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It's one thing to look at photos of the majestic Northern Lights – it's definitely another to see them for yourself while living in Iceland for five days. While we'll absolutely take some time to go in search of the Lights, we'll also include some local elements to best connect you to winter life in Reykjavík – think visiting a local flea market, buying fish for a cooking class, and touring this beautiful city. The CEO is a native Icelander and will be able to impart loads of knowledge about customs and daily life. Throw in some free time to keep this trip extra customizable and you've got an Iceland living experience to remember.
What's Included
Your Welcome Moment: Meet Your CEO and Group. Guided Reykjavík city tour by foot. Two cooking lessons. Northern Lights excursion. Visit to naturally heated pools. Visit to Kolaportið Flea Market. Transport between destinations and included activities.
Hunt for the ethereal Northern Lights, soak in natural pools with locals, savour the fruits of a cooking lesson with an Icelandic dinner feast, scour the local flea and fish market for bargains, explore the Icelandic countryside.
Dossier Disclaimer
The information in this trip details document has been compiled with care and is provided in good faith. However it is subject to change, and does not form part of the contract between the client and the operator. The itinerary featured is correct at time of printing. It may differ slightly to the one in the brochure. Occasionally our itineraries change as we make improvements that stem from past travellers, comments and our own research. Sometimes it can be a small change like adding an extra meal along the itinerary. Sometimes the change may result in us altering the tour for the coming year. Ultimately, our goal is to provide you with the most rewarding experience. Please note that our brochure is usually released in November each year. If you have booked from the previous brochure you may find there have been some changes to the itinerary.
VERY IMPORTANT: Please ensure that you print a final copy of your Trip Details to review a couple of days prior to travel, in case there have been changes that affect your plans.
Itinerary Disclaimer
While it is our intention to adhere to the route described below, there is a certain amount of flexibility built into the itinerary and on occasion it may be necessary, or desirable to make alterations. The itinerary is brief, as we never know exactly where our journey will take us. Due to our style of travel and the regions we visit, travel can be unpredictable. The Trip Details document is a general guide to the tour and region and any mention of specific destinations or wildlife is by no means a guarantee that they will be visited or encountered. Aboard expedition trips visits to research stations depend on final permission.
Additionally, any travel times listed are approximations only and subject to vary due to local circumstances.
Group Leader Description
This G Adventures group trip is accompanied by one of our CEOs (Chief Experience Officer). The aim of the CEO is to take the hassle out of your travels and to help you have the best trip possible. They will provide information on the places you are travelling through, offer suggestions for things to do and see, recommend great local eating venues and introduce you to our local friends. While not being guides in the traditional sense you can expect them to have a broad general knowledge of the countries visited on the trip, including historical, cultural, religious and social aspects.
Group Size Notes
Max 14, avg 10.
Meals Included
4 breakfasts, 1 lunch, 3 dinners
Van, jeep, walking.
About our Transportation
Most day excursions (both optional and included) will include private transportation to and from the activity and your CEO can help arrange any other transportation services you might need.
Solo Travellers
We believe solo travellers should not have to pay more to travel so our group trips are designed for shared accommodation and do not involve a single supplement. Single travellers joining group trips are paired in twin or multi-share accommodation with someone of the same sex for the duration of the trip. Some of our Independent trips are designed differently and solo travellers on these itineraries must pay the single trip price.
Fully equipped house in Reykjavík (4 nts).
About Accommodation
We stay in a family-style house in central Reykjavík within comfortable walking distance to downtown. The house has a combination of twin-share and double bedrooms, along with a comfortable living room, fully equipped kitchen and multiple shared bathrooms. Clean sheets and towels will be provided upon arrival to be used for the duration of the tour. The house is professionally cleaned before and after each group's stay, but the group is asked to assist in keeping the house clean and tidy during the tour. In Iceland, it is standard practice to remove shoes before entering a home, and it is requested that tour participants do the same in this house.
Joining Hotel
For details of your joining hotel please refer to your tour voucher, G Account, the G Adventures App or contact your travel agent.
Joining Instructions
Upon exiting the airport, take the shuttle bus service, Flybus. Cost is 2500ISK. It will drop you off anywhere in Reykjavik. The office is located on the main shopping street in Reykjavik.
Please meet with your CEO at the latest by 4pm at the Arctic Adventure Office. Once there, you will be transferred to your Reykjavik Local Living accommodation.
Please note:
If you are arriving earlier, you will be able to drop of your luggage at the office for the day. If you are arriving after 4pm, please make your way to the office and they will contact your CEO to pick you up or provide you with directions to the local living property.
Arrival Complications
We don't expect any problems, and nor should you, but if for any reason you are unable to commence your trip as scheduled, please refer to the emergency contact details provided in this dossier and contact us as soon as possible. If you have a pre-booked transfer, and you have not made contact with our representative within 30 minutes of clearing customs and immigration, we recommend that you make your own way to the Starting Point hotel, following the Joining Instructions. Please apply to your travel agent on your return for a refund of the transfer cost if this occurs.
Emergency Contact
Should you need to contact us during a situation of dire need, it is best to first call our G Adventures Local Office. If for any reason you do not receive an immediate answer, please leave a detailed message and contact information, so they may return your call and assist you as soon as possible.
G Adventures Berlin office: +4915203076785
If you are unable for any reason to contact our local office, please call the numbers listed below, which will connect you directly with our 24 hour Sales team, who will happily assist you.
Toll-free, from calls within North America only: 1 888 800 4100
Calls from within UK: 0344 272 0000
Calls from within Germany: 0800 365 1000
Calls from within Australia: 1 300 796 618
Calls from within New Zealand: 0800 333 307
Outside North America, Australia, New Zealand, Germany and the UK: +1 416 260 0999
Packing List
Health & Safety:
• Face masks (required)
• Hand sanitizer (required)
• Pen (Please bring your own pen for filling out documents.)
• Rubber gloves
Spending Money
Every traveller is different and therefore spending money requirements will vary. Some travellers may drink more than others while other travellers like to purchase more souvenirs than most. Please consider your own spending habits when it comes to allowing for drinks, shopping and tipping. Please also remember the following specific recommendations when planning your trip.
Emergency Fund
Please also make sure you have access to at least an additional USD $200 (or equivalent) as an 'emergency' fund, to be used when circumstances outside our control (ex. a natural disaster) require a change to our planned route. This is a rare occurrence!
Departure Tax
There is currently no departure tax when leaving Iceland.
Tipping in Iceland is not customary. In many cases, a service charge is added to the bill which means that it is not necessary to add a tip. If you wish to express your satisfaction with the service in a bar or restaurant, then a gratuity of 10% or to round up the amount of the bill is perfectly acceptable.
Tipping during the tour program is similarly not expected, but it can be a way to express satisfaction with the persons who have assisted on your tour. Recommendations for tipping local guides would range from the equivalent of $3-5 USD per day depending on the quality and length of the service; ask your CEO for specific recommendations based on the circumstances and culture.
At the end of each trip if you felt your G Adventures CEO did an outstanding job, tipping is appreciated. The amount is entirely a personal preference, however as a guideline €30-40 per person, per week can be used.
Optional Activities
- Blue Lagoon Visit (35-165EUR per person)
- Golden Circle Tour (19990ISK per person)
- Glacier Hiking on Sólheimajökull (from Reykjavík) (24990ISK per person)
Please note inoculations may be required for the country visited. It is your responsibility to consult with your travel doctor for up to date medical travel information well before departure.
You should consult your doctor for up-to-date medical travel information well before departure. We recommend that you carry a First Aid kit and hand sanitizers / antibacterial wipes as well as any personal medical requirements. Please be aware that quite often we are in remote areas and away from medical facilities, and for legal reasons our leaders are prohibited from administering any type of drug including headache tablets, antibiotics, etc. When selecting your trip please carefully read the brochure and itinerary and assess your ability to cope with our style of travel. Please refer to the Physical Ratings for trip specific information. G Adventures reserves the right to exclude any traveller from all or part of a trip without refund if in the reasonable opinion of our CEO they are unable to complete the itinerary without undue risk to themselves and/or the rest of the group.
Safety and Security
Many national governments provide a regularly updated advice service on safety issues involved with international travel. We recommend that you check your government's advice for their latest travel information before departure. We strongly recommend the use of a neck wallet or money belt while travelling, for the safe keeping of your passport, air tickets, travellers' cheques, cash and other valuable items. Leave your valuable jewelery at home – you won't need it while travelling. Many of the hotels we use have safety deposit boxes, which is the most secure way of storing your valuables. A lock is recommended for securing your luggage. When travelling on a group trip, please note that your group leader has the authority to amend or cancel any part of the trip itinerary if it deemed necessary, due to safety concerns. Your Chief Experience Officer (CEO) will accompany you on all included activities. During your trip you will have some free time to pursue your own interests, relax and take it easy and explore at your leisure. While your CEO will assist you with options available in a given location, please note that any optional activities you undertake are not part of your itinerary, and we offer no representations about the safety of the activity or the standard of the operators running them. Please use your own good judgement when selecting an activity in your free time. Although the cities visited on tour are generally safe during the day, there can be risks to wandering throughout any major city at night. It is our recommendation to stay in small groups and to take taxis to and from restaurants, or during night time excursions.
Water based activities have an element of danger and excitement built into them. We recommend only participating in water based activities when accompanied by a guide(s). We make every reasonable effort to ensure the fun and adventurous element of any water based activities (in countries with varying degrees of operating standards), have a balanced approach to safety. It is our policy not to allow our CEOs to make arrangements on your behalf for water based activities that are not accompanied by guide(s).
Swimming, including snorkeling, is always at your own risk. Read more about travel safety for ways to further enhance your personal safety while traveling.
Trip Specific Safety
Like anywhere in the world, major cities have areas safer than others, use common sense, be aware of your surroundings and mind your personal belongings. Also, please look at weather reports before packing to ensure your clothes are warm enough for the Icelandic winter.
A Couple of Rules
Illegal drugs will not be tolerated on any trips. Possessing or using drugs not only contravenes the laws of the land but also puts the rest of the group at risk. Smoking marijuana and opium is a part of local culture in some parts of the world but is not acceptable for our travellers. Our philosophy of travel is one of respect towards everyone we encounter and in particular the local people who make the world the special place it is. The exploitation of people in the sex trade is completely contrary to this philosophy. Our CEOs have the right to expel any member of the group if drugs are found in their possession or if they utilize the services of paid sex workers, in any capacity.
Travel Insurance
Travel insurance is compulsory in order to participate on any of our trips. When travelling on a group trip, you will not be permitted to join the group until evidence of travel insurance has been sighted by your leader, who will take note of your insurance details. When selecting a travel insurance policy we require that at a minimum you are covered for medical expenses including emergency evacuation and repatriation. A minimum coverage of USD200,000 is required. G Adventures can provide you with the appropriate coverage. We strongly recommend that the policy also covers personal liability, cancellation, curtailment and loss of luggage and personal effects. Some tours include adventure activities that require extra coverage (e.g. crampon use); please review your itinerary and make sure that you are covered for all included activities. If you have credit card insurance we require proof of purchase of the trip (a receipt of credit card statement) with a credit card in your name. Contact your bank for details of their participating insurer, the level of coverage and emergency contact telephone number.
Planeterra Foundation - the non-profit partner of G Adventures
Planeterra International Foundation is a non-profit organization committed to turning travel into impact by helping local communities earn an income from tourism. Planeterra connects underserved local communities to the benefits of tourism by developing and supporting small community-owned businesses. These businesses support Indigenous people, empower women, grant youth access to employment opportunities, and protect the environment. Planeterra also works to ensure these businesses have a thriving customer base by integrating their projects into G Adventures' itineraries globally.
G Adventures is Planeterra's largest corporate donor, covering all operating costs, so 100% of your donation will bring opportunity to people in need.
G Adventures Dollar-a-day Program – Make Every Day Count – Turn your travel into impact with Planeterra Foundation.
Did you know? Most communities around the world do not benefit from tourism. Give back to the places you visit on your travels by creating opportunities for local people to earn an income, and protect the environment.
Make every day count by donating $1/day for the length of your trip, and join us in empowering the communities you will visit when you travel. 100% of your donation goes directly to Planeterra projects.
After your travels, we want to hear from you! Your feedback information is so important to us that we'll give you 5% off the price of your next G Adventures trip if your feedback is completed on-line within 30 days of finishing your trip. Your tour evaluation will be e-mailed to you 24 hours after the conclusion of your trip. If you do not receive the tour evaluation link in the days after your tour has finished, please drop us a line at firstname.lastname@example.com and we will send it on to you.
Minimum Age
You must be 18 to travel unaccompanied on a G Adventures tour. For minors travelling with a guardian over 21 years old, the minimum age is 12.
International Flights
Check-in times and baggage allowances/restrictions vary by airline and can change at any time. For the most up-to-date information for your flight, please contact your airline. We recommend checking in online in advance to avoid potential delays at the airport.
Group Leader
Chief Experience Officer (CEO) throughout.


