text:
An End and a Beginning
"My last day is on Friday," said Emilia Tamayo, the head of El Laguito, the home of Cuba's most famous cigar brand, Cohiba. The strong 55-year-old woman looked vulnerable, almost like a child asking for forgiveness after doing something naughty. We stood together in the reception area of the Hotel Nacional in Havana for the start of a dinner during the sixth annual cigar festival on February 25.
It seemed slightly strange that she would no longer be in charge at what is arguably the best cigar factory in Cuba. Tamayo explained that she needed more time to spend with her family and she believed that she had already accomplished a lot in her small factory. But she was melancholy as she spoke of her retirement. Maybe she was upset that the production of Trinidad was moved to a factory in Pinar del Río. Or perhaps she was upset that her dream of producing all of the cigars in the Cohiba range would never be realized? One never knows the real reason for why things happen in Cuba.
Regardless of why she left El Laguito, Tamayo brought a professionalism and dedication to the world of cigar factories here. She ran the Cohiba factory as if it were her very own. That pride of ownership never wavered from the day she took over in 1995. "What do you think of my beautiful factory, Suckling?" she would say, beaming proudly when I would arrive for a visit. "This is like my own house. Only a woman can do something like this. It's a woman's touch that can make a factory even more."
In fact, Tamayo was the first woman to manage a Cuban cigar factory. She served as a role model to many other Cubans in the country's cigar sector. She never professed to be a tobacco expert. She left that to her team of technicians and workers, her "family" as she called them. She was simply the matriarch of El Laguito. Under her management, Cohiba became more than just a gift for diplomats; it became an icon for the island and for the world of luxury consumable goods.
Over the last decade, I occasionally wrote critical articles about her factory and others on the island. She always was one of the first to complain bitterly about it when I traveled in Havana. "You know that I never had anything against you," she said, sitting in her small,
second-floor office in a building next to the colonial-style factory just a few weeks before this year's festival. "But I took it personally when you wrote negative things about my factory and others. It really upset me."
That's what really impressed me the most about Tamayo. She really cared. "I will always love what I did at El Laguito," she said a few weeks before the party at the Nacional. "It was really like my own." It still amazes me how many Cubans like Tamayo still deeply care about their cigars, from the poorest tobacco farmers amid the red soils of the Vuelta Abajo to the heads of the industry in their spartan offices in Havana. Daily life in Cuba is no bed of roses for any Cuban, but many still have a deep pride in their country and for their work—especially those in the cigar industry.
Perhaps that's why there is so much excitement recently in producing new cigars and new humidors. Sure, the wrappers on many of the new cigars leave a lot to be desired. There is apparently a shortage of high-quality wrapper leaf. You need to go through five or six boxes of a particular size and brand in a Havana cigar shop to find dark brown, oily ones. But the new cigars coming on the market are exciting just the same. Their quality is getting better. If Cuba's factory overseers can get their hands on some better wrappers this year—and the prospects look good—we should have some superb smokes in a year or so.
It's almost hard to keep up with all the new releases. Since the beginning of the year, Habanos S.A.' the global distribution organization for Cuban cigars, has announced a new size, or vitola, for Montecristo—Edmundo—as well as a new limited-edition Montecristo humidor. In addition, special humidors popped up in Havana cigar shops in February for San Cristobal de la Habana and H. Upmann. And there are some new vitolas for the highly successful Edición Limitada. The Edición Limitadas have become annual releases for a handful of special cigars in a limited production. Colleción Habanos, Edición 2003 also is now available, the third in a series of small-production cigars that sell in a box resembling a bound book. There's even talk of a new brand and the reintroduction of green wrapper cigars called candelas.
"We have generated some expectations in our consumers for these new products," said Fernando Domínguez Valdés-Hevia, the co-president of Habanos. He said that the new products were all due to a philosophy of "quality and innovation" for Habanos based on "a strategy of value and image." In other words, consumers should expect to see many more new sizes, new humidors and even new brands as the Cubans and Spanish upgrade their cigar business. (The Spanish tobacco giant, Altadis S.A.' owns half of Habanos.)
For example, the buzzword at this year's cigar festival was "luxury product." It was hard not to hear these two words uttered at least four or five times a day. In fact, among the seminars on Cuban cigars held at the Palacio de Convenciones during the five-day event was a 45-minute discussion on the "World of Luxury: Past, Present and Future." I am not completely comfortable calling a cigar a luxury product like a Rolex watch or a Gucci tie, and I hope it is not an excuse for Habanos to continue to increase prices for their cigars, which rose 5 to 15 percent in the first quarter of 2004, depending on the brand and size.
In any case, the new Edmundo from Montecristo will be a luxurious smoke for any aficionado when it is launched this May in France, Italy and Lebanon. The Edmundo is almost the same shape as last year's hugely successful Cohiba Siglo VI, but it is slightly shorter. It measures a fat 52 ring gauge by about 5 3/8 inches long. I smoked an Edmundo fresh off a cigar-rolling bench at the new H. Upmann factory and it showed plenty of rich tobacco character while remaining refined and cedary. I tried it two other times a few weeks later during the festival and it was excellent. The cigar doesn't quite have the complexity of the Cohiba Siglo VI (last year's sensational release), but it is an excellent smoke with plenty of character. This could be the best Montecristo ever.
This new cigar for Montecristo couldn't come at a better time. Although the brand is the best-selling from Cuba (with between 35 million and 40 million a year), it remains rather lackluster in the minds of true Cuban cigar aficionados. Granted, the Montecristo No. 2 "torpedo" is a cigar appreciated by many serious cigar smokers, but the rest of the line is rather uninspiring. Edmundo should reenergize what historically was a great brand for the island. It should sell for about the same price as the No. 2.
The new limited-edition Montecristo humidor selling in Havana for about $3,600 is beautiful, a simple wooden humidor with pointed, beveled corners. The lid is made of lighter, blond wood and is emblazoned with the well-known crossed-sword logo of the Montecristo brand. Inside there are some wonderful smokes: 50 Montecristo "A"s, the largest standard-size format made in Cuban cigar factories, and 50 Salomones No. 2s, special figurados that are popping up on an increasing number of Cuban brands in special releases such as these. The "A" is a two-hour smoke that measures 9 1/4 inches long with a 47 ring. The Salomone is shorter, but fatter, with a 57 ring gauge at its fattest point and 6 7/8 inches in length.
The more popular recently released humidor, however, is one celebrating the fifth anniversary of the brand San Cristobal de la Habana. The refined-looking varnished humidor with eighteenth-century drawings of the old town of Havana and its port is a beautiful piece of furniture. It holds 25 cigars in each of four sizes: El Moro, 49 ring by 7; Mercaderes, 46 by 6 1/2; Muralla Rodolfo (long torpedo), 52 by 7; and Oficios, 42 by 6 1/2. The humidor, of which 500 were made, sells for about $2,900 in Havana.
One other limited-production humidor on the market is the 160th Anniversary H. Upmann. A simple upright humidor with 100 cigars, it contains 40 double coronas, 30 torpedos and 30 corona gordas. It sells for $1,600.
The newest Colleción Habanos, Edición 2003, has nothing to do with Montecristo. In its third edition, the stylish cigar box is filled with 20 Hoyo de Monterrey double coronas, measuring 7 5/8 inches long by 49 ring gauge. They have tapered ends like some double coronas from the 1960s and 1970s that I have seen. The box sells for about $450, and only 500 boxes were produced. The first Edición was in 2001, when 300 boxes of 10 Cuaba Salomones were produced and sold entirely in Germany. The second was last year, when the Partagas Serie C No. 1 was made. It was a fantastic smoke, measuring 6 5/8 inches by 48 ring gauge.
Some of the biggest news this year in Cuban cigars will be this year's Edición Limitada, but the Cubans are being very cagey about their release. Sources say that it will be in the autumn. The three sizes that will most likely be chosen are: Romeo Hermosos No. 2,48 ring gauge by 6 1/4; Partagas Serie D No. 1, 50 by 6 3/4; and Cohiba Sublimes, 54 by 6 1/2. All will come in boxes of 25 cigars. Production of these cigars is limited, so keep an eye out for them.
Domínguez said that the limitadas will always be what they are supposed to be, limited. "These specialty cigars are made with the best tobacco," he said, explaning the unique nature of the dark, aged wrappers. "It depends on the results of the crop. We have limited raw materials. So it all depends on the year."
Will we see more soon? This year's harvest looked to be a good one. I spent two or three days in Pinar del Río and I was impressed by the size and quality of the crop. The Robaina family, perhaps the greatest tobacco growers on the island, had already finished their harvest in mid-January. "It's the earliest harvest we have had in memory," said the 85-year-old Alejandro Robaina, a legendary figure here in Cuba who grows some of the silkiest wrapper tobacco in the world. "The crop was clean and perfect in quality and we had very high yields."
His grandson Hiroshi, who now is a head of their plantation, said that they had planted mostly Habana 2000, a tobacco variety that was in fashion a few years back. They began using it again following the susceptibility of other varieties called Criollo 98 and Corojo 99 to such diseases as black shank. "If you plant 2000 a little earlier, it is less susceptible to blue mold, and we now know how to better cure and process the tobacco," said Hiroshi. In years past, Habana 2000 wrapper was slightly too thick and rough in texture due to problems with the processing. In addition, it had a tendency to be attacked by blue mold. "We are really happy with this year's results," he said.


