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Nowadays, virtual reality technologies are able to generate realistic images of virtual scenes. The next step towards increasing the level of reality is the intuitive manipulation of objects in a virtual scene, while feeding back haptic collision information to the human user.
The telepresence and virtual reality group of the German Aerospace Center develops haptic rendering algorithms that enable such realtime virtual reality manipulation scenarios. The user can manipulate complex virtual objects via our bimanual haptic interface HUG; whenever objects collide against each other, the user perceives the corresponding collision forces. A use case is given in the following car part assembly video.
In contrast to visual rendering, which only requires update rates of at least 30Hz for smooth visual feedback, haptic signals must be updated at a challenging rate of 1000Hz to obtain stable and realistic haptic feedback. We use an algorithm based on two data structures: voxelized distance fields (voxmaps) and point-sphere hierarchies (pointshells). Our work is inspired by the haptic rendering approach introduced by the Voxmap-PointShell (VPS) Algorithm, which allows for realtime collision feedback even with objects consisting of several millions of triangles.
By using virtual reality scenarios with such haptic rendering technologies it is possible, for instance,


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Simon Foster: It'll be easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy.
Toby Wright: No, it's going to be difficult-difficult-lemon-difficult.
— In the Loop
The great challenge of MMOs has always been to get massive amounts of people all playing together happily.
- That means people from different cultures, timezones, and with different amounts of time to play: Hello 24/7 servers.
- That means people who want to do different types of content: Hello PvE, PvP, crafting, questing
- That means people who want to play together or separately: Hello instancing, solo content, raiding
- It means people with different playing styles: Hello multiple classes and roles
So it's no accident that these games are so large and sprawling. Their core mission requires a smorgasbord of gaming, something for (almost) everyone. And in a macrocosm of the WoW random group finder, for people to have a good chance to find others who want to play with them, the game needs as many active players as possible. The alternative strategy is to go with a more focussed game, offer less choice, and cater to the core player base. But that's not quite so massive.
But the great step forwards in game play in current gen MMOs has been all about the difficulty. What do you do when you have players who enjoy different amounts of difficulty in your game? How can it be fun for the min/maxing hardcore as well as the guys who just want to log in and chill out when they get back from work? And what does it mean if making the game easier also makes it more popular?
Difficulty in CRPGs
Difficulty in MMOs is a moving target. In a traditional open world computer RPG the player always has the option to go away and level up by killing wandering monsters and taking their loot, and then coming back later. If a challenge is too hard, you have a choice. Either try to figure out a better strategy, or go away and come back later when you are more powerful or have more friends. And both of these are valid strategies. That's why you don't need a difficulty setting. The player always gets to choose.
The whole genre is based around the idea that characters progress over time. The challenges generally do not.
So even in a typical MMO, the game gets easier over the course of an expansion. It gets easier because players get tougher, even if devs never tweak the earlier encounters at all. It must get easier because players like to see how much better their characters are after a month of play, so that they can feel there was some value to the effort. That's what character progression means.
Which is a long way to say that we want our RPGs to get easier as characters progress, otherwise why bother with progression at all? We want raid encounters to be challenging at first and then move to farm status as we learn them and get geared up. We want to be able to go back and solo low level instances. We want to be able to easily gank lower level players on our more experienced/geared mains. Because if you can't, what is the point?
The game also traditionally provides new and tougher challenges as the character progresses. Sometimes they are actually harder, sometimes the difficulty just scaled with the gear. (For example, Yogg-Saron will always be a trickier execution fight than Lord Marrowgar, even in full ICC gear.) And that's fine. If difficulty genuinely kept scaling then people would have to drop out as they reached their own personal limit. Players can't handle infinitely increasing difficulty, it would make no sense.
The more difficult the group content, the more players are forced to socialise with others based on their difficulty preferences. If you want to do hard mode raids, you probably need to be in a hardcore raid guild who will demand 100% dedication because they're hardcore (duh). If you want to do hardcore raids occasionally because you enjoy the difficulty but not more than once a week, you may be out of luck. Or at least, you'll have the challenge of finding people who are hardcore enough to like the difficulty but not so hardcore that the want to raid more, play more, and min-max more than that.
Difficulty in group content leads to a kind of race to the bottom, with players pressuring each other to spend more time, optimise more, grind more, and so on. None of which is necessarily going to satisfy someone who just likes intricate fights.
Difficulty and Immersion
As soon as you have to stop and wonder about whether your character's talent traits are sufficiently optimised, then immersion is broken. Thinking about game mechanics or the metagame while you play will drag you out of the virtual world faster than just about anything except a cat on the keyboard.
A large part of why I loved Dragon Age, for example, is that I could play on easy mode and make all my decisions based on my interactions with the world and plot and it wouldn't break my game. I could pick spells because I thought they were thematic for my character, I could screw people over and it wouldn't stop me getting to the end. For those reasons, it was immersive in the non-combat sections.
So it isn't surprising that a lot of players balk at being told to go look up spreadsheets and long lists of BIS (best in slot) gear and complex rotations. These things are not easy to work out for yourself in game. They don't add difficulty, just tedium and they take you out of the game world while they do it. Also, looking at a loot list is functionally identical to having a button to press in the game that says 'Where should I go next to get a better hat?'
The difficulty of reading a class thread on a bulletin board is passing the mental barrier that says, "Why should I have to spend ages researching this?" It's a good question. Looking up strategies doesn't add difficulty.
The idea behind having talent choices and loot choices is that they should be true player choices. Immersive play requires that there are no truly bad choices, only different ones. Then players are free to customise their characters based on their gaming and aesthetic preferences.
None of this would stop someone from playing badly, having poor reactions, not paying attention, or being an arse. It would take out a lot of the complexity, but since even hardcore players tend to look up the optimal gear and rotations anyway, they clearly prefer to skip the complexity also.