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October 14th, 2011
Steven Seagal hired to control U.S.-Mexico border
Steven Seagal has once again been hired to serve and protect, except it doesn't sound like there will be any reality show cameras following him around this time.
The "Above the Law" actor was sworn in this week as a deputy with the sheriff's office in Hudspeth County, Texas. The 59-year-old, who's no stranger to law enforcement and is also trained in Aikido, will help control the U.S.-Mexico border, according to the San Antonio Express.
The paper reports that Seagal reached out to the Hudspeth County Sheriff's Office himself about two months ago, seeking employment. Says Sheriff Arvin West, "Seagal is not in this for celebrity or publicity. He's like the rest of us that live down here; he has a sincere passion for his country and he wants to do more to help."
Although cameras captured Seagal's work as a reserve deputy with the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office in Louisiana for A&E's "Steven Seagal: Lawman," it doesn't appear his full-time work with Hudspeth County's department will eventually serve as fodder for TV.
The San Antonio Express reports that a spokesman for the Hudspeth County Sheriff's Office says Seagal's employment with them isn't part of the A&E show. (Production was also halted on "Steven Seagal: Lawman" in 2010 when a former model alleged that Seagal used her as a "sex toy" after she was hired to be his assistant.)
"The television aspect of what we're doing here is the last priority," the spokesman said. "The man has a pure motive in doing this. He knows what we're up against and wants to help."
Seagal is scheduled to start his new gig early next year. While it's unknown if he'll be paid, the spokesman for the sheriff's department says deputies are typically paid about $15 an hour.
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Silverstone TJ09 Temjin Tower Case Review
Cases & PSU/Cases by jmke @ 2007-02-09
With the TJ09 Silverstone is focusing on airflow to dissipate the heat of Dual/Quad core processors and especially high end VGA cards. Their design is classic elegant with functional and clean looks. This is a high end product made for high end systems, can it keep a Core 2 / Geforce 8800 GTX cool enough? We find out.


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So Icelandic band Sigur Ros is holding a mystery film experiment contest, inviting film makers and video directors to create an original video for one of the tracks from their new album Valtari. I happen to love Sigur Ros, their haunting sad strange otherworldly music that is, among other things, used so beautifully and wrenchingly at the end of one of my favorite films of all time, Mysterious Skin (see the ending here, tho really you should just go watch the whole film, not to mention read the amazing book by Scott Heim [tho prepare to be completely heartbroken, in the best way]). They're also really wonderful live, and when I saw them several years back were almost completely in shadow the whole time.
Anyway, you can imagine that such a contest has inspired some gorgeous work, and it so happens that filmmaker Ivan Landau's entry in said contest stars none other than mermaid extraordinaire Hannah Fraser, both above and below the water. The video itself and the images that have emerged from it are just unbelievably stunning. Look:
And here's the amazing video itself:
Sigur Rós "Dauðalogn" [Mystery Film Experiment Submission] from Ivan Landau on Vimeo.
Obviously, you should vote for this film immediately, or at least at some point over the next four days before voting ends [the winner of this online vote will become an official selection in Sigur Ros's Valtari Mystery Film Experiment, one of them being that cool one one with Shia Labeouf you might have seen before]. You can vote here.
And, finally, here's what Hannah had to say about the experience: "The video was an incredible experience of working with such a talented crew and such a beautiful melting pot of play meets art meets work with a creative purpose."
Now go vote, on behalf of mermaids everywhere!


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Today, a nod to other ministries: deacon, installed, and others:
§ 36 § A variety of ministries serve the assembly at the liturgy. First among the ministers is the deacon.(GIRM 94) Some faithful have been installed in the ministries of lector or acolyte. Others serve as readers, altar servers, extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion, cantors, musicians, and sacristans.(SC 26, 28-29) As members of the Church, each person forms an essential and distinct part of the assembly that is gathered by God in an "organic and hierarchical" way.(GIRM 294; Cf. GIRM 5) Each minister, ordained or lay, is called upon to fulfill his or her role and only that role in the celebration of the liturgy.(SC 28)
§ 37 § By its design and its furnishings, the church reflects this diversity of roles. The one who presides, those who proclaim God's word, the ministers of music, those who assist at the altar, and members of the congregation all play an integral part in the public prayer of the Church. The design of the church should reflect the unity of the entire assembly and at the same time insure that each person is able to exercise his or her ministry in a space that fully accommodates the ritual action called for by that ministry. Careful attention to the placement of the individuals and groups who comprise the liturgical assembly can manifest and enhance their relationship with one another and with the entire body.
One design factor that has gained some traction in the past generation or two is to permit lay ministers to emerge from the assembly, rather than sit in "ministerial seats" like the clergy. Even assigned seats within pews can suggest a minimalization of the role of the lay person at Mass in favor of a quasi-priestly function. Which lectors, communion ministers, servers, and others do not exemplify. At least in theory.
Altar servers are one last piece of resistance in many parishes. When I returned to one of my old parishes, I noticed that six chairs were arranged behind the presider's chair. It used to be that altar servers sat against the wall at the edge of the raised platform near the ambo about twenty feet away from the priest. They had been moved very close. I don't think that arrangement reflected a good relationship, as many young people attend Mass with their families, and this is a good value to enforce as far as possible: that the Domestic Church be recognized and honored in the Sunday assembly.
One example is enought. Anyone think of others?
All texts from Built of Living Stones are copyright © 2000, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission.


