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Lichen exposed to harsh Mars-like conditions in a laboratory have been found to survive, preferring to cling to cracks in rocks and in gaps in the simulated Martian soil. The lichen collected from Antarctica were placed inside the German Aerospace Center's Mars Simulation Laboratory for 34 days.
There they were subjected to the same atmospheric, temperature, radiation and pressure conditions they would experience if they were on the Martian surface.
"They adapted to the artificial martian environment and demonstrated the same activity that they would in their natural environment," research scientist Jean-Pierre Paul de Vera told the European Geosciences Union (EGU) Meeting in Vienna today.
The lichen were most successful at surviving in small cracks in rocks and gaps in the simulated Martian soil, where they were offered some protection from the harsh radiation environment.
Billions of years ago, Mars was warmer and wetter and so much more favourable for life as we know it to exist. "If life arose on Mars four billion years ago, it could have remained to the present day in these niches," said de Vera.
He warned that the results presented a serious challenge for future missions to Mars. "We must be extremely careful not to transport any terrestrial life forms to Mars that might contaminate the planet," he said.
Elsewhere in the Solar System there is potential for life on moons around the two largest gas planets Jupiter and Saturn, the conference was told.
Jupiter's icy moon Europa may host life within its deep ocean, which is kept warm by being constantly massaged by the gravitational pull of the giant planet. Lakes of liquid water are thought to exist just a few kilometres below the surface, embedded within the icy crust. They are likely connected to the surface through a rapid recycling process that can exchange material between the surface and ocean, suggesting that the distant moon may still be active today.
Neighbouring moons Callisto and Ganymede may also be hiding oceans below their rocky crust. A mission proposed by ESA, called JUICE (short for JUpiter ICy moon Explorer), could evaluate the potential of these worlds for hosting life. The fate of the JUICE mission, which is competing against two other missions, will be decided next week.
Around Saturn, Titan, with its thick atmosphere and surface seas of liquid methane and ethane, is a hot favourite for life. A new model discussed at EGU today speculates that late in Titan's history the moon's rocky core heated up sufficiently to release water, melting portions of an internal layer of ice.
"The bursting forth of hot water from the deep interior might eventually affect the crust of Titan at the top of the ocean, leading to the release of methane seen in the air, clouds, seas and lakes of Titan," said Jonathan Lunine from Cornell University.
Lunine described a new mission proposed by NASA, the Titan Mare Explorer (TiME), which will land in one of Titan's seas – the first time a ship will sail on an alien sea. Like ESA's JUICE, however, TiME is also competing against two other NASA missions and will learn its fate later this year.
Coupled with Saturn's moon Enceladus and its water-rich plumes bursting into space, the argument for life elsewhere in the Solar System – particularly on icy worlds in the outer Solar System – is compelling.
Related: Life could have survived in vents on Mars
Related: Did life on Earth begin on Mars?
★ Keep up with space news and observing tips. Click here to sign up for alerts to our latest reports. No spam ever - we promise!


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I drew this under a misting fan in an outdoor restaurant in Dallas where the temperature was heading to 106 degrees. Overwhelmed and distracted by this intense heat, I scratched feeble white charcoal pencil lines. Others, more hardy, jogged and cycled up and down the Katy trail in the background. I had prepared the page with gouache back in New York on Friday, anticipating a certain browness to the proceedings, but naive as to the desultory effects of the actual weather.
While I was unable to do much drawing in Dallas, I did manage to take some photos of Dealey Plaza and the Texas Bok Depository, a grim and effecting place that I have read so much about since I was a teenager. It was smaller than I had imagined and I felt a terrible sadness that I had only ever experienced at Gettysburg and Ground Zero. an ordinary street corner that my imagination and memory populate with powerful tragedy.

subset: commoncrawl


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No. 39 Galle Fort
Sri Lanka » South Coast » Galle
Ajith, the housekeeper, welcomed us in his quiet way, always with a shy smile and, with assistance from a second member of staff, kept the house clean and tidy. He was also the cook, and although still a novice in the kitchen, we were pleased with his efforts, especially his curries. The menu is fairly limited but included grilled fish, salads, sandwiches and kids' meals – all dishes Ajith felt confidant cooking.
Although this is a great family house, the cement stairs (sans stairgates) and minimal kids' facilities make it less suitable for toddlers. That said, there are two daybeds at the entrance to the master bedroom that can sleep children up to ten years old.
The soft pillowy quilts made the beds very comfortable and we particularly loved the upstairs bedroom for its extra space and breezy rooftop views. We found the bathrooms to be fairly small, but all were nicely finished in smooth polished cement. Note that Ajith is a live-in housekeeper and spends much of his time in the kitchen or discretely in his quarters, which are located next to the garden bedroom.


text: ADVANCES IN REINFORCEMENT LEARNING Edited by Abdelhamid Mellouk Advances in Reinforcement Learning Edited by Abdelhamid Mellouk Published by InTech Janeza Trdine 9, 51000 Rijeka, Croatia Copyright © 2011 InTech All chapters are Open Access articles distributed under the Creative Commons Non Commercial Share Alike Attribution 3.0 license, which permits to copy, distribute, transmit, and adapt the work in any medium, so long as the original work is properly cited. After this work has been published by InTech, authors have the right to republish it, in whole or part, in any publication of which they are the author, and to make other personal use of the work. Any republication, referencing or personal use of the work must explicitly identify the original source. Statements and opinions expressed in the chapters are these of the individual contributors and not necessarily those of the editors or publisher. No responsibility is accepted for the accuracy of information contained in the published articles. The publisher assumes no responsibility for any damage or injury to persons or property arising out of the use of any materials, instructions, methods or ideas contained in the book. Publishing Process Manager Jelena Marusic Technical Editor Teodora Smiljanic Cover Designer Martina Sirotic Image Copyright ilolab, 2010. Used under license from Shutterstock.com First published January, 2011 Printed in India A free online edition of this book is available at www.intechopen.com Additional hard copies can be obtained from


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Just coming on really fast to update you all on 365 Days of Fitness. Yesterday, I completed Day 216 AND the Strong Curves 12 Week At-Home Bodyweight Program!! The last 4 weeks were KILLER, but sooooo worth it!! I've experienced such great progress and strength gains. When I started, I couldn't do ONE unassisted chin-up. It's not easy, but now I can do 3 sets of 3!!
And the strength I have gained in my legs, arms, back, and core are paying rewards in yoga!!
Crow to headstand to chatarunga to upward dog to downward dog flow.
Now, to take a break. NOT from exercising silly ;)!! Just from Strong Curves! It's been an intense 12 weeks of doing Strong Curves 3 days a week and I haven't been eating the best, because it makes me so hungry! So, my weight has stayed pretty much the same (with some up and down on the scale). In order to get my eating back on track and to give my body a chance to recover, I'm going into an active "rest" week. I originally planned to do 20-30 minutes of Vinyasa Flow yoga a day with a DVD I picked up about a month ago on Amazon, Shiva Rea Daily Energy Vinyasa Flow. I really like this DVD because it has seven 20 minute practices that you can do solo or mix and match. You can also follow pre-set programs that do the mixing and matching for you.
I may still do this only, but I'm also feeling like I may throw some hip thrusts and cardio in there too. We'll see how I feel and how the week plays out. But, I will definitely do at least 20 minutes of yoga every day. If I can do what I did above with one practice a week, I wonder what I could accomplish practicing every day!!
Okay, before I go, wanted to share two more things. I haven't taken an after picture for Strong Curves and it may have to wait until next week … because the bloat is on, if you get my drift. But, I figured I'd share some more before and after pics from April and August. You've seen the abs in the past, but this is the first time I've posted my leg progress on the blog. You see, my lower body takes a lot longer to respond to exercise and diet. But, I'm getting there and I'm hoping that next week's shots (plan to do a full body comparison to May … after a good week of eating *fingers crossed*) will look even better.
And last, but definitely not least, two weeks ago, I decided I was going to start a new 10 minutes a day 365 Day Challenge. I have a dear friend with two very small children whose beloved 34 year old husband died this past week after an unexpected 9 month battle with leukemia. About three weeks ago, they placed him in an induced coma and I went to see her at the hospital. Her sadness, pain, and suffering hit me so hard. I tried my best to say the right words and tell her to keep faith and keep praying and God is a healer and performs miracles. But, I felt so helpless to really comfort her (though she has told me several times that my visiting that day and talking with her over the months has given her hope and kept her going). I just didn't feel well-versed enough in scripture to explain why these things were happening and why, despite all their best efforts, things just went from bad to worse.
I had been praying for my friend's family since her husband was first diagnosed, but I've never been comfortable with or good at praying on my own. After that visit with her, I started saying little prayers multiple times a day, awkward as they may have been and felt. The Sunday after I visited her, I was watching In-Touch Ministries with Dr. Charles Stanley (I really like him because he is a teaching pastor). I needed some spiritual encouragement and direction. He was doing a sermon on "A Strong Church." In it, he spoke about the need to have a church where you bring your Bible and you study it. A few moments later, as I was preparing to leave for hot yoga, I started posting the following poster as a fitness inspiration:
And something clicked. Yes, this applied to fitness, but it also applied to me and something that I'd been thinking about for years. I was really ready to work on developing a closer relationship with God and Jesus. I thought, "Just like I can devote at least 10 minutes a day to my physical health, I can devote at least 10 minutes a day to my spiritual health! I mean, shoot! I spend 30-40 minutes on Facebook and IG every morning!! I need to give some of that time to God!"
And 365 Days of the Word began that very day. I asked for suggestions on what books or apps might be helpful and several people recommended YouVersion The Bible, which is chock full of reading plans. I started The One Year Bible that day and completed Day 15 this morning.
Now, instead of waking up and grabbing my phone to check Facebook and Instagram for notifications and turning on the news to create background noise, I start my cup of coffee, say a prayer, and spend some quiet time alone with God and the "Bible." I still have to stop myself from checking FB and IG and turning on the TV first … in fact, I turned on the TV yesterday and had to quickly turn it off. But, I'm working on replacing my old habits and routine with a new one, just like I did with fitness … one day at a time.
Okay, I have fifty gajillion other things I could share about this, but I know that I have started to ramble! This post ended up being far longer than I initially intended … but that's how it almost ALWAYS is with me. Once I start, it's hard to stop me 😉 and I thought it was important to share this new journey. I hope that you are glad that I did so.
Okay, that's it! Enjoy the rest of your weekend! I need to go wash this hair and maybe …. maybe … there might be a blow-out in the immediate future that I'll be sharing ;).
Lata Gatas!!