Easy to learn, hard to master
There is a lot more to be said about difficulty in MMOs and why it's being such a tough nut to crack. The RPG genre has traditionally not had formal difficulty settings because the player could effectively do that by coming back later when they had more gear. Forcing people to figure out complex mechanics acts directly against the idea of an immersive virtual world.
The game side of the MMO simply runs counter to the virtual world side. This is another strong trend in current gen MMOs.
And even from a gameplay point of view, making the game easier, more intuitive, more forgiving, and more accessible has been a great success for WoW. On the other hand, will players also get bored more quickly? That's something we'll see over the coming months leading up to Cataclysm. I think we're seeing the start of it now – I already sidelined my death knight for example; she's fun, but now that she is geared and I've seen a few raids, there's no great challenge left.
So what was that big leap forwards again? Devs have a much better understanding now of how gameplay works in MMOs. We're seeing better designed and tuned games now, where the previous ethos was to plop people into the virtual world and see what happened.
And somewhere along the line, everything that has been learned about making accessible games more fun will also be used to make difficult games more fun. It's not a bad thing for games to cut out the needless cruft of pointless complexity and timesinks, if they can replace it with something equally absorbing (but more fun than poking at spreadsheets).

subset: commoncrawl


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Thursday, 10 March 2011
Perfect Integration 6 - Common language: syntaxes
In the previous posts I explained semantics, syntax, and the fastest, cheapest and easiest way to get from diverse IT applications to one uniform business language. This post will take a deep dive into message formats such as Flat file, EDIFACT, XML and JSON
Ever wondered about the pros and cons of XML? JSON? What it is really? What other possible message syntaxes are?
When semantics and a logical structure has been defined, and functional groups and fields have been identified, just about any message format can be chosen.
Choosing message formats (or rather, predefining them) is a rather pragmatic measure that narrows down the margin for discussion when it comes to choosing a form for your common language
Message formats can be divided into two characteristics: length and dimension.
Length can be fixed-width or delimited, and dimension can be are horizontal or vertical. Basically, that's all there's to it
Fixed-length messages have records and fields, containing the information, that have a fixed width. The same type of information will always be found at the same location (position) within a record or field. Fields not fully used (the information in it is physically shorter than the maximum length of the field allows for) will be filled with spaces or zeroes, depending on the data type of those fields.
E.g. An empty record consisting of 5 fields, with a total length of 500 characters, will always be 500 characters long.
Delimited or variable-length messages have records and fields, containing the information, that have a delimited width. All records and fields are delimited by so-called delimiters, i.e. commonly defined characters that indicate the end of a record or field.
The same type of information will always be found after the same delimiter. Fields not fully used (the information in it is physically shorter than the maximum length of the field allows for) will be just totally empty
E.g. an empty record consisting of 5 fields, with a total length of 500 characters, will always be 5 characters (delimiters) long.
Horizontal messages look much like traditional files: fields within a record are found at the same line, one after another. This message format is the most common and resembles files or database-tables
Vertical messages look much like a single-row table: fields within a record are found each at a new line, one line after another. This format is not widely used but solves the fixed-width problem in an easy way: each field starts on a new line, preceded by a so-called "tag" that identifies the function of the field. The field ends when the last character on that line is encountered
Nowadays EDIFACT is the most common language used, mainly for its global approach, broad business document standards (over 200 different functional messages) and the fact that its delimited type allows for minimum message size. It is in existence since 1986, and evolved on ANSI X12 (1979). ANSI X12 is in use in the United States, whereas EDIFACT is widely used in the rest of the world
XML was gaining grounds, but due to lack of standards, and the fact that it is an unlucky combination of a delimited interface with fixed-width field names it will not play a large role any time soon, unless it is pushed and supported by organisations such as the UNECE. Evangelising Web Services as having to be encapsulated in XML however have sped up the evolution of it.
Additional push is delivered by most new applications offering XML-support nowadays when it comes to disclosing information.
A general pull is delivered by Google, Twitter and Facebook moving away, or having moved away already, from the format. Facebook is on the verge of doing so, Google never has used XML, and Twitter deprecated its use last year. Both Twitter and Facebook have embraced JSON, a far more simple and concise message structure that serves the same purpose
IDOC is a standard invented by SAP that is just a simple fixed-width interface, however supported by large organisations. Needless to say, however, that as SAP-implementations differ all over the world, so do the iDOCs
Information exchange via physical files goes back decennia. A decade ago links started being made via COM, CORBA, DCOM etc, during which information wasn't exchanged between systems via physical messages but via memory objects.
This in fact meant that applications were tightly coupled via a virtual point-to-point interface. Development and maintenance of such solutions has proven to be (much) too expensive
There's a lot of talk about loosely-coupled things these days: the ancient hard-coupling (point-to-point interfacing, COM, CORBA, etc) appeared to be very time-consuming and costly with regards to development and maintenance
Nowadays it's architects that use the term loosely-coupled: some of them think that applications should be loosely-coupled towards the architecture, instead of vice versa. These never are business-architects, but IT-architects. Business architects know that applications change at high speed, and that -fast changing- business needs should be supported by IT, being able to move in or out applications or systems when need be - the European Parliament approach as sketched in the previous post
Loosely-coupled means that applications and systems should plug in and out of the enterprise almost overnight. Plugging in an application should happen as fast and cheap as possible. Regard it as just another politician speaking in Brussels: just another (relatively cheap) translator has to be found, after which business can continue as usual
So, applications must always speak their native language. This is the most simple and cost-efficient idea, leaving the application to do what it's best at: provide functionality. The translator will provide its own specialty, which is translating messages from any language into any other language - the common language that serves your company as a uniform, tool- and platform independent business language that is relatively timeless and understandable to all
For an Oracle Siebel CRM application this usually means speaking Siebel XML, for SAP this usually means speaking iDOC; a mainframe will feel most comfortable with fixed or delimited flat files, etc.
