text:
This week, I was supposed to be at the Lambda Literary Foundation Writing Retreat in Los Angeles. I was supposed to be a "Lambda Fellow," which holds a little prestige (at least in my mind) as one of just a few selected to attend this competitive writing conference, the only one in the country designed exclusively for LBGTQ writers. I am not there this week because I was rejected – the competitive admissions process threw me into the slush pile of applicants. My own "community" spit me out and said: Not good enough.
So, in mature fashion, I unsubscribed to Lambda's email communications. I mean, I didn't need to read for the next two months the bios and profiles and activities of the chosen ones, those Olympian gay writers who made the Lambda cut. Fuck that, I am truly not that big of a person nor do I wish to be.
In 2011, I was accepted into the Lambda writing retreat, but turned down the acceptance, to attend the first ever Wet Mountain Valley Writers' Workshop held in Westcliffe, Colorado. I wanted to work with one of my writing idols. During that week, my idol fell and my dreams of her turned ugly, nightmarish. The thin air and high elevation in Wet Mountain Valley may have exaggerated our perceptions, but she and I didn't like each other. She criticized me too harshly. "Get rid of this flat, essay-ish writing." Then she read a few lines, looked slightly disgusted and said, "This sounds like a an old political slogan, not a story!" It's an essay, you idiot, I didn't say, and I'm allowed some leeway to reflect, you jerk, I didn't say. Obviously, you are a pure fiction writer and know nothing about creative nonfiction, I didn't say. More than once she cut me off when I read out loud in class while letting her favorites read on over the time limit or talk incessantly about themselves or their own work. I hated her. I glared at her. It was like a bad online dating experience – all build up and in person no chemistry. I left the Colorado workshop in 2011 muttering "bitch" under my breath and "You haven't written anything good in 20 years," and other assorted, horrible, let's bring on the bad karma type statements.
And so I brought on the bad karma, manifested in one way by being rejected from the Lambda Conference in 2012.
I don't know if I should feel like a loser because I was rejected by Lambda this year, or like a winner, because I was accepted last year. Am I good enough? Am I not good enough? Perhaps I should feel like loser for my bad attitude at Colorado last summer? After having earned an MFA, I couldn't take some harsh criticism from this author? Or maybe I should feel like a winner for standing up for myself, at least in my own mind?
Which brings me to the point: rejection and acceptance and how one navigates these waters as a writer and as a human being. I am not an authority on the subject, but I do have experience. I don't always know when to feel good or when to feel bad when I'm rejected or accepted. That's what I've concluded. See, I'm not really going to help you figure it out. I'm just saying…
Those of you who are regular blog readers know I've faced a lot of rejection in 2012. I won't list all the rejections I've received. A good majority of them were for an essay called "Marcela Songs," for which I now have about a thousand versions, and as of yet, no literary journal is interested in any version, no matter how I spin it. I may have to accept that "Marcela Songs," is a failed essay. "Marcela Songs" is the essay I sent in to Lambda in 2012, further proof, I suspect, that it just ain't that good. That's hard for me. I've been trying to write this essay since I was 35. I turned 50 this year.
I've had other rejections on a smaller scale for other pieces. Overall in 2012, I had come to expect that every time I heard back from a literary journal for the email to say, "Thanks but no thanks, go find somewhere else for your work." Because of the negative state that the rejections threw me in, I failed to truly acknowledge the positives, even within the rejections – for example, I received some form rejections that encouraged me to submit again. And although they were form rejections, I don't think form rejections always encourage you to submit again. Or do they?
More important, my blog readers (that would be all of YOU), continued to encourage me with your comments and praise of my blog, month after month. By June, I'd started to think, "Hey, I have a readership that likes my work; maybe, just possibly, I'm not a shitty writer. Maybe, just possibly, I can be an effective writer without 'being accepted' in the more traditional fashion."
Such support helped to renew my confidence. As did the support of individual friends. At dinner recently, a friend of mine said the mansuscript (not the single essay) Marcela Songs should be submitted as a book. She felt very strongly about this and now that I've looked away from it for awhile (after madly revising for a year and a half), I've looked at it again. I'm going to give it a shot. The manuscript is currently in the hands of a wonderful writer, Bridget Bufford, who is editing the book (in between bouts of poisoning herself on her landscaping "day" job and trying to survive the drought in Missouri.)
Candy Parker, my former editor at GAY e-magazine, recently asked me to contribute blog entries to lesbian.com, a world-wide resource for lesbians, a website that is receiving hits in the hundreds of thousands. She asked me, unsolicited, to contribute my work because she thinks so well of my writing. Lambda is not the only game in town. Neither is a bunch of "Marcela Song," hating literary journals. Candy's opinion means a lot. She's a talented writer. So I should feel good about myself as a writer, right?
In July, the writing energy started to turn from negative to positive. I think this is a typical cycle for a writer, to go from negative to positive (and back again) in how one feels about one's work and in how it's received. I don't believe that energy just makes itself up out of nothing, but we guide it based on our actions and attitudes. That doesn't mean we control it or conjure it despite my claims of bad karma – just gently guide it, and hope it picks up the right wave.
The turn toward the positive started in July when I visited at the Summer Residency of the Solstice MFA Program in Creative Writing at Pine Manor College. I graduated with an MFA from that program in the summer of 2010. And as always, I was welcomed back into a community that continues to think highly of me as a person and as a writer. As always, I was re-motivated as I listened to readers, took classes, and mixed with current students and other alumni.
Next, I attended a very supportive writing retreat weekend with T.M.I. (Too Much Information), led by Eva Tenuto and Sari Botton. The retreat focuses on writing monologue, providing encouragement (not glaring criticism) and then on performance/reading of one's work. The T.M.I. workshop is one of the best I've ever attended. I knew no one there would reject me or tell me my worked sucked. In fact, the atmosphere and experience were in opposition to that. The weekend was about encouragement, about unabashedly letting your story out and then shaping it into a reading or performance. We worked hard, but we celebrated our stories and our writing.
And since those events, everything has turned around. Perhaps I was able to guide my energy wave toward the positive after these experiences. Regardless, during this week when I was "supposed to be at Lambda," this is what has happened instead:
The literary journal, Cobalt Review, has accepted one of my essays, "Stuck in the Middle" for publication in their print edition in October and has named it one of three finalists in the Cobalt Writing Contest. I don't know yet whether it's won but this is a first for me – to be a finalist (or even place) in a writing contest.
Two days later, Connotation Press: An Online Artifact, named my essay, "A Smirnoff and Coke," one of the 10 best they've published in the last year and reprinted it in their August retrospective issue. Another first for me, to be named one of the "best." My friend and fellow Solstice graduate, Faye Rapoport Despres also had her magnificent essay, "No One Watches the Old Lady Dance," included in that best-of list.
A few days after THAT, Candy Parker informed me that one of my blog entries, "What's in a Butch's Purse?" would be reprinted in The Huffington Post Gay Voices Section. WOW. The Huffington Post is big-time exposure and therefore, big-time platform, especially since there may be more opportunities for blogs I contribute to lesbian.com to be picked up by Huffington.
That's three pieces of good news in just a few days. Keep in mind that last year at this time, I had three essays accepted within two months before all the rejections started. So, I'm thinking this may be my cycle: 3 acceptances (of some kind) per year and dozens of rejections for the next 10 months. Should I feel good about this or bad about this? Some people never get their writing accepted. Some people get their writing accepted on a much more regular basis.
I have recently been invited to submit by two editors, and so I feel good about that, right? Absolutely. But I have learned that even when you are asked to submit, even by a friend, or a friendly acquaintance, that is no guarantee that you will have your work accepted. Late last year, a friend and acquaintance asked me to submit some short pieces to a journal she edits and she ended up rejecting all three. I should feel bad about that, right? Um, I'm not sure. Because what this tells me is that even if someone you know is making the decision to publish or not publish your work, she or he is not going to take it unless it's good enough. This same person has published my work in the past and asked me to read at AWP in Chicago. So, it's about my work being good enough, and I should feel good that she thought some of my work was good enough to publish and read aloud and be thankful that she showed me (by rejecting other work) that she's doing this based off quality.
While I ride a wave of positive energy, even the rejections are getting better, or I perceive them as better.
Recently, I got a very personal rejection from The Missouri Review, one of the best literary journals in the country. I was so excited to get such a personal rejection which said, "I highly encourage you to submit more work," and which was signed by a REAL PERSON, that I sent the rejection off to a friend and said, "The best rejection yet!" And she agreed. And then we both researched who wrote me that personal rejection. Turns out it was a senior journalism/English major at the University off Missouri and not one of the editors – an intern, a 22 year old. Should I feel good about this personal rejection from one of the best literary journals in the country? Or should I feel bad that it came from a kid? A nice kid with great taste, mind you, but a kid.
And just yesterday, I received this rejection (for a piece of fiction I wrote in the 1990s, believe it or not):
Dear Cindy Zelman:
Thank you for sending us "The Cross Dresser." Unfortunately this particular piece was not a right fit for Slice Magazine, but we were very impressed by your writing.
We hope that you will feel encouraged by this short note and send us something else during our next reading period.
We look forward to reading more.
Sincerely, The Editors of Slice Magazine
I am choosing to feel good about this rejection, because it will likely be another year before I get my annual quota of three acceptances. 🙂 It's a long wait for that next wave.
Thank you to everyone who reads this blog and my FB page for all of your support.