text:
This list is contains information that is typical to most developments. This list does not necessarily contain all the information that needs to be addressed on all developments. It has been created more as a guideline/aid in the design process.
- Developer's Name(s)
- Adjacent Property Owners Name(s)
- ROW Dedication
- ROW Width
- Remainder Parcel(s) clearly marked
- Signature Blocks
- Fences
- 5' non-climbable fence required on all canals over 5 cfs, storm drawins, and open ditches and ponds over 4' deep, and abutting major collectors (state highways).
- Irrigation ditch easement - Typically around 10' on small ditches, and 20' on larger ditches for maintenance
- Canals - Typically 20' wide, or per the canal company specifications
- Drainages
- Slough
- River
- Stream
- Floodplain - May extend beyond boundary of drainage easement
- Check Flood Maps
- Check area for evidence of flooding
- Public Utility
- 10' Public utility and drainage easements required along frontage of all lots
- Sewer, storm water, power, telephone, cable, gas, best located along back of lots, along lot lines
- Access easement for landlocked parcel, maybe agricultural parcel
Additional Paperwork
- Escrow Required
- Escrow here means escrow certificate (money in bank), letter of credit (from a lending institution, cashier's escrow (deposited in out account)
- Revenue number required for each escrow account
- Escrow account will have Expenditure number
- Required for anything to make a lot a buildable lot, e.g. water, sewer, roadway, etc.
- May get approval, build improvements, and then record the subdivision.
- Improvement Drawings are required prior to recording
- Required for any off-site improvements, e.g. water, serwer, substandard roads, etc.
- Excavation permit may be required for offsite improvements.
- Hillside Problems
- Slope of lot > 25% designated as 'R' Lot, or designate a 75'x100' building area with a slope ≤ 25%
- May not allow a drain field due to steep slope
- Hillside may require a soil analysis due to slide potential

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Buchholz, Red Sox beaten by Buehrle, Blue Jays
Blue Jays 4, Red Sox 2
Clay Buchholz feels like he's ready for the postsesason. He just won't have a perfect record when he gets there.
Buchholz lost for the first time this season, and the AL East champion Boston Red Sox rested a couple of regulars while falling to Mark Buehrle and the Toronto Blue Jays, 4-2, on Saturday night.
Having missed more than three months with a strained neck, Buchholz feels like his strength is where it was before the injury. He just needs to fine tune a few things.
"I feel good. Movement on all the pitches is there," he said. "It's just the command and location and where to start it, which is sometimes hard to get better. The velocity is there and the body feels good."
Buchholz (11-1) gave up two earned runs on six hits and two walks in six innings. He had pitched 11 scoreless innings in his previous two starts since coming off the disabled list.
A day after the Red Sox clinched the division title, they lost for just the sixth time in 21 games. Manager John Farrell didn't start second baseman Dustin Pedroia and first baseman Mike Napoli, and used starter Ryan Dempster for an inning of relief.
Buchholz was the first Boston pitcher to start a season 11-0 in his initial 14 starts since Roger Clemens went 13-0 in 1986.
"I thought Clay was pretty sharp and pretty crisp for the time he was out on the mound tonight," Farrell said. "He was fighting to get back out for the seventh, but seeing the progression he's on, I think was a comfortable number of pitches for tonight."
Buchholz broke into a slight grin when he was asked about how hard it is to go undefeated for an entire season.
"It probably could have easily have happened sooner than now," he said. "The guys that play behind me all year have found ways to come back in situations where I came out of the game behind in the game."
Boston's lead over Oakland dropped to 1½ games for the AL's best record and home-field throughout the postseason.
Dempster made his first relief appearance since 2007, working a scoreless eighth. Boston third baseman Will Middlebrooks shifted to first for the first time in his career.
Jonny Gomes and David Ross each drove in a run for the Red Sox.
Adam Lind's RBI double highlighted a three-run fourth that carried the Blue Jays.
Buehrle (12-9) held Boston to one run for the third time in five starts that he's faced them this year. He allowed five hits, striking out five without walking a batter. He reached 200 innings for the 13th straight season.
"Wish it was in a better situation," Buehrle said of reaching the mark again.
Manager John Gibbons was impressed by the left-hander's season.
"Steady Eddy," Gibbons said. "Doing what he has been doing his whole career. You get 25 Buehrles and you are probably gonna have a good year."
Casey Janssen pitched the ninth for his 33rd save in 35 chances.
Toronto's Munenori Kawasaki was ejected by first base umpire Eric Cooper in the eighth after slamming his helmet when he was called out on a close play.
The Blue Jays scored all three runs with two outs in the fourth after Brett Lawrie beat out a routine grounder to short for an infield hit. Lind followed with an RBI double, Rajai Davis added a run-scoring single and Moises Sierra scored from third on Buchholz's errant pickoff throw to first.
Gomes' RBI single cut it to 3-1 in the sixth. Ross' run-scoring grounder sliced it to 3-2 in the seventh after Xander Bogaerts reached second on Lawrie's fielding error at third base.
J.P. Arencibia snapped an 0-for-27 stretch with an RBI single off the Green Monster in the Toronto ninth.
NOTES: Pedroia had started 151 of the team's initial 152 games. He pinch-hit in the seventh and struck out. "The hardest thing is he's not going to know what to do," Farrell said, joking before the game. "He may end up back on the field because we want to get him the heck out of the dugout." ... Middlebrooks knew things would be a different in his debut at first. "I've never played first in my life," he said, standing on the field after batting practice. "The hardest thing for me is going to be how to try and hold the runners on, which way to stand with my footwork." ... Red Sox CF Jacoby Ellsbury, sidelined for his 14th straight game with a broken small bone in his right foot, ran and hit in the cage. The club is planning for his return before the end of the regular season. ... Felix Doubront (10-6, 4.15 ERA) goes for Boston against R.A. Dickey (13-12, 4.21 ERA) in the series — and Boston's home— finale Sunday.


text:
All-in-1 Sprout Seed Bank + Mason Sprout Jar
Each and every living seed will grow into a plant. It's when that seed begins to grow (germinate) that we call the beginning growth stage of the plant a "sprout". This is the practice of germinating seeds to be eaten either raw or cooked. They are a convenient way to have fresh vegetables for salads, or otherwise, in any season and can be germinated at home or produced industrially. Sprouts are said to be rich in digestible energy, vitamins, minerals, amino acids, proteins, and phytochemicals! In as little as 3 days you will be able to start eating your fresh sprouts! Super easy to grow and extremely healthy for you.
Sprouts/Micro-greens Seed Bank includes all of the following:
- 6 of our most popular seed sprouting varieties
- Step-by-step sprouting instructions
- Resealable Mylar packaging for long-term seed storage
- Large Mason Jar with Sprouting Lid and Mesh Screen
The all-new Micro-Greens & Sprouts Seed Bank includes everything you need to start growing fresh nutrient-rich sprouts in as little as 3 days.
This All-in-1 Seed Sprouting Kit includes all of the following varieties:
1. Garlic Chives (appx. 13,500 seeds)
2. Clover (appx. 45,000 seeds)
3. Radish (appx. 5,000 seeds)
4. Adzuki Beans (appx. 800 seeds)
5. Green Pea Shoots (appx. 500 seeds)
6. Red Kale Micro-greens (appx. 23,000 seeds)
Steps for Sprouting Seeds
The easiest method of growing sprouts is to use a Mason jar. The key is to provide plenty of fresh air to enter the jar and only cover the top with a mesh screen.
Step 1: Soaking
For a quart-sized jar, put 1 ½ to 2 tablespoons of small seeds (up to 1 cup if using larger seeds like green peas or garbanzo) in the sprouting jar. Cover top of jar with cloth or sprouting lid and rinse the seeds in warm (not hot) water. Drain and refill so that water is about an inch above the seeds. Let the seeds soak 8-12 hours (overnight). Protect from light by covering with a dish towel or placing in a cupboard.
Step 2: Rinsing
Rinse 2 to 3 times per day for 2 to 3 days. After thoroughly draining the rinse water, lay the jar on its side to spread out the seeds. Do not expose to light. After 2 to 3 days the sprouts should be filling up the jar.
Things to Remember:
1. Rinse often (2-3 times/day).
2. Keep them moist, not wet.
3. Keep them at room temperature.
4. Give them air to breathe.
5. Don't grow too many in one container.6. Keep them in a dark place.
The perfect gift idea for any special occassion. Learn more about gifting a monthly seed club membership 1, 3, 6, or 12-month pre-pay memberships available. Plans starting at only $10.00. Up to 5 seed packs every month.
Payment & Security
Your payment information is processed securely. We do not store credit card details nor have access to your credit card information.
THE PERFECT GIFT IDEA FOR ANY OCCASION Gift a membership to the Urban Organic Gardener's Monthly Seed Club: http://www.urbanorganicgardener.club