If you visit China, you'll talk Chinese, in Greece it's Greek, and when wanting to speak English you better distinguish between UK English, US English, Australian English or, what is generally in use in social media networks: global English
This was the deep dive into messaging formats, concluding the information exchange form: messaging. Now let's resurface and address the information exchange method: transportation
Labels: 24/7/365, A2A, adapt, application development, Architecture, B2B, B2C, EAI, EDI, EDIFACT, enveloping, ESB, guaranteed delivery, Integration, maturity, messaging, standardisation, transactions
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The Joy of Cooking Invasive Species
Slogging across the damp flats of Siletz Bay at low tide, Tamara Mullen scans the sand for air holes. She finds a congregation of little cavities, about as wide as pencils, and starts digging. The pit instantly fills with seawater. Dropping to her hands and knees, she gropes in the cold brine for her prey: the purple varnish clam. This mussel is mild-tasting, plentiful—and an alien intruder taking over the bay.
Native to Japan and Korea, purple varnishes arrived here thanks to freighter ships dumping ballast water. They are among hundreds of invasive plants and animals defiling our ecosystems and leeching public resources—for example, 21 particularly noxious plant species cost Oregon $125 million every year. Oregon eaters long ago embraced evangelical dining, the sacraments evolving from organics to ethical proteins to local "foodsheds." So perhaps it's no surprise that Mullen has a plan: If you can't beat 'em, eat 'em, starting with purple varnish chowder.
"Food brings people together," the outreach specialist for Corvallis's Institute for Applied Ecology says, "and eating invasives is a fun way to spark a conversation."
With every good Portland restaurant earnestly identifying the source of its hand-harvested microgreens and even Chipotle extolling its "farmed friendly" burritos, once-cutting-edge foodie ideals now seem blasé. Mullen's clam hunt points to a new frontier: Oregon chefs, scientists, and backyard tinkerers are cooking nuisance species and experimenting with novel forms of urban "farming." Remember the backyard chicken craze of 2008? Get ready for nutria kebabs, backyard-raised bluegill, and a whole new definition of "local."
Mullen and her colleagues at the institute call the idea of eating invaders "eradication by mastication." A cookbook—what foodie movement is complete without one?—is headed for a second edition. On August 25, a second-annual cook-off in Philomath features Matt Bennett, chef at Albany's Sybaris and a two-time James Beard Award nominee. On the menu: blackberries, dandelion greens, and wild boar (a modest but potentially delicious move in the battle against feral pigs, as many as 5,000 of which now rampage around Oregon).
Admittedly, strategic eating to purify ecosystems remains a fringe concept. But the invasi-vores' exploits so far could be the blueprint for a bracing 21st-century hunter-gatherer-gourmand lifestyle. One of the most popular recipes in last year's cook-off, "popcorn house sparrow," involves trapping (or air-gunning) 20 birds, using a scalpel to carve their tiny muscles, soaking them in milk (to draw out blood), and panfrying. (The final instruction: "Decide if you'll tell people it's just chicken.")
The possibilities could be endless. The state actively encourages concerned citizens to kill and eat invasive bullfrogs, which proliferated after early-1900s chefs imported them to cook frog legs. (Mullen likes a Cajun-fried preparation.) Nutria, 10-pound water rodents originally from South America, apparently make delicious Armenian kebabs or Thai curries.
Whatever the recipe, the strategy is to create demand for food that heals the landscape. "Chefs have a lot of power," says Bennett, who complements his invasives-grilling with a focus on using native plants in his kitchen. "We can do a lot of good."
An intriguing flip side of that sentiment: growing your own in closed-loop systems. In a North Portland backyard, for example, a 55-gallon drum holding 10 bluegill fish could pioneer the city's next wave of DIY cultivation and cookery. The fish fertilize water that circulates through 32 square feet of raised beds, where lettuce and kale grow. Anne Forsthoefel, former executive director of Portland Farmers Market, sees her backyard "aquaponics" project as a prototype for small-lot fish farms. She recently started selling her fish-powered lettuce to a N Greeley Avenue food cart; one day, she hopes to harvest small batches of fish and sell them to grocers or a buyers club. "Our next step is on the commercial end," she says, "finding enough space to demonstrate what urban fish farming can look like." She's eyeing brownfields and vacant lots.
Forsthoefel's fish tank, Mullen's clam dig, and Bennett's pig roast all suggest that "invasive" might surpass "pasture-raised," and "humanely sourced" might come to mean "used to swim out back." Or as the budding fish farmer puts it, "We have to keep figuring out new ways to come together with nature."


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text: Get ready for warm weather flatwater kayaking. Advanced Elements provides you with this lightweight, get on the water quick, kayak. The Lagoon1 is a dynamic mix of durability, performance, and compact-ability. The multi-use Lagoon flatwater kayak is perfect for lakes, rivers, bays and estuaries. There is nothing like being close to the water on a calm lake.


text:
As I contemplate and prepare for a couple of purchases that are going to have to go on my credit cards, I'm starting to remember the agony that I felt when those plastic temptresses were filled to the brim with purchases that were so foolish, I didn't even remember them. Maybe it's because I will never forget the despair that I felt when I was in debt and my income was half of what it is now, but the panic button inside of me always seems to sound its alarm whenever an unexpected expense crops up.
For me, it's been having to purchase a car, having my prescription sunglasses get ruined and need replacing and the need for emergency (and costly) dental work. Don't worry; I was smart enough to purchase a good used car instead of new, but in order to keep my payments low, I had to nearly obliterate my savings for the down payment. The glasses however are going to cost me a good $250 on a credit card and the dental work….gulp. I don't even want to go there. The estimate that I was told to "think about" is around $1300. I need my teeth, right? It seems like these dentists know this and know there's not much you can do except for to pay them what they are asking.
