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Below is the feedback from the students who attended SIGGRAPH 2006 in Boston through the Spend a Week at SIGGRAPH program. The ACM SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics Pioneers sponsored the students.
We've removed the students' and mentors' names, and reformatted the text for consistency.
All content, grammar and spelling are directly from each student.
The Experience of a Lifetime
The week of July 30th was an experience that I will carry with me for the rest of my career in computers ( which is the rest of my life). During this week, I attended the ACM SIGGRAPH convention held in my hometown of Boston. As a computer lover, but more specifically an aspiring graphic designer, the Siggraph experience was particularly meaningful. My contact and my mentor for the week were wonderful facilitators to my experience. The tour of the art gallery and the exhibit floor were absolutely astounding as I have never been surrounded by such technological and graphical feats of art all in the same area. The exhibit floor was a breathtaking experience in itself. To be around the leading companies in the computer industry as a valued " Guinea pig " of new ideas and applications was exhilarating. The Guerrilla Studio paralleled only the likes of my dreams.The quantity and quality of all the resources both technological and otherwise were simply outstanding. As if all this was not enough, to not only sit in on a tutorial but personally have my Work reviewed by the one and only Stephen Burn sealed my infatuation with SIGGRAPH. Thought is was my first year at SIGGRAPH, I hope to make sure that it is definitely not my last.
I began the week early Sunday afternoon meeting with my contact with whom I communicated via email the weeks prior to the convention who helped set my expectations for the week that was ahead of me. He quickly dispelled my expectation of " a bunch of guys in suits and briefcases" ( which I was adequately dressed for ) and told me that I should have expected the common" Comic Book Guys" of sort. In all seriousness, my contact explained to me that SIGGRAPH, as I came to see for myself, was comprised of literally thousands of diverse individuals coming from a wide range of both ethnic and technical backgrounds. Upon meeting my mentor, I was educated on the history of SIGGRAPH and the historical figures ( in the field of computer graphics and interactive technology ). From there, I was taken by my mentor the keynote address made by none other than John Rohde of Disney Imagineers ( being named indirectly after a Disney character of similar spelling, this was big for me). After the address, I was off to explore. Seeming as it was located on the same floor as the address, the Art exhibit was the first place that I felt that I should visit.
The ambiance of the art gallery, accentuated by the dim lights of the room and the vibrant lights of some of the exhibits caught my eye from the start. The idea of capturing the emerging technologies from the up and coming leaders of today's graphics world is a novel idea that I think SIGGRAPH took and ran around the world with. From the highly technical of the virtual haptic heart surgery, to the aesthetically pleasing thermal response exhibit ( heat or " cold " from touch generated flower patterns. Tokyo Students ), to the absolutely mind boggling " 3d" projection of the shape shifting house, the art exhibit was fantastic. The " refreshments" served for the mayors speech were an understandable association, but realistically, ( the boatload of candy then fruit then clam chowder was a bit hard to follow for my stomach) could have been better catered. But hen again that may not necessarily be to the fault of SIGGRAPH, and also to truly " Snack" what appeared to be a freeloading crowd ( myself included ) of that size would have been difficult. Thus, with my stomach filled and my mind " frazzled" it was time for me to hit the exhibit floor.
My experience on exhibit floor was likened to that of a child lost in a world made of candy filled with bytes and chips of all varieties. This was the first time I was exposed to such top of the lined pre-released technology in that quantity. The week before I attended a job fair of similar sorts sponsored by another week long conference that I had attended thanks to the Computer Clubhouse and the Museum of Science Boston, however, it was nothing like massive array of booths at SIGGRAPH. On the exhibit floor, I bounced around from booth to booth, from Google to ATI, PNY, Adobe ( my favorite of all ), testing out applications, watching special features ( like the digital animation of Pirates 2 ), and collecting as many free giveaways as my NVIDIA and ATI bags ( yes plural) could carry. My wrist grew tired from swiping my card at each booth so I decided to take a brief repose and go the acclaimed animation theater.
The theater was in one word: breathtaking. The depth of each film, whether or not it made you laugh, or cry or simply made you squint with your head tiled to the side, was simply fantastic. The " Meat and Metal" reminded me of paintings my the American artist Francis Bacon ( in particular " Painting" by Bacon). There was another film that depicted a female robot obsessed with her own image, stemming from a jack-in-the-box. Though their were no words in the authors message of caution of self image was well received by the whole audience( tear). The film with the " bellied cavemen" and the " lovestruck Satan" were by far the most comical. Last but not least, the multitude of foreign shorts were interesting as well. With my artistic juices charged, I felt it only natural to next venture into the Guerrilla Studio.
I walked into the Guerrilla Studio on Wednesday and I wanted to cry ( primarily because all of the seats were booked) But also because it was simply and absolutely a beautiful sight to behold. The room was filled with computers of all variations from wall to wall. From its array of G5 Macs ( with OS 10 might I add ) and high powered PCs all which were accompanied by the industrial sized printers on either end of the room, the Guerrilla Studio was truly Magical. The two most astounding pieces of the Guerrilla Studio were the point capture system and the holographic printing. Although I did not get to do either ( not that great of a loss – no offense) it was interesting to see how they both were done. It has been a long maintained curiosity of mine so to speaks. The day was not a complete loss however, As I got to sit in on one of Stephen Burns tutorials. Not only was it incredible to sit in on a tutorial given by the premiere photoshop expert of the day, but it was also personally amazing to find out that he as a person of color. For some reason it left me speechless Ianthe sense that i warmed my heart and gave me a sense of hope that I too could also do big thing with my skills in the future. with that motivation in mind, i sat in line and registered for the last day of the Studio.
With 6 hours to close on the last day of the studio, on the last day of the best week of my life thus far, staring into a wide screen G5, the pressure was on to create a colossal masterpiece to accurately display my photo and photoshop talents ( or something close enough that would make me smile). From my disc which contained nearly 250 photo's of flowers and the likes, I selected about thirty. Using the newly acquired " masking" techniques that I learned from Mr. Burns tutorials i embarked on what would be the largest and most demanding photoshop project that I've ever worked on. The end result was a 22.x38 collage of floral expression. during the process, I also had the pleasure of having my previous works viewed by Mr. Burn himself. He admitted that the road that I had in front of me would be long and hard, as my competition in the market and in the field were very tough, but he reassured me that with talent, skill, and dedication I would foster the techniques necessary to compete with the likes of those in the art gallery that I visited before.
All in all, SIGGRAPH was great [ sigh ]. An adventurous and breathtaking experience that i will never forget. I think everything at SIGGRAPH was well co-ordinated and ran with smooth transitioning. The location in the New Boston Convention Center was a perfect if not the only logical, place to hold such a convention of such literal and figurative magnitude. For the near future, I hope to join ACM as a student member and attend , by Gods will SIGGRAPH 2007 in San Francisco. In the distant future ( hopefully not too distant) I hope to attend SIGGRAPH displaying my contributions to the world of graphic design or Interactive technologies — or both. What is certain for now is that SIGGRAPH was a blessed experience that I will never forget lo the many days of my life and i would like to thank the pioneers that made this possible for me and others like me. Thank you oh so very much.
When I first heard that I was going to Siggraph 2006 I was surprised and honored.
Tons of people wanted to go, not just for the tremendous experience to be gained but also for the fun and free benefits of having the scholarship. I was so happy and went to everything I wanted to.
When I first got to Siggraph I was intimidated, the convention center was huge and I was by myself. As I was browsing some interesting posters out front and learned about various things such as hair rendering and lighting done computer graphically. After that I met my friend and her mentor, and we went to register for the passes. Though I never had the honor to meet my own mentor in person she told me about useful places to go, such as the Disney key note presentation. I learned a lot from my friend's mentors as well, and I am so glad I was part of this program.
My favorite part of Siggraph was the diverse activities that they had. I really enjoyed the Guerilla Studio, where I met some new friends and made these cool holographic cards. Also there was an interesting place in the convention where you could try new devices and things that were so cool. I remember this guy who let me try his device where you could feel objects in front of you by a band you strapped on your head, I wandered through and obstacle course just using the feeling and closing my eyes. It was if I was a bat using sonar. It was the coolest. There was also a device which let you draw on a screen and you could move the objects you drew by blowing on them. I tried many things and all of them were new to me, things I could never believed if I never had the opportunity to come to Siggraph.
I also enjoyed the not so interactive features the convention provided, The Electronic theater and the various presentations. They were amazing! We all got to view the life of the Animal Kingdom attraction, Exploration Everest, as well as how Aslan from the Chronicles of Narnia was made. And to sample the work of artists through the theater was awesome, they had remarkable films.
Siggraph was amazing, I never went to anything like it before. The experience, the knowledge, the memories, all so magical. With all of this I know I can understand and achieve my goals in the artistic world. I hope to go again one day, this truly was an event I never want to forget.
SIGGRAPH 2006 was a big experience for me.
At first, it was a bit overwhelming with all professionals and talented students everywhere. After the first day though, I felt more exposed to what SIGGRAPH had to offer and took full advantage of it.
Although I was without a mentor the first day, I was able to get registered and ready to go without much difficulty. The first place I had to see was the innovative technologies.
