text:
TV.com's December 2008 metamorphosis from a water cooler around which TV fans could chat into a full-scale content portal meant that it had to cut a few deals with competitors and studios, such as Hulu and PBS, to bring in more shows. Now, some of these outside shows have begun disappearing from the CBS-owned portal. Ars spoke with a CBS Interactive spokesperson about why shows on TV.com are going dark.
CBS was originally invited to join in on Hulu's launch by the joint venture's parent companies, NBC and FOX. CBS declined, opting to forge its own content licensing deals with other outlets and to launch its own portal with TV.com.
For its property's rebirth, CBS did license a healthy chunk of content from Hulu (including Family Guy and Heroes), along with shows from other studios like MGM, PBS, and Sony Pictures Television.
Everything was going well with the site after the relaunch; CBS recently reported a 263 percent increase in unique viewers, a whopping 1,261 percent increase in streams, and a corresponding 4,435 percent increase in viewed minutes. So why is so much of the full content now disappearing?
Before the redesign, TV.com's claim to fame was its 16 million monthly unique visitors who chatted about the week's events in their favorite shows, stayed on top of industry news, and watched short video clips. CNET launched TV.com in 2005, which moved to CBS after the company acquired CNET in 2008.
The mystery of the vanishing content
Shows such as FOX's Family Guy and PBS' NOVA—are disappearing from TV.com. Where full episodes once were, only a disappointing "video unavailable" message remains. The "full episode" links on the site still lead to a full list of episodes for each show—the episodes just do not work.
A CBS Interactive spokesperson confirmed to Ars that "Hulu did pull down their content" but would not say why or whether it would be coming back anytime soon. CBS Interactive's spokesperson sounded genuinely surprised to hear that shows from other studios, such as PBS, had gone MIA as well, suggesting that either it may not have been the studio's doing or it had simply happened quite recently.
The likely explanations for Hulu pulling its content are either a squabble over licensing and revenue, or CBS making a decision to bypass Hulu content altogether. CBS reportedly gets only 10 percent of TV.com ad revenue from shows licensed from Hulu, so it may be able to get a better deal by directly licensing this content from the studios.
In any event, in the short term, "video unavailable" is never a good way to greet new users who are hungry for entertainment.
A Hulu spokesperson responded to Ars' request for comment. Unfortunately, the statement does not offer much more insight besides affirming that Hulu did indeed yank its content: "Hulu has contractual rights with regards to our relationship with TV.com and we are exercising those rights. Out of respect for their confidentiality, we will not disclose our discussions."
Update 2: Boxee, a popular media center app for Linux, Mac OS X, and Apple TV, also had to remove Hulu support at the request of Hulu, or more specifically: Hulu's content owners. Boxee has a blog post, and Hulu seems almost apologetic about the situation in its own blog post. Sounds like Hulu's content partners are rapidly forgetting the fact that there are plenty of alternatives, and most of them lack the "warm, fuzzy, legal" aspects of Hulu.


text:
Is it hot or cold on the Moon?
Temperatures on the Moon are both hotter and colder than those on Earth. In other words, the temperature range is more extreme! If you were camping on the Moon, you could not only heat up beans at local noon, you could boil water to do your dishes with! The temperature on the Moon when the Sun is overhead is just above the boiling point of water (100 degrees Celsius).
If you were to spend the night on the Moon (you might as well because it's a long trip home to Earth), you'd have to have a warm sleeping bag, because temperatures reach a low of -173 degrees Celsius.
Since the Moon and the Earth are approximately the same distance from the Sun, they receive sunlight of the same strength. So the temperature of the Earth and the Moon should be the same. It is the Moon's lack of atmosphere that creates such extreme temperatures. The Moon doesn't have an atmosphere to absorb sunlight like the Earth does, and so the surface gets very hot. The Moon's lack of atmosphere also lets heat escape during lunar nights so that it gets rather chilly on the surface!
Submitted by Sean (Wisconsin, USA)
(August 6,1997)

subset: commoncrawl


text:
This chapter reviews the different Enterprise JavaBean (EJB) types and the functions they can serve in an application, and describes how they work with other application objects and WebLogic Server.
It is assumed the reader is familiar with Java programming and EJB 2.x concepts and features.
These sections describe the purpose and capabilities of each bean type:
Message-Driven Beans Implement Loosely Coupled Business Logic.
Session beans implement business logic. A session bean instance serves one client at a time. There are two types of session beans: stateful and stateless.
A stateless session bean does not store session or client state information between invocations—the only state it might contain is not specific to a client, for instance, a cached database connection or a reference to another EJB. At most, a stateless session bean may store state for the duration of a method invocation. When a method completes, state information is not retained. Any instance of a stateless session bean can serve any client—any instance is equivalent. Stateless session beans can provide better performance than stateful session beans, because each stateless session bean instance can support multiple clients, albeit one at a time.
Example: An Internet application that allows visitors to click a "Contact Us" link and send an email could use a stateless session bean to generate the email, based on the to and from information gathered from the user by a JSP.
Stateful session beans maintain state information that reflects the interaction between the bean and a particular client across methods and transactions. A stateful session bean can manage interactions between a client and other enterprise beans, or manage a workflow.