So why am I so panicky? I've learned enough and weathered enough storms to know that anything can and will happen and having your savings wiped clean and your credit cards wiped out leaves you as vulnerable as jumping into a shark tank with a side of raw meat strapped to your back. I'm starting to feel myself getting jittery, sullen and a little more fearful than I was before these things crept up.
More From Woman's Day
So what to do? I haven't made either of the two purchases that I need to put on a card (the glasses or the dental work) because I'm just too chicken. Should I just go ahead with my regular glasses and skip the sunglasses? Should I put off the dental work for a few months until I can save up at least half of the money?
What would you do?


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A phenomenon known as "base-ball" has been making headlines around these parts since the inception of the site. The alleged "National League Championship Series" is upon us…time to pick a side or go home. In the red corner: TheStarterWife and Clare, freestylin' for the Diamondbacks. In the purple corner: Lady Andrea, Metschick, and surprise special guest star tap the Rockies, if you know what I mean. (Don't feel bad. There is no force in the universe that could have stopped me from making that joke.)
Leading off, the lovely TSW, with her plea for the boys of Arizona:
Why does Stephen Drew smile, other than the fact he is the talented Drew brother? Fucking hit .500 against the Cubbies with two homes and four RBIs, that's why.
What is that, Brandon Webb? You won the Cy Young Award last year?
Should we mention that one point this season, Webb had pitched a streak of 42 1/3 scoreless innings? That included three complete shutouts? I think we should bring that up along with the fact Webb himself got the W in 7 shutout games in 2007 while the entire Rockies squad only had 6 shutouts all season. (Really, I looked it up.)
I think that deserves another picture.
Why is Jose Valverde screaming at the top of his lungs? Could it be that he lead the NL with 47 saves this year?
Conor Jackson? Not only was he named #8 on Texas Gal's unimpeachable List of the Hottest Asses in Baseball, but as someone much wiser than I said, "best action hero name on the team".
And did you know that Chris Young, aside of being able to hit dingers like nobody's business, is also a model?
Next up, Miss Clare, bringing the heat in the form of a free-association piece:
[SFX: free-form jazz tootles softly in the background]
The talking heads on the WWL often refer to the Diamondbacks as the Baby Backs. That is because the some of players–aside from the beleaguered Randy Johnson, whose AARP membership card should be arriving in his mailbox any day now–are very young.
Think back to when you were 23 or 24. What were you doing with your life? Were you making stupid decisions and acting callously? That's sort of what the D-Backs are doing: They're so young, they don't know that they should be losing. They also think that having a pool and a hot tub in the outfield is cool, when it is actually just a cool way to contract a nasty case of plantar's warts.
Also, when you call them the Baby Backs, their nickname puts me in the mind of ribs. Mmm, ribs. We should do ribs for a Friday Football Foodie.
I dunno….it's difficult to argue with meat. Or ribs. (What?) But let's reserve judgment until we take a trip on the Purple Train.
Metschick, Lady Andrea, and Townie want YOU! to root for the Colorado Rockies. The Rockies are God's team. Jeff Francis is on the cover of this week's Sports Illustrated, but that does not matter. GOD IS MORE POWERFUL THAN SPORTS ILLUSTRATED. So c'mon everybody! All aboard the Purple Train! WOO-WOO!
The conductor for your ride will be Metschick, who would like to lead you all in prayer:
Our Father, who art in Colorado
hallowed be thy team.
Thy championship come, thy will be done,
on Coors Field as it is in Heaven.
Give us this day our daily win
And forgive us our errors,
as we forgive those who win against us,
and lead us not into a losing streak
but deliver us from the Desert.
Andrea is knocking back purple shots in the dining car, looking for single Rockies:
Why should you root for the Rockies? Besides the fact that they went on a ridiculous tear at the end of the season to get into a one-game playoff and subsequently won the Wild Card and then went on to mow down the Phillies in a 3-game sweep? (They are 16-1 over the last 17 games). Well, you should root for them because a ridiculous number of them are single. That's right Ladies. 13 of the 25-man roster are single. Here is just a taste of the nice young men who are looking for that special someone.
Troy Tulowitzki
Cory Sullivan
Ryan Spilborghs
Mark Townsend from Bugs & Cranks is lounging in the Parlor Car and says:
You should root for the Rockies because they are the nice, clean cut, all around good guy you've been looking for all along, but you just haven't realize it yet. The guy mom always said you'd marry, but you thought she was nuts. Turns out she was right about one thing after all. On the surface they might seem a little shy, or boring, but once you get to know them, you'll be more than impressed.
They don't look at porn… in the clubhouse. They don't swear… outwardly. They don't cheat on their wives/girlfriends/other… or at least they don't get caught. They represent everything that is good and pure about the game. Top to bottom, from ownership down to Dinger (the mascot), the Rockies are full of high character, high moral, and of course, highly skilled men.
You know the saying… nice guys finish last? That doesn't apply to these Rockies. They are winners, and they are worthy of your support. All they need is a chance to prove it.
Finally, the caboose of the Purple Train is this:
You should root for the Rockies because they have decided to give a playoff share to the pregnant widow and two children of Mike Coolbaugh, a minor league coach that was killed by a foul ball earlier this season. The farther the Rockies go, the more they can help out the Coolbaugh family If you don't root for the Rockies, you have no heart or soul.
Stake your claims, ladies and gentlemen. And that, as they say, is that. Tune in tomorrow for an equally sultry cage match over something called the "ALCS" .


text:
I thought you may all be curious to see what I'm bringing to Switzerland for my current assignment. Let's just say there's a hell of a lot of stuff here:
Primary system:
– Nikon D800E
– AFS 60/2.8 G Micro
– PCE 85/2.8 Micro
– ZM 28/2.8 plus Leica M to Nikon F adaptor
Backup system:
– Olympus OM-D with HLD-6 grip – I plan to do some walking around too, and I don't want to carry the D800E.
