preparing the budget narrative
You'll present the project budget to justify proposed expenses. After the financial plan has been prepared, write a budget section, beginning with a budget summary. Present each section of the budget in an outline format. The budget should include the cost of salaries for personnel, anticipated expenses for equipment purchases, and indirect costs and/or matching funds that may be required.
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Adding an appendix
Lengthy documents mentioned in the narrative are best included in the appendix. Examples include letters of commitment, a list of previous funders, key staff biographies, annual reports, statistical data, maps, and diagrams or models.
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Final product
Most likely, you'll develop several drafts of the proposal before the project is complete. The grant-writing team must be committed to meet its deadlines. When written properly, successful proposals look professional, are theoretically and methodologically sound, use positive terminology, are culturally sensitive, and present a justifiable budget that matches the project objectives.
© 2012 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. All rights reserved. |
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B'reshis chapter 46 lists the seventy descendants of Yaakov who went to Egypt. It actually lists sixty-nine: let's assume Yocheved was the seventieth, as Rashi explains. It also lists (in pasuk 12) two who died before the trip down, so there are a total of 72 descendants of Yaakov listed. Of these, three are female: Yocheved, Serach, and Dina. Assuming a 50% chance of having a boy at each birth, the probability of such a disproportionate number of babies of one sex is about 0.000000000000003%. What's going on?
(And if you want to say there were females not listed (besides Yocheved), then you have to explain why the Torah says there were seventy (do the females not count?) and why it lists some females and not others. That's even if, as suggested in an answer, there are dead females not listed: the Torah lists dead males, after all.)
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Is Dina listed? – jake Jan 11 '12 at 20:49
@jake, yes, she is. – msh210 Jan 11 '12 at 20:51
(See Rashi, Bemidbar 26:24) (relevant, but not an answer) – b a Jul 9 '12 at 23:00
@msh210 This is a simple way to calculate it on WolframAlpha: wolframalpha.com/input/?i=3+heads+in+72+coin+tosses (Though to be fair should add chance of 0-2 heads also, since that would be even more unusual.) – Ariel K Jul 11 '12 at 17:09
4 Answers 4
This link discusses this question at length. http://www.etzion.org.il/vbm/archive/9-parsha/13vayigash.rtf
Rash"i mentions (to answer for the opinion that there were girls born along with each of the sons of Ya'akov) that there were more females but they all died before going to Egypt. However, we are left with the implication that only those named and counted were part of the descending party. (. . which entails that all of Ya'akov's sons married Egyptian women, making it not remarkable when an Israelite man married an Egyptian woman later in the Torah, among other technical difficulties!)
Perhaps the number 70 is used not [only] as a census, but as a qualitative description of Ya'akov’s family for the purpose of comparing it in its totality to the nations of the world, which also comprise 70. (cf. D’varim 32:8-9) The reason Rash"u et al. were compelled to give an explanation for the absence of many females was that the inclusion of Dina and Serach indicated that women were being counted, despite the general rule that only males are counted when the Torah records census data. The burden of explanation is really on the inclusion of these two women, not the exclusion of all the others.
Thus, an alternative [to the null hypothesis] to explain their inclusion could be that the Torah wanted to add up to exactly 70, while fitting the pattern of each wife - Le'a and Rachel - having exactly twice the number of offspring as her slave - Bilha and Zilpa. These specific members of the family were chosen from among all the other females due to their special merits, as attested in the midrashim.
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What's the problem? I know families with multiple generations of mostly (or all) boys. There's a family that comes to mind with something like 6 brothers who are mostly married, and there are now between 4 and 6 sons to each of those brothers. In all, the grandfather has about 24 or 25 grandchildren. If I'm not mistaken there is one granddaughter among them.
I also have family with similar rates.
It's not like it can't happen. It's just surprising, perhaps, if you live your life by statistics.
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This may be right (and +1), but it's unsatisfactory and something I should've mentioned in the question. Sure, no matter how unlikely the sex ratio, it appears sometimes; coming across such a family, it's certainly possible (and nowadays in the USA I'd say very likely) that it occurred by chance, and that's all. But if I came across it in China, I'd say the likelihood is greater that sex-selective abortions had been performed; likewise, for people under close hashgacha like Yaakov, there may be a better explanation than chance. – msh210 Jul 9 '12 at 6:58
No doubt it was part of HaShem's plan. But I would say the same thing for any family. Does that mean that it necessarily warranted the attention of a major commentary? Perhaps, but if not, I'm not concerned. – Seth J Jul 9 '12 at 12:55
Male vs female is not blind 50-50%, it depends on us too. As mentioned in Niddah 31a (last line), with some effort one can make his wife to born just boys. If you see further on 31b you can see such a phrase
אמר רב קטינה יכולני לעשות כל בני זכרים
my translation: Rav Ktina told: I can make all my children to be boys.
If Rav Ktina could, I think that children of Yaakov also could make it.
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Sure. But any reason for them to do so? – msh210 Jul 9 '12 at 19:35
They wanted to "produce" am yisroel, I think boys are more suitable for this mission. As we see that Yaakov has 12 boys and just one girl. And even that single girl was born as a girl because Lea didn't wanted to embarrass her sister. – jutky Jul 9 '12 at 19:40
@jutky perhaps edit that in? – Double AA Jul 9 '12 at 19:42
@DoubleAA the question was about disproportionate number of babies, not the reasons to do so. What I wrote in answer is a correct thing with good citation. What I wrote in comment is a speculation, I don't feel comfortable adding it as part of an answer. – jutky Jul 9 '12 at 19:47
@jutky Fair enough. FTR I don't think it's problematic to include speculation like that as an addendum especially if it is labeled as such. Plus, the question was "What's going on?" so that could include a 'why' answer in addition to a 'what' anser. – Double AA Jul 9 '12 at 19:53
Recent genetic studies show that male offspring tend to follow their father's trends in their own offspring. In other words, if there are a large number of males in a family, those males in turn, go on to produce a larger proportion of males to females (and the converse is true). The conjecture is that the weighting of male/female sperm is passed on to male offspring.
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Interesting. Can you cite any of these studies for us? – Double AA Apr 28 at 15:07
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Take the 2-minute tour ×
Is there any halachik problem with eating fish and milk together? (A classic example is a bagel with lox and cream cheese)
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6 Answers 6
Famous question. Rabbi Yosef Karo in his commentary Bait Yosef (which would serve as a first draft of sorts of the Shulchan Aruch) writes not to eat fish with milk (Yoreh De'ah 87:3). His Ashkenazic counterpart Rabbi Moshe Isserles famously commented, "rabbi Karo mixed his milk with meat!" (נראה שנתערב לרב בית יוסף בשר בחלב; Darkhei Moshe, ibid), as the Talmudic quote regards fish with MEAT as being a health risk.
The fish-and-milk business was omitted from Rabbi Karo's later work, the Shulchan Aruch. So it's a question of how seriously we take the original comment in the Bait Yosef.
Non-Hassidic Ashkenazim simply follow Rabbi Isserles, that the whole statement was a mistake, and therefore there's no problem.
Among Sephardic Jews (who follow Rabbi Karo), and Hassidic Jews (who occasionally follow Rabbi Karo's stricter points), it varies from community to community. The mainstream Israeli "Eida Charedis" hechsher, which includes many Hassidic groups, will allow fish cooked in butter, but the Belz Hassidic hechsher won't. The Bukharian Sephardic practice may not be the Iraqi one, so you'd have to consult with your local hacham. Some rabbis also draw other differentiations, such as it's okay if they weren't cooked together (so yes bagel and lox, no tuna-noodle-casserole).
Here's more on the topic from Rabbi Brody in the Jerusalem Post.
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Isn't there a Zohar that says not to eat fish with milk? – Yahu Feb 25 '11 at 21:52
Excellent answer! Thanks for the information about the Belz hechsher. – Shimon bM Jul 10 '12 at 4:41
The Lubavitcher Rebbe writes in Reshimos: "The prohibition of eating Milk and Fish [mentioned] in the Bais Yosef is considered to be a mis-write. Nonetheless, we are careful [not to], therefore we add something (butter). This is an instruction from the Tzemach Tzedek". The editors of Shaarei Halacha Uminhag write that it seems that adding butter to milk makes the danger go away.
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Which rebbe is that? And do you know which Tzemach Tzedek he's referring to (Nikolsburg or Lubavitch)? – msh210 Jul 7 '11 at 5:26
Both refer to Lubavitch. – Shmuel Brin Jul 7 '11 at 5:35
There is a mishnah that explicitly permits fish and milk:
Hullin [8:1]:
כל הבשר אסור לבשל בחלב, חוץ מבשר דגים וחגבים
My translation: "One is not permitted to cook [and eat] any meat in milk, except for the meat of fish and [permitted types of] locust"
So no, there is no halachic problem with eating fish and milk together, or else the Mishnah, our edition of Torah SheBe'al Peh, would not have permitted it.
Some forbid it for medical reasons, as per the Bet Yosef:
בית יוסף יורה דעה סימן פז
ומכל מקום אין לאכול דגים בחלב מפני הסכנה כמו שנתבאר בספר אורח חיים סימן קע"ג
My translation: "Nevertheless, one should not eat fish in milk because of its danger, as will be clear in volume Orach Chaim, Chapter 173 (where he does not mention fish and milk at all).
As mentioned in the answers above, most dismiss this as a misprint.
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To continue Shalom's answer, I would like to bring down the opinion of the Taz that says the Bet Yosef made a misprint and meant to write fish with meat. So wrote the Hida. However, Maran HaRab Obadia Yosef in Yechawe Daat writes "Yesh Lehimana" meaning that is prohibited according to Sephardim. Rab Obadia Yosef brings a Kula from the Kaf HaHaim that butter with fish one can be lenient. For Ashkenazim it is Mutar.
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to all of the above learned commentors; you are all correct but not entirely. Not all ashkenazim are lenient and not all sefardim are stringent. yes, it is based on a beis yosef and whether or not he mixed up the words meat and milk, but their were even rishonim who were machmir, including rabbeinu bachaye! some feel its an actual medical issue and not the same as tzaraas mentioned by mixing meat and fish. Moroccans are known to be lenient entirely, other sefardim bdieved; the ben ish hai was extremely stringent. and although most ashkenazim are lenient some are mkpid due to the levish, pri megadim and g.maharsha being makpid for it.
you can read about this an a thorough 2 part article here
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Welcome to the Mi Yodeya (if the welcome's a bit late), and thanks for your answers. Specific sources (chapter and verse, so to speak) would be great if possible. – msh210 Aug 2 '12 at 13:24
i think this above answer is based on rabbi spitz's halacha column. i can tell you from past experience, if the original sources aren't listed in the article, just email the good rabbi and he will send you them - he most definitely has them! - [email protected] – cmb Aug 2 '12 at 17:07
See the Pischei Tshuvah 87:9 which brings a few shitos on this inyun and the Adnei Paz on fish and butter.
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why the downvote? – Shmuel Brin Apr 18 '12 at 5:12
Hello sam, welcome to Judaism.SE and thank you for this answer! To improve your answer, please consider linking to and/or summarizing that tshuva here. Also, please consider registering your account, which will give you access to more of the site's features. I hope to see you around! – HodofHod Apr 18 '12 at 5:37
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Dead or Alive Actress So Against Piracy, Bought Pirated Goods
Actress, singer, whatever Holly Valance was Christie in the Dead or Alive movie, DOA: Dead or Alive. The 2006 movie was filmed in Asia, and Vance now calls it "an amazing experience," but tough.
How tough? It was the toughest experience of her life says the actress. The shoot was hard, and the kung-fu training was hard. Downtime was spent playing Dead or Alive — not just for research per se, but out of boredom. Explains Valance:
Oh yes, we played so much. That's pretty much what we had to do in our rooms, because there was nothing else to do. That and buy pirated DVDs in the village. I'm so against buying pirated movies and music, because that's my business, but there was literally nothing else to do. So we'd watch these awful DVDs filmed on a camcorder in the cinema.
Why not, you know, read a book? Or have books shipped to you? Hey, it's none of my business — just wondering! But bonus points for honesty.
Vance appears in the new standalone expansion for Red Alert 3, which you should buy, unless by Vance's logic, you're in a remote village with nothing else to do.
Eurogamer meets Holly Valance [Eurogamer] |
A demo isn't the finished product. But Andrew Bynum hilariously stuck in the Jordan Wings pose at midcourt is not what NBA Elite 11 wants to see less than a day into its demo. NSFW language in the players' reactions.
I can't remember the last sports title that didn't have a patch available day of release. Think this one gets fixed by then? Yeah, pretty sure it's on a priority list. Thanks to reader Vuman for the tip. |
Mass Effect Infiltrator Presents a Slice of the Galaxy That's Not Worth Exploring When it comes to games like Mass Effect Infiltrator, there's no avoiding the fact that you're going to be getting a stripped-down version of a console experience. The key question, then, is whether the necessary whittling-down can preserve enough the essence of the original version to become a worthwhile spin-off.
EA's done it before, with a Dead Space game that translated the spooky scares and frantic combat of the sci-fi horror franchise's console iteration. But, sadly, Mass Effect Infiltrator doesn't do anywhere near as good a job as that iOS game.
You don't play as your customized Commander Shepard in Infiltrator. Instead, players control Randall Ezno, a rough-and-tough soldier in the human separatist Cereberus organization. Ezno's been an asskicker for Cereberus for a while, it seems, until a turn of events puts him at odds with the group. That turn of events—and the poor storytelling overall—is where Infiltrator goes very wrong compared to its more fleshed out Mass Effect brethren.
Mass Effect's appeal comes from spooling out dozens of hours of space opera and shooting action, all connected by plot decisions made by the player to shape the persona of their Commander Shepard. Randall's personality already exists and, disappointingly, it's in the gravel-voiced mode of hundreds of other forgettable hero types. He sounds like Marcus Fenix with less charm.
Infilitrator plays like Gears of War, too. You're getting cookie-cutter cover-based shooter mechanics in a third-person perspective with touchscreen controls. The inputs work but I never felt like I had the precision I wanted. It's one thing to give me mushy controls in a brand-new iOS shooter. It's another to make me suffer through a lesser experience when I can play Mass Effect as intended.
Take the Paragon/Renegade choices, for example. They're nothing so much as decision points as to let random characters live or die. The narrative stakes are non-existent, in terms of the emotional impact, even if they do point you to different places for Infiltrator's ending. There's also a moment where Randall's Cereberus handler gets violently re-assigned to another division. I've known this character for five minutes. Why should I care about her getting abducted and experimented on? In a full-scale Mass Effect game, I'd feel something for Inali. In Infiltrator, I can't.
Iron Monkey Studios successfully recreated Dead Space's dread on iOS because all they had to do was establish atmosphere and action. Here, they needed to recreate story execution—and the voice acting, build-up and consequences that come with it—and they strike out pretty hard on all counts. It doesn't help that EA pushes a game full of microtransactions—buy this helmet, won't you?—but that doesn't feel satisfying on its own.
Throughout the game, you'll pick up intel that improves your Galactic Readiness Rating in the PC or console versions of Mass Effect 3. And finishing Infiltrator gives you an exclusive War Asset that people who didn't play it supposedly won't get. With no copy of Mass Effect 3 on hand to test this functionality, I have to take EA at their word that it'll buff your big-screen ME3 playthrough. But, on its own merits, Mass Effect Infiltrator isn't worth the time or money you'd spend on it. I know Commander Shepard, Randall—hell, I am Commander Shepard—and you're no Commander Shepard.
Mass Effect Infiltrator [iTunes] |
$10,000 Worth of Wasteland 2 is Brought to You by Razer Peripheral (and recently PC) maker Razer's CEO, Min-Liang Tan, is passionate about gaming. So are we, but we don't have $10,000 to donate to the Wasteland 2 Kickstarter project. He does, and he did.
Razer PR pointed me towards a post on Min-Liang Tan's personal Facebook page, where he talked about becoming one of five people so far to pledge $10,000 or more to Brian Fargo's Wasteland 2 Kickstarter.
I used to play Wasteland back in the day, and I've been waiting for a sequel since. And now Brian Fargo is raising money on Kickstarter for Wasteland 2. Well, head over to the link and support the sequel - the devs need all the support they can get. I've put myself down for US$10,000...
His $10,000 pledge earns him a ton of Wasteland 2 swag, including an in-game shrine dedicated to him and 50 digital copies of the game itself, which he plans to share with the Razer community.
Perhaps the shrine will be inspired by a combat knife.
That's of course assuming the project makes it to its $900,000 goal. With nearly $700,000 pledged already and 33 days to go, I'd say chances are pretty good. |
Even If No One Listens, Let the Review Bombs FallIt's easy to sit back and scoff at "review bombing," as we saw last week when Blizzard released a broken Diablo III. Flooding Amazon to give zero stars to something others have called a perfect 10, sure, that's not a legitimate review. And people staging a sit-in aren't there to legitimately patronize a public accommodation, either. But a sit-in is a legitimate form of protest. And I think a review bomb is, too.
I say that even knowing that the hive-mind mentality of the Internet, where every disappointment is a scandal and an outrage, there's a potential for an author, a publisher, a maker of creative work who commits an imagined slight, to get roasted by a self-righteous, torchbearing mob. But that is not what happened in the case of Diablo III, even if the language and temperament of the review bombs carried the same indignant tone.
Diablo III is a good game, but on launch day in the U.S., it deserved what it got: A flogging not in its forums or over Facebook or on Twitter, 96 percent of which is already crap complaining about something. The game got ripped by its consumers in a setting where potential customers were informing a purchase decision—Amazon particularly, Metacritic a little more indirectly.
Whatever you feel about the controversy of digital rights management, excoriating Blizzard for its insistence on an always-on Internet connection just to play the game—even in singleplayer mode—is absolutely justifiable if the publisher can't supply a working product once it's bought. In that situation, it has sold a broken game, and that deserves a terrible customer review.
Even if the problem has been solved since release, the review bomb is valid as a protest because it—like civil disobedience—calls attention to the increasing powerlessness of the video gamer in his or her relationship with the industry and its agents—press included.
That frustration is magnified because we are in a very critical, very disruptive hour, where unknowns in new technology and distribution are opportunities for these publicly traded businesses to exploit before consumers can set—and enforce with their purchasing power—their expectations of fair conduct.
Always-on DRM, like on-disc locked DLC, underlines the one-way nature of the relationship. There's no way I can play Diablo III or anything like it without accepting whatever lawyered-up terms of use it imposes and the punitive controls it applies. At the end of the day, a gamer is placed between creative content he wants and for which he is willing to pay, and abusive anticonsumer practices that often are decisions far removed from those creating the content.
You can stand on principle, but it's like refusing to go to your favorite team's game because the stadium won't let you bring in food. All your other buddies are going, and now you won't? It's like refusing to go shoot hoops with your friends because the rec center forces you to rent a ball instead of bring your own. You still love the game of basketball and want to play it; you don't want to be a dick, especially as this stance reflects on your friends. But god damn, what is this bullshit?
The constant Internet connection that is required by Diablo III and other games is unfair in its structure and its implementation. And so, when it interferes with the private enjoyment of a product someone has purchased, publishers should expect to be treated just as unfairly—if not more—by their customers, too.
That is why the review bomb is valid.
Neither side should consider this matter to have blown over just because these servers are now working. Blizzard, and its apologists, plainly think that being unable to use something for which you've paid full price, on the day you bring it home, just goes with the territory when it's a popular video game—one aggressively marketed for nearly two years.
That side is wrong and that attitude is unacceptable. And I don't care how good a game Diablo III is — and I enjoy playing my copy, for which I paid my own money, thank you very much. It, and any game, deserves to have indignant graffiti scrawled all over its glowing reviews if it fails its end of a unilaterally imposed deal.
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XCOM: Enemy Unknown: The Kotaku Review
XCOM: Enemy Unknown should have been a disaster. It's a turn-based strategy title, a style of game its publisher said only last year was "just not contemporary". It's also a remake of a cult classic 1990's PC game, beloved by an audience so fickle that a modern version should be the most offensive entertainment product of the year.
Yet it is not. XCOM is, against the odds, a little bit special.
XCOM is about as perfect a remake of an old game as I could have hoped for, in that while changes have inevitably been made, they're mostly for the better, and anything genuinely new introduced is only there to improve things.
At its heart, XCOM is still the same game that won hearts when the original was released in 1994, a near-perfect blend of strategic management and ground combat that puts you in command of Earth's last line of defense against an alien invasion.
For half the game, you're running a base, funding research, building new weapons, managing a fleet of fighter craft and generally trying to keep a small number of rich and powerful funding nations happy enough to keep on funding you. For the other half, you're taking a small squad of soldiers out into the field for some turn-based combat.
The game's changes, then, don't affect XCOM's overall structure. They're apparent when you notice a nip here, a tuck there, places where things now run smoother than they used to, in some cases, run a little too smoothly.
XCOM: Enemy Unknown: The Kotaku Review
WHY: XCOM: Enemy Unknown takes a classic PC strategy game, improves it then makes it playable for console owners as well.
XCOM: Enemy Unknown
Developer: Firaxis
Platforms: PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3
Released: Oct. 9 North America, Oct. 12 Europe & Australia
Type of game: Strategy
What I played: Completed singleplayer campaign in around 22 hours. Dabbled briefly in multiplayer.
My Two Favorite Things
• A well-considered and respectful remake of one of my favourite games of all time.
• The strong sense of attachment and ownership you develop for your soldiers.
My Two Least-Favorite Things
• Combat needs a "simulate" button, because after 10-15 hours you need a break.
• Your means of progression are sometimes vague.
• "Rest in Peace, Captain Valdez." — Luke Plunkett, Kotaku.com
• "Defeat the alien menace through science, combat and atrocious German accents." — Luke Plunkett, Kotaku.com
Two of the most important are the ways XCOM handles player feedback, and the way the game's combat has been quietly revolutionised.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, seeing as this game was made by the same studio responsible for the mainstream-friendly Civilization series, this is as far from a "dry" strategy game as you'll get. There are characters, dialogue and, best of all, a continued and palpable sense of progress, displayed by the frequent cutscenes seen around important breakthroughs. Your 19th scientific discovery may just be another ticked box on a menu screen, but when you see that it triggers a cutscene in which a room full of grown men cheer and high-five, you can't help but feel a little pride.
Combat, meanwhile, may look the same, but it's not. It's now far more tactical and engaging, helped by a series of perks and abilities your soldiers possess, but mostly because of the way you interact with your surroundings. In the new XCOM, cover—previously important—is now everything. Those who have played Relic's strategy games will be right at home, as your soldiers must make full use of cover for their own defence, and try and flank the enemy's when in attack. If you don't, you will die quickly, and horribly.
Which leads me to the game's biggest achievement: its handling of your soldier's lives (and deaths). The sense of attachment and mourning over lost soldiers was a big part of people's love for the original, and those feelings will only be stronger for veterans of this 2012 campaign. You can customise almost every aspect of your soldier's lives, from their names to their faces, armour colour schemes, weapons loadouts, even the abilities they gain as they level up.
This makes you love them while they're alive, but in this game, death is around every corner. It doesn't matter if a soldier has survived one mission or one hundred, they can all die in a single moment of inattentiveness. The feeling of loss once a veteran, beloved soldier goes down is crushing. In a good way. Not many games will take your best toys away from you so swiftly and permanently, and so not many games really force you to look after them and appreciate them as well as XCOM does.
I suppose as we near the end of this review I should tell you it's not all high-fives and tears of remembrance. Combat can, despite its joys, start to feel like a chore 15 hours into a game, with no real way to take a break from it without suffering penalties. It can also feel a little too streamlined at times, which will be disappointing if you were hoping for a more open-ended experience like the original (build multiple bases, have full control over their floorplans, etc).
XCOM is one of the most important strategy games in years. It's a great remake, sure, and that's enough for most longtime fans, but for everyone else, know that this is a truly accessible strategy game. To the point where, if you own a 360 or PS3, you can play this with a controller and not miss a thing.
In the end, long after veteran XCOM players have appreciated the effort and moved on, that will hopefully be this game's lasting achievement. That it took a project that only noisy, hardcore PC gamers should have cared about and, through window dressing, interface tweaks and some combat changes, turned it into a game that everyone can enjoy. |
Dragonborn Is The First Skyrim DLC That Actually Feels Like An Expansion
When Skyrim first came out, Bethesda had lofty promises for the game's downloadable content. Skyrim's DLC will feel like expansion packs, the developers assured us.
Reality has told a different story. Skyrim's first DLC, Dawnguard, was a disappointing add-on filled with boring, samey quests. The second DLC, Hearthfire, was basically Barbie's Playhouse with dragons.