text:
As civic groups mobilized in support of Los Angeles Unified Superintendent John Deasy, board member Steve Zimmer expressed optimism Monday that the embattled schools chief can be persuaded to stay on as head of the nation's second-largest district.
In a meeting with reporters, the board's vice president said he hopes Deasy and the board will be able to have a "courageous conversation" during a closed-door meeting Tuesday and find ways to resolve their differences and keep the superintendent aboard.
"I want to continue to work with John Deasy as our superintendent and I believe that the majority of the Board of Education wants to continue to work with Jonn Deasy and that whatever precipitated the events of late last week, the narrative that somehow the board was going to dismiss Dr. Deasy or somehow the board had a calculated plan of making Dr. Deasy's job so difficult that he would be forced out might be a compelling narrative but it's fiction.
"It didn't happen that way. And that is not the intent," Zimmer said. "That doesn't mean there's absolute agreement on every policy issue and that doesn't mean necessarily that we can work everything out. But it certainly means that we haven't even gotten a chance to. And it is my hope that (Tuesday) will be about taking that chance to try and figure out again how we can work together."
Zimmer is considered a swing vote on the sharply divided seven-member board over the issue of Deasy's future. He was the only board member who spoke publicly on Monday. Others didn't return calls or had no comment.
Zimmer, whose district stretches from the San Fernando Valley to Hollywood, said he believes that Deasy's leadership is critical in ensuring the implementation of a new teacher evaluation system, a college-prep curriculum for all students and a "school climate" policy that emphasizes intervention over punishment.
Asked whether board members have discussed appointing an interim superintendent or finding a successor to Deasy, Zimmer said, "We are prepared for something we do not seek."
Told of Zimmer's comments, Deasy said, "I appreciate that and look forward to (Tuesday)."
Deasy has steadfastly refused to confirm or deny news reports that he'd told some board members he plans to resign, but has said he'll have more to say after he receives his annual performance evaluation during Tuesday's meeting.
Under his contract, Deasy would receive a year's extension on his contract if he receives a rating of satisfactory or better. Currently, his $330,000-a-year contract runs through 2015.
Separately, Deasy confirmed that he had asked the district to provide security for him, but he and other officials declined to say whether he had received threats or what the protection detail entailed.
Today's meeting also includes the introduction of an unprecedented resolution to publicly censure board President Richard Vladovic, who has been accused of verbally and sexually harassing two district employees, including Deasy's executive assistant. Vladovic and Deasy have clashed over key policy issues, including teacher evaluation, and Deasy earlier this year had threatened to resign if Vladovic was elected board president.
A discussion of the district's troubled iPad project had also been scheduled, but that topic has been postponed to a future meeting.
Deasy has come under fire for security and other problems that arose during the initial rollout of the tablet computers to 47 schools, and there has been some question about whether the ambitious program will continue.
Zimmer said Monday that he still supports the "concept" of equipping all 600,000 students with iPads, but wants the board to take a hard look at the next round of contracts before proceeding with the $1 billion project.
Vladovic had no comment on Zimmer's remarks about Deasy, but concurred with his vice president's views on the iPad program, said his spokesman, Mike Trujillo.
The board's agenda lists the discussion about Deasy's future as "anticipated litigation … superintendent's separation," language that a district spokesman said allows the board to discuss "all possible options" while complying with state law governing closed-door meetings.
Besides Zimmer, board members have been tight-lipped about Deasy, who was hired as deputy superintendent in June 2010 and promoted to the top spot six months later.
But there has been an outpouring of support from dozens of civic and business leaders, who launched a petition, endorsed letters and organized a rally for this morning outside of LAUSD headquarters.
"I'm hoping the rally will show the school board that there is a group of teachers, parents, students and community members who care deeply about the district and want to be involved in ensuring that students' needs are at the center," said organizer Ryan Smith, director of education programs and programs for the United Way of Greater Los Angeles.
Supporters note Deasy's success in raising student test scores, improving the graduation rate and preparing the district to implement the new English and math standards taking effect next fall.
They want the board to give Deasy the freedom to pursue his agenda without the kind of interference or meddling that Deputy Superintendent Jaime Aquino said prompted him to resign last month from his $250,000-a-year-job.
Trujillo also said that Vladovic's office received about 75 calls and emails, with about three-fourths of them critical of the superintendent. United Teachers Los Angeles, which also has been at odds with Deasy, last week issued a statement calling on the school board to bring new leadership to the district.


text:
Imagine two scenarios:
1) A country is attacked by terrorists. In response, it targets the terrorists and the countries that aid those terrorists. It successfully captures a bunch of the terrorists and imprisons them. During the course of its operations, an enlisted man deserts and is captured by the terrorists. Its leader exchanges a handful of the detained terrorists for the soldier, as several of the released terrorists vow to continue the fight.
2) A country wants to prevent another country from getting nuclear weapons. Its negotiators meet with the other country and hammer out a plan that has the appearance of restricting arms development but actually allows it to continue out of the world's eye. Concessions are given readily and the leader spurns any opposition to it domestically.
If the leader of that country publicly lauded the results of each scenario, how would you characterize the country's (and, specifically, its leader's) values?
Obama's stated purpose is to prevent nuclear proliferation. But his professed rationale is severely undercut by the path he's taken:
- Compliance inspections are limited in access and spontaneity, requiring at least 24 days notice and only for specified facilities.
- Parts of the agreement can't be revealed to the public or even Congress.
- We aren't allowed to be part of the inspection process.
- As part of the deal, Iran will receive approximately over $100 billion frozen as part of sanctions.
- They can keep enough of their enrichment centrifuges running.
- Failure to comply will result in resumption of sanctions, but any resumption of sanctions removes all non-proliferation restrictions.
The negotiation failures are too plentiful to be accidental. This is not a case of our representatives being outgunned by their team. There is even a recent episode that closely parallels this situation—North Korea's non-proliferation agreement—and we know exactly how that turned out. They knew what they were doing.
(Incidentally, Iran is really in a difficult bind due to the sanctions and low oil prices. It desperately needs the sanctions lifted and increased trade with the world to prop up its regime. We could have achieved countless concessions through a tougher negotiating stance. The comparisons with the recent Cuban deal are apt, especially the end result.)
Iranian leaders are gloating about the deal. Our leaders are professing a worry that a failure to rapidly approve of the deal will upset Iran, devastate our economy, and embolden the Iranian hardliners. If the deal is going to—at best—delay Iran's nuclear capacity and—at worst—accelerate it with the influx of cash, then why would the administration be pressing so hard for its passage?
I can only think of two reasons: removing Israel's advantage and subverting America's interests in the region. This is not an administration that regards Iran and other Islamist governments as "Evil Empires" that must be undermined or countered. For this administration, we are the aggressors, the causes of radical Islam. That this course of action could lead to our destruction (or the destruction of our ally Israel) isn't a bug—it's a feature. Scenario #1 above is of a piece with this as well.
It's really hard to believe that an American president can be anti-America and anti-value, but the conclusion is inescapable: his actions have eliminated any generosity or benefit of the doubt that could be assumed by the office.
[UPDATE (8/19/2015): Apparently, part of the secret agreement between Iran and IAEA is that Iran will inspect its own nuclear site and report back its compliance.]