Example: A company Web site that allows employees to view and update personal profile information could use a stateful session bean to call a variety of other beans to provide the services required by a user, after the user clicks "View my Data" on a page:
Accept the login data from a JSP, and call another EJB whose job it is to validate the login data.
Send confirmation of authorization to the JSP.
Call a bean that accesses profile information for the authorized user.
An entity bean represents a set of persistent data, usually rows in a database, and provides methods for maintaining or reading that data. An entity bean is uniquely identified by a primary key, and can provide services to multiple clients simultaneously. Entity beans can participate in relationships with other entity beans. The relationships between entity beans are a function of the real-world entities that the entity beans model. An entity bean's fields and its relationships to other entity beans are defined in an object schema, which is specified in the bean's
ejb-jar.xml deployment descriptor.
An entity bean can have other bean types, such as message-driven or session beans, as clients, or be directly accessed by Web components. The client uses the entity bean to access data in a persistent store. An entity bean encapsulates the mechanics of database access, isolating that complexity from its clients and de-coupling physical database details from business logic.
Example: The stateful session bean in the previous example, which orchestrates services for an employee accessing personal profile information on a company intranet, could use an entity bean for getting and updating the employee's profile.
A message-driven bean implements loosely coupled or asynchronous business logic in which the response to a request need not be immediate. A message-driven bean receives messages from a JMS Queue or Topic, and performs business logic based on the message contents. It is an asynchronous interface between EJBs and JMS.
Throughout its life cycle, an MDB instance can process messages from multiple clients, although not simultaneously. It does not retain state for a specific client. All instances of a message-driven bean are equivalent—the EJB container can assign a message to any MDB instance. The container can pool these instances to allow streams of messages to be processed concurrently.
The EJB container interacts directly with a message-driven bean—creating bean instances and passing JMS messages to those instances as necessary. The container creates bean instances at deployment time, adding and removing instances during operation based on message traffic.
For detailed information, see Programming Message-Driven Beans for Oracle WebLogic Server.
Example: In an on-line shopping application, where the process of taking an order from a customer results in a process that issues a purchase order to a supplier, the supplier ordering process could be implemented by a message-driven bean. While taking the customer order always results in placing a supplier order, the steps are loosely coupled because it is not necessary to generate the supplier order before confirming the customer order. It is acceptable or beneficial for customer orders to "stack up" before the associated supplier orders are issued.
These sections briefly describe classes required for each bean type, the EJB run-time environment, and the deployment descriptor files that govern a bean's run-time behavior.
The composition of a bean varies by bean type. Table 2-1 defines the classes that make up each type of EJB, and defines the purpose of the class type.
Table 2-1 Components of an EJB
|EJB Component
|Stateless Session
|Stateful Session
Remote interface
The remote interface exposes business logic to remote clients—clients running in a separate application from the EJB. It defines the business methods a remote client can call.
Local interface
The local interface exposes business logic to local clients—those running in the same application as the EJB. It defines the business methods a local client can call.
Note: Not available for 1.1 EJBs.
Local home interface
The local home interface, also referred to as an EJB factory or life-cycle interface, provides methods that local clients—those running in the same application as the EJB—can use to create, remove, and in the case of an entity bean, find instances of the bean.
The local home interface also has "home methods"—business logic that is not specific to a particular bean instance.
Remote home interface
The remote home interface, also referred to as an EJB factory, or life-cycle interface, provides methods that remote clients—those running in a separate application from the EJB—can use to create, remove, and find instances of the bean.
Bean class
The bean class implements business logic.
Primary key class
Only entity beans have a primary key class. The primary key class maps to one or more fields in a database—identifying the persistent data to which the entity bean corresponds.
An EJB container is a run-time container for beans that are deployed to an application server. The container is automatically created when the application server starts up, and serves as an interface between a bean and run-time services such as:
Life cycle management
Code generation
Persistence management
Transaction management
Locking and concurrency control
The structure of a bean and its run-time behavior are defined in one or more XML deployment descriptor files. Programmers create deployment descriptors during the EJB packaging process, and the descriptors become a part of the EJB deployment when the bean is compiled.
WebLogic Server EJBs have three deployment descriptors:
ejb-jar.xml—The standard Java EE deployment descriptor. All beans must be specified in an
ejb-jar.xml. An
ejb-jar.xml can specify multiple beans that will be deployed together.
weblogic-ejb-jar.xml—WebLogic Server-specific deployment descriptor that contains elements related to WebLogic Server features such as clustering, caching, and transactions. This file is required if your beans take advantage of WebLogic Server-specific features. Like
weblogic-ejb-jar.xml can specify multiple beans that will be deployed together. See "weblogic-ejb-jar.xml Deployment Descriptor Reference" in Programming Enterprise JavaBeans, Version 2.1, for Oracle WebLogic Server.
weblogic-cmp-jar.xml—WebLogic Server-specific deployment descriptor that contains elements related to container-managed persistence for entity beans. Entity beans that use container-managed persistence must be specified in a
weblogic-cmp-jar.xml file. See "weblogic-cmp-jar.xml Deployment Descriptor Reference" in Programming Enterprise JavaBeans, Version 2.1, for Oracle WebLogic Server.