Third time's a charm. I've spent a few hours with Skyrim's latest piece of DLC, Dragonborn, and what I've played so far certainly feels like an expansion pack. It could also turn out to be Skyrim's best DLC yet.
Skyrim's newest DLC—out today for Xbox 360, and early next year for PC and PS3 (yes, PS3!)—takes you to the island of Solstheim, which you may remember from one of Morrowind's expansion packs, Bloodmoon. Solstheim is full of problems, quests, cities, dungeons, and all sorts of other things to explore and fight your way through. It's also rather unusual.
See, the first thing you'll notice, once you take a boat to Raven's Rock and start poking your way through Solstheim, is that it actually feels like a new experience. There's a new map. There are strange new areas and enemies—a city of nature-worshiping Skaal is protected by a powerful wind barrier; an underground tomb's dark elf corpses turn into hideous (and deadly) Ash Spawn; little goblins called Rieklings infest watchtowers and castles all across the land. It's all very bizarre and interesting.
Entering Solstheim, for me, was sort of like starting up Skyrim from the beginning, with no knowledge of what was in store. Even though I haven't even seen everything that the original game's massive world has to offer, there's still something really exciting about dropping into a new map that's full of potential. In other words, it feels like an expansion pack.
The second thing you'll notice about Dragonborn, if you're like me and recently spent a ton of time with Dishonored, is that you will miss the Blink spell a great deal. That shit should be in everything.
But I digress. Perhaps the most common complaint about Skyrim, generally considered an excellent game, is that its world was not as magical, not as creative, not as unique as the world of Morrowind before it. Solstheim has some solutions to that problem. Yes, you'll still be battling through some dark dungeons filled with the same old traps and levers—hope you like fighting Draugr!—but there's more to see and explore. There are giant mushroom homes furnished with magical air elevators, sickening demon squid Lurkers that shoot blasts of shadowy ink at your face, strange gems that command you to bring them to nearby mountains. You know, the usual.
The main quest is fascinating, too. I won't spoil the details, but it revolves around a dude named Miraak—who may or may not be the first ever Dragonborn—and the spell he's cast upon the people of Solstheim to subconsciously turn them into his slaves. Your goal is to stop him.
"But wait," you might be saying. "It wouldn't be Skyrim without countless bugs and glitches everywhere you turn. Does Dragonborn have any of those?"
Of course! When you first load up your copy of Skyrim with Dragonborn installed, you'll be accosted by a group of cult members who want to kill you. This happened to me in Windhelm. Except they weren't very good at showing that they wanted to kill me: once our dialogue had ended, they walked around in a circle for a few seconds before finally going hostile and pulling out their fireballs.
And of course there are the goblins floating in mid-air in the middle of fights, the janky animation during one particular moment when you're switched to a third-person point of view, and all of the other little bugs that make Skyrim Skyrim.
But still, so far I'm very pleased with this piece of DLC. It might have taken a year for Skyrim to get its first real expansion pack, but this seems to be the one we've all been waiting for.
I'll have more on Dragonborn here on Kotaku as I continue to play the game today. Expect a full review soon. |
This Cool Image Explains The Weird Noises Your Dial-Up Modem Used To Make
It's like a dog whistle. It's emblazoned on my brain. You all know what I'm talking about. Unless you're way too young and you're intent on making me feel way too old. I'm talking, of course, about the noises your dial-up modem made when hooking up to the internet back when the internet was this terrifying thing we used to ‘surf'.
The above massive image attempts to visualise every aspect of that modem noise, and also does a great job of explaining precisely what every blip and bloop meant, what it represented. I just love it.
Oona Räisänen does her level best to explain, but really you should just click on the image below…
When humans talk, only one of them is usually talking while the other one listens. The telephone network exploits this fact and temporarily silences the return channel to suppress any confusing echoes of the talker's own voice.
Modems don't like this at all, as they can very well talk at the same time (it's called full-duplex). The answering modem now puts on a special answer tone that will disable any echo suppression circuits on the line. The tone also has periodic "snaps" (180° phase transitions) that aim to disable yet another type of circuit called echo canceller.
Now the modems will list their supported modulation modes and try to find one that both know. They also probe the line with test tones to see how it responds to tones of different frequencies, and how much it attenuates the signal. They exchange their test results and decide a speed that is suitable for the line.
Be right back. Currently rocking in a nostalgic fetal ball.
The sound of the dialup, pictured [Absorbtions]
Republished from Kotaku Australia. |
Humanity's First Transformer Is A...Start, I Guess
What you're looking at here is the first ever machine to be able to "self-assemble". In other words, go from one state to another that can be used for...something. Without a human having to ever touch a button or issue a direct command.
The result of a joint project between MIT and Harvard, the "origami robot" may look humble, almost toy-like, but is actually built from some pretty sci-fi tech.
The robot starts as a flat sheet with embedded electronics, and transforms autonomously into a functional machine. To accomplish this, we developed shape-memory composites that fold themselves along embedded hinges. We used these composites to recreate fundamental folded patterns, derived from computational origami, that can be extrapolated to a wide range of geometries and mechanisms. This origami-inspired robot can fold itself in 4 minutes and walk away without human intervention, demonstrating the potential both for complex self-folding machines and autonomous, self-controlled assembly.
"The exciting thing here is that you create this device that has computation embedded in the flat, printed version," says MIT researcher Daniela Rus. "When these devices lift up from the ground into the third dimension, they do it in a thoughtful way."
While this little guy looks depressingly primitive, not to mention largely useless, the bigger picture for this kind of technology is everything from self-assembling furniture (fuck you, Ikea instructions) to emergency work (slip the "flat" robot through rubble and have it "transform" on the other side).
And hey, while it's a long way from sentient, heroic trucks, every technology has to start somewhere.
A method for building self-folding machines [Science Mag, via Motherboard] |
Anything can be an instrument, people—including a whole bunch of floppy drives!
Sixteen, in this case, to be exact. (You remember floppy drives, right?)
You might recognize this tune as "Those Who Fight Further," which is the boss theme in Final Fantasy VII. Here's the original, for comparison's sake.
Pretty close, right? Kudos to MrSolidSnake745 for making the floppy version, forreal.
FF7 - Those Who Fight Further on Sixteen Floppy Drives[MrSolidSnake745] |
Adam Orth Is Turning His Personal Disaster Into A Beautiful Game
Adam Orth, one of last year's most notorious people on the Internet, was nervous last week as he was showing me his new creation: a beautiful, unusual game that he says was borne from his 2013 travails.
"This is how I chose to, in the words of a famous philosopher, 'deal with it,'" he self-consciously chuckled as he began demoing the game in a hotel suite during last week's DICE Summit in Las Vegas.
He was quoting his most notorious phrase, dashed off on Twitter last year as he infuriated scores of gamers and tipped a domino that'd lead to an upending of his life.
At first you might not see the connection between >Adr1ft and Orth's 2013 drama.
>Adr1ft is a non-violent first-person game that poses the player as an astronaut who begins the game floating above Earth amid the debris of a mostly-wrecked space station. It exists now only as a 10-week prototype that Orth is hoping to get funded. Orth's studio partner, Omar Aziz, played through it for me.
>Adr1ft is meant to be a quiet and lovely game with exploration and puzzles, a combination, as Orth describes it, of the acclaimed immersive first-person shooter Half-Life, the beloved, surreal nature-walk of a game Journey and the movie Gravity, which is also about a person adrift in space.
Adam Orth Is Turning His Personal Disaster Into A Beautiful Game
Orth's own personal disaster happened last year on terra firma and across the Internet. It happened in the spring when Orth, then a Microsoft creative director working on some Xbox TV projects, bluntly stated his support for always-online devices, telling people on Twitter to "deal with it" and then mocking the idea that he'd ever live outside a city, where presumably Internet connections are less reliable.
At the time of Orth's Tweets the next Xbox was not officially announced, but rumors swirled that it would require an online connection. Those rumors largely turned out to be true, though fan uproar compelled Microsoft to drop any such requirement.
Within weeks of his Tweets, Orth was gone from Microsoft. He was also gone, he says, from the Internet, where he received not just gentle disagreements but a tidal wave of vitriol that shook him to his core. He has described changing his life as a result, recommitting himself to his family, losing weight, moving out of the Seattle area and starting afresh in Southern California where he now runs a small five-person indie development shop he calls Three One Zero.
"This is one to one with that," Orth said of the game and the recent upheaval in his life. It isn't literally, if course. Orth is no astronaut. But it's not hard to see parallels between him and a game character who finds himself in the middle of a disaster and who must now do the hard work to put things together, make things right and come home. Orth isn't sharing spoilers but he indicates that the game's story will likely reveals more parallels between its fiction and his reality.
Even without the intriguing connection to a real fiasco, >Adr1ft is an excitingly promising game. Aside from some brief outer space sequences in recent Call of Duty adventures, game designers really haven't done much with first person anything in outer space. The gameplay possibilities of zero-g first-person exploration are enormous. The setting is also rapturous as the player floats above the Earth. The scene is quiet and beautiful.
In the short demo that I saw, the astronaut begins, as the game will, just floating in a debris field. We don't know why things have gone wrong. We'll probably find out. As Aziz demonstrated, the player can float and move in any direction. The environment is open, though the developers will bind the player from going too far with an oxygen limit or other tether. Still, the player can float and move all around and carefully begin to get his or her bearings and try to start fixing stuff. You can hear your character's breathing and not much else. Oxygen runs down and you have to grab a tank to breathe some more.
Similar to BioShock and other recent games, the player can find audio logs that begin to flesh out the game's back-story. The audio log in the prototype featured the voice of an astronaut named Andrew McDonagh. As the player accesses it, they begin to learn about McDonagh, a man up in space for two years who begins to sound disillusioned. In later logs, he talks about missing his daughter and then plays back her piano recital. She's playing Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 8.
As McDonagh's daughter played, Aziz steered our character through more of the space station's wreckage, through a metal cylinder... some quarters of some sort... and through it he drifted until the Earth below came, glowing brilliant and most blue, into full view. It was an affecting moment.
Orth figures >Adr1ft could be classified as an FPX, a first-person experience, a decidedly non-confrontational game that will let players explore. They will also be on a mission, moving through five areas and confronting a series of procedurally-generated puzzles involving electronics repair. One of those puzzles, which involved rotating pieces of debris and shoving them toward mechanisms covered in blinking lights, didn't seem as obviously wonderful as the rest of the prototype. I told Orth and Aziz that I feared they could break the tone, that they could be the equivalent of a tedious Resident Evil puzzle, but it's so early and so hard to say that we can just leave that be for now and hope for the best. Here's a look at that puzzle:
Adam Orth Is Turning His Personal Disaster Into A Beautiful Game
These guys have been making games for a while and previously collaborated on Medal of Honor games before Orth moved on to Microsoft and Aziz to the Call of Duty studio Treyarch. They probably know what they're doing.
>Adr1ft is designed to last about three hours. Excitingly, it's also being designed to work with the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset. I tried a demo of that and was suddenly seeing through the eyes of a man adrift in virtual outerspace, the Earth beyond my grasp. That was a highlight. I loved it.
Comparisons to the movie Gravity are so unavoidable that Orth invites them, but he stresses that he conceived the game before he'd heard of the film. Aziz, his lead programmer, has vowed not to watch the movie until the game is done. Orth has seen it and isn't worried that there will be any harmful overlap.
Adam Orth Is Turning His Personal Disaster Into A Beautiful Game
The overall impression I got from >Adr1ft is that it's a gentle game. This is quite a contrast for Orth who frequently showed sharp elbows on Twitter before last year's "deal with it" disaster. These days, he speaks so softly, remarking about how he's probably lost weight since I last saw him, impressing upon me that his game isn't violent, that it's a metaphor, that he hopes it affects people in a good way.
>Adr1ft is in a very early stage. He's hoping to start production of the game in April or May, staff up to about 10 people and release the game in a year. He's targeting Xbox One, PS4, Steam Machines, PC and Mac.
A day after he showed me the game, I caught up with Orth again. He was tired but giddy. He'd done his demo more than 30 times for reporters and for companies that might be interested in backing the game. He didn't seem nervous anymore, just happy and relieved. Good for him. He's making what looks to be a very cool game.
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3:14 am
Thu April 11, 2013
Sen. Rand Paul Tries To Repair GOP's Image With Minorities
Originally published on Thu April 11, 2013 8:59 am
In recent elections the Republican Party has struggled to find much support among African-American voters. That though did not dissuade Kentucky's Republican Senator Rand Paul from making a pitch yesterday at Howard University, the historically black college in the nation's capital.
NPR national political correspondent Mara Liasson was listening.
MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: Rand Paul spoke carefully from a teleprompter and posed this question to his audience of young African-American students.
LIASSON: Paul answered the question, describing how the party of Abraham Lincoln did just fine with African-Americans until the Great Depression. Then he offered an explanation similar to Mitt Romney's election postmortem - Democrats give out free stuff while Republicans just offer freedom.
PAUL: The Democrats promised equalizing outcome, everybody will get something through unlimited federal assistance, while Republicans offered something that seemed less tangible - the promise of equalizing opportunity through free markets.
LIASSON: Paul acknowledged Republicans have done a bad job of presenting their own history. He argued that after the Civil War and until the 1960s, it was Democrats who were responsible for Jim Crow.
PAUL: If I would have said, who do you think the founders of the NAACP are, do you think they were Republicans or Democrats, would everyone in here know that they were all Republicans?
PAUL: All right, all right. You know more than I know.
LIASSON: There were more groans from the crowd of Howard students when Paul said this...
PAUL: The first - one of the African-American U.S. senators was a guy named uh... blanking on his name, from Massachusetts.
PAUL: Edwin Brooks(ph). Yes.
LIASSON: Paul was referring to Massachusetts Senator Edward Brooke.
As the question and answer period went on, the disconnect between Paul and his audience only grew. Here's how Paul defended the Republican push for state voter ID laws.
PAUL: If you liken using a driver's license to literacy tests, you demean the horror of what happened in the '40s and the '50s, maybe probably from 1910 all the way through the 1960s in the South. It was horrific. Nobody is in favor of that. No Republican is in favor of that. But showing your driver's license to have an honest election I think is not unreasonable.
LIASSON: Howard senior Julian Lewis, who asked Paul the question about voting rights, wasn't satisfied.
JULIAN LEWIS: These voter ID laws disenfranchise five million black and brown people. And he blatantly ignores those facts. But he will say well, that I think everyone should have a driver's license. And he tries to make it a minuscule issue. Like it's just a driver's license.
LIASSON: Paul said the GOP was often miscast as uncaring. And that he planned to change that by promoting policies popular with African-Americans - a pull back from foreign wars, a reform of mandatory minimum drug sentences and school choice. For Monique Dodd, that was good, but not good enough.
MONIQUE DODD: I like his idea with no federal minimum for drug sentences. However, I feel like in order for the Republicans Party to actually reach out to African-American voters and young people, they have to put some action behind their words.
LIASSON: Many students praised Paul for showing up at Howard, even if they weren't persuaded by his pitch to give the GOP a second chance.
PAUL: When the time is right, I hope that African-Americans will again look to the party of emancipation, civil liberty and individual freedom.
LIASSON: Paul is contemplating at run for president in 2016. His speech at Howard might not win him any African-American support, but it can't hurt him or his party if it helps to repair their image with minorities and white moderate voters.
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5:07 pm
Thu March 1, 2012
Nation's Toughest Immigration Law Stays Put For Now
Originally published on Fri March 9, 2012 3:38 pm
Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Utah and Indiana have passed legislation modeled on Arizona's. The Justice Department has sued to block all the laws, arguing that the role of enforcement belongs solely to the federal government. Human-rights and immigrant-advocacy groups have filed separate suits claiming the laws violate individuals' civil rights.
The Supreme Court is expected to rule on the Arizona law by the end of its term this summer; the decision could set precedents for lower courts handling similar cases. A Supreme Court ruling could effectively settle, at least for a time, the highly charged dispute between states and the federal government over immigration enforcement.
Regardless of the outcome, advocates on both sides say they look forward to seeing the roles of federal and local authorities clarified, particularly given the inability of Congress to pass an overhaul of immigration laws.
"We hope that folks in Washington will recognize that there is a real crisis that they helped create, and it's their lack of leadership that has gotten us to this point," says Sam Brooke, the lead attorney for the Southern Poverty Law Center's lawsuit against the Alabama law.
"These are not immigration bills that are creating new laws," says Bob Dane, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which supports stricter immigration measures. "These are states telling law enforcement 'We're encouraging you to enforce laws already on the books.' Why? Because these are reactions to inaction in Washington and an abject failure to reinforce the borders."
A New Lightning Rod
That means for at least the next several months, Alabama is allowed to continue enforcing measures regarded as the nation's toughest on illegal immigrants.
Once Alabama passed its law last year, it supplanted Arizona as the new lightning rod for controversial enforcement policies. Alabama's law also became a model for bills working through the legislatures in Mississippi and Missouri.
A new report released by the Southern Poverty Law Center claims scores of Latinos in Alabama have been subjected to discrimination since the law took effect. Among the allegations the report identified as egregious: a clinic that refused to treat a child here illegally; an illegal day laborer denied payment for her work; and a family whose home water supply was discontinued.
The law "has given a nod and a wink to the worst prejudices harbored by some residents," the report's writer, Mary Bauer, told reporters this week. "If lawmakers are unwilling to repeal [it], knowing this is the type of misery they have created, we can only assume they intended to inflict this cruelty all along."
Despite the concerns of some immigrant advocates, defenders of the enforcement laws say they aren't aimed at imprisoning or deporting illegal immigrants. They largely are designed to drive illegal immigrants out of these states through "self-deportation," as GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney has called it.
"It's attrition through enforcement," says Dane, who defends the approach as the better alternative to other extremes. "If you dry up the incentives for coming here, you will have fewer people coming. It's preferable to mass deportation, which no one thinks is possible. It's also preferable to mass amnesty."
The Alabama law so far appears to be having its intended effect. Immigrant advocates say the law has prompted thousands of Hispanics, those in the U.S. legally and illegally, to flee the state out of fear.
Not Giving Ground
As other state laws do, Alabama's law directs police to check the immigration status of people during arrests or encounters such as traffic stops. Alabama goes further by requiring individuals to carry proof of legal status at all times. It also prohibits illegal immigrants from entering contracts or engaging in formal transactions with state agencies, such as obtaining a driver's license or applying for permits.
Two of the law's harsher provisions have been blocked by a federal district court: a requirement that public schools collect the immigration status of students and a prohibition on "harboring," making it a felony for anyone to aid an illegal immigrant, even unknowingly.
Opponents have demanded the repeal of the law, but a repeal bill being drafted by Democratic state Sen. Bill Beasley isn't likely to pass in a chamber controlled by Republicans who overwhelmingly support the law.
GOP legislative leaders say that while they won't make any significant changes to enforcement, they are working to ease the law's requirements on employers, who have complained of now having to verify the legal status of their workers.
Already in this legislative session, one revision has passed that establishes military credentials as acceptable proof of identification, particularly in the event a person is questioned by police.
"It's a strong law, it's a good law, and most Alabamians are pleased with the fact that there is finally a law to crack down on immigration and make sure those working and living in Alabama are doing so legally," says Todd Stacy, a spokesman for Republican state House Speaker Mike Hubbard. "The focus is clearing up misconceptions, correcting any portions that might be vague and make it work more efficiently."
It may not be enough for some farmers and food-processing companies, which rely heavily on Latino employees. They say productivity has declined because many of their workers have stopped showing up. Those business owners worry that the workers have gone into hiding or left the state.
A study by a professor at the University of Alabama of the law's potential economic impact estimated that departures of as many as 80,000 illegal immigrants could cost the state and local governments some $93 million a year in lost sales tax revenue. Republican lawmakers have roundly rejected those findings as inaccurate.
Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit |
Turn a Pogoplug into a Full-Featured Linux Web Server
Pogoplugs are great little storage devices, but they can do more than they let on. Let's take a look at how you can hack a Pogoplug into a LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) web server.
This is a fun little project, but it does take some time and patience. Be sure to set aside a few hours this weekend to get it up and running. That said, let's get started!
The video above will take you through the entire process, which is mostly based on the great tutorials at plugapps.com. The video won't cover backing up your Pogoplug, which is something you should probably do, and also how to install NginX in place of Apache.
Here's what you'll need:
• A Pogoplug
• A USB flash drive
• A computer
Installing Plugbox Linux
Turn a Pogoplug into a Full-Featured Linux Web Server
First things first, make sure SSH is enabled on your Pogoplug. You can't connect to it without it. To turn on SSH and set your SSH password, log in at my.pogoplug.com, click Settings, then Security, and check the box to enable SSH.
With SSH enabled, you can connect to your Pogoplug. You'll need its IP address, so check your router's DHCP client table to find it. Once you've got it, open up whatever application you use to SSH and enter:
You'll be prompted for the password you just set on my.pogoplug.com. Enter it, and you're in! Before we get started, let's kill Pogoplug's services so they don't get in the way:
killall hbwd
Backing up your Pogoplug's flash memory is probably a good idea at this point, but we're not going to go into the details here. The next step you need to take is install the new uBoot onto mtd0. To do this, enter the following:
cd /tmp
wget http://plugapps.com/os/pogoplug/uboot/install_uboot_mtd0.sh
chmod +x install_uboot_mtd0.sh
You'll be prompted about three times. Any sort of hack like this could potentially brick your device, so beware. Also, even if you follow these instructions verbatim your installation could fail. The new uBoot install script thought I'd already installed a new uBoot. It gave me an option to override which worked just fine (but is a risky move):
./install_uboot_mtd0.sh —no-uboot-check
Once uBoot's installed, plug in your flash drive and unplug any hard drives currently connected. We're going to destroy all data on the flash drive, so if there's anything on it you're going to miss I'd back it up now. To partition properly we're going to need to run fdisk:
/sbin/fdisk /dev/sda
In fdisk, type p to see all the partitions on your flash drive. You're going to need to get rid of them, so type d 1 to get rid of the first. Depending on how many partitions you have you'll need to keep going. Use d 2 for the second partition, d 3 for the third, etc. When you're done, type p to list the partitions again. You should see no partitions at all. Success? Then it's time to create a new partition. You can do that by typing n. Press enter, then type p to designate this partition as the primary partition. Press enter again and type 1 to specify that this is the first partition on the flash drive. After that you'll need to press enter a few more times to accept the defaults and fdisk will do its job. When it's all done, type w to exit.
After you've created the partition you'll need to download mke2fs to format the flash drive. Use the following commands to make that happen:
wget http://plugapps.com/os/pogoplug/mke2fs
chmod 755 mke2fs
./mke2fs /dev/sda1
mkdir usb
mount /dev/sda1 usb
Next, download and install Plugbox Linux (this is going to take awhile):
cd usb
wget http://plugapps.com/os/1.1/Plugbox-Linux-1.1-rootfs.tar.gz
tar -xzvf Plugbox-Linux-1.1-rootfs.tar.gz # This will take a long time
rm Plugbox-Linux-1.1-rootfs.tar.gz
If everything worked out well, change back to the tmp directory (either cd .. or cd /tmp will do) and unmount the USB drive:
umount usb
Now, reboot:
If everything worked well, your Plugbox should be accessible again shortly. It may have been assigned a new IP address, so check your router's DHCP table again. If names are displayed with the IP addresses, it should be labeled "Plugbox."
SSH back in again, because there are a few more things we'll want to do. First, update your Plugbox's packages:
pacman -Syu
You may need to run this a couple of times because pacman, itself, may need an update. Once pacman's done, you'll want to do a couple of other things.
• Set a new root password by typing passwd, pressing enter, and then typing the new password you want.
• Set the date by typing date MMDDhhmmYYYY, replacing MM with the two-digit month, DD with the two-digit date, hh with the two-digit hour (in 24-hour time), mm with the two-digit minute, and YYYY with the four-digit year.
That's it! Now you have Linux up and running on your Plugbox.
Installing (L)AMP
If you didn't catch it earlier, LAMP stands for Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP. We have Linux taken care of, so here's how to install the rest.
We'll need Pacman to install a couple of things. First, let's have Pacman grab the latest Apache, MySQL and PHP:
pacman -Sy apache mysql php
This will take a few minutes, but when it's done we'll also need to install apachectl so we can actually start apache:
pacman -Sy lynx
Some of the next steps were already taken care of for me, but just in case here's what you need to do. If you don't already have an http user, you'll need to add one:
useradd -d /srv/http -r -s /bin/false -U http
If you already have one and the command fails, no harm done. In some cases you may not be able to add one if you haven't changed your root password. Log out of your Plugbox and ssh back in to set a new root password if you're having any trouble.