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When I was in DC at the end of May, I taped an interview on Afghanistan with Chris Hedges. Chris is a Pulitzer Prize winning former NY Times reporter and author who has for so many years been a brilliantly dominant force in writing painfully objective, truthful and explosive articles, essays and books on American foreign policy and society. It was my first time getting to spend any substantial amount of time with Chris, as we had the better part of the afternoon together, an afternoon I am very thankful for having had. I basically feel like I got a free graduate seminar 🙂
Here's the interview:
Here also is Chris' speech from the previous day at the Lincoln Memorial during the Veterans For Peace antiwar rally:
My friend Ariel Gold, who works for Code Pink as their Middle East Campaign Director, is in Palestine to support Issa Amro. Issa is a Palestinian human rights leader who recently was put on trial by the Israeli military. Ariel, who is Jewish and from NY, actively supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS). BDS is a Palestinian led, international, nonviolent effort to change the government of Israel's well documented apartheid policy towards the Palestinian people; much the same way boycotts were used in the American South to support the Civil Rights movement and all three actions were used against the South African government. I support BDS as well. I strongly urge you to do so too. You can find out how to do so here.
Earlier this year, the government of Israel declared that people who support BDS would be denied entry into Israel. Israel also continued to declare BDS to be an anti-semitic movement, which it is not; claiming that BDS is anti-semitic is about as justifiable as claiming the boycott movements that were utilized against the Jim Crow American South or Apartheid South Africa were anti-white or anti-Christian. Upon arriving in Tel Aviv a couple of weeks ago, Ariel was not denied entry. However, after attending Issa's trial, a right wing newspaper announced Ariel's presence to the Israeli government, complaining that the Israeli government was not living up to its promise to ban people like Ariel. Of course, Ariel could be deported, but there is also the danger that members of the often violent communities that compose the hundreds of thousands of Israeli settlers in the West Bank may identify Ariel and take matters into their own hands. Ariel, true to her self, has not backed down and, showing great courage, is still in Palestine working alongside her Palestinian brothers and sisters. You can read more about this here:
and watch this short video:
Peter Van Buren, whose book on his time in Iraq, We Meant Well, got him fired from the State Department has a new book out: Hooper's War. It is a novel of alternative history, set during an American invasion of mainland Japan. It is an anti-war novel and it is excellent. Peter sent me an advance copy and asked me to blurb it. This was my honest-to-God response after reading it:
"PVB obviously is a scholar and historian both of Japan and America, there is no doubt to that as you read Hooper's War, a modern day Catch 22 or Slaughter House Five that we desperately need. Peter has obviously been to war, as have I, and his heart has been broken, as has mine. He broke it again, several times in Hooper's War, I wasn't sure I had that much left to break. He's owed a debt of gratitude for this, for bearing such witness and testimony for so many millions who cannot do so for themselves, those who have been so ghastly immolated in our past and current wars and who can only cry out when people like Peter do so for them."
Peter has done a number of interviews on Hooper's War over the last several months, but this one, with Scott Horton, is one I very much recommend for Peter and Scott's deep, thoughtful and moving discussion on war and moral injury. For those who don't have a full hour or if you only have a few minutes, I recommend beginning the interview at around the 27 minute mark, where Peter defines moral injury and speaks about veteran suicide.
My friend Bill, who runs the blog The Contrary Perspective, recommended B. Traven's The Death Ship to me. Traven is best known for The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Written eighty years ago, Traven's prose, style and tone is reminiscent of that generation's cadre of post WWI ex-pats, of which he was one. The book is an excoriation of the world post-war, of the new establishments and conventions that arose post-war, of the stupidity of the war itself of course, but of the new ways of the world in particular. The resemblances and similarities to today's world are genuine and rattling. My response to Bill upon completing The Death Ship, with a bit redacted so as to try not and spoil the ending:
"I used to keep all my books, however several years ago I decided to unload my library with the exception of the books that had personal meaning to me or with the exception of the books that caused me to think or kept me thinking. I thought about The Death Ship every day I read it and I've thought about it in the days since I finished it. I have a feeling, in a few months, when I make a run to the used book store to sell back my books that The Death Ship will remain behind in my house.
As I write this now, I am struck by the prescient savagery of Traven's thesis, summarized _______________at the very end of the book. All because of bureaucracy, all because of man-made borders; borders that didn't exist prior to________, borders that were soon to be erased again _________. The nonsense of it all, the cruelty of it all, and it all still plays out now.
I think you are aware that I was just in Palestine in February and March, where I spent time with people who have been ruined by such borders and their attendant walls. In October, prior to that, I was North Dakota, where to my embarrassment and shame, I spent the first moments of my life, ever, and it is half over, with the Native American community, those people who are the living lineage of 500 years of genocide, but whose more modern history and current lives are dominated by these inventions of borders, treaties, walls, reservations, etc. And, of course, my own time in Iraq and Afghanistan, two nations that had their borders drawn by the West, their people corralled, marshaled, divided and amalgamated.
So now I have Traven's other book's on my list to look for when I step into used books stores :)"
Finally, Sonia Kennebeck's documentary on our drone killing program National Bird is available on Netflix. I am mentioning this because I want you to watch it. Not just as it is so well done, so important, and because Sonia does such an admirable and honorable job in informing us of the reality of the brutal, criminal and senseless killings we are conducting with our flying robots against thousands and thousands of innocent people, every day, but also because Sonia documents so very well the lives of three people who were involved in the drone program AND WHAT THEY DID ABOUT IT. One of them, Lisa Ling, has become a friend of mine these last few years, and a hero of mine. So if you haven't seen it, please give National Bird a viewing, even if you know about the drone program, you'll see what three courageous people did about something they knew was wrong.
Wage Peace.