As described in EJB Deployment Descriptors, a WebLogic Server EJB's runtime behavior can be controlled by elements in three different descriptor files:
weblogic-ejb-jar.xml, and
Table 2-2 lists the elements whose values should match in each descriptor file. The elements listed in the table are defined in Bean and Resource References and Security Roles.
Table 2-2 Element Mapping Among Descriptor Files
|Map this element...
|in this element of ejb-jar.xml...
|to the same element in this element of weblogic-ejb-jar.xml...
|and to this element in weblogic-cmp-jar.xml...
Each descriptor file contains elements that identify a bean, and the runtime factory resources it uses:
ejb-name—the name used to identify a bean in each deployment descriptor file, independent of the name that application code uses to refer to the bean.
ejb-ref-name—the name by which a bean in another JAR is referred to in the referencing bean's code.
res-ref-name—the name by which a resource factory is referred to in the referencing bean's code.
A given bean or resource factory is identified by the same value in each descriptor file that contains it. Table 2-1 lists the bean and resource references elements, and their location in each descriptor file.
For instance, for a container-managed persistence entity bean named
LineItem, this line:
would appear in the:
assembly-descriptor element of
enterprise-bean element of
weblogic-rdbms-bean element of
Security roles are defined in the
role-name element in
ejb-jar.xml and
For information on:
Programming security features for an EJB, see "Securing Enterprise JavaBeans (EJBs)" in Programming Security for Oracle WebLogic Server.
Creating or generating deployment descriptor files, see Generate Deployment Descriptors.
Editing deployment descriptor files, see Edit Deployment Descriptors.
Elements in
ejb-jar.xml, see
Elements in
weblogic-ejb-jar.xml, see Appendix B, "weblogic-ejb-jar.xml Deployment Descriptor Reference."
Elements in
weblogic-cmp-jar.xml, see Appendix C, "weblogic-cmp-jar.xml Deployment Descriptor Reference."
Figure 2-1 illustrates how EJBs typically relate to other components of a WebLogic Server application and to clients.
Figure 2-1 EJBs and Other Application Components
An EJB can be accessed by server-side or client-side objects such as servlets, Java client applications, other EJBs, applets, and non-Java clients.
Any client of an EJB, whether in the same or a different application, accesses it in a similar fashion. WebLogic Server automatically creates implementations of an EJB's home and business interfaces that can function remotely, unless the bean has only a local interface.
All EJBs must specify their environment properties using the Java Naming and Directory Interface (JNDI). You can configure the JNDI namespaces of EJB clients to include the home interfaces for EJBs that reside anywhere on the network—on multiple machines, application servers, or containers.
Most beans do not require a global JNDI name—specified in the
jndi-name and
local-jndi-name elements of
weblogic-ejb-jar.xml. Most beans reference to each other using
ejb-links, as described in Using EJB Links.
Because of network overhead, it is more efficient to access beans from a client on the same machine than from a remote client, and even more efficient if the client is in the same application.
See Programming Client Access to EJBs for information on programming client access to an EJB.
WebLogic Server EJBs use:
T3—To communicate with remote objects. T3 is a WebLogic-proprietary remote network protocol that implements the Remote Method Invocation (RMI) protocol.
RMI—To communicate with remote objects. RMI enables an application to obtain a reference to an object located elsewhere in the network, and to invoke methods on that object as though it were co-located with the client on the same JVM locally in the client's virtual machine.
An EJB with a remote interface is an RMI object. An EJB's remote interface extends
java.rmi.remote. For more information on WebLogic RMI, see Programming RMI for Oracle WebLogic Server.
HTTP—An EJB can obtain an HTTP connection to a Web server external to the WebLogic Server environment by using the
java.net.URL resource connection factory. For more information, see Configuring EJBs to Send Requests to a URL.
You can specify the attributes of the network connection an EJB uses by binding the EJB to a WebLogic Server custom network channel. For more information, see Configuring Network Communications for an EJB.
In this release of WebLogic Server, you can use logical message destinations to map a logical message destination, defined in
ejb-jar.xml, to an actual message destination, defined in
weblogic-ejb-jar.xml, as described in "Configuring EJBs to Use Logical Message Destinations" in Programming Message-Driven Beans for Oracle WebLogic Server.
If a message destination reference cannot be resolved during deployment, a warning is issued but the deployment will succeed. MDBs linked to unavailable message destinations periodically attempt to connect to the message destination. Until the message destination is available, attempts to look up
message-destination-references declared in
ejb-jar.xml fail with a
javax.naming.NamingException. When the message destination becomes available, the MDBs will connect to it and service messages from it.
This section describes key WebLogic Server features that ease the process of EJB development, and enhance the performance, reliability, and availability of EJB applications.
WebLogic Server supports pooling, caching, and other features that improve the response time and performance of EJBs. In a production environment, these features can reduce the time it takes for a client to obtain an EJB instance and access and maintain persistent data.