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Sorting pigs by weight when stocking a grower-feeder barn is a waste of time, says researcher.
A trial conducted by research scientist Harold Gonyou at the Prairie Swine Centre, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, shows the performance of non-sorted pigs was as good, if not better, than pigs sorted into three groups — heavy, middle and light.
Gonyou found no advantage in sorting pigs in continuous-flow management systems, and it actually slowed development in all-in, all-out (AIAO) systems.
Average daily gain (ADG) and behavior did not differ between pigs in weight-balanced pens vs. variable-weight pens. However, the rate that pens and rooms were emptied differed depending on grouping strategy and pig flow management.
"Under a continuous-flow system, pens were emptied in an average of 105.5 days, while under an AIAO system the rooms were emptied in an average of 107.5 days," Gonyou reports. "Uniform and variable-weight pens emptied at the same rate under the continuous-flow system. Under the AIAO system, rooms of variable-weight pens emptied faster (104.1 days) than did rooms of uniform-weight pens (110.9).
The practice of sorting pigs by size has a long history, dating back to when pigs were commonly fed fixed amounts of feed several times a day.
"When you were limit feeding your pigs, you created a very competitive situation," Gonyou says. "If you had small pigs in a pen, they tended to fall farther and farther behind."
Today, pigs in most grow/finish systems in North America can obtain as much feed and water as they want. There is no reason for a dominant pig to defend food and water resources. As long as pigs are able to obtain adequate amounts of feed, dominant pigs appear to adopt a strategy of eating more quickly rather than increasing their defense of the feeder, he explains.
"By taking away competition for feed or water in our pens, we've created a different social situation," Gonyou says. He believes that sorting pigs stresses the animals until they can find their place in the pen's social pecking order. In unsorted pens, small pigs know they have to defer to larger pigs. There is no need for conflict. However, when they have similar physical attributes — same size, same strength, etc. they become more competitive.
"If you put two pigs together that are within a kilogram (2.2 lb.) in weight, their fights are longer than if you put two pigs together that are 3 kg (10 lb.) apart," Gonyou says. "If you are close to the weight of another pig, you might lose the first fight. But, two or three weeks later, you might try it again. If you're a small pig, you are not going to get involved in a fight with a big pig and always lose."
Therefore, weight diversity helps maintain social status and stability in the pens. "Our thought was that if we didn't sort pigs, would we see a reduction of the social stress that happens within a pen and that would be manifested in performance differences," Gonyou says. "In fact, that's what we find when we are dealing with unsorted pigs that are relatively similar in age, within a couple of weeks of each other."
Behavior Test, Too
Gonyou also examined whether it made sense to sort pigs by behavioral or personality characteristics. Pigs were divided into one of three groups — aggressive, non-aggressive and a mixture of the two.
"We found that if we put the aggressive pigs together in a pen with just other aggressive pigs, then their productivity was depressed," Gonyou says. "If we put all the non-aggressive pigs together in a pen, they had good productivity. And, if there was a mixture of aggressive and non-aggressive pigs in a pen, they had good productivity as well.
"You can overcome bad productivity among aggressive pigs by mixing them with non-aggressive pigs. So this study again shows that having diversity or variation within a pen is beneficial to the social hierarchy or the social attitude within that group of animals," he concludes.
In short, the study shows that it takes all types of pigs to have a productive social structure. Diversity is a good thing if resources are abundant.
"The bottom line is that we probably waste our effort if we spend a lot of time sorting pigs according to body weight when they're going into the grower-finisher barn," Gonyou says. "I think it's more important to have animals that are fairly close together in age, simply because they'll finish out at the same time."


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WHEN VANCOUVERITE Dana Kelley travels to Colorado Springs for a special graduation ceremony next month, she won't be congratulating a freshly minted flyboy from the US Air Force Academy. Instead she'll be shaking the paw of a Portland-born Australian labradoodle named Bell.
Kelley's 3-year-old daughter, Makenzie, suffers from a deadly peanut allergy, and the latte-hued dog is the best hope for keeping her child safe. Bred at Northwest Portland's Killara Ridge Breeding and Research Center, which specializes in Australian labradoodles, Bell can sniff out a peanut from several yards away thanks to her special training by Angel Service Dogs, a newly formed nonprofit based in Colorado Springs. Last year, the organization drafted animal handlers from the Air Force Academy's K-9 Unit to help train an army of "Allergy Alert" service dogs. In effect, the dogs work like minesweepers: if they catch the faintest whiff of peanuts, they sit, a signal that danger's in the air.
The one-of-a-kind nonprofit can't train enough of the dogs. An estimated 1.8 million Americans suffer from peanut allergies, and between 1997 and 2002, the number of children susceptible to the nut's toxic effects doubled. This fall, after being deluged with some 3,000 applications from potential clients, Angel Service Dogs sought out Portland's Killara Ridge as its primary breeder.
Kim Piedt, who opened Killara Ridge in 2004, says it's not a labradoodle's sniffer that makes it special. It's the dog's fur. A crossbreed of a standard poodle and a labrador retriever, the labradoodle was bred as a service dog for people with pet allergies. The dogs don't shed, and their skin is virtually dander free—traits that come in handy when a child is allergic both to peanuts and canines.
"It's exciting to see these dogs giving children the opportunity to play on a swing or go to the Build-a-Bear at the mall—things most kids take for granted," Piedt says. "That's why I do this."
Such freedom doesn't come cheap, though. Each of Piedt's labradoodles, whose bloodlines can be traced directly to the breed's original pair in Australia, costs $2,600 without any allergy training. A fully trained peanut dog runs a staggering $15,000. To Kelley, however, the investment is worth it. She raided her modest savings account and borrowed from her parents' retirement fund to purchase Bell, because she knows this dog isn't going to be just Makenzie's best friend. "It's going to be her savior," she says.


