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By CNN's Tim Lister
The shooting down of a Chinook helicopter in central Afghanistan with the loss of 38 lives - most of them U.S. Navy SEALs - highlights two crucial aspects of the conflict in Afghanistan, as U.S. forces begin to draw down and Afghan security forces start taking the lead.
The first is the growing reliance on U.S. Special Operations Forces to combat the Taliban and other insurgent groups - in operations every night across the country.
The second is that many areas far beyond the Taliban's traditional strongholds in the south remain very insecure, areas where the Taliban have exploited an instinctive wariness of a foreign force among locals - and punished those who dare to work with them.
One such place is the Tangi Valley in Wardak province, where the crash occurred in the early hours of Saturday morning. Soldiers who have served there describe it as perfect territory for insurgents, with steep mountainsides of shale and boulders overlooking orchards and thick vegetation.
Improvised bombs are regularly planted along the one road that runs through the valley, next to the Logar River, and detonated from vantage points above. (NATO officials say that the IEDs' control wires are laid across the river, making pursuit of the insurgents more difficult.)
Tangi is only 60 miles from Kabul, close to the main highway south. But the Taliban (though not al Qaeda or other foreign groups) have long been active in the area.
In 2009, soldiers in the U.S. Army's 10th Mountain Division were deployed to this part of Wardak. They encountered 57 roadside bombs in the valley in just three months, dubbing the road "IED alley" and "Walter Reed Highway," a reference to the Army medical center where many soldiers wounded in Afghanistan have received treatment.
Firefights were an almost daily occurrence.
On his blog this weekend, a former member of the 173rd Airborne Brigade recently deployed to Tangi wrote of the village where the helicopter came down. "Juy Zarin is a village we went to frequently during our deployment and never found anything good while out there. In fact it was a wonderful place to go if we felt like getting into contact."
Back in the 1980s, the Soviet Army was never able to pacify the region, and Soviet convoys were frequently ambushed there.
Earlier this year U.S. forces passed control of the military post in the valley to Afghan troops. Lt. Col. Thomas S. Rickard of the 10th Mountain Division handed over Combat Outpost Tangi to a unit of the Afghan National Army.
"As we lose U.S. personnel, we have to concentrate on the greater populations," Rickard told the U.S. Army website at the time. But the afghan Army did not maintain a permanent presence at the outpost, according to officials of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
As elsewhere, especially in eastern Afghanistan, U.S. forces are now returning to areas previously seen as too remote to focus on or too difficult to defend, where the Taliban and other insurgent groups have filled the vacuum. As they do, the risk of casualties grows - as does the role of U.S. special forces.
The use of U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF) in Afghanistan has grown exponentially. In a talk two weeks ago at the Aspen Security Forum, the outgoing commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command, Adm. Eric T. Olson, disclosed that SOF carried out "somewhere between 3,000 and 4,000 operations" in 2010 alone.
"This is now routine, every night....ground forces getting on a helicopter and flying against a target," Olson said.
The template of such operations includes "a quick reaction force on call to render assistance should things go bad," Olson said. In Friday night's attack, it was the quick reaction force, on its way to assist an ongoing mission by Army Rangers, that perished.
Speaking of the Navy SEALs who took part in the mission that killed Osama bin Laden, Adm. Olson made their role sound almost mundane. "For the people involved it was another mission and another target....This is not a force that sits on the second deck of the fire station waiting for the bell to ring every 10 or 15 years. We trace our lessons back to what we did last night."
But he also recognized the huge burden now falling on Special Operations Forces to subdue the Taliban.
"We are beginning to fray around the edges. We are asking an awful lot of our people," he said at the Aspen conference, adding that SOF units were seeing "a lot of separations short of divorce." But 82% of SOF troops who have the choice of leaving or staying in choose the latter, according to Olson. And more will be asked of them. Of the 33,000 U.S. troops due to be withdrawn from Afghanistan by the end of 2012, none will be special forces.
Special Operations Command - drawn from all four branches of the U.S. military - has grown to a strength of 60,000. With a $10 billion budget it is now larger than the U.S. Coast Guard and about the same size as the entire Canadian Defense Force.
And the caliber of its members reflects its special status. Thirty percent are college graduates. They are more experienced than regular soldiers, with an average age of 30, and they volunteer multiple times. Olson says 60% of SOF have joined since September 11, 2001 - and the aim is to keep them in the military for an average of 20 years.
SOF operations in Afghanistan have at times been controversial, the subject of criticism from President Hamid Karzai because of civilian casualties.
In 2010, then-ISAF Commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal tightened rules of engagement after a series of raids involved civilian deaths, although some units remained exempt from the directive. When he took over, Gen. David Petraeus expanded the use of SOF in an effort to drive the Taliban out of Helmand and Kandahar provinces and blunt the Haqqani network further east.
In testimony to Congress in March, Petraeus said: "We have stepped up the tempo of precise, intelligence-driven operations to capture or kill insurgent leaders....In a typical 90-day period, precision operations by U.S. special-mission units and their Afghan partners alone kill or capture some 360 targeted insurgent leaders."
It appears the Army Rangers were involved in just such a mission in Tangi Valley - closing in on Taliban commanders meeting in a village - when they called for reinforcement.
Special Operations Forces remain the sharp end of a multi-pronged approach in Afghanistan. Olson said the strategy marries "the counter-terrorism line of operation and the engagement line of operation - what's been called village stability operations and the development of Afghan local police trying to return neighborhoods back to the neighbors."
It's become known as "clear, hold, build, transition" to win over what are euphemistically called "under-governed spaces."
Such was the aim of commanders in Tangi two years ago.
Lt. Col. Kimo Gallahue, battalion commander for the 2nd Battalion, 87th Infantry Regiment, told the Armed Forces Press Service in March 2009: "We'll take the physical terrain from the enemy ... and we'll take the people away, because the people are the prize in this fight."
But even with the surge last year, many areas of Afghanistan rarely see an ISAF soldier. And officers acknowledge that while a platoon can show a presence, it might take a company or more to persuade villagers they are secure. "Successful counter-insurgency is labor intensive," said one officer.
One soldier deployed to Tangi Valley wrote of his experiences on the website AssgnmentAfghanistan in January.
"Few of the villagers are openly hostile towards us, but they are always mindful of the Taliban, who move through the valley at night," he said. "They are in a delicate situation - we Americans have much to offer them, but they know that we will not be in their valley forever, and they know that the (Afghan National Army) and (Afghan National Police) cannot fight the insurgency alone."
Last year, the newspaper Stars and Stripes reported on a planned meeting for farmers in the district.
Two officials from the ministry of agriculture in Kabul backed out at the last minute, fearing for their safety, and not a single farmer showed up, "leaving a handful of American soldiers and a lone U.S. Department of Agriculture representative, sitting on otherwise empty benches in a stiff breeze, with folding tables full of unopened water bottles and unmade tea," the paper reported.
The phrase commonly used in Afghanistan is: "The Americans have the watches, but the Taliban have the time."
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The reviews of the heavily-hyped, practically pre-panned The Great Gatsby have begun to roll out, and many, though not all, are saying exactly what was expected: that director Baz Luhrmann has desecrated (Baz-tardized?) F. Scott Fitzgerald's masterwork about the elusive American dream.
"Luhrmann's vulgarity is designed to win over the young audience, and it suggests that he's less a filmmaker than a music-video director with endless resources and a stunning absence of taste," declares the New Yorker's David Denby.
"This is one of the most maddening examples of wasted money ever dumped on the screen," writes an especially grumpy and hyperbolic Rex Reed.
Time Out New York's Keith Uhlich even dares to compare this version of Gatsby to — prepare to clutch your über-expensive pearls, Daisy Buchanan — Twilight.
It's true that this Great Gatsby is not exactly worthy of the word great. But it's also not quite the Jay G.-meets-Jay-Z train wreck many anticipated, either. Actually, despite one major change to the narrative structure, the film turns out to be a pretty faithful adaptation of the book, one that just happens to be in 3-D and peppered with some of Luhrmann's now-standard filmmaking flourishes. And that's the problem. After all the blog-comment handwringing about how the Man Behind the Red Curtain Trilogy would fling Fitzgerald's subtle novel into a stratosphere several hundred miles north of over-the-top, the movie feels like a tepid letdown. Ironically, what Baz Luhrmann's Great Gatsby really needs more of is Baz Luhrmann.
Let me say upfront that I always thought Luhrmann was an ideal match for Gatsby. In his take on Romeo and Juliet as well as his brilliantly insane Moulin Rouge!, the so-called vulgarian turned decadence into something visceral and thrilling, telling love stories that effectively captured the adrenaline jolt of locking eyes with pretty young Capulets or crooning with courtesans atop massive, improbably bedazzled elephants. In that context, it made total sense for Baz to take on the daunting assignment of capturing Gatsby, the foremost conspicuous consumer in American literature and a man who knows full well that the greatest thing he'll ever know is to love and be loved in return.
Of course, purists say, rightly, that The Great Gatsby isn't a celebration of all that wealth. But in order to understand what's wrong with the desire to accumulate so much money and unnecessary real estate, one first must understand what's seductive about it. And Luhrmann certainly knows how to depict the things that seduce us.
In recent weeks, the more that friends and film-critic colleagues got freaked out by all the crazy Luhrmann might heap upon
Gatsby, the more excited I got: "This movie might contain can-can dancers doing the Charleston while Macklemore's 'Thrift Shop' blasts on the soundtrack. Or Jay Gatsby introducing Nick Carraway to a gangster known only as The Maharaja. Or the sight of 3-D boats beating against a current that totally looks like it's going to crash right into my face! Oh, it's going to be a mess. A glorious, wonderful mess!" Once the Gatsby credits rolled, I was happily prepared to do the multiplex equivalent of a walk of shame. I would leave the theater feeling dizzy and still a little drunk, rubbing my over-stimulated eyes, thinking, "I guess that was a bad idea, but ... damn, it was kind of hot."
Unfortunately, once I actually saw Gatsby, I remained cinematically sober throughout. Yes, Luhrmann does in it what Luhrmann does: He gives us lavish Jazz Age soirees where corks pop and jazzed-up Beyoncé songs thump. Thanks to his wife and collaborator Catherine Martin, he shows off sparkly costumes and luxurious sets. And he captures Leonardo DiCaprio — who, for the record, makes a far better Gatsby than Robert Redford did in the drowsy 1974 version — exploding with rage with almost the same ferocity he displayed in Romeo + Juliet. But somehow, none of it raises the pulse the same way that, say, the "Roxanne" sequence in
Moulin Rouge! did a decade-plus ago. In Gatsby, it feels like Luhrmann is going through the motions, reigning in his tendency to fly some serious and surprising freak flags out of reverence for the sophisticated reserve of the source material.
It makes me wonder if maybe Luhrmann might have been better off daring to do what he did in his aforementioned take on Shakespeare: set the movie in modern times. Imagine for a moment if the 2013 Great Gatsby had taken place in, say, 2006 or 2007, before the economy tanked. Jay Gatsby would still be a nouveau-riche man of mystery, but one who, perhaps, amassed his cash by flipping houses before the mortgage crisis hit. He'd still live on Long Island, where he'd throw massive, off-the-chain white parties featuring music that ... well, would probably sound a lot like the soundtrack to Lurhmann's actual Great Gatsby. ("Always timeless ... Hove!") He'd attempt to woo the posh wife of a total jerk who, instead of bemoaning the possibility of interracial unions, would regularly launch into unwelcome rants about the dangers of gay marriage. And in an ironic twist, Gatsby would meet his demise shortly before the 2008 economic collapse that would have sucked away all that Daisy-impressing wealth he so carefully cultivated.
Would lovers of Fitzgerald's prose have publicly shamed the filmmaker for daring to modernize the story in this way? Of course. But guess what? They were going to do that anyway. Ushering Fitzgerald into a more contemporary setting — something that Luhrmann caught very little heat for when he did it to Shakespeare, mainly because everyone does that to Shakespeare — might have been misguided. But at least it would have been truly bold and different, a way to open up the French doors in that suffocating
Gatsby parlor and let in a much-needed fresh breeze.
Instead, our Moulin maestro opted to slightly Luhrmannize a well-known story without really changing it much. As a result, he now seems a lot like Gatsby himself: a man standing at the end of a pier, reaching for a distant light the color of emerald-green absinthe and finding it just beyond his grasp.
PLUS: Leo DiCaprio Cover Story and Exclusive DiCaprio Photos