– Olympus ZD 12/2
– Olympus 45/1.8
– Panasonic 20/1.7 G
– Panasonic Leica 45/2.8 Macro
– That little clip on flash thingy to trigger the SB900s in SU4 mode
– Nikon G to M4/3 adaptor
– Nikon SB900 x3
– Custom made perspex diffuser and case, various cards, papers and laminates for backdrops and diffusion.
– Manfrotto 5001B compact light stands plus heads and flash stands x3
– Gitzo GT1542T Traveller 6X carbon fiber tripod
– Manfrotto 468RC0 Hydrostat ball head
– Manfrotto micro positioning rail
– Apple MacBook Air 11″
– Apple iPhone 4
– Western Digital MyPassport 1TB 2.5″ USB drive for backups
– Sandisk Extreme SD/CF USB card reader
– Chargers and universal adaptors
Other accessories:
– Spare batteries and chargers for both cameras
– 8 sets of Sanyo Eneloop AA batteries for the SB9000s
– Two sets of Kenko Pro DG extension tubes
– Adaptor plugs and multi strip
– SD cards; Sandisk Extreme HD 32 GB x4
– MAHA C801D fast AA charger
– Nikon SC-31IR flash deflector panel for D800E built in
– Rocket air blower
– Soft white cloths
– Blu tack
– Duct tape
– Magic tape (for removing dust)
– WhiBal cards
– Small lens pouches
– Think Tank Airport International v1
– Billingham Hadley Pro, without the internal dividers but with some small lens pouches and a camera wrap, packed into my check-in luggage
– Manfrotto MBAG80P for light stands and tripod
Here's most of it packed in. What you don't see is the diffuser case, which is quite enormous and wouldn't fit into the picture…
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WASHINGTON >> Complaints of a "wink-wink'' headache and the $40 prescriptions that qualify thousands for marijuana in California won't work in Washington D.C.'s newly opened medicinal marijuana dispensaries.
In July, Washington joined a budding number of states to allow medical marijuana to be sold legally.
But with the Justice Department and Drug Enforcement Agency calling D.C. home, the district's medical marijuana program varies quite a bit from its California counterpart.
In Washington D.C., the dispensaries actually look like medical offices.
One proposed site is sandwiched between an orthodontist and urologist office on a downtown corridor crowded with lobbyists and attorneys.
One of the dispensaries already open for business is just a short walk from the U.S. Capitol.
By comparison, some Venice Beach dispensaries have featured scantily clad women inviting passers-by inside for "evaluations."
In Los Angeles, shops like "South Coast Greenz" and "O.C. Farmacy" offer delivery service. Similar ventures offer one-stop diagnosis and shopping, without having to officially register with the state.
Advertisements for "medicated Thanksgiving turkeys" and "$49 medical doctors," lead many to suspect that California's dispensaries cater toward recreational use and not the treatment of illness.
Some say that the differences between the programs reflect each coast's perspectives: California more laid back and Washington more uptight.
"They're not practicing medicine on Venice Beach," Eric Sterling, director of the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation said, noting that Washington patients are in dire need.
"D.C.'s average patient is 50 years old, with one 93-year-old patient, all of whom are deeply concerned with obeying the law and are sufficiently sick," Sterling said.
California cardholders would have a hard time recognizing the restrictions on Washington's exclusive patient pool.
D.C. dispensaries list only four conditions that qualify: HIV/AIDs, cancer, glaucoma and conditions characterized by severe muscle spasms such as multiple sclerosis. The Department of Health website also permits chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and azidothymidine or protease inhibitors — used for HIV — as treatments that qualify for D.C. medical marijuana.
Patients must fill out a 14-page application with the D.C. Department of Health, pay a $100 application fee, and register with one specific D.C. dispensary in addition to finding one of the few doctors in the area that will recommend the program in the first place. If patients want to change their dispensary, they have to pay a new $90 registration fee and notify the Department of Health 14 days before changing.
Doctors recommending more than 250 patients per year automatically trigger an audit.
The strictness of the program means that Washington currently has only about 70 patients, a number that has been growing very slowly since the program's inception in July. Los Angeles alone has more than 100 dispensaries, even after Measure D forced hundreds of others to close.
California had an estimated 554,000 card-carrying medical marijuana patients as of December 2012, according to Mason Tvert from the Marijuana Policy Project.
Prices are more expensive in Washington, with an average ounce costing about $100 more than a Californian equivalent.
Some argue that D.C.'s strictness could prevent access for the people who need it most.
For some terminally ill patients that qualify, the time and money required by the application process are two things that the patients may not have.
The D.C. Department of Health declined to discuss the city's policy for this article.
Conflicting state and federal laws have long created tension for states with medicinal marijuana. The District of Columbia has had a particularly tense history because it falls under the jurisdiction of the federal government. The City Council originally passed medical marijuana laws in 1998, two years after California, but it took more than a decade for Congress to give its approval.
D.C.'s strictness is not by accident; the only way it could win congressional support was by emphasizing the legitimate medical treatment possibilities of cannabis for seriously ill patients, officials say.
The first of Washington's three dispensaries, Capital City Care, is located just two blocks from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in a baby blue building with barred windows. Its website talks about D.C.'s unique legal situation:
"As D.C. moves forward to create patient access to this important medicine, we do so with a wealth of knowledge gained from jurisdictions around the country. Our law is different from that of some other states in that it contains strict rules about how medical marijuana may be produced, packaged, and sold."
Despite what some see as the federal government's old fashioned view of "reefer madness,'' some advocates and policy experts say that federal law does not recognize the legitimate medical treatment potential of marijuana.
"Federal law is locked into a cartoonish view of marijuana that was created 40 years ago and bears no relation to medicine of modern science," said Sterling of the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation in a phone interview.
Washington and California's practices represent two ends of the medicinal marijuana spectrum.
Some drug policy experts say the California approach has hurt medical marijuana efforts in other parts of the country.