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Last week I catered the annual memorial celebration for Ashland Community Hospital Hospice at the Ashland Community Center. The room was decorated with twinkling lights, soft music played, and candles glowed inside paper bags with butterfly cutouts – each with the name of a loved one lost. It was a beautiful way to honor those who have died in the last year and I was thankful to be a part of it.
After the celebration, I packed up the few leftovers and headed home. As I approached the plaza area I noticed a group of young people sitting together – one of them holding a sign that read "Looking for a Helping Hand." As soon as I could, I pulled my car over and gathered up cookies, a pitcher of hot cider, a few paper cups, and walked over to the group.
As I approached the group, I was a tiny bit fearful of how my gesture would be received because these kids have been living on the streets and perhaps have become jaded. I shouldn't have worried because as I gave out the cookies and cider I was met with grateful smiles and sweet comments. When I reached the young man who had been holding the sign, I saw that he was missing a hand and also noticed his beautiful, clear blue eyes.
After I left the young people, I drove home thinking about that young man. I often ponder what life events lead a person to choosing to live on the streets. Did he learn that he was "less than perfect" from his family of origin? Or was it something he decided on his own. Will he ever find his true potential or has he given up forever?
I've been haunted (no seasonal pun intended) by that young man all week and then yesterday I was sent this link and unless you've been hiding under a rock (like I must have been) you probably have already seen it. It is the audition of a young man named Emmanuel for the show The X Factor. This young man and his brother were born in a war zone in Iraq and left at an orphanage as toddlers. And fortunately they were lucky to be adopted by a family who helped them see a world of possibilities instead of limitations.
We all face roadblocks or limitations in our lives, and many of them are self-imposed. Perhaps we hear voices from the past telling us we are not good enough… or that we will never make it… or that we are unlovable. Many of us have supportive friends and family who help us move past these stumbling blocks, while others do not. And still I am wondering, what can we do to reach out and help? I don't have the answer… but would love to work with others towards one. I've been lucky… and want to pay that forward as best I can.
Oh. This blog is supposed to be about pies… Well, I did manage to give away a pie last week as well. During the pledge drive, I delivered an Apple Almond Pie to the folks at Jefferson Public Radio. I am so grateful for the on-air staff (Maria Kelly, Brad Ranger, Eric Teel) and the behind the scenes folks (especially Sue Jaffe) who work tirelessly to bring us the news, information and music we enjoy. You guys are awesome!
Finally, I want to send heavenly birthday wishes on this day to my dear friend Irene Orselli and to my Grandpa Powell… and chocolatey birthday wishes to Bob Edwards!
I have found the paradox that if I love until it hurts, then there is no hurt, but only more love. ~Mother Teresa


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Original Theatrical Release: March 17, 2006
Director: James McTeigue
A shadowy and theatrical freedom fighter, only known as V (Hugo Weaving), wages a war with terrorist tactics against a corrupt and totalitarian government. When he rescues a girl named Evey (Natalie Portman) from some also-corrupt secret police, she becomes entangled in his endeavors and may be the best ally he's known.
The first half of this film opens up with a lot of panache. I was caught up right off the bat with the atmosphere and the established setting. This carried me through all the way to the middle of the film where I felt that the movie was bogged down a lot and lost its frenetic pacing.
The source material, of course, was Alan Moore's graphic novel of the same name and the film managed to evoke most of what Moore was trying to accomplish, but in the end, I think, the source material always does things that a movie cannot. Also, the graphic novel focused more on V's attempts to enlist Evey to carry out his legacy, whereas the movie, I felt, showed that he cared about Evey's involvement but ultimately wanted to inspire a revolution rather than solely rely on her.
The two works are completely different in my mind, which is something I always try to do when looking at one work which is based on another work. I think overall, the film managed to capture some qualities of the graphic novel but it was ultimately the Wachowski's own message that came across.
The action scenes were all well-done and there wasn't a terrible amount of CGI. Hugo Weaving was the best thing about this movie because I never envisioned V's dialogue being able to be correctly brought onto the screen but he did it with great skill. Natalie Portman was lovely and talented, as usual and it was great she was willing to shave her head for the role. Kudos.
This is a great film, and could have been exceptional but for the mid-movie backstory dump that slogged the film down. Still, go watch it, it's a lot of fun.
JOE Rating: ★★★★
Movie Trailer For V For Vendetta


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Although I'm rarely a running blogger lately, I nevertheless remain a running runner. I have been running on a steady basis, and doing one hard workout a week since late August. Low mileage, around 25 most weeks. No trackwork. It's mostly been fartleks (treadmill) and throwing in a few miles at tempo effort over the course of a longer run on hills. We found a dirt cheap gym that's three miles away, so I've gotten back to weekly strength work, now up to 1 hour, twice weekly. I've maintained a weight of 124 with some effort. I'd like to get back down to 120, because I feel better running at that weight. I'd also like to get my mileage up to around 40 mpw.
A year ago I was training like mad to run a fast 5K road race over Olympic Trials weekend in Houston. I did not run that race. I did a little racing in the late winter, but then I got injured in March with PF in my right foot (still there, but mild). It's been a wild ride, the last nine months, with lots of highs and lows. None of them having to do with running, at least not directly. This has been good for me, not only because I've recognized the value of focusing on other areas of endeavor, but also because it's given me a chance to think about my running, where it fits into my life. Perspective and distance are helpful things.
One realization is that I do miss some aspects of marathon training, but I don't miss the time and energy commitment. Nor do I actually miss racing marathons. I'm still fairly certain that I won't run another. I've also realized that I'll probably always be a competitive runner. And by that I mean I'll care about seeing improvement in myself (although as the years pass, that's all relative) and doing well relative to my peers. I still want to have tangible goals.
I do have a goal right now, which is to break 20:00 in a road 5K. What's different this time around is that I'm not attaching that goal to any particular deadline or race. I will train during the fall to run a fast 5K this winter. Will it be under 20:00? I have no clue. I have a training plan, but it's loose. I got so sick of trying to follow a strict schedule, not hitting target paces, going into each "tuneup" or "time trial" race with pressure to see a certain time on the clock. The truth is, some days I don't feel like running. So when that happens, I usually don't run. On other days, I'll go out with a plan to do a hard run, but my legs don't feel great. So I'll give them a few miles. Sometimes they come around. But usually they don't, and when that happens I abandon the workout and try again a few days later.
I'm seeing steady improvements in fitness. But mostly I'm seeing an improvement in how I feel about running. I like it again. Sometimes I love it. I never dread it, and that's new. I have my first track workout in about five months next week. It's not even really a workout. It's mostly going to be me running around a track wearing an HRM to see what speeds I can maintain at various efforts. I just want some sort of baseline at this point.
I have this crazy suspicion that my radical change in attitude and looser approach to training and racing might yield greater success eventually.
Filed under: injury, racing, strength training, training |