text:
public class Rotation
extends java.lang.Object
implements java.io.Serializable
Rotations can be represented by several different mathematical
entities (matrices, axe and angle, Cardan or Euler angles,
quaternions). This class presents an higher level abstraction, more
user-oriented and hiding this implementation details. Well, for the
curious, we use quaternions for the internal representation. The
user can build a rotation from any of these representations, and
any of these representations can be retrieved from a
Rotation instance (see the various constructors and
getters). In addition, a rotation can also be built implicitly
from a set of vectors and their image.
This implies that this class can be used to convert from one representation to another one. For example, converting a rotation matrix into a set of Cardan angles from can be done using the following single line of code:
double[] angles = new Rotation(matrix, 1.0e-10).getAngles(RotationOrder.XYZ);
Focus is oriented on what a rotation do rather than on its
underlying representation. Once it has been built, and regardless of its
internal representation, a rotation is an operator which basically
transforms three dimensional
vectors into other three
vectors. Depending on the application, the
meaning of these vectors may vary and the semantics of the rotation also.
For example in an spacecraft attitude simulation tool, users will often consider the vectors are fixed (say the Earth direction for example) and the frames change. The rotation transforms the coordinates of the vector in inertial frame into the coordinates of the same vector in satellite frame. In this case, the rotation implicitly defines the relation between the two frames.
Another example could be a telescope control application, where the rotation would transform the sighting direction at rest into the desired observing direction when the telescope is pointed towards an object of interest. In this case the rotation transforms the direction at rest in a topocentric frame into the sighting direction in the same topocentric frame. This implies in this case the frame is fixed and the vector moves.
In many case, both approaches will be combined. In our telescope example, we will probably also need to transform the observing direction in the topocentric frame into the observing direction in inertial frame taking into account the observatory location and the Earth rotation, which would essentially be an application of the first approach.
These examples show that a rotation is what the user wants it to be. This
class does not push the user towards one specific definition and hence does not
provide methods like
projectVectorIntoDestinationFrame or
computeTransformedDirection. It provides simpler and more generic
applyTo(Vector3D) and
Since a rotation is basically a vectorial operator, several rotations can be
composed together and the composite operation
r = r1 o
r2 (which means that for each vector
r(u) = r1(r2(u))) is also a rotation. Hence
we can consider that in addition to vectors, a rotation can be applied to other
rotations as well (or to itself). With our previous notations, we would say we
can apply
r1 to
r2 and the result
we get is
r = r1 o r2. For this purpose, the
class provides the methods:
applyTo(Rotation) and
Rotations are guaranteed to be immutable objects.
Serialized Form
|Modifier and Type
|Field and Description
static Rotation
Identity rotation.
|Constructor and Description
Rotation(double[][] m,
double threshold)
Build a rotation from a 3X3 matrix.
Rotation(double q0,
double q1,
double q2,
double q3,
boolean needsNormalization)
Build a rotation from the quaternion coordinates.
Rotation(RotationOrder order,
double alpha1,
double alpha2,
double alpha3)
Build a rotation from three Cardan or Euler elementary rotations.
Rotation(Vector3D axis,
double angle)
Build a rotation from an axis and an angle.
Rotation(Vector3D u,
Vector3D v)
Build one of the rotations that transform one vector into another one.
Rotation(Vector3D u1,
Vector3D u2,
Vector3D v1,
Vector3D v2)
Build the rotation that transforms a pair of vector into another pair.
|Modifier and Type
|Method and Description
applyInverseTo(Rotation r)
Apply the inverse of the instance to another rotation.
applyInverseTo(Vector3D u)
Apply the inverse of the rotation to a vector.
applyTo(Rotation r)
Apply the instance to another rotation.
applyTo(Vector3D u)
Apply the rotation to a vector.
static double
distance(Rotation r1,
Rotation r2)
Compute the distance between two rotations.
Get the angle of the rotation.
getAngles(RotationOrder order)
Get the Cardan or Euler angles corresponding to the instance.
Get the normalized axis of the rotation.
Get the 3X3 matrix corresponding to the instance
Get the scalar coordinate of the quaternion.
Get the first coordinate of the vectorial part of the quaternion.
Get the second coordinate of the vectorial part of the quaternion.
Get the third coordinate of the vectorial part of the quaternion.
Revert a rotation.
public static final Rotation IDENTITY
public Rotation(double q0, double q1, double q2, double q3, boolean needsNormalization)
A rotation can be built from a normalized quaternion, i.e. a quaternion for which q02 + q12 + q22 + q32 = 1. If the quaternion is not normalized, the constructor can normalize it in a preprocessing step.
Note that some conventions put the scalar part of the quaternion as the 4th component and the vector part as the first three components. This is not our convention. We put the scalar part as the first component.
q0 - scalar part of the quaternion
q1 - first coordinate of the vectorial part of the quaternion
q2 - second coordinate of the vectorial part of the quaternion
q3 - third coordinate of the vectorial part of the quaternion
needsNormalization - if true, the coordinates are considered
not to be normalized, a normalization preprocessing step is performed
before using them
public Rotation(Vector3D axis, double angle)
We use the convention that angles are oriented according to
the effect of the rotation on vectors around the axis. That means
that if (i, j, k) is a direct frame and if we first provide +k as
the axis and π/2 as the angle to this constructor, and then
apply the instance to +i, we will get
Another way to represent our convention is to say that a rotation of angle θ about the unit vector (x, y, z) is the same as the rotation build from quaternion components { cos(-θ/2), x * sin(-θ/2), y * sin(-θ/2), z * sin(-θ/2) }. Note the minus sign on the angle!
On the one hand this convention is consistent with a vectorial perspective (moving vectors in fixed frames), on the other hand it is different from conventions with a frame perspective (fixed vectors viewed from different frames) like the ones used for example in spacecraft attitude community or in the graphics community.
axis - axis around which to rotate
angle - rotation angle.
java.lang.ArithmeticException - if the axis norm is zero
public Rotation(double[][] m, double threshold) throws NotARotationMatrixException
Rotation matrices are orthogonal matrices, i.e. unit matrices (which are matrices for which m.mT = I) with real coefficients. The module of the determinant of unit matrices is 1, among the orthogonal 3X3 matrices, only the ones having a positive determinant (+1) are rotation matrices.
When a rotation is defined by a matrix with truncated values (typically when it is extracted from a technical sheet where only four to five significant digits are available), the matrix is not orthogonal anymore. This constructor handles this case transparently by using a copy of the given matrix and applying a correction to the copy in order to perfect its orthogonality. If the Frobenius norm of the correction needed is above the given threshold, then the matrix is considered to be too far from a true rotation matrix and an exception is thrown.
m - rotation matrix
threshold - convergence threshold for the iterative
orthogonality correction (convergence is reached when the
difference between two steps of the Frobenius norm of the
correction is below this threshold)
NotARotationMatrixException - if the matrix is not a 3X3
matrix, or if it cannot be transformed into an orthogonal matrix
with the given threshold, or if the determinant of the resulting
orthogonal matrix is negative
public Rotation(Vector3D u1, Vector3D u2, Vector3D v1, Vector3D v2)
Except for possible scale factors, if the instance were applied to the pair (u1, u2) it will produce the pair (v1, v2).
If the angular separation between u1 and u2 is not the same as the angular separation between v1 and v2, then a corrected v'2 will be used rather than v2, the corrected vector will be in the (v1, v2) plane.
u1 - first vector of the origin pair
u2 - second vector of the origin pair
v1 - desired image of u1 by the rotation
v2 - desired image of u2 by the rotation
java.lang.IllegalArgumentException - if the norm of one of the vectors is zero
public Rotation(Vector3D u, Vector3D v)
Except for a possible scale factor, if the instance were applied to the vector u it will produce the vector v. There is an infinite number of such rotations, this constructor choose the one with the smallest associated angle (i.e. the one whose axis is orthogonal to the (u, v) plane). If u and v are colinear, an arbitrary rotation axis is chosen.
u - origin vector
v - desired image of u by the rotation
java.lang.IllegalArgumentException - if the norm of one of the vectors is zero
public Rotation(RotationOrder order, double alpha1, double alpha2, double alpha3)
Cardan rotations are three successive rotations around the canonical axes X, Y and Z, each axis being used once. There are 6 such sets of rotations (XYZ, XZY, YXZ, YZX, ZXY and ZYX). Euler rotations are three successive rotations around the canonical axes X, Y and Z, the first and last rotations being around the same axis. There are 6 such sets of rotations (XYX, XZX, YXY, YZY, ZXZ and ZYZ), the most popular one being ZXZ.
Beware that many people routinely use the term Euler angles even for what really are Cardan angles (this confusion is especially widespread in the aerospace business where Roll, Pitch and Yaw angles are often wrongly tagged as Euler angles).
order - order of rotations to use
alpha1 - angle of the first elementary rotation
alpha2 - angle of the second elementary rotation
alpha3 - angle of the third elementary rotation
public Rotation revert()
public double getQ0()
public double getQ1()
public double getQ2()
public double getQ3()
public Vector3D getAxis()
Rotation(Vector3D, double)
public double getAngle()
Rotation(Vector3D, double)
public double[] getAngles(RotationOrder order) throws CardanEulerSingularityException
The equations show that each rotation can be defined by two different values of the Cardan or Euler angles set. For example if Cardan angles are used, the rotation defined by the angles a1, a2 and a3 is the same as the rotation defined by the angles π + a1, π - a2 and π + a3. This method implements the following arbitrary choices:
Cardan and Euler angle have a very disappointing drawback: all of them have singularities. This means that if the instance is too close to the singularities corresponding to the given rotation order, it will be impossible to retrieve the angles. For Cardan angles, this is often called gimbal lock. There is nothing to do to prevent this, it is an intrinsic problem with Cardan and Euler representation (but not a problem with the rotation itself, which is perfectly well defined). For Cardan angles, singularities occur when the second angle is close to -π/2 or +π/2, for Euler angle singularities occur when the second angle is close to 0 or π, this implies that the identity rotation is always singular for Euler angles!
order - rotation order to use
CardanEulerSingularityException - if the rotation is
singular with respect to the angles set specified
public double[][] getMatrix()
public Vector3D applyTo(Vector3D u)
u - vector to apply the rotation to
public Vector3D applyInverseTo(Vector3D u)
u - vector to apply the inverse of the rotation to
public Rotation applyTo(Rotation r)
r - rotation to apply the rotation to
public Rotation applyInverseTo(Rotation r)
r - rotation to apply the rotation to
public static double distance(Rotation r1, Rotation r2)
The distance is intended here as a way to check if two rotations are almost similar (i.e. they transform vectors the same way) or very different. It is mathematically defined as the angle of the rotation r that prepended to one of the rotations gives the other one:
r1(r) = r2
This distance is an angle between 0 and π. Its value is the smallest possible upper bound of the angle in radians between r1(v) and r2(v) for all possible vectors v. This upper bound is reached for some v. The distance is equal to 0 if and only if the two rotations are identical.
Comparing two rotations should always be done using this value rather than for example comparing the components of the quaternions. It is much more stable, and has a geometric meaning. Also comparing quaternions components is error prone since for example quaternions (0.36, 0.48, -0.48, -0.64) and (-0.36, -0.48, 0.48, 0.64) represent exactly the same rotation despite their components are different (they are exact opposites).
r1 - first rotation
r2 - second rotation
Copyright © 2010 - 2020 Adobe. All Rights Reserved