"California experience has sadly created a barrier for legitimate patients in many states, leading to several bureaucratic obstacles," Sterling said, explaining that California's "de facto legalization," acts like a veneer covering the criminal activity of the California drug trade, the polar opposite of D.C.'s attempt to legitimize "marijuana-folk-medicine" as a lawful and socially acceptable medicine prescribed by a doctor.
Asked whether Washington or California represents the future of medical marijuana, Mason Tvert, communications director for the Marijuana Policy Project, answered: "Neither.''
He pointed to Colorado, which completely legalized recreational marijuana usage in 2013 and has plans to develop marijuana retail shops and lounges.
"We still have a long way to go,'' Tvert said.
The California News Service-Washington is a journalism project of the University of California Washington Center and UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism. Contact the CNS at email@example.com.


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The Holy Father reflects on the Sacrament of Baptism during the Wenesday audience from Rome
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During his general audience, Pope Francis devoted his reflections to the sacrament of Baptism, stating that it opens the door to a journey of faith, and helps to sustain us along the way.
"This sacrament constitutes a true immersion in the death of Christ to rise with him in a new life. It is a bath of regeneration by water and the Spirit and that illuminates us with the grace of Christ," the Pope expressed in his Nov. 13 address.
The pontiff offered his words to the thousands of pilgrims present in Saint Peter's Square for his general audience earlier this morning.
"Dear brothers and sister," he began, "I would like to continue our catechesis on the Creed by turning to the Sacrament of Baptism."
Each Sunday when making the Profession of Faith, we pray the words "I believe in one baptism for the forgiveness of sins," noted the Pope, adding that this Baptism is "the door of faith and the fountain of Christian life."
It expresses "our relation with God as children, as well as the starting point of a path of conversion that lasts our whole life," he explained, and it "constitutes a true immersion in the death of Christ" in order "to rise with him in a new life."
Focusing on three main elements of the proclamation, Pope Francis explained first that the words "I confess" are a "solemn declaration" which "highlights the importance of Baptism and affirms our identity as children of God."
"In the Sacrament," continued the pontiff, "our faith is also linked to the remission of sins. When we confess our sins, we renew and strengthen our Baptismal identity."
Baptism "illuminates us with the grace of Christ, so that we may also be light for others," he went on to say, and it is in this sacrament that "God's mercy intervenes in a powerful way to save us and forgive our sins, opening to us the doors to a new life."
In the second part of the proclamation, when we confess our belief in "one Baptism," the word for the sacrament "literally means immersion," the Pope revealed, and through this process "we are immersed spiritually in the death of Jesus Christ and we rise with him as a new creation."
"Regenerated by water and the Holy Spirit, we are illuminated by grace which dispels the darkness of sin."
"For the forgiveness of sins," reflected the Pope, referring to the third part of the proclamation he wished to specify, "Baptism forgives original sin and personal sin."
"The door to a new life is opened and the mercy of God enters our lives," he noted, warning that despite receiving the grace of the sacrament, "human weakness remains," and that "our responsibility and our effort to fight each day against evil impulses and Satan's action, which are always lurking," are not "diminished."
"The Church teaches us to confess our sins with humility" stressed the Pope, "because only in forgiveness, received and given, do our restless hearts find peace and joy."
Pope Francis concluded his reflections by challenging those present, asking them "Brothers, are we conscience that Baptism is the fountain of our relationship with God? Is it a live reality for us?"
"Do we often reflect about this gift that we have received, this profound union with Jesus who gave His life for me," he continued, "Do I trust in the love of God that dwells in the depths of my being?"
The pontiff then offered a few words in various languages to the 45,000 pilgrims present, and spent some minutes greeting the handicapped.
Originally published at Catholic News Agency on 13 November 2013. Used with permission. All other rights reserved.


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Making the right decision early enough is always the key in a drought. Being proactive rather than reactive and having a plan is great advice. Yet, it still seems to me that there are two sides to the drought equation.
The first is making a decision at the correct time; a good drought plan can help greatly in this regard. The second is making the right decision, which remains an imperfect science.
In my part of the world, which is in the unenviable position of entering into the third year of a drought, producers have done what they could to mitigate the effects. Certainly, some are like me, and have made some mistakes along the way that have either cost them dollars or will make recovery longer. And I'm guessing there are some who have done just about everything right up to this point.
A Closer Look: The Difficulty With Drought
Regardless of which category they fit into, however, the options are becoming limited as the drought continues. Mother Nature will either break the cycle or something dramatic will have to occur.
An oft-repeated phrase throughout this process has been that "you can't feed your way out of a drought." I understand that logic, but the decision is a whole lot simpler if you could plan to buy back from a market similar to the one you sold into, or if you believed you could purchase similar quality genetics at similar premium or discount levels.
It seems obvious to me that any continued liquidation this spring will find producers forced to build back their herds in a dramatically higher market. The recent closing by Cargill of its Plainview, TX, packing plant is a testament to the fact that supplies are tight, and that we will see unprecedented price levels for breeding females when the rains finally return.
Couple that with the fact that genetics from both an adaptability and value standpoint are becoming increasingly valuable, and it becomes clear that external expansion when moisture returns may be unfeasible – expanding from within may be too slow and too late to take advantage of the unprecedented profit opportunities that are expected to accompany the next 4-5 years as well. This means that despite all of the well-intentioned drought mitigation strategies that have been implemented, producers are still facing a final poker hand where all their chips will be forced to the table.
The plays in this high-stakes game seem to be:
- Find a way to keep the cows and be positioned for a great future if the rain comes.
- Keep the cows, endure another year of drought, and lose one's equity.
- Sell the cows now, preserve one's equity, and be precluded from participating in the golden era of cow production.
Feedlot pen space is already being reserved by some producers who have decided to go all in, while others have made the decision to liquidate. The remainder are still waiting to make that final decision; they are short-stacked and are deciding to push all in with a pair of twos, or wait for the next hand, knowing they will be forced to go all in regardless of what they are dealt. Sadly, when you are the short stack, bluffing is no longer an option.