Next, you need to edit your /etc/hosts file:
nano /etc/hosts
You should see something like localhost.localdomain localhost. That last part (localhost) may need to change. Basically, it needs to match what's in /etc/rc.conf. If it doesn't, starting Apache will fail. In my case, I just needed to change localhost to Plugbox, because Plugbox was the hostname set in /etc/rc.conf. Really, you just need to change one. To check out what your hostname is in rc.conf, use the following command (and scroll down until you see it):
nano /etc/rc.conf
Once you've got both names matching and saved, you can try to start Apache:
/etc/rc.d/httpd start
It'll say [DONE] if it worked, but you'll want to head to your Pogoplug's local IP address to make sure.
Further configuration is up to you at this point, but be sure to check out plugapps.com for lots more information on what you can do with your brand new Pogoplug web server. |
Use Compassion to Combat Difficult Coworkers
The adage "Kill 'em with kindness" holds more water than you might think, especially when it comes to dealing with tough personalities in the workplace. Some people are just difficult to work with, and sometimes the best way to get along is to be compassionate with them.
Unfortunately, you don't always have the luxury of choosing who you interact with at work. We all know what it's like when that coworker you hate talking to approaches your desk. Over at the blog Girls Just Wanna Have Funds, they propose a simple way to deal with them: be compassionate.
That isn't to say you should apologize when it's not your fault, or take responsibility for tasks that aren't yours, but they do suggest recognizing how defensive the person makes you, and try to approach the situation with understanding and openness instead of caution and attitude. It's very possible that the person has the same trepidation working with you, or that their negativity would vanish if confronted with someone unfazed by it.
It takes practice, but its true: when you approach even the most difficult people in your workplace with an open attitude and a willingness to help, they'll see value in what you do, and so will your manager. There will still be annoying people, and you'll still have frustrating days, but the right attitude goes a long way towards making a difficult job more tolerable.
How do you deal with your irksome colleagues? Do you ignore them, or is it just a nightmare every time you're forced to work with them? Share your office tips in the comments. Photo by Wonderlane.
Use Compassion to Combat Difficult Coworkers
Managing Difficult Personalities In The Workplace: Tips to Maintain Your Sanity | Girls Just Wanna Have Funds
|
Break Your Workday Into Four-Hour "Work Flows"
The modern workday is rarely structured in a way that you can completely concentrate on a task. It's easy to get distracted or lose track of what you're doing. One method to fix this suggested by the Harvard Business Review is to schedule in four-hour long "work flows" every week.
The idea itself comes from Saku Tuominen, creative director of the Idealist Group in Finland. The idea is that you schedule your week ahead of time, and you can fit in four hours of consecutive work. Here's his process:
• Think about one question/idea that needs insight and keep this thought in your subconscious mind.
• Clear your conscious mind by using this two-step system: move your thought(s) from your mind to a list and then clear your list when you have a short break (if your meeting is canceled, for instance, or your flight is delayed).
• Plan your week and month by listing three priorities you would like to accomplish.
• Make certain you have at least four consecutive, uninterrupted hours a day dedicated to the three priorities you identified.
While a lot of people don't have the luxury of four uninterrupted hours a day to work, it's still an interesting idea that suggests that if you can find that block of time, you might be able to pack in all your work into just four hours. Even if you can't do this every week, it might be worth considering when you're in the height of a big project.
Three Ways to Think Deeply at Work | Harvard Business Review |
Dear Lifehacker,
I'm about to hit the road for to visit family. It's a really long trip, and since I won't be driving, I'd like to make the most of the time without going crazy from boredom. I could play video games or rip some movies, but that gets boring after a few hours. I want something that works my brain a little more. Do you have any tips?
Backseat Boredom
Dear Backseat Boredom,
When most people are staring down a long drive, train ride, or flight, they consider it a time to catch up on sleep, do some reading, watch some movies or listen to music, or even play some new mobile games. Preparation for a long trip is key, and we've covered that before. Those are all great ways to pass the time, but they're not the only ways. Here are some suggestions that will turn your long, boring travel plans into something that energizes you, informs you, and keeps you entertained.
Catch Up on Podcasts
If you've been meaning to check out some new podcasts (like ours, for example) or you just have a backlog of podcasts to listen to or watch, a long trip is the best time to do it. Even better, choose some new podcasts that will teach you something new or help you get a new perspective on life. If you're looking for something new to watch or listen to, try looking for some interesting TED Talks, TWiT podcasts, 5by5 podcasts, or Revision3 shows. Each network likely has something to suit your tastes, whether you're looking for something entertaining to pass the time or something interesting and educational to spark your creativity or get you up to speed on current events. Best of all, if you have a long trip ahead, you have plenty of time to listen to multiple shows. Photo by Mingo Hagen.
Plan a Mini Curriculum of Online Classes and Go To School
If podcasts don't really suit you, now might be a great time to download some online courses and set up a little cirriculum of "classes" to take on your long trip. For your sanity's sake, we'd suggest avoiding anything that requires a lot of work, but a few video classes here or there and some downloadable exercises could turn a long and boring plane trip or backseat car ride into something that's educational and helps you learn a new skill or trade. Head over to Lifehacker U to scope out some great classes we've hand-picked, most of which are all-online, and many of which have video components and lessons you can download for offline viewing.
Learn a Specific New Skill for Work (or Play)
In the same vein as taking an online class, maybe those hours in one place are well suited to a good book or set of instructional videos that teach you a specific skill. If you've been meaning to learn a new programming language, study up on a new productivity technique, or maybe learn about a new tool that everyone is migrating to at work, a long trip is a good time to dive into a book or some reference material to get up to speed quickly. If you're traveling and will have internet access while you travel, you can even do your research online. Photo by Shiny Things.
Alternatively, if you want to learn something more for fun than for work, a long trip is a good time to do that as well. Set aside a few chunks of your travel time to really immerse yourself in learning it. You may not be able to break out an Arduino or a Raspberry Pi and get your DIY on while you're riding in the backseat of someone's car, but you can pick up some reading or download some articles to help you get started (like our guide to getting started with the Arduino, and some of our favorite Raspberry Pi hacks and tutorials.) Then you can walk away from your trip ready to get hands-on with the real thing.
Write a Short Story or Start a Blog
We've mentioned before that being a model Internet citizen requires more than just not trolling—contributing your own ideas and thoughts and creating something on your own is essential. If you have hours to kill on a train or plane, why not fire up your favorite text editor and start writing down all of those ideas for that blog you've been meaning to start. You could even write the first few posts just so you'll have something to put up when you build it. If you've read the news lately and have your own opinions, or think you can tackle a topic better—or at a different angle—than someone else did, write your thoughts down. Photo by James Whatley.
Similarly, if you've been meaning to write a short story or your NaNoWriMo entry is a little behind, now is a great time to make up for lost ground. Get your thoughts in order and start writing. If you don't have access to a computer, even brainstorming and outlining on pen and paper will do you a lot of good, and not just for the purpose of finishing a story or starting a blog, but also for turning otherwise boring time into an opportunity to keep your creative juices flowing.
Learn Enough of a New Language to Impress Everyone When You Arrive
Learning a new language will open up possibilities for you that you may never have had, but it also changes your worldview. Even a short trip is enough time to commit to memory enough words in a language you've always wanted to learn that you'll be able to impress your family at Thanksgiving (or at least give them something other than politics to talk about) and get your foot in the door learning something new that you've always wanted to. You can pick up a language-learning podcast from Open Culture or just learn the basics and start practicing, but either way even a few short hours in the back of a car is enough time to learn how to say things like "Hello, my name is," "What's your name?" "Do you speak English?" and "Where's the restroom, please?"
Teach Yourself to Meditate
If none of the above appeals to you, or you know that long trips wreak havoc on your attention span, perhaps a long trip is a good time to plug in your headphones, listen to some ambient music or nature sounds, and teach yourself to relax and meditate. We've discussed how meditation can improve your memory, focus, and productivity, but it can also help relieve stress and improve your health. Even if it's just two minutes of meditation, it can do wonders for you. Check out our guide to meditation for the rest of us for tips. At least on a long trip you won't be able to say you're too busy to meditate. If you need guidance on the go, we even have an app that can help. Photo by RelaxingMusic.
Hopefully we've offered up a few options beyond "read a good book" or "play video games" or "make a travel playlist," although all of those are great things to do on a long trip. They'll help you relax and de-stress, especially if the situation you're traveling to is a stressful one. At the same time however, consider dedicating some of your travel time to something that'll enrich your mind as well as relax your body, and maybe you'll look forward to that 12 hour flight or 6 hour drive a little more. Good luck!
Title photo made using Andrey Yurlov (Shutterstock) and Sweet November Studio (Shutterstock).
Have a question or suggestion for Ask Lifehacker? Send it to |
How Can I Keep a Personal, Private Journal Online?
Dear Lifehacker,
You've talked about keeping a work diary and an awesomeness journal, and I'm sold. One question: How can I set up my journal so I can edit and update it online on my phone or laptop without the world seeing it? I want a diary, not a blog!
Keeping It To Myself
Dear Keeping It To Yourself,
You're right - there are mental, creative, and emotional benefits to writing, even if you never let anyone see what you've written. We've discussed how even jotting down a few positive things every day can make a huge impact in your life. Still, keeping a work diary or a personal journal isn't exactly something you'd want anyone to stumble on. You specifically said you wanted an online journal, so here are some ways you can get the flexibility to write and update when and where you want to without worrying that prying eyes will read it.
Use Apps Designed for Private Journaling
Keeping a private journal used to mean writing in a notebook with a lock on it, or that you kept in a locked box. That's no longer the case, and there are plenty of apps and web services that offer privacy and portability.
• Penzu started off as a simple, password-protected online journal, but the service is much more than that now. In addition to a password-protected journal that only you can read, you can also share specific posts with individuals if you want them to see them, or you can leave everything private and locked down. You can search past entries, add photos, customize the layout and look of your journal, and if you're willing to spend a few bucks ($20/yr) you can get a Penzu Pro account, which offers iPhone, iPad, and Android apps so you can update on the go, full encryption for your journal, multiple journals and the ability to search all of them at once, reminders to write, and much more. Best of all, everything is locked down by default, so you can write what you want, when you want, wherever you want to, without worrying someone might stumble onto it.
• Day One is a simple, elegant journaling app for OS X and iOS that encourages you to write every day. It's specifically designed to help you keep a journal, and it comes packed with tools that make it easy to update your journal whenever the mood strikes. From a menubar drop-down that lets you start writing instantly to a fully featured editor for the iPad, Day One will help you start and stick to regular writing. It'll cost you a few bucks ($10 for the Mac App, $5 for the universal iPhone/iPad app) but if you use it every day, it's worth it.
These are just the tip of the iceberg: there are plenty of services that offer free journaling apps, but the kicker is whether they're available for your preferred platform or your mobile device. If you can't find any that work for you, it might be time to take your thoughts to the web, but just make sure they're locked down.
Start a Blog, Just Keep It Private and Locked Down
How Can I Keep a Personal, Private Journal Online?
If you really want the ultimate in flexibility, publishing apps, web-accessibility, and other authoring tools, you might just want to start a blog. That doesn't mean your blog has to be viewable to anyone but you, or even public at all. Most popular blogging platforms like Wordpress, Livejournal, Squarespace, and even Tumblr allow you to create completely private entries or entire blogs that only you can see. That way you can leverage the free webapp and any mobile apps available (and there are tons for the major platforms) to update when you're at your computer, on your phone, on your tablet, or on the go.
Alternatively, if you don't want to trust a free, hosted blogging service, you can always download blogging software like Wordpress, Habari, Joomla, or Drupal and host it yourself, either on your own server at home or with a compatible web hosting company. Then you can control your own content, make it as public or as private as you choose, and access your journal anywhere. As long as you keep it locked down, you get all the features of a free blogging platform or an expensive journaling tool, just all under your control.
Go Simple with an Encrypted Text File Stored in the Cloud
How Can I Keep a Personal, Private Journal Online?
If fancy journaling apps and blogging platforms turn you off, or you just want something a little easier to get your arms around, there's an easier option: Just write in your favorite text editor or word processor and keep the your journal entries on Dropbox.
Dropbox is password protected, and there are clients for every OS and every mobile platform available, so you never have to be without your journal. If you keep your journal in a file format you can edit on any device, like a simple text file or rich text document, you can open it and update it on virtually anything, whenever the mood strikes. For ultimate privacy, go a step further and encrypt your journal with TrueCrypt so you really are the only person with access to it. Doing so trades some portability, since you'll have to decrypt it before you can update or edit it, but it definitely keeps it secure.
Another benefit this method offers you is that you can use some great writing tools to keep your journal updated and to boost your creativity. For example, OmmWriter is available for Windows, Mac, and iPad, and has long been one of your favorite distraction-free writing tools. It's flexibility also extends to daily journaling, and while it's not designed specifically to be a diary, it does give you a great writing environment that's designed to help you relax, get your thoughts out, and be creative. The app even has audio tracks and custom keystroke sounds to help you focus, and you can save your files as text files in Dropbox. Whatever app you choose, this method may be the simplest, but it's probably the most flexible.
Hopefully these methods give you a way to start your journal and start reaping the benefits of regular writing. You can go all out with a supported solution, or you can use a web-hosted platform to get your thoughts out, or you could just fire up a text editor and start writing. The important thing though is that you get started and make writing a habit. You don't need all the right tools, or the perfect apps, or air and light and time and space to start writing—just start writing. Good luck!
Have a question or suggestion for Ask Lifehacker? Send it to
Title image by Neyro (Shutterstock) and ecco (Shutterstock). |
Sell Your Used Stuff for Cash on Facebook for Hassle-Free, No-Fee Decluttering
We've shown you the best ways to make the most money from your unwanted crap, but one gold mine that's often overlooked is the one that millions of people use every day: Facebook.
Of course, you can use Facebook to pitch your unwanted stuff to the friends and family members that you're already Facebook friends with, but that limits your audience significantly when compared to a site like Craigslist or Amazon Marketplace. Instead, look for Facebook sale groups in your area (just search for your state or region and the word "sell" or "buy" to find local buy/sell/trade groups. If there are none, you can always start one and get the word out in your community!) and join them. From there you can shop from people in your area, list your own items for sale, and set your own prices. You can even note whether you're willing to ship something, or—in the case of furniture or large electronics or appliances—whether you'd rather the buyer come pick it up.
The big benefit of using Facebook like this is that you set your price and there's no one taking a cut of your sale price or charging you to host your listing. You can set your own preferred method of payment, and you also have the opportunity to become part of a community where people are looking for bargains as much as others are looking to declutter their homes. Many of the groups are closed, so you'll have to ask permission to join, and others only accept certain types of listings, so make sure you read up on the group you want to join and their rules. Many have strict listing requirements and limits on how many items you can try to sell per day in order to stave off spammers and scam artists.
A number of you mentioned local Facebook groups when we talked about other ways to sell your stuff, and if you'd rather have a more personal approach to buying and selling—or you just want a new audience to reach out to beyond the same old Craigslist posts, they're definitely worth a try.
How to Sell Your Old Stuff on Facebook | Wise Bread |
In Brisbane, Serving the Public in a Crisis
This is an artist's illustration of the recently completed Kenmore Library in Brisbane, Australia, which residents are encouraged to utilize to check the internet and recharge their cellphones and laptops during the current flooding crisis.
From the ABC Local station:
"Residents that can get to Kenmore Library are able to access the internet and charge up mobile phones and laptops at this location."
Here is the same library on Library Thing for Libraries.
Syndicate content |
Re: Update on CSS shaders security issue
From: Chris Marrin <[email protected]>
Date: Sat, 21 Apr 2012 08:02:01 -0700
Message-id: <[email protected]>
To: Vincent Hardy <[email protected]>
I just wanted to toss my 2 cents in here. First let me say that while I'm still editor of the WebGL spec, I'm no longer in the WebKit group. So my observations about CSS shaders are as an interested 3rd party. And let me also say that I have great respect for all the work this group has done.
If I am reading your proposal right you're saying that we will have no access to the texture we're filtering in the shaders. If so, that would seem to nullify the usefulness of this feature. The two examples you give (vertex shader-based image warping and fragment shader "lighting") are really the only two effects that would be practical. Vertex shader warping is mildly interesting, but will need very dense meshes to get really interesting effects. But you're really only allowing fragment shaders to be image generators which are then blended with the source image. That doesn't seem interesting at all. With this restriction you lose out on any fragment shader based image warping, blurring, and almost all interesting (IMHO) use cases.
That leads me to ask, is it worth it? Maybe the energies of this group would be better spent focusing on more advanced fixed function shaders. For instance, adding the majority of the CoreImage filters and the ability to combine filters with a graph topology would at least give you access to a wide variety of advanced filtering techniques.
Moving down this path takes away an incredibly powerful tool from web authors. Another implication is that WebGL will never be able to access rendered page content, cutting out many interesting and powerful effects, which have already been demoed. It is, in effect, stifling advancement of the web platform due to non-technical privacy concerns.
On several occasions I've brought up the point that all these concerns are based on unproven attack vectors. That point has been repeatedly shot down with claims that it has been proven, referencing some vague numbers that show it's possible for a shader to take different amounts of time based on a pixel's color. All that might be true, but never have I seen an actual example of an attack. Where is the site I can go to where I can type a string into a text box and within a few seconds the site tells me what I typed merely by examining the image of what I typed? Maybe such a thing is possible, but it seems wrong to cut out a powerful feature like this before proving it. Once it is proven, some browser vendor might come up with a technique to thwart such an attack. Then it becomes an arms race between clever attackers and clever defenses. But isn't that what the web has been all about for many years?
And maybe this group, rather than looking at ways to make it impossible to deduct the value of pixels from a shader, should instead look at making it impossible for an attacker to get at the pixels of a legitimate site in the first place. Would preventing frame based content from running shaders solve that problem? I don't know, but it seems like its important to understand how an attack would work end-to-end and then stop it somewhere other than in the fragment shader.
I understand that these points probably won't be any more well received now than they have in the past. But I felt the need to say them. This really is the future of the web. If these problems can't be solved now, it doesn't bode well for things to come.
On Apr 18, 2012, at 10:54 PM, Vincent Hardy wrote:
> Hello,
> Since the original proposal on CSS shaders, there have been discussions on this list and some related discussion on the WebGL mailing list at Khronos.
> Following the most recent findings in efforts to make CSS shaders secure, I have updated the page that summarizes the proposed security measure that looks the most reasonable. The other measures that were considered are also documented and a summary of why there did not fully meet the needs is also provided.
> The short description of the proposal is that it removes access to the rendered content from the shaders. This is not an issue for vertex shaders (at least for a wide set of use cases). For fragment shaders, the result produced by the shader will be combined with the rendered content, but this combination step is not controlled by the shader, it is controlled by the implementation.
> For example, a vertex shader that produces a flapping flag effect will not be affected by the restriction because it does not need access to the texture. A fragment shader that computes a lighting effect will compute a light map that the implementation will then multiply with the original texture. Here again, the shader does not access the rendered texture.
> I believe that this is a good approach and while it reduces some of the functionally, it also addresses the new security concerns CSS shaders raised.
> Please see the detailed description of the approach and examples of how a technology like ANGLE could be used for an efficient implementation:
> http://www.w3.org/Graphics/fx/wiki/CSS_Shaders_Security
> Kind regards,
> Vincent Hardy
Received on Saturday, 21 April 2012 15:02:36 GMT
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.2.0+W3C-0.50 : Saturday, 21 April 2012 15:02:37 GMT |
Re: ISSUE-4: Versioning, namespace URIs and MIME types
From: Boris Zbarsky <[email protected]>
Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2009 11:40:10 -0500
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
To: Robert J Burns <[email protected]>
Robert J Burns wrote:
> I understand from the short example. And I also understand the longer
> example you provide. The scripting is simply a distraction. If the
> author is authoring to HTML5 then the author would not append child
> elements to the img element. So now you're producing invalid HTML5. If
> the author is producing XHTML2, then the author would not provide an alt
> attribute. So you're also producing invalid XHTML2.
I don't think the scripting is a distraction at all. The key here is
that once the <img> element has been created the script wants to show an
image to the user using that element. The script that creates the
element and the script doing the showing need not be the same script, or
authored by the same person (e.g. the script doing the showing is a
library that does general image-showing stuff amongst other things;
consumers pass in nodes to show the images in). The script doing the
showing wants to provide fallback content. How is it supposed to do it?
If the script can examine the node it's working with and determine from
that how it should show fallback content, that's ideal. If it can't, we
have a problem.
I suppose the library API could include a flag for "what kind of html
image are you actually giving me", but that seems like an unfortunate
artifact to foist off on script authors. It also seems like something
people are likely to either forget or to get wrong, assuming both HTML5
and XHTML2 are actually in use.
> However, the context provides all the information necessary to know how
> to process the document in the situation of a fully conforming document.
While true in this particular case, the concern I have is being unable
to produce a conforming document even if you want to, if you're doing it
via the DOM.
Received on Wednesday, 18 February 2009 16:40:56 UTC
|
<H1 src="foo.gif">
Jonas Liljegren ([email protected])
Sun, 12 May 1996 22:07:50 -0400
Message-Id: <[email protected]>
Date: Sun, 12 May 1996 22:07:50 -0400
From: Jonas Liljegren <[email protected]>
To: WWW-HTML mailing list <[email protected]>
Subject: <H1 src="foo.gif">
It's often that a picture is used instead of a <h?> heading.
To make it easier to do this, an atribute could be added to the <h?> elements. The same effect could be done in
other ways (by including <object> or <fig>), but this would be a cleaner way to represent a heading.
In fact: We could make the src attribute availibel in every element that embraces blocks of text.
(_/onas Liljegren |
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Howard Ain, Troubleshooter: Sewer backup damage
Updated: Wednesday, March 12 2014, 11:57 AM EDT
ALEXANDRIA, Ky. (Howard Ain) -- Sewer backup problems happen just about everywhere throughout the Greater Cincinnati area. They can cause major damage, not only to your home but your belongings as well. Unless you protect yourself, you could be stuck with huge cleanup bills. That's what happened at Karla Kramer's Alexandria home.
Karla Kramer came home to weird smell and went downstairs and noticed some puddles. It turns out the basement was flooded with several inches of sewer water. "The water was actually gushing up through here."
Karla and her husband, Daniel, called in a plumber who determined although their sewer line to the street was clear, the sanitation district's main line was clogged up. "Here was deep tree roots that had grown through the lines. So it was blocking? Blocking yes, the lines."
In addition to replacing the tile and the carpet in the basement, they also had to replace all the drywall down here because it all got flooded with sewer water.
Workers from Northern Kentucky Sanitation District Number One, known as SD1, came out and fixed the sewer lines, but won't pay for the damage. "they came out and said yes it was definitely their fault but since they didn't actually know it was there they were not at fault."
Fortunately, the Kramers have sewer backup insurance, but only $5,000 coverage. They have more than $12,000 damage. SD1 executive director Dave Rager says while such backups are unfortunate they do happen. "It's not common that it happens in our system. We try to keep up with the system but they do happen which is part of the reason why so many utilities are owned by government is the challenge of maintaining systems like this."
Now, Rager says, the district be checking the lines in Kramer's neighborhood every six months to make sure they remain clear. But, unlike homeowners in the Metropolitan Sewer District area, SD1's federal court decree doesn't require it to pay for undetected sewer line problems. "We have 1,700 miles of lines. That's almost enough to go from coast to coast."
As a result, the Kramers have now increased their sewer backup insurance coverage, and it's something Howard urges all homeowners to consider, especially those with a finished basement.
The Metropolitan Sewer District is the only district around here that will pay for sewer backup cleanup and, in some cases, damage as well. Everyone else is on their own. Howard Ain, Troubleshooter: Sewer backup damage
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Scam Alert
• E-greeting Card Scam
The e-greeting card scam is not a new one, but the FBI says it's returned with a vengeance.
It's Internet Crime Complaint Center is receiving an increasing number of complaints.
The fraud e-cards contain malware as an attachment, or it contains a link which sends the recipient to a web page where they can pick up viruses, keystroke loggers or other so-called trojan horse programs.
The e-cards sometimes even appear to be from legitimate e-card greeting web sites-- but the actual address of the links point to a numeric address, rather than one containing the name of the postcard company.
If you get one of these e-mails you can file a complaint on the FBI's web site, http://www.ic3.gov/.
• Jury Duty Scam
Officials all across the Tri-State are warning about a jury duty scam that may put you at risk for identity theft.
Police say someone has been calling residents and saying they face arrest for failing to report for jury duty.
The caller asks people for personal information including their Social Security numbers to clear up the situation.