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In remembrance of the death of Bob Marley 30 years ago (May 11, 1981), here's a version of "No Woman, No Cry" recorded July 21, 1979 in at Harvard Stadium in Boston, Mass.
Archive for Bob Marley
Bob Marley, 1945-1981Posted in Music with tags 1979, 1981, Bob Marley, Boston, Harvard, July 21, May 11, No Woman No Cry on May 12, 2011 by macmystery
A sign of the timesPosted in Music with tags Bob Marley, Bruce Springsteen, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Dolly Parton, Elvis Presley, Jerry Reed, L.A. Times, Loretta Lynn, Merle Haggard, Ray Charles, Roger Miller, Run DMC, Temptations, The Beatles, The Clash, Woody Guthrie on October 9, 2008 by macmystery
If you've ever read Rolling Stone or Entertainment magazine, or a newspaper for that matter, you've read one of those "Top 10 (fill-in-the-blank) of all-time" lists.
Top 100 songs, albums, guitarists, movies, actors, movie quotes, sex scenes, etc. of all-time.
Well, the Los Angeles Times Music Blog has issued it's list of the top 15 songs of all-time about being broke. Given the state and direction of the economy, that's to be expected.
Songs on the top-15 list include:
Blind Alfred Reed, "How Can A Poor Man Stand Such Times And Live?"
Geto Boys, "Ain't With Being Broke"
The Clash, "Career Opportunities"
Crystal Waters, "Gypsy Woman (She's Homeless)"
The Beatles, "Can't Buy Me Love"
Bruce Springsteen, "Atlantic City"
Dolly Parton, "Coat of Many Colors"
Creedence Clearwater Revival, "Fortunate Son"
Loretta Lynn, "Coal Miner's Daughter"
Sham 69, "Hey Little Rich Boy"
Bob Marley, "Them Belly Full (But We Hungry)"
Pulp, "Common People"
Erik B. and Rakim, "Paid In Full"
Desmond Dekker, "The Israelites"
Ruben Blades, "Adan Garcia"
The best of the rest include: Soundtrack to "Annie," "Hard Knock Life"; Roger Miller, "King of the Road"; Townes Van Zandt, "Marie"; Stevie Wonder, "I Wish"; Ray Charles, "I'm Busted"; Randy Newman, "Mr. President (Have Pity on the Working Man)"; Merle Haggard, "Workingman Blues"; Phil Collins, "Another Day In Paradise"; The Temptations, "Papa Was A Rolling Stone"; Gwen Guthrie, "Ain't Nothing Going On But The Rent"; Elvis Presley, "In the Ghetto"; Run DMC, "Hard Times"; Donnie Hathaway, "Little Ghetto Boy"; Clarence Carter, "Patches"; Kanye West, "Spaceship"; Jerry Reed, "She Got the Goldmine, I Got the Shaft."
In the initial top 15, I'm very familiar with the songs by Reed, Springsteen, Marley, Parton, Lynn and CCR and understand their inclusion.
Reed's song, recently covered by Springsteen on the Seeger Sessions, is as authentic as you get. Shortly after releasing it, his most well-known song, he died of STARVATION. I'd call that authentic.
I'm not sure the Beatles' song fits here, and many of the others, I'm simply not familiar with.
It's much the same for the next 16 listed … in fact, I know more songs on this list.
But just to show how these lists can be off … I think it's virtually impossible to have a list of the best songs about being broke and not including some songs from Woody Guthrie, Leadbelly, the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers. These artists chronicled the Great Depression and influenced the next generation of artists.
And how can there be so few blues artists on the list?
Just goes to show that these lists, as much as they reflect a consensus among a certain group of people, even more so they reflect the breadth, or lack thereof, of that group's musical knowledge.
Here's a couple songs from the list:

subset: commoncrawl


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I appreciate the strong reporting in the New York Times article: "Bill O'Reilly thrives at Fox News even as harassment settlements add up." Authors Emily Steel and Michael S. Schmidt cover the systematic protection of Bill O'Reilly who comes off as a serial predator.
The article looks at five settlements that have been paid to women who have alleged and often documented harassment from the Fox News star. Two of the settlements were known, but three were uncovered by Steel and Schmidt.
The article is phenomenal journalism and highlights the pattern of toxic behavior and the costly efforts to retaliate against those who have complained. This is a good opportunity to examine some of the patterns of retaliation that were visible in this article.
Most of the women who complained were threatened with professional harm when they didn't comply with threats or when they came forward. Andrea Mackris filed a sexual harassment suit against O'Reilly in 2004. The New York Times article describes the retaliatory threats:
"Two years later, allegations about Mr. O'Reilly entered the public arena in lurid fashion when a producer on his show, Andrea Mackris, then 33, filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against him. In the suit, she said he had told her to buy a vibrator, called her at times when it sounded as if he was masturbating and described sexual fantasies involving her. Ms. Mackris had recorded some of the conversations, people familiar with the case said.
Ms. Mackris also said in the suit that Mr. O'Reilly, who was married at the time (he and his wife divorced in 2011), threatened her, saying he would make any woman who complained about his behavior "pay so dearly that she'll wish she'd never been born."
Fox News and Mr. O'Reilly adopted an aggressive strategy that served as a stark warning of what could happen to women if they came forward with complaints, current and former employees told The Times. Before Ms. Mackris even filed suit, Fox News and Mr. O'Reilly surprised her with a pre-emptive suit of their own, asserting she was seeking to extort $60 million in return for not going public with "scandalous and scurrilous" claims about Mr. O'Reilly.
"This is the single most evil thing I have ever experienced, and I have seen a lot," he said on his show the day both suits were filed. "But these people picked the wrong guy."
A public relations firm was hired to help shape the narrative in Mr. O'Reilly's favor, and the private investigator Bo Dietl was retained to dig up information on Ms. Mackris. The goal was to depict her as a promiscuous woman, deeply in debt, who was trying to shake down Mr. O'Reilly, according to people briefed on the strategy. Several unflattering stories about her appeared in the tabloids.
After two weeks of sensational headlines, the two sides settled, and Mr. O'Reilly agreed to pay Ms. Mackris about $9 million, according to people briefed on the agreement. The parties agreed to issue a public statement that "no wrongdoing whatsoever" had occurred."
– Emily Steel and Michael S. Schmidt. "Bill O'Reilly thrives at Fox News even as harassment settlements add up." April 1, 2017. New York Times.
It is worth noting the techniques used to attack the victim. The perpetrator attacks the survivor personally, the company defends the perpetrator with a heavy-handed lawsuit, and the company hires a PR firm and private investigators to destroy the survivors reputation.
And then they settle. That means that all the personal attacks and reputation smearing that ruin someone's life were essentially pressure to beat someone down so they will take less money for their silence. I can imagine the meeting where someone at 21st Century Fox has to run the numbers on how much they could save in destroying the lives of sexual harassment survivors.
The cost-benefit-analysis strategies of corporations who decide to try to ruin the reputations of employees who come forward to complain about sexual harassment may undervalue the public relations costs of being associated with a serial rapist or a serial harasser.
The Brock Turner survivor letter, Emma Sulkowicz and the performative mattress carry, an Obama/Biden administration with a robust advocacy for Title IX have changed public opinion about sexual harassment and rape. The ascendance of a generation of young activists like Know your IX committed to fighting rape culture will not return to the cover-up and blame-the-victims days.
Which means that large corporations who are in the business of making money are going to have to factor in what explicit boycotts and affiliated bad PR will cost them when they defend a prominent figure like Bill O'Reilly and Roger Ailles.
It seems grotesque that an institution would protect a serial predator because they make the business a lot of money. Steel and Schmidt's expose does a good job documenting how much advertising revenue O'Reilly's show pulls in ($446 million from 2014-2016). So what would a boycott have to cost the parent company to dump O'Reilly? A couple of hundred million dollars?
More importantly, I wonder how little effort it would take for people on social media to destroy the 21st Century brand. A dozen volunteers could watch O'Reilly's show, note advertisers and then illustrate businesses which give money to support victim-blaming. Simply posting the New York Times article in the publicity threads for each new 20th Century Fox blockbuster movie would convince me to spend my movie money elsewhere. Artists who might record soundtrack music for Fox Music can be gently reminded through fan pages or tweets about the retaliatory behavior of the parent company.
Steel and Schmidt's article is a good piece of investigative journalism that makes visible the retaliatory behavior of one of the largest companies in the world. It also exposes how much the company has to lose if they mishandle the public relations associated with their brand being tainted by O'Reilly's harassment lawsuits.


text:
Present: Mike Roy, David Ludwig, Jim Stuart, Chris Norris, Mary Backus, Terry Simpkins and Doreen Bernier
We talked about regularizing a structure for team assessments and updates to the directors group. We agreed that rather than ask teams to meet directly with the directors to provide updates, we will ask each team to present their latest quarterly updates at an LIS staff meeting once a year to provide information on their recent accomplishments, current priorities, longer-range thoughts and goals. Additionally, we will invite each team leader to a directors' meeting 4 times a year to discuss priorities, communications and resource issues. We also will ask each team member for feedback at least once a year, and are developing a list of questions to guide that conversation. We agreed that this feedback should not be anonymous. Mike will send out a communication with the teams about this assessment proposal.
We then reviewed and discussed the proposal and justification for wireless network administrator position to refill that open position. This was approved.
Prior to meeting, we reviewed the LIS Facilities Requests process being facilitated by Joseph. This requests are due in to Facilities by October 11th.
Upcoming meeting agendas:
- Oct. 16 – All-staff meeting:
- Staff Awards
- Get to know the Directors: Jim Stuart and David Ludwig
- LIS private blog initial roll-out
- Time for learning discussion
- October Manager's Meeting – cancelled
- Oct. 17 – Director's retreat
- Directors Team – expectations, ground rules, etc. in light of the revamped team structure and newer members
- Oct. 24 – Directors' meeting
- Education and Training Team visits
- project management : Discuss a proposal to develop a common understanding and vocabulary around project management
- content and usefulness of directors' updates: Review the updates we provide one another to see if we can improve their utility.
- Consortium of Liberal Arts Colleges (CLAC): staff exchange proposal: Discuss a proposal from CLAC to facilitate staff exchanges to share expertise among CLAC schools
- Team Assessment Protocol : Further discussion of the plan to assess our current team
Thanks for reading
Terry & Doreen


text:
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text:
These exclusive teaching jobs and other school jobs feature detailed information about each job and the employer. These school job postings are current and accurate to the best of our knowledge.
Showing 1 - 5 of 5 featured jobs found (7+ total)
The following teaching jobs and other school jobs are collected from various education job sites. As such, the accuracy and availability of these job postings cannot be confirmed. To apply, follow the instructions on the posting or use
SchoolSpring Plus.
Showing 1 - 2 of 2 extended results found (7 total)


text: Epik High, consisting of Tablo, Mithra Jin, and DJ Tukutz, began their musical journey together in 2003 with Woollim Entertainment, releasing several successful albums. Their efforts helped make the hip hop genre more popular in Korea. In 2009, the members of Epik High created their own music label, Map the Soul Inc. . . . Click here to continue reading on KPOPIANA.


