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elegant· Senior Member
18,694 Posts
Discussion Starter · #1 ·
While posted in various component parts previously, here is a good summary of the major display options for the StingRay. Thanks Kerbeck Corvette! Thanks GM for video below!
blog.Kerbeck.com. said:Too Much Information? Not from Corvette Stingray!
The advanced cluster display in the 2014 Corvette Stingray can provide up to 69 unique sources of information, ranging from an interactive performance timer to a tire tread temperature display. The crisp and bright display features make this information easily accessible via three configurable modes that prioritize information for daily commuting, weekend canyon carving and track events.
Flanked by three analog gauges for speed, fuel level, and engine-coolant temperature, the eight-inch liquid-crystal display screen in the center of the cluster is organized into sport, tour and track themes that change with the Driver Mode Selector. Each display theme is designed for a specific driving scenario and can be configured through applications found in the "app tray."
"The new Corvette Stingray features many advanced technologies, so our challenge when designing the driver's displays was to ensure that those technologies could be easily found in common driving scenarios," said Jason Stewart, General Motors interaction designer.
"The touring theme places more emphasis on multimedia and infotainment; the sport theme emphasizes performance features with a prominent shift indicator and a large radial tachometer; track theme offers a race-inspired layout containing a sweeping tachometer, Corvette racing inspired shift lights and permanent lap-time displays," Stewart said. "Each of these three themes can also be configured so that drivers can personalize their experience in the Stingray."
Here are 10 configurable display features that will help drivers realize the Stingray's capabilities:
1. Tour theme – Displayed when the Stingray is in Weather, Eco, or Tour drive mode, this is the most modern display, providing essential vehicle information drivers want for commuting or long-distance driving and includes key vehicle information and multimedia displays
2. Sport theme – Displayed when the Stingray is in Sport mode, this theme is designed to recall the classic sports-car experience, with a single, radial tachometer dominating the display
3. Track theme – Inspired by the cluster of the Corvette Racing C6.R, this theme prioritizes the information vital for a successful track outing, including a "hockey stick" style tachometer, large gear indicator and shift lights
4. Adjustable redline – All themes feature an adjustable redline that shows the suggested maximum engine speed as low as 3,500 rpm when the engine is cold
5. Tachometer 'halo' – The Sport theme features a ring around the tachometer that glows from yellow to amber to red as engine rpms increase
6. Shift lights – The track theme features shift lights influenced by the C6.R, which illuminate from the outside-in, transition from green to yellow to blue and flash at redline providing an easy-to-see shift notification at high speeds
7. Friction-bubble/cornering force – The friction bubble that displays lateral and longitudinal G-forces allows drivers to measure how close they are to the Stingray's limits
8. Tire temperature gauge – Leveraging the existing Tire Pressure Monitoring System, this patented system informs the driver as the tires warm up from cold to warm to hot, with hot being the optimal temperature for peak grip and track performance
9. Acceleration timer – The interactive timer features programmable start/end speeds, which enable drivers to measure any acceleration run, from a traditional 0-60 mph to acceleration from 70-100 mph in top gear.
10. Lap timer - Shows current, previous and best lap times, enabling drivers to measure their consistency, while lapping a road course.GM Video:


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Video: This Amazing Image Filter Lets Doctors See Under Your Skin
A remarkable new project is capable of magnifying tiny movements in human physiology, like heartbeats, blood flow, and breathing.
It's like a magnifying glass for video: a special image processing filter designed by MIT researchers that lets you see body functions the human eye is too weak to pick up.
From monitoring a baby's breathing to detecting a person's pulse through their skin, the new technology could have far-reaching applications. It's called Eulerian Video Magnification, and it's incredible, reports Talking Points Memo's Carl Franzen:
The system works by selectively amplifying color variation between pixels in the video footage. It can also be applied to a still camera if the images are taken shortly after one another, on "burst" mode.
"After getting it to work for visualizing the human pulse, we then realized we could also amplify motion signals using a very similar technique," the researchers explained. "We noticed motion amplifications in our amplified human pulse signal, so we went back to understand that, and then figured out how to control and exploit it."
The MIT project has a grant from the Pentagon and also enjoys support from the computer graphics giant, Nvidia.