Authorities say the calls are part of a nationwide scam. If you think you have been a victim call your local police or sheriff's department.
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Lubbock Misses Mark
Published: Sunday, December 19, 1999
A POPULATION REPORT presented to the City Council on Thursday shows that Lubbock has missed the mark for having 200,000 people by the year 2000.
The report, a composite of five population estimates, shows that Lubbock will go into 2000 with 199,445 people -- 555 short of the mark. The 200,000 mark isn't all that significant by itself, but what is significant is the city's slow progress toward reaching the mark.
A population estimate 12 months ago showed 2,328 fewer people living in Lubbock. But the 0.3 percent population increase is no cause for celebration because last year's estimate did not include approximately 10 acres of newly-annexed territory.
The population of Texas has increased 18.3 percent in the past 10 years, and the nation's population has increased 10.1 percent. Yet, the report shows that Lubbock's population has grown only 7.1 percent during the same time period.
Why is Lubbock not growing like the rest of the state?
The answer may be found in the comments of renowned economist Sung Won Sohn, who addressed civic and business leaders last month. Mr. Sohn placed the blame on outward migration -- people leaving because of a lack of job opportunities.
Lubbock residents must find innovative ways to attract new businesses and retain those businesses that are already here. At the same time, ways must be found to attract and retain workers for those businesses.
That means that Lubbock residents must invest in economic development to reap the benefits of the growth that will follow. It is time for Lubbock to start growing again.
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Matthew Leach
Hurdle makes right call, but gets wrong result
Skipper's decision to use Melancon, Grilli in tied game was smart
Hurdle makes right call, but gets wrong result
NEW YORK -- Clint Hurdle got it right. And it still went wrong.
This may be the single greatest hazard of making decisions in a Major League dugout. You can step away from the orthodoxy, do the thing that really does maximize your team's chances of winning ... and still lose the game.
Hurdle, not known as an analytically oriented manager, split from traditional, save-based bullpen management in his team's 3-2 loss to the Mets on Thursday. He brought in setup man Mark Melancon to face the heart of the Mets' order in a tied game in the eighth inning. Then he went to closer Jason Grilli for the ninth with the score still tied.
It doesn't seem that this should be all that revolutionary, but it was. This is not how bullpens are handled on the road in 2013, for the most part.
A single, a sacrifice bunt and another single meant Grilli took the loss. It does not mean that Hurdle made the wrong move. Quite the contrary, the process was correct, and he should be lauded for it.
"That's the beauty of this game," Hurdle said. "It's the beauty of sport and the challenge that comes with it. We wanted Melancon pitching to the [high-]leverage part of the order, and we knew the pinch-hitters were going to come out in the ninth. [Mike] Baxter is one of the best in the league, and then [Ike] Davis behind him, he burned us earlier. Our guys were rested. We wanted to take that shot."
According to what has become conventional wisdom, this is not how you are supposed to do it. The conventional play would have been to hold Melancon for at least the ninth, if not later, then wait until the Pirates took a lead to use Grilli.
That's the cover-your-behind approach. If you do that, you're not going to get roasted on talk radio the next morning. It's also not the best way to win a game. Hurdle recognized that for those two situations, he needed his two best relievers. He didn't want to face his team in defeat without having used his best. Those later situations may never come, and if you lose a game without using your best pitchers, you didn't get it right.
So he called on them. And it didn't work. Sometimes the game is cruel.
Hurdle pointed to two key considerations in making the decision. He felt both pitchers were sufficiently rested after seeing some heavy workloads in April. And he considered the threat of the opposing hitters -- the Mets' best hitters in the eighth, the threat of the left-handed Baxter and Davis in the ninth -- worth taking seriously.
"It's always a challenging call," he said. "But I think there's appropriate times for it. It's not every time, by any means, depending on how much they've been used and what part of the lineup you're in. Grilli doesn't have a whole lot of history as a closer. He's pitched in every situation this game can present, so he's probably one of the guys that you'd be less mindful of [taking out of his primary role]. He wants to compete."
Grilli made nothing of being used in the dreaded non-save situation. He knows his main responsibility isn't to get saves, but to get outs.
"I pitch when I'm asked to pitch," he said. "You know the situation when you're called on. I didn't want to give up a run there, give us a chance to win. That's our job: Not give up hits, not give up walks, not give up runs."
So while Thursday's game was a loss for the Pirates, it was a small victory for common sense and reasonable bullpen management. The Bucs got it right, even in defeat. Here's hoping the result doesn't cause Hurdle to avoid similarly bold tactics in the future.
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Forth Amendment
Stuart Nathan
A unique cable-stayed bridge looks set to enhance Scotland’s structural landscape while maintaining vital transport links.
Head north out of Edinburgh on the A90 and you’ll soon be treated to one of the British Isles’ most iconic views, and one guaranteed to quicken the pulse of any engineering enthusiast: the Firth of Forth. To your right, the rust-red repeating stretched hexagons of the Forth Bridge, sometimes called Scotland’s equivalent of the Eiffel Tower and one of the most famous examples of Victorian engineering, still carrying trains between Lothian and Fife 122 years after it opened. To the left, the soaring towers of the Forth Road Bridge, in its day the longest suspension bridge outside the US, supporting more than a kilometre of roadway on which 65,000 vehicles travel every day.
But within a few years, the view will be very different, with a third bridge adding to the vista. The Forth Replacement Crossing, for which works are now under way, will span the estuary to the west of the existing road crossing. It’ll look very different from the other two bridges: no curves, just the sharp lines and angles of a cable-stayed bridge, with supporting cables fanning down from three supporting towers in the middle of the water. The bridge will be more than twice as long as the older road crossing, at 2.65km.
Scheduled for completion in late 2016 at a cost currently estimated at around £1.6bn (considerably less than original estimations of some £4.75bn), the new bridge will take the traffic from the old suspension bridge, leaving it to pedestrians and cyclists. But this means that the original road crossing will have survived only 57 years – less than half the lifespan of its more famous rail-carrying neighbour.
’The problem is that the old road bridge was built in the 1960s, and at that time the understanding of the nature of corrosion was much less developed than it is now,’ said Steve Kite of Arup, one of the engineering companies involved in building the new bridge. In fact, the problems with the road bridge were only discovered in 2004 and came as a major shock.
Each of the two cables from which the roadway is suspended consists of 11,500 individual steel wires, each one about the width of a pencil, which were twisted together in situ as the bridge was built. Since the bridge was completed in 1965, the cables have been inspected regularly – but only on the outside. Following advice from US suspension bridge operators, the Forth Estuary Transport Authority (FETA) decided to commission the first internal inspection of the cables in 2003.
The results are detailed in a paper by Barry Colford of FETA and Charles Cocksedge of consulting engineering company Faber Maunsell. Several small sections of cable in different locations on the bridge were unwound and examined, with the expectation that there would be relatively little corrosion inside the cable – most of the wires were expected to be at stage two of the four recognised stages of corrosion. But when the first section was inspected, this was soon found to be wrong.
’It was to everyone’s surprise when broken wires were found at the bottom of the cable and examination of the cable surface showed many stage-four wires were present,’ said Colford and Cocksedge’s report. But this turned out not to be consistent along the cable’s length – in some locations, most of the wires were at stage two and none were broken; in others, more than 30 wires had snapped.
The difference is believed to be down to the direction in which the cable was originally twisted together – known as wrapping – during the construction of the bridge, much of which took place in heavy rain. If the wires were wrapped ’uphill’, any water present would have remained in the cable. Whereas if it was wrapped ’down-hill’, the water would have been squeezed out. Although the water would certainly have drained away over time, this original moist environment would have been a key factor in the faster-than-expected corrosion of the wires.
A suspension bridge would take six years to build, as it would have to be constructed in a strict linear sequence
However the water had got into the cable, the upshot was that the cable was clearly not as strong as it should have been and deteriorating at a rate much faster that anyone had expected. Studies on the progression of the corrosion showed that traffic restrictions would be required on the bridge as early as 2014 and no later than 2020.
The cables have now been protected by a dehumidifying system, consisting of a stretchy waterproof wrap and equipment to blow very dry air into the cable at low pressure. However, even though this could slow down or even halt the corrosion, the loss of strength in the cables is a direct result of the broken wires. Stopping the corrosion can’t restore lost strength, said Colford and Cocksedge. Corroded wires that contain cracks are still under stress and will eventually break.
’That link between Edinburgh and the north of Scotland is so vital to the Scottish economy that the government decided it couldn’t take the chance of it being cut or even reduced by having to bring in traffic restrictions,’ said Kite. ’So the decision was taken to go ahead and build a new crossing.’
Of course, there are several ways to cross an estuary and, even if a bridge is chosen as the option, there are many types of bridge. The reasons for opting for a cable-stayed bridge were outlined by Scottish finance secretary John Swinney in 2007.
Four options were considered: a suspension bridge, similar to the existing road crossing; a cable-stayed bridge; a bored tunnel (that is, excavated through the bedrock of the estuary); and an immersed tube tunnel, made from sections pre-fabricated on land and sunk to the bottom of the water.
A suspension bridge would take six years to build, as it would have to be constructed in a strict linear sequence – the cables have to be completed before the road can be built and hung off them. A bored tunnel would be technically difficult because of the geology of the Firth and could result in restrictions in the transport of flammable goods, such as whisky and oil – both of which are important constituents of the traffic on the crossing. Similar restrictions would apply to an immersed tube tunnel, and both tunnels would generate many thousands of tonnes of spoil. The immersed tunnel could also impose shipping restrictions on the Forth. The cable-stayed bridge option, carrying four lanes of traffic with hard shoulders, would be the cheapest and fastest option, because cable-stayed bridges are built outwards from their towers; work can therefore proceed at several places at the same time. It would impose no restrictions on traffic and would in fact be more reliable than the existing bridge, which does not have hard shoulders.
The decision was therefore taken to build a cable-stayed bridge, with Jacobs and Arup appointed as a joint-venture team to design, develop and manage the project in 2007. The watchwords for the design were ’elegant, unique and instantly recognisable’ – that distinctive landscape and engineering vista across the Forth would have to be preserved, and indeed enhanced, by the new addition to the infrastructure.
The triple-tower design is an unusual one for a cable-stayed bridge, according to Kite; they are more often single-tower or, at most, two-tower designs. But because of the length of the bridge, the extra reinforcement of a tower in the middle – actually sitting on an islet called Beamer Rock – was necessary. This means a particular challenge is to keep the bridge as stiff as possible along its length.
Cable-stayed bridges are, by their nature, stiffer than suspension bridges (see box), but at more than 2km in a windy location, the Forth replacement needs extra stiffness. Reconciling that with the desire for an elegant bridge is a tricky business. ’We want to keep the towers as slim as possible and not to visually dominate,’ Kite said. ’The challenge of getting that stiffness without adding visual mass in the towers or the deck has been very interesting.’
“The challenge of getting stiffness without adding visual mass has been interesting”
The key to the problem is the arrangement of the cables that support the roadway. ’We’re going to overlap the stay cables coming from different tower fans. That overlapping effect adds stiffness to the structure,’ Kite added.
Engineering consultancy Gifford is also working on the bridge, brought into the project because of the experience of its parent company, Danish engineering contractor Ramboll, on the Øresund and Great Belt Link cable-stayed bridges in Denmark. Peter Curran is part of the Gifford team, which is working on many aspects of the bridge design, from the foundations to the complex matter of supporting the bridge deck while it is being built.
As the main supporting structures of the bridge are the towers, rather than the cables, the bridge deck can be built outwards from the towers in both directions. This is particularly difficult because, although in the completed bridge the deck will be supported by two towers because of the overlapping cable fans, while it is being built a single tower will have to bear all of the weight. To get around this, while the deck is being built it will also be supported by tie-down cables from the bridge to the islet and by extra counterbalance weights to provide storm ballast.
Not all the cables in the bridge are the same. Their lengths vary from 94m to 420m and they contain between 40 and 104 strands of wire. Part of the specification procedure takes into account that the cables have to support the bridge during construction, Curran said; moreover, the designers have to ensure the anchorages don’t twist.
The political landscape in Scotland is probably more uncertain now than it has been for the last three centuries. If the Scottish National Party’s dearest wish comes true and Scots vote for independence in a 2014 referendum, then the new Forth Road Bridge could be the first landmark and symbol of a new nation; of course, the question could then arise of where the money to build it would come from.
But while the political landscape shifts, the physical landscape stays the same. The elegant, almost ephemeral lines of the new bridge should be a fitting part of the gateway to the Kingdom of Fife and to the capital of Scotland.
the data
forth crossing
The replacement bridge will feature no curves, just the sharp lines of a cable-stayed structure
in depth
staying power
Examples of iconic cable-stayed structures include the Brooklyn Bridge in New York, built in the 1800sSuperficially, cable-stayed bridges resemble suspension bridges – in both, the road deck is supported by cables attached to a high tower or pylon. However, the two designs are very different. The difference lies in the way that the weight of the deck is supported. In a suspension bridge, the weight is supported by the two massive cables that run the length of the bridge and are attached at either end to anchorages in the ground or in some other heavy, stable structure. Rods or cables hang from the main cable and support the road, putting tension into the cables that are transferred into the ground. The force goes down the towers into their foundations and via tension into the cable anchorages at either end.
This imposes constraints on the way that the bridge must be built. The towers have to be completed, then the main cables installed, and finally the road deck is put into place.
In a cable-stayed bridge, by contrast, the weight is supported by the towers, with the cables transferring the load to the vertical structures and down into their foundations. This has both advantages and disadvantages. Unlike in a suspension bridge, the supporting cables are angled, not vertical; this means the bridge deck is under a certain amount of horizontal compression as the wires pull slightly into the towers; the deck therefore has to be stronger to cope with these forces. On the other hand, as all the weight is taken by the towers, the bridge does not need to be anchored at either end, and the forces on the towers are balanced so that the towers only have to cope with the ’live load’ of whatever is crossing the bridge. Thus the structure tends to be stiffer than a suspension bridge.
As each pair of cables on either side of the tower supports the section of road between the tower and the anchorage, the road can be constructed as soon as the tower is complete; and for a multi-tower bridge, construction is possible from all the towers in both directions. This means that cable-stayed bridges are often quicker to build than suspension bridges.
Cable-stayed bridges are, in fact, an old design: they are believed to have been invented in the late 16th century by Venetian engineer Fausto Veranzio, an intrepid man who also holds the honour of being the first parachutist. Several famous examples were built in the 19th century, including the Albert Bridge in London and the Brooklyn Bridge in New York. Recent examples include the UK’s second Severn Bridge and London’s Queen Elizabeth Bridge. The longest example, with a maximum span of 1,088m, is China’s Sutong Bridge, completed in 2008.
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Subject: Re: Mail and locking
To: None <,>
From: Grey Wolf <>
List: current-users
Date: 12/05/1996 10:38:54
# From Wed Dec 4 15:10:38 1996
# I'm suggesting 1755 for /var/mail.
And what good would this do?
# on earth is a process supposed to create its lockfile if you
# turn off the sticky bit? Or are you proposing to go out and modify mail
# programs to make them run suid or sgid?
I think you misunderstand the semantics of a sticky bit. A t-bit on
a mode 755 directory means that only the superuser and the owner can
write to it; and only the super-user and the owner of the file (or the
directory) can delete the file. But since only the super-user and the
owner of the directory can write to the directory in the first place
(755), the t-bit is useless in this context.
# > If the local delivery and mail-pickup processes are setgid to the unique
# > member-less group which owns and has write permission on /var/mail, and
# > the system supports the POSIX notion of giving away files on quota-less
# > filesystems, and /var/mail is on such a filesystem, then life with
# > mailers can become very mundane and routine with few risks to anyone.
# You do want them to run sgid. Ok. I give up right here. Once again
# we seem to have quite differering ideas of security. Not to mention
# `simplicity.'
If you're talking a non-shared filesystem, it's very secure (if done
right). If you're talking a NFS'd filesystem, you can toss security
out the window even if you don't make it group-owned/writable, unless
you can assure yourself that none of the nodes on the network will
provide super-user access to unauthorized personnel.
# In other words, any algorithm that attempts removal of stale locks
# is incorrect. You obviously don't administer any large sites.
This is a sticky wicket unless you implement a site-wide locking proto-
col handler suite (libraries + daemons + system utilities + ...).
# Oh, and I enjoyed your description of how to fix a broken mail
# file. Yet another new definition of K.I.S.S., I see.
And it still begs the question of "what if you're not the super-user
and you have this problem?"
# cjs
[what is that in latin? Is that "there's no accounting for taste"?] |
Take the 2-minute tour ×
A little background:
I was practicing with my instructor one morning. It was just him and me and we were doing free training of submission grappling. At one point I managed to get him in a choke hold and I expected him either to break free or to tap out. When I looked down at him his eyes were rolled back and only partially opened. I released him and he lay there gasping for a moment. I asked him if he was alright and he kind of blinked a few times and said "Of course I'm alright, why do you ask?" I replied "Because you appeared to be dying." None of his students had ever beaten him before in submission grappling. He told me later that he thought to himself "this is a tight choke, I should consider tapping out" and then he saw himself running through a meadow, without a care in the world.
It kind of freaked me out a little, because we were the only two people there, and I wasn't sure what I would have needed to do if he hadn't immediately woken up (other than call 911). I know some schools make a point of choking their students unconscious at least once, so they know what it feels like. Personally that has always struck me as unnecessary.
What kind of dangers are there in choking someone (or being choked) to the point of unconsciousness?
share|improve this question
A well performed martial arts choke should result in unconsciousness within 3-5 seconds, so I'm not sure that the distinction between A and B is legitimate. – Mark C. Wallace Sep 14 '12 at 11:48
When we teach chokes, we also teach a method to revive some one from choke. Please get training in this from someone qualified before trying it, but loosely speaking we seat the person on the floor, kneel behind them with a knee bracking their spine and gently pull the arms back to expand the chest. That isn't directly responsive to your question, but I'd want to know it if I were in your situation. – Mark C. Wallace Nov 6 '12 at 13:47
Here's a case where someone familiar with jiujitsu was choked, but not choked unconscious, the choke "felt different", and had a stroke three weeks later that he blames on that choke. If this were prevalent it would be worrying, but it seems more like a less-common relative of commotio cordis, which is a pre-existing condition combined with normal athletic activity, which together causes death. – Dave Liepmann Nov 27 '12 at 3:21
It's just plain bad practice to teach someone how to do a choke, and be practicing chokes, without knowing how to resuscitate someone that's unconscious. – user878 Dec 30 '12 at 4:49
12 Answers 12
up vote 26 down vote accepted
Cutting off cerebral blood flow (CBF) to the brain via a blood choke can be very dangerous and should not be conducted in a training session. Properly 'tapping out' is vital when practicing choke. Windpipe (air) chokes involve compressing the trachea which as stated above derive the entire body of air this should also not be done in training under normal conditions as it can cause tissue damage and long term health issues.
Brain tissue can be damage or die completely if CBF is partially or completely occluded causing ischemia. Although the person should pass out before damage occurs there could be underlying health concerns that may cause issues.
When practicing BJJ I always tap out before passing out, just ensuing there is necessary tightness. Personally even under training condition's with supervision and the person releasing right away I still would not want it to get to the passing out point.
share|improve this answer
-1, the first paragraph is unsupported by anecdote or data. Cutting off cerebral blood flow via blood choke is exactly what millions of judo, BJJ, SAMBO, and submission grappling exponents practice extensively every day without the ill effects you claim. – Dave Liepmann Sep 27 '12 at 21:04
-1 For the first paragraph. Show some data for that. Cutting of the blood flow for a few seconds won't do any kind of damage as brain damage usually starts occurring withing few minutes of unconsciousnes and a few seconds is definetly not minutes. – Christian May 24 at 18:19
Worth making the distinction between a blood choke and a air choke. ie, are you cutting off the air ( through the throat) or the blood (through the arteries).
Throat choking is a lot more dangerous because of the damage you can do to the actual throat. Can cause swelling, etc and can cause people to die some time later.
Blood chokes, less dangerous, but can still cause problems for people who are predisposed to various conditions.
Similar kinds of risk as being hit in the head. Things can go wrong. Its worth knowing the first aide responses to the likely scenarios you might find yourself in.
share|improve this answer
I have only ever learned blood (artery) chokes. – Jack B Nimble Jan 31 '12 at 22:58
@JackBNimble Some forms of hadaka-jime (judo) and the guillotine (BJJ) can attack the trachea. – Dave Liepmann Apr 27 '12 at 20:23
poorly performed cross chokes or kata juji jime can also attack the trachea. – Patricia Apr 30 '12 at 15:56
Realistically you're usually going to be doing both if you're going for a blood choke. It's pretty hard to not also restrict airflow. – Robin Ashe Jul 3 '12 at 22:27
My dojo includes a number of physicians; they claim they can see the results of a blood choke on a brain scan. Both are quite dangerous. We haven't trained choke in quite a while, but I don't remember it affecting the trachea - I think I was breathing throughout. – Mark C. Wallace Sep 14 '12 at 11:50
and I expected him either to break free or to tap out. When I looked down at him...
There would have been a physical sign that your instructor had lost consciousness, like his muscles relaxing and possibly a slight change in posture. You need to be considerably more aware than you were. You cannot always rely on your training partner to know when to tap out, as they may try to tough it out and/or not know their own limitations.
You should only be taking your choke holds to this level when you have reached a level of proficiency, and part of that should be knowing how to handle the situation if unfortunate accidents happen.
People will have different views on this, but personally I think it is important to know your technique inside out and back to front. Being choked out benefits both participants:
• the recipient gets to experience the sensation of losing consciousness via the choke, this helps them know their limits, know the power of the technique, and know when they should be submitting
• the person giving the choke gets to know the stages the recipient will go through as the choke progresses. If you expect to use a potentially dangerous technique like this on a regular occasion (either in training or in the ring) then it is vital you don't over do it and know when to stop despite what your opponent may be indicating to you.
share|improve this answer
There is also the concept that in law enforcement, before you are cleared to use less than lethal weapons (mace, tazer) you must first experience what it feels like. This does two things: lessens the likelihood that the weapon will be used inappropriately, and gives the weilder an expectation of what will happen. When done in group sessions, it is likely that you will have someone who isn't affected the same way. For example, some people are simply resistant to capsaicin acid (mace) and merely get angry. Others are reduced to crying heaps on the floor. – Berin Loritsch Apr 26 '12 at 16:15
Of course they don't apply that to requiring them to be shot before using a gun. Given the overuse of tazers, I'd suggest that perhaps having experienced it makes someone more likely to consider it OK. – Robin Ashe Jul 3 '12 at 22:28
There are two types of chokes: a blood choke, in which blood flow to the brain is, at least temporarily, halted; and an air choke, in which compression to the trachea or chest stop airflow into the body, and thus oxygenation of the blood.
Both are inherently dangerous. During an air choke, excessive pressure can lead to the collapsing of the trachea or lungs, making it impossible for the victim to draw breath. Treatment for this is dependent upon the cause: a tracheotomy (in the case of a collapsed trachea) or chest tube (in the case of pneumothorax) may be required to reestablish breathing.
Blood chokes, on the other hand, can in rare cases lead to the collapsing of arteries. One theory is that compression of the carotid artery, in addition to causing cerebral anoxia, also sends a signal via the vagus nerve to the heart, which can cause arrhythmia or reduce bloodflow further to as low as 1/3 normal volume.
However, it should be noted that the greatest threat, cerebral anoxia, causes brain cell death after 4 to 6 sustained minutes. All other dangers are minute in comparison, and odds are against long term damage or death. That said, it's worth remembering that even a simple hematoma (bruise) can cause death (a clot can break away and cause a stroke or heart attack or other infarction), and training in any sort of martial art should be treated with the respect it deserves.
It should be noted that the dangers inherent in martial arts chokes are also similar to those of breath-play in the S&M community. In an article by Jay Wiseman, who is, in his own words:
I was an ambulance crewman for over eight years. I attended medical school for three years, and passed my four-year boards, (then ran out of money). I am a former member of the American Academy of Family Physicians and a former American Heart Association instructor in Advanced Cardiac Life Support. I have an extensive martial arts background that includes a first-degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do. My martial arts training included several months of judo that involved both my choking and being choked.
A simple rundown is this:
The primary danger of suffocation play is that it is not a condition that gets worse over time (regarding the heart, anyway, it does get worse over time regarding the brain). Rather, what happens is that the more the play is prolonged, the greater the odds that a cardiac arrest will occur. Sometimes even one minute of suffocation can cause this; sometimes even less.