WebLogic Server maintains a free pool of ready-to-use EJB instances for stateless session beans, message-driven beans, and entity beans. The EJB container creates a configurable number of bean instances at startup, so that a new instance does not have to be created for every request. When a client is done with an EJB instance, the container returns it to the pool for reuse. For more information see:
"Message-Driven EJB Life Cycle and the Free Pool" in Programming Message-Driven Beans for Oracle WebLogic Server
In this release of WebLogic Server, Administrators can initialize EJB pools on demand via the Administration Console. When an EJB's pool is initialized, it is reset to the state it was immediately after the EJB was deployed. For more information, see "Initialize the idle bean cache and pool of an EJB" in Oracle WebLogic Server Administration Console Help.
WebLogic Server supports caching for stateful session beans and entity beans.
An inactive cached bean instance can be passivated—removed from the cache and written to disk—and restored to memory later as necessary. Passivating bean instances optimizes use of system resources.
You can configure the size of the cache, and related behaviors such as rules for removing beans from the cache. Caching is supported for entity EJBs, whether they use container-managed or bean-managed persistence.
Additionally, in this release of WebLogic Server, Administrators can initialize EJB caches on demand via the Administration Console. When an EJB's cache is initialized, it is reset to the state it was in immediately after the EJB was deployed. For more information, see "Initialize the idle bean cache and pool of an EJB" in Oracle WebLogic Server Administration Console Help.
For more information, see:
Additional caching features are available for EJBs that use container-managed persistence, as described in the following section.
WebLogic Server provides these caching capabilities for entity beans that use container managed persistence:
Relationship caching—Relationship caching improves the performance of entity beans by loading related beans into the cache and avoiding multiple queries by issuing a join query for the related beans. For more information, see Relationship Caching.
Application-level caching—Application-level caching, also known as "combined caching," allows multiple entity beans that are part of the same Java EE application to share a single runtime cache. For more information, see Configuring Application-Level Caching.
Caching between transactions—Use caching between transactions or long term caching to enable the EJB container to cache an entity bean's persistent data between transactions. For more information, see Limiting Database Reads with cache-between-transactions.
A group specifies a set of persistent attributes of an entity bean. A field-group represents a subset of the container-managed persistence (CMP) and container-managed relation (CMR) fields of a bean. You can put related fields in a bean into groups that are faulted into memory together as a unit. You can associate a group with a query or relationship, so that when a bean is loaded as the result of executing a query or following a relationship, only the fields mentioned in the group are loaded. For more information, see Specifying Field Groups.
You can configure the behavior of the
ejbLoad() and
ejbStore() methods to enhance performance, by avoiding unnecessary calls to
ejbStore(). As appropriate, you can ensure that WebLogic Server calls
ejbStore() after each method call, rather than at the conclusion of the transaction. For more information, see Understanding ejbLoad() and ejbStore() Behavior.
WebLogic Server allows you to batch and order multiple database operations so that they can be completed in a single database "round-trip". This allows you to avoid the bottlenecks that might otherwise occur when multiple entity instances are affected by a single transaction. For more information, see Ordering and Batching Operations.
In this release of WebLogic Server, for CMP 2.0 entity beans, the
setXXX() method does not write the values of unchanged primitive and immutable fields to the database. This optimization improves performance, especially in applications with a high volume of database updates.
For EJB data that is only occasionally updated, you can create a "read-mostly pattern" by implementing a combination of read-only and read-write EJBs. If you use the read-mostly pattern, you can use multicast invalidation to maintain data consistency—an efficient mechanism for invalidating read-only cached data after updates. Use of the
invalidate() method after the transaction update has completed invalidates the local cache and results in a multicast message sent to the other servers in the cluster to invalidate their cached copies. For more information, see Using the Read-Mostly Pattern.
WebLogic Server provides a variety of value-added database access features for entity beans that use container-managed persistence:
WebLogic Server supports multiple methods to automatically generate simple primary key for CMP entity EJBs, including use of an Oracle
SEQUENCE (which can be automatically generated by WebLogic Server). For more information, see Automatically Generating Primary Keys.
You can configure the EJB container to automatically change the underlying table schema as entity beans change, ensuring that tables always reflect the most recent object-relationship mapping. For more information, see Automatic Table Creation (Development Only).
WebLogic Server allows you to construct and execute EJB-QL queries programmatically in your application code. This allows you to create and execute new queries without having to update and deploy an EJB. It also reduces the size and complexity of the EJB deployment descriptors. For more information, see Choosing a Concurrency Strategy.
WebLogic Server EJBs can be deployed to a cluster, allowing support for load balancing, and failover for remote clients of an EJB. EJBs must be deployed to all clustered servers.
A WebLogic Server cluster consists of multiple WebLogic Server server instances running simultaneously and working together to provide increased scalability and reliability. A cluster appears to clients as a single WebLogic Server instance. The server instances that constitute a cluster can run on the same machine, or be located on different machines.