My prayer would be that every person gets a two on the flop, or that the next hand deals pocket aces (with some much needed moisture). Short of that, I guess it's always exciting when you get multiple players pushing all their chips to the middle. There are going to be some big winners and losers, but that's the essence of the game when Mother Nature deals her hand.


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The International Motorsports Hall of Fame (IMHOF) is both National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) founder Bill France's tribute to the legends of motorsport racing and a museum to preserve the sport's history. It is located next to the Talladega Superspeedway in Talladega County, about 50 miles east of Birmingham. The organization's multiple halls of fame have been inducting members since 1990.
France founded NASCAR in 1944 and served as its president from 1949-72. In the late 1960s, with the help of his friend and political ally, Gov. George Wallace (France headed the fundraising effort for Wallace's 1972 presidential campaign), France built the Alabama International Motor Speedway (now Talladega Superspeedway), the largest, fastest racetrack in the world at 2.66 miles around. Soon, France and speedway director Don Naman formulated plans for the first hall of fame for motorsports and a site to preserve the history of motorsports. During the next few years, France gathered support from state and national interests, and in 1975, Gov. Wallace established an 18-member commission to oversee the creation of the hall of fame and museum. After a state bond issue to finance construction of the facility failed to pass, France donated 35 acres next to Talladega Superspeedway for the project, and other private and public funds were raised to complete construction under the leadership of Alabama state senator Richard Dial. Total costs came to about $2 million.
The museum, which was the project's first phase, opened in early 1983 and included two exhibit halls, a rotunda, International Speedway Corporation (France's NASCAR corporation) offices, and ancillary spaces. One exhibit room, the "Daytona Room," focuses on the racing culture of France's Daytona, Florida, holdings. The other exhibit hall, called the "International Room," contains memorabilia relating to a variety of different motorsports. The 15,000-square-foot hall of fame addition opened during a July 1990 ceremony in which the 20 charter members were inducted. Other collections housed at the facility include the 14,000-volume McCaig-Wellborn Motorsports Research Library, as well as the Alabama Racing Pioneers Hall of Fame, Alabama Sports Writer's Hall of Fame, the Automobile Racing Club of America Hall of Fame, and the Quarter Midgets of America Hall of Fame. Exhibits include the twisted remains of spectacular crashes, as well as legendary racing vehicles such as the Budweiser Rocket Car that first broke the sound barrier on land, and the 1985 Ford Thunderbird driven by Bill Elliott in 1985 when he broke the record for fastest 500-mile race finish, averaging 186.288 miles per hour.
The hall of fame panel consists of 150 members of the motorsports racing media, and potential inductees must have been retired from racing for at least five years. Today the IMHOF is funded mainly on the strength of admission fees to about 100,000 visitors per year, who take self-guided tours of the museum and hall of fame, as well as tours of the Talladega Superspeedway next door.


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Patinir, Joachim de
Patinir, Patenier,
or Patiner, Joachim de all: yō´äkhĭm də pätĭnēr´ [key], d. 1524, Flemish landscape and religious painter. He probably studied with Gerard David in Bruges. In 1515 he was a member of the painters' guild in Antwerp, where he spent the remainder of his life. In 1521 his friend Dürer attended his second wedding and painted his portrait. Patinir was the first Flemish painter to regard himself primarily as a landscape painter. While small figures supply the theme of his pictures, they were sometimes painted by other artists. His immense vistas, painted with a limpid and meticulous clarity, have a serene lyricism. Among the best are The Flight into Egypt (Antwerp); The Rest on the Flight into Egypt (Prado); The Baptism of Christ (Vienna); St. John at Patmos (National Gall., London); and Rest by the Way (Minneapolis Inst. of Arts). The Metropolitan Museum has a fine triptych, The Penitence of St. Jerome.
See study by R. A. Koch (1968).
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2023, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
See more Encyclopedia articles on: European Art to 1599: Biographies


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Jack Dorsey revolutionized online socializing by co-founding Twitter in 2006. Now he wants to transform the way people exchange money.
Dorsey is leading a new startup called Square. Its first product resembles a cube: a tiny credit card terminal that plugs into the headphone jack of an iPhone. The goal is to make it easier to complete a credit card transaction, whether you're a street vendor selling T-shirts or an individual settling a lunch tab with a friend.
Dorsey, who was Twitter's CEO until October 2008 and remains the social network's chairman, said he came up with the idea for Square nearly a year ago with Jim McKelvey, a glass artist who was frustrated after losing out on a $2,000 sale because he was unable to accept a credit card from a customer.
The two started brainstorming about how businesses and individuals could quickly start accepting credit, debit and prepaid cards over the iPhone and other small electronics, and came up with the idea for a credit card reader that connects to a cell phone.
Eventually, McKelvey and a group of engineers decided they should build a gizmo that hooks up to a standard audio jack, which is common on all sorts of consumer electronics from iPhones to BlackBerrys to laptops.
Many businesses already use eBay Inc.'s online payment system, PayPal, so that they can take plastic on their Web sites, and iPhone applications such as iSwipe and Credit Card Terminal are available for on-the-go transactions.
In January, electronic payment services company VeriFone Holdings Inc. plans to release a service similar to Square's. That service, PayWare Mobile, is aimed at small businesses and fits a credit card terminal and small stylus (for signatures) into an iPhone case.
A business often needs to have its own merchant account with a credit card company to use one of these methods, though. Square Inc. takes a different tack: It has its own merchant account, so it takes on the responsibility for minimizing risk and fraud, Dorsey said.
This also means that anyone can use the service.
"We're trying to build a utility that scales not just to someone selling coffee in a store but also someone selling their couch or buying a MacBook Pro on Craigslist," Dorsey said.