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A tutorial: pinflower cake toppers
It's May, which means that it's now my month to contribute a Liberty Scrap Challenge tutorial...so what better day to offer it up than May 1st! I am crediting Nova's Liberty challenge with getting my sewing groove back: I hadn't really realised it, but my mind had been whirring a little slower recently and my compulsion to stay up sewing until midnight had all but ebbed away. I'd optimistically viewed this as 'a healthy thing': a life with more balance is a good thing surely, no? However, the scrap challenge set off a series of explosions (hopefully not critical) in my mind and a list has begun forming by my bedside of new ideas and sketches of things I'd like to make since receiving Nova's email in March. And then my beautiful scraps arrived from our Liberty fabric sponsor, Jo, and late night sewing sessions were resumed. Liberty fabric is perfect for making very tiny things as the small patterns can still be appreciated even when only a snippet of it is seen. And they are also so beautiful that they speak for themselves: so all of a sudden, rather than aspiring to make clever, complex things, I've just wanted to make very simple, very small things. Unexpectedly refreshing and liberating. Because they are so simple, I decided to write two tutorials as my contribution, the next of which will appear later in the week.
Cake toppers (and perhaps just things-on-sticks generally, for have you seen these stunning Liberty print butterfly table decorations?) seem to be undergoing something of a revival recently and I was inspired to create something that allowed contrasting fabrics to be shown next to one another. I've shaped the points of the ubiquitous pinwheel to make them appear more petal like, giving pinflowers.
Liberty fabrics work perfectly for these cake toppers as the small prints allow you to see a flavour of the pattern even on the tiniest flower petals. They also present an opportunity to have fun raiding the button tin.
I've created a template for you to download which offers the pattern in four different sizes from Large to Wee (for those overseas, 'wee' is old English for tiny), so that you may pick a flower which would have the best proportions for the size of your cakes. As a guide, for the cupcakes featured in this post, I used the 'wee' size, with one 'large' flower as a centre piece - I would avoid increasing the size beyond this as the cocktail stick may not support their weight adequately. You can download the template here.
Scraps of Liberty fabric
Cocktail sticks (available from any supermarket)
Lightweight iron-on interfacing
Bondaweb or Wonder-under applique web
Small scissors
An iron
A disappearing ink pen or chalk (I use Frixion pens which can be ironed away with heat)
Hand-sewing needle.
1. Begin by cutting out your chosen size of Pin-flower from the downloadable template sheet. Cut carefully on all the lines, cutting the length of all straight lines which go toward the centre. Ignore the dot and two short parallel lines in the centre for the time being.
2. Cut two pieces of lightweight iron-on interfacing, 1 piece of Bondaweb and two pieces of Liberty fabric out so that they are approximately 1/4" bigger than the Pin-flower template on all sides.
3. Iron the light-weight interfacing onto the reverse of the Liberty print fabrics. Not only will the interfacing give your pinwheel a little bit of reinforcement, but more importantly it will mean that the lighter areas of each fabric won't show the other print through it once they're stuck together. It will also stop your fabric from fraying excessively.
4. Now take one of the interfaced Liberty print squares and iron the Bondaweb to the reverse of this, as per the manufacturer's instructions. Once ironed in place, peel away the paper backing.
5. Now take the other Liberty print interfaced square and iron it so that the wrong sides of both squares are together - the bondaweb which you've just applied will fuse them together when heated. It should look like the photo above once done.
6. Trace the pin-flower template onto one side of the fabric. There's no need to trace on the dots or two small parallel lines - these are there as a visual reference should you need them. Carefully cut along the lines you've traced, being sure not to over-cut as you reach the centre.
I'm adding in an additional sub-step here where I show you the fabulousness of these Frixion pens (which seem to be available from most stationers). Despite my careful cuts the ugliness of the lines still blights the beauty of the Liberty fabric, but a second or two beneath the iron removes all trace of them (see below). Wonderful! The magic of this never fails to delight me.
7. It's now time to mark on the tiny cuts which you'll need to make to accommodate the cocktail stick. If your cuts are too big, then the flower will travel down the stick and gather icing on its lovely petals, so it's really best to err on the side of caution and start very small. When you look at the width of the cocktail stick above, you can see that your marks do not need to be very big at all. I've made two, about 1/4" apart. Avoid making them too close to the diagonal line cuts that come toward the centre as that could lead to all kinds of awful non-fixable pin-flower breakage.
8. Fold the flower gently in half and make the tiniest of snips with your finest scissors.
9. Load in your cocktail stick. You can see how snugly the cocktail fits in the photo above - a good fit will mean that your flower stays exactly where you want it to. The intended front of your flower should look like the above photo.
The back of the flower, where the stick point will be visible, will look like the photo above.
10. Begin by making a securing stitch using a thread colour to match your button. I make mine just above the upper cocktail stick hole.
11. It's now time to pull the pointed corners toward the centre to form the petal shapes. Do this by putting your needle through the first pointed corner a little way in from the point, going from front to back (in this case that's green fabric to pink fabric).
Now do the same for the next petal. Work round the pointed corners in order until all four are gathered in the centre. This is the fiddliest part of assembling these, so fear not if your fingers are currently feeling like sausages - it won't last for too much longer.
12. You must now secure these petals to the base of the flower. To do this sew through all layers a few times, coming out on the back of the flower to either side of the cocktail stick above the tiny strip of fabric that bridges across it. It's really important to keep the cocktail stick in place as you sew - it means that you don't risk sewing this opening together and will ensure that the flower is re-usable later, allowing a different stick to be inserted.
It should look like this on the reverse. It's worth trying to make this really neat so that it still looks lovely whatever side your cake is viewed from.
13. Finally, you may sew the button on. Simply continue using the same thread and bring your needle up through the reverse of the button and then down into the other hole from the front and continue to sew it to the base of the flower, paying attention, as above, to how your stitches look on the reverse of the flower. When your button is securely sewn in place, make a few securing stitches and place atop a cake for squeals of admiration and delight from all whose hands make their way toward your cake stand.
If you make any it would be lovely if you were to drop a few pictures of them into the Liberty Scrap Challenge Flickr pool, as well as my own Flickr pool. And if you'd like to purchase some of your own scraps, then you can find Jo's shop, The Organic Stitch Company, here. If you'd like more Liberty themed inspiration, you can also find the previous months' very lovely scrap challenge tutorials listed here.
Florence x


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Citizen Kane (1941)
IMDb Top 250 Rank: 44 out of 250 as of 01/01/2013
Directed by Orson Welles
Starring: Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Dorothy Comingore, Everett Sloane, Ray Collins, George Coulouris, Agnes Moorehead, Paul Stewart, Ruth Warrick, Erskine Sanford, William Alland
Plot Synopsis: (via IMDb)
Following the death of a publishing tycoon, news reporters scramble to discover the meaning of his final utterance.
My Opinion:
These are the 2018 Blind Spot films I've watched so far, from my least favorite to favorite:
5. Atonement
4. Gleaming The Cube
3. The French Connection
2. Citizen Kane
1. Enter The Dragon
Watching Citizen Kane means that I also get to tick another film off the list of the IMDb Top 250 that I hadn't yet seen when I started this blog. It's ranked very high (although it has now dropped to 71 out of 250). It's often considered the greatest film of all time by those smart film critic types. It was pathetic that I'm a so-called "movie blogger" but had never seen one of the most revered classics of all time (which is why I finally put it on my Blind Spot list). Well, I've seen it now….
Damn. This is one of those times that I really don't feel like doing a review. I'm not a film student. Yes, Citizen Kane is a great film and I know that a lot of that will have to do with filmmaking techniques that I know nothing about since I'm an uneducated heathen who likes movies but is usually happier when watching Star Wars instead of On The Waterfront. Speaking of which, I had a hell of a time while trying to "review" that Top 250 classic as well. Actually, I've just re-read what I wrote about On The Waterfront and I had more to say than I remembered. Can I just copy & paste that review here as a lot of it applies to Citizen Kane too??
No, that's not quite true. I liked Citizen Kane much more but I just didn't quite connect with either film. I've discovered with these worthy classics that I far prefer the grand, sweeping epics to the gritty dramas with Oscar-winning acting. Give me a gorgeous Sergio Leone film with a Morricone score instead of Brando & his pigeons. Citizen Kane is somewhere in the middle – it has the gritty drama but it's also epic in its telling of this character's life story. I love a story spanning an entire lifetime and I did enjoy this movie. It's a great film. It's a classic. But I didn't connect with it as much as I was hoping I would. I'm sorry! Okay – I've actually just taken a break to add images into this post. Wow. They're stunning. Those are some great shots! They remind me of Fritz Lang's M, another great film. Is that why this movie is so popular? Huh. Yeah, I admit it – I should probably watch this movie again. Someday. Maybe it'll grow on me.
I briefly discussed Citizen Kane with a friend and how I really didn't feel like reviewing it. Believe it or not, I'm a person of few words in real life and, when talking about a movie, I'll often just say "Yeah, it was good" or "It sucked!". Citizen Kane got three sentences out of me & my friend pointed out that it worked as a haiku.
So here's my haiku review of Citizen Kane (complete with the ***BIG HUGE SPOILER*** that everyone knows about this movie by now if they are the slightest bit interested in films):
I was a bit bored.
I have no culture. I knew
it was the damn sled.
Then I added another that works out slightly better in haiku form:
Enter The Dragon
Was a much better Blind Spot
Damn that stupid sled
By the way, Enter The Dragon was f*%king awesome! I'll review that next month and will maybe put a tiny bit of effort into that post. Maybe. For now, here's my rating for Citizen Kane. It deserves much higher.
My Rating: 7.5/10
**Okay – since this was one of my worst attempts at a review EVER (although I've certainly had worse), here are links to bloggers I follow who have written about Citizen Kane. I couldn't find many! If you've reviewed the movie, let me know and I'll happily add you to the below list.