text:
New Member Nominations 2020
Jump to navigation Jump to search
The printable version is no longer supported and may have rendering errors. Please update your browser bookmarks and please use the default browser print function instead.
The Charter Member nomination (part of the Election 2020) will be open from 2020-10-05 to 2020-10-18 (2 weeks). This list of nominees is maintained by the Chief Returning Officer (firstname.lastname@example.com). This page is write protected and can only be edited by SysOps.
|Nominee Name
|Positive attributes
|Nominated by
|Ujaval Gandhi
|Mr. Ujaval Gandhi has been an active Open Source contributor and has inspired a lot of budding geospatial researchers with his famous QGIS Tutorials (http://www.qgistutorials.com) and SpatialThoughts courses (https://courses.spatialthoughts.com/). It is my honor that I am getting an opportunity to nominate him as I have been following his blogs for a long time. He provides training services for QGIS, Python and related geospatial technologies. His company, Spatial Thoughts, is the only QGIS.org certified training provider in India. Mr. Gandhi holds a Masters degree in Geospatial Information Engineering from University of Wisconsin-Madison and has 15+ years of industry experience leading large GIS teams. Also, he was one of the early employees at Google India and Part of the team that launched Google Maps in India. He advocated and transitioned the mapping operations team to open-source tools and developed and published Google Maps Engine Connector for QGIS plugin for Google Inc. Moreover, he is lead trainer for Google Earth Engine in India for Google Earth Outreach program at Google Inc. and has trained 1000+ scientists and researchers at top Indian universities on Applied Remote Sensing techniques using cloud computing. He is also a visiting faculty/researcher at the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, University of Johannesburg. I sincerely respect Ujaval for his true spirit of open source geospatial awareness.
|Rajat Shinde
|Paulo Coronado
|Paulo has made important contributions to the use, appropriation, dissemination and teaching of FLOSS initiatives in the field of geosciences. For more than 10 years he has worked on the creation of educational material for the integration of free software and open source tools to Territorial Management Processes, especially the cadastre, appraisals and Territorial Analytical Intelligence. With the help of the GeoForAll initiative, he has implemented a laboratory specialized in the appropriation of FOSS4G tools at the Francisco José de Caldas District University (Bogotá, Colombia). He periodically organizes seminars, workshops, courses, and conferences that introduce the use of geographic information systems, spatial databases, map servers, and specialized libraries using OSGeo tools. Currently, in the framework of a doctoral research, he is proposing the development of a territorial analytical management system that acts as an abstraction layer for OSGeo tools to support multipurpose cadastre processes. With the support of GeoForAll Iberoamérica he publishes the Spanish version of the GeoForall Bulletin.
|Sergio Acosta y Lara
|Neftalí Sillero
|Neftalí is a long time supporter of Open Geospatial principles. He is Principal Researcher at CICGE-Research Centre on Geo-Spatial Sciences (Porto, Portugal) and Group Leader of the Spatial Biology Lab (https://sites.google.com/view/sblab/home). He has published more than 100 papers on spatial ecology and biogegraphy always using open source software on GIS, Remote Sensing, and spatial statistics. He coordinates the Atlas of Europe of amphibians and reptiles and its webGIS: http://na2re.ismai.pt/. I'm sure that having Neftalí as a Charter Member will be very beneficial for OSGeo.
|Sergio Acosta y Lara
|Joonho Lee
|South Korea
|I believe Joonho is one of typical grassroot activists in our community. As a GIS analyst in LH Corp (Korea Land & Housing Corporation), a partner organization of OSGeo in Korea since 2015, he has put much of his efforts & time to disseminate the open source spirits and technologies to/around his organization. He's organized local QGIS group in his city and has led the group. Local policemen, students, professors, and other people regularly gathered there together to learn how to use QGIS for their own jobs. As a result of this kind of passionate grassroot activities, he recently wrote and published a book called 'QGIS Cookbook for Big Data Analysis' in Korean. You can see and even download the book here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_v1KiMk8SWiavp7kcj1pq26uGlTxUzWU/view , https://www.dropbox.com/s/x9kt4bnc5670gb5/QGIS_1_QGIS%20%EA%B8%B0%EC%B4%88_3.10.pdf He's shared much of his knowledge and experiences with other community members at OSGeo Korean Chapter's regular workshops and meetups. He is not a software developer. However this kind of grassroot activities will strengthen OSGeo's foundation as a community organization. That's why I nominate Dr. Joonho Lee as a new OSGeo Charter Member.
|Sanghee Shin
|Raul Nanclares da Veiga
|Mr. Nanclares is a member of the Mexico QGIS Users Group, he has been part of the organization team of the QGIS users Annual Meeting, an Open Source advocate. His willingness to spread out the knowledge has been shown as a speaker on the annual meeting and also during this Covid-19 times as an organizer and presenter of a QGIS webinar. I admire his knowledge, his communication skills, his willingness to share the knowledge, not only on QGIS but on other geospatial open source projects. During the three years that I have observed him, he has grown and made the open source community in Mexico larger. Born in Spain, but with a Mexican heart, I thank Raúl for his efforts in my homeland, his adoptive land.
|Vicky Vergara
|Cameron Green
|South Africa
|Cameron has been an advocate for geospatial open source and open data in South Africa. Over the last four years, Cameron has not only served as a mentor and administrator for the OSGeo Google Code-in initiative but also served as a tutor for the UN Open GIS QGIS course and the upcoming PostGIS course. He has also been assisting with GeoForAll administration and has been invaluable in this role. Lastly at his university, Cameron is always assisting students with learning open source software and works not only with geoinformatics students but also students from other degrees. Cameron is a leader amongst his peers in South Africa and I am excited to see what the future in the open source community holds for him.
|Victoria Rautenbach
|Andrew Jeffrey
|Andrew has taken a lead on organising the QGIS Australia user group over the last several years, and was a key organiser of a major QGIS event in Sydney in 2017 that catalysed a lot of new community activity in the region. He is committed to openness and transparency, and has been working hard on ways to help the regional community contribute to the QGIS project. His warm & welcoming attitude makes it easy for new community members to feel comfortable, and he often takes time to answer questions on the mailing list. I think Andrew would be a great addition to the OSGeo charter membership.
|John Bryant
|Ricardo Silva
|It is my great pleasure to nominate Ricardo Garcia Silva for OSGeo charter membership. Ricardo is an experienced software engineer with a strong GIS background. His main area of expertise is in building backend solutions for web-based systems that deal with spatial data. Ricardo has contributed to several Open Source Geospatial projects: He is core developer of pycsw and currently serving at the GeoNode PSC. I believe Ricardo would make a great OSGeo charter member.
|Angelos Tzotsos
|Laurențiu Nicola
|It is my great pleasure to nominate Laurențiu Nicola for OSGeo charter membership. Laurențiu has a M.Sc. in Software Engineering, and joined the field of GIS by working on open source projects and specifically the Sen2Agri and Sen4CAP EU projects which apply Remote Sensing to agriculture. He also contributed to Orfeo Toolbox and some Rust crates, including the GDAL bindings and the t-rex Vector Tile server. He's always been a strong advocate of open-source software and is a native code and Rust programming language enthusiast. I believe Laurențiu would make a great OSGeo charter member.
|Angelos Tzotsos
|Edwin Liava'a
|Edwin has been a passionate advocate for OSGeo in the Pacific for many years, starting the Pacific Islands Chapter in 2012. Since then, he has tirelessly promoted the adoption of FOSS, and played a leading role in building community in the region, operating in the open so that people may learn from his example. Edwin's work has helped to lay the foundation for the growth of FOSS4G in the Pacific, and I believe that, as a charter member, he will provide an example of openness that reflects well on OSGeo's values and mission.
|John Bryant
|Marino Carhuapoma
|Marino has made huge contributions to the Peruvian OSGeo community. As a leader in IdeasG Lab https://www.osgeo.org/geo-for-all-labs/ideasg-lab/ he makes a big effort in spreading OSGeo principles. He had presented the Cadastral Information System with open source software, for the Peruvian Municipal Cadastre at the Geospatial World Forum 2014 event, Geneva-Switzerland and also OpenStreetMaps Integration with GIS for Cadastre in the State of Map Latam 2017 event Lima- Peru. As an active member of the gvSIG Community in Peru he had organized several Free Geomatics Conferences and gvSIG in Peru. He will be a great addition to our community as a charter member of OSGeo.
|Sergio Acosta y Lara


text:
Clint Black to Help Celebrate Fan's 100th Show
Clint Black has some of the most loyal fans in country music, but one fan has really gone above and beyond. Cee Cee DeHart is set to celebrate her 100th Clint Black concert, and the country legend is excited to help.
Black explains that he met DeHart at a fan club luncheon years ago. She's since been to 99 shows and had plans for 100, but the singer is stepping in. In the video above Black tells her to pick any show on his calendar and he'll pay for airfare, ground transportation, hotel, tickets and meet and greets.
"Thanks for being such a great fan all these years, you're the best," Black says in the video message.
To make the moment even bigger Black is getting the rest of his fans involved by giving away tickets to shows in 2014. Enter here for a chance to win tickets, meet and greet passes and a gift bag for any show this year. That includes all shows on his calendar, plus shows that have yet to be officially announced. To enter just retweet this message:
One winner will be chosen from all who retweet after this contest ends on May 5 at 11:59PM. Be sure to read the official Taste of Country contest rules before entering. Visit his official website for information on tickets to shows in 2014.


text:
Oregano – an herb with an estimated 4 times the concentration of antioxidants as blueberries, 12 times that of oranges, 30 times that of potatoes and 42 times that of apples. It is well known as the most powerful antibiotic, which provides lots of healing properties.
The super oil of oregano has been used as a natural remedy in many ways, and it should be diluted before using: Continue reading


text:
Create a warm glow
Cancer survivor Lee Rhodes credits quiet time spent more than a decade ago in a calming candle-lit room with helping her body heal. Wanting to comfort and share her experience with others being treated for serious illness, she founded Glassybaby in 2001, a Seattle-based maker of hand-blown glass candle holders.
Named Entrepreneur magazine's 2011 entrepreneur of the year, Rhodes — who speaks about her experiences and her company Thursday in Woodside — has made providing monetary help for patients who lack health insurance, grocery money or bus fare a part of Glassybaby's mission from the beginning. Over the years, the company has donated more than $1 million to charities that assist patients.
Rhodes recently told the Huffington Post that helping people elevates the company "above just being in retail and makes (it) into something experiential and life changing."
Her Woodside appearance takes place Thursday (4-8 p.m.) at Emily Joubert Home and Garden, 3036 Woodside Road. Admission is free. A portion of proceeds from sales of Glassybaby items will be donated to the Canary Foundation. 650-851-3520, http://emilyjoubert.com.
Bruce Manuel