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Open Source Development: Not Very Open or Welcoming
January 21, 2010 at 9:02 pm 39 comments
We had a visitor at Georgia Tech today, alum Mike Terry, who has been studying the usability practices of open source development teams, like for Gimp, Inkscape, and Firefox. The short answer is, "There are no usability practices," but that's a little too pat. It's a little bit more complicated than that, and actually even more concerning from an education perspective.
The folklore is that open source developers start because they have "an itch to scratch," something that they want developed. Mike thinks that that's true, but that scratching that itch doesn't actually take long. Social factors keep open source developers going — they care about their developer community and working with them.
Mike finds that few projects really care about usability. The argument, "If you made your usability better, you'd increase your user base," is not enticing to most open source developers. Open source developers have no layers (like salespeople or tech support) between themselves and the public users. Thus, they get inundated with (sometimes ill-informed and even downright stupid) bug reports and feature requests. The last thing open source developers want is more of those.
Since open source developers soon stop being users of their own software, and they don't want to talk to lots of users, how do they deal with usability? Mike says that the top developers develop close relationships with a few power users, and the developers design to meet those users' needs. So there is some attention to usability — in terms of what high-end, power users want.
So what happens when a User Experience person wanders into the open source fold? Mike has interviewed some of these folks (often female), and finds that they hate the experience. One said, "I'd never have done it if I wasn't being paid to do it." I guess there's not much of an open source usability developer community. The open source developer community is not welcoming to these "others" with different backgrounds, different goals, and most of all, not a hard-core software development background.
Mike believes that the majority of our software will be open-licensed. I expressed concerns about that future in terms of education.
- How do people get started in developing software in an all open-source world? Mike suggested that open source is a great way for high school students to get started with software development. I pointed out how unfriendly open-source development communities have been to newcomers, especially females, and how open-source development mailing lists have been described as "worse than locker rooms." Mike agreed with those characterizations, then said, "But once you get past that…" Well, yeah — that's the point. Margolis and Fisher showed us years ago that those kinds of subtle barriers say, "This is a boys-only club — you don't belong!" and those can prevent women and underrepresented minorities from even trying to enter the community.
- I worry about the economics of open-source and what signals it sends to people considering the field. Mike assured me that companies like RedHat are making money and hiring programmers — but there are many more unpaid programmers working on RedHat than paid programmers. If the world goes mostly open source, how do we convince students that there are jobs available developing software? Many kids (and parents) already believe that software jobs are all being outsourced. How do we convince them that there are good jobs, and they don't have to work for years for free before they get those paying jobs?
- Finallly, I really worry about the lack of thought-diversity in the open source communities. People who care about usability are driven away from these communities? While we educators are trying to convince students that not all of computing is about programming, the open source community is telling newcomers that programming is all that matters. If the whole software industry goes open source, we're going to have a hard time selling the image of a broad field of computing.
I found Mike's work fascinating, and well grounded in data. I just find the world he describes a little disconcerting. I hope that the open source community considers the education issues of its next generation of developers.
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I think you have to start with "compared to what?" Getting involved in say, Mozilla development might be a big leap, but it is not like getting involved in Internet Explorer development is easier. Your usability expert may have decided she'd have to be paid to work on open source. Fine… does she work on proprietary software for free either?
Concerning the specific points:
* I think you're both overplaying the first point. The number of high school kids who will actually contribute to open source software projects will always be small, just because getting up to speed with a substantial codebase written by someone else is always hard, and once you start winnowing out things like projects that would actually be teaching *bad* coding habits, etc., the whole prospect starts looking sparse.
The same is equally true, except moreso of proprietary software, of course.
But also, I don't know what open source communities you guys have experience with, but I don't find them to be "worse than locker rooms." Working your way in is inherently difficult, to be sure, but again, compared to what? Getting into your class at Georgia Tech? How easy is that?
* The vast majority of software development does not depend on the sale of licenses. The free availability of open source infrastructure has been an enormous boon. Without open source everyone thinking of starting a web company would have to first buy a web server license, a database license, etc… Think of how much *less* economic development would have resulted from that.
* I also think that Mike overplays the issue of open source projects actively not wanting more users and not working on usability intentionally because of that. I mean, I can think of an example of that in an open source project I use, I guess, but it is expressed as, in effect, "Fine, YOU can work on usability, but I'M not going to."
I would re-frame the question: How can people who care about usability create open source projects that will appeal to programmers? How can educators create a new generation of open source programmers who understand usability and its importance?
Although these are important issues for education, it's not true that they're specific to education. They're hugely important to a wide range of markets, and for the success of any open source project.
It's telling that only 1% of open source contributors are female. These communities can be very hostile places, and very often outside voices of any kind are frowned upon – despite the "open" prefix.
This isn't true of all open source projects, and an increasing number will change in the future. I intend to start a new project this yer – following Elgg, the project I co-founded in 2004 – for which the evolution of the community paradigm will be equally important to pushing back software boundaries n
[…] education is always worth reading; today, he reports on work by Prof. Mike Terry at Waterloo on usability in open source. The good news is, there's lots of room to […]
In most activities one gets what is rewarded. For many people involved in open source the reward is the respect and admiration of their peers. That is not a bad goal but it does influence what people work on.
For companies, for-profit ones at least, there is a goal to sell something and make money. That immediately means expanding the audience.This is likely the motivation, much more than altruism, behind their involvement in open source. They need the software to be more user friendly and have specific features so that they can sell the hardware to run it, the support contracts to maintain it, the training in how to use it or the consulting to install it and train users. The future of user friendly open source software is likely to remain dependent on corporate sponsorship for some time to come.
The trick for the open source movement is going to be finding more ways that companies can make money to support the development of software that they give away. And/or to develop new motivations for people who work for free so that they have incentive to expand the user base rather than "just" show off their skills.
The differences between open source and proprietary are nowhere near as vast as some people would make out. The purpose of companies is to make money; whether or not those companies work with open source code, proprietary code, or a blend is immaterial.
To be blunt, my dinner doesn't care if it was paid for by work on open source or proprietary development. In my case, I work in open source, as it provides countless benefits that do not come with solutions based on proprietary code. I also believe in the open source model, and that open source development does more to eliminate social and economic injustice than other models, but that's a philosophical position that aligns with how I run my business.
As to the point of open source being closed, that is a disingenous argument at best, as there is no one open source community. Different projects differ widely in how they are run, and the climate will vary on a project by project basis. Like all of the technology sector, steps need to be taken to improve access. This is not unique to open source. This should not be taken as a justification of the status quo; in addressing these issues, I hope that the transparent nature of many open source communities will lead to faster, more efficient corrections of these issues. Perhaps then, these case studies can be adopted by less transparent companies, and this will provide another way that open source development/community models can help inform/change slower/less adaptive communities.
WRT "The trick for the open source movement" — no tricks needed, really. Let's just talk results.
If you want there to be more open source projects that reflect your values and objectives then start open source projects that reflect your values and objectives.
I think that many aspects of OSS communities represent a reaction to common corporate environments. I think corporate environments have become very culturally sterile in the name of diversity and inclusion. I think this even extends to the way different technologies and skills are treated. There's also the classic problem of the politically adept being promoted over the technically adept. And finally, and probably most importantly, is that commercial work is often boring. Even interesting projects have large expanses of boring parts. I've heard others comment that the more interested you are in your day job, the less likely you are to dedicate professional energy towards open source. I think for some contributing to open source is a dream that someday someone will come along a sponsor their contributions, so they can leave boring day jobs.
Open source can be an escape from project managers, business analysts, QA people, configuration managers, incoherent customers, iron-fisted political correctness, user interface experts, and countless other measures in place to ensure that a usable product is produced in a manner that doesn't yield lawsuits from employees.
I think there's a only one way to actively steer a project towards a specific culture: be a leader on that project. You do it from the inside by working your way up or from the outside by starting projects.
I think all the commentary on how OSS projects are hostile just serves to perpetuate it. It creates an us versus them divide, and it encourages people who might be able to find a friendly project to not even try by over generalizing behavior.
I very much agree with all the main points in Mark's post. And I think the point about the rewards for open source developers is related to the usability problem.
Open source developers get their rewards for their work by getting recognition from their peer group. That recognition usually stems from implementing new, useful features in a project.
Features, however, often conflict with usability. Adding more features makes it more difficult to create a good user experience, especially for beginners and casual users. And the complexity is not linear: When adding more features, the user experience complexity rises somewhat exponentially (in my completely scientifically estimated experience).
To achieve a good user experience for average users, there is often a point where new features should be rejected. If the software is already complex, features may have to be removed to make an improvement.
However, there is no peer recognition in open source communities for NOT doing something. The only way in and forward for programmers to earn their reward is via adding features. It is a necessary result of design by committee that a system will grow to a state of complexity that is appropriate only for power users.
The point – made in a comment above – about Ubuntu being user friendly does not contradict this. Ubuntu only came about after professional usability experts were brought in by a centrally controlled organisation. Linux as a distributed, open, peer-driven effort did not manage to achieve acceptable usability for casual users for many many years before that.
I also especially agree with the problem Mark points out that this culture is highly discouraging to women entering these projects. This is a serious problem that worries me even more than the usability implications. We have to find a way to create a software development culture that does not a priory alienate half the population.
– Michael
The thing is, there is no "it." There is no "other thing" that is open source development — unless you define "it" as unwelcoming white male volunteer nerds. Then, by definition, open source communities are problematic.
It is not less "open source" when someone is being paid. Michael writes "open source developers get their rewards for their work by getting recognition from their peer group" and "this culture is highly discouraging to women entering these projects." Well, does that apply to him? To his open source projects? Or are his open source projects not really open source projects because they aren't sexist, peer-recognition driven, etc.?