The second I stepped foot on that floor, I was blown away with all this technology that was before me. I felt like I had to give the time to each booth to gain its true genius that it presented. I was really interested by all the musical devices like the musical streams and the drums rings especially. The figures on the board that show on the monitor are the way games will be played in fifteen years and can't wait for it. All the technology there was amazing and made me feel that the future of technology is bright and promising.
Another part of SIGGRAPH I enjoyed, although it was momentary, was the guerilla studio. In the short time I was there, I was able to experiment with the software in ways that felt unrestricted and free unlike anyway than in school. My only "complaint" about the guerilla studio was that there were many people want to use the equipment and that made access very difficult.
I was lucky enough to get a ticket for the electronic theatre and play with the electronic beach ball. The films in the show really gave me another view of showing a specific idea. Hoping to be a filmmaker, this is beneficial for me. The films that really opened my eyes to film animation were the "Paper Doll", "One Rat Short", and oddly enough the beer commercial with all the men in the field. I really like all the clips I saw in the animation theatre as well. Those clips only added to the enjoyable experience of the electronic theatre.
My overall favorite part of SIGGRAPH was the floor show with all those famed companies unveiling their new products and had me asking, "When is it available in stores?" But the best part of the floor show for me was the experience of the being apart of the demonstrations and making contacts with all the people I could.
To me, SIGGRAPH was a chance to see and do things no one has or has yet. The whole SIGGRAPH experience made me feel like I was a true professional even though I'm only a kid heading to college waiting to find a place in life. Though my true goal in life is to be filmmaker, SIGGRAPH has shown me another door to computer graphics or it could be a back door to film.
Whatever is it, it still there for me. The only thing is that I have to choose what it will be one day but at least now I have a choice.
Dear Siggraph 2006 Staff/Organizers,
Firstly I would just like to thank you for inviting me to Siggraph 2006, I got a lot from the experience of Siggraph which without your generosity I would never have experienced. I am an aspiring graphic designer entering my freshman year at Massachusetts college of Art.
When my teacher told me about Siggraph i immediately decided I wanted to go. It sounded like exactly what I was into plus it was local and free. I wanted to come to Siggraph because I believed that it would offer me insight into the world of digital media design, and my visit did just that. I learned more from being at the conference then from the talks to be honest, the atmosphere and the free flow of ideas were just extraordinary. Not to mention the support offered by my mentor who when I eventually met up with her was very kind and informative about what to check out and what to avoid at the conference.
I went into this experience expecting to see a lot of 2D design work, and I saw a bit, but really I felt the gear was towards 3D modelers and animators, which was alright because I knew next to nothing about these Fields, and now I posses an somewhat rudimentary understanding of them.
While the Siggraph experience may not have been perfect for me as a two dimensional designer I think that it is an ideal place for anyone interested in animation or information technologies.
Thank you once more for your immense generosity and I hope that I will be allowed to visit in the future as a student volunteer.
I had an awesome time at the SIGGRAPH convention last week.
The majority of the things that I saw were ideas that I did not even know were possible. The heart surgery simulator was probably my favorite part of the entire convention. It felt like I was really making cuts on a real heart. The Emerging Technologies room was amazing pretty much every booth that I stopped at blew my mind. The Guerilla Studio was another favorite room of mine. I spent hours playing with and learning all about new programs that I have never even heard about. The program Digital Studio was a lot of fun. I enjoyed my mentor a lot. On Wednesday he took me and Matt all around the Emerging Technologies room showed us all of this cool stuff that we somehow missed on our walkthrough the day before.
The exhibit room was cool but I thought it could have been better. There should have been more hands on stuff in there. I also found the lectures to be boring, but that is probably because I am a teenager and I had no idea what they were talking about.
All in all I had a great time at SIGGRAPH and if the oppurtuntiy were ever to arise again, I hope that I would be invited.
I enjoyed many different things about the Siggraph convention I recently attended.
It was the first time I had ever been to a convention even remotely like that and I did not know what to expect. I had taken Electronic Studio Art as an elective this pervious school year with my teacher and enjoyed it thoroughly, but aside from that I had no past experience with digital art or any electronics for that matter. When my teacher first told me about the Siggraph convention I was really excited because it was an opportunity for me to learn more about electronics see some interesting art as well.
One of the things that I enjoyed most about the Siggraph convention was the Emerging Technologies exhibit. Both my friends and I agreed that this was our favorite part of the convention. It was amazing to see what people can do with computers and electronics, and I had a great time testing them out.
Another part of the convention that I really liked was the Guerilla Studio exhibit. I spent a lot of time there for two reasons: There were a lot of really interesting projects that people were displaying, and because it was a really hands on exhibit that allowed me to indulge in my love of digital art by using the new versions of photoshop and illustrator on really fast computers.
I really enjoyed my experience at Siggraph and have renewed my passion in digital art.
Attending SIGGRAPH this year was one of the most amazing and memorable experiences I have had in recent years.
I have always been quite interested in the world of computer graphics, animation, and computer engineering in general, but I have never really had a chance to experience how it all works first hand until now.
From when I first stepped into the Boston Convention Center on the first day, until I left on the last day, the exhibition completely blew me away, and continued to do so long after I had left. Never in my life have I seen so many different and amazing technologies from people around the entire world. I was completely blown away by some of the emerging technologies, and honestly felt as though I had just walked into a world twenty years ahead of the one I live in.
I took great pleasure in experimenting with lots of the cool technologies in the "emerging technology" section, as well as using some of the amazing hands-on computer programs in the Gorilla Studio. I also very much liked how everything was so easily accessible, and how there were always people around to answer any of my questions or help me find certain things. Being a video-game player myself, I was thrilled to try out some of the new video game systems and video games that were on display. Another thing I found very cool was the new television displays that one can look at with special glasses and really feel like they are part of the action.
Overall, I think the SIGGRAPH exhibition was a truly amazing experience, and I am grateful that I was able to attend this year. I think it's a wonderful way of getting kids exposed to a world they might otherwise have no way of ever seeing, and inviting them to experience some of the most amazing new technology in the world is a great thing. I very much hope that SIGGRAPH continues to invite students such as myself to attend the annual conference, and I am looking forward to one day attending the conference again!
I found SIGGRAPH a fascinating and enriching experience.
All days of the conference were different, exciting, and offered incredibly fulfilling experiences. Everything from the Guerilla Art Studio to the fascinating and multilayered all day seminar "The Art of Story Telling" was well put together and created a one in a life time experience.
My adventure at the 2006 conference stated with what amounted to as an all day expenditure of my time in the Guerilla Studio. I found this area to be one of the best the conference had to offer. With all the open computers, programs and resources available the environment was one of help, learning, and fun. The best thing about the Guerilla Studio was the lenticualar section. While I did have to sign up for it and arrive Monday at a very early time it still gave me the awesome experience of taking one of my own pieces of graphic design and making it what I refer to as 2D/3D. This made me very happy because SIGGRAPH gave me the opportunity to have my art work, very literality JUMP off the page. Everything at the Guerilla studio, not just the lenticualar station, gave me a great time and filled my day on Sunday. Because of the late start of my group that was sadly the only thing I could partake in on that particular day other then a quick but scintillating look at the Immerging Technologies, a place that I looked forward to seeing again and I got to the very next day.
All the time spent in Immerging Technologies was time that was well spent in the expansion of my view of things that machines can do. One of the great things that I saw was the sensory water fountain. The special thing about the small water fountain on a downward cascade was that when a person put their hand near the falling water the circumference of said water would retract and then expand when the hands were move away. While it did not seem to have any foreseeable uses, it was nonetheless very fascinating to learn about. While this water trick was very exciting, it was not the best thing that was show at this event. The best Immerging Technology was the something I called the DJ of the future. This product was a round table with a glowing surface connected to speakers. What made this table one of a kind was that the table emitted different sounds and beats in accordance to what blocks were placed on it surface and how they related to the other blocks on the table. I would say it was one of the most hypnotic things I have seen in years and it caused me to spend upwards of an hour in the same position placing and rearranging blocks and listening to my created sounds.
While these two places were great experiences and very surly time well spent, for me the best thing was, hands down/bar none, the all day seminar "The Art of Story Telling." Four fascinating men all with jobs in the industry of screenwriting presented four different but equally helpful view and information on the creation of a script. As a play write and someone who has always contemplated the profession of screen writing I found it to be the best incite to that complex world that I had ever had the privilege of receiving. All the presenters were articulate and gave great fact as well as personal views that I am sure will help me from this time on. All the speaker were knowledge able but more to the point they were fun and entertaining and made the whole day fly by with a brevity I did not know was available for a full day spent in a lecture series.
All in all SIGGRAPH2006 was great experience and one I would wish to repeat every year. I found out thing I never knew that are sure to help me in the future and I saw many a thing that I could not have even imagined seeing before. SIGGRAPH was an experience that I will treasure for the rest of my life and will be one of the many driving force if I ever choice to go into a profession of technology, graphic design, or most likely screen writing.
Computer nerds unite!