text:
A two billion dollar corporation headquartered in Massachusetts was recently hit by the SQL Server Slammer worm. It took down a key corporate database server for several days. Even though information about the vulnerability and the patch itself have been available since January 2003, the company had not upgraded its system and was, as a result, compromised. How did that happen? What can a computer manager to do to prevent something like this in the future?
A major ISP has been having problems with its customers' anti-spam filters because they are set too high and too much legitimate mail is being bounced. A couple of months ago the company had a major reduction in force, and they eliminated the department responsible for maintaining the filter software, which means it might be a very long time before the filters will be fixed. What can a computer manager do when this happens?
Your company CEO has been reading the trade press again. How can you tell? He has just told you that you need to beef up all of the company's computer security. Oh, and by the way, your budget is being squeezed once more, which means that you'll have to do it without any additional money, again. Sigh. Is there anything you can do to address the security concerns while not blowing the precious IT budget?
As you can probably tell by now, the topic for this column is computer security on a shoestring budget. What all these stories have in common is that there's NEVER enough time, money, or resources to fix all your computer security problems, but that doesn't mean you should just give up and open your company to the world. Fortunately, there are things you can do that will prevent 90% of your security problems without costing you loads of money or resources. Let's first discuss the major threats to watch for and then move on to covering several things you MUST do to minimize your risk of attack.
Page 2: Threats and More Threats
Threats and More Threats
Contrary to what you read in the trade press, the biggest threat to your computer security is not an evil empire of hackers ready to swoop down and steal all your corporate secrets; rather, it's your users. They are, after all, the ones who continue to insist on insanely easy passwords. No, your girlfriend's name is not a good password. They're also the ones that send virus-laden email attachments and can't figure out why everyone in the office is mad at them.
When planning a security strategy on a shoestring budget, at the very least you need to concentrate your efforts on educating your users as well as addressing the most well-known vulnerabilities. The major routes of attack include:
- Sloppy internal computer security – Over 60% of the average company's security incidents are internal. How many of your machines have the default or no screensaver password at all? I worked for an engineering company here in Boston. When I left, they carefully turned off my accounts. That was good policy, but since every person in the company has the identical easy password on their Internet-facing email server, how much security do they seriously have?
- External hackers – Yes, they are out there, and there are more of them every day, but the majority are kids who are just playing. There are some very serious hackers who are out for money, corporate espionage, or malicious destruction, but on a small budget you will not be able to stop a determined cracker. If you are targeted by a professional hacker, you will have much bigger problems to worry about. Still, at the very least, don't make it easy for them.
- Social engineering – The easiest way to break into a company computer network is not technical at all. More people share account information, leave company confidential information open on their desks, or share with strangers on the phone confidential computer information because the strangers say they are from "the helpdesk." Employee ignorance is the biggest security hole of them all.
If that doesn't get you thinking that you need some security policies and procedures, here are a few statistics from the FBI's "2002 Computer Crimes and Security Survey." 90% of the respondents reported computer security breaches in the past 12 months. 85% detected computer viruses, while 80% were willing to admit to direct financial loses. The most severe losses were theft of proprietary information and financial fraud. 74% reported their Internet connection had been a source attack, while 38% of those surveyed reported that there had been attacks on their corporate website.
Page 3: Seven Highly Effective Security Habits
Seven Highly Effective Security Habits
Is there anything you can do in the face of these frightening statistics?
Fortunately, yes. If you avert one security break by implementing a good firewall and virus protection, the productivity savings will more than pay for the cost of the system. That is money that you can bank! Here's a handy list of things that you can do to prevent the vast majority of attacks. Most of these items don't cost a dime except for the time involved.
- Create a solid and understandable company security policy, and enforce it. Work with your company's legal and HR departments to ensure that it is legal and fits with your corporate culture. Don't make it too onerous to administer.
- Educate your users on the security basics. Teach your users about strong passwords and not leaving their machines open when they are away from their desks. The Internet is not secure and neither is e-mail, so don't send company confidential materials out over the Internet without taking precautions. One major company makes the computer security rules part of their standard HR policies that each employee is required to sign. They fire anyone who violates it more than twice. While it might seem draconian, they do have a VERY high compliance rate.
- Install a good virus protection system on ALL computers on your network and maintain it. Modern anti-virus software is available by subscription and has built-in auto update features, so your administration headache is minimized. Install it as part of the standard company employee system with all the automated features already on. Insist that all employee-owned machines have current virus protection before they can be connected to your network.
- Install a firewall and check your logs periodically. You have a choice of using a managed service or purchasing a firewall appliance. The appliance is cheaper, but make sure to sign up for the subscription update service or be diligent in maintaining the system.
- Remove ALL unessential services and applications on your servers. After e-mail, this is probably the biggest security vulnerability. This minimizes the likelihood that, if a new security hole is discovered, a cracker would be able to exploit it because you forgot you were running that service.
- Keep all your servers updated with ALL the latest security patches. Minimizing the machine's applications also makes it easier to maintain, since you can focus on ensuring current patches on just the services that you do provide and not need to keep current on all security holes.
- Never keep any of the manufacturer's default settings. This item trips up more systems managers than care to admit. Immediately change ALL the default settings on your systems as you install them. The crackers know all the holes better than you do.
In the new hyper-security conscious world, does spending lots of money on computer security make sense? If you have the budget and are in an industry where it is critical, then the answer is an absolute yes. But if you are like the rest of us, squeezed for time, resources, and funds, then you can apply the principles of "good enough" computer security. It might not prevent a massive attack if you are targeted, but it will prevent 90% of your problems while keeping your finance department happy. In today's environment, what more can you ask for?
See All Articles by Columnist Beth Cohen


text:
Erica Herrera recently appeared on TV defending her fiancé. "He's a really kind-hearted, good person," Herrera told Salt Lake City's KTVX-TV. On August 8, Herrera plans to marry Curtis Allgier, despite the fact that he stands accused of killing a corrections officer. And despite the fact that Allgier's face is covered with tattoos, including swastikas, the words "Skin Head" and, um, "Property of Jolene."
According to the AP, Herrera believes Allgier is innocent. "If he is ever convicted, she would either divorce him or annul the marriage, she said." He faces the death penalty if convicted.
And! Ms. Herrera would like for everyone to know that Allgier's white-supremacist ties don't reflect his true beliefs.
"That's obviously not what he is if he's marrying someone that is of a different background than he is," said Herrera, who is half Hawaiian and half Hispanic.
Apple MacBook Air Laptop
Powerful performance
The M1 chip delivers 3.5x faster performance than the previous generation all while using way less power. Get up to 18 hours of battery life.
The couple will exchange vows through a glass wall at the prison, and are hoping Allgier can get transferred to a state where conjugal visits are allowed. No mention of tattoo removal has been made.
Man Accused Of Killing Utah Guard Plans To Marry [SacBee]
Love Is Blind As Hell!! Latina Mami To Wed Insane Tatted Up Faced White Supremacist Prison Inmate…"He's A Really Kind-Hearted, Good Person" [Bossip]


text:
Which Countries Hold the Most U.S. Debt?
Visualizing 90 Years of Stock and Bond Portfolio Performance
Visualizing the Link Between Unemployment and Recessions
Timeline: The Shocking Collapse of Silicon Valley Bank
Mapped: The Largest 15 U.S. Cities by GDP
Decoding Google's AI Ambitions (and Anxiety)
Ranked: America's 20 Biggest Tech Layoffs Since 2020
Infographic: Generative AI Explained by AI
Infographic: 11 Tech Trends to Watch in 2023
De-Dollarization: Countries Seeking Alternatives to the U.S. Dollar
The Richest People in the World in 2023
Charted: 30 Years of Central Bank Gold Demand
Mapped: Minimum Wage Around the World
Timeline: Cannabis Legislation in the U.S.
Visualizing the Composition of Blood
Visualizing the Relationship Between Cancer and Lifespan
Explainer: What to Know About Monkeypox
Visualizing How COVID-19 Antiviral Pills and Vaccines Work at the Cellular Level
Where are Clean Energy Technologies Manufactured?
Mapped: Asia's Biggest Sources of Electricity by Country
Which Countries are Buying Russian Fossil Fuels?
Mapped: Europe's Biggest Sources of Electricity by Country
Visualizing the Scale of Global Fossil Fuel Production
Visualized: The Most (and Least) Expensive Cities to Live In
Mapped: The Population of India's States Compared with Countries
Mapped: Which Countries Have the Highest Inflation?
Visualizing U.S. Consumption of Fuel and Materials per Capita
The Periodic Table of Commodity Returns (2013-2022)
Visualizing 25 Years of Lithium Production, by Country
Ranked: The World's Largest Copper Producers
Visualizing the Flow of Energy-Related CO2 Emissions in the U.S.
Chart: Automakers' Adoption of Fuel-Saving Technologies
Explainer: What to Know About the Ohio Train Derailment
A Visual Crash Course on Geothermal Energy
We introduce the visual diversity of bacteria and illustrate how they are categorized by appearance—from a single cell to an entire colony.


text:
New President Must Deliver on Human Rights Campaign Promises
The Iranian authorities must seize the opportunity presented by a change of leadership to fulfil the aspirations of many Iranians and undertake a complete overhaul of human rights in the country, said Amnesty International ahead of the inauguration of the new President this weekend.
Hassan Rouhani, the 64-year old cleric who has been described as a moderate, will be sworn in as President on Sunday 4 August 2013. Amnesty International has published a set of recommendations to the Iranian authorities, setting out a road map to address the abysmal human rights situation in the country.
"For too long Iran has failed to live up to its human rights obligations under domestic and international law. After years of repression and international isolation, the Iranian authorities must stop posturing and acknowledge the severity of human rights violations in the country," said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Amnesty International's Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa.
"Hassan Rouhani and the Iranian authorities can no longer ignore people's demands for their rights to be respected. The hopes of Iranians must not be crushed yet again. The inauguration must be used as an opportunity to desist from hateful practices such as discrimination, torture, arbitrary detention and unfair trials which can lead to death sentences".
Amnesty International is calling on the Iranian authorities to uphold the rights to freedom of expression, association, and assembly for everyone. The organization is also calling for provisions of Iran's Penal Code that infringe on such freedoms to be repealed or amended.
"Iranians chanted the names of opposition leaders under house arrest upon the announcement of the election results. As a first step, all prisoners of conscience, jailed solely for peacefully exercising their rights, must be immediately and unconditionally released," said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui.
Opposition leaders, Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, along with Mousavi's wife, Zahra Rahnavard, herself a political activist, have been held under unofficial house arrest since February 2011 and must also be released.
Undue restrictions on the media, telecommunications services, as well as on the activities of NGOs and trade unions must also be revoked.
During his electoral campaign, Hassan Rouhani made a number of pledges that could improve Iran's dire human rights records. Among these was a plan to issue a "civil rights charter" calling for the equality of all citizens.
Amnesty International is urging the Iranian authorities to amend or abolish all laws and practices that discriminate on the basis of race, colour, religion, ethnicity, gender or other status.
The incoming President has also made several promises to improve women's rights. Amnesty International is calling for the authorities to repeal or amend all laws that discriminate against women, including any laws that place restrictions on women's access to work or education. A comprehensive law that protects women against all forms of violence must also be introduced.
For many years students have been repressed, imprisoned and denied their right to education. The right to higher education must be based on merit alone without discrimination on grounds of sex, ethnicity, nationality, religious beliefs or any other status. The new administration must take steps to guarantee that all students and lecturers who have been arbitrarily banned from studying or teaching are allowed to resume their previous roles.
Over the past decades, the routine use of torture and other ill-treatment by security forces has been a hallmark of the way the Iranian authorities operate. A clear stance that such abuses will no longer be tolerated is needed. The definition of torture as a criminal offence must be clarified under Iranian law. Iran's revised Islamic Penal Code, which still allows for the application of corporal punishment, including flogging and amputation, as well as stoning for adultery must also be amended.
Iran remains one of the most prolific executioners in the world. The authorities must take concrete steps to abolish the death penalty, in particular, for juvenile offenders
Urgent reforms to the criminal justice system, guaranteeing the independence of the judiciary and ensuring fair trials for all Iranians, must also be prioritised. The use of televised forced "confessions" must end.
All human rights violations must be independently investigated and those responsible held accountable for their actions. As an immediate step to signal a change in policies, Iranian authorities must allow UN human rights experts and NGOs including Amnesty International to visit Iran.
The international community must also assess the human rights impact of sanctions and ensure they are not contributing to violations of the economic and social rights of people in Iran.
"Unless concrete changes are made immediately, the change of leadership will simply be a squandered opportunity," said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui.
AI Index: PRE01/389/2013