The description of the good ole boys locking the doors on all and sundry raises my hackles in all sorts of ways. For how bad it would be if it were correct and how incorrect it is.
There are usability problems with open source software, and the reasons are not going to be easy to address. It's got nothing to do with the community being (to quote a horrid safferism) "pale, male and stale".
The first, and most difficult to address reason is that user interaction is verbose to write, laborious to test and painstaking to debug. For web front ends there are some aids in this regard, but they don't completely remove the pain. For the contributors who are there for fun, rather than being commercial programmers working on an external code base, this lacks appeal in spades.
Which brings us to what motivates volunteer coders, which is important because these are the people who ultimately have to do all the bits. Many are hanging around in projects after scratching their itches. Older projects have had people graduate from interested users to developers just by momentum. This may be the best case for wanting to gain peer recognition, for the people you looked to for answers at the start to acknowledge your progress. Beyond this the case for peer recognition powering the development effort weakens a bit, replaced by personal feelings of achievement or a need to be a responsible FLOSSizen.
Programming is not all that matters. Pushing an agenda, usability or any other, without being able to complete the items yourself comes across as managing though. This doesn't make friends in small, peer directed teams. It doesn't help that usability practitioners, particularly those newer to the field who see usability as a human right rather than a tradeoff, can get a bit shrill.
As projects mature and teams get larger a lot starts to change. Once a team feels that they their project has reached a level of completeness (often based on being able to address a generic enough case of the itch that started the scratch) it's time to go looking for a bigger user community. From the bigger user community will come a bigger development community. Easing access to this development community becomes important and some projects rise admirably to the challenge. Postgres, for instance, has great mailing lists and a fantastic set of documents and utilities which come with the source code download to make getting up to speed as a new developer quicker and easier. These developer intro tools, like test datasets, are an ideal place for student involvement in a project.
Mark's link above cites the FLOSSpols study the EU did on the subject of women's participation in open source. And it raises some important points, and things open source projects need to do better. The difference between their findings and Mark's attitude, as I read it, is that there is no hesitation in the EU findings about the idea that the key to fixing gender inequality is getting more women involved in open source projects. That from a policy point of view there needs to be push, including from CS departments, and pull (from the projects themselves).
I've kinda reframed the issue on my blog: http://www.tuttlesvc.org/2010/01/open-source-community-is-us.html
One of the tricks of usability in Open Source is that achieving it usually requires direct interdependent collaboration between two (or more) people. And that is hard to achieve in any distributed volunteer situation.
In my research work [1] I've found that the vast majority of work in open source projects is accomplished in short bursts by one individual doing the coding; if I'm right about that then collaboration in the way that is envisaged in the traditional usability paradigm (multiple rounds of dependent interaction) is a problem built into the way that open source projects organize.
Mike's work is really interesting because it points out why open source projects don't necessarily want to attract more users.
The way I see it usability requires thinking right across a codebase, so it has many more interdependencies than, say, adding a feature. In short you have to alter the behavior of multiple people—people over whom you have little control—and do it in ways that are fundamentally opposed to self-motivated volunteer work.
[1] http://james.howison.name/pubs/dissertation.html
[…] people contacted me after my post about open source to tell me how their open source project cares about usability, or has lots of women on it. I am […]
Regarding the "country club" feel of OSS projects, there was a very good paper at CSCW 2005 by Nicolas Ducheneaut titled "Socialization in an Open Source Software Community: A Socio-Technical Analysis". He looks at the complex process that developers go through to successfully join an OSS project and gain permission to make large changes to it. The process is one of slowly building up social credit with the community over a long period of time, subtly influencing the code through patches, and learning the—often unwritten—social structure of the community.
Pertinent to this conversation, he makes the point that OSS projects are set up in this way to prevent large disruptive changes from the outside. That is, it's a coping strategy in lieu of things like formal hiring procedures for new developers in closed software development environments.
If he's right, then this is hopeful. It means that OSS projects can be more welcoming to outsiders joining the project, provided that other strategies are put in place to protect against large disruptive changes. The Mozilla foundation, Canonical, and Drupal may all be examples of this in action. They have all imposed further structure on their projects, and brought in people to address usability issues.
Part of how you perceive this issue overall is whether you think that the aggregate open source community is evaluated by the thousands of little projects, with big projects like Mozilla representing an outlier, or whether you consider the core of open source to be Ubuntu, Mozilla, Drupal, OpenOffice.org, etc., with a long tail of tiny projects of little significance in themselves.
That's an interesting idea. To expand on it, I think that there are routes for inclusion in both of the extreme cases.
The large, iconic projects appear to develop their own organizational structures to guide their development, and with that comes an openness to usability issues and more inclusiveness in their community of contributors (if we take Drupal, Mozilla, and Canonical as examples).
Very small projects, on the other hand, could conceivably be forked if the developer community is toxic to certain groups, or ideas.
So that might leave an awkward middle, where projects are too big to easily fork with good effect, but still have a primarily ad-hoc culture, and with it an environment that makes it difficult for outsiders to enter.
I am very much the outsider in the the open source discussion. I have spent the better part of my 35+ year career working for companies that make and sell proprietary software. While I have worked on projects that more or less follow the open source model of development these projects have been pretty small and not in the LINUX world at all.
So how do I judge the welcoming ways of the open source world? By the way the people who self identify with it interact with me. Those experiences have been overwhelmingly negative. It is as if they see me as irredeemably tainted and the enemy of all that is good and right in software. This is of course not a good way to win me over. 🙂
People in this thread see open source as more welcoming of people than proprietary software projects. I had one big dream after college and that was to one day be a developer on the RSTS/E (a proprietary) operating system. I did get the chance and it wasn't all that hard for me. Dang, I am batting 1 for 1. Home run the first time. So my personal experience has been that people are much more welcoming in proprietary software. Send in a resume, get an interview, people offer to pay you money to write code. How is that not welcoming?
What is the model for open source? It appears (remember I am on the outside looking in) that one can get the code and start working but that it often takes quite a long time and lots of hard work before people are willing to take and use your code. And then they still take it for free. You get a pat on the head and people use your code and that is about it. This is encouraging to people who need to make a living? Really?
It seems as though the process to work on open source as a company employee is pretty much the same as for working on proprietary software though. In any job having a portfolio of work to show people is an edge – open or proprietary. And frankly my observation is that makers of proprietary software are way a head in realizing the importance of a diverse population of contributors. They are well out in front trying to recruit women, minorities and all sorts of different people into the development process. Diversity is a core value where I work. Is it in open source? I don't see it.
I think you make a very interesting observation:
"So how do I judge the welcoming ways of the open source world? By the way the people who self identify with it interact with me. Those experiences have been overwhelmingly negative. It is as if they see me as irredeemably tainted and the enemy of all that is good and right in software. This is of course not a good way to win me over."
Last night I was pondering exactly this as a kind of thought-experiment, but I lack the background to have experienced it.
Here you are, a privileged white male, and you experienced open hostility in the open source world due to differences in your technical background and/or preferences…and possibly a resoundingly negative view towards the production of software without direct compensation.
The more I think about it, the more I think project outsiders tend to have a very different view of a project's needs than project insiders.
Mark, I think that you perhaps were not aware of how much interest and desire there is about usability in FLOSS, and also how often FLOSS volunteer involvement leads to real employment for many developers. Finally, the problems of diversity and sexism are serious ones, but I believe they are shared throughout all of computing (including academic CS), not just in FLOSS specifically. I have written a complete blog post discussing these points at length, which complements Greg DeKoenigsberg's comments.
[…] to recent discussions here about Blacks, Latinos, and Women in Silicon Valley and the non-open culture of open source software development. Unfortunately, computer geeks are generally really oblivious to their class privilege, mistaking […]
All I can say here, one has to take a look at what our institute (and other institutions) have tried to address – with a generous donation from a distinguished alumni, we (RPI) are off to a great start. Please take a look at Rensselaer Center for Open Source Software and Dashoboard of projects and the links there in. I am not discounting some of the difficulties we still face. How do we sustain our efforts over a long period of time? How doe we make our administration realize that this is a worthwhile effort? These are the challenges that every one faces – This does not make open source more closed – Answer to any "open" question is "closed" after only one google query 🙂
[…] the book anyway on his own? I worry about insuring quality for millions of schoolchildren when the track record of most open-source software projects is that they tend to care about the usability…, rather than making sure that everyone can use it. That won't work with […]
[…] or as a way to gain experience with significant code bases. I've mentioned before that the OSS community doesn't have a great track record for diversity and welcoming newcomers. Here's a new study describing how hard it is for newcomers to connect with the oldtimers in […]
[…] An interesting new piece on identity within the open source community. Noah Slater addresses a concern that I have, that the definition of contribution in open source communities limits the opportunity for legitimate peripheral participation. […]
[…] to write the docs or to do user testing is not a form of legitimate peripheral participation because most open source projects don't care about either of those. The activity is not […]
[…] * Mark Guzdial : Open Source Development : Not Very Open or Welcoming […]
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If you don't need infrared support, disable it in the BIOS or shutdown the IrDA device driver. There are also some IrDA features of the kernel which are useful for saving power. In the specifications of my HP OmniBook 800 it is recommended to turn off the IR port, if it is not in use, because it may consume up to 10 percent of the battery time. If necessary, you may also try to disable the Fast RRs feature in the IrDA section of the kernel. This option will give you much better latencies but will consume more power.
PCMCIA services consume much power, so shut them down if you don't need them.
I'm not sure to which extend the backlight consumes power. WARNING: AFAIK this device can only bear a limited number of uptime circles. So avoid using screensavers too much.
For some examples to build batteries with increased uptime up to 8 hours look at Adorable Toshiba Libretto.
For information about APM look at the APM chapter above.
A hacked rclock. Booker C. Bense has hacked the rclock program to include a simple battery power meter on the clock face.
KDE provides KAPM, Kbatmon and Kcmlaptop. Written by Paul Campbell kcmlaptop is a set of KDE control panels that implements laptop computer support functions, it includes a dockable battery status monitor for laptops - in short a little icon in the KDE status bar that shows how much battery time you have left. It also will warn you when power is getting low and allows you to configure power saving options. Similar packages you may find at the GNOME project . See the software maps at both sites.
Please see Battery-Powered-mini-HOWTO for more information.
toshiba-fan Turn the fan on a Toshiba Pentium laptop on or off. This is a command line utility to turn the fan of a Toshiba laptop on or off, or view its current state. It should work on all Toshiba Pentium laptops that have fans.