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BOYKIN v. ALABAMA(1969)
Petitioner, a 27-year-old Negro, who was represented by appointed counsel, pleaded guilty to five indictments for common-law robbery. The judge asked no questions of petitioner concerning his plea, and petitioner did not address the court. Under Alabama law providing for a jury trial to fix punishment on a guilty plea, the prosecution presented eyewitness testimony and petitioner's counsel cursorily cross-examined. Petitioner did not testify; no character or background testimony was presented for him; and there was nothing to indicate that he had a prior criminal record. The jury found petitioner guilty and sentenced him to death on each indictment. The Alabama Supreme Court reviewed the sentences under the State's automatic appeal statute for capital cases, which requires the reviewing court to comb the record for prejudicial error even though not raised by counsel. Petitioner did not raise the question of the voluntariness of his guilty plea and the State Supreme Court did not pass on that question, though a majority of the court explicitly considered it in affirming his sentences of death. Held:
E. Graham Gibbons, by appointment of the Court, 393 U.S. 931 , argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the brief was Stephen A. Hopkins.
David W. Clark, Assistant Attorney General of Alabama, argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief was MacDonald Gallion, Attorney General.
Jack Greenberg, James M. Nabrit III, Michael Meltsner, Melvyn Zarr, and Anthony G. Amsterdam filed a brief for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., et al. as amici curiae urging reversal.
MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS delivered the opinion of the Court.
In the spring of 1966, within the period of a fortnight, a series of armed robberies occurred in Mobile, Alabama. The victims, in each case, were local shopkeepers open at night who were forced by a gunman to hand over money. While robbing one grocery store, the assailant fired his gun once, sending a bullet through a door into the ceiling. A few days earlier in a drugstore, the robber had allowed his gun to discharge in such a way that the bullet, on ricochet from the floor, struck a customer in the leg. Shortly thereafter, a local grand jury returned five indictments against petitioner, a 27-year-old Negro, for common-law robbery - an offense punishable in Alabama by death.
Before the matter came to trial, the court determined that petitioner was indigent and appointed counsel 1 to represent him. Three days later, at his arraignment, petitioner pleaded guilty to all five indictments. So far as the record shows, the judge asked no questions of petitioner concerning his plea, and petitioner did not address the court. [395 U.S. 238, 240]
Trial strategy may of course make a plea of guilty seem the desirable course. But the record is wholly silent on that point and throws no light on it.
Alabama provides that when a defendant pleads guilty, "the court must cause the punishment to be determined by a jury" (except where it is required to be fixed by the court) and may "cause witnesses to be examined, to ascertain the character of the offense." Ala. Code, Tit. 15, 277 (1958). In the present case a trial of that dimension was held, the prosecution presenting its case largely through eyewitness testimony. Although counsel for petitioner engaged in cursory cross-examination, petitioner neither testified himself nor presented testimony concerning his character and background. There was nothing to indicate that he had a prior criminal record.
In instructing the jury, the judge stressed that petitioner had pleaded guilty in five cases of robbery, 2 defined as "the felonious taking of money . . . from another against his will . . . by violence or by putting him in fear . . . [carrying] from ten years minimum in the penitentiary to the supreme penalty of death by electrocution." The jury, upon deliberation, found petitioner guilty and sentenced him severally to die on each of the five indictments.
Taking an automatic appeal to the Alabama Supreme Court, petitioner argued that a sentence of death for common-law robbery was cruel and unusual punishment within the meaning of the Federal Constitution, a suggestion which that court unanimously rejected. 281 Ala. 659, 207 So.2d 412. On their own motion, however, four of the seven justices discussed the constitutionality of the process by which the trial judge had accepted petitioner's guilty plea. From the order affirming the [395 U.S. 238, 241] trial court, three justices dissented on the ground that the record was inadequate to show that petitioner had intelligently and knowingly pleaded guilty. The fourth member concurred separately, conceding that "a trial judge should not accept a guilty plea unless he has determined that such a plea was voluntarily and knowingly entered by the defendant," but refusing "[f]or aught appearing" "to presume that the trial judge failed to do his duty." 281 Ala., at 662, 663, 207 So.2d, at 414, 415. We granted certiorari. 393 U.S. 820 .
Respondent does not suggest that we lack jurisdiction to review the voluntary character of petitioner's guilty plea because he failed to raise that federal question below and the state court failed to pass upon it. 3 But the question was raised on oral argument and we conclude that it is properly presented. The very Alabama statute (Ala. Code, Tit. 15, 382 (10) (1958)) that provides automatic appeal in capital cases also requires the reviewing court to comb the record for "any error prejudicial to the appellant, even though not called to our attention in brief of counsel." Lee v. State, 265 Ala. 623, 630, 93 So.2d 757, 763. The automatic appeal statute "is the only provision under the Plain Error doctrine of which we are aware in Alabama criminal appellate review." Douglas v. State, 42 Ala. App. 314, 331, n. 6, 163 So.2d 477, 494, n. 6. In the words of the Alabama Supreme Court:
A plea of guilty is more than a confession which admits that the accused did various acts; it is itself a conviction; nothing remains but to give judgment and determine punishment. See Kercheval v. United States, 274 U.S. 220, 223 . Admissibility of a confession must be based on a "reliable determination on the voluntariness issue which satisfies the constitutional rights of the defendant." Jackson v. Denno, 378 U.S. 368, 387 . The requirement that the prosecution spread on the record the prerequisites of a valid waiver is no constitutional innovation. In Carnley v. Cochran, 369 U.S. 506, 516 , we dealt with a problem of waiver of the right to counsel, a Sixth Amendment right. We held: "Presuming waiver from a silent record is impermissible. The record must show, or there must be an allegation and evidence which show, that an accused was offered counsel but intelligently and understandingly rejected the offer. Anything less is not waiver."
We think that the same standard must be applied to determining whether a guilty plea is voluntarily made. For, as we have said, a plea of guilty is more than an admission of conduct; it is a conviction. 4 Ignorance, [395 U.S. 238, 243] incomprehension, coercion, terror, inducements, subtle or blatant threats might be a perfect cover-up of unconstitutionality. The question of an effective waiver of a federal constitutional right in a proceeding is of course governed by federal standards. Douglas v. Alabama, 380 U.S. 415, 422 .
Several federal constitutional rights are involved in a waiver that takes place when a plea of guilty is entered in a state criminal trial. First, is the privilege against compulsory self-incrimination guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment and applicable to the States by reason of the Fourteenth. Malloy v. Hogan, 378 U.S. 1 . Second, is the right to trial by jury. Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 145 . Third, is the right to confront one's accusers. Pointer v. Texas, 380 U.S. 400 . We cannot presume a waiver of these three important federal rights from a silent record. 5
What is at stake for an accused facing death or imprisonment demands the utmost solicitude of which courts [395 U.S. 238, 244] are capable in canvassing the matter with the accused to make sure he has a full understanding of what the plea connotes and of its consequence. When the judge discharges that function, he leaves a record adequate for any review that may be later sought 6 (Garner v. Louisiana, 368 U.S. 157, 173 ; Specht v. Patterson, 386 U.S. 605, 610 ), and forestalls the spin-off of collateral proceedings that seek to probe murky memories. 7
The three dissenting justices in the Alabama Supreme Court stated the law accurately when they concluded that there was reversible error "because the record does not disclose that the defendant voluntarily and understandingly entered his pleas of guilty." 281 Ala., at 663, 207 So.2d, at 415.
[ Footnote 2 ] The elements of robbery in Alabama are derived from the common law, but the possible penalties are fixed by statute. Ala. Code, Tit. 14, 415 (1958).
[ Footnote 3 ] This is unlike Cardinale v. Louisiana, 394 U.S. 437 , in which the state court was perhaps unacquainted with the federal question at issue. For, as already stated, four of the seven justices on the court below (a majority) discussed the matter and its implications for Alabama law.
[ Footnote 4 ] "A plea of guilty is more than a voluntary confession made in open court. It also serves as a stipulation that no proof by the [395 U.S. 238, 243] prosecution need be advanced . . . . It supplies both evidence and verdict, ending controversy." Woodard v. State, 42 Ala. App. 552, 558, 171 So.2d 462, 469.
[ Footnote 5 ] In the federal regime we have Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure which governs the duty of the trial judge before accepting a guilty plea. See McCarthy v. United States, 394 U.S. 459 . We said in that case:
[ Footnote 6 ] Among the States requiring that an effective waiver of the right to plead not guilty appear affirmatively in the record are Colorado, Colo. Rev. Stat. Ann. 39-7-8; Illinois, Ill. Rev. Stat., c. 38, 113-1 to 114-14; Missouri, State v. Blaylock, 394 S. W. 2d 364 (1965); New York, People v. Seaton, 19 N. Y. 2d 404, 407, 227 N. E. 2d 294, 295 (1967); Wisconsin, State v. Burke, 22 Wis. 2d 486, 494, 126 N. W. 2d 91, 96 (1964); and Washington, Woods v. Rhay, 68 Wash. 2d 601, 605, 414 P.2d 601, 604 (1966).
[ Footnote 7 ] "A majority of criminal convictions are obtained after a plea of guilty. If these convictions are to be insulated from attack, the trial court is best advised to conduct an on the record examination of the defendant which should include, inter alia, an attempt to satisfy itself that the defendant understands the nature of the charges, his right to a jury trial, the acts sufficient to constitute the offenses for which he is charged and the permissible range of sentences." Commonwealth ex rel. West v. Rundle, 428 Pa. 102, 105-106, 237 A. 2d 196, 197-198 (1968).
MR. JUSTICE HARLAN, whom MR. JUSTICE BLACK joins, dissenting.
The Court today holds that petitioner Boykin was denied due process of law, and that his robbery convictions must be reversed outright, solely because "the record [395 U.S. 238, 245] [is] inadequate to show that petitioner . . . intelligently and knowingly pleaded guilty." Ante, at 241. The Court thus in effect fastens upon the States, as a matter of federal constitutional law, the rigid prophylactic requirements of Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. It does so in circumstances where the Court itself has only very recently held application of Rule 11 to be unnecessary in the federal courts. See Halliday v. United States, 394 U.S. 831 (1969). Moreover, the Court does all this at the behest of a petitioner who has never at any time alleged that his guilty plea was involuntary or made without knowledge of the consequences. I cannot possibly subscribe to so bizarre a result.
Petitioner was not sentenced immediately after the acceptance of his plea. Instead, pursuant to an Alabama statute, the court ordered that "witnesses . . . be examined, to ascertain the character of the offense," in the presence of a jury which would then fix petitioner's sentence. [395 U.S. 238, 246] See Ala. Code, Tit. 14, 415 (1958); Tit. 15, 277. That proceeding occurred some two months after petitioner pleaded guilty. During that period, petitioner made no attempt to withdraw his plea. Petitioner was present in court with his attorney when the witnesses were examined. Petitioner heard the judge state the elements of common-law robbery and heard him announce that petitioner had pleaded guilty to that offense and might be sentenced to death. Again, petitioner made no effort to withdraw his plea.
On his appeal to the Alabama Supreme Court, petitioner did not claim that his guilty plea was made involuntarily or without full knowledge of the consequences. In fact, petitioner raised no questions at all concerning the plea. 2 In his petition and brief in this Court, and in oral argument by counsel, petitioner has never asserted that the plea was coerced or made in ignorance of the consequences.
The Court's reversal is therefore predicated entirely upon the failure of the arraigning state judge to make an "adequate" record. In holding that this is a ground for reversal, the Court quotes copiously from McCarthy v. United States, 394 U.S. 459 (1969), in which we held earlier this Term that when a federal district judge fails to comply in every respect with the procedure for accepting a guilty plea which is prescribed in Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, the plea must be set aside and the defendant permitted to replead, regardless of lower-court findings that the plea was in fact voluntary. What the Court omits to mention is that in McCarthy we stated that our decision was based "solely upon our construction of Rule 11," and explicitly disavowed any reliance upon the Constitution. Id., at 464. Thus McCarthy can provide no support whatever for today's constitutional edict.
I would hold that petitioner Boykin is not entitled to outright reversal of his conviction simply because of [395 U.S. 238, 249] the "inadequacy" of the record pertaining to his guilty plea. Further, I would not vacate the judgment below and remand for a state-court hearing on voluntariness. For even if it is assumed for the sake of argument that petitioner would be entitled to such a hearing if he had alleged that the plea was involuntary, a matter which I find it unnecessary to decide, the fact is that he has never made any such claim. Hence, I consider that petitioner's present arguments relating to his guilty plea entitle him to no federal relief. 3
[ Footnote 1 ] The record states only that:
[ Footnote 2 ] However, I am willing to accept the majority's view that we do have jurisdiction to consider the question.
[ Footnote 3 ] Petitioner advances two additional constitutional arguments: that imposition of the death penalty for common-law robbery is "cruel and unusual punishment" in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment; and thus to permit a jury to inflict the death penalty without any "standards" to guide its discretion amounts to a denial of due process. I do not reach these issues because the Court has not done so. [395 U.S. 238, 250]