Failover and load balancing for EJBs are handled by replica-aware stubs, which can locate instances of the object throughout the cluster. Replica-aware stubs are created for EJBs as a result of the object compilation process. EJBs can have two different replica-aware stubs: one for the
EJBHome interface and one for the
EJBObject interface. This allows some bean types to take advantage of load balancing and failover features at the home level when a client looks up an EJB object using the
EJBHome stub and at the method level when a client makes method calls against the EJB using the EJBObject stub. Table 2-1 summarizes the load balancing and failover support (method level and home level) for each EJB type.
The bean stub contains the load balancing algorithm (or the call routing class) used to load balance method calls to the object. On each call, the stub can employ its load algorithm to choose which replica to call.
WebLogic Server clusters support multiple algorithms for load balancing clustered EJBs; the default is the round-robin method. For more information, see "Load Balancing in a Cluster" in Using Clusters for Oracle WebLogic Server.
All bean types support load balancing at the home level. All bean types, except read-write entity beans, support load balancing at the method level.
WebLogic Server does not always load-balance an object's method calls. In most cases, it is more efficient to use a replica that is collocated with the stub itself, rather than using a replica that resides on a remote server.
Failover for EJBs is accomplished using the
EJBHome stub or, when supported, the
EJBObject stub. When a client makes a call through a stub to a service that fails, the stub detects the failure and retries the call on another replica.
EJB failover requires that bean methods must be idempotent, and configured as such in
weblogic-ejb-jar.xml. For more information see "Replication and Failover for EJBs and RMI Objects" in Using Clusters for Oracle WebLogic Server.
Table 2-3 summarizes failover and load balancing features for clustered EJBs.
Table 2-3 Failover and Load Balancing for Clustered EJBs
|EJB Type
|Home Level Failover
|Method Level Failover
Stateless Session
Stateless session EJB clustering behaviors are configured in
Stateful session
Stateful session EJB clustering behaviors are configured in
Read-Write Entity
Not supported
Failover is not supported during method execution, only after method completion, or if the method fails to connect to a server instance.
A read-write bean's home obtains a local instance of the bean and returns a stub pinned to the local server instance.
Entity clustering behaviors are configured in
Read-Only Entity
Entity clustering behaviors are configured in
Message- Driven
WebLogic Java Messaging Service (JMS) supports clustering of JMS servers. For more information, see "JMS and Clustering" in Using Clusters for Oracle WebLogic Server.
For more information, see "Replication and Failover for EJBs and RMIs" and "Load Balancing for EJBs and RMI Objects" in Using Clusters for Oracle WebLogic Server.
Using WebLogic Server security features, you control both access to your EJBs (authorization) and verification of an EJB's identity when it interacts with other application components and other EJBs (authentication).
WebLogic Server enables application developers to build security into their EJB applications using Java EE and WebLogic Server deployment descriptors, or allows system administrators to control security on EJB applications from the WebLogic Server Administration Console. The latter option frees developers from having to code security, and provides administrators with a centralized tool for defining security policies on: entire enterprise applications (EARs); an EJB JAR containing multiple EJBs; a particular EJB within that JAR; or a single method within that EJB.
For more information about security and EJBs:
"Security Fundamentals" in Understanding Security for Oracle WebLogic Server has introductory information about authentication, authorization and other security topics.
"Securing Enterprise JavaBeans (EJBs)" in Programming Security for Oracle WebLogic Server provides instructions for configuring authentication and authorization for EJBs.
Securing Resources Using Roles and Policies for Oracle WebLogic Server contains instructions for on configuring authentication and authorization for your EJBs using the Administration Console.


text:
Sanford Schram, Joe Soss, Richard Fording, and Linda Houser recently posted their fascinating article, "Deciding to Discipline: Race, Choice, and Punishment on the Frontlines of Welfare Reform" (74 American Sociological Review 398-422 (June 2009) on SSRN. Here is the abstract.
* * *
Welfare sanctions are financial penalties applied to individuals who fail to comply with welfare program rules. Their widespread use reflects a turn toward disciplinary approaches to poverty management. In this article, we investigate how implicit racial biases and discrediting social markers interact to shape officials' decisions to impose sanctions. We present experimental evidence based on hypothetical vignettes that case managers are more likely to recommend sanctions for Latina and black clients – but not white clients – when discrediting markers are present. We triangulate these findings with analyses of state administrative data. Our results for Latinas are mixed, but we find consistent evidence that the probability of a sanction rises significantly when a discrediting marker (i.e., a prior sanction for noncompliance) is attached to a black rather than a white welfare client. Overall, our study clarifies how racial minorities, especially African Americans, are more likely to be punished for deviant behavior in the new world of disciplinary welfare provision.
* * *
To download the paper for free, click here. To read a sample of related Situationist posts, see "Robin Hood Motives" and "Monkey Fairness."


text: An important function of the IPS is recommending standards for visual field testing. This was first codified in the IPS Standards document of 1978. In the 1980's there was growth of automated of perimetry. The First Codicil to this document in 1990 dealt with automated perimetry standards. These documents are now under revision by the IPS standards committee headed by John Wild. The final document will be ready later this year.


text:
Last night was the Texas Wine Twitter chat featuring three lovely wines and Chef Josh Watkins of The Carillon Restaurant here in Austin (see pairings below). I will be making that Celery root and apple soup with Duchman Viognier soon. Because we have been in full combat mode, fighting a nasty respiratory virus, I had to miss the tasting at a fellow Texas wine lover's house and could only tweet vicariously. I made up for it today.