So why can this happen? When denied oxygen, the heart contracts at multiple sites, usually in the ventricular region (causing "premature ventricular contractions" or PVCs). In the event that a PVC occurs during a phase in which ventricular depolarization is occurring (called PVC-on-T or R-on-T), then ventricular fibrillation (a form of cardiac arrest) can occur. The more PVCs occur, the higher a likelihood of an R-on-T event, and thus the higher a likelihood that event will trigger cardiac arrest.
Secondarily (and briefly, since detail is gone into in the article), the build up of CO2 in the blood stream will cause a dissociation in existing H2CO3 (carbonic acid, an equilibrium of H2O and CO2) into HCO3- (bicarbonate) and H+ (an acidic Hydrogen ion). This build-up of acid can shift the pH lower. Since both the increase of blood carbon-dioxide and decrease of blood oxygen lower the pH, the effects of suffocation can cause the pH to plummet. pH levels below 6.9 or above 7.8 are considered incompatible with human life.
share|improve this answer
+1 for the only answer that provides the correct information from the dangers of blood choking. Being out for a few seconds shouldn't do any real harm except a headache. 4-6 minutes, that's another story. – Christian May 24 at 18:23
Studies Where We Choked People Unconscious In a Lab
Being choked out might not be good. But we have very little evidence that shows that it's bad to any significant degree, and considerable evidence that being choked out doesn't seem to be of notable danger:
There has been limited medical research regarding neck restraints. One of the first studies was conducted by the United States Military in 1943. A team of American military scientists examined the effect of acute cerebral anoxia —a short and severe lack of oxygen to the brain. To do this, they used an inflatable cervical pressure cuff designed to induce temporary arrest of circulation without affecting the respiratory tract; essentially, a mechanically created carotid pressure hold. The cuff was held down to the lower third of the neck and pressure increased to 600 mm of mercury within one-eighth second. One hundred and twenty six prison volunteers and 11 diagnosed schizophrenic patients were fitted with the cuff which was tightened until unconsciousness was induced. The average time from arrest of cerebral circulation to loss of consciousness was six to eight seconds. The study concluded that arrest of cerebral circulation in normal young men results in fixation of the eyes, tingling, constriction of the visual fields, loss of consciousness, and brief, mild tonic and clonic seizure after restoration of the blood flow. This study, though dated, is perhaps the largest study ever conducted in terms of the sheer number of participants. No deleterious effects were observed from repeated tests on these subjects.
(Source: PDF)
Now, I'm not sure I trust these researchers. (They're in the military, conducting tests on prisoners and mental patients. Perhaps their evaluation of deleterious effects is not, shall we say, the most thorough.) So we have this research, where they arrange an array of sensors to some guys and choke them out:
Is there any danger in the use of shimewaza? This is what a team of experts came together to try to discover. Representing several of Japan's foremost medical schools and universities as well as the Kodokan, this group of medical specialists and ranking educators used the electroencephalograph to detect brain changes; the earoxymeter for blood oxygen saturation, the sphygmomanometer for arterial blood pressure; the plethysmograph peripheral blood vessel reaction and the micropipometer for skin temperature changes. Other studies probed the plasma protein concentration, blood water volume, hematrocrit complete blood count, eosinophil count and urine 17 keto-steroid content.
After only 10 seconds of choking, the victims fell unconscious. As soon as they were diagnosed unconscious, the per former released them and, the subjects remained unconscious from 10 to 12 seconds. During this period the victims some times developed clonic, a jerking or fluttering, cramps. All subjects woke up spontaneously.
As the subject regained consciousness spontaneously his electroencephalogram readings returned to normal. It should be repeated that in all the cases the performer released his grip immediately after the subjects fell unconscious, thereby limiting the effect of choking to a short period. But had the strangulation continued serious aftereffects would have been expected.
The electroencephalograph recorded symptoms very similar to that of a short epileptic seizure.
Those findings sound alarming but not actually dangerous or troubling.
We also have this three-way comparison between judoka (who choke and get choked regularly, though not normally to unconsciousness), boxers (who punch and get punched in the head regularly), and a non-choking, non-punching control group. It's pretty straightforward what they found:
Long-term effects of boxing and judo-choking techniques on brain function.
Author: Rodriguez G , Vitali P , Nobili F
Source: Italian Journal of Neurological Science, 19(6): 367-72 1998
This study shows the relevance of the neurophysiological assessment of athletes engaged in violent sports which can cause brain impairment. In fact, while professional boxers may show brain functional impairment in comparison to normal subjects, judoka do not.
So we see that normal judo practice, which might involve the occasional choke-out, has no evidence of being injurious to brain function in the long term. This is supported by another study where they choked some guys unconscious and looked at their brain waves. Again, the results are not a cause for worry:
Spectral analysis of electroencephalography changes after choking in judo (juji-jime).
Author: Rau R , Raschka C , Brunner K , Banzer W
Source: Med Science Sports Exercise, 30(9): 1356-62 1998
RESULTS: A significant increase of global field power in the delta- and theta-range occurred, while physiological alpha-power decreased. These changes in the low-frequency range reached a statistically significant level within a time span up to 20 s after choking, which was performed at an average choking time of 8 s. In no case did choking provoke neuropsychological symptoms. Yet, spectral EEG-analysis revealed subclinical changes of brain function.
CONCLUSIONS: Choking in judo may induce subclinical electroencephalographic perturbations. The extent and duration can be objectified by means of spectral analysis of EEG data, global field power computation, and brain-mapping representation.
Let me reiterate the non-troublesome aspects of their results: these changes in brain function were neither brain damage nor injury, and the results were less than what a doctor would consider problematic.
Weighing this kind of evidence, the Kodokan issued two warnings, the first of which has good evidence, the second of which seems a reasonable precaution:
To prevent any dangers that may accompany the choke, the Kodokan bulletin advises it is dangerous to perform the choking [both] on subjects with cardiac disorders or those suffering from hypertension since the load to the heart and the rise in blood pressure is marked. It is also advised that it is dangerous for youngsters whose nervous system and heart have not yet attained complete development.
(Source: Ken Endow, DANGER IN THE JUDO CHOKE?) You can see details here in an awful pseudo-PDF format.
Epidemiological-Type Evidence Where We Check How People Turned Out After They Get Choked Out In Training and Competition
If being choked out was known to produce injuries or deaths in training or competition, that sure would be a sign that we shouldn't do it. Yet, judo organizations keep good records, and we find the opposite. A judoka-doctor argues persuasively from empirical evidence that choking someone unconscious in the manner of judo, Brazilian jiu-jitsu or modern no-gi grappling is reasonably safe:
[Choking in judo] is considerably less dangerous than a "knock-out" in boxing and there is no necessity of completely excluding "choking" from Judo, provided necessary precautions are taken.
There are, however, three main dangers of choking based upon the above experiments.
• To perform a "choking" hold on subjects with cardiac disorders or hypertension.
• To apply "choking" on youngsters whose central nervous system and heart have not yet attained complete development.
• To continue to hold after the subject falls unconscious.
Since the advent of Judo, first developed by Professor Jigoro Kano in 1882, no death directly attributed to choking has been reported. There are four main reasons why fatalities do not occur:
• Choking, whether in practice or competition is supervised and observed by qualified trained instructors and officials.
• The contestant submits before unconsciousness occurs.
• After choking the contestant regains consciousness naturally and spontaneously without difficulty in ten to twenty seconds.
• The immediate application of artificial respiration by the qualified instructor or official prevents prolonged hypoxia.
Choking in Judo is safe because since the advent of Judo statistics show no fatality attributed to the shime-waza. Moreover, scientific studies on choking reveal no deleterious after effects. Finally, the precautionary rules and methods used make the technique of choking a relatively safe means of subduing an opponent in competition.
(Source: E. K. Koiwai, M.D., How Safe is Choking in Judo?)
Our dear doctor goes further, investigating a number of deaths due to law enforcement choking various persons, and finds:
In all 14 cases, this author has noted evidence of injuries to the structures of the neck from bruises, ecchymosis, hemorrhages to fractures of the cartilage of the neck (Cases 1, 5, 10, 13, and 14), and intervertebral discs (Case 7).
He makes the point that these injuries suggest improper application of the choke, such that these should not be considered in the same category as actual judo techniques:
If the carotid artery hold is properly applied, unconsciousness occurs in approximately 10 seconds (8-14 seconds). After release, the subject regains consciousness spontaneously in 10-20 seconds. Neck pressure of 250 mm of Hg or 5 kg of rope tension is required to occlude carotid arteries. The amount of pressure to collapse the airway is six times greater.
(Source: E. K. Koiwai, M.D., Deaths Allegedly Caused by the Use of "Choke Holds" (Shime-Waza))
A Dissenting Case Report
Owens and Ghiadiali present a contradicting possibility. From the abstract:
A case is presented of a patient with signs of anoxic brain damage, with psychometric investigation showing memory disturbance consistent with a left temporal lobe lesion. This patient had been frequently strangled during his career as a judo player; it is suggested that such frequent strangulation was the cause of the damage. Such an observation indicates the need for caution in the use of such techniques.
I do not have access to the full text. It is not clear that judo is well implicated in this case, nor do we know the extent to which this individual was choked out (how often, how long, et cetera), nor can we extrapolate from this one data point. Even being charitable, the conclusion to take from this case would be "don't be choked all the way to unconsciousness, and if you do, don't do it frequently". NB: this is not shown, merely suggested as a cause for further research.
My Tentative Conclusion
There are some contraindications for being choked: heart conditions, hypertension, young kids. But people who are choked out for ten or thirty seconds seem to be fine within five minutes, and certainly by the next day. Being choked out repeatedly would seem to be a bad idea.
I'm not going to go out and try to get choked out. But if it happens in the course of training or competing, the only thing I'm worried about is that someone notices before too much time passes. Students should know to pay attention to their partner and not hold onto a choke with a limp partner. Instructors should pay attention to students who are grappling, taking particular note of those caught in a choke, and make sure nobody holds on to a choke after the other person passes out. These simple precautions have, according to the data, largely prevented choke-related serious injury in one of the world's most practiced martial arts.
Normal practice of grappling chokes is almost entirely safe. One instance of being choked out and immediately resuscitated doesn't appear to have any serious negative consequences, say both anecdotes and the data.
So barring contraindications, choke away, judoka.
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re: "The electroencephalograph recorded symptoms very similar to that of a short epileptic seizure." nytimes.com/2003/02/18/health/… One occurrence here and there is unlikely to hurt anyone, but recurrent exposure can create worse conditions, too. Basic "rule of thumb": Everything in moderation. – stslavik May 3 '12 at 18:07
@stslavik If the similarities between choking and epilepsy hold true, which the electroencephalogram only hints at, then repeated chokings-to-unconsciousness might cause damage (such as shrinking of the hippocampus), which would give us a marginal increase in health risks. Since we're talking about maybe half a dozen choke-outs over a lifetime maximum, as compared to uncontrolled epileptics, my Bat-signal is not going off. – Dave Liepmann May 3 '12 at 18:33
The common groundhog hides its head every time it sees a shadow, regardless of whether it's a predator or not. It develops this as a self-preservation instinct; those that do not duck when the wrong shadow crosses over are eaten. Just something to consider. – stslavik May 3 '12 at 21:27
"The LVNR system has specific after care guidelines. Officers must obtain field medical clearance for subjects who were placed in the LVNR whether they were rendered unconscious or not. There is a mandatory 2 hour observation period for anyone who has had the LVNR applied. [...] not to be applied to people with cardiac disorders, children" -- this very clearly suggests that they are not at all concerned about potential ill effects or lethalities :-) – Damon Nov 5 '12 at 16:42
@Damon Kowai goes into fair detail describing how law enforcement's LVNR should not be considered the same as properly trained and applied martial arts chokes. I would also be interested to see if the after-care guidelines were based in medicine or were just a legal way to cover their behind. – Dave Liepmann Nov 5 '12 at 17:36
As a former LAPD police man who went through academy training in the early 70s, I can give testimony about the bar arm control hold and its effects, on other police cadets and myself as well. We were taught to know what to do when gaining consciousness, how to identify by hearing, where our main threat was (man with a gun) and how to proceed. Naturally in order to do that, we were choked out no less than 20 times during training. We were trained to use the bar arm control hold, which consisted in turning the adversary around from a frontal position, by keeping our gun leg back, extending our left hand inches beyond his right arm and hitting and pushing his right shoulder hard. Well applied, this maneuver resulted in turning the person around, into the cutting side of our right forearm, while our left hand was locked on to our right one, applying force to the subject's neck pressing him aginst our chest. Ounce that maneuver was done, his arched body was taken down hard to the ground by retrieving our left leg.If the choke hold was well applied, he was supposed to be out by the time he hit the floor. When the choke hold was applied to me by training officers, supposedly experts in martial art, it was not painful at all. It was swift and quick, because the martial arts expert, maintained at all times the pressure on the neck and of course there was no resistance from the me, since this was just a demonstration. The problem started when the choke hold was applied by trainee to trainee in an effort to get it right. In my class, at least two persons were taken out of the field by ambulance, and one was never seen again. In my case, weeks after wrestling classmates ussually 40 to 60 pounds heavier than me, and being choked out almost daily, or even choking out some classmate, I started to have migraines, vertigo, pain and stiffness of neck and other symptoms. I reported all these to my superiors at the academy, but complaining about pain was not part of the job description, so I went on to graduate and stayed on the job for about 7 years. Eventually I was given a stress IOD type pension. An evaluation by a Neurologist was performed a couple of years ago, and subsequent testing (brain and cervical MRIs and xrays) revealed significant and important lesions from c3 to c7. These lesions are congruent with a great amount of pressure applied to my neck. They are degenarative, and may be the cause of headaches, sleep paralysis, and a whole series of symptoms, that are often confused with stress and other psychological ailments.
To conclude this commentary, let me just emphasize that choke holds applied by martial arts experts may result and minimal to no permanent lesions, but the barm arm control hold, or the caratoid version, use in law enforcement by officers, even when it is well intended to just control and avoid lethal force, is not being applied by experts, nor to persons that may tap out, which may lead to: death...permanent neurological injury to brain and back to the suspect, it may also be the cause of lesions to back and knees of the officer, because if it happens in the field, the patient is taken down hard to the ground and the officer absorbs the impact falling hard on his knees, not on a training padded surface or grass, but ussually on a concrete paved street. I respectully advised retired or active officers to consider my experience and seek profesional neurological evaluation when faced with headaches, tingling sensation of back of head, hands and feet, pain on back of legs, unsteady gait, urinary incontinence of any type, pain in lower back that extends to gluteus, even lose of sexual drive. In my humble opinion any officer who went through the barm arm experience and lost of consciousness at the academy, should have a neurological evaluation and testing.
The same advice goes to any person, whom might have been choked out, lost consciousness and is know exprience some of this symptoms.
Thanks for your patience and tolerance
E.R. Jimenez
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The only answer that can be given is that it is very dangerous. The reason for this is that everyone has different biological and physical toughness and you, as their opponent, cannot make any valid guess as to how much they can take. (And the truth is that they wouldn't know either if they were honest.)
Back when I was young and stupid, I used to tough out chokes on a regular basis. I look back and cringe at that behaviour. Thankfully, I always erred on the side of caution when attempting such a move on my opponent and would discontinue my attack if I thought they were trying to tough it out themselves. I have been penalised for this in contests, but I'll take the points against me rather than the possibility of a life of regret that I didn't stop sooner.
There's a reason what we do is called "martial" arts. We learn very efficient ways to kill people. With great power comes great responsibility. That's not just a movie quote, it's an honest to goodness fact. Always err on the side of not hurting your opponent.
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"The only answer that can be given is that it is very dangerous" seems unhelpful. For instance, the CDC reports 82 deaths in 12 years among children choking each other for fun (highbeam.com/doc/1G1-176049051.html). An mma doc says it's unlikely. A book says that Judo practitioners, who regularly use chokes, show negligible long-term loss of brain function. So surely there's better answers than just "it is very dangerous." – khafra Feb 2 '12 at 2:45
@user249228 The answer isn't unhelpful, it's truthful. The question specifically asked about choking to unconsciousness. Asphyxia is no laughing matter and there is no way to know what someone's physical tolerance for such things would be. Now, under normal circumstances or training regimes, it's a non-issue because everyone (except the young and foolish like I was) taps out before the choke reaches a dangerous point. The question specifically asked about choking to the point of unconsciousness and that is outside of the normal realms that most of us deal with. – Simon Peter Chappell Feb 3 '12 at 16:20
I really hope this will be the kind of site where published studies and empirical data are used whenever possible in answers. The martial arts has a terrible reputation for saying "this technique is too deadly to actually gather data on, just trust me." Althought MMA has devolved into a sport, it started as a means of combating this type of epistemic viciousness (artsci.wustl.edu/~grussell/epistemicviciousness.pdf) – khafra Feb 5 '12 at 13:54
@khafra Awesome link, thanks. And good point. – Dave Liepmann Mar 23 '12 at 19:13
The distinction between "blood choke" and "air choke" does not make sense from a medical point of view, especially when unconsciousness is involved.
Any form of unconsciousness is perilous (in a sense of "possibly lethal"). You are entirely right about feeling scared, unconsciousness is scary. The body loses its adverse-effects reflexes, which can easily result in death by aspiration/asphyxia even on an entirely healthy person. Also, secondary effects (e.g. circulatory or neurological ones) which you may or may not notice and which you may or may not be able to handle can join in at any time.
Certainly, not everybody who goes unconscious for a moment dies, but it's something you cannot safely assert at that moment.
Hyperextension of the neck as learned as one of the basic measures in every first aid course is helpful in such a situation, it literally saves lives. It's the first thing you want to do when someone doesn't come back within a few seconds.
Since you said you wouldn't have known what to do, this is a valuable thing to look into.
As for which is more dangerous, "blood" or "air" choke, both are -- also in absence of unconsciousness -- equally dangerous insofar as both can easily cause severe side effects and death.
It doesn't take much to break the thyroid cartilage, and if that happens, you're in trouble (or rather, for the time being the other person is, you'll be in trouble when the police arrives).
It also doesn't take much on some people to stimulate the vagus nerve so they develop a sudden bradycardia with extreme hypotension. This is very individual, and you only know when it's too late. Extreme hypotension can, even when people tell you "of course I'm alright" a few minutes later, result in organ failure (usually the kidney) up to 48 hours later.
Also, a "blood choke" results not only in oxygen depletion, but also in a sudden change of blood pressure in the brain. Most martial artists should hopefully be healthy people, but you never know -- there are young and apparently healthy people with aneurysms, too. When you find out, it's too late.
Thus, all in all, choke with care, be responsible and stop early before someone goes unconscious.
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Do you have any reports of any of these things happening in the course of martial arts training? – Dave Liepmann Nov 4 '12 at 4:41
@DaveLiepmann: Carotis sinus massage is a known therapy for supraventricular tachycardia, and a known cause of vagovasal syncope. I recall seeing the latter once with school kids choking each other. Shock kidney is something I've seen 4 or 5 times in my life in people who were "fine" after trauma with shock. Death due to aneurism in young people is admittely something that I do NOT remember seeing ever, but it is something that can conceivably happen given a) enough "stimulation" and b) being unlucky to have an aneurism. – Damon Nov 4 '12 at 12:51
Can you tell us what caused the shock kidney trauma? I assume it wasn't martial arts training. And correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't vasovagal syncope via carotid sinus massage the goal of training chokes, and a large part of the subject of the question itself? – Dave Liepmann Nov 4 '12 at 17:44
@DaveLiepmann: The reason of shock kidney is an extreme hypotonia, whatever the reason (that's secondary). I can't tell about vasovagal syncopes being a "training goal", but in my opinion this would be a rather stupid goal, as it is dangerous. You could as well have your partner stab you in the eyes or repeatedly kick you in the testicles (without protection ofc) to "harden" them. Some things are just dangerous, and one shouldn't do them, simply because they're dangerous. Doing dangerous things for "training" leads to Bad Things Happening™. Maybe not the first time, but eventually. – Damon Nov 4 '12 at 18:48
I feel like we're in danger of some circular reasoning. If I understand correctly, the point of training chokes is to force the partner to tap out before they experience a vasovagal syncope. We're trying to determine how dangerous it is if our partner passes out before tapping. As my answer details, all studies of this kind of training seem to show that there is minimal or no risk involved, as long as basic precautions are taken. Saying "choking them unconscious is dangerous because they're unconscious" doesn't really shed light on the situation. Or did I not catch part of your position? – Dave Liepmann Nov 4 '12 at 20:53
I recently found an article by Wendy Gunther Sensei, which asserts that during a controlled study there was no long term damage from chokes. Short term interruptions in blood flow, transient EEG anomalies but in each case the recipient of the choke returned to full functionality quickly. The referenced article does mention some more serious consequences that could occur, but should not if training under a competent instructor in a controlled environment. This contradicts what I've been told by others, and I think the subject merits further research.
Update: @Dave Liepman asked me to check with the MD's in my dojo who assert that there are dangers to chokes. I'm still checking the facts, but Sempai said that one of our students who was a neurosurgeon found "pukka's" (phonetic spelling) on the brain of people who had suffered chokeholds, and that furthermore one of our top judo players (a national competitor who has more chokeouts than the rest of us put together) had an unusually large number of pukka's on his brain. I need to check how strong the correllation is - I know who the MD in question is, but he no longer practices with us. I'll see if I can get contact information and follow through.
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What is contradicted? What about it merits further research? And shouldn't Wendy's analysis be taken with a grain of salt after she says something as frankly ignorant as "I would never practice chokes with a face-down opponent", after admitting she has essentially no experience with judo, an art in which choking people face-down happens hundreds of times worldwide literally every day? – Dave Liepmann Nov 4 '12 at 1:33
This "ignorant" statement shows that she has an understanding of human physiology (not very surprising considering her profession) and at least a minimum of responsibility. The fact that something happens hundreds of times every day has absolutely no bearing. In Pamplona, thousands participate in bull running every year. During the last 80 years, only 15 people have died due to injuries. According to your reasoning, one could argue that running down a narrow street followed by two dozen angry and panicking bulls is perfectly safe, reasonable, and advisable. – Damon Nov 5 '12 at 18:28
@Damon That's a caricature of my reasoning. 15 people dying is at least a fairly serious chance of injury compared to 0 people dying from training chokes with the basic precautions noted in my answer, as Kowai and various judo organizations have noted. The data shows that our time would be better spent warning people about poorly applied uchimata attacks that endanger the neck. Let me put it this way: is there any data that could conceivably convince you that chokes are safe? – Dave Liepmann Nov 5 '12 at 19:42
Her statement is equivalent to saying "I would never practice a header in soccer, because although I've never played the sport, it looks like it would cause cerebral hemorrhages." It's quite clearly a statement that is ignorant of the plain fact that millions of people do practice these things with no evidence of ill effect either chronic or acute. Judo is one of the top practiced sports in the world. Wouldn't you think we'd have had at least one case of someone falling down dead from a choke by now, if it were going to happen? – Dave Liepmann Nov 5 '12 at 19:46
@DaveLiepmann asks to what contradiction I refer. In an earlier post, I'd mentioned that MD's in my dojo claim to have seen evidence of brain damage resulting from chokeholds. I freely admit I'm not an MD and I don't pretend to have the knowledge to interpret or explain a brain scan. The article I cite in this answer contradicts the evidence I offered earlier. To my mind, that contradiction means that I should do further research. I did not intend to create this level of heat/fractious argument. I was just trying to be responsible about my earlier claim. – Mark C. Wallace Nov 5 '12 at 21:21
I think chokes are some of the safest submissions in BJJ/Submission grappling and thus it's okay to train them as often as you want. I think the main factor in terms of danger is making sure you're training with someone you trust. Anything in martial arts can potentially be dangerous if your training partner has the wrong mindset.
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On a healthy adult with no pre-existing conditions that could be exacerbated by the choke, it's not dangerous at all. The problem with that is you might only find out there was a condition after the fact.
Choking out your instructor - no big deal, he probably didn't get to where he is with a heart condition, and with his experience the onus to tap is really on him.
Choking out a white belt should be avoided at all costs. If there's a referee who's keeping an eye on things you can off course wait for the ref to stop it or for the tap (when I'm reffing I ask the athletes to keep their eyes open, the moment I see them lose focus, or if their eyes are obscured while in a choke I stop the match). If there's no ref present, you have to moderate yourself. If the tap doesn't come within a few seconds of sinking in the choke, let go. Either the other guy is stubborn and doesn't want to tap (don't let that become your problem by choking him out and finding he's one of the few cases where something bad happens!), or your choke wasn't very good. Either way, let go, move on to something else.