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Rural US towns – left out by broadband – build their own
More than 300 communities consider launching local high-speed Internet service.
| Sullivan, Ill.
When Lisa Shuman went looking for a resort to celebrate her 15th wedding anniversary, she did what many people do: She turned on her home computer and searched the Internet.
But out here amid the corn and soybean expanses of central Illinois, going online can be about as fun as pulling weeds. "I wanted to give up," says Mrs. Shuman, who lives on a farm a mile from town and uses a dial-up connection. She washed dishes and folded laundry while Internet pages trickled down across the phone line.
Slow. Expensive. Unreliable. These are complaints of many rural residents about their Internet service. But for small-town America, the problem is bigger than mere inconvenience. Increasingly, leaders in rural communities are coming to believe that access to high- speed Internet is tied to their towns' future survival. They're becoming less patient with telecommunications companies, which they say have lagged in providing the service their residents need at a price they can afford.
"Sometimes these big companies don't think it's worth their effort to come into towns like ours with the latest and best technologies," says Ann Short, Sullivan's mayor. "But we have needs. And we're deserving."
Tired of waiting, the town of Sullivan plans to start its own high-speed Internet network this summer, using a combination of fiber-optic cable, wireless transmitters mounted on water towers, and Internet signals sent over power lines. Mayor Short and other officials expect the system, which will cost half a million dollars, to give residents in and around Sullivan faster, cheaper, and more reliable service than private companies have provided. "We feel we can do it better," she says.
Many towns eye high-speed access
Other communities are reaching the same conclusion. More than 300, from cities to small towns, are considering launching their own high-speed Internet services, most of them using wireless technologies, says James Baller, a Washington, D.C., lawyer who has represented many of the towns. Hundreds of them have already done so, he says.
"There is a growing consensus that everything that we do in the future is going to be based on broadband platform," Mr. Baller says. "If you don't have access in the reasonably foreseeable future, you cannot participate as full citizens in the emerging knowledge-based information economy. Nobody wants to be left out."
President Bush seemed to acknowledge this sentiment when, in 2004, he called for "affordable" broadband technology in "every corner of our country" by 2007. Telecommunications companies have gradually expanded broadband Internet into rural areas, but they have not met expectations, given the expansion of the Internet in business, education, and other areas of American life.
"There's a lot of grumbling about providers, that they aren't moving fast enough," says Norman Walzer, an economist at Western Illinois University in Macomb and founder of the Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs. "From the provider's perspective, if they don't perceive enough of a market, they're not going to do it. It's really a speed question. You can get dial-up practically anywhere, but dial-up is not going to let you do the things you want to do."
The Pew Internet and American Life Project confirms what many rural residents suspect: The gap in broadband Internet usage between rural America and the rest of the country remains wide. A survey last year found that 29 percent of rural Americans had broadband at home compared with 48 percent of urban and suburban residents.
Most small towns enjoy some form of broadband service, though lack of competition means it is often slower and more expensive than residents would like. Choices are more limited in the countryside. Broadband services offered by cable or telephone companies seldom reach beyond town boundaries. Wireless companies serve wide expanses of countryside, but coverage can be spotty, and trees, hills, and even bad weather can disrupt the signals. William Weaver, a farmer in Illinois's Clark County and chairman of the county board of commissioners, says many farmers can't get good service.
The quality of Internet service in rural areas often depends on the size of the local telephone company, experts say. Small independent utilities, such as telephone companies, are usually quicker to provide high-speed service than are the telecom giants. Rural communities contemplating starting their own Internet services are turning for inspiration and expertise to successful examples. One is Princeton, Ill. In 2003, the town received a complaint from a large employer about the poor quality of Internet service. Fearful of losing jobs, Princeton laid fiber-optic cable to the town's largest businesses. It also began offering broadband to homes over the town's power lines, using one of the newest forms of Internet technology.
Other communities have extended high-speed service deep into the countryside. One of the best known is Scottsburg, Ind., a town of 6,000 that in 2003 started up a wireless network for Scott County. The service proved so popular that Scottsburg expanded it to nine counties. "We've been waiting forever to get something out here," says Edie Sanders, a stay-at-home mother who recently hooked up to the network.
Online key for government services
Rural residents need high-speed Internet for better access to medical care, government services, and education, say local officials. It's also become essential for rural businesses, they argue.
"The first thing these companies want is to have high-speed Internet access," says Robert Bridges, mayor of Rushville, Ind., a central Indiana town that has installed its own fiber-optic network. "Without that, it's difficult to entice anyone to move into the community."
Not everyone supports these local initiatives. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) says at least 19 states regulate or ban government-operated Internet services. But such legislation has failed in other states. State Sen. David Ford, who represents a mainly rural area, helped defeat a ban in Indiana. "I'm really a pro-business, conservative politician, but ... there is an argument to do this for an economic development reason," he says.
In Sullivan, officials say they tried several years ago to persuade the local telephone company to provide broadband Internet. The company agreed – but only if Sullivan paid the installation costs. The town did not shrink from going ahead on its own. Like many rural communities, it had been providing electric power to its residents since before World War II.
In April, the FCC announced an inquiry into whether broadband Internet was reaching all Americans "in a reasonable and timely fashion."
In Sullivan, officials say wireless transmitters have been delivered, but the community is still negotiating for bandwidth (it costs more than they thought), and looking for experts to turn to if they encounter problems. They have a powerful incentive to do well.
"It's a small town," Short says. "People know where to find you."


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Multi-dimensional Review of Kazakhstan
Volume 2. In-depth Analysis and Recommendations
Kazakhstan has embarked upon an ambitious reform agenda to realise its aspiration of becoming one of the top 30 global economies by 2050. The country's economy and society have undergone deep transformations since independence. To sustain economic progress, overcome recent difficulties, and drive improvements in well-being to realise its aspirations, Kazakhstan will need to address a number of challenges to ensure its economy becomes more productive and diverse, and is sufficiently flexible and resilient in the face of an ever-shifting external environment. This next stage of economic transformation will require continuing reforms. This report discusses policy actions to address four key obstacles to development in Kazakhstan, identified in Volume 1 of this review. It presents in-depth analysis and recommendations to improve the economy's resilience through diversification, to mobilise financing for development, to transform the role of the state in the economy, including through privatisation, and to improve the effectiveness of environmental regulations.
The Kazakhstan state has a high level of control of the economy
Product Market Regulation State Control Index, latest available
OECD Development Centre
- Click to access:
Click to download XLSXLS


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Fingerprinting Cameras through Sensor Noise – Arvind shows how unique the noise pattern that your camera embeds in every photo you take really is. It's as identifiable as a thumb-print, and with high resolution pictures available from many sources associated with your real name, makes it theoretically possible to match up photos you've tried to take anonymously. The one saving grace is that compression removes a lot of that unseen uniqueness, but it looks like you'd need to go down to 60 quality on JPEG to be sure.
Multiplicative Microdata Noise for Privacy - Noise isn't always bad though. I'm fascinated by the ideas of adding it to prevent reverse-engineering of sensitive information from data releases. I bet it's tough to get right though, I'd love to set Arvind or some of the Kaggle team loose to see how solid the protection really is.
Underscore – The hardest thing about switching to Javascript from other languages is its primitive support for iteration. I'm excited by the promise of this library that Tyler Gillies pointed out to me, it looks like a great solution for my grumbles, unless there's a catch I'm missing.
requirejs – He also showed me this solution for proper module loading in JS. The syntax is a bit funky, and I know we'll still want to compile and minify for production, but it's still a good tool to have in your kit.
TeleHash – An intriguingly generic way of connecting machines together in a peer-to-peer way using distributed hash tables. Maybe it's just my exposure to them as I do more Cassandra work, but DHTs seem to be popping up all over the place.


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I'm an engineer, and I work in network research in the Boston area. In addition to this blog, I have been making projects for the Internet since 1998.
- GalaxyFarAway.com: In 1998, I created GalaxyFarAway.com, a web site about Star Wars. It is by far the most popular thing I have ever created on the Internet.
- Science Addiction: From 2005 to 2010, I used to write a blog called Science Addiction about tech/geek/wonk stuff, but it's now dormant. It also hosted my various code projects. In the good ol' days, that blog got Slashdot'ed, Digg front-paged, BoingBoing'ed… and even got a mention in the print version of Wired. So that was cool.
- Cricket: I also used to blog about the sport of cricket (and its statistics) at Deep Backward Point. It was quite popular for a brief internet moment, and was featured on ESPN Cricinfo a couple of time. I was also the founder/editor of two other (mostly dormant) cricket web sites: The Sight Screen, which is a fan-driven cricket magazine and The Teesra (now defunct), which was like The Onion for cricket.
- Apple: I used to write a weekly column for Apple Matters between 2005 and 2007. Around that time, I also wrote a few chapters of Chris Seibold's excellent O'Reilly Media book Big Book of Apple Hacks, available here.
- Film: Some years ago I created a short documentary series on western influences on Bollywood music. My writing on film has been featured on IGN and Brattle Film.
- Code: I had a now-defunct open source project called getFlix, which helped people download and analyze their Netflix movie ratings. Back in college I created a natural language movie recommendation system.
- And obviously, my this is my personal blog.
I put fun and interesting things I find on tumblr. I'm rarely on Twitter these days as myself, or as my cricket-writing alter-ego.