To be honest, I had no idea what to expect from SIGGRAPH. I had heard of the conference before but never really looked it up. My teacher, my old high school digital art teacher, said it was all about digital art. Since visual effects is my major in school, I jumped at the chance to go. My mentor worked in the animation industry for years. He introduced me to some of his friends in the visual effects area also. One even worked on one of my favorite all time movies, Tron.
I would have to say one of my favorite parts of SIGGRAPH was the "emerging technology" exhibit. That had some of the most interesting new technologies I have ever seen. All the technologies there were amazing, but there were two that caught my eye and most of my attention. They were similar in their concepts. I found the first one by following my ears. While milling around the room I heard trance music. That unmistakable rhythm of beats. I decided to find out where it was coming from since I am an avid trance music fan. After passing it a few times I finally found it. It was a cylinder shaped table that went up to my hips. There were clear hard plastic pieces with a funny shape glued to its bottom. The black shape had to be face down against the table top in order to make a certain beat. You could rotate the piece and it would make the beat faster or slower. I kept thinking to myself that this would be the next generation of Djs soon. I couldn't stop playing with it. I had always wanted to be a DJ and this was just so fun. The company is based in Barcelona . It is called " Reactable" here is the website to check it out. http://mtg.upf.edu/reactable/.
The other technology that was like the reactable was something that was developed by MIT students. This one was different though. It had plastic pieces just like the other one, but this one had menus you could choose from. You would connect one small round piece to the "anchor" piece, to bring up the menu. Then you would choose the from the different options with the anchor piece. Another difference with this one was they were promoting the table top that you used and the program. The guy told me he used to to play video games as well as the music program.
Of course there were other things than the music technologies. There were quite a few games actually. One game had you suck up shadows of gnomes or gremlins. The shadows represented actual 3d creatures that were running around a screen. You couldn't see the screen, so you had to hunt for the shadows. They gave you a mock vacuum cleaner to suck up the gremlins. Another game was "rock climbing" sort of game. I put that in quotes because I wasn't sure if you were allowed to actually climb on the wall. The game "board" was just like an indoor rock climbing wall, where each stone would light up, depending on which game you played. MIT had also created a robotic teddy bear for children in hospitals who are cut off from people. This is an amazing idea. The teddy bear reacts to faces, so if it recognizes a face it will raise its arms, like it wants to be picked up. Of course the teddy bear talks, well babbles for now. The down side to it was the teddy bear wasn't as soft and cuddly as you would think. Of course this was just a prototype.
The exhibition all was awesome as well. Who wouldn't like free stuff, or shwag, from big time companies! But aside from the free stuff, every big time graphics company was there. Lucas arts, rhythm and hues, adobe, Disney, Google, Nvidia, ATI, second life, and a plethora of other companies. Also there were many art schools there. I found that funny. I actually got some graduate school information for myself, one for visual effects and another for game design. Wacom was there with their new two thousand dollar tablet. The newest one where the tablet is actually your screen and you can draw right on it. My friends and I spent hours playing with that thing.
Then there was the wonderful guerrilla studio. There was something there for everyone. This is the place where you got to create pieces of art work then take them home with you. There was a printing place where you could print very large pieces of art work, which my teacher was very giddy about. There also was a stop motion station where you could create your own stop motion movie. I made a movie about killer bunnies.
One of the biggest things I was excited to see were the people that worked on The Lion, the Witch, and Wardrobe, from rhythm and hues. It was really amazing to see what kind of methods they used to make Aslan. There was a movie that they put together about all the steps they took to create Aslan. Also how they created the centaurs. They filmed the actors with their normal costumes on, but they had funny lime green pants on. That way the visual effects artists could go in and attach the horse half for the legs.
Unfortunately I didn't go see the keynote speaker, a man from Disney. In all honesty I really didn't want to, Disney hasn't amazed me in a while. That and the line to see him was out the door, around the corner and down the hall. Seriously, I have pictures. Siggraph was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. It sounds cheesy but it was true.
I enjoyed many different things about the Siggraph convention I recently attended.
It was the first time I had ever been to a convention even remotely like that and I did not know what to expect. I had taken Electronic Studio Art as an elective this pervious school year with my teacher and enjoyed it thoroughly, but aside from that I had no past experience with digital art or any electronics for that matter. When my teacher first told me about the Siggraph convention I was really excited because it was an opportunity for me to learn more about electronics see some interesting art as well.
One of the things that I enjoyed most about the Siggraph convention was the Emerging Technologies exhibit. Both my friends and I agreed that this was our favorite part of the convention. It was amazing to see what people can do with computers and electronics, and I had a great time testing them out.
Another part of the convention that I really liked was the Guerilla Studio exhibit. I spent a lot of time there for two reasons: There were a lot of really interesting projects that people were displaying, and because it was a really hands on exhibit that allowed me to indulge in my love of digital art by using the new versions of photoshop and illustrator on really fast computers.
I walked out of SIGGRAPH on Thursday, August 3rd feeling sad but full.
It was an amazing experience and I know I got lots out of it, but I was still sad to leave. SIGGRAPH was a very intense and exciting place. It took me the first few days just to get acclimated to the enormity of the BCEC and the variety of opportunities offered there. Every night I would look through all the different things going on the next day and mark the ones I was interested in, but even so I know I barley scratched the surface of what the conference offered. Being able to go to this conference at such a young age gave me an appreciation for graphics as a career. This huge event was filled with so many people and skill levels that I think I finally understood the magnitude of the field.
Having a mentor was great. My mentor helped me take full advantage of the experience, from helping me register to explaining the significance of the teapot exhibit. The place is very large and my mentor helped me get the most out of it without getting overwhelmed.
I loved the emerging technologies and the art exhibit rooms, but my favorite area was the guerrilla studio. I felt like I entered into a totally different mindset when I walked in there. I got to imagine, create and print an amazing large format print. I got to take advanced Photoshop classes and talk to people whom where on the leading edge and willing to share their wealth of knowledge. The environment there was really amazing. The room had an air of possibility, like no idea was too big or too much. It was very inspiring to be there. The entire conference was an extraordinary experience and I am so glad I had the opportunity to attend.
I first walked through the front doors of the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center with three goals in mind:
Determine what employment was available in the computer graphics industry, discover what new technology is going to be on the market for CG animation and art, and find out if the college I am going to be attending this fall is in fact the right place to be at this time. Strangely, everything panned out in the most perfect fashion and in ways I can only describe as nothing short of miraculous.
My first day at the convention, I was greeted by my mentor. After getting registered, receiving instruction on how the general convention was going to run, listening to several interesting explanations of the posters section of the convention, I had finally determined that Boston had been under a crisis when it failed to open more than one public restaurant outside of the convention hall. Despite signs, more guidance by my mentor, and a map, I managed to get myself lost in the convention center on more than one occasion. That was Sunday and by the time I was part way through the day, I had a fourth question I needed answered; where on earth was everything?
The second day ended up being a repeat of the first, save that the number of times I found myself completely turned around was significantly less. I had the opportunity to sit in on the keynote address. A friend of mine and I had found seats in the hall early and were no more than ten rows away from the front of the audience. Our seating was perfect and Mr. Rohde was a significantly better speaker than those presenting the work done on the Chronicals of Narnia the day before. Perhaps it has more to do with the fact that my personal skills involve art and literature rather than technical mathematics and programming. However, the Narnia speakers nearly bored me to tears with their presentation of a hair. A single strand can only hope to be entertaining for so long. Mr. Rohde on the other hand presented not only the importance of visual appeal and historical and cultural correctness, but the art of storytelling through a media significantly different than that which most work with. I was able to leave with a lot of valuable information regarding the art of story telling and the number of ways it can be used to guide and enhance multiple subjects. Later, another friend of mine showed me a photo she had taken of the line outside waiting to get into the hall Mr. Rohde had been speaking in. I was more than thankful I had gotten in early.
Trying to move from one home to another is stressful. Trying to do it during a convention is like taking that level of stress and cubing it. Most days I attempted to arrive by nine and get home by six. Tuesday ended up being a late day. I did have the opportunity to see the second half of the presentation "recreational Computer Graphics". As a folk dancer with a heart for the Asian culture, and the daughter of a folk dancer, I was delighted I managed to arrive as early as I did; Celtic knot work and origami are beautiful, and learning ways to create both was a thrilling experience. I arrived just as the lecturer was beginning his speech on camera shutters and my own brief background in photography was soon wishing it could find a camera and test everything presented.
Later that week I attended the Electronic Theater Matinee presentation and wished I could create everything presented without coding knowledge. My favorite movies were "Doll Face" and "One Rat Short". "Doll Face" satisfied my love for impressive computer-generated imagery. There are two images that are most prominent in my mind when I think of it; the doll putting lipstick on her lips, and her broken face as seen at the end of the clip. The secondary movement of her lip under the pressure of the lipstick was striking, as was the final scene. "One Rat Short" satisfied my love for a good story. So often in the CG world, one finds impressive imagery that could steal hearts from the far reaches of the world, but a storyline that is so poor that the media simply isn't worth viewing. I can't help but wonder if the videogame industry shouldn't stop hiring CG artists and employ better creative writers.