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Pentagon to open Guantanamo panel
The Pentagon announced Friday that a review panel's meeting later this month to consider a Guantanamo detainee's potential release will be open to the press via a video link—at least in part.
In November, when the Obama administration held its first Periodic Review Board session for a Guantanamo prisoner, there was no ability for the press, public or human rights groups to send observers—even though there was such access to similar panels at Guantanamo during the Bush administration.
For most of the last five years, it wasn't an access issue that was keeping the press from covering such events. It was that they simply weren't happening. In March 2011, President Barack Obama issued an executive order calling for the convening of such boards under new rules. However, that process stalled.
When Obama heard last year that no such boards had been convened, he was irate, according to sources. That kick started the process rather urgently, the sources said, which may have prompted the board to convene in November without the press access arrangements complete.
A Pentagon official said Friday that a logistical problem made it "impossible" to provide similar access for the November session.
However, Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Todd Breasseale said that the plan is for such sessions to be open from now on.
"Our intent is keep these things open. The press should have reasonable access," he said.
The Pentagon announced earlier this month that the November hearing for Mahmud Abd Al Aziz Al Mujahid, a Yemeni national, resulted in him being cleared for transfer. However, he's likely to remain at Guantanamo due to the Obama administration's reluctance to send prisoners to Yemen.
Roughly half of the155 men remaining at Guantanamo are from Yemen, including the prisoner set to face the board later this month: Abdel Malik Ahmed Abdel Wahab al-Rahabi.