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Supportive materials will help regenerate heart tissue (w/ Video)
Bioengineers from University of California, San Diego are developing new regenerative therapies for heart disease. The work could influence the way in which regenerative therapies for cardiovascular and other diseases are treated in the future.
New results from UC San Diego on using adult stem cells to regenerate heart tissue in environments that mimic a human post-heart-attack heart were presented this week in San Diego at the 2009 annual meeting of the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB). The work is from the laboratory of Adam Engler from the Department of Bioengineering at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering.
Every year in the United States, approximately 900,000 people die from heart disease. The prevalence of heart disease has prompted researchers to develop new regenerative therapies to treat the condition, including the injection of adult stem cells into the scarred heart muscle that results from a heart attack. This treatment, called cellular cardiomyoplasty, relies on injected stem cells receiving appropriate cues from their surrounding tissue to cause them to become cardiac muscle.
However, when stem cells are injected into stiff, scarred, post-heart attack muscle (rather than healthy tissue), these stem cells do not readily become cardiac muscle. In fact, only marginal improvement in overall cardiac function has been detected, and this improvement may not actually be from tissue regeneration. Instead, the improvements may be from the fact that the treatment "pokes holes" into the scar tissue and injects soft cells, making it slightly softer and thus more functional. Even more striking, the injected stem cells do not form new cardiac muscle. Instead, the stem cells form small calcified lesions. The injected stem cells are directed by the stiff scar tissue to mature into bone-like cells rather than new heart cells.
Given these problems associated with direct stem cell injection, the UC San Diego bioengineers are proposing to use cells placed in a supportive material that changes stiffness with time by exhibiting time-dependent crosslinking.
"Our evidence suggests that tissue-specific stiffness arises from key developmental changes, which implies that cells should be cultured in the appropriate physical conditions that mimic embryonic tissue progression, from soft, pre-cardiac tissue at early embryonic age to a mature, less compliant tissue at the conclusion of development," said Jennifer Young, a Ph.D. candidate in bioengineering at UC San Diego and the first author on the peer-reviewed presentation at ASCB 2009.
By tuning this material to mimic in situ time-dependent stiffness changes, the UC San Diego bioengineers have found that cells placed in this material indicate improved cardiac differentiation.
"Results from this study may not only have a profound impact on cardiovascular engineering, but may influence the way in which many regenerative therapies are conducted. In this instance we have studied the developing tissue as a model, and from it generated a set of design criteria to mimic in our new material," said bioengineering professor Adam Engler from the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering.
Source: University of California - San Diego (news : web)


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The Art of the Deal…With God
Though I love Rock music, testimonies from Rock musicians about their pacts with the Devil in exchange for fame are more abundant than I prefer to think about. On another front, God does make deals, and the Bible is replete with the terms of such deals.
In fact, in many instances, these are promises from God. What was Trump's motive in declaring Jerusalem the capital of Israel and the eventual moving of our embassy there? Is he cutting a deal with God in exchange for blessings on himself and America? I think this is exactly the case.
Do you find the historical hatred for Israel completely illogical? That's because it's a spiritual issue and Israel is ground zero for the historical spiritual warfare between good and evil that will culminate at Armageddon. Israel, one of the smallest nations in the world, if not the smallest, is an ongoing cup of trembling for the world; it doesn't make any sense at all unless you view it from a biblical perspective.
God's terms for a blessing contract regarding His people is pretty straight forward and simple: as stated to the father of the Jews, Abraham, "I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you." For many examples among myriads, If you know the details of what happened to the German people post WWII, it is an absolutely brutal testimony that invokes undeserved pity. Throughout history, God hangs those with the gallows they prepare for the Jews and in turn heaps additional blessings on the Jews. Historically, EVERY attempt to destroy them only adds to their strength.
Once a people with no land at all and dispersed throughout the world, they are not only the smallest country in the world, but one of the most powerful politically, militarily, and economically.
It's one of the easiest deals Trump has ever made in his endeavor to "make America great again."
7 Responses
The hatred for Israel, especially where I'm from, is deplorable.
The smallest country in the world is the Vatican, 0.2 square miles (I think to fit the pope's former headgear, worn until the sixties, which was called the Papal Tiara). What. Ever. But, Paul, I understand exactly what you mean. God is not done with Isreal, as so many Protestants (and those who simply hate Israel because they are Jewish and because there's a God connection) believe. How many times have you heard the drivel in some church or whatever, "We are the new Israel"? Well, pass the bacon burgers, thanks, and I'll go for the snip next week . . . not.
Concerning those deals musicians, especially guitar players, supposedly make with the devil. I think it's physically impossible, and I think LSD, mushrooms, truckloads of pot, alcohol, rubber ducks, and maybe a demon of some sort could be involved. Bob Dylan made a "pact" of sorts, the legend goes (especially on those discernment "Christian" blogs), but should one who knows music investigate the Bob's career, it is rather clear that he simply progressed with the times and . . . practiced a lot, a heck of a lot. Should one listen to him today (reaching for cough syrup involuntarily; respectfully), it's obvious that the devil's blessing has left him decades ago. That's folklore (anything to sell stuff). One also can't physically "sell" your soul to the devil nor is there some fight between God and the devil about your soul (I think it was the overrated Chris de Burgh who dreamed at that tale to sell music.)
That many musicians further a dark agenda is true, but that's for another day.
I went to the "Crossroads" and made a deal with some weird-looking dude who was hanging around there. "I want to play guitar like no one's ever done before," I said. "Not a problem," he replied. "Go home and it will be so."
Have you ever played a one-string guitar? No one can play it like I can.
Found the De Burgh song: It's called "Spanish Train" and although just a song, it's filled with fabrications and unbiblical nonsense. Anything to sell LPs back then. YouTube and naked women to sell their rubbish were not around back then. So De Burgh used the devil. Woo. Waa! Publicity! Scandalous! Just like the Charlie Daniel's band and "The Devil Went Down To Georgia." (Ya, I also don't know why. I mean, of all the places…)
Suppose we give Protestants a country. Oh, wait, they already have California as HQ.
I have noticed in a 'secular' forum discussing politics and current affairs that when Israel comes up as a subject, the hatred of the country, and I don't think that is too strong a word, soon surfaces. Even my remaining functioning brain cells picked this up. It is bordering on the irrational. Those who normally deplore what Muslims sometimes do suddenly forget that and would gladly hand Israel over to them for destruction.
This is a spiritual problem rather than a political one. Their abhorrence of Israel reflects a rage against the God whom they say does not exist. In a way it is fascinating to watch.
This is not the same thing as criticising the policies of the Israeli government of the day, just as you might do with the actions of any country in the world.
You are right, Ken. It is mostly a spiritual matter; a God matter. And it is hatred all over again: The Auschwitz Blues, so to speak. But we'll talk again when Jesus returns, as He is going to return to Jerusalem and not Los Angeles or Perth or Beijing (too much smog), and things are going to be fascinating. And you and I and every born-again Christian are going to be part of the action. Ken, when Jesus returns to rule and judge, it's not going to be Xbox of PlayStation stuff.
In my city, a certain upmarket chain store was boycotted and people were stopped from entering it because the shop had dared to carry some items and lovely kosher stuff from Israel. It's hatred, plain and simple. Luckily, we did not much care about the intimidation and supported the shop.
What saddens me is the moral decline (as foretold in Scripture) in Israel. Think certain "parades," etc. They still are stiff-necked people concerning the Messiah, aren't they? But this is important: I think Israeli women, in general, are super attractive. Yes, off topic as can be but important!
Andy, the government of the country you're referring to hates Israel to the very best of my knowledge. Even crazy archbishops from that place sing the praises of Palestine, I have heard. Communism, mass-intimidation, ethnic-motivated murders, and terrorism are four of that country's favorite pastimes, I have heard from very reliable sources.
Oh, but "God is in control," didn't you know?
We're still hung up on Israel as a country? Galatians 3:28 means "there are NO MORE borders in Christ!" No more Jew nor Gentile. As humanity, through Christ, we're ALL Israel.