My husband made a pork tenderloin wrapped in prosciutto and sage. My brother-in-law made salad with pears sautéed in maple syrup which became part of the vinaigrette. My job was to pair and hold my sweet son. Honestly, a kangaroo pouch would have come in handy the last few days since he's too big for a sling and can't be off me for more than a minute at a time when he's sick.
I paired the meal with McPherson Sangiovese. A good pairing brings out the best in both and this was spot on. The fruit was subtle as to not compete, but with enough earthy backbone to hold its own. The salt of the prosciutto, the sweet of the pear, the acidity of the vinaigrette all worked with the Sangiovese. Yum.
This is a very food friendly wine that can go in many directions and blend right in. I have joked before that I think Kim McPherson and I have kindred palates. I love everything he makes. The Sangiovese is no exception. Thanks to Chef Josh Watkins for the great suggestions and to all the Texas wine advocates and producers for all you do!
Duchman Family Winery Viognier
Celery root-apple soup
Spiced apples with brandy syrup
McPherson Sangiovese
Free-raised veal tenderloin with sweet potato hash, and mustard greens with bacon gastrique
Beef tenderloin with Brussels sprouts and potato puree
Braised beef short ribs with grill romaine and pickled radish
Fall Creek or Messina Hof Muscat Canelli (semi-sweet)
Manchester cheese
Almond cake


text:
To help you get started with your documentary interviews, we show you the equipment you'll need, give you some tips on making a room look good, tell you what you should include in your talent releases, and provide you with some tips to assure that your subject looks great on screen.
The bulk of information in most documentaries comes from interviews. Because of this, thorough preparation of subjects, locations, and crews for interviews is often crucial to getting a documentary story told.
Among all of the craziness that goes in to making documentaries, interviews can actually be the easiest, most informative, and fun parts to do. Of course, that's only if you start off right. To help you get off on the right foot, we'll show you what equipment you'll need, give you some tips on how to make a room look great, what you should include in your talent releases, and how to make sure your subject looks great on screen as well. Lastly, we'll dig deeper into subject appearance by showing you how to get good subject positioning, what kinds of clothing work well for the screen, and how to overcome facial and lighting problems with makeup.
The key to any good shoot is having the right equipment. Since it's better to be safe than sorry, it's always a good idea to check your camera, audio, and lighting gear the night before the shoot to ensure it is working properly. There's nothing worse than showing up on a shoot with broken equipment. (DL) It's also a good idea to make a checklist with the equipment you'll need for the interview. This way you can be sure you have all of your equipment before you leave your studio. Amongst your equipment, you'll want to bring a lavalier microphone to capture audio. These kinds of microphones are small enough to let the subject forget that they are even being recorded which will help them feel more relaxed and open when speaking in front of the camera. It's also good to consider what lights you'll be using for the shoot. Since incandescent bulbs can heat up a room rather quickly, it is a good idea to use lamps that produce less heat such as fluorescents or LED's. Though they are more expensive, they can stay on longer and will help your subject feel more comfortable. Lastly, since cameras are often intimidating to interview subjects, you'll want to back the camera off from your subject as far as your zoom lens will allow. This gives your subject more room, gives the shot a shallower depth of field, and makes your subject a bit less nervous which can lead to better interviews.
Of all the factors in an interview setup, the room appearance can be the most nerve wracking. However, room appearance says volumes about the character of your interview subject. Because of this, arriving at least an hour early to any interview is a good idea. (Still) This will give you the time to discuss any changes that the room needs with owners and to set up lighting before the interview begins. This will also be the time to close the shades or apply CTO gels to windows for lighting purposes, turning off lamps and overhead lighting, and to move chairs and tables to get more room for equipment. Also, if you want to highlight props or areas of the room, you'll want to make sure you have smaller light fixtures with barn doors to give the objects the attention it needs. If you don't have much set up time, using a camera and lens that can get a very shallow depth of field is very helpful. With it, you can simply knock the background out of focus which draws attention to your subject and covers up any mistakes the room may have.
Staying legal in documentaries can save you from losing your money and your reputation so signed talent releases are a must. These releases should be written by a media lawyer and should include at minimum the name of your subject, the subject contact information, the title of your project, what kind of compensation will be given to the talent, where you'll be using the footage, and of course a signature from both the subject and the filmmaker.It's also generally easier to get this signed before the interview takes place since subjects can sometimes get nervous if it's done afterward.
The last factor you'll want to consider before an interview begins is your subject's appearance. Interview subjects are almost always apprehensive about being on camera to begin with so you'll want to consider ways to make your subject look better on screen by positioning them correctly, making sure they are wearing camera-friendly clothing, and applying makeup when needed.
Unless your subject is directly addressing the audience, it's a good idea to have them looking a bit to the left or right of the camera's lens. Subjects tend to feel most comfortable and relaxed talking to a person rather than a piece of equipment so make sure you have someone standing at eye-level to the camera's lens that your subject can talk to. At the same time, you'll want to frame your subject in such a way that they have "looking room." This means that subjects should be either on the left or the right third of the frame looking in the opposite direction.