My mechanical pencil and I have a special relationship. I click, it obeys. In most cases, that means I spend hours drawing figures on printer paper and trying to clean them up enough to scan onto a computer. The new screen tablet Wacom presented in the exhibition hall made me consider finally breaking nearly all ties with my slightly-less-than reliable pencil. While I didn't have the budget to acquire this heavenly new piece of technology, I was able to get my hands on an easy-to-use animation program that I plan on spending all of my free time utilizing. The exhibition hall ended up granting my second desire as I was able to wander freely and discover what companies were there to flaunt their feathers and all of their technological attachments.
It wasn't until the last day when my first and third goals- and prayers- were met. I had been wondering "out of all the people that would kill to be standing where I am now, why I am here? What is my purpose at this convention?" I had spent the week checking every available resource and that last day my question was answered. Clearly the verse "seek and you will find" has merit.
The Guerrilla Studio is one of the best exhibits available at SIGGRAPH and I hope there will never be a year when it goes without it. At said studio I was introduced to a woman who presented herself as an accomplished artist and a professor at a visual arts college. Taking a deep breath, I presented my dilemma to her;
"I am going to be a freshman in college at a small liberal arts school and I can't make heads or tails what I should be doing there. I love CG art, but I don't want to spend all day warming a seat and a keyboard as I type code for someone else's production." At least that was the gist of it. She had an amused smile on her face when she answered. The long and short of it was that I was in the right place. I had an art and computer science department open to my disposal. She recommended that I dabble in both, but get a broad liberal arts background to avoid the "sweatshop scene" of the twenty-first century. That day I walked out of the studio with three pieces of art, a light head and a feeling of confirmation. After roughly 6-12 months of anxiety and some six months of continuous confirmation (that I somehow failed to heed), I know that I was being strategically placed.
In the book entitled "My Life", SIGGRAPH may very well get its own chapter. I had decided before I arrived that I would have to return the following summer, such was my excitement. By the time it was over, that initial feeling of overwhelmed euphoria had multiplied exponentially. I am not the owner of a huge company, nor am I the computer science major endeavoring to change the face of the computer graphics world- yet. I am a city kid with (supposedly) a good head and a need for a clear direction that eventually leads up and into a place where I can make a difference, express myself, do what I love and enjoy the talent of others. Lastly, I want to find a place where I never stop learning and people come with volumes to teach. SIGGRAPH pointed out a door.
My experience at this year Siggraph Conference was great.
I was able to thoroughly enjoy myself, while at the same time, soak up as much information as I could in the various areas of the conference that I spent my time.
Bar far, my favorite part of the conference was the area called "immersing technologies." Some of the representatives show me some technological advances that I would have never imagined a mere possibility. One cool thing was a dance game that was based on your shadows. The computer analyzed my shadows, and unfortunately, informed me that my dance skills need work.
Another cool thing in immersing technologies was a human pong game. Instead of using paddles, we actually used our hands!!! This whole time, I though my XBOX was soo tech savvy, but my time spent in immersing technologies was a wonderful reality check for me.
My other favorite part of the conference was the "gorilla studio" which had a bunch of interactive programs available for use on the computer. I had a great time experimenting with some of the new programs available on Mac OS X. A also had fun creating a clay animation movie through the use of many slide puts together.
Thanks again for giving me the opportunity to participate in this great conference.


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Exchange through bilateral agreements
Students currently studying at one of the University of Oslo's international partner institutions may apply to become bilateral exchange students (bachelor or master level) for one or two semesters.
How to apply
To find out if you may apply to become a bilateral student at the University of Oslo (UiO), you must contact the international office at your home institution. You have to apply through your home university. Local procedures and deadlines will vary according to each institution.
All students must have a good command of English. Please see our web page about English proficiency requirements.
- UiO's partner institutions must nominate students in the University of Oslo online nomination system.
- Nominated students must then complete their application for exchange in the online application service for students (Søknadsweb).
Applications should be completed online well before:
- 15 October for the spring semester (January - June)
- 1 May for the autumn semester (August - December)
Letters of Admission will be available online in the middle of May for the autumn semester and in late October for the spring semester.
Courses in English
Bilateral students at the University of Oslo may choose from a wide range of courses offered in English.
The course descriptions give detailed information about each course, course content, when it's taught, the syllabus, examination form, etc. The list is updated for the coming semester in late November/mid-May.
Questions regarding courses must be directed to the relevant department or faculty. For questions concerning courses offered in other foreign languages than English, please contact the local international coordinator at your home university.
Norwegian language courses
Bilateral students at the University of Oslo may apply for Norwegian Language Courses on foundation and advanced level:
• Norwegian Language Courses at the Department of Linguistics and Scandinavian Studies. The credit value of these courses may be incorporated into a degree, if the courses are recognized by your home institution.
• Intensive Norwegian Language Courses in the summer offered through the International Summer School (ISS) at the University of Oslo. For further information, see The International Summer School (ISS)
• Free online, four-week, introductory foreign language course: Free online course: Introduction to Norwegian
Residence permit
- Applying for a student residence permit in Norway may take up to two months, so please start this process early.
- If you are not an EU/EEA citizen you should apply for a student residence permit immediately after you have received your admission letter. Remember that you may also have to apply for a visa to enter Norway.
If you for some reason are unable to start the process more than two months prior to your arrival, please note that bilateral exchange students to the University of Oslo may apply for a student residence permit within 7 days after arrival in Norway. However, you may still need to apply for a visa before you arrive, depending on your citizenship. For further information about visa and student residence permit procedures, please see residence permit
Student housing, arrival and orientation
Student housing must be booked before 1 June for the Autumn semester and 1 November for the Spring semester. We advice students to apply as early as possible to be guaranteed housing in one of the student residences.
Exchange students should arrive in Oslo the week before the start of the semester to ensure that they will be present for the orientation for new students. Please also see the Academic Calendar.
Most questions regarding practical issues are answered on our web pages for new international students.

subset: commoncrawl


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Update: there is a further post on this subject here. If Warren Buffett isn't really paying the corporate income tax then we should perhaps abolish the corporate income tax.
Warren Buffett's got a piece in the New York Times today. A piece in which he makes a very strange claim about the rate of tax that he pays.
Last year my federal tax bill — the income tax I paid, as well as payroll taxes paid by me and on my behalf — was $6,938,744. That sounds like a lot of money. But what I paid was only 17.4 percent of my taxable income — and that's actually a lower percentage than was paid by any of the other 20 people in our office. Their tax burdens ranged from 33 percent to 41 percent and averaged 36 percent.
What he says, with the qualifications he uses, is true as far as it goes. It is, however, extremely misleading, because he's left out the effect of the corporate income tax.
The Forbes E-book On Warren BuffettThe $59 Billion Philanthropist, chronicling 50 years of Buffett's investment savvy and unprecedented giving, is available now for download.
There are essentially two conceptual ways in which you can tax dividends. You can tax them as income to the people who collect them: this was the system in the UK, my home country and is effectively the system now. Or you can tax the profits at the corporate level and then dividends are tax free to the recipients. Several continental European countries use this system.
The United States is different: it has elements of both systems. First, corporate profits are subject to the corporate profits tax, some 35% currently as the headline rate. Then dividends are taxed again in the hands of the recipients at the rate of 15%. This means that the effective tax rate on Buffett's dividends from Berkshire Hathaway was not the 15% that he's using in his calculation above (the 2.4% to take the total to 17.4% is presumably referring to the capped social security taxes and the income tax on his salary, not dividends).
Assume there's $100 of profit which is to be paid in dividends under each of the systems.
In the UK dividends are paid out of post tax profit, as in the US. However, that tax that had been paid on the corporate profits becomes, to the dividend recipient, a tax credit. If you are a lower rate taxpayer no further tax is due on the dividends received. Only if you are a higher rate taxpayer do you pay tax on the dividends taking your tax rate up to the same as it would be from any other income. So if corporation tax is 28%, your tax rate on your dividends is 28%, already paid at the company level. Or if you're in the higher bands, 40 or 50%, just as with any other income (and yes it does get very much more complex but this is good enough) and made up of your paying further income tax on your received dividends.
There are tax systems where there is no tax on dividends at all: a higher corporate tax rate being used instead.
So in the UK system from $100 of profits that are to be paid as dividends the tax rate is 28% (the current corporate income tax rate), or $28, if you are a lower rate taxpayer or $40 ($28 at the company level, another $12 individually, at the very top, another $22) if you are a higher rate taxpayer. Tax rates of 28% or 40% or 50%, very similar to other income sources.
In the US system from our $100 first we take $35 at the corporate level. Then we take another $15, or the dividend tax rate of 15%, from the recipient. Giving us a tax rate of 50% on dividends. We've taken $50 from the total amount that was to be used to pay dividends.
As I say above, given the qualifications that Buffett uses he's correct: by including only federal personal income tax and payroll taxes his average tax rate is that 17.4%. But where he's made the queen disappear in this game of three card monte is in his ignoring the effect of the corporate income tax on his dividends. They're taxed at the corporate level before they're distributed, giving an average tax rate of more like 50% than the 17.4% he's quoting.
Buffett's made this argument before, several times in fact over the years. And each and every time he's called on it, people pointing out the logical trick that's being played. Yet he keeps making the same argument, no matter how many times the error is pointed out.