text:
- 1 Kgs
- Pack/Packs
- Other
- Temple Hair
- Hair Extension
- Refer Color Chart
- India
- Hair Extension
- Others
- Remy Hair
- Indian
- 10"- 34" Inch (in)
- 100 Grams (g)
- Depend Upon Usability
SalonLabs Remy Hair Bundles is sourced from South Indian Temples and hence we fully guarantee the quality and authenticity of Remy Hair Bundles
Remy Hair Bundles with cuticles intact and unidirectional works best for manufacturing highest quality hair extensions. The key to good hair heal this the state of the cuticle, which forms the outermost covering. Remy Hair Bundles will have this sheath of overlapping cells perfectly aligned, preventing the strands from tangling and keeping them soft, shiny and providing a natural appearance.
Remy Hair Bundles is considered "virgin" while in its natural texture (i.e. Wavy, Curly, Straight) and unprocessed.
- Western Union, Paypal
- 50 Per Day
- 3-5 Days
- Contact us for information regarding our sample policy
- Central America, North America, South America, Africa
- All India
4-1/3, Behind Indian Overseas Bank Building, Begur Main Road, Bommanahalli, Bengaluru, Karnataka, 560068, India
Phone :+918045801858


text:
It seems like there was a period in the history of Hong Kong's Shaw Bros. Studio when Sir Run Run Shaw had a bright red rotary telephone stored under a cheese dome sitting atop his desk. Whenever a completely loony script landed on his desk, he would calmly pick up the phone and it would automatically dial a pre-programmed number which would be answered by Danny Lee, sitting across the studio, presumably wearing a tight polyester shirt adorned with some distasteful paisley pattern. How else can you explain the man's appearance in a string of the studio's first real forays into the world of crazy kungfu? Although the Shaws would produce no small number of truly batty kungfu films, especially during the late 70s and early 80s when the company was on its final leg, their early forays into left field all seemed to have the common denominator of young star Li Hsiu-hsien, soon to become Danny Lee.
Lee is best known for two things: being the determined cop in John Woo's internationally adored love letter to male bonding and the wholesale slaughter of gangs randomly dressed up as rugby players (The Killer), and his role as the super-powered costumed hero with atomic fists, Infra-Man. But scattered throughout Li's early career with the Shaw Bros. are films that are just as colorful and bizarre as Infra-Man, only usually with a lot more sleaze and nudity thrown in. It was Danny Lee who was tapped to play Bruce Lee in the studio's tawdry softcore sexploitation version of the Little Dragon's final days. It was Danny Lee who became the high-jumping Oily Maniac and ran around town killing rapists before finally succumbing to the temptations inherent in being a creature imbued with all the fearsome powers one attributes to a pile of dirty auto shop rags. And it was Danny Lee who bravely stood by the side of a mostly naked jungle girl as they tried to stem the wrath of the rampaging giant ape known as Goliathon.
Movies were never part of Lee's plan. As a kid, he idolized policemen and dreamed of one day being able to himself don those khaki shorts and the gun attached to a cord that so identify Hong Kong police of the time. Unfortunately, Lee wasn't the brightest guy, and he could never successfully pass any of the exams to become a police officer. With few options in his future, Lee entered the TVB Acting School in 1970. By 1971, he was popping up in Shaw Bros. films like Deadly Duo and, a year later, the star-studded epic Water Margin. Lee was not exactly a major player at the studio, at least not when compared to contemporaries like Ti Lung and David Chiang. Though he appeared in many of the studio's biggest productions, he was usually a supporting player, very often inhabiting a "blink and you'll miss him" role.
In 1973, he got his first starring role, in River of Fury, though it was less as Danny Lee and more as a guy who could comb his hair into the same style as Bruce Lee. It was 1975's Infra-Man — Hong Kong's ode to Japanese tokusatsu heroes like Kamen Rider — that started Lee's long career in appearing in the studio's weirdest productions. He continued in this capacity for a while — starring in crazy B films, appearing in small roles in more prestigious films. When the studio hit the skids, Lee started up his own production company and decided that if he couldn't be a real cop, he would do the next best thing, which was pretend to be a cop in the movies. Splitting his time between acting and directing, Lee produced a steady but somewhat unremarkable string of action and comedy films, the notable exception being the highly regarded Law With Two Phases, in which Lee played the archetypal "hot headed but just" cop role that would come to define his career. In 1989, he appeared as one half of the "male bonding experience on steroids" in John Woo's The Killer. The movie was an international hit, and it made Lee a familiar face to cult film fans around the world. And then things got really weird.
I don't know Danny Lee. I've never really heard him express his thoughts on political or social matters. All I can do is interpret him from afar, and that leaves me with the following impression: Danny Lee is insane.
After his success in The Killer, Lee appeared as a cop in pretty much every movie made in Hong Kong. Under his own production company's banner, and often under his guiding hand as director, Lee established the dominance of the sleazy Category III crime film. Cat III films, for those who missed the boat, are often characterized as "Hong Kong's NC-17 movies." This isn't entirely accurate. Many Cat III films could pass for R, and many still could pass for PG. While it is often obvious why a film receives a Cat III ratings, other times the classification of a particular film as forbidden fruit has to be chalked up to some cultural offense lost on overseas viewers or, more likely, the fact that no matter what country you live in, the ratings boards seem to operate without any basis in logic or reason.
In 1992, as the New Wave was becoming old hat in Hong Kong but being freshly discovered in the United States, Lee directed and appeared in Dr. Lamb. The film combined Lee's beloved police procedural style film with the grotesqueness of extreme horror, then doused it all with the sort of sleazy tastelessness that would come to define much of Hong Kong's output in the 1990s. Dr. Lamb spawned dozens — if not hundreds — of imitators, many of them made by or starring Lee. It's willingness to go where no film would dare go before, it's gleeful embrace of the basest, most irredeemably gratuitous, callous, and scummy aspects of the human condition, made it an instant classic. The Cat III craze was born, fueled by the "we don't give a shit about anything anymore" abandon of Hong Kong in the years leading up to the 1997 reunification of the British colony with the communist Mainland. Like college students on an "end of youth" bender in Juarez, Hong Kong indulged every vice. Nothing was taboo. Nothing was too extreme or tasteless. And standing in the middle of it all was Danny Lee.
The next year, Lee topped himself, turning the extreme violence and wickedly misanthropic sense of humor present in Dr. Lamb into high art, or at least high low art. Co-directed by and starring Danny Lee, The Untold Story quickly became one of the most infamous films in the world. Telling the story of a completely unhinged killer who dices people up and serves them as ingredients in the pork buns offered by his restaurant, the movie garnered critical and fan acclaim, as well as a passel of awards for Lee and his star, Anthony Wong.
Through his direction and portrayals, Lee continuously escalated the insanity of the "cop on the edge", and it eventually became impossible to tell when he was joking and when he truly believed the police should be allowed to do things like shove gushing garden hoses up Simon Yam's ass or rape female suspects with condoms filled with ice cubes. In the end, though, you simply have to go with the flow. Danny Lee was insane, but pretty much all of Hong Kong was insane. I like to imagine that Lee and the rest of the Hong Kong film industry spent June 30, 1997, adrift in Kowloon Bay on a raft covered with screaming monkeys, a la Klaus Kinski's ill-fated character in Werner Herzog's Aguirre, The Wrath of God. But Lee probably just spent it getting ready for some variety show. Whatever. By the time Handover rolled around, Cat III films had exhausted every disgusting, perverse pleasure imaginable. The entire Cat III industry collapsed. The entire Hong Kong film industry collapsed, gutted from the inside by years of corruption, Triad control, and perhaps a general exhaustion brought on by the orgiastic excesses and Caligulan revelry that represented the island nation's last bash before the more somber, less liberal Chinese government took control and decreed that all action stars should be pretty young male model types with floppy emo haircuts.
Battle Wizard finds the future "crazy cop" smack dab in the middle of his role as the go-to guy for any weird thing the Shaw Bros. threw up on screen. Hot off Goliathon and about to appear in the deliriously torrid Call Girls, this ultra-strange slice of kungfu fantasy casts Lee in a position that might take people familiar with the bulk of his work somewhat off-guard. He's not stoic. He's not mean. He's not pretending to be Bruce Lee while banging Bruce Lee's real-life mistress. He even laughs and smiles. But don't worry — his basically likable character is still surrounded by a movie that includes a lascivious green goblin man, a legless fire-breathing kungfu master who has replaced his missing limbs with electrified robotic chicken legs, guys who shoot lasers out of their fingers, and a woman who can throw snakes at you that will burrow through your face and crawl around in your chest as they busily eat your internal organs.
The story begins with hero Prince Tuan Zhengchun in bed with his beloved. However, Tuan proves to be slightly less than heroic when we learn, during a rapid succession of events, that this is a mistress, he's gotten the mistress pregnant, the mistress's husband is outside waiting for a fight, and Tuan is more than willing to smugly ditch the mistress as soon as his wife — who doesn't seem to care that her husband sleeps around — shows up to escort him back to the palace after being nasty to the pregnant mistress. In the fight between Tuan and his mistress' proper husband, Wong Po-yen, Tuan uses his magical pew-pew-pew finger lasers to blow the poor guy's legs off. Enraged by everything that has transpired that afternoon, Wong vows revenge on the Tuan family, and honestly, it's hard not to sympathize with him.
Years pass, and Tuan's illegitimate daughter grows up. Tuan also has a son with his actual wife. Tuan's estranged daughter, Xiang Yaocha (Chor Yuen film regular Tanny Tien Ni) has become a kungfu master who has had instilled in her by her mother a burning hatred of all things male in general and Tuan in particular. Decreeing that no man is worthy of seeing her daughter's face, Xiang is adorned with a black veil and sets out to wreak havoc on the Martial World. Tuan's legitimate son, Tuan Yu (Danny Lee) has grown into an affable scholar more interested in poetry and philosophy than the martial arts, much to the consternation of his father. When pops insists that his son start taking the physical culture of youth more seriously, Tuan Yu wonders if it is indeed so important in this modern world to know kungfu, or if a man might survive purely on the merits of his refinement, charm, and intelligence.