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Choking becomes EXPONENTIALLY more dangerous as time goes by. That is, two minutes is FOUR times (or more) dangerous than one minute.
An example of a "timetable can come from hanging, or strangulation, which takes about 30 minutes. A person is "half dead" after about 22 minutes, goes unconscious at about 25, and is brain dead at about minute 27.
Choking is more dangerous than hanging 1) because it is concentrated, that is, a person choked to death will die in 7 minutes, not 30, and
2) Because in a hanging situation, the first few minutes drains the body of excess oxygen, meaning that the "real damage" isn't done until the minutes get into double digits.
In martial arts, choking takes place at the end of a fight that may have already drained oxygen, and choking may start to do damage right away. So if a person passes out, s/he can be MINUTES (5) away from death.
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Do you have any sources for these numbers? I don't necessarily disagree with any of them, I just wonder where you got them. – Dave Liepmann Apr 27 '12 at 15:44
@Dave Liepmann: In finance, I was once told that the mathematics of a 30 minute hanging worked much like a 30 year "mortgage" (a debt to be "killed" (mort is French for death). The amortization payment is set about 10% above the interest, and hanging (unlike choking) allows oxygen intake about 90% of what is necessary for life. The impact is minimal at first, and increases through compounding. A 30-year mortgage is reduced by half after 22 years, and likewise a hanged person is half dead after 22 minutes. A "full" choke takes 7 minutes (as long as one can live with NO oxygen), not 30. – Tom Au Apr 27 '12 at 18:20
Just to be clear, you're saying that A) it takes 30 minutes to hang someone to death with a noose, B) it takes 7 minutes to choke someone to death, and C) you learned this in some sort of finance class or job? – Dave Liepmann Apr 27 '12 at 18:23
@DaveLiepmann: The mechanics of hanging and choking, I learned years ago from Encyclopedia Britannica. For a hanging scene, I refer you to "Quiet Flows the Don." For the mathematics, a hanging can take place in 25 minutes or 35 or whatever, just as a mortgage can be set for 25 years or 35. But the "standard" hanging (given a certain tightness of the rope and gravitational forces) required about 30 minutes, just as a "standard" mortgage is 30 years given certain relationships between the repayment and interest rates. – Tom Au Apr 27 '12 at 18:34
A hanging actually causes instant death. It is not designed to suffocate. The downward drop with the head being secured with a noose actually causes separation of the head and the neck, effectively decapitating the victim. Just to be clear. – Ben Richards Jul 1 '12 at 6:51
protected by David H. Clements Dec 30 '12 at 4:50
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Angelina Jolie in Disney's ''Maleficent''
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This article originally published at Cinema Blend here
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Shot Out of a Cannon [10/12/1998]
A performer is shot out of a cannon at 30 degrees from the horizontal, to land 20 meters away... What should his initial speed be?
Signs of Sines (and Other Trigonometric Ratios) [07/11/2002]
The trigonometric ratios have the signs + or -, depending on the quadrant. How do you know which signs to use in which quadrants?
Simplifying Circle Formulas from the Dr. Math FAQ [04/30/2004]
In your FAQ on circle formulas, in the sections where the other five values are derived from any two known values, could you write each formula in terms of only the two known values, instead of using the intermediate steps?
Simplifying Expressions with Double-Angle Formulas [05/25/1998]
Using double-angle formulas, can you help me express 1 - 2*sin^2(4x) and 2*sin(5x)*cos(5x) as a single function?
Simplifying Expressions with Trig Functions [04/04/2001]
Simplifying Trigonometric Equations [06/02/1998]
Simplifying Trigonometric Expressions [9/13/1995]
A student asks for help simplifying and solving trigonometric expressions.
Simplify Numerator and Denominator [4/15/1996]
Simulating Sound Waves [10/27/2000]
Sine and Cosine Addition Formulas [11/29/2000]
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Sine/Cosine Equations [10/23/1996]
Are there equations for sine or cosine?
Sine, Cosine, Tangent [03/13/2001]
What are sine, cosine, and tangent?
Is there any way to perform these functions without a calculator?
Sine Function and Unit Circle [08/15/2003]
The Sine of 1 Degree [01/07/2001]
Sine of 36 Degrees [11/18/2001]
Sines and equations [12/3/1994]
Sine Series [09/09/1998]
Sine, Simply? [10/27/2011]
Taught to evaluate trigonometric expressions with a calculator, a student wonders if there are simple formulas behind sine, cosine, and tangent. Doctor Jerry introduces the Maclaurin series and CORDIC algorithm.
Sine Squared [06/27/2003]
How do you find the sin of 2020?
Solution for Trig Equality [7/27/1996]
Sin x = Cos x - what does it mean?
Solve for x [10/26/2001]
Solving a Periodic Function [3/31/1996]
Solve: sin2z = 5
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(sin (alpa))/(alpha) = ?
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Let G=A^{\; *}_{H} A be the generalized free products amalgamating H. Let G be residually finite. How to show that A is H-separable?
I'm sure that A must be H-separable. But I don't know how to show this.
I started with x \in A \backslash H.
Since A is residually finite, then there exists M \lhd_{f} A such that x \notin M.
I'm trying to prove by contradiction, by assuming x \in HM.
How can I continue from here? |
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Let $M$ be an $n$-dimensional Riemannian manifold with sectional curvature lower bound 1. Fix a point say $O\in M$, let $S(r)$ denote the distance sphere centered at $O$ with radius $r$. The classical Hessian comparison theorem says that the principle curvatures of $S(r)$ is less than that of standard sphere ${S}^n(1)$. And Toponogov triangle comparison implies that given any two point in $S(r)$ there distance in $M$ is less than or equal to the correspond distance in round sphere with the same openning angle at $O$.
So is there any way to see how the intrinsic diameter (i.e. the length metric induced from ambient metric) upper bound?
How about the Ricci curvature case?
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1 Answer 1
up vote 2 down vote accepted
I guess you want to ask is it true that $$\mathop{\rm IntrinsicDiameter}[S(r)]\le\mathop{\rm IntrinsicDiameter}[\tilde S(r)],$$ where $\tilde S(r)$ denotes the sphere of radius $r$ in the standard sphere.
• This is true if $r\ge \tfrac\pi2$; it follows since $S(r)$ has bigger curvature than $\tilde S(r)$ in the sense of Alexandrov.
• Note that if $r<\tfrac\pi2$ then $S(r)$ might be not connected; in this case $$\mathop{\rm IntrinsicDiameter}[S(r)]=\infty.$$ If sectional curvature $\ge 1$, I do not see other counterexamples. It reminds me some questions related to the conjecture that boundary of Alexandrov space is an Alexandrov space.
If you find a way to prove it then likely you will get some nontrivial corollaries of this conjecture say if $\Sigma$ is an Alexandrov space with curvature $\ge 1$ then $\mathop{\rm diam}\partial\Sigma\le \pi$ or perimeter of any triangle in $\partial\Sigma$ is at most $2{\cdot}\pi$.
If $r\le\tfrac\pi2$, it is possible to construct a short map $h_r\colon \tilde S(r)\to M$ so that its image covers $S(r)$. In particular $$\text{area}[S(r)]\le\text{area}[\tilde S(r)]$$ (which is obvious anyway). In general the image of $h_r$ contains creases which stick inside $S(r)$ which in principle might be used as a shortcut.
• For Ricci curvature the statement does not hold even if $S(r)$ is connected. You may take a small disc in hyperbolic plane and take a warp product with the sphere to make the Ricci curvature of obtained manifold to be colose to $+\infty$. The sphere $S(r)$ will have intrinsic diameter bigger than $\tilde S(r)$ as far as $S(r)\ne\emptyset$.
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@Anton, Is there any background material for this open problem you mentioned? – J. GE Mar 22 '13 at 10:24
@Sergei, if $r\ge\tfrac\pi2$ then $S(r)$ is the boundary of convex set, so it has to be connected. – Anton Petrunin Mar 23 '13 at 17:35
What is an example where $S(r)$ is not connected? – horse with no name Mar 23 '13 at 23:53
@horse, Here is the example, take a small circle $C$ and consider the spherical suspension over it. it is an Alexandrov space with two singular non-smooth conic point at the north and south poles. Then any point close to the poles will have disconnected distance sphere $S(r)$ when $r$ is small enough, as there won't be geodesic passing through the poles. Smooth the metric in arbitary small neighborhood of poles would give you a smooth Riemannian manifold. – J. GE Mar 25 '13 at 10:49
@horse, the example looks like the surface of a cigar. Its length can be arbitrary close to $\pi$; so if the center is near the middle and say $r=\tfrac\pi3$ then $S_r$ is formed by two circles near surrounding the ends of the cigar. – Anton Petrunin Mar 25 '13 at 20:20
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Question. Is there any example of a path connected symplectic manifold $(M,\omega)$ that has infinite volume, but which cannot be packed by an infinite number of symplectic balls of a fixed radius $r$, for any $r > 0$?
Note that on such a manifold we would be able to prove the "Poincaré recurrence" of every symplectomorphism:
Given a symplectomorphism $T: M \rightarrow M$ and an open set $U \subset M$ there exists an integer number $k > 0$ such that $T^k(U)$ intersects $U$.
Added and edited: It seems to me that the examples suggested in the comments assume the validity of the following (to my knowledge unproved) statement:
Let $(M,\omega)$ be the symplectic manifold obtained by taking $B(R)$, the symplectic ball of radius $R$ and dimension 2n, and attaching a long thin cylinder with very large volume and very small capacity. Let $r < R$ and consider the ball $B(r)$. There exists constant $c > 0$ such that any symplectic embedding of $B(r)$ into $M$ intersects the ball $B(R) \subset M$ in a set whose volume is at least $c$.
Note that this is not quite the intuition of non-squeezing theorem which would just say that you cannot embedd $B(r)$ into $M$ if $r > R$.
Added remark (10/10/2013). I just had a conversation around this problem with Leonid Polterovich. He tells me that in the early nineties Hofer had asked him whether symplectic geometry could perhaps be used to sharpen the Poincaré recurrence theorem. This question was part of the motivation for his work with McDuff on packing obstructions.
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My intuition is that Gromov non-squeezing might make the following example work: Start with the stupid example of a sequence of disjoint balls with radius converging to 0, but with infinite volume. Then connect these by very thin tubes (thin in the sense that Gromov's non-squeezing theorem doesn't allow large symplectic balls to pass through them.) – Brett Parker Oct 4 '13 at 5:17
Can I not take the infinite "cylinder" whose metric has decreasing ends as $\sim\frac{1}{ln(r)}$? (and then apply Gromov nonsqueezing) – Chris Gerig Oct 4 '13 at 6:04
@BrettParker and Chris Gerig, I think you are implicitly assuming that because one cannot symplectically displace a ball through a thin tube, one cannot displace a large part of its volume through it. – alvarezpaiva Oct 5 '13 at 21:02
I agree that my suggestion relies on this statement about not being able to pass a large volume of a ball through a thin tube. To me, this statement does not seem to follow from the usual argument for Gromov non-squeezing, and after thinking for a little while, I'm inclined to think that it is false. – Brett Parker Oct 6 '13 at 1:10
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Given a graph $G(V,E)$ whose edges are colored in two colors: red and blue. Suppose the following two conditions hold:
• for any $S\subseteq V$, there are at most $O(|S|)$ red edges in $G[S]$
• for any $S\subseteq V$, if $G[S]$ contains no red edges, then it contains $O(|S|)$ blue edges
My question is: can we conclude from this that the total number of blue edges is linear? I have no strong intuition for this, but it seems that it might be possible (some averaging/probabilistic argument?). To try to give an intuition, we can rephrase it as follows. The red graph is very sparse, even locally. The blue graph is also sparse in all regions that are free of red edges. Due to the sparseness of the red graph those 'regions' are numerous, so we hope this might imply that the blue graph is also sparse.
One can maybe consider first an easier version, if we assume that the red degree of every vertex is $O(1)$. In this case I also don't know the answer.
Note that it's already too weak if we replace the first condition with just: the total number of red edges is linear. Look at the example: a blue $K_{\sqrt n,n-\sqrt n}$ with a red $\sqrt n$-clique added in the corresponding part. This graph has $\Omega(n^{3/2})$ blue edges (example by D. Palvolgyi). We can still ask in this version whether one can do better than $n^{3/2}$.
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4 Answers 4
up vote 12 down vote accepted
I think one can push through the probabilistic arguments of Tim Gowers and Fedor Petrov in the general case, as follows.
Let $c$ be a constant such that the number of red edges in $G[S]$ is at most $c|S|$ for every $S \subseteq V(G)$. One can order the vertices of $G$: $v_1, v_2, \ldots, v_n$, so that every vertex has at most $2c$ neighbors with lower indices. (Define the ordering starting with the highest index. If $v_n, \ldots,v_{i+1}$ are defined, set $v_i$ to be the vertex with the smallest degree in the subgraph induced by the vertices which are not yet indexed. This is a standard trick.)
Now we define a random subset $S$ of $V(G)$ recursively: if $S \cap$ {$v_1, \ldots, v_i$} is chosen put $v_{i+1}$ in $S$ with probability $1/2$ if it is not joined by a red edge to any of the vertices already in $S$, otherwise don't put it in $S$. Then $S$ is red-free and, just as in Fedor's answer, we can see that the probability that a pair of vertices $u$ and $v$ joined by a blue edge both lie in $S$ is at least $2^{-4c-2}$. Therefore the number of blue edges is at most
$2^{4c+2}c' \mathbf{E}[|S|] \leq 2^{4c+1}c'|V(G)|,$
where $c'$ is the constant implicitly present in the condition on the density of the blue edges.
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I think you mean that the probability that both ends of a blue edge are chosen is at least $2^{-4c-2}$, and a complete write-up should also account for the additive constants allowed by big-O notation, but I'm convinced this will work. – Tracy Hall Dec 18 '10 at 23:13
@Tracy: Thank you, corrected $2c$ to $4c$. Additive constants in big-O could be absorbed into multiplicative ones. – Sergey Norin Dec 18 '10 at 23:15
very nice proof! thank you all for combined efforts. – filipm Dec 19 '10 at 9:58
Suppose that the red edges can be written as a union of k matchings, $M_1,\dots,M_k$. Now choose a random set of vertices as follows. For each edge in $M_1$ choose one of its end points randomly. Put in all other vertices with probability 1/2. Then do the same for $M_2,\dots,M_k$. This gives us sets $A_1,\dots,A_k$. Let $A$ be the intersection of these sets. Then each vertex has a probability $2^{-k}$ of belonging to $A$. Also, $A$ contains no red edges. More importantly, given a non-red edge, there is a probability $4^{-k}$ that both its end points belong to $A$. If we choose a random pair in $A$, the probability that it is a blue edge is at most $C/n$ for some $C$. I think (I haven't checked carefully enough to be sure) that this does the bounded-degree case, showing that we have at most $4^kCn$ blue edges. Maybe it even does the general case.
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This certainly does bounded-degree case, since edges of a graph with maximal degree $d$ lie in a union of $d+1$ matchings (it is called Vizing's theorem, $2d-1$ matchings instead $d+1$ is almost obvious). General case may be done, if we replace matchings to trees and then change the probabilistic argument as Sergey suggests: enumerate vertices of each tree by ranges (starting from the root) and take each vertex with probability 1/2 if its (unique) already considered neighbor is not still taken. – Fedor Petrov Dec 19 '10 at 20:52
It is not an answer, but bounded degree case only. If all red degrees do not exceed $d$. choose random (w.r.t. uniform distribution) red independent set $I$. I claim that for each edge $uv$ both $u$, $v$ belong to $I$ with probability bounded from below. Indeed, denote by $N$ the union of $u$, $v$ and their red neighbors. Then if we fix an intersection of $I$ and $V\setminus N$, then conditional probability that $u,v$ both lie in $I$ is at least $1/2^{n}$, where $n=|N|\leq 2d+2$.
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Here are just a couple of ideas (too long to fit a comment window). Let $R_i$ and $B_i$ be the red and the blue degrees of the $i$-th vertex. Take your graph and remove all vertices with $B_i\le MR_i+M$. Take the remaining subgraph and remove all vertices with $B_i\le MR_i+M$ (using the counts in the remaining subgraph, of course), and so on. No matter how many times we go, we remove at most $O(Mn)$ blue edges. If we stop, we have a graph in which each blue degree is at least $M$ times the corresponding red degree plus $M$.
Now arrange the vertices in random order and select the red-independent set as the set of all vertices that preceede all their neighbors in the ordering. Each vertex $i$ will survive with probability $(R_i+1)^{-1}$. Moreover, if $(i,j)$ is not a red edge, then the probability that both $i,j$ survive is at least $\frac12(R_i+1)^{-1}(R_j+1)^{-1}$. This puts the expected number of surviving blue edges at $$\frac 12\sum_{(i,j)\in E_{\text{blue}}}(R_i+1)^{-1}(R_j+1)^{-1}$$ and the expectation of the surviving number of vertices at $\sum_{i}(R_i+1)^{-1}$.
If all degrees are bounded by $K$, then we, clearly, have what we want with much better bound than $4^K$. Unfortunately, if the degrees are unbounded, we still have a problem.
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hmm, why probability that a vertex survives is $(R_j+1)^{-1}$? Is not it $(R_j!)^{-1}$? – Fedor Petrov Dec 19 '10 at 14:40
It just needs to be the first in the ordering, not to dictate the whole ordering. Anyway, this post is obsolete after Sergei's construction (only, of course, the vertex has to be chosen not with probability $1/2$ but with probability $1/c$ or so, so his survial chance for the pair is $(1-1/c)^{4c}c^{-2}\approx c^{-2}$). – fedja Dec 19 '10 at 23:09
oh, indeed (stupid me). I think, polynomial estimate is in general better then exponential, and it may be important in some other applications (say, if red degrees slowly grow). – Fedor Petrov Dec 19 '10 at 23:21
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This may be a fairly simple question. Suppose G is a (T0) topological group. Assume that G is path-connected, locally path-connected, and semilocally simply connected, so that covering space theory applies.
Question: Is it true that for any element of $\pi_1(G,e)$ (where e is the identity element of G), there exists a [ADDED: continuous] homomorphism from $S^1$ to $G$ having that element of $\pi_1(G,e)$ as its homotopy class?
Another way of formulating this is that there is a set map:
$$\operatorname{Hom}_{cts}(S^1,G) \to \pi_1(G,e)$$
The subscript cts is to indicate continuous.
(when G is abelian, the left side has a group structure too [ADDED: under pointwise multiplication], and the Eckmann-Hilton principle tells us that we get a group homomorphism).
1. Is the set map surjective in all cases (regardless of whether G is abelian)?
2. Does the image of $\operatorname{Hom}(S^1,G)$ generate $\pi_1(G,e)$ as a group (this is equivalent to surjectivity when $G$ is abelian)?
3. Does surjectivity work for Lie groups? Compact Lie groups?
4. Does the weaker formulation (2) work for Lie groups?
I have a sketch of an argument/proof that may show (4) (basically, using properties of one-parameter subgroups), but I'm hoping somebody will have a clean proof that works in general for topological groups.
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Do you mean for the homomorphisms to be continuous (stupid question, but necessary). What group structure do you want to Hom(S^1,G)? Don't you get another monoid structure from convolution or similar? (S^1 is compact after all) This would then interact with the monoid structure given by pointwise multiplication, and I'm pretty sure they share the same identity. If interchange holds, then we know that Hom(S^1,G) is an abelian monoid. Whether your map is a homomorphism is an interesting question (to me at least). And as a warning, the proof for (4) will probably fail for Frechet Lie groups ... – David Roberts Jan 14 '11 at 22:49
...as the exponential map g -> G is not surjective on any neighbourhood of the identity. But maybe (2) will spring to your aid in that case. – David Roberts Jan 14 '11 at 22:50
David, thanks for noting the requirement of continuity. I've edited the question accordingly. Indeed, if we don't specify that the homomorphisms are to be continuous, the map to pi_1(G) is not well-defined, so I've added that stipulation. In the case of Lie groups, of course, continuous is equivalent to being smooth and in fact being a one-parameter subgroup that loops back. – Vipul Naik Jan 14 '11 at 22:56
It is probably far from what you're looking for, but you can find counter examples in symplectic geometry. Let $(M,\omega)$ be a symplectic manifold such that $M$ doesn't admit any circle action then there are no homomorphism from $S^1$ to $Ham(M,\omega)$ (the group of hamiltonian diffeomorphisms). However you can find plenty of $4$-dimensionnal example where $\pi_1(Ham(M,\omega)$ is non-trivial (blow ups of $K3$ surfaces for instance). – Noz Jan 14 '11 at 23:11
2 Answers 2
up vote 22 down vote accepted
No. A continuous homomorphism $S^1\to G$ yields a map $BS^1\to BG$. The space $BS^1$ is homotopy equivalent to $\mathbb CP^\infty$. There is a topological group $G$ such that $BG$ is homotopy equivalent to the sphere $S^2$. A map corresponding to a generator of $\pi_1G=\pi_2BG=H_2S^2$ would give an isomorphism $H^2BG\to H^2BS^1$, but this is incompatible with the cup product.
EDIT: This example is universal in the following sense: A standard way of making a Kan loop group for the suspension of a based simplicial set $K$ is to apply (levelwise) the free group functor from based sets to groups. The realization of this is then the universal example of a topological group $G$ equipped with a continuous map $|K|\to G$. Apply this with $K=S^1$.
EDIT: Yes in the Lie group case. It suffices to consider compact $G$ since a maximal compact subgroup is a deformation retract. Now put a Riemannian structure on $G$ that is left and right invariant, and use that the geodesics are the cosets of the $1$-parameter subgroups, and that in a compact Riemannian manifold every loop is freely homotopic to a closed geodesic.
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Is it obvious that "there is a topological group $G$ such that $BGA$ is homotopy equivalent to $S^2?$ – Igor Rivin Jan 15 '11 at 2:01
Not obvious, but it more or less follows from standard things. $G$ can be the realization of a simplicial group: a "Kan loop group" for a simplicial model for $S^2$. I confess that I am ignoring the detail that the realization of a simplicial group is not quite a topological group, because realization is not product-preserving. (Not unless you take products in the compactly generated sense.) But I trust that someone out there can close this gap somehow. – Tom Goodwillie Jan 15 '11 at 2:25
Tom: Thanks for your solution sketch. If you (or somebody else) can fill in the missing details into your main answer, I'll check mark and accept it. – Vipul Naik Jan 15 '11 at 17:50
I find that there is no gap. The realization of a countable simplicial group is in fact a topological group. (They say that for a product of two countable CW complexes the product topology equals the CW topology.) – Tom Goodwillie Jan 16 '11 at 3:34
An alternative argument for the counterexample: Milnor showed that loopspaces are homotopy equivalent to topological groups, so consider $\Omega S^2$. The Pontryagin ring $H_*(\Omega S^2)$ is a polynomial ring on a generator in degree 1, so there can be no H-space homomorphism $S^1 \to \Omega S^2$ inducing an isomorphism on $H_1$. – Allen Hatcher Jan 16 '11 at 22:44
Here's an abelian counterexample: Let $G$ be the following topological group homotopy equivalent (as a space) to $\mathbb RP^\infty$. It is the realization of the simplicial group that corresponds by Dold-Kan to the chain complex in which the only nontrivial chain group, the first, has order $2$. To put it another way, if a group $A$ is abelian then the usual simplicial model for $BA$ is itself a group (in fact, abelian); let $G$ be $BA$ where $A$ has order $2$.
In this topological group, every nontrivial element has order $2$. Therefore there is no nontrivial homomorphism (continuous or not) from $S^1$.
Note that the reasoning here is very different from what it was in my other example. It is not that there is no homotopically nontrivial map $BS^1\to BG$, and it is not (as in Allen Hatcher's comment) that there is no nontrivial $H$-space map (homomorphism up to homotopy) $S^1\to G$.
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Very nice. . – David Roberts Jan 17 '11 at 22:57
Ah, of course! This exponent-2 group was also considered here: mathoverflow.net/questions/43002/… – Todd Trimble Jan 18 '11 at 2:16
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I work in planar algebras and subfactors, where the idea of path algebras on a graph (alternately known as graph algebras, graph planar algebras, etc.) is quite useful. The particular result I'm thinking of is a forthcoming result of Jones and some others; it says that any subfactor planar algebra can be found inside the planar algebra of its principal graph. If you're not into subfactors/planar algebras, the importance of this result is that it says you know a concrete place to begin looking for a particular abstract object.