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There are certain to be many ups and downs at the trampoline competition this week.
Both on and off the jumping apparatus.
Eleven men and 10 women will be compete in a two-day competition in San Jose, Calif., and only one man and one woman will earn spots on the 2012 U.S. Olympic Team.
If there's one trampoline athlete who knows how tough the competition is, it's Logan Dooley, who just missed a shot at competing four years ago in Beijing, where he traveled as an alternate. This time around, Dooley finds himself in third place entering this week's national championships.
"It's crunch time," Dooley said. "But I've been preparing for this for the last four years. I am just trying to keep things as positive and happy as possible."
His biggest competition comes from one family: the Gluckstein brothers, Steven and Jeffrey. And talk about tough, only one of those family members can go — if any at all.
Back in January at the Olympic test event for trampoline in London, Steven Gluckstein placed 10th and earned a spot for the United States for the trampoline competition at the Games this summer. He then won the first two of three events that determine who fills that spot. The third event is the national championships in San Jose this week. Brother Jeffrey is in second place.
Steven, who turned 22 on Sunday, is a three-time U.S. champion, having won in 2007, 2009 and 2010. Like Dooley, he, too, was close to making the U.S. Olympic Team in 2008. He led the men's event after the compulsory routine but botched the landing on his optional routine. He ultimately placed fourth in the final standings, costing him a shot at competing in Beijing (Chris Estrada went instead). Gluckstein's kid brother, Jeffrey, 19, is the defending U.S. champion and is seeking his first Olympic berth as well.
"Fortunately we haven't had the Jerry Springer-type moment within the household," their father, Steven Gluckstein Sr., a Wall Street money manager, told The Wall Street Journal.
Making things even more complicated is that Steven Gluckstein and Dooley have competed together in synchronized trampoline, even winning the FIG's World Cup Series title in 2010 with two victories and one second-place finish. Synchronized trampoline is not an Olympic sport (the individual version was added to the Olympic program in 2000) but it shows just how close this community is.
Dooley got his start in the sport by jumping on his parents' bed.
"I actually broke it," he said with a wry smile. "They thought that buying a backyard trampoline would be cheaper than replacing all of the beds in the house."
Little did the Dooley family know that training would cost them far more than new bedroom furniture. By 2007, he moved from his family's Lake Forest, Calif., home to Colorado Springs to train at the U.S. Olympic Training Center, and he spent two years there.
"That was a real turning point for me," he said. "It really improved my work ethic. Before I went, I was a pretty talented kid, but I wouldn't say my work ethic was great. By 2009, I was the first American to win a World Cup (in Belgium)."
The Glucksteins, meanwhile, got involved in trampoline only after a local taekwondo center closed near their home in Atlantic Highlands, N.J.
"My mom wanted to keep us busy," Steven said. "So I started taekwondo when I was 4 and when I was about 10 and a black belt, the school shut down. My mom is only 5-foot 2, and my dad is 5-foot-8, so they said we could be jockeys, cheerleaders or gymnasts."
Traditional artistic gymnastics was Plan B, but then a coach named Tatiana Kovaleva came into the picture. She just happened to be a Russian world trampoline champion in 1996. So when Steven was 12, he made the jump, literally, to trampoline. Neither he nor his brother ever looked back.
"In fact," Jeffrey said, "We had a trampoline in the backyard, but we didn't know about it as a sport."
The Glucksteins live in the same home, eat together, train together and both said they push each other along. Yet at the end of the day, there will be one spot in London.
"I hope it's one of us," Steven said.
On the women's side, Savannah Vinsant, who is coached by Russian world champion Dmitri Poliaroush, is the leader entering these nationals followed by Dakota Earnest, who is used to being center stage having participated in beauty pageants. She was named Miss Lubbock County (Texas) Outstanding Teen in 2011.
When asked if Earnest uses trampoline as her talent for pageants, she laughed and said, 'I don't think the stage would be high enough for me do trampoline there."
This week, the stage — and the stakes — certainly are high enough.Amy Rosewater is a freelance contributor for TeamUSA.org. This story was not subject to the approval of any National Governing Bodies.