text:
TODO: Resolve how we use hooks to rebucket crashes to library packages on the server, or if that's implemented separate from this (likely, given that it runs only on the server and has no restrictions for duration or size).
What does a developer do when a stack trace is not enough to completely debug an issue? They could find a user who is experiencing this problem and contact them, asking them to provide additional information. This is very time consuming and fraught with long delays.
A developer should be able to identify an issue that needs additional information, write a small amount of code to collect additional details on a system exhibiting the problem, and quickly get that run on such systems. This code should require no human interaction and should report back quickly, notifying the developer when there is something actionable.
Both daisy.ubuntu.com and errors.ubuntu.com are signed with the Ubuntu certificate from Go Daddy. This certificate is included by default in the ssl-certs package.
Whoopsie needs to check that the SSL certificate matches. There is a strict checking option in libcurl for this. With that in place, downloading and uploading should be safe.
We will restrict the set of users who can create new hooks to the members of ~core-dev. In the future we can expand this by querying the Launchpad ACLs for the per-package upload rights and match these to the respective binary packages in the Error Tracker.
Peer review
Pressure is often put on developers to fix issues urgently and sometimes they rush changes out. Poorly-coded hooks have the potential to consume system resources in a manner that adversely affects the user experience.
New package hooks or changes to existing ones will require review from at least two other core developers.
Reporting errors in Ubuntu is simple by design.
If the dialogs were particularly complex or if they asked a series of questions, users would be less willing to work through them to submit reports to us. One bad dialog will leave a lasting impression that will make users hesitant when prompted the next time.
Interactive questions are also more often than not poorly worded for the audience. A current sampling of apport package hooks includes: "Apport has detected a possible GPU hang. Did your system recently lock up and/or require a hard reboot?" "It seems you have modified the contents of /etc/cups/cupsd.conf. Would you like to add the contents of it to your bug report?"
Because there is no guarantee that an Internet connection is available at the time of a crash, apport collects what information it can and hands the error reports off to whoopsie to be sent when possible. It is from this point that interactivity stops. If an internet connect appeared even just a few moments later it would already be far too late to ask the user additional questions. Anything more than 10 seconds would be unreasonable.
Some package hooks will need to be able to attach files not normally viewable by a regular user or attach the output of a command as root. xorg needs to attach the contents of /var/log/lightdm. update-manager needs to attach the current dmsesg. Plymouth needs to attach /var/log/plymouth-debug.log.
At present, apport uses pkexec to present a password dialog in these cases. While this is an improvement over the previous gksu-based implementation in that it allows us to set more password dialog text, providing some context as to why the user is suddenly seeing this dialog, it is still abrupt.
This presents an interesting problem.
We cannot wait until the hook is run to show these authentication dialogs. It will likely be far more than 10 seconds after the initial error dialog was presented, and could be hours or days later, depending on when the user next connects to the Internet.
One option is to map attach_root_command_outputs to a new com.ubuntu.apport.package-hook PolicyKit permission that is granted to the whoopsie user. While this means the hook mechanism is able to run remote code as root, it is restricted to code from the same group of developers that can modify maintainer scripts in all of the Ubuntu packages (~core-dev). Still, users can run apt in --download-only mode and review the code to be run before installing a package. They cannot review a server-side hook before running it.
Until we can find a secure way of solving this, we will limit hooks to only running with regular user permissions.
Running hooks as a regular user
We will need to find a way for whoopsie to run code as the user the crash occurred for, or grant sufficient permissions to whoopsie so that it can access the user's files.
Barring upstart inotify support, there appear to be two ways to do this:
- Leave part of whoopsie running as root, so that it can switch to the target user and run the hooks.
- Add another watch to update-notifier.
Adding another watch to update-notifier means more stamp files and another round of asynchronous communication. Leaving part of whoopsie running as root, therefore, is the preferred option. We will consult with the security team to ensure they're happy with this behaviour.
Web interface
We will soon restrict access to sensitive information on https://errors.ubuntu.com to just ~canonical-ubuntu-platform (1087361). It logically follows that the interface for modifying server-side hooks will also be restricted to this set of users.
Hooks will be applied in one of two locations.
The first option is to set a hook at the problem level, as keyed by the crash or duplicate signature. We will need to maintain a mapping between the StacktraceAddressSignature on the client and the crash signature on the server. This may need to account for a duplicate signature as generated on server-side mapping (as used by developers to combine or split apart buckets) back to a StacktraceAddressSignature on the client. This should be straightforward as the server already needs to maintain this mapping to identify when it should request a core file.
The hooks can also be set at the package level, where they will be run for any crash of the given package.
We're purposefully leaving out global, problem type-specific hooks for now as these should ideally live in the apport package.
Modification from existing behaviour
We will leave in place the existing packaged package-hooks for now, taking care to fix the bug whereby they are run on released versions (1084979). However, we will only run these when creating a bug report through the ubuntu-bug command, not when processing a .crash file with apport-gtk.
We will SRU whoopsie and apport for the server-side hook changes.
We will support two types of editable expiration fields: quantity (how many times have we received one of these reports?) and timeout (how many days has the hook been available for?). The sum of the reports reaching the value of one of fields will cause further collection to stop with the hook disabled. If this happens while a client is sending data for the hook, the connection will be dropped and the hook automatically disabled.
Both of these fields will have upper bounds for valid values. Developers will not be able to collect thousands of reports or run the hook for months.
There will be a third, non-editable field, for the amount of disk space the sum of the reports can use. In extreme cases, a database administrator should be able to override this field for individual hooks.
There will be a hardcoded upper limit on the client for disk usage, just to be safe. This is likely to be 50MB or less.
How do we get the reports with these fields?
Only the Package, Dependencies, and DuplicateSignature fields can be modified. This is so the hooks can effectively reassign the crash to a library. Modifications to any other field will be ignored.
The results of running the hook code will be written by submit.wsgi into the HookResults Column Family:
Jaffa Cakes
The row key will be the OOPS ID from the original report.
The BucketHooks Column Family will maintain a mapping of hook results to the bucket or package they were run for.
bucket ID or package
If the hook fails, the Python traceback will be written in a column.
- Failed hooks will send an alert to the hook creator via SMS (mup) or email.
- Whoopsie and Daisy will pass a token back and forth to ensure the results of a hook are being written to the correct location. This is likely to be the OOPS ID.
- We will provide a REST API for getting the results for the hook for a bucket or package. A page of these results, linked to from the hook configuration page, will consume this API method.
- The first result for a given hook will trigger the alerts system, notifying the developer responsible for that hook.
Delivery mechanism
Provide a list (BSON) of URLs to the individual hooks. It doesn't need the package name or the bucket ID because it already has those locally.
We send to the client with a token that maps to the bucket. In the simple case this would be the Crash Signature that the SAS maps to. We still need a SAS to Crash Signature mapping so we can tell the right clients to get the specific hook for a crash signature.
Restricting hooks to a particular release
If hooks want to restrict to a particular release, they should check the DistroRelease field.
If there is time in the initial implementation, we should evaluate using compression for the increasingly large amount of data transfered between whoopsie and daisy. Candidates for this are snappy and zlib. xz could also be considered if we keep decompression time low on the server.
We should work with the webops team on this, as they may have strong opinions on the implementation. We will only get a few instances of this extra information out of the 100,000 reports we receive a day, given the limits we're putting on size, so this shouldn't overload us.
Whoopsie gets a few hooks, downloads them, runs them with the python-apport code to update the report, sends the new keys in the report back (not any existing or modified), report gets written to the HookResults CF
A new page will be added to https://errors.ubuntu.com that provides a report of hook usage.
This will include:
- Active hooks with their expiry date. For each of the hooks, the number of reports received and the size of data transmitted so far will be included.
- We will also record by day hook usage statistics (active, inactive, working, failed) to determine whether or not the hook mechanism is actually being used and working.
Test mechanism
We would like to make testing a hook before feeding it to systems as easy as possible. We should write a small script to test a new hook against a local or cloud-based system easy.
Launchpad bugs
A new checkbox will be added in the server-side hooks UI for "Get someone to file this on Launchpad".
This is checked by apport via a REST API on daisy.ubuntu.com, where it asks if we want LP bugs for the SAS for which the report is about. If the answer is yes, then we create a LP bug with a specific errors.ubuntu.com tag that crash-digger is looking for and provide the SAS.
crash-digger then finds this, looks up the SAS in daisy.ubuntu.com and gets the crash signature back. It then writes the errors.ubuntu.com URL for that bucket into the bug and tells daisy to send off a notification that the server-side hook now has a LP bug. It also updates the BugToCrashSignatures CF.
This will let us mostly turn off retracing of Launchpad crashes.
More notes
16:26:53] <ev> switching uid -> have something privileged that looks for the hooks and runs them, first dropping privs to the right uid? [16:27:24] <cjwatson> Right, if you're planning on doing things as arbitrary users then you must have a privileged dispatcher anyway [16:27:36] <ev> prsumably upstart can be the privileged dispatcher? [16:27:42] <cjwatson> Might be worth remembering to set $HOME. Aside from that it really depends what else you need [16:27:56] <cjwatson> It could be, but that might be more trouble than it's worth if you just want to spawn a subprocess and wait for it to finish [16:28:05] <ev> yeah, good point [16:28:12] <cjwatson> click certainly doesn't use Upstart jobs when it's executing user-level hooks, for instance [16:28:21] <cjwatson> It would be possible but would really involve way too much runaround 16:34:33] <cjwatson> If it relates to click packages then I'd suggest that the extra chunk of code should run with the apparmor profile of the click app
ErrorTracker/ServerSideHooks (last edited 2013-07-24 15:46:20 by ev)


text: The mission of the Master of Social Work Program at Governors State University is to provide an exceptional and accessible social work education to prepare outstanding, advanced social work practitioners grounded in social justice ethic. Such practitioners demonstrate a mastery of social work knowledge, values and skill-based competencies to build on the strengths and human capacities of marginalized families, their children and individuals in marginalized communities to enable self-empowerment and enhance lives and well-being in communities characterized by social-cultural and economic inequality. The Social Work Department is committed to working collaboratively with the communities we serve to support their justice-focused action agenda and their community transformational goals to create whole and healthy communities.


text:
- 0
Hello, unless someone from LL is playing with you(and I doubt that) I don't think, if you have no contact with the other account, that it is possible to know that you changed your account, this said if you are of course using the normal SL viewer, if you're using another one, it could be where the problem is coming from.
Also , I don't want to alarm but are you sure it comes from SL?
You use a friend's account , meaning some people IRL knows you're using SL account.Maybe someone's trying to play with you among the people you know...
- 1


text:
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curves implemenred and tested.
more testing on pycad
modellib.WriteVTK has been rewritten. Instead of only three data objects scalar, vector, tensor it takes now up to 20 data objects data0 ... data19 and writes it into a single VTK file. There is also the possibilty to define individiual name tags name0,..., name19. If no name is given the corresponding attribute name of the Link target is used. This simplifies the usage and increases efficiency.
extended functionality
a first very basic version of pycad
first checkin of pycad (gmsh pythoin wrapper)
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text:
Laws, Regulations and Annotations
Business Taxes Law Guide – Revision 2023
Sales And Use Tax Law
Revenue and Taxation Code
Division 2. Other Taxes
Part 1. Sales and Use Taxes
Chapter 7. Overpayments and Refunds
Article 1. Claim for Refund
Section 6902.4
6902.4. Waiver of limitations; financially disabled persons.
(a) The limitation period specified in Section 6902 shall be suspended during any period of a person's life that the person is financially disabled.
(b) (1) For purposes of subdivision (a), a person is financially disabled if the person is unable to manage his or her financial affairs by reason of medically determinable physical or mental impairment of the person that can be expected to result in death or that has lasted or can be expected to last for a continuous period of not less than 12 months. A person shall not be considered to have an impairment unless proof of the existence thereof is furnished in the form and manner as the board may require.
(2) A person shall not be treated as financially disabled during any period that the person's spouse or any other person is authorized to act on behalf of the person in financial matters.
(c) This section applies to periods of disability commencing before, on, or after the effective date of the act adding this section, but does not apply to any claim for refund that, without regard to this section, is barred by operation or rule of law, including res judicata, as of the effective date of the act adding this section.
History—Added by Stats. 1999, Ch. 929, (AB 1638), in effect January 1, 2000.