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Always free?
WILEY LOWEREY, sworn and examined, duly testified:
Q. Where do you live? A. In Kinston, Lenoir County, North Carolina.
Q. What is your business at home? A. Well, sir, I run drays on the street, and I have been drayer there for two or three years. I keep store besides.
Q. In the town of Kinston? A. Yes, sir.
Q. Have you held any public office in the county? A. I have been county commissioner.
Q. How long? A. About eight years.
Q. Are you county commissioner now? A: No, sir.
Q. Were you formerly a slave? A. No, sir.
Q. You were a freeman before the war? A. Yes, sir.
Q. Do you own property? A. Yes, sir.
Q. How much, and what does it consist of? A. Town property principally.
Q. Real estate? A. Yes, sir.
Q. Have you made it since the war? A. Yes, sir; most of it.
Q. Do you own a house and lot? A. Yes, sir; I own a right smart of houses. My renters pay me between four and five hundred dollars a year.
By SENATOR BLAIR:
Q. How far is Lenoir County from Warren? A. I think 180 miles.
Q. How long was it after you left there before you moved to the one where you are now? A. I was raised there.
Q. You always lived there before you came to Lenoir? A. Yes, sir.
Q. And you were always free? A. Yes, sir.
Q. Always free? A. Yes, sir.
Q. What is your age now? A. I am forty-seven years old.
Q. Were you always free? A. Yes, sir.
Q. You were born free? A. Yes, sir.
Q. Were your parents ever slaves? A. No, they never was. My old grandfather was a hundred and five when he died, and was always free.
Q. Neither you or any of your ancestors were ever slaves in this country? A. No, sir.
Q. What were your opportunities for education before the war? A. I do not know, sir. Before the war, I did not know much; but the free colored people had a school going on in Raleigh.
Q. You said you were a county commissioner; where did you find such an education such as you found necessary in that position? A. I just picked it up. I never went to school a day in my life.
Q. You found time to study and pick up a little arithmetic? A. Yes, sir; I can read and write.
Wiley Lowery testified before a Senate Select Committee investigating the migration of hundreds of "colored people" from the South to Indiana in the late 1870s.
Senate Report 693, 2nd Session, 46th Congress: Proceedings of the Select Committee of the United States Senate to Investigate the Causes of the Removal of the Negroes from the Southern States to the Northern States, Washington DC, beginning Tuesday, 9 March 1880.
Willie Lowery married Winnie Tann in Warren County on 16 January 1860. Matthew Guy was bondsman, John W. White was witness, and N.A. Purefoy, Minister of the Gospel, performed the service.
Matthew Guy married Surbina Lowery on 10 December 1850 in Warren County. In the 1860 census of Warrenton, Warren County: #84, M. Guy and family; #85, P. Lowery, 65, mulatto, washerwoman; #86, N.A. Purefoy, white, clergyman, and family; #98, W. Lowery, 24, black, stonemason, born in Warren County, W. Lowery, 22, mulatto, seamstress, born in Northampton County; and M. Mitchell, 25, black, washerwoman, born in Halifax County.
Index to Marriage Bonds Filed in the North Carolina State Archives, North Carolina Division of Archives and History, Raleigh; federal census schedules.


text: I learned recently that, regardless of the versioing, it's VERY important with SuperMicro to check the BIOS date. Much more important than I'd thought. As in, that's the real release info on the BIOS. gerry Steve Cousins wrote: > > >> ----- "Chris Samuel" <csamuel at vpac.org> wrote: >> >> The compute nodes are using SuperMicro H8DM8-2 based >> with 32GB of ECC RAM. > > Hi Chris, > > I had MCE crashes on a Supermicro system (quad Xeon quad-core 2.4 Ghz) > that was driving me nuts for quite a while. It would take a couple of > months to crash which doesn't sound bad but it was a real pain. I bought > the machine from ASL and they worked with Supermicro to fix a microcode > issue. > > The reason I mention this is that at least in this case, the BIOS > version was same before I ran the update and after. > > Here is part of a message I got from ASL: > >> Note that you will be updating the BIOS from version 1.0b to 1.0b. In >> Supermicro wisdom, they released several updates using the same >> revision number. > > After updating my 1.0b BIOS to the new 1.0b the machine has been running > solid since Christmas. > > So, if you have two machines, one that crashes and one that doesn't, > check the dates of the BIOS's even if the BIOS versions match. > > I hope this helps. > > Steve > _______________________________________________ > Beowulf mailing list, Beowulf at beowulf.org sponsored by Penguin Computing > To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit > http://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf -- Gerry Creager -- gerry.creager at tamu.edu Texas Mesonet -- AATLT, Texas A&M University Cell: 979.229.5301 Office: 979.458.4020 FAX: 979.862.3983 Office: 1700 Research Parkway Ste 160, TAMU, College Station, TX 77843


text:
Raytheon + Social Networks = Data Mining Riot
February 12, 2013 1 Comment
"Users may be posting information that they believe will be viewed only by their friends, but instead, it is being viewed by government officials or pulled in by data collection services like the Riot search."
By RYAN GALLAGHER | SMH | FEBRUARY 12, 2013
A multinational security firm has secretly developed software capable of tracking people's movements and predicting future behaviour by mining data from social networking websites.
A video obtained by the Guardian reveals how an "extreme-scale analytics" system created by Raytheon, the world's fifth largest defence contractor, can gather vast amounts of information about people from websites including Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare.
Raytheon says it has not sold the software – named Riot, or Rapid Information Overlay Technology – to any clients. But the Massachusetts-based company has acknowledged the technology was shared with US government and industry as part of a joint research and development effort, in 2010, to help build a national security system capable of analysing "trillions of entities" from cyberspace.
The power of Riot to harness websites for surveillance offers a rare insight into techniques that have attracted interest from intelligence and national security agencies, at the same time prompting civil liberties and online privacy concerns.
Using Riot it is possible to gain a picture of a person's life – their friends, the places they visit charted on a map – in little more than a few clicks of a button.
In the video obtained by the Guardian, Raytheon's "principal investigator" Brian Urch explains that photographs which users post on social networks sometimes contain latitude and longitude details – automatically embedded by smartphones within so-called "exif header data". Riot pulls out this information, showing the location at which the pictures were taken. Riot can display online associations and relationships using Twitter and Facebook and sift GPS location information from Foursquare, a mobile phone app used by more than 25 million people to alert friends of their whereabouts. The Foursquare data can be used to display, in graph form, the top 10 places visited and the times at which they visited them.
Mining from public websites for law enforcement is considered legal in most countries. But, Ginger McCall, a lawyer at the Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Centre, said the Raytheon technology raised concerns about how user data could be covertly collected without oversight or regulation.
"Users may be posting information that they believe will be viewed only by their friends, but instead, it is being viewed by government officials or pulled in by data collection services like the Riot search."
Raytheon, which made sales worth an estimated US$25 billion in 2012, did not want its Riot demonstration video to be revealed on the grounds that it says it shows a "proof of concept" product that has not been sold to any clients.
Jared Adams, a spokesman for Raytheon's intelligence and information systems department, said in an email: "Riot is a big data analytics system design we are working on with industry, national labs and commercial partners to help turn massive amounts of data into useable information to help meet our nation's rapidly changing security needs. Its innovative privacy features are the most robust that we're aware of, enabling the sharing and analysis of data without personally identifiable information being disclosed."
In December, Riot was featured in a new patent Raytheon is pursuing for a system to gather data on people from social networks, blogs and other sources to identify whether they might be a security risk.
In April, Riot was scheduled to be showcased at a US government and industry national security conference for secretive, classified innovations, where it was listed under the category "big data – analytics, algorithms".


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text: Sofas and carpets accummulate the maximum dust and dirt over time. Choose the Kleenr Sofa cleaning service in New Gurgaon, Gurgaon to make way for a cleaner and more hygenic sofa, couch, dining chairs etc. We also offer the best carpet cleaning services in New Gurgaon, Gurgaon at very reasonable rates. Call us at 8287111888 to get the best cleaning quotes and make way for a clean and hygenic home.