Not surprisingly, the answer is, "You need kungfu," but don't think that this film is given to any deep meditation on this quandary. Tuan Yu's quest for enlightenment lasts about three minutes, just long enough for him to meet a pretty young woman named Zhong Ling-ehr (Lin Chen-chi), whose martial arts specialty is throwing snakes at people. After Tuan Yu proves himself worthless in a fight and admits that the world is a violent place where even a scholar must hone the fine art of doing something like throwing a gob of snakes at some guy's face, Zhong agrees to teach him kungfu. As is typical in movies of this type, the lesson begins right then and there, with no real preparation or plan other than for Tuan Yu to hobble, arms flailing wildly, at Zhong so she can toss him around. It's the martial arts equivalent of looking for a good math tutor, then having that tutor, immediately upon being hired, punch you in the face repeatedly while demanding that you solve the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer Conjecture.
When the duo is set upon by members of one of what must be eight million Poison Clans that operated in medieval China, Tuan Yu must seek the assistance of Zhong's friend, Xiang Yaocha. No sooner does Tuan Yu come into contact with the half-sister he does not know exists than they are set upon by old Wong's chief minion: a green goblin guy with a retractable hook on a chain for a hand. And it's round about here that the movie starts to get completely weird. Bye and bye, Tuan Yu sucks the blood of a fabled red python that gives a man instant kungfu super powers. He and Xiang Yaocha pledge to marry one another, only to soon discover (thankfully before he's done anything more than suck some poison out of a wound on her shoulder) that they are brother and sister and Tuan Yu's parents are the people Xiang swore to her mother to kill. Then Wong, hobbling about on the electrified, extensible chicken legs he used to replace the legs Tuan Zhengchung blasted off, shows up to capture Tuan Yu and Xiang Yaochi, all of which leads to a colossally insane finale full of fire breathing, finger lasers, tornado punches, and poison frog eating. Oh, and somewhere in the middle of it all, Danny Lee and Tien Ni fight a kungfu gorilla.
While Battle Wizard isn't the weirdest or most outrageous kungfu film ever made (I still think that honor belongs to Buddha's Palm and collected works of the Yuen clan), it's still plenty weird. Real martial arts take a back seat to fantasy fu and guys shooting beams at each other, though there's still a decent amount of foot and fist action. In a fairly rare turn of events for ultra-weird kungfu action, the story itself is pretty straight-forward and simple to follow. There are no secret clans betraying each other, and there's a fairly manageable cast of characters. The script by Ni Kuang, who wrote every single movie in Hong Kong during the 60s and 70s (or so it seems), is based on the novel Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils, written in serialized fashion over the course of four years by famed wuxia novelist Jin Yong (aka Louis Cha) and by Ni Kuang himself, when Jin Yong had to take a leave of absence from his authoring duties. Yong's novels more famously served as the basis for many of director Chor Yuen's most complex and intriguing wuxia movies made during the 1970s, and anyone familiar with the convoluted, labyrinthine plots of those movies might marvel at how streamlined, realtively speaking, Battle Wizard is by comparison.
Don't worry, though. Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils is just as fantastically overstuffed with plot twists and confusion as the rest of Jin Yong's work. When adapting it for the screen, Ni Kuang chose to stick purely to a single character's story in the otherwise sprawling epic, leaving the myriad dozens upon dozens of other characters, clans, gods, and plots for other movies. I don't know if the novel explores the hinted at but largely unaddressed moral quandaries of the story as presented in the movie. For example, aside from breezing through the "can a man live without being violent" philosophical question, there's the question of who here is the bad guy. Tuan Zhengchung certainly acts like a dick when we first meet him, but later in the story he and his brother, the emperor, become erstwhile good guys. He even welcomes his estranged daughter back into the family, though it probably would have been a more admirable gesture if he hadn't callously abandoned her and her mother in the first place.
Similarly, it's hard to see crazy ol' Chickenfoot Wong as a thoroughly bad guy given that he tried to prevent his wife from having an affair and got his legs blasted off by her lover as a result. That's bound to unhinge anyone at least a little bit. The wife, incidentally, disappears from the movie entirely right after she sends a masked Xiong out into the world to shoot people with laser darts launched out of a femur. Most of this is more hinting at complexity than it is actual complexity. It certainly makes the characters more interesting, but ultimately, it's less like getting to know the nuances of flawed characters than it is reading the ad copy on the back of a book about these characters. From what I can gather, the elder Tuan is taken more to task for his womanizing ways in the original novel, which spends a portion of time on poor Tuan Yu falling in love with a variety of beauties only to discover that every one of them is his half-sister, since his father apparently slept with, impregnated, then abandoned every comely lass in the Middle Kingdom.
However, such thematic questions are quickly swept under the rug as soon as the fire-breathing chicken-leg wizard, toad eating, and gorilla scuffles parade onto the screen. Given the movie's slight running time, it's a wonder that Ni Kuang packed any character complexity at all into the story on its brisk march toward the outer reaches of kungfu insanity. When it arrives at its destination, however, it becomes one for the ages. The studio learned a lot during the making of Infra-Man, and many filmmakers seemed keen on employing the sort of optical and animation effects present in that film. Up until Battle Wizard, director Hsueh Li Pao plied his trade in pretty normal kungfu films. I don't know the events that lead to his directing Battle Wizard instead of someone like Chor Yuen, but the end result is a satisfying smattering of kungfu mixed in with a whole lot of animated laser beams and random flashes of color.
Wong's subterranean lair looks straight out of Mario Bava, awash as it is in gratuitous but never the less gorgeous multi-colored lighting. One half expects Reg Park to come swaggering through, stopping just long enough to apologize for the intrusion and ask the direction to Christopher Lee's similarly lit underground abode. Art director Johnson Tsao, who worked on pretty much every Shaw Bros. movie you can think of, blends the sort of stylized sets such fantasy films demand with a lot of outdoor location work, which is one of the primary reasons Battle Wizard feels similar to but also very different from Chor Yuen's entirely set-bound wuxia fantasies. When the sets do show up, they're impressively otherworldly. Aside from Wong's cave (which is actually a very simple, small, and cheap set made interesting by the way it's lit and filmed), there's his weird pagoda of death and, particularly effective, the multi-colored mist enshrouded swamp in which the Poison Clan dwells. The rest of the sets are pretty standard Shaw. Bros. interiors.
The acting is pretty good across the board. Danny Lee, as I might have alluded to earlier, never struck me as a particularly engaging performer. He has more range than, say, Derek Yee would later demonstrate, but very little in the way of true skill or charisma, especially when held up alongside contemporaries like David Chiang, Ti Lung, or Alexander Fu Sheng. However, he works well within his limited range for this movie, creating a character with a decent degree of charisma who teaches us the valuable lesson that you can loaf around all your life, and as long as you eventually bite a snake and swallow a toad, you will become the world's most invincible kungfu hero. As with many of the films in which Lee was the star, this is a decidedly B-Team effort. There's no Ti Lung, no Lo Lieh, none of the big names and matinee idols you'd find in films directed by Chang Cheh or Chor Yuen. As is often the case, letting the B-Team be the stars once in a while generates good results. They really put their backs into the effort.
Positioned where it is, Battle Wizard works sort of as a gatekeeper to the even weirder, wilder stuff the studio would find itself producing as it limped into the 1980s. It's pretty bizarre, but it's not as bizarre as what was lingering just on the horizon. It comes from the same source material as most of Chor Yuen's movies, but where as his films focused on the Byzantine machinations of the men and women in the Martial World, Battle Wizard disengages itself completely from reality and dwells within a world populated by, as the name of the source material spells out, demi-gods and devils possessed of expressly supernatural power. One can see in it not just the path that would lead to bonkers affairs like Buddha's Palm, but also to films like Tsui Hark's Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain and the several other supernatural martial arts films from the Hong Kong New Wave.
For fans of weird kungfu, I can't imagine the charms of Battle Wizard would be lost upon them. It comes at the viewer with tremendous energy and a willingness to throw onto the screen as much goofy, wonderful nonsense as it can think of. The underlying story — about a man discovering the world beyond the safe confines of his palace home, as well as discovering the sordid past of his otherwise heroic acting father — may take a back seat to all the chicken leg kungfu and lasers, but its presence at all makes Battle Wizard a cut above the usual fare. It's nice to see Danny Lee shine in a movie which, like Infra-Man, is just as weird as most of the stuff he made but a lot less sleazy. It's hard to imagine that a few years later, he'd be using condoms full of ice cubes to extract confessions from female bank robbers. And I need hardly even mention that having so much Tien Ni on screen is always a good thing. Her sleepy eyed beauty and willingness to shoot men with a laser dart gun made out of a human leg bone endears her to me endlessly.
Which, I suppose is an apt metaphor for this movie as a whole. It sets out to give you a rip-roaring, high-energy, higher-weirdness kungfu adventure, and it succeeds on every level, especially the level that includes finger lasers and fire-breathing wizards with mechanical chicken legs.