text:
One in three American women have had or will have an abortion, and if you're one of them, wading through the sea of hypercharged rhetoric and actually finding straightforward facts about the medical procedure that awaits can seem daunting.
I'm not going to patronize readers of this website by insisting that the decision is always a "gut-wrenching" or "horrible" or "life destroying" decision or whatthefuckever anti-choice groups insist abortion must be in all cases. In some cases, the emotional aftermath of an abortion is an overwhelming feeling of relief; in many readers' cases, terminating their pregnancies was simply a legal medical procedure that allowed their life to continue unabated after feeling briefly terrified, alone, and afraid. While none of those who contributed say that they regretted their decision, many readers mentioned that resources available to them to prepare them for their experience were either emotionally anecdotal and thus not applicable to them or startlingly sterile and medical-sounding. In compiling this collection of readers' experiences, I sought to walk the line between the personal and the medical, to lift the veil of mystery and shame that surrounds a procedure that millions of women undergo every year, that you may undergo, or that your best friend may undergo, or that your daughter may someday undergo, and, since the 38th anniversary of Roe v. Wade is coming up this week, there's no time like the present.
A Girl's Guide To Unexpectedly Finding Out That You're Pregnant
First, you will likely find out you are pregnant, and if the pregnancy is unplanned and unwanted, this new found knowledge will be unpleasant. Readers' experiences finding out that they were surprise pregnant vary from complete shock and what-the-fuckitude to the culmination of weeks of suspecting something was wrong before finally peeing on that sinister little strip.
Pregnancy test buying tip: if you're nervous (you are) when purchasing an "uh oh" pregnancy test, banish judgmental purse-lipped looks from Walgreen's cashiers by acting super happy about it.
Finding out you're pregnant when you don't want to be is terrifying. Writes one reader:
The thing that struck me the most was that there was a momentum that my body now had, a process that I couldn't control.
As soon as you find out and you've decided that you wish to terminate your pregnancy, call an abortion provider and schedule an appointment, because the longer you wait, the more difficult and expensive the procedure can be. Many readers have utilized the services of Planned Parenthood, but others have been able to have their procedures performed by OB/GYN's in clinics that aren't specifically reserved for abortion. When scheduling an appointment, you may want to consider calling around and finding a pro-choice OB/GYN to recommend a doctor who can perform the procedure. And finally, if you're lucky enough to have it, check on your insurance. Many group insurance plans cover abortion costs as they would birth-related costs. Your boss will not know if you've had an abortion, and cannot ask questions about the specific nature of your absence if you have to take time off work. If your employer presses, have the facility that provided you with the procedure write you a note explaining that you are undergoing a medical procedure that takes a certain amount of time to recover from along with a list of the date it would be appropriate for you to return to work. In most cases, the healthcare provider will be glad to help you with this and will even give you input on an appropriate recovery time. If you feel like you need to take an extra day, let them know.
When you go to the doctor, they will make you pee on a stick again, possibly the same brand of pregnancy test you used at home. Once a positive result is received at the clinic, they may take blood for a blood test and they may rely on the urine test results. You're probably going to have to have an ultrasound that's administered vaginally, using a wand that is inserted into the vagina. Doctors do this so that they know how far along you are and what method of pregnancy termination will be appropriate for you; ideally, they'll perform the least-invasive procedure possible without putting you at risk for complications and they'll recommend one of several options for you.
A Girl's Guide To RU-486
RU-486 is a pill that chemically induces the body to miscarry. It can be used to terminate pregnancies that are 9 weeks along or fewer and is the most effective way to terminate a pregnancy that's fewer than seven weeks along. It's now known as mifepristone and is given to the patient in two doses, the first of which is administered at the clinic and stops the development of the fetus and the second of which is taken at home which induces the uterus to empty its contents. If you're in the UK, you have to take both doses at the clinic, but this may be changing in the near future.
Readers who utilized this method remarked that they experienced massive, massive menstrual cramp-like feelings in their abdomen combined with some nausea. Women utilizing this method of abortion should make plans to bleed quite a bit, because while the cramping can be relieved with over the counter pain medications, the bleeding cannot. The bleeding will go for anywhere from a week to a month after taking RU-486, but most people I spoke with mentioned it went on for around two weeks.
A Girl's Guide To A First Trimester Surgical Abortion
If you're more than 7 weeks pregnant, you may be better suited for a vacuum aspiration. You'll have to undergo the same pee test/general vital checkup/ultrasound routine as everyone else, and when it's time for your procedure, you'll put on a hospital gown, lay down on an exam table under mild sedation and have the contents of your uterus essentially vacuumed out of you. The procedure's done in a matter of minutes, but readers reported that the sound of the mechanism used to perform the procedure is "disturbing."
Afterward, you'll probably need over the counter pain relievers to help any residual cramping. You'll probably feel "out of it" and need someone to take you home and make sure you have some crappy movies and cheese fries or something. You'll have to go to a follow-up appointment after some time has passed to make sure that the procedure was successful. Bleeding may continue for several days to a few weeks after the procedure.
A Girl's Guide To A Late Term Abortion
This is tricky, because most places don't have doctors that will perform procedures on women who are beyond their first trimester and still wish to terminate their pregnancies. Second trimester abortions are massively more expensive, complicated, and traumatic than first trimester abortions, and thus it's important to stay on top of your own reproductive health and, if you're afraid you might be pregnant and you don't plan on carrying the pregnancy to term, take a pregnancy test if you're in the least bit scared.
If a pregnancy is too far along to be terminated via vacuum aspiration or medicinally, doctors will perform a D&C, which is a procedure in two steps. First, the patient has the cervix numbed and has several seaweed matchsticks inserted into the cervix. These sticks absorb moisture from the body and expand, dilating the cervix. This part of the procedure is extremely painful and should be met with all available anti-pain resources available- hot water bottles, the maximum dose of pain killers your doctor recommends, very limited physical activity. After the sticks are in the cervix for at least 12 hours, the patient will return to the hospital, where she'll have the option of being placed under general anesthesia or partial anesthesia, which means you'll be partially conscious for the procedure. The contents of the uterus are then removed via a sharp instrument and suctioned out.
Following a D&C, like with other abortion procedures, there will be blood, and you'll probably have to take at least a few days off of work. It's not recommended that you have sex or use tampons for at least a few weeks following a D&C, to prevent infection.
As with other procedures, you'll have a follow-up appointment at a date in the future you and your doctor determine where they'll check to make sure everything's fine.
In a perfect world, birth control would work 100% of the time as intended and we'd all be able to will ourselves pregnant using only the power of our intentions, but the fact of the matter is, we can't will our natural processes to line up with our goals and objectives. I'm not trying to advocate that all unintentionally pregnant women choose abortion, rather, I hope that this collection information gathered from reader experiences can serve as a guide for women who have decided that abortion is the best course of action for themselves.
It should be evident from this post that there's really no such thing as "just" having an abortion, that the cavalier attitude that sexually active women have toward life or toward motherhood is more convenient myth than anything else. From communicating with readers who have terminated a pregnancy, it's clear that no one wants to have an abortion, but sometimes it's the least-shitty of a bunch of shitty choices a woman can make when she becomes unintentionally pregnant, especially if she's not physically, financially, or emotionally ready to handle a pregnancy. Adoption is a wonderful alternative for people women who don't wish to be mothers, but abortion is the only alternative for pregnant women who don't want to be pregnant.
More resources/information:
Guttmacher Institute
Planned Parenthod
I'm Not Sorry
Image via Shutterstock


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Protecting Your New Smartphone
10 tips to avoiding cellphone hackers and identity thieves
After Santa delivers that prized holiday must-have to you or a loved one — a smartphone — expect trouble to come calling. As a mini-computer that can store sensitive data, it will be a gold mine of opportunity for identity thieves.
But that's not the only reason why smartphones are increasingly targeted for hacking. Unlike traditional computers, they're always with you, and messages that arrive on them are more trusted than traditional email and landline phone calls. Studies indicate that smartphone owners are three times more likely to fall for identity-stealing "phishing" scams than those sent to a PC or Mac.
And use of smartphone security software remains rare.
Already, one in 14 smartphone owners has been a victim of ID theft — a 30 percent higher rate than the general public, according to a 2012 study by fraud tracker Javelin Strategy & Research.
With those numbers expected to jump in the new year, here are 10 ways to protect your new (or already used) smartphone.
1. If you're still shopping, know that experts consider the iPhone and Windows Phone 7 to have the most secure operating systems. Next comes BlackBerry, with Android having the least secure operating system.
2. Read the owner's manual to understand the phone's features, including default settings. Turn off or disable unnecessary features to minimize the number of potential entryways that hackers can use, suggests the FBI.
3. If your phone offers encryption, use it to protect stored data in case of loss or theft.
4. Lock its screen with a PIN — only one in three smartphone users does this. Don't use your birthdate or birth year, or any of these most commonly used (and hackable) PINS: 1234, 0000, 2580 (a top-to-bottom keypad sequence), 1111, 5555, 5683 (which spells "love"), 0852 (a bottom-to-top sequence), 2222, 1212 and 1998.
5. An app that will track and report the location of your phone is useful and may help police recover it if it's stolen. Apple's iPhone has the "Find My iPhone" app built in, but you need to activate it; apps such as "Where's My Droid" are available for Android devices.
6. Ask your wireless carrier how to remotely erase stored data if your phone is lost or stolen. But first, store sensitive data on a Google or iCloud account, and regularly perform backups by plugging your phone into your computer.
7. Consider security software recommended by your carrier or phone manufacturer. Free products such as Lookout Mobile Security are available for Apple, Android, Windows and BlackBerry phones.
8. Before installing apps, read their reviews — and then buy only from well-known vendors such as Google or Apple. Always read the "permissions" before downloading apps and avoid those that — for reasons that don't seem to make sense — want permission to make phone calls, connect to the Internet or reveal your identity and location.
9. If selling or trading in an old smartphone, reset it to factory default to avoid leaving any personal data on the device.
10. Treat your smartphone as you would any computer. That means not opening questionable links in emails or text messages, not replying to unsolicited requests for personal information such as your Social Security or bank account numbers — no matter what Caller ID shows — and not using your smartphone to access sensitive data on a public wi-fi network.
Sid Kirchheimer is the author of Scam-Proof Your Life, published by AARP Books/Sterling.
Also of Interest
Visit the AARP home page for great deals and savings tips


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Alexander Pope (1688 - 1744)
Is there no bright reversion in the sky
For those who prefer cake, but accept pie?
William Wordsworth (1770 - 1850)
Thoughts in Repression
It is as if, as toward the silent tomb we go,
We feel that we are greater than we know we know.
The Porcupine
Ah, what avails the sceptred race,
Ah, what the form divine,
What every virtue, every grace,
Compared to the porcupine?
A Scotsman being hit by a pie: Adam Cuerden, 2006
Cakes, Serbia: photos by Ctpyjajoe, 2009
Brazilian porcupine (Coendou prehensilis): photo by Dave Pape, 2007


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Lotto Pro Screenshot
Works with all lottery games; Pick-3, Pick-4, Pick 5, Pick-6 and Pick-7 and Keno.
Up-to-date drawing files for all United States and Canadian lotteries. Drawing files are also included for Australia, Brazil, Belgium, France, Germany,Greece, Hong Kong, Ireland, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Taiwan, Turkey and the United Kingdom. Drawing Files can be created for countries that are not listed.
Easy to use - Program wizards guide you through all program functions and extensive online help is available if you have a question.
Smart number option picks the numbers to play next based on the statistics for previous drawings. You also have the option to play your own favorite numbers or random numbers.
Seven Statistical charts and 4 graphs are included for those players who prefer to pick their own numbers, rather than have the program do it for them.
Maximizes your payoffs - Over 225 wheeling systems are included that maximize your payoffs through multiple ticket hits.
Saves money - A filter option eliminates lottery tickets with unlikely number combinations. Filters can be applied based on the sum of the numbers or the number of odd and even numbers on each ticket.
Saves time - Prints your tickets directly on lottery bet slips . There is no need to fill out bet slips by hand again!
Prevents errors - Compares your tickets with any drawing date and shows a summary of tickets with winning numbers. An option is also included to record your winnings.
Back to Lotto Pro Details page
- Lotto Pro Reviews
- Win Lotto Pro
- Lotto Prediction Pro
- Windows Lotto Pro
- Lotto PowerPlayer Pro
- Lotto Pro Updates
- Lotto Pool Pro For Windows And
- Lotto Prediction Pro Soccer
- Lotto Pro Lottery Software
- Lucky Dip Lotto Pro


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Which cable should I use to view the smartphone screen on TV?
How to use
The cable that comes with the phone is designed for USB data transfer and charging.
It does not support video output to TV and cannot be recognized when connected.
Mobile phones released after 2012 differs in connection to external devices.
Their use may be limited to connection terminals on the phone and TV and produce features.
1. Cable connection between a mobile phone and TV
Use a HDMI or MHL cable for products released before G Pro.
For those afterwards, use slimport-HDMI zender.
Insert the slimport-HDMI zender to the cell phone and connect the zender and TV with the HDMI cable.
Phone screen will be viewed on TV. Enjoy watching Full-HD vides on a TV, projector, and monitor.
2. Cautions for slimport-HDMI zender
① Charger does not need to be connected to the slimport-HDMI zender, but it helps to save battery.
② Do not remove the slimport-HDMI cable while viewing DivX Rental VOD as it can affect number of views.
③ Some content (DRM/HDCP) protected by copyrights may not be viewed on some output devices.
④ Some videos may not be played properly due to hardware performance and memory.
⑤ Viewing may be unavailable due to screen resolution, frame for second, average bit rate or encoding option.
⑥ Display aspect ratio may differ by manufacturer. If images are cut or not shown properly, change the aspect ratio from the menu.
⑦ Power does not have to be on to read a device when it is connected with a HDMI cable and slimport-HDMI zender.
3. Cable connection between an external device and TV
Please refer to user's manual for HDMI cable connection terminal and cable.
Codec and caption file formats are stored in the chip set of the TV. As TV cannot decode or upgrade compressed files,
check if the content meet specifications described in the user's manual when the video is not shown properly on TV.
4. Cautions for HDMI cable
① When video is not shown when connected to the TV via the HDMI cable, check if it is a high-speed HDMI cable.
If not, video may blink or not shown.
② Please check the file name extension, video and audio codec, resolution and caption.
③ Requirements have to be met for the file to be viewed normally on the TV.
※ Applicable to : G Pro