Is this politics or something?
Update: and of course how embarassing this is. I've just realised that Berkshire Hathaway doesn't in fact pay a dividend. So while the above is all true it's not true of his income from Berkshire Hathaway, for that is simply his salary and is taxed in the normal manner. In order to be paying 15% though he needs to be doing one of three things. Declaring much of his income as carried interest, which is unlikely, or having dividend or capital gains income from other investments. And either dividends or capital gains income from other investments are subject to the above critique. So it is still true that his ignoring of the corporate income tax is how he gets to his numbers.
And as to how we solve this little problem? Fortunately I wrote this up some years ago at another place.
Just send a check to:
Gifts to the United States
U.S. Department of the Treasury
Credit Accounting Branch
3700 East-West Highway, Room 6D37
Hyattsville, MD 20782
They'll be happy to cash it.
Update 2. My, my, aren't we getting a lot of angry people leaving comments.
Let me put this argument completely the other way around.
We know absolutely that companies do not pay the corporate income tax. Here's the standard textbook text on that. The burden falls on people, not legal entities. When this is pointed out we usually then get from the left side of the political aisle the comment that yes, OK, but it's the rich shareholders who really pay it, not the poor workers.
OK, so when we calculate the tax burden of the rich shareholders then we should include the corporate income tax in the taxes they pay then, shouldn't we?


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Cyberpower is a well-established manufacturer of gaming PCs, and its Media Centre HD represents the company's push into the high-definition arena. Question is, should Cyberpower have stayed in its comfort zone?
Opinions were divided when we unpacked the system. Some thought that the unusually shaped case was on the right side of stylish. Others saw it as a throwback to boxy Amstrad hi-fi units and top-loading VHS players.
What price Blu-ray?
Given the PC's pretty average specs and its lack of monitor, keyboard and mouse, you have to wonder why anyone would want to shell out almost £850 for it. The answer lies in the LiteOn LH-2B1S optical drive, which would cost around £400 to buy separately. That's the price you'll have to pay to play and burn Blu-ray discs. If you're not interested in this next-gen functionality, walk away now.
Those of you who want a PC with the power of Blu-ray to be the cornerstone of your lounge, and are happy with the Cyberpower's looks, will no doubt want the system to be seen and not heard. Guess again. Even if you use the controller to drop the fan speed to its lowest setting, the system still sounds like it's home to a family of mosquitoes. Such noise levels are fine for a workaday PC, but unacceptable for a media centre system.
It's not as if this is a high-powered PC that needs noisy cooling solutions, either. Yes, it's a dual-core system, but only of the second-string AMD variety, and there's not even the heat of a standalone graphics card to remove. At least the motherboard is a good choice for a media-centric PC: it's passively cooled and features a HDMI port for hooking up to a high-def TV.
Strip out the Blu-Ray drive and drop the price accordingly, and you've got the ideal enthuasist's backroom PC that ripe for upgrading. As it stands, Cyberpower's system needs a bit of a rethink.


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Matt & Nat
- 38427
Structured round backpack with adjustable straps with main zipper closure.
Interior: Zipper pocket, smartphone pocket, logo-embossed Vintage patch. 100% recycled nylon lining.
Dimensions: 12" L x 12" H x 4" W
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Our inventory may be subject to change, despite our best efforts to keep inventory accurate sometimes things get wacky. This rarely happens but, in the event, that it does, you will be notified shortly after placing your order and you will be refunded for the payment amount with profuse apologies.
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park city, salt lake city
how much fun can you have in a state where draft beer is limited to 4% abv? quite a lot, actually.
- I was a little skeptical flying into salt lake city for VG's bachelor party – with its oppressive alcohol laws, utah seemed the last place to find good beer. taps were limited, retail stores were scarce and state-run, and the rules surrounding the serving and consumption of beer and spirits seemed confusing and bizarre.
- however, once I touched down and started making the rounds, everything started to come together. a trip to squatter's pub yielded a somewhat anemic draft flight, but their bottled beers were not subject to strength limitations and left a great impression (specifically, their hop rising DIPA and outer darkness imperial stout).
- my situation only improved after leaving SLC for park city. our first stop in town was the local state liquor store, which had an outstanding variety of local beers from epic, squatter's, and uinta. over the course of the next few days we visited local watering holes like the middle-of-the-road wasatch brew pub and the world-class high west distillery.
- however, the most refreshing beers of the trip were consumed while enjoying the great outdoors. highlights included passing around a cold bottle of my dark house saison while playing unreal disc golf at solitude (with a pig roast at the end of the course!), tossing back some cold BMCs while on a four-hour river tubing ride, and nursing a bomber of epic's brainless on peaches while hitting some birdies at the canyons disc golf course.
- when it came time to leave (minus one disc and plus two bottles), I had a new-found appreciation for both the geography and beverages utah had to offer. now I gotta get back there when it's snowing!
Tags: disc golf, high west, park city, salt lake city, squatter's uinta, wasatch


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Many brokers continued to move between the wirehouses in the late summer and early fall. But a good number are also going independent and signing on with national firms that are on a strong growth trajectory, as indicated by the results of their second- and third-quarter recruiting drives.
Bank of America-Merrill Lynch recruited two advisors from Morgan Stanley Smith Barney and one from Wells Fargo in early September. Together, the three advisors oversee close to $340 million in client assets and more than $1.5 million in yearly fees and commissions.
Jonathan Brecht joined the company from Morgan Stanley and is based in Rockefeller Center in New York. He oversees nearly $130 million in assets. Jeff Chanin also moved to Merrill from MSSB and is based in Coral Springs, Fla., where he has roughly $100 million in assets and yearly fees and commissions of about $972,000.
Coming to Merrill from Wells Fargo was David Francis, who is based in Mequon, Wis. The advisor oversees roughly $110 million and has yearly production of close to $490,000.
Breakaway Brokers
These recruiting success stories came about one week after news that four Bank of America-Merrill Lynch teams had switched to the independent-advisor model by joining Dynasty Financial Partners and HighTower Advisors.
Chicago-based HighTower said that two Merrill teams joined its network, which is owned by about 75 advisors. Coming on board in Las Vegas are Anderson & Delutri and the MNA Group. They are the ninth and 10th teams in 2012 to join HighTower, which includes some 35 teams with about $20 billion in assets.
"These are two of the best advisor teams in this region, who both came to the same conclusion that HighTower is the future of the financial services industry, and they would be able to serve their clients as true fiduciaries by joining our partnership," said Mike Papedis, executive vice president of business development at HighTower, in a press release.
The principals of Anderson & Delutri—Hugh Anderson and Sheila Delutri—each spent more than 30 years at Merrill Lynch. They manage combined assets of $450 million.
The principals of MNA Group—Mike PeQueen, CFA, CFP; Ned Evans, CRPC; and Adam Thurgood, CFA—have a combined 60 years of experience in the financial services industry. They joined Merrill Lynch in 2002 after working for Prudential Securities and manage about $340 million in assets for clients with $2 million and more in investable assets.
New York-based Dynasty Financial said True Private Wealth Advisors has become the most recent independent investment advisory firm to join its growing network of advisor teams, bringing the total to 15 teams and about $13 billion in assets under management.
True Private Wealth Advisors came on board Dynasty in Salem, Ore., with four advisors and more than $300 million in assets. It comprises two teams who formerly with the Merrill Lynch Private Client Group, including branch manager Steve Altman. (The Davis/Altman Group and the Gescher/Herber Group will remain as two separate groups under the True Private Wealth Advisors banner.)
True Private Wealth Advisors is the 15th independent advisory firm to join Dynasty's wealth management platform and brings expertise in both commercial banking and private families to the Dynasty network of advisors.
"We think this multi-advisor partnership model is the next wave in the breakaway advisor movement," said Tim Bello, partner and director of strategic implementation at Dynasty, in a press release. "We are getting calls from groups of advisors and branch managers who want to start their own firms while keeping their individual team structures inside the new central brand."
While some Merrill Lynch advisors have been breaking away to go independent, the latest batch of Morgan Stanley departing advisors have chosen to keep their employee status. This includes the team of Edward Moldaver, formerly of Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, who joined Barclays in New York in September, as well as advisors Robert Ceccarelli and John Hursh, who left MSSB recently to become part of Ameriprise Financial.
Moldaver, who now reports to Mark Stevenson, managing director and regional manager for New York, moves with a team that includes Wayne Chrebet, a former New York Jets player, and James Lee.
"We are very pleased to welcome this talented team of wealth management professionals to our firm," said Mitch Cox, head of wealth management for Barclays in the Americas, in a press release. "Our unique combination of custom wealth management, rich intellectual capital and direct access to the global resources of Barclays continues to attract top-performing advisors, as well as their clients, who seek a world-class platform."
Moldaver comes to Barclays, which now includes about 250 advisors in the United States, with about 25 years of wealth-management experience; he is now a managing director at Barclays. At Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, which he joined in 2008, he founded the Moldaver 80 Group, a team of six wealth-management professionals.
Chrebet joins Barclays as an assistant vice president. He worked with Moldaver at MSSB for four years. Prior to joining the wealth management industry, Chrebet was with the National Football League and played 11 seasons for the New York Jets.