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Whole Foods: Ramadan Promotion Has Not Been Canceled
Looking to set the record straight, s it is "still carrying and promoting halal products for those that are celebrating Ramadan this month."
The company's statement follows a Houston Pressblog post earlier this week that said pressure from "right-wing bloggers who blindly associate Ramadan and Muslims with terrorism and burqas," had led Whole Foods to send an email "to its stores across the United States in which it specifically tells stores not to promote Ramadan this year."
That's not correct, according to the . In a series of tweets it says that:
-- "We never sent a communication from our headquarters requesting stores take down signs or remove parts from this promotion."
-- "We have 12 different operating regions and unfortunately, one region reacted by sending out directions to promote halal and ..."
-- "... not #Ramadan specifically after some negative online comments."
-- "We're extremely excited about offering halal products for our shoppers and we stand behind them AND our promotion of them."
Update at 8:35 a.m. ET: The Atlantic's Wire blog has more background.
Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.


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They shall not grow old as we that are left grow old
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn
At the going down of the sun, and in the morning
We will remember them
Geoff Bent. Roger Byrne. Eddie Colman. Duncan Edwards.
Mark Jones. David Pegg. Tommy Taylor. Liam Whelan.
The Flowers of Manchester


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Amenities & Services:
Electronic gate
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Fans in public areas
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Available for sale inclusive of furniture and appliances.
Google Map:


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Showboat Atlantic City Casino will close its doors Aug. 31, according to the official announcement Friday by parent company Caesars Entertainment Corp.
The move will put more than 2,000 people out of work.
"While we regret the impact that this decision will have on our Showboat associates, we believe this is a necessary step to help stabilize our business in Atlantic City and support the viability of our remaining operations in the vicinity," Gary Loveman, chairman and CEO of Caesars Entertainment said in a prepared statement Friday.
He pointed to the freefalling gaming revenue in Atlantic City, which has declined by more than $3 billion since 2006. The statement also said that was "exacerbated by the high property tax burden in Atlantic City."
"The dynamic in Atlantic City has led us to the difficult but necessary decision to close Showboat in an effort to help stabilize our business there and support the viability of our remaining operations in the vicinity," Loveman said. "We sincerely appreciate the service, dedication and professionalism shown by the employees of the Showboat over the years to provide our customers with incredible experiences."
RELATED: Showboat casino warns of potential closure, union official says
Besides Showboat, a 27-year-old Mardi Gras-themed resort, Caesars also owns Harrah's, Caesars and Bally's in Atlantic City and is the resort's largest operator of gaming halls.
Word of the closing comes after the Atlantic Club ceased operations on Jan. 13, becoming the city's first gaming hall to close in seven years. And last week, the owners of the Revel Casino Hotel filed for bankruptcy protection for the second time and said it could close by mid-August if they can't find a buyer for the underperforming property.
Executives with Las Vegas-based Caesars have said in recent months that they were considering closing one of their gaming halls.
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Friday's statement said Caesars is offering assistance to displaced Showboat employees, including providing preference for available positions at its three remaining Atlantic City properties and sister properties in the region.
The company said it has not yet determined what will become of the property and land, but that it intends to collaborate with city and state officials as it evaluates alternative uses.
Data from state regulators show it's been in the middle of the pack in the city's ailing casino industry, pulling in $193 million in total winnings last year. That total marked a 14 percent decline from 2012.
The 1,329-room property still has turned a profit — $34 million in 2013 — but that was down 28 percent from 2012, according to the Division of Gaming Enforcement.
$350M logistics center coming to Linden
Jersey City apartment tower aims to blend arts with luxury living
Despite incentive package, Dietz & Watson facility and jobs will leave N.J.


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This week, New York and Slate published pieces asking why so many moms have a problem with pink and with princesses.
"What's the problem with pink, anyway?" griped Yael Kohen in New York. Then, building upon Kohen's piece, Slate senior editor Allison Benedikt demanded: "What is it with you moms of girls? I have never met a single one of you who isn't tortured about pink and princesses." Her annoyance is palpable.
Both writers proceed to defend all things pink and princess. "We treat pink — and the girls who like it — with […] condescension," Kohen states, while Benedikt adds, "Moms of daughters need to chill out."
Let's take a step back, please. I am the author of a forthcoming book called The Princess Problem: Guiding Our Girls Through the Princess-Obsessed Years, and Kohen and Benedikt's arguments are wrong on several levels. By pontificating on the subject without actually talking to the moms they're criticizing, they've missed the point. Having interviewed…
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Yesterday, a judge tentatively approved a $40 million settlement in a class action lawsuit against Skechers, the company responsible for Shape-Ups, the shoe responsible for shattering both dreams of perky asses and literal leg bones. But if people injured wearing the shoes were hoping that the shoe company would compensate them for their health care costs, they're SOL — the settlement will only refund customers their money spent on buying the shoes in the first place. Hospital bills and the monetary value of all dignity lost not included.
When Sketchers released Shape-Ups with the advertised implication that they were a great way to get a fantastic ass while just going about your day, people bought them in droves. Baskets and baskets of ugly shoes for people whose hatred of exercise, vanity, and ability to overlook shoe ugliness intersected to create a marketing holy trinity and sell a shitload of footwear. But not long after they hit the market, the brand's dubious claim that the shoes gave their wearers health benefits were challenged and debunked.
The idea that schlumping around in a special kind of shoe can give you the ass of a US Track & Field athlete is not only false, it's dangerous. And earlier this year, a class action lawsuit was filed on behalf of dissatisfied Shape-Ups customers, some of whom had experienced serious injuries while wearing the shoes. One woman says she fell and broke her hip. There were reported ankle problems. Knees became angry and inflamed. Lawyers were amassed. According to ABC News, the number of people who will be refunded for their Shape-Ups purchase — ranging from $40 to $84 — is "undetermined."
Skechers isn't the first brand of shoes to dupe people out of their money with false promises of toning magic. Just last week, Reebok was forced to cough up $25 million worth of refund checks to 315,000 dissatisfied customers on the grounds that its advertising for Reebok EasyTone and RunTone shoes was deceptive.
And while I'm sure every single person who bought Skechers Shape-Ups isn't a foolhardy rube moved by too-good-to-be-true advertising pitches designed to appeal to the lazy (I hear, for example, that some people who have difficulty walking in other shoes have an easier time of it when they're walking on Shape-Ups' curved, sloping soles), let's just get this out of the way right now: You guys. "Toning" isn't a thing. It's a lovely thought, but it isn't a thing. Some lady in a magenta leotard and turquoise leg warmers made that up in 1985 to sell workout videos to housewives who would spend their Januarys on their backs on their shag carpeting trying in vain to slenderize their midsections without doing cardio. Toning is false hope that has fueled a million Thighmasters. Toning is a lie! Stop buying crap that says it will "tone" you. If you want to be "toned," then do exercises that require you to be "strong." Like running, or riding a bike, or judo, or lifting weights, or Cirque du Soleil-ing. For the love of Jane Fonda, don't snap your ankles while padding the Kardashians' pockets.


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Texas Gov. Rick Perry says "political correctness has to stop," citing the flap over Chick-fil-A and opposition to same-sex marriage as an example.
Perry addressed an event Saturday hosted by The Family Leader in Waukee, Iowa, aiming to rally Christian conservatives.
He said that when Chick-fil-A CEO Dan Cathy defended "the sanctity of marriage, the left went nuts."
According to his prepared remarks, Perry continued: "When conservatives are offended by a corporate policy, we simply choose not to give them our business."
He added that offended liberals "try to keep everyone else from giving them business."
Cathy said recently that his company backed the biblical definition of family.
That sparked an outcry from gay activists. But hundreds of thousands of customers also jammed the restaurants during "Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day."