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Russian River Pinot Noir too often is commodity wine. Get used to it.
Jon Bonné in his wrap-up of the 2011 Pinot Noir vintage in California uses the extraordinary phrase "mission creep" to describe the great expansion of acreage in the Russian River Valley area over the years, "from the core of the appellation near Healdsburg and Forestville" to places "far afield."
Historically this is an accurate statement. In 1988 (25 years ago), Sonoma County contained 1,968 acres of Pinot Noir, almost all of it in the relatively concentrated area mostly stretching along River Road in the south and Westside Road in the north.
Last year (2012) by contrast Sonoma had 12,062 acres of Pinot Noir (bearing and non-bearing), an increase of 512%, and while some of that acreage was outside formal Russian River Valley AVA (mainly along the Sonoma Coast), most of it was from within the valley, and a great deal of that was due to the 2005 expansion of the appellation's boundary southward, toward Cotati, which added 30,200 acres, or roughly 30%, to its total size.
So Jon is entirely correct in his summation of history. But I have a different take on the question of his correlative assertion that this expansion, or "mission creep," has come at the expense of overall quality.
Jon's right, in this sense: Certainly the overall quality of Russian River Valley Pinot Noir has been diluted. But then, there are a great many more Pinot Noirs from the Russian River Valley than ever before (and the quantity will explode once the enormous 2012 vintage hits the market), and as with all such things, that means there are a great many more mediocre Pinot Noirs than ever before. This is solely a function of the Russian River Valley's explosion in size, and not necessarily because its winemakers have failed to "make a stand for a sense of place," as Jon puts it. Any large region contains many mediocre wines, Bordeaux being a prime example (and Burgundy, too). Therefore, to assume that Russian River Pinot Noirs "need to take a step up in quality" is not the correct interpretation. That is something that the wines–broadly speaking–cannot do: "Russian River Pinot Noir" now has become a generic branding of the varietal, producing many commodity wines. The words "Russian River Valley" on a label of Pinot Noir are simply a guarantee of origin, and a certain Pinot-esque quality of flavor and mouthfeel. Beyond that, the consumer no longer should expect anything more.
This argues the case for two new things to consider: The first, obviously, is the reputation of the individual Pinot house. If one seeks Pinot Noir at the highest level, one buys, not "Russian River Valley Pinot Noir," but Wiliams Selyem, or Hartford Court, or Merry Edwards, or Lynmar, and so on; and fortunately there are a great many top houses to choose from. The second consideration is less obvious, and more controversial: now that "Russian River Valley" by itself is largely meaningless, it is time to break the greater Russian River Valley AVA into smaller ones.
So sticky has this issue become that no one wants to talk about it anymore, because every time the subject comes up it causes heartache, anger and recrimination. But really, that is the thing to do now. Jon is right to bemoan the fact that "Russian River Valley Pinot Noir" has lost traction to (say) Sonoma Coast (the "True" one, and we now have a Fort Ross-Seaview appellation to officialize it, followed, I hope, by Annapolis in the north and Occidental or Freestone or something else in the south). But neither he, nor we, ought to set our hearts on a general "step up in quality" in the Russian River Valley proper. The horse is out of the barn, his rump disappearing beyond the last bend in the road; and nothing will lure him back. Russian River Valley Pinot Noir no longer is the elite club of Davis Bynum, Joe Swan, Rochioli and Burt Williams, laboring in his ramshackle barn. It's a big, ungainly consortium, and like all consortia contains a multitude of the good, the bad and the ugly.
It's sad, in a way, for me to come to this conclusion about Russian River Valley Pinot Noir, but it was inevitable that it would happen. Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon is in much the same boat. "There are no common wines in Vosnes," I once read (it might have been Hugh Johnson or Michael Broadbent paraphrasing someone else), but there indeed are common Pinots in the Russian River Valley and we might as well get used to the fact and stop criticizing the valley for not being what it can no longer be.
As a young-ish wine consumer, I even long ago stopped being impressed simply by a Russian River indication on the label, and now buy only what I would consider "quality minded" producers that I am either familiar with, or whose reputation has been confirmed by a recommendation from a trusted source.
Unfortunately, when a region such as this expands and expands and becomes diluted to "commodity" status, I find that bargain hunting becomes a futile exercise. For RRV and Sonoma Coast pinot, for example, I may have previously looked for wines in the $15-$20 range that tasted like $25-$35 wines. Now I look for $35-$45 wines that taste like $60-$70, and if I'm not willing to spend at least $35, I go somewhere else, because 90% of the time I'm going to be disappointed below that. Thank goodness there are still plenty to chose from, as you mentioned (Williams-Selyem, Anthill Farms, Kutch, Failla, Hartford Court, etc.)
I have a question about the expansion(s) that you talk about. It seems to me that the expansions have, going down to Cotati and into Green Valley in 2005 and the more recent one, in 2011, have generally taken the region into cooler areas, and into areas with more fog rather than less. That's not usually considered to be moves that would lead to lesser quality wines.
I find myself wondering more about some of the original Appellation boundaries….up by Chalk Hill, north of Windsor to Healdsburg, etc. I wonder if Pinot Noir has been planted more in those areas, due in large part to the general popularity of Pinot Noir.
Any thoughts?
Adam Lee
Siduri Wines
The European ideal of appellation, which holds that soil, meso-climate and aspect should be as uniform as possible is rarely true in the new world. Among California Pinot Noir appellations only Santa Lucia Highlands fits within this rubric. The other major appellations have too little uniformity to be true appellations. They are much more accurately regional collections of vineyards or producers. More often than not political boundaries and economic interests determined California appellations than wine-growing criteria. Russian River is notoriously lacking in uniformity. There are places in Russian River that can ripen Cabernet – that alone should be reason enough for a redrawing of borders. No one should be the least bit surprised that there is variation in quality and character from this appellation.
As an outsider, but a customer of Sonoma Pinot, I have become very selective about what wines I will buy (Chasseur, Benovia, Failla, etc). I think the idea that "RRV Pinot" automatically means high quality disappeared a couple of years ago.
That said, there are many great pinots produced in that area and they, by and large, seem to represent their place quite well. I'm still a fan.
I was opposed to the expansion of Russian River Valley, thinking it was more of a marketing move by large wineries than anything else. That said, the Russian River Valley was already so diverse you could find all different styles of Pinot Noir everywhere within it based on many different factors that are almost impossible to predict. In the end the expansion just makes it more interesting. But marketing the Sonoma Coast Appellation as more exclusive always makes me scratch my head as that AVA is so huge it includes almost all of the Russian River Valley. I don't mind the mini AVA's like Green Valley, but they should stand alone and not be nested unless they want to carry that theme all all the way out. It gets ridiculous: Green Valley of Russian River Valley of Sonoma Coast of Sonoma County of California.
I would not rule out that expanding the AVA also brought in a few great properties with the right soil and exposure to the AVA…and expanded, maybe not the percentage, but the total number of good wines produced.
I can think of no appellation that is a reliable indicator of quality. However, it is still helpful to know the appellation if you don't know the vintage, vineyard, and producer. With all four types of designations…producer, vineyard, AVA and vintage you have a shot at making the right buying decision.
Short of that, maybe there is someone who tastes a majority of these wines and can give you their opinion. Like a critic.
The flip side of your observation about commoditizing RRV Pinot is that for those of us with modest budgets, but who like a glass or two of wine with dinner every night, the quality of the [i]vin ordinaire[/i] Pinot has been moving substantially upward in the last couple of years. It now is much easier to find nice Pinot for less that $15 and sometimes less than $10.
As a winegrape grower in the Alexander Valley and a student of wines…I appreciate the importance of the early planting efforts of RRV PN. We are still one generation into the provenance of PN. Let's not rush to judgement that we are swimminging in a sea of PN. There is much still to be determined that the natural selection of fruit, our soils types, micro-climates and winemaking influnces will have on building levels of (if you will classes of) quality. I like to refer to the RRV as the next Burgundy region…Then let's talk about the wonderful influenc of terrior and a culture TBD. This will be a map for consumers, critics and vintners to create together. The factors that will help determine where the best of the best can be grown and who is making this luscious wine…are ahead of us.
Steve- I don't think one can reasonably compare the wines of the commune of Vosne ("there are no common wines…")and those of the entire RRV appellation. A more reasoned comparison would be Vosne (at 380 acres of PC and Village wine) and perhaps the Westide Road portion of the RRV as oppossed to the entire appellation. Candidly, I think you'll rarely find "common" wines from Westside Road, just as one rarely finds "common" wines from Vosne.
A more apt comparison might be the Cote du Nuits to the RRV appellation, and not just their size. Inspiring wines aplenty form both places. And undoubtedly, in recent years, in response to market forces (demand), more vineyards have been planted in "lesser" places in the RRV (just as there are in Nuits). The grapes from these plantings tend to find their way into lower priced (and yes, less inspiring) wines.
I drink my share of burgundy (and a few other folks' shares as well). And while my heart and winery are tethered to Sonoma County, I love Burgundy. But I also know that there, as here, it is a pyramid of quality. At the top of the Burgundy pyramid rest the best examples, wines that make "transcendent" seem commonplace; but there is also a sea of average to sub average wine from Burgundy (or "common" wine").
We have a quality pyramid here as well, but that "sea" of "common" wine is decidedly smaller here, there is a boatlaod more of that produced in Burgundy than here. On balance, the RRV is still producing some of the greatest Pinots on the planet, and decidedly less "commodity" wine than Burgundy (and a lot of other places).
Should the appellation have been expanded? A lot of us had differing views on that- but it happened for better or worse. But can we really begin to divide things into "micro" areas based on the limited time (decades not centuries) we have made wine here? While there may well come a day we can do so (and a lot of us evaluate local wines we drink on the fundamental point of wherein the RRV they came from- which in my mind suggests we may get there some day)
That said, I think perhaps you have painted with a much wider brush than is reasonable. Does the denomination RRV guarantee anything? Perhaps not in terms of ultimate quality, any more than the denomination "Burgundy" or "Bordeaux" guarantees anything. But the voice of this place, with all its many shades, still shines through, and still represents great value at the various pricing levels.
The new sign along Hwy 101 in Gallo's Two Rock Vineyard (Cotati) urging us to protect the Russian River Watershed speaks volumes about the expansion of the Russisn River appellation. Though technically within the RR watershed this vineyard is classic Petaluma Wind Gap, not quite the marketing panache of RR. The most recent expansion of the RR appellation now includes (surprise, surprise) Two Rock Vineyard. For our small Sebastopol vineyard (also newly in RR boundary) we prefer to use the Sonoma Coast moniker as the wines made from our fruit have more in common with true Sonoma Coast wines then Russian River. What we'd really love to see is a Sebastopol Hills appellation.
Rod Strong was among the first modern wine pioneers with a vision to plant Pinot Noir in the Russian River Valley. in 1968, he planted our heritage River East Vineyard in the alluvial clay-loam soils adjacent to the winery in Healdsburg. Today the Russian River Valley is well established as one of the premier Pinot Noir growing regions in the world and we continue to rely on the original River East Vineyard as a core contributor to our estate vineyard bottling. Those are all things I know about Pinot Noir.
Even within its earlier versions the Russian River AVA was always diverse from the west Santa Rosa plain to the foothills that roll from Westside Road through Graton and Sebastopol. But, the one thing (for myself anyway) that truly defines the RR AVA is the transition where the foothills merge with the steeper coastal terrian and where oak trees give way to redwoods. There's magic in that band.
Hear, hear Greg Pearl.
I got the impression from Jon Bonne; being nostalgic for the "true" Russian River Pinot's from the past. Yes, welcome to the ever expansion world of corporate influence to stretch AVA's to the point of commodification. As I have posit in the past; depends of what kind of Pinot's will come from these expanded boundaries. Gallo, clearly was the big winner, and I hope so for their and RRV winegrower's collective sake that they do make outstanding Pinot's from their Cotati and 3 Rock vineyards. Finally, I do agree the sub-AVA's within Russian River Valley is the answer, as is the case with Napa Valley Cabernets.
Thanks for this review.
I was thoroughly dissatisfied
with a friend's Kenwood Pinot Noir:
thin with no bouquet. Now I understand:
it's a commodity wine. Appreciate your analysis.
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Cyclic dependencies among Classes are a common issue in software development. They are best resolved at design level. This article explains how to do this. It also provides some intuitive insights into Interfaces and dependencies. Continue reading
Tag Archives: diagram
Dependencies and Arrowheads
Fixing one bug often causes multiple new bugs. This article explains why by introducing some basics about dependencies. It also briefly introduces parts of UML to visualize these dependencies. Continue reading
Code Smell: Feature Envy
Methods suffer from Feature Envy, if they use other classes more than their own. This article describes why this is bad design, how to visualize feature envy and how to cure it. Continue reading
The Single Responsibility Principle
Every good software is based on fundamental principles, every developer should know. This article explains the single responsibilities principle using a simple example. It introduces a new diagram to identify responsibilities of a class and a simple refactoring to get rid of multiple responsibilities. Continue reading
Advantages of Graphical Notations #1: Understand existing Software
In software development one can highly profit from using graphical representations, instead of reading the code directly. This article uses a simple example, to demonstrate the advantages of diagrams over code. This first part, is about understanding the status quo of an existing software. Continue reading


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News, Anouncements and Official Discussions for The Lord of the Rings Online™
This forum contains developer diaries and official discussions started by The Lord of the Rings Online team. You can reply to, but not post new, threads.
LOTRO Store Sales: March 30th...
All 20 Questions, Twitter Chat transcripts, Ask the LOTRO team and related threads can be found here. Old threads are locked when the next set of questions and answers are posted. You can reply to, but not create new threads in this area.
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COVID-19 vaccinations, cases, excess mortality, and much moreExplore our COVID-19 data
All our related research and data
- Agricultural land use
- Arable land needed to produce a fixed quantity of crops
- Area of land needed to meet global vegetable oil demand
- Change in cereal production, yield and land use
- Extent of extensive agriculture
- Extent of foraging, hunting and gathering
- Extent of intensive agriculture
- Extent of pastoralism
- Global cropland is still increasing
- Global land use since 10,000 BCE
- Has agricultural land increased or decreased over the last decade
- Has the world passed peak agricultural land?
- How much cropland has the world spared due to increases in crop yields?
- How much global land is used as pasture for livestock?
- Land area
- Land area per crop type
- Land use for palm oil production
- Land use of foods per 1000 kilocalories
- Land use per 100 grams of protein
- Land use per kilogram of food product
- Share of land defined as natural habitat
- Share of rural land area where the elevation is 5 meters or less
- Share of world regions with land use present
- Terrain Ruggedness Index