Also coming to Barclays as an assistant vice president is James Lee, who previously was with Moldaver and the MSSB team, as well as with Bear Stearns' Private Wealth Client Services Group. Barclays says it has 13 U.S. offices and $275 billion in assets under management worldwide in the Wealth and Investment Management division.
Ameriprise Additions
Ameriprise Financial said it added advisors Ceccarelli and John Hursh from MSSB recently. The two advisors have formed a team with total assets of some $150 million. They each have about $475,000 in yearly fees and commissions. They have joined Ameriprise as employee advisors and are located in New Haven, Conn.
In late August, Ameriprise added two teams in New Jersey and said it's on track for a strong recruiting season in the second half of 2012. "We beefed up the recruiting organization at the beginning of the year by expanding the number of regional directors from 11 to 17," said Manish Dave, senior vice president of advisor recruiting, in an interview.
"Ameriprise is actively investing resources in bringing more financial advisors into both [the independent/franchisee and employee] channels," Dave explained. These efforts include increased marketing and spending, along with stepped-up efforts to bring more reps to Minneapolis for due diligence discussions.
"Results for 2012 so far show that Ameriprise is very successful at attracting advisors from all different segments of industry—wirehouses, independents and regional firms—given our multichannel approach and capabilities," he noted.
John Lupi joined from Wells Fargo with more than $100 million in client assets and several professionals who make up Client First Financial in Colts Neck, N.J., while James Marchesi & Associates came on board from LPL Financial with about $115 million in AUM; Marchesi and his partner do business as Mill Ridge Wealth Management.
The two advisor teams are now part of Ameriprise's independent or franchisee channel. This channel included 7,492 advisors as of June 30, while 2,311 reps were in the employee channel.
In addition to the independent channel, the firm's employee channel is "well positioned to take advantage of displacement in the wirehouse, 'bankhouse' space, as I call it. It is enjoying large levels of growth, as well," Dave said. "Having multiple platforms is our strength, and we leave it to [advisors] to decide which platform is right for them."
Indie Growth
Independent Financial Partners of Tampa, Fla., an independent RIA that uses LPL Financial as its broker-dealer, said it brought on 45 financial advisors in the second quarter. Plus, the RIA network had a 53% increase in revenue in Q2 compared with the year-ago period.
Year to date, the firm says, it has boosted its advisor force by more than 50% over the total number of advisors who joined the firm during all of 2011. It now has close to 500 advisors and was the largest RIA firm in Florida, according to SEC data from May.
IFP says it increased its total revenue by 300% last year and insists it "is on track for another year of massive expansion." Recent additions to the independent RIA and LPL affiliate include nine advisors from Peregrine Diversified Investments of Dallas, who produce about $1.9 million in yearly revenue. Also, eight advisors joined from VALIC in Florida.
Over the past few months, other reps have come on board from Wells Fargo, Northwestern Mutual, Morgan Stanley, Raymond James, Securities America, Lincoln, John Hancock, SunTrust, Edward Jones, Girard Securities, Met Life and Ameriprise, among other firms.
Janney's Push
Janney Montgomery Scott said in late August that it recruited an advisor from UBS with more than $100 million in assets. This brings its total number of recruits for the past eight months to 25, many of whom moved to Janney from the wirehouses.
As of late August, Janney had 735 employee financial advisors with $54 billion in assets under management. The broker-dealer is part of Penn Mutual Life Insurance.


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A new and possibly more contentious phase of the Lower Manhattan rebuilding effort is now beginning, as formal environmental reviews for key elements of the unprecedented reconstruction projects move into the spotlight.
In October, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation is scheduled to release a draft environmental impact statement, covering its proposed plan for a memorial and for the redevelopment of the World Trade Center site. That document will trigger a formal period of public comment, as well as public hearings, that are likely to focus on key details of the redevelopment plan for the 16 acre site that had been home to the twin towers until they were destroyed in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
Meanwhile, the environmental review of a separate but related project -- the reconstruction and possible underground tunneling for West Street, which runs along the trade center's western edge -- is also expected to gain increased public scrutiny this fall.
As decision-makers begin their formal environmental reviews -- theoretically before making important design decisions about the redevelopment project and the adjacent roadway rebuilding -- the possibilities for conflict between environmental and civic groups on the one hand, and commercial interests on the other, seem increasingly likely.
Public attention will of course continue to be centered on the planned memorial and redevelopment at the 16 acre World Trade Center site itself. The formal environmental review of this project is being coordinated by the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, a subsidiary of the Empire State Development Corporation, although the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, Governor George Pataki, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and others will play key behind-the-scenes roles.
The "proposed action" that is the subject of the forthcoming draft environmental impact statement includes a World Trade Center memorial and related improvements, up to 10 million square feet of office space, up to 1 million square feet of retail space, up to 1 million square feet of conference center and hotel facilities, as well as additional open space and cultural facilities.
Earlier this year, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation outlined its planned review process, listing the 14 city, state, bi-state and federal permits or approvals that may be required for whatever project is ultimately built on the trade center site. And it summarized the topics that the environmental impact statement will discuss, including among other things expected impacts on open space and recreational facilities, neighborhood character, traffic, noise, air quality and waste disposal.
The environmental study will also identify adverse consequences from the proposed project, discuss alternatives to the proposed action and describe mitigation measures that could minimize environmental harm.
In accordance with state and federal environmental laws, this environmental study will be released in draft form and be the subject of a formal public review period. After that, the development corporation will respond to comments and possibly modify elements of the analysis and the project before issuing a final environmental impact statement, seeking permits and approvals for the project and beginning actual construction.
The final environmental review is projected to be completed, in an accelerated process, sometime early next year. Governor George Pataki has announced plans for groundbreaking ceremonies to take place in September 2004.
The development agency received wide-ranging reaction to its plan. One major concern of environmental and civic advocates is that the environmental study as currently designed will not examine options that would reduce the amount of office space to be created at the trade center site. The proposed 10 million square feet of office space has been a cornerstone of leaseholder Larry A. Silverstein's plans for rebuilding.
"The program for office space and retail space should be developed in light of the total needs for office space and retail for Lower Manhattan," representatives of the Civic Alliance wrote in its formal response, "not according to leaseholder obligations to rebuild an office complex that dates back to the 1960s and embodies assumptions about urban revitalization vintage to that era." The Civic Alliance recommended that the environmental impact statement "evaluate...options for significantly less amounts of office and retail, and greater amounts of cultural, civic and open space" at the 16 acre site.
Another concern, once the rebuilding is under way, is how solid waste from the redeveloped trade center site (and the rest of Lower Manhattan) will be managed, and where energy needed for the new development will be generated. Environmental justice advocates warn that the redevelopment project should not place additional environmental burdens on other city neighborhoods.
A good plan for Lower Manhattan means a plan that will not require the building of yet another power plant or solid waste management facility in a poor neighborhood in order to meet the greater demands, says Gail Suchman, an attorney at New York Lawyers For the Public Interest, who represents the Organization of Waterfront Neighborhoods and other community groups.
"We hope and expect that this new project will be a world-class model for green building and energy efficiency," says Ashok Gupta, energy expert at the Natural Resources Defense Council (where I work). Gupta and other advocates note that the development corporation's plans promise that they will "consider" green building and sustainability principles in the environmental review. But energy specialists caution that unless a strong set of such design guidelines are incorporated into the draft environmental impact statement, the prospects for making this new development a show-case for energy-efficiency would dim considerably.
Environmental and civic groups are also urging that the environmental review analyze "truckless goods delivery" for the trade center site and study incentives to reduce traffic, encourage walking and reduce pollution in and around the site. Many of these organizations also remain concerned that environmental review for the trade center site explicitly take into account the separate environmental reviews being conducted for other closely-linked projects (e.g., the permanent PATH station , the Fulton Street transit center, the West Street reconstruction) to insure that these projects do not proceed in isolation and that the cumulative impacts of the combined projects are fully analyzed.
In response to these and other challenges, the staff of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation remains optimistic.
"We were not surprised by the substantive points in the comments we received and we are going to explore alternatives that consider additional areas for commercial development outside of the 16 acre site," says LMDC Counsel Irene Cheng.
But the recent report that two insurance companies -- Allianz and AXA -- may block plans to demolish the damaged Deutsche Bank building, just south of the Trade Center site, could further complicate any proposal to disperse office and retail space beyond the 16 acres.
"As this is hardly a routine development project," the Bar Association's Task Force the environmental review process should not be viewed as routine."
On a different track, and outside of the public limelight, the New York State Department of Transportation is advancing a plan to reconstruct West Street (also known as route 9A) and to replace it with a covered tunnel that could cost up to $860 million.
At a recently held but little-publicized "public information" session, state transportation officials presented their plan for an underground bypass tunnel to be built -- during a five year construction period -- as a replacement for West Street. The only other option that would be considered by the transportation department in its environmental review process is a "no-build" alternative. Transportation officials suggested that the massive tunnel project would create a park-like setting above ground, provide more space for pedestrians and accommodate increased visitors.
But in contrast to the openness that environmental and civic groups believe the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation has displayed as that agency has advanced its redevelopment and memorial work, the State Department Of Transportation's environmental review plans for the West Street project have come under sharp criticism.