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Tempo Traveller on Rent in Chhatarpur, Tempo Traveller on Hire Chhatarpur
Nonu Ji Travels is one of the most reputed travel agencies because we have many cars, tempo travellers and buses for the rental purpose. We are considered as the one of the best company in the Chhatarpur for the tempo traveller rental services. If you are planning a hassle-free trip with family and friends then Tempo Traveller Chhatarpur will provide you luxury tempo traveller which is the most effective vehicle for group travelling in India. We provide tempo traveller from Chhatarpur to all tourist destination of India. You can book with us at the best rates, cabs & drivers for the local tour of Chhatarpur as well outstation trips from Chhatarpur.
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Tag: advertising
The Play Game
I am currently working on a new game along the lines of the True or Hoowie game. I am calling it The Play Game. At present, it is very primitive, but I thought you might like to see what I am up to. You would not believe how long it took me to get this far. My brain is made for creativity, not technical mumbo jumbo!
A lot of bugs need to be worked out. Join me, as I stumble and fumble my way through the world of links, animation, and websites. As you can see from the screenshot above, there is a new tag called The Play Game. Click on the screenshot and give it a go! It is fully functional and ready for your perusal. I plan to have three levels of difficulty: Ridiculously Difficult, Normal, and Stable Genius (very easy). This first puzzle is Stable Genius and Normal to me, but to others it might be Ridiculously Difficult. Let's call it Stable Normal. No. I am not saying that I am smart. I am saying that I am immersed in the world of science fiction, while others are not. So, of course this one would be easy for me!
The reasons for doing this are manifest. It's entertaining, not only to others, but to myself. It is promotional. Each game is like a little ad for Skribbers. Also, the more I post The Play Game, the stronger my presence in the search engines like Google and Yahoo. It's educational. We can all learn something new while having fun at the same time. It is sneaky because those who play will have no idea that they are being both solicited and educated. Stay tuned for more!


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- Restore sanity to Prince George's County Public Schools (PGCPS) discourse (Addressing corruption, nepotism and professional misconduct at Sasscer Administration Building).
- Evaluate unprofessional relationship between Dr. William Hite and various unions representing employees as well as some young female Principals.
- Review activities of previous nefarious Chief Legal Counsel Mr. Roger Thomas and previous nefarious Chief Human Resources Officer - Synthia J. Shilling (formerly Deputy Legal Counsel). These two cost the school system millions of dollars.
- Create a strong anti-discrimination and harassment policy in PGCPS. Obey state and federal laws.
- Access certification credentials held by senior management including Ms. Monica Goldson etc.
- Limit the purchasing power as exercised by Dr.William Hite when purchasing school system merchandize. (Who abused this power and was without oversight).
- Find ways to address and help reduce high suspension rate throughout the PGCPS District. Suspended students become a problem to the community.
- Examine closely all contracts over $10,000 signed off by Dr. William Hite Jr. and Ms. Verjeana Jacobs previously (Corrupt BOE Chair).
- Consider the following points as they impact the entire school District.
- A.) Adding tighter campaign finance rules to avoid repeats of the Thatcher Campaign Donations Fiasco.
- B.) Lobbying the County Council and the County Executive (Rushern Baker) to appoint an Inspector General (IG) to address waste, fraud, and abuse issues for all county agencies at Baker's Office (including School Board). (These steps are necessary because an I.G. has not been appointed and there are an abundance of attorneys). Yes we can!
- C.) Enforce the existing Codes of Ethics for all central office employees. Report infractions that go unpunished to MSDE.
- D.) Report all concerns to MSDE so the state department is more accountable to us in enforcing state laws and policies at the local level.
- E.) Ask tough questions about Ms. Elizabeth Davis, alleged lover to Tony Liberatore. His wife allegedly walked up on those two kissing at Sasscer. Ms. Davis does EEOC hearings/mediations. What are her qualifications and credentials for that role with such low morals? What connection did she have with Ms. Synthia Kucner?
11. Consider rules and regulations by federal, state and BOE policies.
- A.) Abide by state law for Hite's contract. The verbage for the state law is on the BOE webpage. see the attached link.
- B.) Establish more precise criteria so we can get a better leader. Attract qualified, traditional candidates from other than Broad Group and other such organizations.
- C.) Elect a BOE that will supervise rather than fraternize with the Superintendent.
- D.) Complete THOROUGH background checks to avoid embarrassment of incidents like Deasy's questionable doctorate.
12. Examine closely appointments of personnel –
A.) Look into the growing number of personnel in PGCPS like Jim Whattam, Esq., and Baker's appointees like Mr. Christian Rhodes, Education Liaison, who have extensive ties to Prince George's County Educator Association (PGCEA). Be fair to all unions without over representing the teachers.
B.) The serious allegations of misconduct by previous Superintendent Dr. William Hite Jr. and some female employees need to be investigated. The concerns need to be put directly in writing to the BOE members and a demand for an investigation launched right away. A Copy needs to be forwarded to Mr. Rod Rosenstein's office if the BOE does not act. The man was worse than Dr. Hornsby.
13. Dr. William Hite Jr. should be summoned back to explain what happened when he appointed less qualified, non-credentialed personnel without following the state law. BOE should supervise the future Superintendent and force HR compliance. In the previous format, Dr. Hite always told the BOE what to do. This is unacceptable.
14. Review the following deals:
- A.) Washington Plaza, lobbyist ties and campaign donations
- C.) The 27 administrators currently in arbitration
- D.) Lack of due process among ALL employees for hearings, terminations, etc under Mr. Roger Thomas, Synthia J. Shilling, and Mr. Jim Whattam
- E.) OIA number of lawsuits and EEOC complaints. There are so many EEOC complaints, they now have outsourced to other field offices throughout the country.
- F.) Review overlap of Legal Department for attorney duties for waste
- G.) The Thatcher contract was a no bid contract, totally against BOE policy. It needs to be cancelled.
- H.) The $90 million Dr. Hornsby left behind that has been squandered.
- I.) A proper investigation needs to be launched ASAP to follow money trail involving Dr. William Hite Jr., Roger Thomas, Mr. Matthew E. Stanski, Ms. Synthia J. Shilling also known as Ms. Synthia Kucner, and co-conspirators.
15. Contact state and federal officials (FBI, DOJ) about the broken laws, policies and procedures.
16. Go to Dept of Labor, MSDE, EEOC and any other organizations like NAACP, Casa de Maryland and La Raza about discrimination and hiring. Demand to know about credentials and licensure. The State Department is already doing an audit.
17. Report any information to Miranda Spivack or Ovetta Wiggins of the Washington Post or NBC4 Prince George's County Bureau Chief Tracee Wilkins so they may do a story on misappropriation of funds. (After the incident with Dr. Hornsby occurred, BOE policies/procedures were implemented to prevent a reoccurrence. These procedures have yet to be followed.
18. Stop empowering Principals who harbor strong biases and use the system to destroy teaching credentials in order to remove teachers who don't appeal to them. Test scores rise because of teachers and not because of the principals. Administrators should be receptive helpers and not feared executioners.
19. Teachers and staff in PGCPS need a raise like what happened to Montgomery County Public School (MCPS) teachers recently. PGCPS staff have not had a raise for a while now. They work very hard usually without compensation.
19. Investigate Office of Constituent Services which acts as a campaign tool for Dr. William Hite even after he left the system. This office does very little to promote the interests of the PGCPS. The said office was only created to promote William Hite's personal agenda and the staff overpaid to sit around to help put out fires touching on Dr. William Hite. Several staff members were given huge raises with no justification by Superintendent Hite personally. In this regard, IT Help Desk and Constituent Services needs to be merged to avoid duplication of duties.
20. Investigate IT Department and the relationship between some BOE members connected to fired IT Director Mr. Pierre Dickson. Verify what damage caused by the said Director and his lover Ms. Shanita Anderson.
21. Investigate nepotism beginning with Dr. William Hite's office for the following reasons;
- A.) The Director of communications Mr. Briant K. Coleman is a close family member to second in command.
- B.) Several Instructional Directors have spouses who are either Principals or administrators within PGCPS.
- C.) The previous Director was fired to create room for the current Communication Director, who is family member of the Deputy Superintendent.
- D.) Previous Director of Communication was unjustly terminated in pretext for raising a discrimination issue.(see attached ~> Breedon vs PGCPS Bd. of Ed Hite)
- E.) Investigate Ms. Monica Goldson, Chief Operating Officer (COO). She has several relatives in high level positions beginning at Sasscer – HR and in various schools. As the chief operating officer (COO), She controls millions of dollars and reports to the chief executive officer or the superintendent of schools. She is also responsible for the PGCPS's day-to-day operating activities, including revenue and sales growth; expense, cost and margin control; and monthly, quarterly and annual financial goal management etc. What did she do to Dr. Hite to get the job without qualifications?
Investigate, investigate and change things immediately.


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Sorry I haven't blogged in a while. I went camping for 3 days this weekend, where I cut the dickens out of my right index finger while carving a boat for my kids…doing a particularly STUPID thing, so all my fault (next time I get a knife that LOCKS open). It is in a splint, so typing is a task, to say the least. I can't wait to start editing again…I lost the finger that presses the J key (to play in reverse) and I (to mark IN).
I have been busy working on two jobs. Finishing my current show for the History Channel and working at another company color correcting. It is working at the other company that brings me to my current thought…because the company is a BIG one with a lot going on.
Assistant editors. They are the backbone of a large production house. They handle the tapes, often label and organize them, then capture the footage and organize it. So they know what you have and where it is. AND, they know how the edit systems work…they have to be VERY technically minded. Because the editors have to be very creatively focused and often times can't be bothered with technical issues. They are the backbone of the post section of the facility.
And I should know, I was an assistant. I was the backbone of a facility…well, part of the backbone. One of many…4 assistants for the 10 editors on staff. And I have been the only guy on a show managing two editors.
But recently I have been acting as my own assistant. A small show that can't afford to hire an editor AND assistant. So I capture my own footage and organize it…which is good, because I then know where it is and what I have. These are small productions that really don't need assistant editors. But going back to a big facility means having assistants. which is a good thing. Because without them there, I would be completely lost. Going to the company means that I need to figure out how they do things. And the other editors are busy doing their thing. And while the assistants are busy, they are available to help me, and they know EVERYTHING. They know what my project settings need to be, where the media is what graphics package needs to go into the show, who to call if THEY don't know the answers.
And not only that, much of the busy work on the cut, blurring out faces or logos, fixing lower thirds, building the credits…THEY DO. I just sit myself down and color correct.
Man, I can see myself getting spoiled…fast.
Seriously, this is a shout out to all the hard working assistant editors who put in long hours and do most of the boring work. Thank you…we appreciate you. I do anyway.