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The Great Backyard Bird Count begins this weekend
By Sarah Read
The Great Backyard Bird Count, an annual four-day event that, "engages bird watchers of all ages in counting birds to create a real-time snapshot of where the birds are across the continent" begins this Friday, February 18 through Monday, February 21. Anyone can participate in the survey, from beginning bird watchers to experts.
Homeschool students from Greenville Michigan Inclusive Connection for HomeLearners prepared for the count last Friday morning at their weekly learning cooperative with a "Get to Know Your Backyard Birds" workshop. They learned tips for identifying birds starting with size, color, markings and song. They were also given complimentary bags of bird seed with guidelines for good feeder locations, along with full-color posters depicting common eastern North American birds donated by Wild Birds Unlimited, located on Northland Drive.
"My kids are so excited," shared Jennifer Vermeulen who is using the opportunity to put up a new feeder. "They can't wait to count the birds."
According to the GBBC website, it is free to participate and takes as little as 15 minutes on one day, or you can count for as long as you like each day of the four-day event. Counting helps determine how each species is doing year by year, how weather is affecting flocks and if conservation efforts are needed for a species receiving an alarmingly low count for the year.
February is also national bird feeding month, as it is the toughest time for birds to find food in the wild. For more information about The Great Backyard Bird Count, visit http://www.birdsource.org/gbbc.
Greenville Michigan Inclusive Connection for HomeLearners consists of approximately fifty homeschool families and has weekly co-op classes, monthly field trips, holiday parties, park and sledding days, mom times, community service opportunities, curriculum discussion days and more. To learn more about G-MICH, please visit www.greenvillemichiganhomeschoolers.webs.com


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The hippies were out in force in Bishop Lucey Park on Saturday as the new age folk made their presence felt at a "Peace in the Park" mini festival. I have to admit to being just a little cynical at events like these. Thankfully tarot readers or aura photographers were nowhere to be seen, although some guy was pontificating about what the "ordinary person didn't know", etc etc, and there was a Shell to Sea stall manned by a lonely girl clutching her baby. Even Frank was there and just as surprised as us by it. It wasn't publicized at all.
Just behind the Onion Seller was a wigwam with people beating drums inside, and up at the other end near the fountain a stage was set up and music could be heard all over the park.
A comment on the Onion Seller post above makes the point that Bishop Lucey Park is not actually the same park as The Peace Park. I knew this park had been named after Bishop Lucey, but thought it was given the name, "Peace Park" as a nickname. This article clears things up. The Peace Park is on the Grand Parade, I presume down by the National Monument although there's hardly any grass left there, if at all?
Ah, my wife Jacinta has the answer. It's that patch of grass between South Mall and Grand Parade where there's a monument to fallen soldiers (I think). It's currently a building site which is why I had forgotten it.
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Research in Motion's stock, which has had an impressive run over the past few months, appears to have finally gotten tripped up.
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The BlackBerry maker's shares fell more than 14 percent today, a day after reporting fiscal third-quarter results that investors considered better than expected. The stock recently fell $2 to $12.08.
If you look beyond the basic revenue and profit, RIM's performance in the quarter gave reason for Wall Street to be concerned. Ultimately, these results matter little; what will determine the company's fate will be the success or failure of its BlackBerry 10 operating system and its first run of BlackBerry 10 smartphones.
But here are some reasons why the stock is performing so poorly today:
Subscriber loss
RIM has long boasted of its loyal customer base, but the last quarter showed the limits of that loyalty. For the first time, RIM saw its subscriber base shrink, falling 1 million to 79 million. That number may seem small relative to the overall base, but it's a crucial indication that the growth it is seeing overseas may no longer be enough to offset losses in its more mature markets. That also suggests the loss of customers in its home markets is happening faster than expected — analysts had projected RIM to actually add customers in the period.
"We see continued pressure on volumes and BB10 acceptance is uncertain," said Ittai Kidron, an analyst at Oppenheimer & Co.
Services revenue in question
RIM has long been able to charge lofty fees for its secure BlackBerry business services, but that may change with BlackBerry 10. RIM CEO Thorsten Heins, speaking on a conference call last night, sounded unsure about the company's ability to protect those fees. The company has already warned that those fees will likely be cut in order to retain and grow its customer base amid the transition to BlackBerry 10. But the bigger question is whether RIM will still be able to command such high fees once BlackBerry 10 is established.
"(RIM's) high-margin services business will likely see pressure as it transitions to new terms and pricing," said Sterne Agee analyst Shaw Wu.
Service fees are typically more profitable than hardware, so cutbacks there would deal a major blow to RIM's hoped-for return to profitability.
Stock run-up
RIM's stock has had a heck of a run recently, outperforming even rival Apple (which, of course, has a far, far higher market value). Since late September, the stock had more than doubled in value as confidence in the BlackBerry 10 platform rose. The company fueled some of those good vibes by dropping progress reports like carrier testing and federal agencies using it in trials.
With such a strong run, the stock was priced to perfection, as investors would say. Wall Street just needs the slightest hint of weakness as an excuse to start selling off.
Cash concerns
Next quarter is going to be a rough one. RIM will launch its first BlackBerry 10 smartphone, but sales won't likely kick off until later in the quarter, meaning it won't see much of an impact from a financial perspective. BlackBerry 7 smartphone sales will likely tank as consumers hold off to see the next-generation products.
In the meantime, RIM will have to spend a lot of cash to promote the product, so its balance sheet could take a hit.
Still, Heins said the company would end the fiscal year, which closes in March, with more cash than it started with, something investors like to see.


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(Zondervan August 15, 2007)
In her own words, she appreciates her most valued roles as wife and mom. Beth is also a second-grade Sunday school teacher, church orchestra member (She plays flute), and artist. She loves to read, crochet, sew, go on mission trips and avoid housework.
Beth lives in Mobile with her minister husband, and is currently on staff at First Baptist Church of North Mobile (fondly known as NoMo), in Saraland, Alabama.
Judge Laurel Kincade, a rising political star, is announcing her candidacy for chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court. Her aristocratic Old South family, led by her judge grandfather, beams as she takes the podium. Then her eyes light on a reporter in the crowd…and suddenly her past becomes a threat to her future.
Journalist Cole McGaughan, religion reporter for the New York Daily Journal, has received an intriguing call from an old friend. Private investigator Matt Hogan has come across a tip…that Laurel's impeccable reputation might be a facade. Matt suggests that Cole dig up the dirt on the lovely judge in order to snag his dream job as one of the Journal's elite political reporters.
There's just one problem: Cole's history is entangles with Laurel's and he must decide if the story that could make his career is worth the price he'd have to pay.
A sensational scoop becomes a rollercoaster ride of emotions. Can Laurel and Cole find forgiveness and turn their hidden past into a hopeful future…while keeping their feelings off the record?


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Apartments, cabins, holiday rentals and more, plus millions of reviews from Aussie & Kiwi travellers
Relax with our Price Promise
Find a lower price on a hotel or package online, before your stay, and we'll refund the difference^
Hotels in Shinjuku start at AU$137 per night. Prices and availability subject to change. Additional terms may apply.


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Google Developer Day 2009
Google Developer Days are a chance to learn about Google developer products from the engineers who built them. This one-day conference includes seminars and "office hours" on web technologies like Google Maps, OpenSocial, Android, AJAX APIs, Chrome, and Google Web Toolkit.
Congress Center
5th května 65
140 21 Praha 4
Czech Republic
GDD/Prague home page