The next factor to consider is clothing. You'll want to instruct your subjects not to wear pure white, black, or red clothes since they tend to be too bright, dark, or saturated. Also, thin stripes and tight patterns can cause a rainbow-like moire pattern to appear on the screen. Lastly, if it's possible for a subject to take off any sunglasses or prescription glasses, that can help you to see their eyes better and avoid reflecting light back to the camera lens.
Lastly, you'll want to consider using makeup if your subject's skin is shiny or has visible defects. A bit of powder can go a long way in making skin appear less shiny and having different colors of foundation can help cover skin defects. You can also use diffusion filters and higher angles to make wrinkles less visible. Using tools like these makes sure that every subject looks good on screen and is happy with your product.
Though there's a decent amount of prep work required for any good documentary interview, it's always worth the effort. By doing this work you can be sure that you'll have a relaxed subject, a great shot, and a documentary that's informative and compelling.


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Every KitchenAid disposer features a motor that rotates at 1725 RPM for effective grinding. Additional features include overload protection with a manual reset.
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FONTANA — Police believe a man who was leaving for work may have been assaulted and kidnapped in the driveway of his home early Friday morning.
Officers investigated a report of a man screaming in distress at 5 a.m. in the 6800 block of Beechcraft Avenue.
After patrolling the area, officers found what they believe to be a crime scene, said police Sgt. Tom Yarrington.
"There were serious signs of a struggle in front of the home of Alejandro Padilla," Yarrington said.
Further investigation revealed that Padilla may have been assaulted and possibly kidnapped, he said.
"There is nothing in Mr. Padilla's life that would indicate he was involved in anything suspicious," Yarrington added.
Police said during the attack the alleged kidnappers may have stolen Padilla's car, a black 2009 Nissan Versa with California license plate 6GZF702.
This attack is the second similar type of attack reported in the Inland Empire in the last two weeks.
After enjoying a day of kayaking and then attending a Dodgers game, Joseph Garcia, 23 of Ontario, could never have imagined he was about to endure a nightmare on July 13.
"Two men approached Mr. Garcia in front of his home and at gunpoint they kidnapped him," said police spokesman Sgt. David McBride. "They drove him just south of Tijuana, Mexico and held him captive in a motel room with a bag over his head."
Authorities said he was eventually released by his abductors in Mexico, but his ordeal seemed like something out of a movie plot.
On July 13 Garcia had enjoyed his day of kayaking and baseball before performing at a Lakewood nightclub with his Norte?os band, Los Nuevos Elegantes.
Police say he headed home after his performance, stopping off for some fast-food. He let his family know he'd be home around 1:30 a.m. when the kidnapping happened in front of his Ontario home.
Family members awoke the next morning to find Garcia's car in the driveway with the keys still in the ignition and a bag of fast food on the passenger seat. Then they called police.
Anyone with information is asked to call Sgt. Tom Yarrington at 909-350-7700.


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The Shape of Water: Reinventing A Childhood Classic - Del Toro Style
As a boy, acclaimed writer-director Guillermo del Toro thought the title monster of his favorite movie, "The Creature From The Black Lagoon," and the human woman with whom it was smitten should have swum off into the sunset together.
Del Toro has now taken a step toward correcting this perceived slight of cinematic history. "The Shape of Water" is not only a magnificent mashup of horror and romance as penned by del Toro and Vanessa Taylor. It also works gloriously as a comedy, a political allegory, a valentine to classic Hollywood, a religious parable, and even as a quasi-musical, lavishly supported by Alexandre Desplat's rich score.
In "The Shape of Water," a mute, isolated cleaning woman named Elisa (exquisitely played by the Oscar-worthy Sally Hawkins) finds herself drawn to an amphibious being from the Amazon held captive in the hidden, high-security government laboratory at which she works as a cleaning lady.
She hatches a plan to free "the asset" (played by frequent Del Toro collaborator, Doug Jones) with the help of her black co-worker, Zelda (Oscar-winner Octavia Spencer), and her gay neighbor, Giles (Oscar-nominee Richard Jenkins). They all have to evade the creature's seriously disturbed captor, Colonel Richard Strickland, a government agent played by two-time Oscar nominee Michael Shannon.
Del Toro, who was born in Mexico, is known for his previous genre-bending films "Pan's Labyrinth," "Crimson Peak," "Hellboy" and "Pacific Rim." "I like to make movies that are liberating, that say it's okay to be whoever you are," the director states in his latest production's press notes, "and it seems that at this time, this is very pertinent."
Though set in 1962, numerous themes explored in "The Shape of Water" are as timely as ever, including racism, sexism, and America's treatment of its LGBTQ citizens as well as people with physical disabilities. Jenkins' character is a gay man who has found his job opportunities as a graphic designer limited due to his sexuality. Subsequently, he has had to stay closeted with everyone except Elisa.
Jenkins has given memorable performances in such diverse movies as "The Cabin in the Woods," "Eat Pray Love," "Jack Reacher" and "The Visitor," for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor.