At Birge Huisgen-Zimmermann's talk on quivers at the AMS meeting at Riverside last weekend, I encountered what seemed to be a similar result: Gabriel's theorem, which says that any finite-dimensional algebra is equivalent (Morita equivalent I think?) to a path algebra modulo some relations. (As far as I can tell, "quiver" is a fancy word for a directed finite graph). I also know, though I don't know why, that path algebras are used in particular constructions in C*-algebras. This got me thinking:
1. What are some other places that path algebras appear, and what are they used for?
2. Why is this idea so useful in these different fields? Is it simply that path algebras are a convenient place to do calculations? Or is there some philosophical reason path algebras are important?
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7 Answers 7
up vote 9 down vote accepted
Yes. It doesn't even have to be finite.
Or is there some philosophical reason path algebras are important?
A huge application of path algebras lately is the path algebra of a quiver of Dynkin type. Following the ideas of Lusztig and Ringel, the representation varieties of these quivers are a main method to categorify quantum groups. A big share of the interest in quivers is either this specific purpose, or generalizations of features of this application. Lusztig's papers on this and his book are a big revelation.
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You also have the rather new field of Leavitt Path Algebras (in which I happen to be working right now), where you take a field $K$ and a directed graph $E$, generate its extended graph $E'$ (add to $E$ its own edges reversed, denoted as $e^*$ for every edge $e$), and compute the Leavitt path algebra of $E$, $L(E)$, as the path algebra $KE'$ modulo some relations called the Cuntz-Krieger relations, inherited from the $C^*$-algebras setting, concretely:
(CK1) $e^* f=\delta_{ef}$ for any two edges $e,f$ of $E'$.
(CK2) $\sum_{e\in s^{-1}(v)}ee^* = v$, for $v$ a vertex which emits a nonzero finite number of edges, and $s^{-1}(v)$ the set of those edges.
(One can look at (CK1) and (CK2) as an abstract generalization of the product of matrix units).
These associative algebras provide us simultaneously with a purely algebraic analog of $C^*$-algebras of graph and a generalization of the Leavitt algebras (some associative algebras which do not satisfy the IBN property).
The theory of LPAs is useful, and even beautiful, because:
• They provide simple, visually attractive representations of well-known algebras.
• They allow us to look at their algebraic properties by means of the combinatorial properties of their associated graphs. This happens to equip us with some rather powerful tools.
• Conversely, they also enable "algebraic engineering", since they give us a straightforward, visual way to construct new algebras, customized with any algebraic or ring-theoretic properties we may desire. For example, we can show an algebra generated by five elements such that it is exchange but not purely innitely simple, by constructing a particular (small) graph with some (easy) graph-theoretic features.
Some references:
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I once mentioned in a talk (to a group of algebraic combinatorialists) that "A quiver is just a directed graph". An audience-member stuck up his hand to say "A quiver is a directed graph with pretensions."
Representation theory of path algebras provides a very useful way to approach cluster algebras, acyclic cluster algebras in particular. Roughly speaking, for acyclic cluster algebras, the cluster variables correspond to the indecomposable modules E which satisfy Ext1(E,E)=0. This answer is connected to Greg's answer (via the connection of cluster algebras to Lusztig's canonical bases).
For me, path algebras of quivers have provided a lovely setting in which to learn about homological algebra, because the objects involved are simple enough that you can understand them quite concretely. (For example: an indecomposable object in the bounded derived category of a path algebra of a quiver without oriented cycles, is a chain which is non-zero in only one degree. Nonetheless, the category still has a lot of non-trivial (triangulated) structure.)
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Can't we just agree that a quiver is the free category on a directed graph? – Qiaochu Yuan Nov 15 '09 at 16:09
I don't think the existence of synonyms is a big problem. Words with multiple conflicting definitions, on the other hand, are annoying. Your proposal fixes a synonym by introducing a conflict among definitions of "quiver". Even if everyone in the world made the change today, there would still be over thirty years of representation theory literature written using the old meaning of quiver. So I don't think your proposed change is an improvement. – Hugh Thomas Nov 15 '09 at 17:10
I guess this is an issue for the nLab: ncatlab.org/nlab/show/quiver – Qiaochu Yuan Nov 15 '09 at 18:34
Actually, the nLab seems to have given up on redefining "quiver". – Hugh Thomas Nov 16 '09 at 3:20
They are also of interest in non-commutative geometry. There is this result "If formally smooth algebras are the non-commutative analogon of manifolds then path algebras of quivers are non-commutative version of affine spaces!" See here:
and here
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I want to say something like, "quivers (with relations) are finitely-generated unital algebras over $k^{\oplus n}$ ", but it's fairly vacuous, and I'm about to head off to the airport, so I don't have time to really think it through.
In physics, that is pretty much the situation once you throw in the word graded (it's easy to prove a version of Gabriel's theorem in this case). Quivers arise when you have a finite set of objects in a (pretriangulated dg-/A${}_\infty$/stable infinity/triangulated/whatever) category of D-branes, and the endomorphism algebra of the sum of these objects is presented as the path algebra of a quiver. If those objects form a nice generator, you get the usual equivalence between the original category and the derived category of quiver reps. The simple reps corresponding to the nodes of the quiver are called "fractional branes" in the physics literature, and the arrows in the quiver correspond to massless string states in the physics (as they are given by Ext^1s b/w the simple reps.)
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One idea comes to mind for number two: Bases! If we have a unital inclusion of finite dimensional semi-simple complex algebras, the isomorphisms with the path algebras fix bases and make our lives easier.
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I'm not sure direct sums of matrix algebras (which, by Wedderburn, is what you're talking about in your answer) are particularly interesting examples of path algebras... – Yemon Choi Nov 14 '09 at 20:55
But I'm generally suspicious of bases ... – Emily Peters Nov 14 '09 at 21:51
@Yemon - they are very interesting indeed. If you are interested in inclusions of finite von Neumann algebras, they are instrumental in calculating the basic construction, conditional expectations, Pimsner-Popa bases, etc. See Jones and Sunder's book Introduction to Subfactors or Goodman, de la Hapre, and Jones' book Coxeter Graphs and Towers of Algebras for all sorts of subfactor applications, including commuting squares, Ocneanu compactness, and more. – Dave Penneys Nov 14 '09 at 21:59
@Dave: I think I am misunderstanding what "path algebra" means, so I need to go and look it up. But you are right (and I was overly glib) in that tracking the inclusions of subalgebras is interesting (cf. Bratteli diagrams) – Yemon Choi Nov 14 '09 at 22:54
I really cannot see how this is an answer to the question. It is rather rare that a path algebra be semisimple: as soon as there is an arrow in the quiver, $Ext^1$ is non-zero... Maybe there are two different meanings of "path algebra" being mixed, but in the context of Gabriel's theorem, a path algebra is isomorphic to a semisimple algebra iff there are no arrows in the quiver. – Mariano Suárez-Alvarez Nov 14 '09 at 23:03
There are applications to physics among these are the quiver gauge theories. Here is one paper on quiver gauge theories:
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Hurwitz' theorem states that for a finite separable morphism $f : X \to Y$ of curves of degree $n$ and with ramification divisor $R$, we have
$2 g(X) - 2 = n (2 g(Y) - 2) + \deg(R)$.
Besides, we have $\deg(R)=\sum_{p \in X} (e_p - 1)$ if $f$ has only tame ramification [Hartshorne, IV, Cor. 2.4]. One of the consequences is $g(X) \geq g(Y)$, which also holds when $f$ is not supposed to be separable [loc. cit. 2.5.4].
One purely algebraic application of Hurwitz' theorem is Luroth's theorem, which states every nontrivial intermediate field of $k(t)$ over $k$ is isomorphic to $k(x)$ over $k$. However, it is easy to give a direct algebraic proof of Luroth's theorem, even if $k$ is not supposed to be algebraically closed (which is probably needed for Hurwitz' theorem). Therefore I wonder if there are other algebraic application of Hurwitz' theorem using the correspondence between curves and function fields.
Question: Are there other interesting algebraic applications of Hurwitz' theorem?
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As far as I remember the Riemann-Hurwitz-formula is used to prove the inequality
$|\mathrm{Aut}(F|K)|\leq 84(g-1)$
for the number of automorphisms of an algebraic function field $F$ of one variable over $K$, where $K$ has characteristic $0$ and $g\geq 2$ holds for the genus of $F|K$.
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Interesting, but is this really purely algebraic? The only definition of the genus of a function field I know is just a disguised version of the geometric definition (mathoverflow.net/questions/152/…). – Martin Brandenburg Apr 18 '11 at 12:29
Martin, your question is fine, but the distinction between "algebraic" and "geometric" is a little subjective isn't it? – Donu Arapura Apr 18 '11 at 12:51
Well, is the genus of a function field as it appears in Felipe Voloch's answer a disguised version of the geometric one? One needs an algebraic theory of algebraic functions which is realized in the form of the field theory of extensions of transcendence degree 1 and their valuation/divisor theory. Of course to prove Hurwitz full result one needs Weierstrass points (valuations) and thus the theory of higher derivatives in function fields, which is an algebraization of parts of analysis. Is it pure algebra then? – Hagen Apr 18 '11 at 13:00
@Donu: You're right, perhaps I mean a statement in algebra which becomes a surprising geometric interpretation. – Martin Brandenburg Apr 18 '11 at 16:55
Notice that $\deg(R)=0$ and $g(Y)=1$ imply $g(X)=1$.
This means that every unramified cover of an curve of genus $1$ is again a curve of genus $1$. Translating into the algebraic language and using the fact that , if $\textrm{char}(k) \neq 2,3$, any curve of genus $1$ has a birational model of the form $y^2=x^3+px+q$, with $4p^3+27q^2 \neq 0$, we obtain the following result:
Assume $\textrm{char}(k)\neq 2,3$ and let $p, q \in k$ with $4p^3+27q^2 \neq 0$. Then every finite, unramified extension of the quotient field of
can be written as the quotient field of
for some $a,b \in k$ with $4a^3+27b^2 \neq 0$.
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On this other thread, about elliptic curves about function fields, the functional analogue of Mazur's theorem was evoked, and described as a simple consequence that the genus of modular curves grows with the conductor. This is indeed an application of the inequality $g(X)\geq g(Y)$ you mention.
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I've casually proved, as application of some ideas that I am developing, a result that might be of interest in itself. I am completely new in this field and then I would like to ask your help to understand: 1) might it be of interest? 2) Is it trivial, in the sense that it can be proved directly? 3) is it well-known?
Let me fix a planar and regular setting, even if I could state the result in more general settings: let $n\geq1$ be a fixed integer and $P=[-n,n]^2\subseteq\mathbb Z^2$. Let me fix the following notation: given $(x,y)\in P$, I will denote by $A(x,y)$ the set formed by the following at most five points: $(x-1,y),(x,y),(x+1,y),(x,y-1),(x,y+1)$, where at most means that if one of those points does not belong to $P$, then I will not consider it.
Now, the situation is the following: for any point $p\in P$, let $\gamma_p$ a walk starting on $p$ and ending on $p^+$. I suppose that: if a walk hits the boundary, then it ends. In particular, if $p\in\partial P$, then $p^+=p$.
Definition: A flow is a family of walks $\gamma_p$, one for each $p\in P$, such that: for all $p\in P$, whenever $q\in A(p)$, then $q^+\in A(p^+)$.
My result would be: Given a flow of walks, there is at least one walk which does not hit the boundary.
I was thinking that it might be useful to prove that some walks are bounded, but I repeat that I am really new in this field.
Every comment is welcome and also references are appreciated.
Thanks in advance,
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In fact, you can prove that $p^+=p$ for all $p$.
Actually, consider the shortest paths from $(-n,-n)$ to $(n,n)$ and from $(-n,n)$ to $(n,-n)$ passing through $p$. Taking `pluses' of them, you should also obtain the paths of the same lengths connecting the same points. Now from the first path you obtain that the sum of coordinates of $p^+$ is the same as for $p$, and from the second path you see that the difference of coordinates is the same for $p$ and $p^+$. Hence $p=p^+$.
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Jesus! I'm doing a mess. It was enough to draw a stupid picture to realize it! – Valerio Capraro Oct 14 '11 at 17:23
I was thinking that actually it would be enough for me that the points on the boundary are mapped bijectively in points on the boundary (veryfying the property in the definition). But probably also in this case the result remains trivial: it seems to me that in this case every square of the shape $[-k,k]^2$ is mapped in itself – Valerio Capraro Oct 14 '11 at 17:32
Well, if your map is a bijection on the boundary, then some two points should come to opposite vertices of the square. Then they should be the vertices themselves, otherwise there would exist a path between them which is shorter than $4n$. Hence it is also a bijection on the vertices, and by the same reasons of the shotrest path the whole map is some symmetry of the square. – Ilya Bogdanov Oct 14 '11 at 17:40
Yes, on the squares everything get very intuitive. Actually my proof would work for more general subsets of $\mathbb Z^2$; intuitively those subsets without holes whose boundary has a hole. Well, maybe I will put it just as a remark. Many thanks for the clarifications. – Valerio Capraro Oct 14 '11 at 21:43
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My car, Megane '98 1.6e Petrol Hatch, started to take a long time to ignite. At first I thought that the fuel does not reach the chambers because I always have to park it in places with big incline, but I think it's actually related to the fact that the engine is cold.
A few months back I had problems with a coil pack. Is it possible that the other one also needs changing?
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What kind of car is giving you issues? – Seminecis Aug 28 '13 at 21:07
Renault Megane '98 1.6e Petrol Hatch – Aleksandar Savkov Aug 29 '13 at 8:37
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up vote 3 down vote accepted
If the other ignition coil went bad it could cause a misfire which could make it hard to start.
It gets fairly cold where I live. One of the first things to check would be your battery. If it doesn't have enough cold cranking amps, either because it is old or because it never had enough, then it can be really hard to start a car in the cold. Also check the battery connections. If they are corroded or loose it will stop the battery from delivering enough starting amps.
The spark plugs can also make it harder to start if they have become worn or fouled. Spark plug wires can also become worn and not allow enough amperage to get a good spark every time.
I suppose you can see there are a lot of things that could be wrong, more than listed here. It's one of those things that you need to start somewhere, the cheap options first, and eliminate issues until you find it.
After you check for corrosion or a loose connection on the battery you can have an auto parts store check your battery and while your there your alternator as well. I suppose the alternator is another thing that might make it hard to start.
The likelihood, though, is that if one ignition coil went out then the other wasn't far behind.
It seems that others have a hard time starting the Megane in the cold as well. See the video: Renault Megane Scenic 1.6e - Hard Cold Start -20 on YouTube. Based on the comments on that video the battery may be underpowered for the cold unless it is at full charge.
-20 C cold start after -25 C night. It started so hard because of short drives (~4km) the day before and the battery is too small for such long and cold starts. But if it is charged after longer drive it can stand -24 from the first time and it did few days ago. And of course, the battery is charging now.
So the battery causing you problems is in the realm of possibility.
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It was the second ignition coil or the leads. I just decided to change both, because the battery was fairly new and the weather was actually hot. – Aleksandar Savkov Nov 15 '13 at 23:09
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autisma also called classic autism or autistic disorderdevelopmental disorder that affects affecting physical, social, and language skills. The syndrome usually appears before three years of age, although the earliest signs are quite subtle.
Autistic children appear indifferent or averse to affection and physical contact, although attachment to parents or certain adults often develops later. Speech develops slowly and abnormally (it is often atonal and arrhythmic) or not at all. It may be characterized by meaningless, noncontextual echolalia (constant repetition of what is said by others) or the replacement of speech by strange mechanical sounds. There may be abnormal reaction to sound, no reaction to pain, or no recognition of genuine danger, yet autistic children are extremely sensitive. Usually the syndrome is accompanied by an obsessive desire to prevent environmental change. Frequently there are also rhythmic body movements, such as rocking or hand-clapping. About 25 percent of autistic children develop seizures by late adolescence.
Estimates of the prevalence of autism range from 10 to 20 per 10,000 children; some 15 to 20 percent are able to become socially and vocationally independent. The disorder is about four times more common in males.
Autism is still incompletely understood. Abnormalities of the brain (particularly in the cerebellum, brain stem, and limbic system) are likely to have occurred during early development. Genetic or environmental influences, a deficiency of large neurons called Purkinje cells in the cerebellum, or an excess of the neurotransmitter serotonin may also cause autism. There is no cure for autism; behavioral or drug therapy may improve some symptoms. People with the condition have a normal life expectancy.
, with an onset of symptoms typically before age three. The term autism (from the Greek autos, meaning “self”) was coined in 1911 by Swiss psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler, who used it to describe withdrawal into one’s inner world, a phenomenon he observed in individuals with schizophrenia. The use of autism to describe the condition as it is known today originated in 1943, when Austrian-born American psychiatrist Leo Kanner distinguished the disorder from schizophrenia.
Classification and incidence
Classic autism, Asperger syndrome, and pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS) are all included within an umbrella of disorders commonly referred to as autism spectrum disorders (ASD). In contrast to classic autism, individuals with Asperger syndrome usually do not possess major cognitive difficulties, and their IQ is in the normal or even high range. In addition, they do not exhibit a delay in language acquisition. Individuals with PDD-NOS exhibit some but not all of the same symptoms as classic autism.
ASDs affect one in every 150 individuals in the United States, and the disorders predominate in males, who are affected about three to four times more often than females. However, the incidence of autism varies significantly between and within countries, which is due in part to differences in the clinical definitions used for diagnosis. For example, in one region of the United Kingdom roughly one in every 185 individuals was found to be affected by an ASD. However, in the same region of the country classic autism was found to range in incidence between one in 250 and one in 400 individuals. In addition, there appears to have been a dramatic increase in the global incidence of autism between the mid-1900s and the early 2000s. However, it is not known whether there has been a true increase in the incidence of the disorder, since the increase could be due to the use of broader diagnostic criteria or other factors.
Causes and symptoms
The cause of autism remains unclear. Based on sibling studies, the disorder is thought to be highly heritable. Scientists have found that a region on chromosome 15 is deleted or duplicated in some children with autism; defects in and near this region have been implicated in other disorders associated with neurobiological development, including Angelman syndrome, Prader-Willi syndrome, and epilepsy. Another proposed cause of autism emerged in the late 1990s, when a suggested association was made between childhood vaccination and autism. This suggestion quickly developed into a controversial issue between parents and the scientific community. However, the scientific evidence, collected from extensive studies investigating the proposed association, does not support a causal relationship.
The symptoms of autism are variable, ranging from mild to moderate to severe in nature. There are three major categories of symptoms: (1) abnormalities in social interaction; (2) abnormalities in communication; and (3) abnormalities in behaviours, interests, and activities, which are usually restricted and repetitive. Social communication problems include a narrow range of facial expressions, poor eye contact during interactions, and difficulty establishing relationships with peers. This may result in a decreased quality of their relationships and can lead to social avoidance when severely affected. Communication problems include delayed or lack of spoken language, poor conversation skills, lack of appropriate developmental play, and diminished gestures. Repetitive behaviour problems include stereotyped motor mannerisms, such as hand flapping, restricted interests, inflexible adherence to routines, and a preoccupation for parts of objects. For example, a child with autism may play with the wheels of a toy car instead of using the car in the proper manner as a vehicle. Some children become obsessed with specific objects such as buttons and sometimes form deep attachments to these objects. In addition, disruption of routines and schedules or familiar surroundings may cause agitation and tantrums.
One striking feature of many young children with autism is an enlargement of head size. In the 1980s information gathered from autopsies of individuals with autism indicated that the brains of people affected by the disorder weighed more than normal. In the early 2000s it was reported that the head circumference of autistic children increased between ages two and four and that this overgrowth was followed by a period of slowed growth, resulting in a normal head size in older children with autism. In some cases, overgrowth is present as early as one to two months following birth. Scientists have hypothesized that this unusual overgrowth pattern may be due to an enlargement of the brain white matter—the nerve fibres that connect one brain area to another.
Studies of the neuropathology of brain structures in autistic individuals have investigated the hippocampus, an area that is important for learning and memory; the amygdala, an area important for fear and emotion; the cerebellum, a motor and cognitive brain region; and the anterior cingulate cortex, a part of the cerebral cortex that is important for social and emotional behaviour. In children affected by autism these brain structures often exhibit increased cell density, with reduced cell size. In addition, the cerebellum typically has a reduction in Purkinje cells, which receive and integrate information from sensory and motor neurons.
A large amount of research has focused on the neurotransmitter systems in autism, and many studies have reported involvement of the serotonin (5-HT) and the inhibitory gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) systems. Early findings of elevated serotonin in the peripheral blood (hyperserotonemia) in many autistic individuals have led scientists to investigate whether similar abnormalities are found in the brain. Although the mechanisms by which the serotonin and GABA neurotransmitter systems contribute to symptoms of autism remain unclear, much evidence has emerged demonstrating that levels of GABA and GABA receptors are altered in many parts of the autistic brain. Key GABA-synthesizing enzymes known as GAD67 and GAD65 (glutamic acid decarboxylase 67 and 65, respectively) have been shown to be altered in specific cerebellar neurons in autism brains. Studies also have shown that between one-quarter and one-third of adolescents with autism have some type of seizure abnormality; this is suspected to be related to abnormalities in the GABA system.
There is no cure for autism, and treatment is mainly directed toward controlling behavioral symptoms. Some children show significant improvements, and the best predictors for future function are typically IQ and language skills, especially in children who acquire language before age five. Early intervention, including promoting language, developing social skills, and regulating behaviour, allow for significant improvement in many children. Pharmacological treatments are directed toward secondary symptoms, such as behavioral problems, anxiety, depression, aggression, and seizures. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), such as fluoxetine (Prozac) and sertraline (Zoloft), have proved successful in helping some individuals overcome secondary symptoms. Clinical trials are being conducted on other drugs that may be useful in the treatment of autism.
Many individuals with autism also experience gastrointestinal problems. Thus, certain therapies are directed toward calming the gastrointestinal tract, which can lead to an improvement in attention and learning in some autistic individuals.
An extensive introduction to autism that includes information on the history, psychology, and neurological basis of the disorder is Uta Frith, Autism: Explaining the Enigma, 2nd ed. (2003). Detailed discussion of the epidemiology, classification, and assessment of autism spectrum disorders is provided in Sam Goldstein, Jack A. Naglieri, and Sally Ozonoff (eds.), Assessment of Autism Spectrum Disorders (2009). A survey of advances in the understanding of the neurological foundations of autism is covered in Steven O. Moldin and John L.R. Rubenstein (eds.), Understanding Autism: From Basic Neuroscience to Treatment (2006). |
Earth-crossing asteroidasteroid whose path around the Sun crosses Earth’s orbit. Two groups of such asteroids—Aten and Apollo asteroids—are distinguished by the size of their orbits and how closely they approach the Sun. The Atens and Apollos cross Earth’s orbit on an almost continuous basis. Astronomers have mounted searches for objects that closely approach Earth, partly to determine whether they may collide with the planet, since early detection might make it possible to avert a catastrophe. According to some estimates, 1,000–2,000 Earth-crossing asteroids larger than 0.6 mi (1 km) may exist. Impacts of 0.6-mi-size asteroids are believed to occur a few times every million years. Such a collision would deliver the explosive force of several hydrogen bombs, possibly resulting in global climate disturbances or huge tidal waves. The impact of an object about 6 mi (10 km) in diameter is thought to have caused a massive extinction of species, including the dinosaurs, at the end of the Cretaceous Period (65.5 million years ago). |
Microsoft Patents A Kinect System That Spies On You
Microsoft has filed a patent application for a system that leverages Kinect as a darker and more Orwellian version of 1984’s telescreen.
“A content presentation system and method allowing content providers to regulate the presentation of content on a per-user-view basis,” Microsoft described the system in the patent application.
The new system takes advantage of Kinect’s image processing capabilities to count the number of people watching and charge them automatically or turn the TV off if the number of viewers exceeds the license they paid for.
“Content is distributed an associated license option on the number of individual consumers or viewers allowed to consume the content. Consumers are presented with a content selection and a choice of licenses allowing consumption of the content. The users consuming the content on a display device are monitored so that if the number of user-views licensed is exceeded, remedial action may be taken.”
The system is also able to detect the viewers’ ages and enforce age restrictions.