As things now stand, the state transportation department will conduct no public scoping process for its environmental review (since it claims only to be preparing a "supplemental" environmental impact statement to an eight year old environmental review document). The agency does not plan to study any low-scale alternatives to the tunnel project. Nor does the state believe it must even hold a public hearing when it releases its supplemental draft environmental impact statement next year.
Not surprisingly, public opposition is mounting. Local elected officials, including Representative Jerrold Nadler, Assemblymember Deborah Glick, and City Councilmember Alan Gerson, are expressing skepticism. And in a July 31st letter to State Transportation Commissioner Joseph Boardman, six transportation and environmental organizations -- Coalition to Save West Street, NYPIRG Straphangers' Campaign, Tri-State Transportation Campaign, Enviornmental Defense, NRDC and Tranportation Alternatives -- criticized both the process and the substance of the West Street reconstruction project.
Of course, the new State DOT plan for Route 9A is not the first time engineers have sought to address traffic issues along Manhattan's west side.
In the l930's master planner Robert Moses sought to advance his "West Side Improvement" project, including a five-mile expressway from the southern tip of Manhattan to 72nd Street. The story is recounted by Robert Caro is his award-winning biography of Robert Moses: "The Powerbroker."
"The West Side Improvement had two purposes," Mr.Caro writes: "to reclaim Manhattan's waterfront for its people, and to alleviate Manhattan's traffic congestion. It was to achieve these purposes that Robert Moses spent an incredibly large sum of money."
"But despite that expenditure -- all but inconceivable in terms of urban spending of that era -- the first of the two purposes was achieved only in part, " Mr.Caro concludes. "(I)nstead of reclaiming the waterfront for Manhattan's people, the West Side Improvement deprived them of it. And the second of the two purposes was not achieved at all."
With that history in mind, environmental and transportation groups are now gearing up for a fall campaign to secure a full-scale environmental review of the State Department of Transportation proposal for reconstructing West Street.
Eric Goldstein is co-director of the urban program at the Natural Resources Defense Council.


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HOUSTON — With the bases loaded in the second inning Matt Dominguez's long fly ball came up just short and was caught for a sacrifice fly.
When he had a second chance with the bases loaded again in the seventh, he didn't miss.
Dominguez hit a grand slam and drove in a career-high five runs to back another solid performance by Jordan Lyles, and the Houston Astros rolled to a 10-1 win over the Milwaukee Brewers on Tuesday night.
"I just missed the pitch," Dominguez said of the second inning. "I was fortunate with the same opportunity later. I got a good pitch to hit — put a good swing on it. So it's definitely a pretty good feeling."
Carlos Pena had a three-run homer and Chris Carter had two hits and drove in a run as the Astros won for the fifth time in six games.
The Astros have outscored their opponents 27-10 in the five wins in that span, an encouraging sign for this young team that has sputtered on offense this season.
"I think this is what we're capable of doing," Pena said. "I'm not talking about scoring 10 runs, but putting nice runs support up for our pitchers. If they go and do what they are supposed to and give us a quality start then we have a chance to win. Today is one of the days that we show our potential as a team. It definitely feels good to see it actually happen."
The 22-year-old Lyles (4-1) yielded seven hits and one run over seven innings. It was his seventh straight start with two or less earned runs, which is the longest such streak in the American League this season.
Manager Bo Porter has been impressed with the development of Lyles, who started the season in Triple-A.
"It didn't look like he even had his best stuff, but that was a great example of the maturity that has taken place with Jordan Lyles," he said. "Being able to go seven innings and not really have his A stuff and just able to make quality pitch after quality pitch and grind his way through seven innings was really good to see."
The Astros were up by one in the fifth when Pena broke an 0 for 17 skid when he launched his home run to chase Milwaukee starter Alfredo Figaro and extend the lead to 5-1. Dominguez's first career grand slam was off Tom Gorzelanny and came in Houston's five-run seventh.
Figaro (1-1) was unable to build on his last start when he pitched seven shutout innings in a win over Miami. He allowed five hits and four runs in a season-low 4 1-3 innings.
Milwaukee manager Ron Roenicke was unhappy with his team's defensive and pitching errors, but he was perhaps most upset by its inability to take advantage of opportunities on offense.
"We have chances and we don't get people in," he said of his team, which went three for 8 with runners in scoring position. "And that ball game is a lot different if we drive in the people when we have the opportunities to do it."
Dominguez entered the game in a 0-for-7 slump before using his two hits to drive in five runs and give him 40 RBIs this season to pass Carter for the team lead. He has 10 homers in his last 35 games after not homering in his first 33 games this season.
Porter has been impressed with the offensive improvement of Dominguez this season, even though he's hitting just .236.
"You look at the batting average and many people talk about average but this guy has been productive," he said. "It's somewhere close to 40 RBIs, 10 home runs and Gold Glove (caliber) third base. That's a pretty good baseball player."
J. D. Martinez reached on third baseman Yuniesky Betancourt's second error of the game with one out in the seventh. Carter hit an RBI double off Burke Badenhop and he was replaced by Gorzelanny.
Gorzelanny struggled with control from the outset, plunking Pena before walking Justin Maxwell on four pitches to load the bases for Dominguez.
Dominguez gave Houston its first grand slam of the season when he hit a drive into the Crawford Boxes in left field.
Houston's big offensive night got started when Martinez singled to start the second. Dominguez later hit a sacrifice fly.
Juan Francisco started the Milwaukee third with a triple which bounced on Tal's Hill in center field. The Brewers tied it with a single by Scooter Gennett.
Jean Segura and Carlos Gomez hit back-to-back singles to load the bases with one out, but Lyles retired the next two batters to limit the damage.
Maxwell, in his first game back after breaking his left hand on April 23, walked and reached third on a single by Dominguez in the fourth. The Astros took a 2-1 lead when he scored on a bunt by Marwin Gonzalez.
Gomez made an acrobatic catch on the hill in center field to rob Jason Castro of a hit in the seventh inning.
NOTES: Castro celebrated his 26th birthday on Tuesday. ... The series continues on Wednesday when Milwaukee's Kyle Lohse opposes Erik Bedard. ... The Astros traded minor league OF Fernando Martinez to the New York Yankees for minor league RHP Charles Basford.


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© -
Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.
"I first heard Ed Bickert on a record with Paul Desmond and I immediately thought, 'Wow! Who's is that? It was such great harmonic playing.'"
- Lorne Lofsky, Jazz guitarist
"Edward Isaac Bickert in never one to blow his own horn – figuratively – he is one of the most modest and unassuming men in Jazz. But literally – he blows up a storm …."
- Frank Rutter, The Vancouver Sun
"Bickert's self effacing style masks a keen intelligence. His deceptively soft tone is the front for a shrewd, unexpectedly attacking style that treats bebop tempos with the same equanimity as a swing-styled ballad."
-Richard Cook & Brian Morton, The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, 6th Ed.
"Lorne Lofsky is a talented cool-toned guitarist in the tradition of Jimmy Raney and his fellow Canadian Ed Bickert …."
- Scott Yanow, allmusic.com
I have no idea why, but Charlie Parker's Ah-Leu-Cha has always been among my favorite Bebop compositions.
With its theme stated as a staggered interaction between the two horns – what might be considered as countermelody phrasing – the tune is as much fun to play on as it is to listen to.
It's a tune that is only rarely heard and not often recorded. Allmusic.com lists 89 versions of Ah-Leu-Cha many of which are alternate versions by Charlie "Bird" Parker and Miles Davis, who was a member of Bird's group in 1948 when the tune was first recorded.
Jack Chambers, in his seminal work, Milestones: The Music and Times of Miles Davis [NY: William Morrow, 1983/85] explains that Ah-Leu-Cha was included as one of four tunes recorded in October 1955 when the Miles Davis Quintet consisting of Miles, John Coltrane on tenor saxophone, Red Garland on piano, Paul Chambers on bass and Philly Joe Jones made their recording debut for Columbia Records.
Jack goes on to explain:
"Ah-Leu-Cha is Parker's tune, recorded by Davis and Parker in the last days of the original Parker quintet, in 1948; it had hardly been played at all since then by anyone, and
seems to have removed it from his quintet's repertoire after the first few months. It deserved a better fate, probably, because it is an affecting up-tempo melody based on a counterpoint chase by the two horns. On this version, Philly Joe Jones plays the melody at the bridge, and Davis solos coolly while the rhythm blasts around him." [p. 224] Davis
The next time I heard Miles play Ah-Leu-Cha was on a recording that Columbia made in performance at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival with his famous sextet that included Julian "Cannonball" Adderley on alto sax, Coltrane on tenor, Bill Evans on piano, Paul Chambers on bass and Jimmy Cobb on drums.
Remarkably, this stellar group's performance of Ah-Leu-Cha at the 1958 NJF was a disappointment mainly because Miles counted it out at a ridiculously fast tempo that made a hash of the intrinsic qualities of the tune.
As Jack Chambers describes it: "The sextet's performance is substandard.
' most conspicuous contribution comes in tapping out overzealous tempos on all tunes, including a breakneck tempo on Ah-Leu-Cha that reduces the ensemble to shambles." [p. 288] Davis
Miles would make a habit of such "overzealous tempos;" witness what he did over the years with the tempos he counted out to So What, first heard with a slow, lopping beat on the classic Kind of Blue album.
Ah-Leu-Cha needs room to breath. Although it is structured around a basic, 32-bar AABA format, with the "A's" based on the changes to Honeysuckle Rose and the "B" using I Got Rhythm changes, the counterpoint manner in which the melody is fashioned has to have room for the countermelodies to be expressed.
Over the years, I heard a few other versions of Ah-Leu-Cha, most notably one which has Art Farmer on trumpet on Italian pianist Enrico Pieranunzi's Isis CD, but I pretty much left the tune alone after Miles trashed it at the 1958 NJF.
Much to my delight, I recently rediscovered its allure while revisiting Ed Bickert's playing of it with fellow guitarist Lorne Lofsky on their This is New Concord Jazz CD [4414] with Neil Swainson on bass and Jerry Fuller on drums.
Ed and Lorne play Ah-Leu-Cha at a medium tempo that allows its intricacies to nicely come together while, at the same time, setting up a platform for some interesting improvisations on the tune's familiar changes.
Have a listen and see what you think of Ah-Leu-Cha as I've included Ed and Lorne's interpretation of this all-too-infrequently heard bebop tune as the audio track on the following video [Ed takes the first solo each time around].


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Millefiori Quilts 3 by Willyne Hammerstein
After the international success of her first two books, Willyne Hammerstein is back in this third volume of Millefiori with awealth of 18 new quilts.
In this work she continues to explore the richness of the Passacaglia design in brilliant compositions that are skillfully colored; her imagination has no bounds!
164 pages / Book available in English OR in French / Ref. : WH3
18 projects
ERRATUM: Missing template in Millefiori 3
On page 152, for the quilt "The Battle of the Stars", template K is missing. You can download it HERE.
We apologize for this oversight and wish you happy quilting!


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Meet Our Staff
District 5 is home to 50 registered neighborhood associations and neighborhood organizations. Though many are not active year-round, the majority of neighborhood associations organize and participate in monthly activities.
Most neighborhood associations in District 5 are within City of Tucson limits. Call our office, and we will be happy to direct you to the appropriate program or department - within the jurisdiction of Pima County or the City of Tucson.
For a list of neighborhoods in District 5, click here.
Visit us on Facebook and stay updated with District 5 news.
Robert Hooker
Lorraine Lee
Art Ruff
Bob Mora
Raquel Rubio Goldsmith
Rudy Garcia
Albert Soto
Sister Clare Dunn
Barclay Goldsmith
Supervisorial District 5 & Voting Precincts
Supervisorial Districts
Supervisorial Districts & Voting Precincts
Congressional Districts
Legislative Districts
Pima County, Arizona
District 5
130 W. Congress St. 11th Fl.
Tucson, AZ 85701
Phone: (520) 724-8126
Fax: (520) 884-1152


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You want to have a certain portion of your site available via SSL exclusively.
This is done by making changes to your httpd.conf file.
For Apache 1.3, add a line such as the following:
Redirect /secure/ https://secure.domain.com/secure/
For Apache 2.0:
<Directory /www/secure> SSLRequireSSL </Directory>
Or, with mod_rewrite:
RewriteEngine On RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !=on RewriteRule ^/(.*) https://%{SERVER_NAME}/$1 [R,L]
It is perhaps best to think of your site's normal pages and its SSL-protected pages as being handled by two separate servers, rather than one. While they may point to the same content, they run on different ports, are configured differently, and, most importantly, the browser considers them to be completely separate servers. So you should too.
Don't think of enabling SSL for a particular directory; rather, you should think of it as redirecting requests for one directory to another.
Note that the Redirect directive preserves path information, which means that if a request is made for /secure/something.html, then the redirect will be to https://secure.domain.com/secure/something.html.
Be careful where you put this directive. Make sure that you only put it in the HTTP (non-SSL) virtual host declaration. Putting it in the global section of the config file may cause looping, as the new URL will match the Redirect requirement and get redirected itself.
Finally, note that if you want the entire site to be available only via SSL, you can accomplish this by simply redirecting all URLs, rather than a particular directory:
Redirect / https://secure.domain.com/
Again, be sure to put that inside the non-SSL virtual host declaration.
You will see various solutions proposed for this situation using RedirectMatch or various RewriteRule directives. There are special cases where this is necessary, but in most cases, the simple solution offered here works just fine.
It it important to understand that this Redirect must appear only in the non-SSL virtual host, otherwise it will create a condition where the Redirect will loop. This implies that you do in fact have the HTTP (non-SSL) site set up as a virtual host. If you do not, you may need to set it up as one in order to make this recipe successful.
Thus, the entire setup might look something like this:
NameVirtualHost * <VirtualHost *> ServerName regular.example.com DocumentRoot /www/docs Redirect /secure/ https://secure.example.com/secure/ </VirtualHost> <VirtualHost _default_:443> SSLEngine On SSLCertificateFile /www/conf/ssl/ssl.crt SSLCertificateKeyFile /www/conf/ssl/ssl.key ServerName secure.example.com DocumentRoot /www/docs </VirtualHost>
This is, of course, an oversimplified example and is meant only to illustrate the fact that the Redirect must appear only in the non-SSL virtualhost to avoid a redirection loop.
The other two solutions are perhaps more straightforward, although they each have a small additional requirement for use.
The second recipe listed, using SSLRequireSSL, will work only if you are using Apache 2.0. It is a directive added specifically to address this need. Placing the SSLRequireSSL directive in a particular <Directory> section will ensure that non-SSL accesses to that directory are not permitted.
The third recipe, using RewriteCond and RewriteRule directives, requires that you have mod_rewrite installed and enabled. Using the RewriteCond directive to check if the client is already using SSL, the RewriteRule is invoked only if they are not; in which case, the request is redirected to a request for the same content but using HTTPS instead of HTTP.
See Also


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About the ProductTraditional Japanese and Scandinavian design elements are brought together to create the Smile Collection. The design proves that lightness can be dynamic. Strength is obtained from the precise form and fluid structure, locked in a manner that makes this stool very resistant and durable. Smile offers stacking chairs, armchairs and stools with beech frame and back and oak or upholstered seat. The stool comes in different options with spindle back, veneered panel back or backless.
The BrandMore about this Brand
Andreu World since its establishment 65 years ago in Valencia Spain, has developed into a company capable of responding to the high standards and quality levels required to supply a rigorous international market for both the residential and contract market. This includes using only FSC certified timbers. The success of the company owes much to applying technological advances to their traditional chair making skills to achieve a quality product that respects and reinterprets the shapes and ideas of yesterday with original designs. There are over 60 collections available, inclusive of a comprehensive range of armchairs, dining chairs, sofa chairs, bar stools and tables.
Environmental Performance


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With only a couple of days to count down to the Jewish holidays, its time to start thinking about a creative table setting.If you would like to add some down to earth homemade creativity to your holiday table then these do it yourself napkin rings will add a touch of elegance without making much of a dent in your wallet! Don't forget that you can match the ribbon to your holiday table setting theme whether it be Rosh Hashanah, Sukkot, Tu Bishvat, Chanuka, Purim or Passover!
Gather round the kids or any extra hands in the house, and you will be done in a jiffy.
You will need:
- Several cardboard paper towel rolls.
- Choose about 3 yards of an elegant ribbon about 1 1/2 inches wide to make about 24 napkin rings.
- Choose a matching solid ribbon to line the inside of your paper towel holder.
- Choose a thin metallic ribbon (I chose a silver thin ribbon to match my moroccan style ribbon)
- Buy double sided fabric tape. (I found that fabric glue can be very messy)
How to:
1-Cut your paper towel holder into equal sizes about 1/4 inch narrower than your ribbon, marking your "cut" lines with a pencil beforehand.
2- Measure and cut the ribbon to fit around the perimeter of the cardboard holder overlapping slightly. The overlap will be the underside of your napkin ring.
3- Line the inside of your napkin ring with the matching ribbon (It doesn't matter which step you do first)
4- Cover the overlap edges with the narrow matching ribbon, and glue with krazy glue.
5- You can mix blues and vary your hues……. -
6- Slide in a pretty flower, layer over a pretty salad plate….
7- You can even layer your place settings over two table runners set across from each other.
This Moroccan style table runner is from Kim Seybert.
Related articles
- Fold Your Linen Napkins in the "Bow" Fold for Your Holiday Table- Plus a great Hostess Gift! (thejewishhostess.com)
- Impressive and Modern Rosh Hashanah Table Traditions by Kineret Spector (thejewishhostess.com)
- How to Make Summery Napkin Rings- Cheap and Chic! (thejewishhostess.com)
- Table Setting Showcase Event: An Ocean Blue Shabbat Table by Eva Ben Dayan (thejewishhostess.com)
- More Elegant Unique Table Settings and Ideas for Rosh Hashanah (thejewishhostess.com)
- Apricot Almond Cookies with Amaretto Icing (thejewishhostess.com)