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Below is start of an interview I did last month with Phil Bowermaster and Stephen Gordon, my futurist friends who run Speculist.com and Fast Forward Radio. The topic was human destiny, and the personal and social value of cultivating a big picture, acceleration-aware view of the world and our opportunities within it. You can find the full text interview here, at WorldTransformed.com, and listen to a related Aug 31st, 2011 audio interview, on a panel with fellow futurists Venessa Miemis and Robin Hanson, at WT2: Human Destiny Transformed.
Thoughts? Responses? Please feel free to use the comments section here, at my new blog home, and I'll do my best to respond. Thanks!
1. If you were to pick just one current or coming transformation that you would advise people to focus on, which one would that be?
I run the Acceleration Studies Foundation, so I'm a tad biased, but I would say one thing to focus on is to try to understand the meaning, risks, and opportunities presented by accelerating technological change, in your own life and in society. Accelerating change is causing a whole number of transformations today, and several of these are giving us more options for what to do and how to live than we've had at any time in the past. Others (automation, globalization, fossil fuels, IEDs) are causing disruption in more ways than ever before. Read Martin Ford's Lights in the Tunnel, 2009, for one of many thoughtful works on the way technology improves us in some ways, while disrupting us in others.
When you think carefully about accelerating change, you may conclude, as I have, that just a few technologies, specifically computing, communications, and nanotechnologies, are continually accelerating because every new generation of these particular technologies uses less resources per computation or physical transformation than the previous one, a phenomenon I call STEM compression. So these special technologies continually escape the "limits to growth" we see in traditional technologies. And it is these same technologies, as they perennially accelerate, that increasingly shape our future. We can think of them as the growing framework, or cage which restrains and directs all the most powerful actors today, the corporations, the governments, the ultrawealthy, the terrorists, everyone.
Our parents saw minicomputers, cheap telecom and the PC fuel the growth of multinationals, and at the same time, flatten corporate hierarchies. We've seen the iPod and internet disrupt the music industry, tablets are now starting to change the publishing industry, and as I argue in How the Television Will be Revolutionized, 2010, a few years from now iTV will disrupt the television and film industries in even more powerful ways, bringing millions of channels to every device. Blogs, Wikis, virtual worlds, mirror worlds, social networks, and other facets of the internet are flowering and enhancing our collective intelligence. Twitter gives us a window on the thoughts of humanity. Smartphones connect us 24/7 to each other and the web. Sensors are proliferating across the planet, making every nation a transparent society. Lifelogs, wearable computing, telepresence, and augmented reality are just now emerging.
Today, Facebook and Twitter empower the Arab Spring. Tomorrow, we'll have a conversational interface to the web, and cybertwins (digital assistants that model our personality and can act and transact for us, at first in simple ways, later in very intelligent ways) assisting us in our information consumption, communication, commerce, and political activities. We can expect a valuecosm to eventually emerge, quantitated versions of the publicly expressed values that each of us all hold on all kinds of topics, allowing us to connect with others who share our values, to work with others on projects that we care about, and helping us to generate a whole new level of specialization and subcultural diversity. [The rest of the interview].


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Sound familiar? I have been hearing it more and more lately. As the slumbering giant slowly stirs to life, it is rolling over on top of the happy little geese who have all fallen in behind one another to waddle, waddle down the road. Now, however, they are getting squished, poked and prodded and they do not like it.
All of these kooks are showing up in droves to the offices of elected leaders, to townhall meetings and planned protests. Their voices are getting collectively louder and the geese cannot understand what is happening. So, like all wild animals they revert to what they know best: Quacking loudly, flapping their wings and running around in an effort to scare the enemy away.
Unfortunatlely, it is to late. Their precious Global Warming, in the form of a runaway government, massive deficit spending and continued ignoring of the people has begun an irreversible thaw. The frozen, silent majority is no more.
We stood by as the geese incessantly quacked about President Bush. We sat idle, disliking but accepting the freedom of speech, as the geese slandered, made fun of and attacked the former president for eight straight years.
Now, the shoe is on the other foot. If you cannot stand the heat, too damn bad. It is our turn in the barnyard. Make way. Real America coming through.
The revolution is at hand. Will you be a leader or a follower?


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By now most have heard about the Israeli air strike against a Syrian military site. What's not new or alarming is knowing that an entire region called the Middle East could've been lit on fire, but that a Russian Mig-31 fighter flew over Sinai, seemingly in response.
The Syrian announcement of an Israeli air strike on a military site near Damascus Wednesday, Jan. 30, drew strong condemnation from Moscow the next day: "Such action if confirmed would amount to unacceptable military interference in the war-ravaged country," said the statement issued by the Russian Foreign Ministry Thursday. "If this information is confirmed, then we are dealing with unprovoked attacks on targets on the territory of a sovereign country, which blatantly violate the UN Charter and is unacceptable, no matter the motives to justify it."
Israel has made no comment on the Damascus statement which described in detail an Israeli air strike against a "military research institute" near the capital. Witnesses say it was a plant for manufacturing "unconventional weapons." The facility was destroyed and two staff members killed.
Lebanese sources later reported a Russian Mig-31 fighter had crossed over Sinai Wednesday in the direction of Israel. It veered west over the Mediterranean after encountering an Israeli warning not to intrude into its air space and continued flying over Lebanon. Continue reading


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DCM Shriram it's heritage, leadership and evolution into a leading business conglomerate:
Building a world class organisation. The company's business portfolio comprises of:
DCM Shriram is committed to society at large beyond its factory gates and office premises.
DCM Shriram has a strong focus on People Development, Openness and Learning, Relationships & Human Dignity.


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I Am Charlotte Simmons: A Novel
Books / Hardcover
ISBN: 0374281580 / Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, November 2004
Price Starting at $10.99
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At Dupont University, an innocent college freshman named Charlotte Simmons learns that her intellect alone will not help her survive. Read More
Dupont University--the Olympian halls of learning housing the cream of America's youth, the roseate Gothic spires and manicured lawns suffused with tradition . . . Or so it appears to beautiful, brilliant Charlotte Simmons, a sheltered freshman from North Carolina. But Charlotte soon learns, to her mounting dismay, that for the uppercrust coeds of Dupont, sex, Cool, and kegs trump academic achievement every time. As Charlotte encounters Dupont's privileged elite--her roommate, Beverly, a fleshy, Groton-educated Brahmin in lusty pursuit of lacrosse players; Jojo Johanssen, the only white starting player on Dupont's godlike basketball team, whose position is threatened by a hotshot black freshman from the projects; the Young Turk of Saint Ray fraternity, Hoyt Thorpe, whose heady sense of entitlement and social domination is clinched by his accidental brawl with a bodyguard for the governor of California; and Adam Geller, one of the Millennial Mutants who run the university's "independent" newspaper and who consider themselves the last bastion of intellectual endeavor on the sex-crazed, jock-obsessed campus--she gains a new, revelatory sense of her own power, that of her difference and of her very innocence, but little does she realize that she will act as a catalyst in all of their lives. With his signature eye for detail, Tom Wolfe draws on extensive observation of campuses across the country to immortalize college life in the '00s. I Am Charlotte Simmons is the much-anticipated triumph of America's master chronicler. Read Less


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Dear CAFAM members,
CAFAM is partnering with The Language Exchange of Portland to offer you a new venue for the future meetings of the Mandarin roundtable led by Viveca Kwan, CAFAM member and Mandarin instructor at The Language Exchange.
Beginning on Tuesday September 25, 2018, from 12pm-1pm, the Mandarin roundtable will be held at The Language Exchange, 75 Market Street, Suite 305 (3rd floor) in downtown Portland. Future dates will be forthcoming.
These roundtables are open to all interested — members and non-members of CAFAM, students and non-students of The Language Exchange — and to all levels of Mandarin Chinese.
Come and partake in fun and informal conversations in Mandarin and get to know a community of like-minded people. Feel free to bring your lunch.
The Language Exchange was founded in 1992 and provides a broad range of language related services and instruction to individuals and businesses statewide and nationally.