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In hackers we trust
This technology will make the paranoid people"you know you pot smokers" refuse to capture such technolgy in a group of people one or two people will quickly find out how faithfull their friends are when the told to get the fuck out.discrimination of our rights freedoms & feelings. Put that in a microwave!! When a new game copy is played, the console ties the game copy to itself by writing its ID on the disc’s RFID tag. When that game disc is inserted into another console, the console’s RFID reader will read that info and refuse to run it. wont it suck when my daughter wants to play a game and because she first installed it on my 60 gig playstation it wont work on the new 500 gig for example. If the use only on the one machine and the "newer one that the allways release a few months l8rz sonys ceo can then suck my lillie white Cock-a-dodol-do. Like come on you put a baby in a microwave What on earth do you think will happen! “As a result,” the hacking has commenced! _________________________________ In hackers we trust;==========
Those assholes never fucking quit do they? I can't believe more of you fucking illiterate deuces aren't pullin' "fuck yous" out all over the place after reading that. Even just patenting it is fucking ridiculous. M$ isn't just a giant corporate con-artist, it wants to be the biggest, if not the only con-artist around. Like no one would hack it. How long was it before Kinect was being used with PCs? Fucking morons never learn. Hence the term moron, I guess.
Just wow...
One day I commented on a post "The Xbox is going down" and now I can say, Microsoft with Windows 8 and Xbox it's going down!! I mean they are copying everyone with everything like, the name for programs "apps" from Apple, touch devices from iPhone and Android, even the store. I don't know what they think the are doing but the moment will come and the people will say "You know, I'll stay with Linux and Apple, and I have clear that almost everything we use it's made in Windows BUT!!, the good Windows... like XP and 7. But that is not a reason to trash yourself and the company.
u must be retarted or some thing, not only microsoft took the touch screen idea, but evrey other companies out there, so shut up, they are made regular standards
Make sure you don't have any
Make sure you don't have any naked children or we might've just scored a wide range of pedophiles watching naked little children. :P It is one thing to be watching naked adults viewing TV, but imagine if it were naked children watching.
Doesn't pass a week without reading something regarding consoles these days. Good thing I'm not into consoles, for me the console era ended with the ps2 and 1st xbox, Now it's just garbage all the way, restrictions, technical problems and even better they want to spy? Oh and about the age restriction thing I played MK2 and Doom when I was 10 years old. To make matters straight: If I want to play in my living room on a big screen I'll just use hdmi from pc and attach a gamepad or cordless keyboard/mouse, I get my games 10euros cheaper than consoles and most importantly, I'm in control of what I own not the other way. Try harder trashsoft.
No big deal...
If you have five folk watching something only for four folk... move the kinect so it wont pick up all five people :P. Or better still... unplug the kinect. M$ cant start forcing you to buy a kinect to watch or play stuff that does not actully require it. Think this is just a random idea they had and patented it just so no one else does it. It does not mean it will ever come to light.
You're probably right about
You're probably right about this idea never seeing the light of day. However you're quite wrong if you think they can't force you to get one. Making an app that requires kinect to be plugged and requires it to see people in order to play the show is quite feasible in the hypothetic scenario that this trash tech were to ever be released. As for pointing it sideways so it sees less people, there are ways to deal with that too such as it keeping an image of your living room and matching it against the background to make sure you didn't just move it sideways.
Perhaps they can force the kinect to do all the things you mentioned, but there are many ways to trick the kinect that I do not think they were serious about it. You can cover it a cloth, you can shine a light to it to make the lense not see well, you can point it somewhere else... it is highly improbable that Microsoft will be able to control all these variables in the near future. If they ever achieve it & enforce it, they would become major dicks and become like Apple: greedy and control sluts. Apple. At this point we only know a patent was filed. My optimistic side likes to believe they just wanted to the first company to register the idea, if this conclusion proves wrong and they enforce that shit, good bye Xbox as a content consumption device. With the many options out there who would stick to that shit to watch movies?
are people actually suprised
are people actually suprised about this? windows has had a backdoor in it for years...and people seem suprised that a company like microsoft would patent something like this? wake up people... and on a side note...regarding owell's telescreen...anyone who thinks that george orwell wrote 1984 from his own imagination needs to pull their head from up their ass. a good place to start would be www dot davidicke dot com
New era of movie going
Maybe they want to bring new release movies to the living room. A concept not too far out if you think about it. Cinemas keep getting costly and if movies can be played directly to your tv on the release day It would be something I see this technology being a part that makes it possible. Making sure that you don't have more people watching than the ones you paid for. And the age things is to keep the politics aspect of it in check. Lets just hope I'm right and on 2013 we can watch new releases at home with way cheaper concessions on our own home theater systems.
I don't see why all of you are bitching over something thats not a requirement to enjoy the xbox, I never plan to ever own a kinect or ever purchase a newer version in the future.
And Apple? Sony? They Control Shit Worst
Meh we do not know Microsoft's purpose with this patent. They could be up to very good innovative ideas that they want to protect. In the other hand, it is Apple that has proven to be a control and money slut. Fan boys never bitch because they are accustomed to Apple control. On the other hand a company known for its flexibility tries to establish something rigid, people will go more ape shit.
It's just disturbing a company would even do something like that. It's just wrong. Charge per user basis, turn off if too many viewers. The hell with it. I'll stop watching shows and owning an xbox if they do that, it's just vile. The humanity is lost with that sort of cold business execution.
Thats one way to hinder your product... lmfao who in there right mind would purchase something that literally WATCHES you and determines wether the amount of people in the room is too many.. waste of tech...
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User[9815934087] was able to ask four spam questions within 45 minutes. How could someone ask that many questions so quickly?
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I remember seeing some spam with "babi ji" and an Indian phone number on SO, not too long back... – Danny Beckett May 22 '13 at 4:09
Its supposed to be 20 minutes according to the rate limiting guide. However the rules might be different on beta sites – FDinoff May 22 '13 at 4:10
meta.stackexchange.com/a/120020/158667 maybe – Mat May 22 '13 at 5:48
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up vote 3 down vote accepted
Mat's comment is correct. The rate limit on new users asking questions isn't enabled on most sites at all.
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Anna isn't this a dupe of that other question then? Maybe not 100% same meaning but the duplicate banner says "This question already has an answer here" so... – Shadow Wizard May 30 '13 at 6:43
@ShaWizDowArd I'm not a fan of dupe closures like that. The same answer doesn't mean the questions are the same. – Anna Lear May 30 '13 at 14:20
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One of the things that really bothers me lately about SO is the preponderance of crappy questions. People, especially new users, consistently fail to:
• Provide enough information to figure what they're trying to do
• Indicate what part of the problem is confusing them (e.g., is it null-terminated strings or nested for loops?)
• Indicate what they tried already (seen often in a comment: I tried x library already, but its implementation of SVD is too slow for my dataset)
• Indicate their level of proficiency
• Provide feedback of any kind (upvotes for those who are on the right track, best answers to those who answered the question)
Often, it seems like other SO users take this as an opportunity to punish users, with downvotes and snarky comments. This is an old old old thread in programming & nerd culture where we simply are not very friendly to the very new and very naive.
One thing that I think would help would be a notice on the ask a question page that gives some tips for asking a good question. Sort of like a very succinct how to ask questions , but directly on the "ask" page. The important part of it being on that page is that new users are unlikely to know about or look for FAQs.
The important point here is that just because someone starts off as a crappy, or not very involved user doesn't mean they need to stay that way. If users find that this website is helpful and friendly, even the crappiest of users can turn into great contributers. The payoff is that we build a healthier community, with a higher quality level discourse. We just have to help new people get started.
First Meta post, so I hope I'm doing this right
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Reminder: this is why, when you see a good question by a new user, you should vote it up!
In my experience, well asked questions are rare, and well asked questions from new users should be cherished like freakin' diamonds!
These are the kinds of users we want on the site, those that can ask questions in a reasonable way. So please vote up GENEROUSLY questions that are clear, readable, and make sense!
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+1 good answer by newb – Greg Hewgill Oct 6 '09 at 6:45
What about the other kind of questions? Questions so bad, you can't even edit anything out of them... What do we do about them? Downvotes should play a bigger role in this. If after asking more than 5 questions you haven't learned anything, there should be a much higher penalty than just -2. Will -5 for a downvote ever be implemented? – alex Oct 6 '09 at 7:29
This is fine, and I do, but we also have a responsibility to create the community we want, and I think we can do better. – notJim Oct 6 '09 at 8:15
@Jeff Atwood I know the question; I'm just eager to see it implemented. – alex Oct 6 '09 at 8:17
The vast majority of the time I see new users setting themselves up for failure, the SO regulars are reasonably helpful. Within a minute or two, someone will edit the question for readability and at least one comment of "we need x information to answer your question". The occasional snarky comment, but just a bit of fun - when balanced with actual helpful answers, nothing that would scare a user away. There are a few with a bit of a sour attitude, but for the most part I just don't see this among the high-rep users. So I guess I'm saying, where are you seeing this?
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There are no hapless newbies on SO. The Stack Overflow policy is clear: everyone gets a hap. Now, that's not to say that some users don't waste their haps, pissing them away like so much cheap beer... but there's really not much that can be done about that.
Hap firmly in hand, the new SOistani faces much the same challenge in asking his question that he would face anywhere else: figuring out what it is he's actually trying to do, and then finding a way to effectively communicate this to an unknown population of readers. All the haps in the world won't make this any less difficult... some will manage, some won't. And so it goes...
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It's not so much that everyone gets a hap - it's that the haps are there if you go looking for them. Granted they aren't hard to find, but by putting extra help for new users on the ask-a-question page, we are basically handing out the haps at the door when you arrive, so there's no possible way to miss it, unless you purposefully reject it (in which case, you probably deserve your downvotes). – notJim Oct 6 '09 at 8:17
Sturgeon's Law applies to communications skill as well as anything else. Most people (even most perspective programmers) are rotten communicators, and many will never invest the effort required to become mediocre at it.
If you present the user with too much text on the "Ask a Question" page, they'll just ignore it. Read the caption on the entry areas and go about their business.
So this suggestion, while not bad, will likely have a minor effect.
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Perhaps we can give the newbie some more tips other than suggesting they read the FAQ. Perhaps while they are composing their first question, we can give them a link (in a very large font!) to How to Ask Questions the Smart Way. This link could also be repeated if their questions are getting downvoted.
I'm picturing some sort of animated bouncing animated pony with a text bubble: "You seem to be having trouble. Why don't I help you ask your question better? -- TheXXI"
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This user http://stackoverflow.com/users/164299/rachel continually posts questions. Just to absorb the contents of the questions she has already asked would take a year or more I think. And yet the questions keep popping up: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1653405/books-on-portal-developments. I don't think she is actually reading the answers but just asking lots of questions for getting the reputation points.
Does anything need to be done about such a person, and if so, what?
Postscript: In response to some people who replied to this question, I'd like to point out that a lot of Rachel's questions are not only downvoted but also deleted/closed/disappearing. There are fifteen pages of questions, and only six pages of these have even one upvote. There are three pages of downvoted questions, and I don't know how many pages of deleted questions.
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There are far worse users. The worst case had 400+ questions and 1 answer. Literally. 1. – Super Long Names are Hilarious Oct 31 '09 at 5:15
If the questions are pointless, then downvote them – Casebash Oct 31 '09 at 5:22
6 Answers 6
Be sure to flag anything particularly egregious for moderator attention. That's by far the most effective way to deal with this, or any other anomalous activity in the system.
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In this case, though, the problem is the pattern of questions, so since the individual questions seem somewhat reasonable, it is difficult to point to a particular question and call in the cavalry. – delete Nov 1 '09 at 2:01
I think you just flag one of them and say "this user is a content-free question spawn", and the mods will go find the others and confirm the pattern. – womble Nov 25 '09 at 18:04
Does it really matter whether the user is interested in the answers or not? The user responds to comments and comments on answers, and generally seems to interact reasonably well. The questions are mostly useful (at least the community thinks so, having voted accordingly). If you're the sort of person that prefers answering things (as most of us are), it can seem kind of annoying that you can get this much rep simply from asking questions, but that's how the system works. This user is acting completely reasonably within the rules of the game.
I see no problem here.
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Actually I think you need to look at the tail end of those questions. Also, a lot of her questions get deleted. – delete Oct 31 '09 at 6:28
+1. The fact that comments gets answered speaks against rep-whoring. OTOH, I have no idea why he is re-asking questions with slight variations all the time. – innaM Oct 31 '09 at 9:37
"The fact that comments gets answered speaks against rep-whoring." - does it? Why? "I have no idea why he is re-asking questions with slight variations all the time" - Maybe because he is trying to get lots of reputation points. What else can you make of all those questions? – delete Oct 31 '09 at 11:00
@Kinopiko: Could you provide some specific examples? I had a quick look but am not seeing the issue. Although a lot of the questions are of the 'touchy-feely' variety, the user has asked some IMO genuinely useful questions, e.g.: stackoverflow.com/questions/1514707/… – ire_and_curses Oct 31 '09 at 19:29
The issue is the number of questions and their vague nature. – delete Oct 31 '09 at 23:43
As I said in the discussion about Shore, I'm not convinced that these users are in it for the rep. These users don't appear to make use of their abilities (although Rachel has performed edits, rollbacks, and voted) in any real capacity; they instead seem to view SO as their "special trick" for doing and keeping their jobs. Many of Rachel's questions seem worded exactly as they would come assigned from a project manager.
This keeps coming up time and time again. We need a clear way to tag problem users as "not community friendly" and "does not ask questions well". The most obvious way to deal with them is to ignore them, but that means that everyone needs to ignore them. But in a large community there is always going to be someone who will feed the troll, and that's what they count on. They keep coming back with their lame questions because someone is going to answer them and essentially do their jobs for them, because we're cheap rep whores who like answering questions.
I think "beggar" is a more appropriate term for these people. It accurately describes what they are doing: feeding off of the community's good will and giving nothing in return. Once one person catches on to their tactics, there are still ten more well-intentioned people standing behind who are ready to take on feeding the beggar for a while. It's time to say no more.
PS. See also this excellent article about Help Vampires, courtesy of Sam Hasler's post on a similar thread.
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Pretty sure it's a guy (Raj Shharma) using a female name. That gender flip is done to both soften any kind of land rush of finger pointing for endless and pointless questions and also as an attention and rep-whore tactic.
Can't do much about gaming the males of the site in that way.
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I'm not in a position to complain about that. You'd think he'd set up with a nice picture of a pretty girl then, if that is his tactic. – delete Oct 31 '09 at 6:30
That superuser account now has the name "Rachel" on it too. – Ether Oct 31 '09 at 17:57
This isn't the first time that's happened. I remember a fellow with an Iranian name and location who then switched to "Johanna" of "Dallas, Texas". – mmyers Oct 31 '09 at 20:04
I try to help give suggestions to this user as to how to better ask questions, or to edit the questions to get better information, as I frequently start off a response with the fact that this question is overly broad.
Unfortunately some people do have a hard time knowing how to ask questions, and hopefully this user will learn, but I don't see a problem with the questions, as the answers may be a useful start to others, and perhaps can serve as an example of how not to ask questions.
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There's no problem in user asking many questions, no matter if for reputation or not, as long as this question are:
• unique - they are not the duplicates of existing questions
• with relevant title - so that the title will say what is the question about and will be the phrase normally typed by people searching for the same problem
• good writter - the meaningfull description of the problem
Such questions will increase our knowledge base, even if they are trivial. Assuming the points above, search engine will direct to them only the people who are searching answers to such trivial problems. Some of them will stay, because they would like the portal where they can find answers to their questions, no matter if trivial or not.
The problem is with questions poor written, but they can be dealt with flags or downvotes.
But the real problem, in my opinion, is something not mentioned here:
accepting wrong answer. This is the worse thing IMHO that user can do: because this will mislead other users searching for help and this can distract them from StackOverflow much more than poorly written questions.
There is a popular saying among Polish academics:
there are no stupid questions, there are only stupid answers
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There are absolutely stupid questions. Mostly when the asker is too lazy to do any work. – Jeff Atwood Jun 15 '12 at 11:38
The kind of person who says that saying probably also says "the customer is always right"... – AakashM Jun 15 '12 at 12:27
You're right, there are no stupid questions. Just a lot of inquisitive idiots. – Al E. Jun 15 '12 at 13:32
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This would probably be a difficult feat, but could we have a badge for winning your own bounty? Maybe something along the lines of "Self-Poacher".
Would anyone even qualify for the badge right now?
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Two possible reasons: 1. You found the answer yourself some time after offering the bounty. 2. You want that self-poacher badge. – Lars Haugseth Jul 7 '09 at 14:16
It could be this one or another related to bounties, but we definitely need a "Boba Fett" badge. – toast Jul 7 '09 at 17:18
What can stop someone from putting out a fat bounty, getting the right answer from someone, then saying that they found the answer themselves? I say once the bounty is offered they shouldn't get it back..at least if someone else voted up an answer. – User1 Jul 24 '09 at 15:50
@Lars 3. Someone running sock puppets who outvoted everyone else. It has and does happen .... – demongolem Aug 10 '12 at 19:52
3 Answers 3
Since you can't accept your own answer to a bounty question, I assume you mean "your own answer is the highest-voted answer at the end of the week."
Would you get half your bounty points back, in that case?
Badge is an interesting idea, though.
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Yes, that is what I mean. Has there been an instance of this? – AlbertoPL Jul 7 '09 at 15:13
You should be a be to recall a bounty you put out, if you figured out your problem, but I don't think doing that should be rewarded with a badge.
To kind of steal from one of Joel's comments in an early podcast, I don't think Napoleon would have given you a little piece of colored cloth for doing this.
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recalling a bounty can be seen as bait and switch for those 'bounty hunters' out there. I say take the loss... but what if your own boring question has an answer you like but never gets an upvote? – ericslaw Aug 26 '09 at 21:35
If there were methods to define your own private badges, you could do that and still be hidden from the others - if that makes you happy. In general, the ability to have your own near-real-time metrics about your performance might be an interesting thing too.
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Just search "skepticism", "French", or "Spanish" on Area51. Each has at least two identical or nearly-identical proposals (and both Skepticism ones are on the verge of entering the commitment phase). They all have comments referencing their twin, but so far nothing seems to have been done to actually merge them.
Is it better to "pick a winner" and follow it (hoping to divert the split attention), or just go with the flow and follow both? What happens if both start up?
Some links:
Skeptic Exchange (though this one was created later, it was proposed by the existing SE 1.0 site at http://www.skepticexchange.org)
English/French Translation
French-English Exchange
Here are a few Spanish ones, too, though you could easily argue their exact purposes may be different enough to warrant them not being merged:
Spanish Translators
English to Spanish and Spanish to English Translation
Spanish Language and Usage (this one seems more akin to the English Language & Usage site for grammar geeks rather than a multi-lingual resource)
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1 Answer 1
up vote 2 down vote accepted
Some of those proposals that are duplicates are in the process of being closed. What I would suggest is seeing which one was created first and following that one.
The others are likely to be closed as duplicates. In fact, if you supply me with links, I'll cast some close votes for obvious dupes.
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Sure thing. For the sake of formatting and sanity, I'll edit them into my question. – keithjgrant Aug 26 '10 at 16:15
There. I voted to close a couple of those. – uɐɯsO uɐɥʇɐN Aug 26 '10 at 16:31
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I've always been impressed with StackOverflow's cache: it seems to strike a perfect balance between snappiness and sensibility.
Which of the half-dozen* cache invalidation strategies promoted by Microsoft does StackOverflow use? I personally would love to hear a 2-3 sentence summary from a member of the team, and I imagine it would be instructive to a lot of people building sites on the MSFT stack.
*Okay, maybe I exaggerate.
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This question may be relevant to the question here: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/110320/… – Norman H Dec 16 '11 at 17:15
2 Answers 2
up vote 10 down vote accepted
One thing we do
• Key: the hash of the SQL, combined with a string name
• Value: the List<int> of ID numbers returned by the search
There's your key-value pair, and that is placed in HttpRuntime.Cache
Views take those list of IDs and hydrate the rest of the row / table values depending on what page they are on, etc.
We do both sliding cache (re-validated every time it is used) or fixed time expiration, depending on what is needed.
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I thought you were using LINQ... are you getting the generated SQL somehow? – WildJoe Jul 30 '09 at 7:26
So, no explicit invalidation? Just expiration? I thought for sure the site used some kind of invalidation, but I guess I've just gotten lucky. Anyways, many thanks for the reply. – Portman Aug 6 '09 at 3:35
@WildJoe, you can get the SQL from your DataContext. msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/… – Portman Aug 6 '09 at 3:36
I would assume it uses one of the cache validation strategies that the MVC framework uses. Although this site was built when the MVC was in beta, so they may have their own solution.
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The question: Do you find stackoverflow useful in your daily development work ? Do you want to actively contribute to keep stackoverflow's content top-notch ? If yes please read on.
The problem: The right answer (which just happens to be my answer in this case) for a very important question on this thread gets no justice and is being downvoted for appearance rather then content, while a very wrong answer is climbing up. The problem is that it will eventually contribute do the 'creation' and 'nurturing' of many bad developers if it stays the way it is (having a very wrong answer as an accepted top answer) as its nearly as important as the 'What is the base type for all .Net classes ?' question.
What you can do: If you feel any responsibility towards stackoverflow for all the hours of work it has saved you and you want to contribute to help create more quality developers rather then bad developers you can visit the thread(http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4240438/what-are-the-most-used-interfaces-in-c) and: 1)Upvote the question 2)downvote the highest answer 3) Give a few votes to my answer so at least its not perceived as wrong answer as its currently bellow 0 (was above but got downvoted by some people)
If you do that, you can go to bed today feeling good that you have contributed in a good meaningful way to a good cause, if not then thanks for looking anyway.
thanks, ivo
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migrated from stackoverflow.com Nov 22 '10 at 0:37
This question came from our site for professional and enthusiast programmers.
closed as not constructive by Pëkka, Rosinante, Joel Spolsky Nov 22 '10 at 2:45
As the close votes indicate: this is belongs on Meta. – Alastair Pitts Nov 22 '10 at 0:33
No. This belongs nowhere. – SLaks Nov 22 '10 at 0:34
@Slaks: Actually yes, now that I read what the OP is complaining about (the linked question), then yes, I agree. This doesn't belong anywhere. – Alastair Pitts Nov 22 '10 at 0:37
Unlike your answer, the accepted answer is correct and sensible, and should not be downvoted. – SLaks Nov 22 '10 at 0:41
If you dont like it, dont answer questions. I was annoyed when people repeat my answer several mins later in their own words that i decided there really is no point and often there are more qualified ppl so i just read and learn instead. – acidzombie24 Nov 22 '10 at 0:41
In your opinion, IList is very important. That's fine, but the whole world does not have to agree 100%. For my part, I understand IList, I've used it in Reflection code, but I believe that INotifyPropertyChanged and IEnumerable<T> are far more important in modern code. Your insistence that you have the One True Answer, and that everyone else is stupid, is not earning you any positive reputation. – Joe White Nov 22 '10 at 0:46
4 Answers 4
Your answer is neither correct nor the right answer for the question.
The non-generic collection interfaces and classes should be viewed as a relic from 2003 and avoided at all costs.
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I disagree with "avoided at all costs"; they can be quite convenient when you're writing things like extension methods or Reflection code. – Joe White Nov 22 '10 at 0:40
@Joe: Extension methods should extend generic interfaces and have generic parameters (like LINQ does). You're right, though, that the non-generic interfaces are useful for data-binding. – SLaks Nov 22 '10 at 0:45
However, ArrayList should be avoided at all costs. – SLaks Nov 22 '10 at 0:45
Again, I don't know about "all costs". You could be using third-party code that was written for .NET 1.x. But something is horribly wrong if someone writes new code using ArrayList. – Joe White Nov 22 '10 at 0:57
@Joe: OK, they should be avoided at most costs. Is that better? :-) – SLaks Nov 22 '10 at 0:57
This is off-topic in Meta :) – belisarius Nov 22 '10 at 2:29
I have up voted you because I believe you need a hug and I believe some other people are down vote happy.
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If you want to vote him up, at least vote on an answer which is factually correct. Not that one. – SLaks Nov 22 '10 at 0:38
Excellent, can I get a few more down votes, I'm trying to get to -10. – theJerm Nov 24 '10 at 17:39
From where I sit the problem is that you're using `backticks` for your section headings, which makes no sense.
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This is a comment, not an answer. – XMLbog Nov 22 '10 at 17:11
Communications skills.
Learn 'em, love 'em, live 'em.
In every aspect of your life you will be judged by your ability to communicate with people, and that includes not annoying your audience. Your answer is more than a little annoying, and your audience rebelled. Too bad, but you earned it.
And it is not like you hadn't been warned. I told you that style was annoying just the other day. You blew me off.
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This reminds me of another user who would hammer me with a dozen comments to remove my (imperfect) answer to a question, while his - correct - answer was already upvoted, generally recognized as correct, and accepted. For so long that in the end, I decided to leave it in place out of pure spite. The guy even E-Mailed me about it. Geez. Excellent answer @dmckee, +1. – Pëkka Nov 22 '10 at 1:06
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