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What can you do to have a healthy pregnancy?
You may be happy and excited to find out that you're pregnant. And you may be a little nervous or worried. If this will be your first child, you may even feel overwhelmed by all of the things you need to know about having a baby. There is a lot to learn. But you don't have to know everything right away. You can read all about pregnancy now, or you can learn about each stage as your pregnancy goes on.
Pregnancy is measured in trimesters from the first day of your last menstrual period, totaling 40 weeks. But a full-term pregnancy can deliver between 37 weeks and 42 weeks.
During your pregnancy, you'll have tests to watch for certain problems that could occur. With all the tests you'll have, you may worry that something will go wrong. But most women have healthy pregnancies. If there is a problem, these tests can find it early so that you and your doctor or midwife can treat it or watch it to help improve your chance of having a healthy baby.Taking great care of yourself is the best thing you can do for yourself and your baby. Everything healthy that you do for your body helps your growing baby.
Rest when you need it, eat well, and exercise regularly. Drink plenty of water before, during, and after you are active. This is very important when it's hot out. You'll need to have regular checkups. At every visit, your doctor or midwife will weigh you and measure your belly to check your baby's growth. You'll also get blood and urine tests and have your blood pressure checked. It's important to avoid tobacco smoke, alcohol and drugs, chemicals, and radiation (like X-rays). These can harm you and the baby.
What kinds of exams and tests will you have?
Your first prenatal exam gives your doctor or midwife important information for planning your care. You'll have a pelvic exam and urine and blood tests. You'll also have your blood pressure and weight checked. The urine and blood tests are used for a pregnancy test and to tell whether you have low iron levels (are anemic ) or have signs of infection.
At each prenatal visit you'll be weighed, have your belly measured, and have your blood pressure and urine checked. Go to all your appointments. Although these quick office visits may seem simple and routine, your doctor is watching for signs of possible problems like high blood pressure.
In some medical centers, you can have screening in your first trimester to see if your baby has a chance of havingDown syndrome or another genetic problem. The test usually includes a blood test and an ultrasound .
During your second trimester, you can have a blood test (triple or quadruple screen test) to see if you have a higher-than-normal chance of having a baby with birth defects. Based on the results of the tests, you may be referred to a geneticist for further discussion. Or you may have other tests to find out for sure if your baby has a birth defect.
Late in your second trimester, your blood sugar will be checked for diabetes during pregnancy (gestational diabetes ). Near the end of your pregnancy, you will have tests to look for infections that could harm your newborn.
What changes can you expect in your body and your emotions ?
You will go through some amazing changes during pregnancy. Your body, emotions, and relationships will all do some growing. These changes are common, but some may be a challenge.
Every woman feels these changes in her own way. Even the way she changes can change. In the beginning of your pregnancy, you may feel so tired that you can barely keep your head up. But at other times, you may have trouble sleeping.
Many women feel nauseated in the morning (morning sickness) or at other times of day in the early part of pregnancy. But some women never have this problem. Your breasts will get larger and may feel tender. Throughout your pregnancy, you may get heartburn or crave certain foods, and you may have aches and pains. You also may enjoy the flutters of your baby moving and kicking.
Your emotions may move around too. Even women who are happy about their pregnancy may worry a lot about their babies. They may even feel some sadness at the coming changes in their lifestyles.
Your relationship with your partner and other children you may have also may change. Talk with your partner and with your doctor if you have concerns about how you're feeling.


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2/22/16 – George Vukasin Sr. passed away last week at the age of 82. George Jr. informed me of this sad news earlier this morning. SFGate and BANG covered the man's life. I only met George Sr. once. Fortunately, I wrote about it. Apparently he liked the article, as did many other readers. So in honor of George Sr., I'm reposting my article from December 13, 2010 (was it that long ago?). RIP George Vukasin Sr. Wherever you are, I'm sure the coffee just got a lot better.
Peerless Coffee is based out of a low-slung, light industrial building built in 1976. Established in 1924, the company has seen it all: wars, boom and bust cycles, and several sports teams. Three generations of the Vukasin family have helmed the company, and they are Oaklanders through and through. They have every intention and desire to continue being a pillar of the Oakland business community. How that can continue with a ballpark proposal lingering in the immediate future is uncertain.
As I approached the building, the aroma of roasting coffee nearly overwhelmed me. I sipped an au lait inside the store as I waited to interview George Vukasin, Jr., who runs the business, and George Vukasin, Sr., who left the company to his children and still is a major presence there. George Sr. is also well known as a major proponent of Oakland and East Bay sports, as he was pivotal in making the Coliseum complex come into being. I sat down in their front office and we talked for nearly two hours. I could've easily sat there for another two as George Sr. recounted stories of Oakland sports glories past, but I had to start writing. Maybe another time.
We first talked about how the Coliseum deal was struck. George Sr. happily took on the role of historian, recalling how the late developer Bob Nahas put together a coalition of civic and business interests, including the elder Vukasin, to get a sports showcase built in the East Bay. They quickly focused on a site in East Oakland. The land was undeveloped, with the major owners being the Port of Oakland, EBMUD, and PG&E. Deals were struck with both utilities to maintain easements at the complex while a land swap was negotiated with EBMUD for a parcel on High Street, where the utility's maintenance yard now resides. The Port of Oakland handled the land deal, as George Sr. was a Port commissioner at the time. The process from first discussion to groundbreaking took 2 years and was unencumbered by CEQA laws or other red tape.
The Coliseum Commission ran the complex for close to three decades. They understood what it took to keep the complex in the black, such as the need for 130 event days at the complex every year. While that should be easy to do with 81+ baseball games, 7-10 football games (sometimes), and 41+ basketball games, occasionally things would run tight. One particular year, Vukasin couldn't figure out what to do so he called rock promoter Bill Graham and asked for help. Graham magically produced 7 days of Grateful Dead shows at the arena, the proceeds of which allowed the Commission to take care of the debt service.
Around the same time, Amnesty International contacted the Commission about putting on a single concert, which would be held at the stadium. Walter Haas, who had put a good deal of money into renovating the Coliseum, was not particularly fond of having a large number of concertgoers trampling his pristine baseball field, as evidenced by the declining number of Day on the Green concerts during the Haas era. When Amnesty International inquired, Haas and Roy Eisenhardt unequivocally said no. Vukasin and others tracked Haas down at the Pacific Union building in San Francisco, where they asked him to grant permission face-to-face. Haas, ever the gentleman, relented on the spot and the concert was held, as long as there were assurances that the field would be kept in good condition. No contracts, no litigation, just a talk and a handshake.
We shifted topics to Victory Court, and that's when George Jr. was able to speak more. He was contacted 18 months ago by Mike Ghielmetti and Jim Falaschi, who suggested that Victory Court would be a studied site for a ballpark, and that the Peerless Coffee property was one of the targeted parcels. That led to a meeting with Ghielmetti and the City of Oakland's real estate manager, Frank Fanelli. Little happened during the meeting, and no direct contact has been made since. Once George Jr. caught a man surveying and measuring the property. The man couldn't divulge who sent him, and George Jr. asked him to leave. The man got in his car and went around to the back of the property, which is accessible from both Oak and Fallon Streets. George Jr. saw him surveying that side and kicked him off the property for good. To this day the Vukasins don't know who the appraiser was, let alone who sent him. They asked me who I thought it was, and I guessed that it was MLB, contracting the work as part of its "due diligence."
I asked why the current site was so crucial, and George Jr. went into great detail about how the business worked. While the plant looks like a 70's office building from the outside, the nondescript façade hides many unique features that are part and parcel of what makes Peerless Coffee run the way it does. Among the important features:
- The floor is an extra thick concrete pad, which allows the company to stack huge bags of coffee from floor to ceiling without worrying about weight.
- The plant's location near the port lowers transportation costs.
- Peerless rents out some surplus space in the back, with the knowledge that the space can be repurposed for a plant expansion if need be.
Perhaps the most interesting thing is the process of roasting coffee itself. Peerless does a lot of custom roasting for different clients, such as restaurants and hotels. This makes it important for the company to have extremely precise control over the variables that come into play, from humidity to the shape of the natural gas flame as the beans are being roasted. Roasting the beans an extra five minutes can severely change a coffee's flavor profile, according to George Sr. George Jr. followed that up, saying that the process is so delicate, a transition period of 18 months would be necessary, including construction time. During that time, both facilities would be running (or under construction), allowing the new plant to work out the kinks and match the old plant's flavor. The fact that coffee is perishable, coupled with the change of equipment and environment, mandates such a long transition. It's possible that a lot of product will be wasted along the way. When another coffee roaster built a new plant to replace an old one, it supposedly took 6 months or more after it started operating to "dial in" the flavor properly. Essentially, the coffee is roasted based on the conditions in that exact location. Any changes would require a costly upheaval.
In preparation for what could happen, George Jr. and his sister, Kristina Brouhard, have done the necessary background work just in case. As I was talking with the two Georges, Kristina, an attorney who is also Peerless Coffee's legal counsel, popped in for a moment and we exchanged pleasantries. They're getting ready to (and I'm paraphrasing here) man the troops.
That's not to say that manning of any troops will be needed. I asked the Georges if, as I had suggested last week, a ballpark land grab extended as far out as Fallon Street, instead of the taking of all land between Oak Street and Lake Merritt Channel. They both said they'd be fine with it, though no one has explained to them why all of the land was needed. They're perfectly content to be neighbors to the ballpark, and their comfort with their specialized operation suggests that they aren't in this just to hike up the price on their property. George Jr. doesn't want anyone to feel sorry for the business, but he was very clear in saying, "This business is our family." And right now it's threatened by the ballpark. Already, customers are asking if Peerless is going out of business, which is clearly not the case. If you think that battling perception is hard now, just wait until the word gets out about a ballpark.
There were plenty of other anecdotes about Wally Haas, Herb Caen, Franklin Mieuli, Ken Hofmann, and strangely enough, former Warriors bust Chris Washburn, who George Sr. said had a "Rolls Royce grille on a Volkswagen." George Sr. lamented how the revenue chase has made getting a fair stadium deal so difficult. We talked about how genuine Oakland's (and Let's Go Oakland's) efforts were, and I was surprised how much we were all on the same page. There was a bittersweet moment in realizing that it is possible that Oakland, so defined by its sports franchises and full of history, could lose two or all three of them. George Sr. would've preferred a ballpark at Howard Terminal. George Jr. would've liked a downtown site. They told me how much they appreciated my work, and I thanked them for the time they gave me to discuss the issues. As I got up to leave, George Sr. had the most surprising parting words for me,
You never go over the owner's head. If you call the commissioner, the first thing he'll do once he gets off the phone is call the owner.
Coming from a man who has heard and seen it all – especially in Oakland and in dealing with pro sports teams – those are sage words.