Using the so-called "square" is pretty simple. Swipe a card through a slit on its side, and the device will read your credit card number and convert it into an audio signal that can be sent to the iPhone through the audio jack. Software in the iPhone then decodes the signal and sends the transaction data out over the cell phone network to Square's servers so the purchase can be authorized. Information is encrypted on the iPhone before it gets sent.
Square also works with Apple Inc.'s iPod Touch, and Dorsey would like to soon have its software running on phones that use Google Inc.'s Android operating software, too.
Just about 100 of these squares are being tested by merchants in several cities across the country, and the company expects to release its first product to the general public in early 2010.


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The Manhattan District Attorney's Office has serious doubts about a woman's claims that she was raped by Greg Kelly, the TV-anchor son of Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, and is leaning toward not filing criminal charges, sources told The Post.
Investigators "don't buy her story," a source said yesterday of the woman, a law-firm paralegal who told probers that Greg Kelly got her pregnant during the alleged attack and that she had an abortion.
"It sounds like a bunch of BS."
Another source said, "It sounds like she got caught [cheating] by her boyfriend, and then he forces her hand: 'If you're not lying, you better report.' "
The DA's office is suspicious of the accuser for several reasons, including a three-month lag in reporting the alleged rape to police. Sources told The Post last night that the woman doesn't remember some details of what Kelly did to her — because she was so intoxicated — but claims she knows they had sex and she didn't consent.
Investigators also have doubts that a rape victim would stay in contact with her supposed attacker, as the woman claims she did, the sources said.
"The length of time" the woman took to complain "is a problem," the source said.
And "you don't communicate with someone who raped you."
Another law-enforcement source echoed the suspicion: "The fact pattern is very suspicious . . . It just reeks of BS."
And investigators were surprised that her boyfriend would confront Ray Kelly directly at a public event well before she ever contacted cops herself, which the NYPD has confirmed.
Greg Kelly, through his lawyer, has given the DA's office text messages he exchanged with the woman after the encounter, which he hopes will help him avoid charges, sources said.
The woman claims she was attacked on Oct. 8 in a downtown office after a boozy night with the unmarried Kelly, who is the co-anchor of Fox 5's "Good Day New York" and a former US Marine.
She told detectives that she met him on the street and that they went out drinking at the South Street Seaport.
They ended up at the Financial District law firm where she works instead of going to her apartment, because her boyfriend was there, she told cops.
The woman believes Kelly sexually assaulted her in the office — but does not recall some details because she was so drunk, sources said. People who saw her leave the law offices later said she did not appear upset, according to the sources.
The woman and Greg Kelly later communicated with each other — reportedly through texts and e-mails — although it is not clear whether she told him she was pregnant, the sources said.
She finally went to the 13th Precinct station house Tuesday with her sister to report the alleged attack. She told detectives she knew Greg Kelly was the father because she was not having sex with her boyfriend at the time, according to the sources.
She said she terminated the pregnancy.
Shortly after the alleged rape, the accuser's boyfriend confronted Kelly's dad while the commissioner was at a function.
"Commissioner Kelly was approached by an unknown individual at a public event who told him that his son had 'ruined my girlfriend's life,' " said NYPD spokesman Paul Browne.
"Commissioner Kelly asked him to explain, and the man said he didn't want to discuss it there, so the commissioner told him to put it in writing and send it to him."
The NYPD referred the case to Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. to avoid a possible conflict of interest, given that Kelly's father is the department's top cop, sources said.
Despite their skepticism, DA investigators and prosecutors plan to proceed cautiously before deciding whether to file charges against Kelly, sources said.
Vance and his staff were stung last year by criticism that they rushed an indictment on sex-assault charges against then-International Monetary Fund boss Dominique Strauss-Kahn.
They were forced to drop the case after admitting that the hotel maid who made that complaint was not credible as a witness because of her lies on other issues.
Sources said that controversy — as well as concerns of being seen as biased in favor of the Police Department — are in DA staffers' minds as they review the Kelly case.
In an ironic twist, Vance appeared on "Good Day New York" Tuesday — the day the alleged victim went to cops — and was grilled over his handling of the DSK case.
"Your office chose not to prosecute Dominique Strauss-Kahn for an alleged sexual assault," Greg Kelly said.
"A lot of people were frustrated, they thought Nafissatou Diallo [the maid] had a strong case that at least should have gone to trial. Why did your office chose not to prosecute DSK?"
Vance replied, "Quite simply, I think this is a case where I think our office handled it appropriately at every stage."
Kelly pressed on, saying, "Some have raised the concern that perhaps if she were a more prominent citizen, member of the community, she would not have been subjected to that kind of interrogation."
Vance retorted, "Greg…I don't know who is communicating that to you, but I believe that's a misimpression and an incorrect assessment of the case."
Greg Kelly's lawyer, Andrew Lankler, spoke with the DA's office yesterday. He did not respond to repeated requests for comment, including questions about whether the woman told Kelly she became pregnant from their alleged encounter.
In an earlier statement, Lankler said Kelly "strenuously denies any wrongdoing of any kind and is cooperating fully with the district attorney's investigation.
"We know the district attorney's investigation will prove Mr. Kelly's innocence."
Kelly yesterday took a leave of absence from Fox 5. The station is a division of News Corp., which also owns The Post.
Kelly has hired p.r. maven Ken Sunshine, who declined to comment. The DA's office also declined to comment.
Mayor Bloomberg defended Commissioner Kelly's telling the woman's boyfriend to write a letter with his claims.
"If you have a complaint… write it, and we take every complaint seriously," he said. "In this case, I think the Police Department did exactly what they should do — they right away turned over the investigation to the district attorney because you won't want the appearance of a conflict of interest, which, obviously, you would have when it's the son of the commissioner.
"As far as I know, [Greg] Kelly has not been charged with anything. I don't know how that's going to turn out."
ABC News reported that a friend of the woman said the accuser became "an emotional cripple" after the incident.
Additional reporting by David Seifman