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Whom is it safe to hate? One of the reasons the cause of same-sex civil marriage has gained so much ground in recent years is that it is no longer socially acceptable to hold gay couples in contempt. Many if not most opponents of same-sex marriage harbor no ill will toward lesbians and gays, yet opposition to the expansion of civil rights for gay people has long profited from deep-seated prejudice against them. As this prejudice has grown less common and less intense, it isn't terribly surprising that proponents of same-sex marriage have gained the upper hand. Similarly, opposition to cannabis legalization has long rested on the belief that stoners are losers who can and should be kept on the margins of society. Now that marijuana use is associated in the public mind with cancer-stricken grandmothers and foxy celebrities, there is no going back. The stigma against marijuana use is dying, and support for keeping marijuana illegal has been slowly dying with it.
Sex work is a different story. The stigma associated with selling sex remains strong, as is the stigma against buying it. This is despite the growing evidence that decriminalizing the buying and selling of sex has significant public health benefits. A pair of economists, Scott Cunningham and Manisha Shah, recently found that when Rhode Island accidentally decriminalized indoor prostitution due to a quirk of statutory language, cases of female gonorrhea plummeted, as did the number of rape offenses. A recent study drawing on data from Vancouver, British Columbia, found that the decriminalization of sex work has the potential to greatly reduce the spread of HIV. So will Americans soon start clamoring for legalized prostitution? I doubt it, because it's going to be very hard for people to stop looking down on those who buy and sell sex.
There is relatively little polling on how Americans feel about legalizing the buying and selling of sex. The main reason, presumably, is that outside of a few rural counties in Nevada, the idea seems exotic, strange, and very far off the political radar. Back in 2012, however, YouGov found that legalization was surprisingly popular: While 48 percent of respondents said that prostitution should definitely or probably remain illegal, 38 percent of Americans said it should definitely or probably be legalized, with the remaining 13 percent on the fence. Far more respondents maintained that prostitution should "definitely not" be legalized (31 percent) than that it definitely should (12 percent), and this intensity of opinion does matter, as we've learned from the debate over gun rights and other hotly contested issues. Intriguingly, a substantial majority of women (57 percent) opposed legalization, while only 40 percent of men felt the same way.
There is one important question that the YouGov poll didn't ask. I wonder whether, for those who believe that sex work should be illegal, it's more important to protect society from sex workers—on the grounds that they spread moral turpitude—or to protect sex workers from their clients—on the grounds that those clients are dangerous.
The former is more like the traditional view of the prostitute—the woman of loose morals who tempts otherwise upstanding men into betraying their families. The latter is a view that has taken hold in a number of countries that have pursued new strategies for the regulation of sex work. In 1999 Sweden criminalized the purchase of sex while continuing to allow individuals to sell it. The new legislation was justified on the grounds that violence against women is inherent in sex work, and its stated goal was to reduce the prevalence of prostitution by deterring potential clients. (Let's pause here to note that, of course, not all sex workers are women and not all their clients are men.) Champions of the Swedish approach maintain that their goal is to "end demand," and the Swedish government has been fairly successful at promoting its approach internationally.
The Swedish model, with its emphasis on discouraging sexual transactions, isn't all that popular with sex worker advocacy groups. The Global Network of Sex Work Projects and the Canadian Alliance for Sex Work Law Reform have both warned that the Swedish model has marginalized sex workers without reducing prostitution. No matter the country, and no matter its laws, men and women will buy and sell sex. Given that reality, there is little reason to believe that criminalizing the buying of sex will make prostitutes safer. Rather, it could push the practice further underground, where protections are harder to come by.
While the regulation of sex work hasn't been a high priority for Americans in recent years, Canada has drawn inspiration from the Swedish model. In December of last year, the country's Supreme Court ordered Canada's Conservative Party government to devise a new set of rules and regulations that would do more to protect sex workers. As a consequence, the Canadian government recently followed Sweden by introducing legislation that would, among other things, make it very clear that prostitution was to be discouraged and deterred.
Yet the new Canadian bill would go further than the Swedes do by making it illegal for sex workers to advertise their services, or to communicate their interest in selling sex in a place where a child might plausibly see or hear that communication. Earlier this summer, Canadian sex workers took to the streets in protest. Their argument, again, is that these supposed protections don't actually protect women. "This will simply move sex workers out into more isolated and more marginalized areas of the city, and in many ways this legislation is a gift to sexual predators," the head of a sex worker assistance group called Maggie's told the Canadian Press. "It means they can't work in groups to watch out for one another and say, 'I'll be back in half an hour.' And people who would do women harm, who would do sex workers harm, will know this."
Nevertheless, it's easy to see why the Canadian government has decided to go this route. Legalizing prostitution appears to be somewhat more popular in Canada than in the United States. An Angus Reid survey conducted in June found that Canadians were split 45–45 on whether buying sex should be legal. But the gender gap on legalization was yawning: Fifty-six percent of men believe that buying sex should be legal, while 55 percent of women believe that it should not be. Canada's Conservatives attract far less support from women than men, and embracing the Swedish model seems like a shrewd way to shore up female support for the party by uniting feminists and social conservatives. What should worry Canadians is that the fundamental premise of the Swedish model—that it is possible to "end demand"—is profoundly flawed.
As Melissa Gira Grant, author of Playing the Whore, has argued, sex work is best understood as a service industry job. One of the more discomfiting facts about the modern market economy is that it's not just sex workers who are selling the illusion of intimacy. Few would deny that being conventionally attractive and mildly flirtatious would help you earn more tips as a server in a restaurant. Indeed, we have reliable evidence that these qualities help women and men alike earn more in a wide range of professions. Sexiness aside, there are many jobs in which it pays to be caring and attentive. Paid emotional labor of this kind is central to the entertainment and hospitality sectors. And as the population ages, more and more households outsource the work of meeting the needs of young children and aging parents to professionals, for whom a central part of the job description is to be, or to appear to be, warm and loving.
Something similar is true of sex workers, who provide a real service to clients who, for whatever reason, find themselves in need of paid sex. This is not to suggest that johns are morally praiseworthy. One imagines that many of the men who purchase sexual services find themselves unable to experience physical intimacy via other means, in which case it is cruel to assume that their motives are necessarily predatory. And then there are men who are wary of investing every sexual encounter with emotional significance, and who appreciate the transactional nature of sex work. It's not entirely clear that it is preferable for these men to manipulate their way into getting the casual sex they crave rather than have them pay for it.
Suffice it to say, I haven't exhausted all of the imaginable reasons why one might choose to purchase sex—the world's oldest profession has stood the test of time for a reason. (Or rather, a whole bunch of reasons.) "Ending demand" is a pipe dream, as Sweden has demonstrated in its decade-and-a-half-long effort to do so. The arrival of the Swedish model to Canada should give us pause here in the United States. We should listen to what sex workers in Canada are saying about the consequences of criminalization, and look at the positive results in Rhode Island when that state accidentally decriminalized indoor prostitution. If legalizing sex work really does decrease the rate of sexual assault and the spread of venereal disease, as the latest evidence strongly suggests, we need to have a much better reason for banning it than the fact that we hold prostitutes and johns in such low esteem.


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I thought about titling this post something profound-like "The Prodigal". I contemplated going into detail about why it's been almost a year since I posted here. I considered it, but then I thought, "You know what? Nobody really cares. If they missed me, they'll just be glad to see me again. If they're new-they didn't know to miss me." Clarity at last. So then I thought about the last 10 months or so – all the things I've done, places I've been. What am I really most proud of? Easy! I'm most proud that I finished this. This DK yarn on small needles drapey knit scarf. I did it. It took me over three grindingly boring months, but I did it! Yay me!
I can't tell you the origin of the pattern. I found it in a local yarn store. They had made copies on plain white paper with no picture. Just a few lines of instruction and the title "Drapey Knit Scarf". They had an example laying next to it, and I thought "I can do this." So it began. Three skeins of Debbie Bliss Cashmerino and a desire to see it through to the end.
I would go for weeks without touching it. I finished several other projects along the way. There were times when I thought it would probably be the last item I would ever knit. I just don't seem to have the attention span for something I seem to do so slowly! Even after I finished it, it took me about three weeks to make myself block it. But you know what? I like it. I think it's awesome. Completely by accident, it's my daughter's school color-a delightful and unexpected bonus. Yes, I like this drapey knit scarf. I like it very much.