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When a House committee recently passed a new piece of telecoms legislation, conspicuously absent from the draft was any language enforcing network neutrality. Rep. Ed Markey's (D-MA) proposed amendment to that effect was voted down, and network neutrality supporters turned their attention to the Senate, where a committee chaired by Ted Stevens (R-AK) is drafting its own bill on the topic. There was some reason to hope that the Senate would be more receptive to network neutrality after several senators expressed approval for the idea during recent hearings.
That hope was misplaced. Stevens' committee has just released a 135-page draft (PDF) of its proposed new bill. Though chock full of different ideas and programs, the bill does nothing to enforce network neutrality (though it does direct the FCC to prepare an annual report on the subject).
After the introductory material is out of the way (the opening bit is a charge to the FCC to reduce the cost of military long-distance calls), the bill addresses the current debate over municipal broadband access (page 105 and following in the draft) by allowing cities to become broadband providers and trumping any state laws that would restrict them from doing so. The bill provides rules as to how this can work, but it does endorse the possibility of government-sponsored Internet services.
More controversially, the draft legislation endorses both video and audio flags (page 97 and following), though it does provide some exemptions for fair use. For the video flag, the bill directs the FCC to implement and oversee the technology, but it does direct the Commission to ensure that any proposed flag 1) allows consumers to transmit short television clips over the Internet, 2) allows them to broadcast digital television over a home network, 3) allows government and education users to view copyrighted content for distance learning purposes, and 4) permits the redistribution of news content. It also makes sure that any DRM or flag technology can be licensed at reasonable and nondiscriminatory rates.
The audio flag is designed to prevent excessive recording from HD radio and satellite radio. To this end, the FCC is directed to form a Digital Audio Review Board made up of members from every involved industry and the general public. The board will be an ad hoc body that has authority to draft the audio flag rules, which it will then submit to the FCC for enactment.
Finally, expect to pay more taxes, as the Universal Service Fee (USF) could soon be coming to your broadband connection. The lengthy section dealing with the USF (page 12 and following) would apply the fee to all communications services that operate faster than 200 kbps. If the bill passes, expect to see a USF charge show up on your broadband bill.
Much could change before this bill becomes law. For one thing, it's highly unlikely that anything will be voted on before November, and it's possible that the political balance of power in Congress could change in the upcoming elections. Should that happen, the House and Senate bills could change substantially. Network neutrality, for instance, is a rallying cry for many (though certainly not all) on the left, so a change in power this November could see 'Net neutrality language make a comeback. Whether that's a good thing or not remains to be seen, but with the situation in flux at the moment, now is the time to figure out where you stand on the issue and let your senators and representatives know.


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Trowels and Screeds
Flip, switch, sensor shut-off
Walk-behind power trowels are basically simple machines consisting of a handle, engine, ring guard, gearbox and lower-blade unit. However, it's important to never overlook proper operation of critical safety features, especially the emergency engine shut-off function. Most manufacturers use a centrifugal flip switch or hold-to-run switch to reduce uncontrolled trowel runaway and bring the machine to a stop. These switches can wear over time and require occasional maintenance. A gyroscopic sensor, like in Wacker Neuson's 36- and 48-inch walk-behind trowels, senses when the operator releases the handle and shuts down the engine, which engages a brake mechanism internal to the gearbox. Whatever type safety system you use, make sure to test its function before operations.
For wet screeding and form to form, Lindley's Vibra Strike II
F4 style 2-in-1 floats range from 4 to 16 feet.
• Weighs 36 pounds and has a Honda GX35 four-stroke engine
• Frame and vibrating head are composed of sandcast, heat-treated magnesium
• Has two hardened steel clamp bars and four socket head cap screw with saddle plates.
Visit EquipmentWorld.com/info
Edco's power trowels have been redesigned to create high-tolerance concrete floors.
• Available in 36- and 46-inch sizes
• Come standard with 5.5- or 9-horsepower gasoline engines
• Include handlebar, lifting bail, precision-engineered gearboxes and safety rings.
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The Lura Lightning Strike roller screed pours flatwork projects from sidewalks and grain bins to foundation pours.
• Features a threaded axle system
• Available in sizes from 2 to 20 feet long
• Couple screeds together for customized pour.
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Metal Forms' Speed Screed Cruiser truss screed has reversible, aluminum-finishing tubes.
• Uses a self-contained power source
• Has variable width up to 65 feet
• Travels forward by either hand or hydraulic winches.
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The Spin Screed, powered by an electric head, spins the opposite direction it is being advanced.
• Uses a 22-foot-long aluminum pipe
• Can be used on stiff, low-slump concrete with a 3-inch slump
• Leaves aggregate matrix immediately below the surface.
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Allen Engineering's MP 215, a redesign of the MP 205 mechanical drive riding trowel, is equipped with a torque converter clutch.
• Features manual steering and blade pitch controls
• Uses two 36-inch-diameter, four-blade, non-overlapping rotors
• Has variable rotor speeds up to 145 rpm.
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Wacker Neuson's CRT 60-66K combines a hydraulic drive unit with a two-mode electro-hydraulic steering system, engine power regulation system and a built-in hydraulic wheel kit.
• Steering Mode 1 reduces the effects of exaggerated joystick movement, and Mode 2 is for more delicate joystick movement
• Features electronic cruise control and structural forklift pockets
• Powered by a 66-horsepower Kubota turbo diesel engine.
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Katin villagers lose homes, livestock, land rights because of their faith.
DUBLIN, December 29 (CDN) — Officials and residents of Katin village in Ta Oih district, Saravan Province, on Sunday (Dec. 26) destroyed rice paddies farmed by 11 Christian families previously living in the village. The destruction followed the expulsion of another seven families last Thursday (Dec. 23).
Residents drained water from the rice paddies, burned fencing that protected the crop from animals and stamped on new seedlings to ensure the rice would not grow, advocacy group Human Rights Watch for Lao Religious Freedom (HRWLRF) reported.
"All 11 families were doing off-season farming on their old rice paddies on communally-owned village land," a spokesman from HRWLRF told Compass. "If they don't farm, they will most likely lose the right to work on their land. Also, they need the rice to sustain themselves."
The fields were destroyed just a few days after the Katin village chief and other village authorities armed with guns entered the homes of another seven Christian families, totaling 15 people, and ordered them to give up their faith.
When they refused, officials marched them out of the village and warned them not to return.
Two of these families professed faith after officials expelled 11 Christian families last January, and another four families joined them after officials in July threatened to shoot any of the expelled Christians who attempted to return to Katin.
Yet another family professed allegiance to Jesus Christ after officials in late October warned that the six Christian families would be evicted in January 2011 if they held to their beliefs. (See http://www.compassdirect.org, "Officials to Expel More Christian Families from Village," Nov. 9)
The newly-expelled Christians then sought shelter with the 11 families who were still living at the edge of the jungle despite assurances from provincial and district officials that they had every right to remain in Katin village. (See http://www.compassdirect.org, "Lao Officials Visit Expelled Christians, Give Assurances," March 19.)
HRWLRF believes district-level officials may have secretly approved the expulsions.
"Village officials don't usually do anything without informally consulting the district head," a spokesman told Compass. "So it's hard to believe that Katin village officials are simply acting on their own authority."
Last Thursday's (Dec. 23) incident was immediately reported to the Ta Oih district religious affairs office, but at press time no officials had responded.
The families whose rice paddies were destroyed also reported the incident to district agricultural and religious affairs offices, but authorities have yet to respond.
Deprived of Rights
When village officials last January expelled the 11 families, totaling 48 people, for refusing to give up their faith, the Christians built simple shelters at the edge of the jungle but suffered from a lack of adequate food and water.
Officials also destroyed their houses, confiscated livestock and essential registration documents and denied their children access to the village school.
In May, village officials granted the families permission to take rice stored in their family rice barns to ward off starvation.
Shortly afterwards, members of the 11 families returned off-season to farm their family rice paddies, adjacent to the village, in order to preserve land rights and maintain their food supplies.
Life in Communist Laos is highly communal. Residents of Katin village don't have title deeds but are granted the right to farm plots of communally-owned land. If the land is left idle, these rights revert to the village, according to HRWLRF.
Laos is 1.5 percent Christian and 67 percent Buddhist, with the remainder unspecified. Article 6 and Article 30 of the Lao Constitution guarantee the right of Christians and other religious minorities to practice the religion of their choice without discrimination or penalty. In reality, however, other laws and policies contradict and restrict these rights, as confirmed by the U.S. State Department in its 2010 report on International Religious Freedom.
Report from Compass Direct News