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How to Cut an Overgrown Lawn
When it comes to mowing your lawn, your grass has little concern about your schedule. It grows rain, hail or shine. Give it an inch and it will take a mile. And with our busy schedules, it's surprising just how quickly a lawn can become overgrown. Tackling an overgrown lawn requires more than a tough approach. It may be tempting to hack it down to the ground. But, if you want your lawn to grow back thick and lush, then a gentle approach is required.
Choose the right time
Cutting overgrown grass is best performed when you have the weather on your side. For particularly overgrown lawns, you will most likely need to perform several mowing sessions over the course of a month.
Optimal weather conditions include days that are sunny and warm. By cutting your grass when it is dry, you reduce the chance of bacteria and diseases setting in.
Making the first cut, it is recommended to aim for approximately 50% of the current grass height. Taking off too much too quickly can cause your grass to suffer from shock. This can cause your lawn to die off due to the sudden reduction of available nutrients.
Making The First Cut
If your lawn has run wild and the grass is above the height of your knees, then you can cut it down to size using a line trimmer. A line trimmer, such as the Husqvarna 122C is ideal as it allows you to quickly and easily reduce the height of the grass by 50%. Trying to get a lawnmower over long grass can prevent the blades from spinning and lead to the motor overheating.
Long grass also prevents you from seeing the ground clearly. Many types of animals take refuge in such environments. From snakes and spiders to nesting birds, the last thing you want to do is run over the top of them with a lawn mower. If you have a lot of weeds and shrubs growing amongst your grass, then a brush cutter such as the Husqvarna 129R can help cut them down to size.
Once you have managed to cut the grass down to about 50% of its original height, allow it to recover and repair itself for a few days. Approximately 2 to 4 days after the first cut, take a grass trimmer and repeat the process. On the second cut, you will able to safely reduce the height of the grass to approximately 6 inches tall. Again, allow your lawn a few days to recuperate before moving on to the next step.
Time to Use a Lawn Mower
Approximately 8 days after making the first cut into your long grass, it will be ready to be finished with a lawn mower. Before starting to mow your lawn, it is recommended to adjust the mower height so that it reduces the height of the grass by a further third.
At this point, you would install an Husqvarna Automower® 305 to finish the trim and maintain it throughout the year, if you had one. For those without an Automower®, a more traditional lawn mower works just as well. When mowing the lawn, create an overlap of several inches with each pass. This will guarantee a uniform and even finish.
By now, the grass of your lawn will be approximately 4 inches tall. Repeat the process every 4 to 5 days until the grass is at the height you want it to be. Again, reduce the cutting height by 1/3 until you are satisfied with it. Each time you mow the lawn, aim to cut in a different direction to help encourage straight blades of grass. Once you have finished, give the lawn a good soaking and allow it to rest.
Preventing Your Lawn From Becoming Overgrown
Keeping on top of your lawn can be easier said than done. Many people find it difficult to set aside time in their busy schedules to take care of it. You have several options available to you. The first option is to manually mow your lawn every 10 to 14 days during the growing season. The second option is to use an Automower® that keeps your lawn at the perfect height every day.
The Husqvarna Automower® can run on a preset schedule to keep your lawn looking perfect all year round. If you often use your garden during the day-time, the Automower® is quiet enough to get to work at night. While inclement weather conditions can prevent you from cutting your lawn when it is raining, windy or extremely hot, the Husqvarna Automower® can get to work without any problems.
Not only are robotic lawn mowers great for the environment. But, they also improve the overall health of your lawn. Perimeter wires keep them out of your dahlias and in-built sensors make them safe to use. Even when children and pets are in the garden. The entire process of maintaining your lawn with a beautiful finish all year round is now a reality.
Top Tips For Perfect Lawn Health
Many people find that when they cut their overgrown grass down to size there are many bald patches that need to be filled in. These patches occur due to a lack of sunlight being able to reach the ground thus preventing young blades of grass from growing. You can fill in any of these bald spots with a generous covering of grass seed and water in.
During periods of drought or decreased rainfall, give your lawn a good soaking every 7 to 10 days. Many people simply give the surface a quick sprinkle of water. This water does not get absorbed but simply evaporates. Keeping your lawn well-watered can also prevent it from going to seed, which can give your lawn a prickly and unsightly look and feel.
For those who do not use an Automower®, fertilising the lawn once every couple of months can help keep it green and in good condition. As robotic lawn mowers clip the grass while it is still young and tender, the clippings can be mulched into the ground as the mower moves. This provides some much-needed nutrition to the root system and helps to keep your lawn green.
For difficult to reach areas that a lawn mower cannot fit down, using a line trimmer can help keep things in order. Line trimmers are also perfect for keeping the edges of your lawns and flower beds neat and tidy. Ultimately, to prevent your lawn from becoming overgrown regular maintenance is key.


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Deloitte survey: UAE insurers face tough battle for business graduates has been saved
Press releases
Deloitte survey: UAE insurers face tough battle for business graduates
Press release
11 January, 2015 - Business students in the UAE are more inclined to look for a career in transport and logistics, fast moving consumer goods or software and computer services than in insurance, according to the newly released Deloitte Middle East Talent in Insurance Survey 2014. The survey is based on Deloitte's analysis of research undertaken by Universum, which has been researching students' career intentions across the world since 1988. While this year's results showed that insurance's popularity as a career is low across all countries surveyed, in the UAE respondents show that career in insurance is even less popular than in any other market surveyed across Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA).
In the UAE the differences in popularity between the top six sectors cited by university business students as ideal employers are relatively small: there are just five percentage points between transport and logistics at number one (with 14.1 percent of student votes for "ideal employers"), and auditing and accounting in sixth place, with 8.9 percent. In contrast the insurance sector represented 0.1 percent of responses.
"Although this shows how much competition to attract talents insurers in the UAE face when it comes to university graduates, the survey results also provide insight on how insurers can turn this around," said Joe El Fadl, Financial Services Industry (FSI) leader at Deloitte Middle East. "For example, more than half of all insurance-inclined students chose 'to have work-life balance' in their top three career goals, out of a list of nine options. This is one area that insurers may consider developing along with an attractive career path if they want to beat the tough competition and attract talented business graduates."
When it comes to pay, insurance-inclined students demonstrated their foresight by ranking "high future earnings" fifth in their most preferred job attributes. In contrast, more immediate pay considerations, such as "performance related bonuses" and "competitive base salary" ranked 15th and 34th respectively. One noteworthy indicator, which contradicts the trend in most other markets, is that insurance-inclined students in the UAE expect to earn €4,400 less than the average business graduate (€29,000 compared to €33,400).
Rana Ghandour Salhab, Talent and Communications partner at Deloitte Middle East commented: "Today more than ever employers need to be aware that the key to attracting and retaining talent goes far beyond financial incentives into issues such as work-life balance and opportunities for growth. Insurance-inclined students in the UAE, for example, see 'professional training and development' as the most important attribute out of 40 to attract them to a job with a first employer. The fact that 52.8 per cent of them chose it, compared to just 43.5 per cent of all business students, should send a signal to insurers as to the importance of providing this if they want to attract real talent."
To view the whole report, go to: http://bit.ly/13qxfC9
Press contact
Nadine El Hassan
Middle East Public Relations
Deloitte & Touche (M.E.)
Tel: +961 (0) 1 748444
Fax: +961 (0) 1 748999
About the survey
The Deloitte Talent in Insurance Survey 2014 explores the intentions, aspirations and associations in relation to insurance careers, based on a global survey of 174,000 business students from 2,000 universities and institutes of higher education in 31 markets. This included 6,000 insurance-inclined students (students who put at least one insurer in their lists of the five employers they most want to work for). The research is based on a survey conducted by Universum, which polled 700,000 students and professionals from around 2,000 universities and institutions of higher education in 36 markets in 2013-14
About Deloitte:
Deloitte refers to one or more of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, a UK private company limited by guarantee, and its network of member firms, each of which is a legally separate and independent entity. Please see www.deloitte.com/about for a detailed description of the legal structure of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited and its member firms.
Deloitte provides audit, tax, consulting, and financial advisory services to public and private clients spanning multiple industries. With a globally connected network of member firms in more than 150 countries, Deloitte brings world-class capabilities and high-quality service to clients, delivering the insights they need to address their most complex business challenges. Deloitte has in the region of 200,000 professionals, all committed to becoming the standard of excellence.
Deloitte's professionals are unified by a collaborative culture that fosters integrity, outstanding value to markets and clients, commitment to each other, and strength from cultural diversity. They enjoy an environment of continuous learning, challenging experiences, and enriching career opportunities. Deloitte's professionals are dedicated to strengthening corporate responsibility, building public trust, and making a positive impact in their communities.
About Deloitte & Touche (M.E.):
Deloitte & Touche (M.E.) is a member firm of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (DTTL) and is the first Arab professional services firm established in the Middle East region with uninterrupted presence since 1926.
Deloitte is among the region's leading professional services firms, providing audit, tax, consulting, and financial advisory services through 26 offices in 15 countries with around 3,000 partners, directors and staff. It is a Tier 1 Tax advisor in the GCC region since 2010 (according to the International Tax Review World Tax Rankings). It has received numerous awards in the last few years which include Best Employer in the Middle East, best consulting firm, and the Middle East Training & Development Excellence Award by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW).