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More than a decade ago a group of New York City residents launched an ambitious experiment to build a park atop an expanse of abandoned elevated freight train tracks. Today the High Line, which opened in 2009, provides locals, commuters and tourists with more than a kilometer of green space several meters above the urban bustle below. Emboldened by the project's success, a team of designers and engineers has proposed the polar opposite idea: transform a deserted underground trolley depot into a haven for leisurely recreation.
New Yorkers are getting a glimpse this month of what the Lowline park might look like thanks to an exhibit demonstrating technology that channels enough sunlight to subterranean spaces to support plant life. The exhibit—on display September 15–27—features a skylight that delivers the sun's energy from an outdoor solar collector to an indoor canopy for distribution. Living below the aluminum canopy is an impressive array of flora specially chosen for its ability to thrive in low light.
Lowline organizers are pitching the park as a space covering more than 5,500 square meters with a five-meter-high ceiling. The park, which would feature art exhibits and food vendors alongside the subterraneous photosynthesis, would inhabit the former Williamsburg Trolley Terminal, which opened in 1903 as a depot for streetcars ferrying passengers between Brooklyn's Williamsburg neighborhood and Manhattan's Lower East Side. The terminal has been abandoned since the city discontinued trolley service in 1948.
Given the absence of ambient natural light, "remote skylight" technology developed by Lowline co-founder James Ramsey will be critical to the park's success. The remote skylight will use a reflective, parabolic solar collection dish outdoors to gather and concentrate sunlight. This dish will have a tracking mechanism so it can follow the sun across the sky. Fiber-optic cable will transmit captured solar radiation to the park; a series of domelike fixtures will use lenses and reflectors to distribute the light throughout the Lowline.
The fiber-optic cables will allow Lowline organizers to set up as many remote skylight fixtures as they like, says industrial designer Edward Jacobs, who is working with Ramsey's Raad Studios as a consultant on the project.
The exhibit's lighting setup differs somewhat from the envisioned Lowline scheme. Because the exhibit is in an aboveground warehouse, it collects sunlight on the roof and channels the rays directly through a circular array of six tubes into the building—no fiber optics needed. The tubes, each of which is about 53 centimeters in diameter and contains an arrangement of mirrors and lenses, send sunlight down to three hexagonal reflector shields hanging from the center of the circle. These shields bounce the light back up to a 10.5-meter-wide reflective canopy surrounding the tubes, disbursing light on a cluster of vegetation below.
Jacobs sees the Lowline as an extension of city residents' efforts to make use of abandoned space to improve their environment through parks, gardens and other environmentally friendly projects. Eventually one could envision New York's densely populated urban spaces on the street level being sandwiched between green spaces on rooftops and underground, he says.
In terms of the underground greenery, organizers have yet to determine exactly which types of plants will be featured in the park. The exhibit includes a variety of vegetation that thrives in low light, says environmental designer Misty Gonzalez, founder of Hortus Environmental Design, who arranged the plant life on display. This vegetation includes many species that typically live under forest canopies, including nonvascular plants (moss, in particular), Japanese spurge (Pachysandra terminalis), autumn fern (Dryopteris erythrosora), lilyturf (Liriope muscari), Korean rock fern (Polystichum tsus-simense), pearl oyster mushrooms (Pleurotus ostreatus), along with a Japanese maple tree (Acer palmatum).
Gonzalez acknowledges that an underground garden would bring challenges beyond adequate lighting, including those related to irrigation and possibly pest control. "We're introducing an element that will create its own ecosystem within the Lowline," she says, adding that this ecosystem would likely include insects such as centipedes and millipedes. As with the rest of the Lowline, the details still need to be worked out, including how any fluctuations in lighting—thanks either to varying outdoor conditions or the sunlight delivery equipment—might impact the plants over time.
Ramsey and Lowline co-founder Daniel Barasch still need permission from the city and the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority—which owns the trolley depot—to actually construct the park, a process they estimate could take between five and eight years based on how long it took the High Line to go from the drawing board to a major attraction. Given the limited number of parks the city has to offer, urbanites no doubt will appreciate any new green space offered, even if it runs alongside a subway line.
View images of the Lowline exhibit and proposed park.
Tunnel Vision: Subterranean Park to Stay Sunny with Fiber-Optic Skylights [Slide Show]
The proposed "Lowline" in New York City would transform an abandoned belowground trolley depot into a recreational public space complete with lush flora
More than a decade ago a group of New York City residents launched an ambitious experiment to build a park atop an expanse of abandoned elevated freight train tracks. Today the High Line, which opened in 2009, provides locals, commuters and tourists with more than a kilometer of green space several meters above the urban bustle below. Emboldened by the project's success, a team of designers and engineers has proposed the polar opposite idea: transform a deserted underground trolley depot into a haven for leisurely recreation.


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Taste of Yaletown begins on October 17th and runs through until October 25th.
This is an excellent opportunity to sample some of Yaletown's finest cuisine at a very affordable price, it will also be a great time to check out one of Vancouver's more trendy and modern neighborhood. It is an area that fuses its old historic roots when it was known as an area comprise mainly of industry and warehouses. Today it has been transformed into a trendy, upscale and very modern community in the South East corner of the downtown area of Vancouver.
Its a great place to dine out and see where some of Vancouver's most well know chefs are creating some amazing food…this is a great time to sample and savour the food on offer at a great price too.
This link will take you directly to the menu's on offer at 'Taste of Yaletown'.
Yaletown has gone through quite the transformation over the last decade or so, and especially in the last few years, it really seems to have found its own identity and character that makes this place its own. Not only are there fantastic restaurants to choose from, there is also trendy boutique clothing stores to visit and lots of Art too. Many of the older buildings that are historic and beautiful are now home to some great Art Galleries.
Yaletown is also home to The Roundhouse Theatre and and the Vancity Theatre which is home to the Vancouver International Film Festival, here you can see some great performances from the world of performing Arts and Film.
Check out the websites for both Theatre's here and see what is happening over the next month and beyond…
For further information on Food related events in Vancouver, Vancouver Island and the Okanagan region, please check this great site, called Wine and Dine BC.


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The Hawkins Law Firm
Welcome to The Hawkins Law Firm. Our firm assists individuals, families and businesses in eight key areas. By focusing on family law, estate planning, probate law, business law, criminal law, litigation, mediation and appellate advocacy, our firm is able to provide excellent legal services to a broad range of clients. Our focused approach eliminates the outdated practice model of trying to be all things to all people. Instead, we strive to be your guide through complex issues and problems in areas that matter most to you.
Lana Hawkins, the firm's founder and senior partner, was recognized as a Top 10 Best Attorney for Client Satisfaction by The American Institute of Family Law Attorneys in 2015. She was also recognized as a Top 100 Family Lawyer by ASLA in 2014 and by The National Advocates in 2015. The American Academy of Trial Attorneys named Ms. Hawkins as a Top 100 Trial Attorney in the state of Alabama in 2015. Ms. Hawkins works with a team of attorneys, law clerks, paralegals and administrative staff to ensure that the firm's work is produced with clarity and efficiency at every stage of representation. The firm's three offices are located in Guntersville, AL, Huntsville, AL and Arab, AL. The firm represents clients throughout Marshall and surrounding counties, including DeKalb, Etowah, Jackson, Madison, Morgan, Cullman, Limestone and Blount.
We are here to help individuals and families in divorce and modification matters, custody and child support issues, paternity adjudications, dependency cases, adoption, domestic violence and other criminal law matters. We also assist our clients with estate planning matters, ranging from wills and trusts to health care directives, powers of attorney and incapacity planning. Our probate law practice includes estate administration, conservatorships, guardianships, will contests and estate litigation. For entrepreneurs and business people who need assistance in business and corporate law matters, the firm offers a wealth of experience. The firm's litigation, mediation and appellate advocacy practices complement its key areas and also include most civil proceedings.
The Hawkins Law Team is committed to serving the firm's clients with excellence and enthusiasm. Our practice model has proved successful through years of hard work and client satisfaction. In today's rapidly changing world, the law has become complex and confusing to navigate. Let us be your guide when you are faced with issues that require legal representation and advice. We look forward to meeting you and assisting you with your legal needs. When our work touches your life, we want the results to make a difference!


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February 15, 2012
K-State Wind Ensemble in concert tonight
The K-State Wind Ensemble will present a concert at 7:30 tonight in McCain Auditorium.
This concert will feature the Wind Ensemble will special guest composer and pianist Carter Pann performing his new work 'Richard and Renée.' guest clarinetists Tod Kerstetter and Jeff Pelischek will perform a rock inspired piece called 'Freebirds' by composer Scott McAllister. Also featured will be the guest ensemble, Blue Valley West High School Symphonic Band under the direction of Daniel Kirk. Works by Richard Wagner, Alfred Reed and Malcolm Arnold will also be performed.
The K-State Wind Ensemble is under the direction of Frank Tracz. Admission to the concert is free.


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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A nuclear engineering company with ties to the Chinese government pleaded guilty on Monday to charges of illegally exporting coatings that can withstand high temperatures to a power plant in Pakistan, the U.S. Justice Department said.
China Nuclear Industry Huaxing Construction Co Ltd entered the guilty plea in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, according to the department.
The company admitted to charges that it conspired to ship the high-performance coatings through China to Pakistan in 2006 and 2007. The shipments were made despite Washington's denial of an application to export the coatings directly to Pakistan's Chashma II nuclear power plant, according to papers filed in court ahead of the plea.
The United States has restricted nuclear-related exports to Pakistan since the country's first successful detonation of a nuclear device in 1998.
A lawyer for Huaxing did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The company agreed to a criminal fine of $2 million, half of which it will not have to pay if it completes five years of probation, the Justice Department said.
Huaxing's guilty plea is believed to be the first time a China-controlled corporation has entered a guilty plea in a U.S. criminal export case, said Ronald Machen, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia.
A Chinese subsidiary of PPG Industries Inc, which made the coatings, pleaded guilty in connection with the same conspiracy in 2010.
Reporting by David Ingram; Editing by Jackie Frank
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.


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Recently, the ever-enlightening Sociological Images has had a couple great posts on the erasure of Native Americans from both history and cartography. Now, I'm a map geek, and when people start talking about the social effects of cartography I tend to sit up and pay attention. And it turns out that Google Maps and Google Earth do not display Indian reservations—despite the fact that these locations are at least as socially, geographically, and legally significant as, say, national parks and forests, which are depicted as happy green pixels.
For instance, here is a Google Maps view of northeastern Washington State.
And if you scroll down to the second map, here is that same territory mapped (blurrily, sorry) on the home page for the Colville Indian Reservation. The difference is dramatic—a whole sovereign nation has been made to disappear.
This has happened before.
In 1831 a case was brought to the Supreme Court: Cherokee Nation vs. the State of Georgia. (Link goes to the Wikipedia article, because it's pretty accurate in this case.) The state had passed laws intended to remove the Cherokee from the lands granted to them in federal treaty; the Cherokee objected to this and sought an injunction on the justification that they were by law a sovereign nation. They had a Constitution modeled explicitly on the American model—and they had a map of their land within the state of Georgia's borders.
It didn't help: the Supreme Court declined the case on the basis that the Cherokee were a "denominated domestic dependent nation." (The alliteration just makes that all the more patronizing, if you ask me.) Judge John Marshall's ruling stated: "Indian territory is admitted to compose a part of the United States. In all our maps, geographical treatises, histories, and laws, it is so considered." (Emphrasis mine.) The Cherokee attempt at placing themselves on the "official" maps of the young United States had failed.
And despite the advance and ubiquity of digital maps, we're still failing at this today.


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Stay Awhile
It's nice to have a place to lay your head-even better when that place has a spa, gourmet restaurant and high-speed Internet access. Whether you're spending the days relaxing at the beach or browsing the shops, luxurious accommodations are close at hand, ready quench your thirst, cool your sunburn and fluff your pillow.
Sarasota has hospitality down pat, what with pampering so many discerning guests each year. Wherever you stay, you're sure to be a stone's throw from the beach, a golf course or a popular local attraction-if not all three. And even if you stick to your room, you can probably enjoy a stunning view, culinary delights and any number of amenities fit for vacationing kings and queens.
Not that it's all about the vacation. Sarasota is booming in the business world as well, and plenty of conference rooms, meeting halls and first-class suites will suit traveling professionals.
Located near the city center overlooking Sarasota Bay, The Ritz-Carlton, Sarasota is a stylish Florida beach resort with city sophistication. For the discriminating guest, the AAA Five-Diamond resort offers elegant accommodations, award-winning dining, famous personalized service and unlimited access to the Mobil-rated spa, private Gulf-front beach club and a Tom Fazio-designed championship golf course.
All 266 rooms include down duvets, Italian Frette-brand linens, Bose CD players, desks and chaise lounges, furnished balconies with bay, marina or city views, bathrooms with double marble vanities and plush Ritz-Carlton robes. The resort is a classic Mediterranean Revival blending the Ritz-Carlton tradition of refined elegance with the warmth and charm of Florida's Gulf Coast.
Under the watchful eye of executive chef Frederic Morineau, a tempting array of dining options awaits. Available to the public, the resort's award-winning signature restaurant Vernona is dedicated to serving organic New American cuisine made from the freshest and healthiest ingredients from local and regional farmers. The Lobby Lounge offers traditional afternoon tea, and the bayfront Bay View Bar & Grill is the perfect spot for alfresco dining. The Ritz-Carlton's bar, Cà d'Zan, is comfortable and classic, a local favorite for drinks, dancing and live music, and the steakhouse-style menu offers a casually elegant dining experience.
The Ritz-Carlton Members Golf Club, Sarasota is an 18-hole, Tom Fazio design scheduled to open in December 2005. Unlike many Florida golf courses, the Members Golf Club will feature significant elevation changes that gracefully roll among the lakes and extensive landscape to form a fair and memorable test of golf. The Members Golf Club is an exclusive facility available only to members of The Ritz-Carlton Members Club and guests of The Ritz-Carlton, Sarasota. For reservations call (800) 241-3333.
Just steps away from downtown Sarasota's theaters, galleries, restaurants and the G.WIZ children's hands-on museum, Hyatt Sarasota on Sarasota Bay provides a relaxing escape into an oasis of lush gardens, blue waters and spectacular sunset views. A panoramic atrium anchors 294 guest rooms, including 12 suites. Relax by the new lagoon pool with cascading waterfall and a 12-person hot tub, enjoy tropical beverages at the Hurricane Hut, or challenge yourself with water sports.
The Hyatt's 10,000-square-foot Sarasota Ballroom provides a generous pre-function area, office and storage space, permanent registration desk and the flexibility to divide into eight sections. With this addition, the Hyatt Sarasota's total meeting space extends to 20,000 square feet, making it the largest conference facility between Tampa and Fort Myers.
Also, the Hyatt introduces its private marina with state-of-the-art Bellingham floating dock system. Located at the marina, the Boathouse restaurant provides casual dining setting with water views. For reservations, call toll-free (800) 233-1234, or locally (941) 953-1234.
Opening in the summer of 2006 at the corner of Boulevard of the Arts and Tamiami Trail in downtown's charming Rosemary District, Hotel Indigo has 95 warm and welcoming guest rooms (30 suites), all with hardwood flooring and area rugs, spa-style showers, oversized beds and pillows, and changeable wall murals. It's the third Hotel Indigo, following those in Atlanta and Chicago. Call (866) 2-INDIGO or visit HotelIndigo.com for details and reservations.
The Holiday Inn Lakewood Ranch is a full-service hotel, beautifully decorated in a Southwest theme. For the traveler who can't leave work at home, each guest room has a workstation with two line data ports, complimentary high-speed Internet service, ergonomic chair and iron and ironing board to keep clothes crisp. There's also a refrigerator, hair dryer, coffee service and 25-inch television and wireless in all public meeting space (2,500 square feet). Conveniently located at I-75 and University Parkway at the entrance to Lakewood Ranch, only seven miles from Sarasota Bradenton International Airport. Call (941) 782-4400 for reservations and ask about the Ecotourism Package, or visit their Web site at www.hilr.com.
If you're traveling by car, check out Sun-N-Fun RV Resort on Fruitville Road, which offers more than 150 activities in season to guests. In addition to recreational vehicle space, Sun-N-Fun has cozy vacation-home rentals (and sales). There's an on-site restaurant, Olympic-size swimming pool, exercise room, poolside bar and grill, plus live entertainment. For information call (800) 843-2421.
The Lido Beach Resort is a favorite among visitors and locals for its outdoor beachside pool bar and Old Florida charm with a simple, elegant tropical design. Located beachfront on Lido Key, 222 suites, kitchenettes and deluxe guest rooms are all just a short drive from the Sarasota Bradenton International Airport and a comfortable stroll from the unique shops and cafés of St. Armands Circle. Meeting facilities consist of 6,000 square feet of flexible space with several breakout configurations available. The Sunset Terrace offers a casual atmosphere and spectacular views of Lido Beach and sunsets. Beach functions are also available, complemented by a full-service catering staff and award-winning chef. For reservations or information, call toll-free (800) 441-2113.
With 600 feet of private powder-white sand beach, the full-service resort Helmsley Sandcastle Hotel radiates a friendly, tropical atmosphere, with spectacular views and superb accommodations. Two restaurants provide casual, open-air or formal dining and live entertainment Wednesday through Saturday in the lounge. Guests can enjoy two heated pools and a pool bar with complimentary hors d'oeuvres in the afternoon. The Sandcastle's recreation department arranges Aqua Cat sailboats, aqua cycles or kayaks, and offers lessons on each.
Each guest room includes a refrigerator, coffeemaker, in-room safe, hair dryer, iron and ironing board, make-up mirror and daily newspaper. Professional meeting space accommodates all the needs of the corporate traveler, too. For information or reservations call (941) 388-2181 or toll-free (800) 225-2181.
The Holiday Inn Lido Beach is one of Sarasota's classiest hotels, directly opposite the Gulf of Mexico and just two blocks from St. Armands Circle. It features an outdoor pool overlooking the Gulf and provides complimentary transportation to and from Sarasota Bradenton International Airport. Guest rooms offer one king or two queen beds and a host of amenities.
The Sand Dollar Rooftop Restaurant serves breakfast, lunch and dinner, along with room service. Beach cabanas, beach chairs and bicycle rentals are available. For reservations call (941) 388-5555 or (800) 892-9174.
Long recognized as the No. 1 tennis resort in the nation and a top-notch destination for couples and families, The Colony Beach & Tennis Resort's 208 one- and two-bedroom villa suites are nestled in the secluded surroundings of Longboat Key. Accommodations feature a private sun balcony, private master bedroom, living/dining area, full kitchen and master bathroom with whirlpool bath and steam showers. Twenty-six specialty suites, including three private beach houses, give guests the ultimate in luxury.
A modern six-story clubhouse houses the spa, with men's and women's facilities and an array of treatments performed by licensed therapists, as well as a salon with a variety of services. A business center and sports shop are also in the high-rise.
Tennis is the game to play at The Colony, so guests enjoy 21 courts (10 hydro-soft, two lighted), complimentary court time and game matching, nine daily clinics, and private and semi-private lessons led by outstanding and entertaining instructors.
Additional amenities include a state-of-the-art fitness center, complete with weight training and cardiovascular equipment, aerobics, fitness classes, personal training and body-fat analysis. The resort's highly praised children's recreation programs for ages three to 12, offered 365 days a year, are free to all guests.
From The Colony's dining room, with its floor-to-ceiling windows, guests can bask in views of the Gulf of Mexico while savoring contemporary Continental cuisine and one of the nation's finest wine lists. It's open nightly for lunch and dinner and also for Sunday brunch.
The Monkey Room, with both outdoor and indoor seating, features creative and flavorful dishes with island influences. The adjacent lounge has live nightly entertainment. Outside, bartenders serve exotic drinks on the Monkey Room Patio. Tastebuds Gourmet and Wine Shop also offers sandwiches, cheeses, pastries, wine, gift baskets and more.
Banquet and conference facilities, an elegant designer boutique (Le Tennique), water sports center and private, sugar-sand beach round out the amenities. Call (800) 4-COLONY or (941) 383-6464, or visit www.colonybeachresort.com.
Located just steps from a private white-sand beach and the sparkling waters of the Gulf, the Hilton Longboat Key Beach Resort is a tropical resort accessible from Interstates 75 and 275. Newly renovated rooms are decorated in jewel tones with contemporary furniture. Oversized rooms offer two queen or single king beds, honor bar and complimentary coffeemaker, hair dryer and in-room safes. Daily local newspaper delivery, premium television channels and telephone with data port are standard. Call (941) 383-2451.
The Best Western Midtown is located in the heart of Sarasota, central to shopping, restaurants, beaches and downtown, and just minutes from all area attractions. Call toll-free (800) 722-8227 to reserve one of its beautiful guest rooms.
Just two miles from the Sarasota Bradenton International Airport, the Sarasota Cay Club Resort and Marina features the Latitudes Restaurant and Lounge with indoor and outdoor waterfront dining and a popular dockside tiki bar. Newly appointed guest rooms and suites feature marina or city views. Guests enjoy a new state-of-the-art fitness facility, heated outdoor pool and 10,000 square feet of banquet and catering space. The full-service marina has 78 deep-water, transient and permanent slips as well as powerboat, personal watercraft and kayak rentals, fishing, sailing and scuba charters and guided eco-tours. Complimentary airport shuttle service, corporate and group rates available. Call (941) 355-2781 or toll-free (888) 818-2781 for reservations, or visit www.cayclubs.com.
Located just one mile north of the airport, the Hilton Garden Inn is a lushly landscaped hotel featuring all the comforts and conveniences that appeal to vacationers and business visitors, including complimentary shuttle to and from the airport. Nearby attractions include the Powel Crosley Mansion, Ringling Museum of Art, Mote Aquarium, Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall and the theater district. There are 115 rooms, a comfortable lounge and bar, heated outdoor pool and fitness center with spa. Call (941) 552-1100.
The Courtyard by Marriott is located directly across from the Sarasota-Bradenton airport and is near the Ringling Museum of Art, Ringling School of Art and Design, Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall and FSU Center for the Performing Arts. It's also just a 10-minute drive to Lido Beach and the Sarasota Youth Baseball Complex. Amenities include wireless high-speed Internet, a heated outdoor pool and whirlpool, fitness center and the Courtyard Café breakfast buffet. For reservations call (941) 355-3337 or (800) 321-2211.
The Best Western Golden Host is located less than one-half mile south of the Ringling Museum, the FSU Center for the Performing Arts, the Sarasota Classic Car Museum and the Sarasota Bradenton International Airport. Nestled on five acres of tropically landscaped grounds are a 50-foot heated pool and shuffleboard courts. In-room amenities include high-speed Internet access and data port, telephones, irons and ironing boards and hair dryers, all accompanied by a daily complimentary deluxe continental breakfast. If you're looking for a wicked mai tai or a rollicking weekend crowd, head down to the resort's legendary Bahi Hut cocktail lounge. Call (941) 355-5141.
Physically located at 6600 S. Tamiami Trail, the Holiday Inn Express is a contemporary, tropically appointed, 131-room hotel that's convenient to Siesta Key. Fine dining and shopping are walking distance from the hotel, and it's less than half an hour to local attractions like St. Armands Circle, museums and Mote Marine Laboratory. Amenities include complimentary continental breakfast, outdoor pool and whirlpool and a health and fitness center. Business services include copying, fax machine and printer. To reserve, call (941) 924-4900.
Nestled between Sarasota Bay and the Gulf of Mexico on Siesta Key, The Palm Bay Club's two heated pools, lighted tennis courts, yacht basin, fishing pier, private clubhouse and exercise equipment complement a secluded beach that's ideal for sunning or shelling. Suites are all fully furnished and provide breathtaking views of the Gulf and tropical landscaping. For reservations, call toll-free (800) 725-6229 or visit www.palmbayclub.com.
Situated directly on the sugar-white sands of the Gulf of Mexico, Sarasota Surf & Racquet Club is the premier beach and tennis family resort on Siesta Key. The one- and two-bedroom condominiums are fully furnished, including complete kitchens. Resort amenities include two heated pools, four tennis courts (two are clay), fitness center, business center, beachside barbecue grills and maid service. Call (941) 349-2200, toll-free (800) 237-5671 or visit www.sarasotasurf.com.
One of Sarasota's premier residential resorts, the Gulf and Bay Club is located on three miles of Crescent Beach. It offers one-month rentals of two-bedroom, two-bath units that are fully furnished and enjoy 24-hour security. Other amenities include athletic courts, fitness center, saunas, three heated pools, barbecue areas and two clubhouses. There's also a freshwater-stocked lake, covered parking and a library. Call (941) 349-7101.
Midnight Cove Condominium Resort comprises 11 acres of lush, tropically landscaped grounds on the white sugar sands of Crescent Beach and the Intracoastal Waterway. Vacation amenities include two heated swimming pools, tennis courts, boat docks, fishing, barbecue facilities and one of the area's most beautiful private beaches. Choose from mid-rise buildings, garden apartments or spacious townhomes, all with breathtaking water views. For information, call (941) 349-3004.
Crystal Sands on Crescent Beach features luxuriously appointed condominiums with full terraces and stunning views. On-site amenities include a gym and heated pool, and the building is located right on the Gulf of Mexico, just minutes from shopping and Siesta Village nightlife. Call (941) 349-7007 for reservations.
Newly renovated, the studio, one- and two-bedroom suites at Residence Inn by Marriott offer an average of 50 percent more space than traditional hotel rooms and provide full kitchen amenities and complimentary hot breakfast. It's located directly across from the Sarasota-Bradenton airport and just a few miles from Lido Beach. It's also pet-friendly and offers on-site laundry facilities. Call (941) 358-1468.
Each of the rooms (choose from a king or two double beds) at Springhill Suites features separate sleeping, dining and work areas. The many amenities include pull-out sofa beds, pantries and refrigerators, complimentary high-speed Internet and two-line telephones with data port. Rated three AAA diamonds. Call (941) 358-3385 or toll-free (800) 287-9400.
The Hampton Inn & Suites offers spacious guest rooms and suites with kitchens, complimentary breakfast, free newspaper, high-speed Internet access and a fitness center. Plus, it's close to shopping, dining and area beaches. Call (941) 488-5900 for reservations, or visit www.hamptoninnvenice.com.
Holiday Inn Venice boasts 155 comfortable rooms and three spacious suites ideal for families, groups and individual travelers. Its outdoor pool, hot tub and beach volleyball court make it a fun locale for weddings, group gatherings and reunions. Buffalo Bill's restaurant serves barbecue and now offers a formal catering division for weddings and meetings. Call (941) 485-5411 or toll-free (800) 237-3712 to reserve.
Venice's newest all-suites hotel, the Best Western Ambassador Suites, is conveniently located off I-75 exit 193 (Jacaranda Boulevard). Guests can easily enjoy sandy beaches, 40 challenging golf courses, shopping and more. It offers free breakfast, local calls and high-speed Internet, plus an outdoor heated pool, exercise facility and full conference and business center. Executive suites come with Jacuzzi tubs. To reserve, call (941) 480-9898.
For top-quality vacation properties from Anna Maria Island to Venice and all points in between, you can also turn to ResortQuest. The world's largest vacation rental property management company, they can show you countless privately owned homes, villas, condominiums and resorts, fully equipped with luxurious amenities like pools, spas, tennis courts and boat docks. For information, call toll-free (800) 237-9505 or visit their Web site at www.resortquestswfl.com.


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Duke's Jabari Parker declares for the NBA draft
Jabari Parker, as expected, is moving on to the NBA after one season at Duke.
Parker announced his decision Thursday in an article for Sports Illustrated.
"Ultimately, I boiled my decision down to two simple questions," Parker wrote:
"Which environment — college or the NBA — offers me the best opportunity to grow as a basketball player?
"Which environment — college or the NBA — offers me the best opportunity to grow and develop off the court?
"The answer to both questions is undeniably the NBA."
Coach Mike Krzyzewski said in a statement it was "an honor for us to have him in our program."
Parker is widely expected to be a top-three pick in June's NBA draft after a spectacular freshman campaign at Duke. The 6-8 forward averaged 19.1 points and 8.7 rebounds en route to earning first team All-American honors. He also won the Wayman Tisdale Award, given to the nation's top freshman.
He took his time with this decision, opting to let the NCAA withdrawal deadline pass and waiting to gather more information before the hard-line NBA early-entry eligibility deadline of April 27.
"Coach K told me I needed to do what's best for me and that I will always be a part of the Duke family," Parker wrote. "We talked about the next steps. We discussed everything from agents, to workouts to USA Basketball. What I appreciated most was his support and friendship.
"Today I sent my letter of intent to the NBA. That makes it official — my days as a Duke basketball player are over.
"But my days as a Duke student are not. I intend to graduate from Duke while I'm in the NBA. I was an honor student when I arrived at Duke, and I'd like to graduate as one."
Parker entered the college game along with a crop of other talented freshmen — from Andrew Wiggins to Julius Randle and beyond — but quickly established himself as perhaps the most versatile and NBA-ready of the group. He drew comparisons to Grant Hill and Carmelo Anthony.
Over the past year, the Duke coaching staff worked with Parker to develop more facets of his game, including his positioning in the post, while teaching him how to take care of his body and game like he will have to in the pros. He started wearing contacts and putting orthotics in his shoes.
"Jabari has a chance to be one of the elite guys," Duke assistant coach Jeff Capel told USA TODAY Sports earlier this season. "I'm not talking about in college; I'm talking about as a pro and forever. He should be that."
Said Krzyzewski earlier this season: "When he has the ball, he's so excited and he can do things you don't teach. If he learns to play without the ball to the level I think he can, I think he'll be, in the NBA, a franchise player. I think he's going to be unbelievable."


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Journalism with real independence and integrity is a rare thing. Truthout relies on reader donations – click here to make a tax-deductible contribution and support our work.
The advance word is that inequality is going to be the central theme in President Obama's State of the Union Address on Tuesday. That's certainly good news, since it is a huge problem. The question is whether President Obama is prepared to talk about inequality in a way that gets to the core of the problem as opposed to just clipping away at the edges.
It's a safe bet that we will see the latter. Obama has indicated that he will redouble his efforts to push for a $10.10 minimum wage. This is good news. This will mean a substantial increase in the wages for people at the bottom of the income ladder. The bulk of the gains from a higher minimum wage will go to people who really need it.
The days are long over when minimum wage workers were high school kids from middle class families picking up spending money working after school. The workers who will benefit from a minimum wage hike are overwhelmingly adults, many of whom are supporting children. The higher minimum wage will also put a substantial dent in the poverty numbers, reducing the share of the population in poverty by 1-2 percentage points, close to 5 million people.
Anyone who thinks a $10.10 minimum wage is too high should consider that from 1938 to 1968 we raised the minimum wage in step with productivity growth. If we had continued with this practice the minimum wage would be over $17 an hour today.
A higher minimum wage is great, but it won't benefit most people, for the rest of the population we'll have to look for other items on the president's agenda. One of these is likely to be universal pre-kindergarten. This is a good policy that Obama has pushed in the past. It's a proven winner in terms of the benefits to children. It's also important as a form of child care for working parents. But as a way to address inequality, universal pre-kindergarten is at best limited and certainly long-term. It will not have a noticeable impact in this decade or possibly even the next.
There are some items on President Obama's agenda that push in the wrong direction, most notably his plans for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). This is wrongly billed as a "free-trade" agreement. In reality it has very little to do with free trade.
The TPP is about imposing a regulatory structure that will give corporations more power over the political process. It will make effective health, safety, and environmental regulation more difficult. It may also shield the financial sector from efforts to rein in the sort of abuses that led to the financial crisis. And, it will make drugs more expensive. The TPP is about redistributing income upward; it has no place on a serious inequality agenda.
It is possible to envision a trade agreement that would reduce inequality. If a deal focused on opening the doors to more foreign doctors and other highly paid professionals, it would lead to lower incomes for many in the top one percent and lower cost health care, legal services, and other serviced provided this overpaid group. We could also open the door to low-cost generic drugs, saving tens of billions of dollars annually on prescription medicine.
Trade agreements can also be an avenue for reducing our chronic trade deficit. If we used a deal to negotiate a drop in the value of the dollar against the currencies of our trading partners, it could move us toward balanced trade. If we were to eliminate the trade deficit completely, it would directly create over 4 million jobs, the bulk of which would be relatively high-paying manufacturing jobs. Adding in the indirect jobs created from these workers' spending, the increase in employment would be over 6 million, getting us most of the way back to full employment.
Getting back to full employment really should be at the center of any inequality agenda. Full employment matters not only for the unemployed workers who would get jobs and the underemployed workers who could work more hours, it also leads to tighter labor markets. As a result, workers at the middle and bottom of the pay ladder would be able share in the gains of economic growth as they did in the late 1990s boom.
Unfortunately, full employment does not seem to be on anyone's agenda right now. The budget cuts that slowed the economy and cost us millions of jobs over the last three years are now largely behind us, but no one seems prepared to push an investment agenda or the sort of trade policy that can bring us back to full employment any time soon.
That means we will see little real progress in addressing inequality based on President Obama's agenda. An increase in the minimum wage is an important goal with substantial benefits but it should not be confused with an inequality agenda.
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Rename Fedora Development Milestones to match industry nomenclature and reality within Fedora's cycle.
Problem Space
Fedora's use of "Alpha", "Beta", and the made up "Preview" do not match what people in the software development and test world expect. See Wikipedia article on development stages.
Solution Overview
Rename existing "Beta" to "Alpha". Rename existing "Preview" to "Beta". Drop our current "Alpha" (to be replaced with targeted test days and / or snapshots of rawhide).
Alpha means that we are Feature Complete in that Features are fully defined and testable.
Beta means that we are "Code Complete" in that all Features are thought to be complete
Mostly documentation and wiki pages.
Active Ingredients
Edit the schedule wiki page and TaskJuggler output.
Discussion Points
Wiki pages describing Alpha or Beta or Preview will need to be adjusted to reflect the new name, as well as what is expected from those releases.


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UPDATE: [Religion] Religion: Open Topic for FRS 2009
The 2009 North Texas Federation Rhetoric Symposium will be held February
6, 2009 at Texas A&M University-Commerce. The conference theme
is "Memory: Rhetoric's Forgotten Canon.†Proposals may be related to the
theme, but it is not required. Please submit your 250 word (one page)
proposal for the "Religion: Open Topic†session by email to
rhetoric_symposium_at_tamu-commerce.edu. Include the session
topic "Religion: Open Topic" on the subject line of your email.
Final Deadline for submission: December 19, 2008.
Further details on the conference and a complete call for proposals may
be found at the FRS 2009 website: http://orgs.tamu-commerce.edu/FRS
From the Literary Calls for Papers Mailing List
more information at
Received on Mon Nov 17 2008 - 22:29:47 EST


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FAQ » History » Revision 22
« Previous |
Revision 22/115
| Next »
Jean-Philippe Lang, 2008-04-20 13:30
socket location
Frequently Asked Questions¶
- Table of contents
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Installing and Running Redmine
- When I start the application, I get this error "in 'gem_original_require': no such file to load -- initializer (LoadError)"
- When I start the application, I get this error message: "cannot connect to mysql: No such file or directory - /tmp/mysql.sock"
- The application seems to work fine but some pages (eg. login form) have no content.
- The application freeze after a long time of inactivity.
- I upgraded Rails to 2.0, but Redmine doesn't work anymore!
- Issue tracking
- Repositories
- Performance
- Miscalenous
- Installing and Running Redmine
Installing and Running Redmine¶
When I start the application, I get this error "in 'gem_original_require': no such file to load -- initializer (LoadError)"¶
Make sure Ruby on Rails is properly installed on your machine.
When I start the application, I get this error message: "cannot connect to mysql: No such file or directory - /tmp/mysql.sock"¶
You have to specify the socket location in
See http://dev.rubyonrails.org/ticket/200.
The application seems to work fine but some pages (eg. login form) have no content.¶
You're running Rails 1.1.x but Redmine requires 1.2.2.
Upgrade Rails (if you're using gem package system, run the command
gem update as root/administrator).
The application freeze after a long time of inactivity.¶
There's a bug in ruby/mysql adapter < 2.7.3 that leads to loose the database connection. Please update your adapter.
You can see thread at: http://rubyforge.org/forum/message.php?msg_id=25951.
I upgraded Rails to 2.0, but Redmine doesn't work anymore!¶
Redmine 0.6.3 is Rails 2.0 compatible, but prior versions are not.
The best solution is to upgrade Redmine to the latest version. But if you really want to use Redmine 0.6.0 on a box running Rails 2.0, please freeze your Rails version for Redmine (it won't affect your other Rails applications) by typing this command from your Redmine directory:
rake rails:freeze:edge TAG=rel_1-2-6
Don't forget to restart your server.
Issue tracking¶
I've created a new issue status but I can't use it, it doesn't show up in the status drop-down list.¶
Once you've created a new issue status, you need to include it in the workflow.
Say you have created a status named 'In progress' and you want the developers to be able to change bugs from 'New' to 'In progress'.
Go to "Admin -> Issue tracking -> Workflow", select 'Bug' and 'Developer' then click edit.
You now see all the transitions allowed for developers on bugs. Check the 'New' -> 'In progress' checkbox and save.
See Workflow setup.
How does "Related issues" work?¶
Using Issue #100 as the one you set the relationship and Issue #101 as the "related to"
- Related - Just adds a link to the other issue
- Duplicates - Links issues so that changing the status of one, will change the other (e.g. closing #100 will close #101)
- Blocks - Forces an issue to be completed before working on the next. I think it might affect the Gnatt chart but I don't know.
- Precedes - Defines an "order", where issue #100 needs to be completed x days before y can be started on.
Commits don't show up in the activity until I click on 'Repository'¶
By default, Redmine fetches the new commits from the repository only when you browse it.
If you want the commits to be retrieved periodically by Redmine in the background for all your repositories, uncheck 'Autofetch commits' setting and add a cron that runs (with appropriate environment):
ruby script/runner "Repository.fetch_changesets" -e production
I can't browse my svn repository through redmine¶
Please check that you're using a svn client >= 1.3. And the server you're attacking, too. Redmine parse the -xml output from subversion, which is a svn 1.3 feature.
When I create a new issue, Redmine freeze during one minute.¶
You have to configure email notification, or desactivate it. Please turn off email notification feature if you don't use it. In config/environment.rb replace the line
config.action_mailer.perform_deliveries = true
config.action_mailer.perform_deliveries = false
and restart redmine.
All times are off by 1 hour after the daylight savings switched¶
Rails builtin time zone implementation doesn't handle DST. You have to install TZInfo.
To do so, run the following from your Redmine directory:
ruby script/plugin install tzinfo_timezone
Updated by Jean-Philippe Lang almost 15 years ago · 22 revisions


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Seeds. I've sown a few. Fifty pots, to be precise. Most are from the seed exchanges, some are packets I've had stashed away in the shed, some ordered from elsewhere, some sent to me by gardening friends. As usual, this is a ridiculous quantity of seeds already, and I still have some I will sow in March. I predict I will struggle to manage it all, and I guarantee I won't have room for it all. I know all this, but I've sown anyway, damn the consequences. It's not very sensible, but I do enjoy it. Non, je ne regrette rien.
Anyhow, the great germination gymkana has begun. This will be an odd sort of race, some will take their own sweet time, a year perhaps, some are in the fridge, some outdoors, some on staging and some – most, really – are in the heated bench.
At this time of year my routine of an evening is to potter off down to the greenhouse to check what's changed since the day before. Pretty rock 'n' roll, right?
Leading the charge are agastache 'golden jubilee' and dianthus 'cruentus'.
These were large enough for me to prick out, 15 of each, taking up a half seed tray between them. Some of the advice says to wait until seedlings have one or two sets of true leaves but I tend to move them while small with only seed leaves. Although delicate, even with my clumsy fingers I manage this quite easily. I find the roots get tangled up if left much later, especially as I sow in 7cm pots.
I could have put them in individual pots or modules but that would take up a lot of space. I do not intend to grow on more than a few of each so it makes sense to save the room for now. When they have grown on a bit I will move some on and compost the rest. I can hear your sharp intake of breath from here. Yes, you heard right, compost them. Ruthless.
There is some greenery action in some of the other pots too. The lupin seeds were sent to me by Fred, they germinated fast, within 6 days of sowing. I roughed them up a little on some sandpaper first but didn't soak them at all. I like the way they poke through the seed case, it's like they are hatching out of an egg.
I have several different varieties of foxgloves on the go this year. The albiflora are going great guns. They are a little too small to handle, even for me, I will let them get a bit bigger then take up to 15 of them on to the next stage.
The mexican fleabane, erigeron karvinskianus, have begun to push through, but not in numbers. I used to have some of this fleabane years ago but it has disappeared. I am looking forward to finding suitable corners for these once they grow on.
A Christmas present from a friend, a sunflower that doesn't know it isn't a sunflower, and purple to boot. The burkheya purpurea is similar to one I grew before but which never flowered. I am hoping the purple variety (which is a much nicer plant) will do better. It gets to about 60cm and has a fairly evergreen rosette of spiky leaves, flowering all summer. We'll see.
I have had this packet of balloon flower seeds (platycodon 'florists blue') for years and am only now getting around to sowing. Supposedly they are excellent cut flowers. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Me and delphiniums have some history. I bought one, it gets munched on appearance above ground by slugs or snails, usually not having the chance to flower. To add to my misery then, I'm trying some from seed this year, seeds collected from 'cupid', a dwarf variety.
I think that's it for now. My intention is to provide a fairly regular brief update on germination over the next few months. We'll see how I get on, it might get a bit hectic.
With that caveat, I'll be back in a couple of weeks with more germination rumination.


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Drew Faust gave the opening remarks for A Conversation with Arianna Huffington on Redefining Success.
Drew Gilpin Faust is the 28th president of Harvard University and the Lincoln Professor of History in Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences.
As president of Harvard, Faust has expanded financial aid to improve access to Harvard College for students of all economic backgrounds and advocated for increased federal funding for scientific research. She has broadened the University's international reach, raised the profile of the arts on campus, embraced sustainability, launched edX, the online learning partnership with MIT, and promoted collaboration across academic disciplines and administrative units as she guided the University through a period of significant financial challenges.
A historian of the Civil War and the American South, Faust was the founding dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard, guiding its transformation from a college into a wide-ranging institute for scholarly and creative enterprise, distinctive for its multidisciplinary focus and the exploration of new knowledge at the crossroads of traditional fields.
Previously, Faust served as the Annenberg Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania, where she was a member of the faculty for 25 years.
Raised in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, Faust went on to attend Concord Academy in Massachusetts. She received her bachelor's degree from Bryn Mawr College in 1968, magna cum laude with honors in history, and her master's degree (1971) and doctoral degree (1975) in American civilization from the University of Pennsylvania.
She is the author of six books, including "Mothers of Invention: Women of the Slaveholding South in the American Civil War" (University of North Carolina Press, 1996), for which she won the Francis Parkman Prize in 1997. Her most recent book, "This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War" (Alfred A. Knopf, 2008), looks at the impact of the Civil War's enormous death toll on the lives of 19th-century Americans. It won the Bancroft Prize in 2009, was a finalist for both a National Book Award and a Pulitzer Prize, and was named by The New York Times one of the "10 Best Books of 2008." "This Republic of Suffering" is the basis for a 2012 Emmy-nominated episode of the PBS American Experience documentaries titled "Death and the Civil War," directed by Ric Burns.
Faust has been a trustee of Bryn Mawr College, the Andrew Mellon Foundation, and the National Humanities Center, and she serves on the educational advisory board of the Guggenheim Foundation. She has served as president of the Southern Historical Association, vice president of the American Historical Association, and executive board member of the Organization of American Historians and the Society of American Historians. Faust has also served on numerous editorial boards and selection committees, including the Pulitzer Prize history jury in 1986, 1990, and 2004.
Her honors include awards in 1982 and 1996 for distinguished teaching at the University of Pennsylvania. She was elected to the Society of American Historians in 1993, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1994, and the American Philosophical Society in 2004.
Faust is married to Charles Rosenberg, one of the nation's leading historians of medicine and science, who is the Ernest E. Monrad Research Professor of the Social Sciences at Harvard. Faust and Rosenberg have two daughters, Jessica Rosenberg, a 2004 summa cum laude graduate of Harvard College, and Leah Rosenberg, Faust's stepdaughter, a scholar of Caribbean literature.


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The NYTimes has an article on the front page about the dearth of women in the senior positions of the Obama administration. The paper tries to make it sound like it's on a par with the Clinton administration but far, far better than the Bush administration. I love how they keep trying to rewrite history. We remember how Clinton kept nominating women to the Attorney General's office until he got one that didn't have a nanny problem. And then there was Madeleine Albright. She was a first. Then came Ruth Bader Ginsburg, only the second woman on the Supreme Court. And Joycelyn Elders. Who could forget her? It was Bill Clinton who hired Brooksley Born, even if she was overruled by Summers, Geithner and Rubin. And who could forget his most important advisor on health care reform, Hillary Rodham Clinton?
So, what is the NYTimes saying? "At least they're not as bad as the last guy" is not a winning message, IMHO. Ahh, here's a possible answer:
Interviews with current and former members of the administration, both men and women, suggested that there was no single reason for the discrepancy, and several repeatedly spoke of the administration's internal commitment to diversity and gender equity.
But several said that the "pipeline" of candidates appeared to be one problem. They said it seemed that more men than women were put forward or put their names forward for jobs. In part, that might be a result of the persistence of historical discrepancies: men have traditionally dominated fields of government service like finance, security and defense.
Oh, my! That sounds insurmountable! What's a president to do if he only gets recommendations that are male? He simply cannot change the status quo. It is impossible.
Of COURSE men are going to put other men in the pipeline. It is human nature for people to be comfortable with people who are most like themselves. In this case, having a penis is extremely important. Don't ask me how it is important. It just is. Apparently there are urinary challenges to overcome or circle jerks where women are genitally challenged. Who knows what initiation rites one must undergo to get into the pipeline? Maybe it's a matter of being tall enough to play center forward. Or being able to get onto the greens at the right country club. Whatever it is, it has nothing to do with the job. It just has to do with a certain comfort level, to be able to sound important and have that sound acknowledged, to be able to swear without fear, to be able to take one's shirt off when playing billiards at the local bar.
You know, guy stuff. Men do not mentor women. I have never seen it in a professional setting. Let me think…. Nope, I can't think of a single instance when men mentored women in the chemistry field. Sometimes, women were hired to management positions and then the men around them bitched and moaned about how unqualified they were but I never witnessed one woman chosen from her male colleagues who was nurtured and forwarded for a management position by a senior male.
The president *could* just say, "your list must consist of as many females as males". We might expect him to set an example or be proactive but I guess that's just too much to ask of this president. He might force his team to come up with female names. That might make the people making recommendations to form a professional relationship with some females, whether they liked it or not. And that might get females into the pipeline. As it is, since all of the candidates are male, half of these guys are going to be below average. Are the candidate pickers trying to say that there are absolutely NO women who are better than the average guy to fill these positions? Oh, wait, that was a Larry Summers idea. See Brookesley Born reference above.
I would try harder if I were the president. There's really no excuse at this point.
Obama fans have a lot to answer for when women stagnate and regress for eight straight years under a "Democratic" president. Does the end still justify the means? One might reasonably argue that in 1993 and 1996, women were just starting to percolate through the system. But 20 years later, there's really no good excuse anymore. As Dina Refki, executive director of Women in Government said in the article:
Experts on women in government suggested that more transparency might help equalize the gender ratio as well. "We know that to bring that level of leadership to 50 percent, we have to make a deliberate effort to find women and appoint them to that level," said Dina Refki, the executive director of the Center for Women in Government and Civil Society at the University at Albany. "Most of the time that deliberate effort isn't made."
Has there been anything close to a deliberate effort made? This mother of two daughters says, "definitely not".
Filed under: General | Tagged: obama administration, senior aides, women | 18 Comments »


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Captain Trips and I arrived home the other day from our 10-week summer RV book-and-movie tourapalooza. Not triumphantly, but in tears.
Gone are the mornings one of us looks at the other and says, "Do you know what day is it?" and neither one of us knows. Or, "What do you want to do today?" and both of us shrug. We knew we didn't have to decide; the adventure would simply appear. Apart from showing up for book readings and movie screenings, we could go where we wanted, stop when we pleased, hang out at the town pool wherever we happened to land, listen to the rain at night on our little metal roof.
We had our moments, surely. I had altitude sickness in Yellowstone, packrats ate our air conditioning in Kansas, and the RV, big lug that it is, crashed into a few minor tree branches. We almost had a flat tire. Almost. For nearly 8000 miles of safe travel, we're grateful.
We'll spend the next few decades waxing nostalgic for our summer. Even the near-misses and mishaps of the past 10 weeks have taken on the rosy patina of comedy and time.
We're selling the RV, so I guess we'll stay planted. But Captain Trips and I intend to hang on to that feeling of freedom. To make time and space in our days for whatever adventure comes. To hang out and simply breathe in the pleasure of the world.
If you find yourself anywhere near our back yard, stop in for a tale of the road. And in the meantime, here's to slow living wherever you are. And welcome home.


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Was the New Deal too small?
A lesson from Great Depression, historians say, is that Roosevelt didn't spend enough to jolt economy into recovery.
| New York
In announcing the biggest public works spending in 50 years, President-elect Obama takes a page from the Great Depression that is both model and cautionary tale.
Model, because the programs put paychecks into workers' pockets and laid a concrete and electrical foundation for America's postwar boom. Cautionary tale, because the effort did not jolt the Depression economy back to health.
One big reason is that President Roosevelt didn't spend enough to really boost the economy, historians say. But US history offers no guide on how much stimulus is too much, especially since the timing of today's crisis and the Depression are so different.
The Great Depression had been in full swing for three years when Roosevelt came into office and proposed his massive work relief program. Obama will enter the White House as the economy is still unraveling, which may help him.
"This time we're trying to have the bailout and rescue as the crisis is unfolding before our eyes; there's a sense that 'Can we prevent this before it really gets rolling?' " says Jason Smith, author of "Building New Deal Liberalism." "The Roosevelt administration was experimenting – they were kind of operating blindfolded and in the dark – they didn't have the kind of economic expertise that's available to us today."
The infrastructure component of the still-evolving Obama economic-recovery plan would inject billions of dollars into repairing old roads and bridges and constructing new ones, upgrading the nation's schools with new technology, and making public buildings energy efficient.
When Obama announced those "few key parts" of his plan on Saturday, he called them "the single largest new investment in our national infrastructure since the creation of the federal highway system in the 1950s." That's when the federal government invested $25 billion and built more than 41,000 miles of roads, highways and bridges over a 20-year period. In today's dollars, that would be the equivalent of $197 billion investment.
How much Obama will spend on infrastructure is unknown. His economic team is still "crunching the numbers," in his words, on the economic-recovery package, which would include far more than infrastructure and could end up costing $700 billion or more. Much will depend on Congress.
But US governors say they already have $136 billion dollars in projects that are "shovel ready," which means they could be under way within months of the new administration taking office. Each $1 billion of infrastructure is expected to create 25,000 to 40,000 jobs.
Still, some critics point to the Depression and note that infrastructure spending did not create enough of a stimulus to revitalize the economy. It took World War II to get it back on track. Depression historians contend that's because the Roosevelt administration didn't spend enough.
"There was a kind of crude sense that generating economic activity was what you needed to do to get the economy going," says Alan Brinkley, a professor of history at Columbia University. "But they didn't spend nearly enough. They were constrained by all kinds of traditional ideas about balanced budgets and austerity."
There is a consensus today among economists, even many conservative ones, that the government needs to inject some Keynesian stimulus to keep the economy from spiraling further downward. But some conservatives do disagree.
The consensus is "bad theory and bad evidence," says Robert Higgs, a senior fellow at the Independent Institute, a libertarian think tank in Oakland, Calif. Government spending in the 1930s crowded out potential private investment, he says.
Government infrastructure projects "are inherently wasteful because they are designed with political objectives in mind," he says "The [Works Progress Administration], which was probably the major New Deal infrastructure building program, was an enormous vote-buying scheme for Democrats."
Some conservative economists also argue that injecting massive government spending now will only make the deficit worse without providing the promised stimulus. But other economists point out that during the first three years of the Depression, when there were far fewer major spending programs, gross domestic product (GDP) continued to plummet.
Timing is key, because the scale of today's problem looks much smaller than the Depression. While today's 6.7 percent unemployment rate looks bad from a modern perspective, it's practically vibrant compared with the 24.9 percent in 1933, when the Roosevelt administration came into office. At last measure, today's GDP is down half of one percent after increasing during the first half of the year. In 1933, it had declined almost 30 percent from its 1929 peak.
That's why some analysts conclude that some infrastructure spending now may work as an effective stimulus. "The standard objection to public works spending – that it takes too long to get going and arrives after the economy has already begun recovering – really doesn't seem operative this time," says Mr. Smith.
Others disagree, and contend it could take many more months than predicted to get projects started because of the complications of contracting out the projects.
"There are some practical realities that don't support the expectation of 'Oh, just give us the money and we can go,' " says Richard Little, director of a public finance institute at the University of Southern California. "Over time we will start to see some projects rolling out and once that momentum builds up we'll see more of it. The only problem is that it's like mobilizing for war, once you get all geared up, don't cut the money off."
Today's crisis is also different because of the size of the federal deficit. Republicans in Congress are balking at increasing it even more. Here the New Deal does not offer much help.
"When Roosevelt came in there was some deficit spending in the 1930s, but he was committed to a balanced budget so the deficits were never extraordinary," says Margaret Rung, director of the Center for New Deal Studies at Roosevelt University in Chicago.
In the 1950s and 1960s, the last time there was a major investment in infrastructure, the US economy was thriving and deficit was negligible.
Obama acknowledges that a projected trillion-dollar deficit is problematic. But on NBC's "Meet the Press" over the weekend, he argued that the need to stimulate the economy outweighs immediate concerns about the deficit.
That has prompted many people to hope that today's stimulus package will work better than Roosevelt's did in the Depression.
"In the long run, you have to hope that the recovery is robust enough to deal with this enormous deficit which has been run up – which is scary and has repercussions beyond the immediate fiscal health of the country," says Professor Rung.


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DC Council Unanimously Passes Resolution Calling for Washington Redskins Name Change
As debate continues in various circles over whether the Washington Redskins football team should change their name, the local representatives of the District of Columbia has demanded change.
The Council for the District of Columbia voted unanimously approving a resolution advocating for the National Football League team to change its appellation and mascot.
Approved Tuesday in a vote of 10-0, the resolution called for Washington, D.C.'s team to reconsider its name given how many find it "objectionable."
"The word 'redskins' is objectionable to many Americans who consider it to be racist and derogatory, and the use of the term is increasingly considered to be insensitive in our multi-cultural society," reads the resolution in part.
"The owner of the Washington NFL team is hereby urged to change the name of the football team to a name that is not offensive to Native Americans or any other ethnic group."
Debate over the moniker for the Washington's football team has gone on for many years, with attention on the issue ebbing and flowing with time.
In May, Redskins owner Daniel Snyder stated that he had no plans to change the name of the team, telling USA Today Sports that he believes that the name has a strong tradition to it.
"As a lifelong Redskins fan, and I think that the Redskins fans understand the great tradition and what it's all about and what it means, so we feel pretty fortunate to be just working on next season," said Snyder.
"We'll never change the name…It's that simple. NEVER – you can use caps."
Various individuals, including President Barack Obama, have weighed in on the controversy and have expressed their belief that the team name should be changed to something else.
Groups have tried using the courts to get the DC franchise to change its name, but with little success. For example in 2009 the Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal from a group of Native Americans regarding the issue.
"None of the judges has commented on whether the Redskins name is offensive or racist, instead holding in favor of the football team on legal technicalities," reported The Associated Press.
In October, the Oneida Indian Nation had a symposium held at the Nation's Capital demanding that Washington "Change the mascot," and a trademark lawsuit's decision against the team is still pending.
"In addition to the federal trademark lawsuit, a group of U.S. lawmakers drafted a bill last spring to cancel trademark registrations that use the name 'Redskins'," wrote Alison Harding of CNN.
"Two of them, Democrats Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton of the District of Columbia, and Rep. Betty McCollum of Minnesota attended Monday's forum to voice their support."
According to a nationwide poll done by Associated Press-GfK earlier this year, only 11 percent of respondents supported changing the Washington Redskins' team name.


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Report: Mary-Kate Olsen Engaged to Olivier Sarkozy
TV Guide
Mary-Kate Olsen is engaged to French banker Olivier Sarkozy, Us Weekly reports.
How well do you know Grey's Anatomy?
Olsen, 27, and Sarkozy, 44, have been dating since 2012. This will be the first marriage for the Full House alum and the second for Sarkozy - the half-brother of former French president Nicolas Sarkozy. He was previously wed to Charlotte Bernard, with whom he has two children, 12-year-old Julien and 10-year-old Margo.
Olsen most recently appeared in the 2011 film Beastly.
View original Report: Mary-Kate Olsen Engaged to Olivier Sarkozy at TVGuide.com
Other Links From TVGuide.com


text:
Revel AC Inc. said in a bankruptcy court filing Wednesday that it had reached a deal to sell its $2.4 billion Atlantic City property to South Florida developer Glenn Straub for $90 million in cash.
The deal was reached Friday, according to the filing. That was less than a week after Revel closed, putting nearly 3,000 people out of work.
The offer is less than 4 percent of the casino's original price tag.
"It's not going to be just a casino," Straub said. "There's four people that would make excellent casino operators, but that building is much, much more than just a casino."
Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/business/20140911_Stricken_Revel_has_a_buyer_for__90M_in_cash.html#UYw7HbKdWPWbAI8K.99


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Programmer Time Translation Table
An experienced project manager I used to work with claimed that he took the programmers' time estimates, multiplied by pi and converted to the next time magnitude to get the true number. 1 day converts to 3.14 weeks. He had learned the hard way that programmers are bad at estimating times. To get a more precise conversion, I've created a translation table for programmers' time estimations, trying to narrow down where things go wrong.
|The Programmer Thinks
|What the Programmer Forgot
|Actual Time
|30 seconds
|There's just a small change to the code to be done. I know exactly what to type and where. It takes 30 seconds to type.
|Time for starting the computer, the development environment and getting the right source. The time to build, test, check in and document the fix
|1 hour
|5 minutes
|It's a minor thing, I just have to look up the exact syntax on google and fix it.
|It's quite rare to find exactly the right information on the first try. Even if it is found, it probably needs some adjustments before it works. Add time for building, testing etc.
|2 hours
|1 hour
|I know how to do it, but it's some code to write so it will take some time.
|1 hour is too tight to have any margin for unforeseen problems. Something always fails.
|2 hours
|4 hours
|It's some code to write, but I roughly know the step. I know the Wizzabanga module of our standard framework can do it, but I have to check the documentation on exactly how to call it.
|This is probably the only realistic estimation. It is large enough to have some margin for unexpected problems, while the task is still small enough to grasp.
|4 hours
|8 hours
|I first have to refactor the Balunga class into two, then I'll add a call to the Wizzabanga code and finally add the new fields to the GUI
|There's a lot of dependencies on the Balunga class from different parts of the system. About 40 different files have to be adjusted. The newly added field in the GUI has to be added in the database as well. 8 hours is too large to grasp completely. There will be more steps than the programmer thought of when estimating.
|12-16 hours
|2 days
|It's really quite a lot to code. I have to add some new tables to the database, a GUI for those and then the logic to read and write data to the tables.
|2 days of work is too large to overview for most developers. There will surely be things that are missed. Not just small things, but entire major pieces of functionality required will be forgotten during the estimation.
|5 days
|1 week
|Ouch… that's a HUGE task. I don't have a clue on how to do it, but I can't say I don't know. One week should be enough, I hope, I really hope, but I can't ask for more or they'll think I'm not competent enough.
|The task is way too large to get an understanding of for most programmers. It has to be sent back to an architect that can help splitting it in smaller parts and provide some direction how it should be solved. The architect might find a simple way to do it – or find that there's a lot more work than expected.
|2-20 days
Time estimation is hard. Every programmer has an interval where the estimations are realistic. Going below that interval means that the overhead (building, testing checking in code) was overlooked. Going above that interval means that the task is too large to overview.
For junior developers, the interval might even be non existing. They overlook the overhead while on the same time any non-trivial task is too large for them to overview. I'd say that an experienced developer should get anything between 0.5 hours and 24 hours right. Above 24 hours a breakdown is needed. It can be done in the head and then summed to 60 hours by the developer – but even someone experienced need to have manageable chunks to think of.
It is also important to understand that experience in programming is not the same as experience in estimation. A developer that's not involved in the estimation process won't get good at estimation. Also if actual time spent is never measured and compared to the estimates, there is no feedback to learn from.
Eventually, every programmer will have use for estimation skills. To prepare for that, decide when things are done for each task you take on. Then estimate the task before starting. Finally count the time spent and compare that to the estimate. Also compare what you actually had to do to your own definition of done. That way you'll improve both your understanding of all the details involved in a task, as well as improve your estimation skills.
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Alex Kashko on 2012-06-14
A decent antidote to optimism.
Adding together the estimated times for all tasks then adding a percentage for slippage is, I understand, a technique used in project management.
Rahul Kushwaha on 2012-06-14
nice article…things are not exactly that they look…:)
Mathias Magnusson on 2012-06-14
Great article. I especially like the conversion of time > 4 hours. I tend to round everything below up to a half day as nothing ever takes less than one half day.
I completely agree that this is a skill one can build up, too often techies feel that it takes the time it takes. "How long time does it take to catch a fish". The problem is that a fisherman can probably tell you while the hobbyist may not know, so as professionals we ought to be able to give good estimates.
Barry Etheridge on 2012-06-14
Hofstadter's Law ("It always takes longer than you think even when you take Hofstadter's Law into account!") was published something like 30 years ago yet people are still proposing that time estimates have any place in business?
James on 2012-06-25
Sure we are as long as the customer wants to know how much he will need to pay we will continue coming iup with estimates and thrust me no client will multiply his budget by pi. There must be a contingency but what is being proposed here will simply throw you out of business especially with all the bullies that think they can do it in even a shorter time than possible hence competing against potential accurate estimates.
Si on 2012-10-09
Hofstadter's law was the first thing which sprang to my mind, however, it was more as confirmation of the usefulness of this post rather than evidence of estimates not being necessary.
The fact is that Hofstadter's law is a) anecdotal, and b) tongue-in-cheek. James is right. Estimates have a huge importance both to reassure the customer, and to enable the vendor to manage their workload. Would you say that deadlines, planning and scheduling also don't have a place in business? All these depend on estimating time. The point this table and Hofstadter's law make is that a) estimates need to be made with care. b) expectations need to be managed so that when something goes wrong, both the customer and vendor are able to modify their plans and emotions accordingly.
Obviously Hofstadter's "law" isn't really a law. It is possible to overestimate, and as a result complete the work in less time than you have told the client. In my experience, more often than not clients will love you for it.
Anders Abel on 2012-10-09
I definitely agree with you. I wrote a follow-up post named Professional Developers Estimate Times a few weeks ago.
Joshua Smith on 2012-06-14
I read a paper where they studies this rigorously. They found that small estimates from developers were invariably underestimates (as you predict), middle estimates were right on, and high estimates were overestimates. So, according to that study (which was pretty large), your rule is wrong on the high end. You need to tone down huge estimates from developers, because things aren't really as bad as they think they are.
Anders Abel on 2012-06-15
That paper would be really interesting to read. I just made my numbers up myself based on my own subjective experience. Do you have a reference to the paper?
Depending on how you define the "high end" I think I did take into account that high estimates often are a sign of great uncertainty rather than great complexity. "1 week" = "2-20 days" means that it could be worse but it could also be easier.
Without having read the paper you refer to, I'd guess that it shows that the average outcome is lower than the average prediction for high estimates. But if the variance is taken into account, I'd guess that it will show a large spread in the outcome for the high end estimates.
Do you remember if there was any discussion on the variance in the paper?
Denis on 2016-06-17
Could you share this study?
brian M on 2012-06-14
We have built a computerised estimating system that in practice gives results as reliable as a developer when suitable information is entered – Its core algorithm is based around a random number generator :)
Nice article
MyName on 2012-06-14
Just multiply how long you think it will take by a factor of 3.
ms440 on 2012-06-15
For small estimates the correct multiplier is e**pi (~23) for everything else p**e (~22.5). These mults are taking meetings into consideration… The resulting estimation correctness is better than 0.6, and this is a big progress from random number generator that I've used 10 years ago.
Jim Haflinger on 2012-06-14
Our rule of thumb for software estimates is to double it and change it to the next unit higher unit of measure.
Example: 2 days means 4 weeks.
David Burch on 2015-06-21
This is what I was taught too
Dan Sutton on 2012-06-14
Back in the days (by which I mean the '80s) at IBM, the statement was that in order to estimate development time, you first made what you considered to be a reasonable estimation, then upgraded the unit and multiplied by two. Therefore:
1 minute = 2 hours;
1 hour = 2 days;
1 day = 2 weeks
…and so on. God help you if anyone estimated six months!
Matthew Graybosch on 2012-06-14
When asked for an estimate, I think (but do not say) one of two things. For most situations, I think: "It'll take as long as it takes, and it'll take longer if you keep bothering me". For situations in which management wants it done in an unrealistic timeframe, I think: "I just need a few minutes to duck into the men's room and pull a miracle out of my ass".
BenK on 2012-06-15
I think your estimates are about right for bug-fixes or small application tweaks, but no good for new system, application or even major feature developments.
And why stop at one week. Sometimes one has to estimate 3 months for a big job, then when you spend a couple of days thinking about it, something complex drops out, and it turns into 3 days work and a couple of days testing!
Carl on 2012-06-18
Great article! I'd broadly agree with most of the estimates. Interestingly, with the only reliable estimate being 4 hours, mabe the lesson here is to break every single large task down into 4 hour chunks…?
In my first ever job my boss explained what I've found to be an incredibly useful tool for estimating. You come up with your initial estimate, then think: "How likely is this to to over-run? How much could it over-run by?" Then think: "How likey is this to under-run? What's the quickest it could be done by?" Then take a figure somewhere between the two. It's almost always a lot longer than the initial estimate.
Josh Frazer on 2012-10-07
I like the four hour chunk idea; it breaks up nicely into two to three periods per day separated by lunch/dinner breaks/meetings. It's similar to how we organized & planned at the last place I worked.
Bob on 2012-06-27
The evolution of estimation …
Method A: "Use Your Gut / Stroke Your Neck Beard"
Process: Estimate in arbitrary blocks of time using divining rods, gurning and an error-correction multiplication constant. Tell people around you what they want to hear. Result: every task is Russian-Roulette, the meaning of integrity & reliability is never comprehended.
Method B: "Brogrammers & Excessive Layers of Middle Management"
Process: Estimate in points, and use historic evidence to translate points to hours. Result: Initially 0% accurate but after a year of logging this method will be "workable", i.e. just in time for the Brogrammer to move to his new job in iOS or HTML5 dev.
Method C: "Don't Estimate, Don't Ask For Estimates"
Process: Tell them when it's done, or when it needs to be done by (and what are the priorities, and what are the consequences of failure). Embrace incremental, the "power of now" and the benefits of feature shrink. Results: 100% accuracy, 100% rational.
Peter on 2012-07-02
Method C is really romantic. But in real life the customer wants to know if the x-mas upgrade, really is ready for end november and not finished in the middle of february.
Beside that the estimates also are a motivational factor and a way to make sure that he project doesent take 100 years to complete. Since the programmers work towards a goal, "This task is to be finished in 1 hour" he don't sit and work with it for 4 hours because "it is finished when it is finished"
Then sometimes corners have to be cut and the task is made the way it could be in maybe 1½ hour.
The thing with estimation is that people think of it as a promise where they should think of it as a qualified guess on where you can base cost and deadline. If then project leader and the customer understands this there is no chance of loosing integrity.
A way to manage deadlines are agile development methods, maybe where you move release dates closer together so you always have a working release.
keppy on 2012-10-07
"But in real life the customer wants to know if the x-mas upgrade, really is ready for end november and not finished in the middle of february."
I have found this not to be resemblant of real life. In real life it's the promise of an upgrade by christmas that can cripple your ability to produce–not inherently impatient customers.
Anonymous Coward on 2012-08-04
I usually estimate the implementation time only, in detail, breaking up what needs to be done to individual methods, then multiply it by 2.2 if it's something on a product and with a technology I already know, or by 3 otherwise. It almost always works.
The factors are the result of several years of experience gathering and adjustments. They seem to work well regardless of the language or particular technology. They even work when the task at hand is about doing maintenance on extremely ugly legacy code – in such cases, the initial implementation time tends to be disproportionately high, because any small change requires touching tons of code.
Paul on 2012-10-06
My time table is always +/- 1 of whatever unit of measure I used. If I say 3 hours, that's 2-5 hours. If I say 6 days, that's 5-7 days. If I say 1 week, that's 0-2 weeks. If I say 3 months, that's 2-4 months.
I don't use +/- minutes because I just estimate it as "under an hour" which still buys me 2 hours.
Eric Bréchemier on 2012-10-06
When a customer (or a manager) asks "How long will it take?" to a programmer, there is a huge gap between what the programmer and the customer see behind the word "it". The programmer thinks of "it" in technical details, and thus analyzes the steps to arrive to a workable solution, maybe in a limited context, in development environment. The customer is only interested in the result, not the steps to achieve it, and thus expects that the solution will be deployed, fully functional and without obvious bugs. Also, the problem to solve is usually underspecified, since problems tend to disappear once they are described with the right words.
To estimate a fuzzy task, it is much easier, and surprisingly, more accurate, to provide fuzzy estimates, by providing orders of magnitude for each task:
h+ = one or several hours (but less than a day)
d+ = one or several days (but less than a week)
w+ = one or several weeks
This type of evaluation represents the uncertainty more accurately:
* no task worth discussing takes less than 1 hour
* a simple task may take from 1 hour to 1 day
* a complex task (or aggregates of simple tasks) may take from 1 day to 1 week
* aggregates of complex tasks may span multiple weeks
Using this system, it is easier to justify to a customer that to achieve a certain result, several days will be needed, by listing the tasks required to reach a working solution with their order of magnitude. For example:
[d+] goal
[h+] simple task A
[h+] simple task B
[h+] simple task C
Although A, B and C are simple enough, it will take at least one day to reach the goal, but probably no more than one day in this case.
Nicolás Sanguinetti on 2012-10-06
This image sums up my thoughts on estimating pretty well: http://cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/400x/27924530.jpg
Stavros on 2012-10-06
Nice read, I was recently looking for how a developer can estimate in more realistic way and I found this wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_development_effort_estimation.
Tim on 2012-10-07
Every programmer knows to pad estimates, but I don't see how this helps. For example, at my last job, everything was complex enough that every task would fall into the "Ouch… that's a HUGE task" slot (actual estimate: 2-20 days). And managers would never be happy knowing that the 3 features they wanted me to do for the next release would take between 6 and 60 work days (1 week and 3 months), but also never be willing to schedule any time for improving the codebase.
Anonymous on 2012-10-07
I have the tendency to underestimate. Having learned my tendency, nowadays I always multiply the initial estimate by a personal multiplier. For a somewhat smaller task I'd multiply it by 2 where as if it is bigger task the multiplier gets upgraded to 3-4.
Jaybill on 2012-10-07
I wrote something similar but far more sarcastic and less detailed a few weeks ago. I like yours better.
Anders Abel on 2012-10-08
Your list gave a few good laughs as well. I have to admit that some of them were spot on to things I've said myself in the past…
Rahul Kokate on 2012-10-08
Few organizations use there own tactics or logic to calculate the estimation hours. this is based on the experience of developer, lines of code, number of program involved etc…
Vaidyanathan B on 2012-10-09
I loved the reference to the 3.14 conversion rule – right at the very beginning. Definitely got my attention – to read the rest of the article.
We follow extreme programming in our teams – at least I *think* we do :). So I believe we've gotten to a point where accurate estimates have a high level of importance in the minds of everyone on the team. Here's how we do things – at a high level:
In our team, we use MMF's (or more simply, just features), stories and "engineering" tasks – as the 3 "layers".
– The MMF's are usually no bigger than a week of effort (estimated by everyone on the team)
– A story is usually a 1.5 day's effort (created and estimated primarily usually by our business analysts – we're trying to make this 1 day though)
– An engineering task is usually about 4 hours (of course, estimated by engineers. At this point, the BA get feedback on their estimation – and breaks stories down further – or glues some together – if there's a significant amount of difference)
We used to rely on relative size estimation for MMF's and Stories (as suggested by Mike Cohn) – but over the last 6 months or so, we've moved to breaking down things to the same level of granularity (at that particular level, of course)
One thing we're trying to improve on is the right granularity at which to break down tasks into – staying on the right side of the "diminishing returns" curve is hard.
We don't have a specific time allotted for estimation – at least for the engineers. The time to be invested in estimation – is considered as unplanned time when stacking up stories for the upcoming iteration.
Finally, to keep our estimates accurate, we split stories into two groups – "definitely" and "maybe" – before we provide a commitment to our customers.
But the thing we don't do (at least enough of, yet) – is consistently measuring how well we're doing as regards our estimates. That is the main takeaway, I got from your article.
Thanks so much for writing this. I totally enjoyed it :).
Lawrence on 2012-10-09
Oh my God. I recognize myself soooooo much in this! It is true. Sometimes I am puzzled on how long everything takes! And then I wonder how we ever advanced in the C / C++ era…. I guess it is because we didn't write automated tests which do take a LOT of time but save a lot of bug-fixing time AND guarantee stable code. I always hated test cases. But now I can't live without anymore…
joel garry on 2012-10-18
For RAD, AGILE and such methodologies, move decimal place up an order of magnitude to account for "but what I really wanted was" time.
Ambuscade on 2013-01-14
Um, you guys know that programmers created this paradigm so that we would have tons of free time to work on our own projects, and generally slack off, right?
gmanon on 2013-12-25
What about when you are dealing with a previews developer code and someone ask you to change an image.
You immediately say: No problem, it will take a minute. It's all about changing the image name and uploading the image to the server.
Then you find out that the image is a parameter name on a template that you can't find because there are several templates and some even have similar names and the image name is a reference in the database allocated in a table somewhere in the database.
And to make it more dramatic, the development environment is protected by a constant located in the database with a salted password that nobody told you about.
Often, you can find nasty developers who think that security is to make everything dark and unavailable.
Estimating code troubleshooting, I think it depends more on the developer experience than anything else. And often, it's impossible to predict because you don't know what you are going to find.
Romén Rodríguez on 2015-10-11
Thanks Anders Abel for this! So true and still totally valid today!
I have just published an article about "why asking for time estimates in software projects is a bad idea and how to bypass it with Scrum" and I have linked this article as an example of the difficulty to estimate tasks that take longer than a work day.
Rene Baron on 2016-06-17
Whatever you can estimate you can automize ;-)
And as always: it depends on the size, complexity, phase of the project and people maturity of assigned staff.
If you do something the first time: don't estimate! Give youself a timeslot and watch your progress. Not satisfied ? Give it to a more mature person, freelancer, rething the requirements of let it be!
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