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This document lists all of the available matchers of Apache Cocoon and describes their purpose. See also the concepts document Using and Implementing Matchers and Selectors.
A matcher is a core sitemap component of Cocoon. Matchers allow Cocoon to associate a pure "virtual" URI space with a given set of "instructions" found in a Cocoon sitemap. Sitemap matchers are used to determine the flow and order of request processing. They typically describe how to generate, transform and present a requested resource(s) to the client. They may also be used to redirect requests to other pipelines or to call other sitemap resources.
Cocoon is driven by the client request. A request typically contains a URI, some parameters, cookies, and much more. Within the Cocoon environment, the request is evaluated to determine what sitemap instructions to use for processing. More specifically, a given request is matched against a pipeline matcher's pattern attribute. When a match is found, processing of the request begins.
As an example, consider the following sitemap snippet:
<map:match pattern="body-faq.xml"> <map:generate src="xdocs/faq.xml"/> <map:transform src="stylesheets/faq2document.xsl"/> <map:transform src="stylesheets/document2html.xsl"/> <map:serialize/> </map:match> <map:match pattern="body-**.xml"> <map:generate src="xdocs/{1}.xml"/> <map:transform src="stylesheets/document2html.xsl"/> <map:serialize/> </map:match>
Here the two sitemap entries map request URIs to different virtual URIs using the default wildcard matcher (defined earlier in a matcher component configuration). The first entry uses an exact match, "body-faq.xml". Only request URIs composed of this exact string will match this entry. The second sitemap entry uses a wildcard pattern. URI Requests that begin with "body-" and end with ".xml" will meet this matcher's requirement. For example, a URI request for "body-cocoon.xml" would match the second entry.
It's important to understand that Cocoon is based on a "first-match" approach. All requests are matched against the different "map:match" entries in the order in which matchers are specified in the sitemap. As soon as a match is successful, the pipeline processing begins. This means that more specific patterns must appear before more generic ones. If the order of the two pipelines in the above example were reversed, a request for "body-faq.xml" not match "body-faq.xml" but "body-**.xml" because it appears first. (This is a familiar concept, especially in router and firewall configurations.)
Another important feature of matchers is tokenization. Every "variable" part of a matcher pattern will be kept in memory by Cocoon for additional reuse. It remains available within a pipeline match as a numbered argument. Using the previous example, consider a request URI such as "body-index.xml" matched by the second map:match element. The string "index" which matches the "**" wildcard, is available for reuse by other child elements of map:match. It is identified by the key {1}. This key is used as a parameter for the generator which will first resolve it to the string "index", and then look for a file named "xdocs/index.html".
Wildcard and regular expressions
Most Cocoon matchers are built using two different techniques: regular expressions and wildcards. Regular expressions (or regexps) are a well-known and powerful system for pattern matching. Learning how to master them is beyond the scope of this document. However, you will find a lot of documentation on the web regarding this topic.
Although powerful, regexps can be overkill for most typical Cocoon use cases where simple matching operations are performed. This is why Cocoon offers a simplified pattern matching system based on a small set of basic rules.
- An asterisk ('*') matches zero or more characters, up to the occurrence of a '/' character (which serves as a path separator). A string, such as "/cocoon/docs/index.html", would not match successfully against the pattern '/*/*.index.html'. The first asterisk matches up to the first path separator only, resulting in the "cocoon" string. A successful matching pattern would be '/*/*/*.html'.
- A string containing two asterisks ('**') matches zero or more characters. This could include the path separator '/'. In this case, "/cocoon/docs/index.html" would successfully match the '/**/*.html' pattern. The double asterisk, including the path separator, would match the "cocoon/docs" string.
- As with regexps, the backslash character ('\') is used to indicate an escape sequence. The string '\*' will match an actual asterisk while a double backslash ('\\') will match the character '\'. A pattern such as "**/a-\*-is-born.html" would match strings such as "documents/movies/a-*-is-born.html" or "a/very/long/path/a-*-is-born.html". It would not match the string "docs/a-star-is-born.html".
Matchers in Cocoon
- WildCard URI matcher(The default matcher): matches the URI against a wildcard pattern.
- Regexp URI matcher: matches the URI against a full-blown regular expression
- Request parameter matcher: matches a request parameters given as a pattern. If the parameter exists, its value is available for later substitution.
- Wildcard request parameter matcher: matches a wildcard given as a pattern against the value of a configured parameter.
- Wildcard session parameter matcher: similar to the Wildcard request parameter matcher, but it matches a session parameter.
Errors and Improvements? If you see any errors or potential improvements in this document please help us: View, Edit or comment on the latest development version (registration required).


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I share a birthday with my daughter. How lucky is that? Very. Continue reading
I saw with my own two eyes the difference between little boys and little girls. Continue reading
I wound up in Prague, a family town, for my 35th birthday. Continue reading
As the media world evolved, from general news to niche content, from devoted audience to audience fragmentation, so has what it means to be a journalist. Continue reading
When the train pulls into a station and you see a whole bunch of crowded cars, followed by a solitary empty-ish car, and then some more crowded cars, you know something's not quite right. Continue reading
I was in New Orleans for Digiday's Programmatic Summit. But when the panel discussions were over and the networking moved from the formal setting of the Ritz-Carlton to the informal backdrop of the Crescent City, I got to explore a slice of the city beyond the tourist trap of Bourbon Street. Continue reading
Digital advertising has a repetitive problem. Or, more accurately, its problem is that it lacks repetitiveness. Continue reading
There are several parallels to being in a band and being in a start up. Continue reading
February 17th is one of those days that is forever seared into my being. Continue reading
The realities of professional sports don't even come close to the realities of reality. Really. Melky Cabrera, who up until this past season was a marginal player at best, got caught — and admitted to — taking steroids. He was served up a 50-game suspension and was kept off the World Series champion San Francisco … Continue reading
William Sternberg. A remarkable man who, without him, I wouldn't be here today. Continue reading


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Ron Hughart
Jump to navigation Jump to search
|Ron Hughart
|IMDB profile
|Wikipedia has information unrelated to Futurama
Ron Hughart is a former director for Futurama. Rich Moore noted during the commentary for "Raging Bender" that Ron directed some of the best action sequences on the show. He has also worked on American Dad!, where he is supervising director, and The Ren and Stimpy Show.


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Shuffle Box
January 17, 2014
In the previous exercise we implemented the minimum standard random number generator of Park and Miller. In today's exercise we implement a similar random number generator, due to Knuth, and show how both random number generators can be improved.
The Park-Miller random number generator is a linear congruential generator of the form Xn+1 = a · Xn (mod m). A disadvantage of this type of random number generator is that it cannot produce a value of zero, since then all future random numbers will also be zero. Although we didn't mention it, that caused some problems in the generators of the prior exercise, requiring careful code and proper parameters to prevent.
Knuth's random number generator is a mixed linear congruential generator of the form Xn+1 = a · Xn + c (mod m). Because a constant is added after each multiplication, zero becomes a valid random number. Knuth recommends a = 69069, c = 1234567 and m = 232 for 32-bit arithmetic and a = 6364136223846793005, c = 1442695040888963407 and m = 264 for 64-bit arithmetic, though some people set c = 1.
In addition to regularizing zero, Knuth's mixed linear congruential random number generator has the advantage of being very fast, at least in languages with fixed-length integer datatypes, because the modulo operation is never performed; the arithmetic just wraps around the fixed length of the integer. Thus, assuming the seed is an unsigned long integer, a C version of Knuth's generator is just
unsigned long integer knuth()
return ( seed = 69069 * seed + 1234567 );
Very simple. Very fast.
One disadvantage of the Knuth random number generator is that the least-significant bit cycles with period 2, the second-least-significant bit cycles with period 4, and so on, because the modulus is a power of two. And both the Park-Miller and Knuth generators suffer from the problem of serial correlation. In many cases this doesn't matter. But a simple technique called a shuffle box improves the randomness of both the Park-Miller and Knuth generators.
A shuffle box consists of an array of the k most recent seeds, initialized by the first k random numbers following the initial seed. Each time a new random number is requested, an element of the array j is selected by j = ⌊ k · seed / m ⌋, the jth element of the array is returned as the random number, and the next number in the random sequence is stored in the jth element of the array. K is often a power of two, because then j can be quickly computed by a right shift, though it isn't necessary. This process is described by Knuth in Algorithm 3.2.2B.
Your task is to write a basic version of Knuth's random number generator, then write versions of both the Park-Miller and Knuth random number generators that use shuffle boxes. When you are finished, you are welcome to read or run a suggested solution, or to post your own solution or discuss the exercise in the comments below.