He recently reached out to chat with The Rage Monthly about his latest role.
What was your response when you first read "The Shape of Water" screenplay?
Truthfully, I loved it from the very first scene. And if you are a character actor like me you start thinking "I hope I don't die in scene two" (laugh). I loved it from the beginning.
Similarly, what was your initial reaction to the finished film?
I thought I had a handle on what it would look like. It is so beautiful and so different, I forgot I was in it. Guillermo is such a visionary and he told us how things would look but I had no idea until I saw the finished film... It's amazing.
You grew up during the era depicted in the film. Were there any particular memories or people you drew from for your character, Giles?
It wasn't that so much, although my local pie shop really looked like the one in the film. I loved growing up in 1962. I grew up in a small farm town (DeKalb, Illinois) as a straight, white man. Life was very simple then, which in hindsight was both good and bad.
What was your perception of the treatment of gay people at the time?
I didn't know any. There weren't any gay people in my high school until our 35th reunion. (Laughs) There weren't any black people either. Guillermo refers to the characters played by Sally, Octavia and I as "the invisible people" of the time. There is the scene in the film where Giles tries to hold hands with the man who works in the pie shop; something that is so simple today had to involve such risk back then.
How have you seen things change, or not, for LGBTQ people since then?
Things do move forward, but at times they take a step back and then start moving forward again. Love is love, so (anti-LGBTQ people should) stop trying to do something to stop it. It's a whole different world. Being gay wasn't even on our radar and no one talked about it.
What was it like working with the wonderful Sally Hawkins?
She's incredible, sweet and fun and she's my friend now. She is who you see on the screen. We had so much fun together.
It shows. I loved your soft-shoe tap dance scene!
Thank you. Wasn't that great? One thing about working with Guillermo is that everything in the film is made with a purpose... Nothing in the film is there by accident. I mean, accidents do happen on a film set, but Guillermo often uses those too.
What do you hope viewers will take from this film and/or your performance?
I hope people get lost in it like I did. I'm not asking anyone to be enlightened by it, although that would be nice.
What are you working on now?
Nothing. I've done two seasons of "Berlin Station" on TV. I just got back from Germany and now I'm taking a well-earned break and I'm looking forward to it.
This writer's conclusion: Not so fast, Richard. I expect the actor will be required to work the awards season circuit of screenings, parties and other events in support of "The Shape of Water." Jenkins could well secure a second Oscar nomination for his funny, moving performance as the closeted but ultimately brave, Giles.
Del Toro could also receive his first, well-deserved nomination as Best Director. He was previously nominated for Best Original Screenplay for "Pan's Labyrinth," but has yet to win an Academy Award.
Admittedly, "The Shape of Water" is a hard-to-define movie that may not appeal to all Academy members. It struck me as a sexier, gorier, adults-only update of Spielberg's "E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial," though there was no sex involved. I suspect that some viewers may have difficulty accepting del Toro's uninhibited romance between Elisa and her gill man.
What of the film's unusual title? According to del Toro: "Water takes the shape of whatever is holding it at the time and although water can be so gentle, it's also the most powerful and malleable force in the universe. That's also love, isn't it? It doesn't matter what shape we put love into, it becomes that, whether it's man, woman or creature."
All of this is reason for LGBTQ moviegoers to rejoice. If queerness is best defined as unclassifiable "otherness," then "The Shape of Water" is unquestionably the queerest movie of 2017. It could also be a cinema classic in the making.
Also in Entertainment


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Who Owns The Zebra?
June 16, 2009
This famous puzzle was first published by Life magazine on December 17, 1962. It has been variously attributed to both Albert Einstein and Lewis Carroll, but the true author is not known. There are several versions; this is the original from Life:
1 There are five houses.
2 The Englishman lives in the red house.
3 The Spaniard owns the dog.
4 Coffee is drunk in the green house.
5 The Ukrainian drinks tea.
6 The green house is immediately to the right of the ivory house.
7 The Old Gold smoker owns snails.
8 Kools are smoked in the yellow house.
9 Milk is drunk in the middle house.
10 The Norwegian lives in the first house.
11 The man who smokes Chesterfields lives in the house next to the man with the fox.
12 Kools are smoked in the house next to the house where the horse is kept.
13 The Lucky Strike smoker drinks orange juice.
14 The Japanese smokes Parliaments.
15 The Norwegian lives next to the blue house.
In the interest of clarity, it must be added that each of the five houses is painted a different color, and their inhabitants are of different national extractions, own different pets, drink different beverages and smoke different brands of American cigarettes.
Your task is to write a program to solve the puzzle and determine: Who drinks water? Who owns the zebra? When you are finished, you are welcome to read or run a suggested solution, or to post your own solution or discuss the exercise in the comments below.


text: Jules Kim, Zahra Stardust and Cameron Cox at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas. Zahra Stardust August 10, 2017 The stigma of sex work comes with a high cost Zahra Zsuzsanna Stardust, UNSW Sydney Stigma continues to inform legal, social and cultural attitudes towards sex work and remains a barrier to health, human rights and justice. Developing stigma indicators is one step towards change.