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It's been a rather depressing week here in the UK. To escape the dirge from the media I have dived headlong into wildlife and The Wildlife Trusts's 30 Days Wild. Below is an account of my fourth week, the last full week of June. I have tried to find light within the gloom!
Day 22: Wednesday
On the 30 Days Wild Facebook page, someone had created a collage of rainbow colours taken from nature. I thought I'd try one. All pictures are taken from the yarden. Featuring: antirrhinum, honeysuckle, foxglove, jasmine, campanula, erysimum and lithodora.
Day 23: Thursday
This week has been National Insect Week, an initiative to encourage people to learn more about insects. In celebration of this week, I have been putting out insect pitfall traps in the hope of catching sight of the creepy crawlies that make the yarden their home. Unfortunately on both occasions, the traps were empty, probably because they were not the best traps.
Since we have had some fair weather these past few days in the NW of England, I decided to try my hand at a moth light trap. During the day we see many Cinnabar Moths, but I wanted to see what night moths we attract to the yarden. I draped a white sheet over two chairs and positioned a light directly behind and waited for the darkness to deepen.
It was almost 11.30pm when it became dark! I could see many micro moths fluttering but no hawkmoths which I had hoped/wanted to see! As the stars and planets twinkled from the indigo sky, the light trap only attracted one small moth. I think it was a Webbing or Common Clothes Moth!
Though moth sightings were thin on the ground, David and I did manage to have fun in the yarden. David took to photographing the stars and dodgy 'ghosts,' while I enjoyed the perfumed scent of the air. Everything feels so calm at night, unlike the madness daylight hours tend to bring.
On clearing up the equipment for the night, as David was in work the following day, a beautiful marbled moth fluttered towards the light. I was half in the house, half out as it danced around the halogen bulb. Sadly we didn't take a picture, so I don't know what type of moth it was. I feel I have some unfinished business with moths in the yarden. I hope to maybe fit in another observation session before June is out! Needless to say my dreams were full of moths that night!
Day 24: Friday
The weather this June seems to have conspired against us! Today was another one of those days with sparse sunshine and heavy showers! With having little 'get up and go,' I turned to the 'wild' cards for inspiration. The card I chose, search for mini wildness, suggested to look for lichens and forests of moss in pavements. So I decided to take a closer look at the liverwort growing in my yarden! (I didn't know it was liverwort until I started researching it!)
The type of liverwort in the yarden is called Marchantia polymorpha. Apparently they like compacted, wet, acidic soils. Bad luck for my camellia, but the liverwort does look nice as a green base for the plant in its shaded pot. I shall evaluate how the plant is growing and if the liverwort is effecting it in future!
Day 25: Saturday
I usually make lard cakes for the birds come winter time, but as I did this task for last years 30 Days Wild, I shall replicate it this year too!
I used a block of lard (it's usually cheap in the supermarkets). I then microwaved it for 3 minutes until it was liquid. Threw in handfuls of mixed seed, (you can use peanuts and fruit also.) I then bulked it up with wholemeal flour. I used the suet holders with paper lined templates and scooped the fat mixture into these. I left to solidify. I shall hang them out tomorrow!
Day 26: Sunday
I never thought I was a big technophile but participating in this years, National Unplugging Day, I have discovered I turn to my computer and phone more than I care to. A typical day usually starts around 7am, the alarm on my phone wakes me up! While having breakfast, I scroll through Facebook and look at WordPress. Throughout the working day I communicate with David via email. I text my mum, even though she lives next door! I use the timer on my phone and playlists on my laptop while I am working out. I also use the timer when I am cooking. I have many books downloaded to my Kindle. I turn to Google whenever I have a question. During 30 Days Wild I have been hooked to my blog feed, looking for new posts from fellow bloggers. I wind down to BBCi and music on YouTube. All day I have Classic FM playing in the background!
So, participating in this initiative is going to be both challenging and enlightening!
My unplugged day started at 9.30am. I had asked David when he got up an hour earlier to wake me after 9. I awoke at 9.15am and lay there waiting for my wake-up call. I snoozed and woke up again fifteen minutes later. Still no wake-up call. I was walking down the stairs to make breakfast when David came out of the living room. 'Oh you're up!'
'Yes, where was my wake-up call?'
'I didn't know the time,' meaning he had been busy playing GTA5! I shook my head! I took my breakfast and a hot cup of black coffee back to bed. It was a Sunday after all! While relaxing, I perused the pages of my paperback of Katherine Mansfield short stories. Though I had to fight the urge to reach out and grab my phone!
To counter the boredom I had moved the household chores from Saturday to today. The opposite was done for my session on the treadmill, which I did on Saturday as I use my laptop for motivational music! At 10.30am I climbed out of bed, got dressed and made a start on the cleaning. I dragged Henry around the house and wiped/disinfected surfaces and floors. The whole task took me three hours, with lunch in-between!
I spent the afternoon in the kitchen. I baked bread, which I shaped in the form of butterflies and made a very healthy, (and tasty) pan of blind scouse, (vegetable stew). I got David to take pictures of the finished article! I really missed my phone for taking pictures!
There wasn't much opportunity for communing with the wild, as persistent rain arrived in the afternoon. I watched from the kitchen window the birds visiting the freshly filled feeders, of which there were:
- 2 House Sparrows (males)
- 2 Goldfinches
- 1 very disheveled Blue Tit
- 1 Dunnock
- 8 Starlings, (1 was a baby)
- Many Pigeons!
I also saw Tree Bumblebees brave the rain to forage from the campanula flowers.
Come evening, I chatted to David while he cooked his lunches for work that week. All day he had been teasing me about not using technology. At one point he even came down the stairs with the laptop, and said 'aww but you can't watch!' Meany! I then relaxed by reading some more Katherine Mansfield stories while enjoying a nice cold glass of pinot grigio.
10pm arrived. I cheered and 'wooped!' I had survived a day without a phone or laptop! (It was hard!) A text off my mum was waiting for me saying, 'welcome back to the technological world!' It was an enlightening initiative. One I would repeat. I find that technology is so habit forming! It's so easy to reach out for that mobile device, have information at your fingertips. I do think that it contributes to a general lack of concentration and an inability to face boredom. I already don't like phones at the dining table. I may encourage David and I to have technology 'black-holes,' times when we don't use phones or computers, in the future.
Did you participate in the day? How did you fill your time?
Day 27: Monday
I felt a bit jaded today. In the afternoon Artie and I popped out into the yarden, to see how the plants were getting on (the lily and passion flower have flowered at last,) and to listen to wild sounds. It also gave me the opportunity to sip in the wild, I indulged in a cup of tea and a chocolate biscuit.
I closed my eyes (but not for long as Artie was on the prowl) and could hear the wind rushing through the trees. A plane thrummed overhead. Goldfinches twittered, pigeons cooed, and a family of house sparrows, babies begging, flew onto a roof nearby. The yarden was filled with bees buzzing softly and the dunnock shrilled his song loudly!
Day 28: Tuesday
To end this post I took inspiration from the 30 Days Wild app. Of the 101 'random acts of wildness' I chose look up at the clouds. I actually did this activity yesterday as today the NW of England is shrouded with increasing cloud and the threat of further rain!
Of the clouds gracing the evening sky yesterday, I noticed cirrus (fair weather cloud) and cirrocumulus, (could precursor rain). It shows how contradictory British weather can be!
Final thoughts:
I really don't want to mention the EU referendum, the result made me sick to the stomach! However like many, I will make a comment.
At present the air is thick with depression! I avoid the news the best of times, but my Facebook page is full of doom and gloom. It makes one want to reach for the razor blades! But we have to endure, what else is there? (Those razor blades look inviting). We have survived plagues, famine, wars. We will endure this!
Life probably will be tough, for a while, but we will recover, (we have to). Instead of the constant backbiting, we must forego bad blood and look to a future, a future we can only make good if we work hard, together!
There has to be a life outside of the EU. We had one before, there will be one now. Though many of us did not vote to leave, we have to make the most of this decision. Perhaps we can learn from the EU and build a better Britain, with transparent laws, human/worker rights, wildlife protection and a more uniformed distribution of wealth throughout the kingdom? Perhaps I am dreaming, maybe not with this government! I have not followed any of the hype surrounding the referendum. I have felt disgusted that we have been placed in this position! But the unthinkable has happened and we have to deal with it. Not with a culture of blame but one of acceptance and action.
I don't know why but the whole farce calls to mind a soliloquy in Hamlet. To be or not to be!
Hamlet:To be, or not to be–that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them. To die, to sleep–
No more–and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to. 'Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep–
To sleep–perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th' unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprise of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action.
Only two more days until the end of June! Come with me as I approach the finale of 30 Days Wild 2016 and see what wonders I find!
Thanks for reading,
Christine x


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Chocolate Love
Excerpt from Luscious Chocolate Smoothies: An irresistible collection of healthy cocoa delights.
Xocoatil was the Aztecs' word for "chocolate". They called it the "bitter drink" and considered it a gift from the Gods. The cocoa bean has been cultivated for the last 1000 years and recorded as early as 2000 BC.
Cocoa was first introduced to Europe when Cortés brought the beans to Spain and offered them to the Emperor in the early 1500s. By adding Cinnamon, heat and sugar, they improved the bitter taste. The discovery of cocoa by the Spaniards was so provocative that they kept its existence a secret for almost a century until it was smuggled by monks to France. By the 1650s it had crossed the channel to England and the North American colonies of the English and the Dutch.
Good for the Heart
Cocoa powder and chocolate contain rich sources of polyphenol antioxidants, which are the same beneficial compounds found in fruits, vegetables and red wine that may reduce the risk of developing heart disease. It is believed that damage done in the body by free oxygen radicals is linked to heart disease and other maladies connected with aging. There is some research that indicates that antioxidants in the blood stream help eliminate free radicals, thus reducing the risk of developing heart disease. Dark chocolate contains more antioxidants, per 100 grams, then prunes, raisins, blueberries, blackberries, kale, strawberries, spinach, raspberries, Brussels sprouts, plums, alfalfa sprouts, oranges, red grapes, red bell pepper, cherries, onion, corn or eggplant.
Audrey's Amore
3 cups chocolate milk (dairy, soy, or rice)
10 large ripe strawberries
2 small bananas
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh mint
Place all the ingredients in a blender and blend on medium speed for 1 minute. Chill for five minutes, pour into tall glasses and serve naked (literally or figuratively).
Yield: 5 cups


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