subset: commoncrawl


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Tag Archives: partridge
Roast Partridge on Polenta with Braised Radicchio
Roast partridge with mascarpone and thyme, polenta and red wine braised radicchio.
I wanted to catch the end of the British game season so made use of the free weekend after exams to get a few different dishes done. I settled with partridge, and the cold weather served as the perfect excuse to eat it with hearty polenta and bitter radicchio to cut through the richness.
I pinched the idea for the mascarpone and herb stuffing from a River Cafe recipe I had seen and used the cooking juices to braise the radicchio with some red wine to serve as a sauce too. Getting my hands on radicchio reminded me of the constant variation in leaf vegetables available during my time in Valencia, so I trawled through my photos from the city centre taken around this time last year for respite from the unrelenting grey skies here and have included them in this post.
It was the first time I had bought real polenta and cooked it rather than used it for cakes. Despite the extra effort in making it, the resulting texture and flavour subtlety makes it worth the effort and a far cry from the stodge that instant polenta produces. It needs some sharpness to cut through it, so the radicchio really helped in balancing the richness.
Serves 4
4 partridges
250g mascarpone
2 tablespoons of both finely chopped fresh thyme and parsley
salt & pepper
250g thinly sliced pancetta
olive oil
Oven @ 220C
Ensure the partridges are clean before mixing the the herbs into the cheese and seasoning well. Fill each cavity with the mix. Wrap each bird in pancetta and secure with string.
Heat some olive oil in a roasting tray on the hob until hot. Brown the birds on all sides before transferring to the oven for 18 minutes.
350g polenta
1.75 litres cold water
50g butter
Bring the water to boil in a large, thick-based saucepan. Add the salt and slowly add the polenta flour in a continuous stream whilst stirring with a whisk to prevent lumps. Once completely blended, it will start to bubble. Reduce the heat to minimum and stir frequently for around 40-45 minutes until it falls from the sides of the pan.
Stir in the butter and any extra seasoning if needed.
handful of pinenuts
handful of sultanas, soaked in hot water for 15 minutes
roasting juices from the birds
3 or 4 round radicchio (or treviso if avialable), quartered lengthways
250ml red wine
150ml chicken stock
small handful fresh thyme and parsley leaves roughly chopped
Toast the pinenuts and set aside with the drained sultanas. Add the roasting juices to a heavy bottomed wide pan or skillet on medium-high heat. When smoking, add the radicchio quarters and turn frequently until caramelised on all sides. Add the red wine and stock, turn the quarters for a further 30 seconds before setting aside. Reduce the liquids to a desired consistency on a high heat, adding the herbs, sultanas and pinenuts for the last 10 seconds before transferring to a pouring jug.
Spoon some polenta to the centre of each plate, place the partridge on top and arrange the radicchio before pouring over the wine reduction.


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Viking's Choice: Behold, Noneuclid's Confounding Thrash Alchemy
When you can count the director of the Wagner Festival and Tom G. Warrior (the mastermind behind metal behemoths Celtic Frost and Triptykon) among your supporters, you must be doing something right. After all, classical music and metal aren't all that different — both can be bombastic, complex pieces of music high on drama, to put it lightly. The Bavarian metal band Noneuclid knows a thing or two about both, having participated in genre-crossing performances to tremendous acclaim. On its second album, Metatheosis, there are no strings shrieking at the heavens, but, oh, the thrash alchemy is something to behold. Speaking of which, behold "The Black Plague of the Soul."
There's a little bit of everything here — clustered voices out of the psychedelic sequence in 2001: A Space Odyssey, a mud-clod caveman riff followed by a grunted pinch harmonic, a clean-cut blast-beat that sometimes subdivides the trudge. When your band includes members of the tech-death outfit Obscura, the melodically driven black-metal group Dark Forest and the indescribable Triptykon, you're bound to confound metal standards. Still, on an album of mindbogglingly excellent technical frip-frappery, "The Black Plague of the Soul" is Noneuclid in its most aggro South of Heaven mode.
Metatheosis comes out May 6 on .
Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.


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Jump in net profit, revenue for Supercomnet
KUALA LUMPUR: Supercomnet Technologies Bhd's (Scomnet) net profit surged 73.8% to RM9.4mil, or 1.23 sen earnings per share in the second quarter ended June 30 (2Q), compared with RM5.4mil, or 0.75 sen a year ago.
The medical devices manufacturer attributed the higher earnings to improved efficiencies, which resulted in better sales of higher margin products, namely in its medical segment. It was further helped by a favourable foreign exchange rate.
Its revenue for the quarter rose 21.71% to RM39.86mil against RM32.75mil posted in the previous corresponding period, driven by higher demand from the automotive, medical and industrial segments.
The group also saw its net profit margin grow from 16.51% in the last corresponding period to 23.59% in 2Q.
"We are in a situation now where we are working hard to meet the demand of our clients, both for the medical and automotive segment.
"While the medical segment is our key contributor profit-wise, we are also seeing a lot of demand and orders from the automotive segment. In the coming quarters, we expect revenue from the automotive segment to catch up to the medical segment level gradually.
"Profit will still largely continue to come from the medical segment," managing director James Shiue said in a statement.
For the first six months, Scoment's net profit surged 62.3% to RM16.8mil from RM10.3mil previously while revenue expanded 7.84% from RM70.32mil to RM75.83mil.
"We remain optimistic about the group's mid-to long-term prospects underpinned by continuous growing customer demand, very visible orders at hand and several new products in the pipeline.
"In the remaining quarters of FY22, we expect one of our new medical products to start contributing to our revenue, after a very long wait," Shiue said.


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Story by
Fatema Yasmine
Fatema is the founder of SmartGiggles and a technology writer living in San Francisco. You can find her on Twitter @FatemaYasmine. Fatema is the founder of SmartGiggles and a technology writer living in San Francisco. You can find her on Twitter @FatemaYasmine.
How do you organize your inbox? Do you use the inbox zero method or the staring system? Each email is a task essentially, how do you track which messages you have replied too? Do you organise them with labels or use multiple in-boxes?
Taskforce is a Gmail application that allows you to turn your emails into a list of tasks. It's founded by Niccolo Pantucci and Courtland Allen. Its relaunching publicly today with Y Combinator backing and Startup Fund help.
I had a chance to speak to Pantucci last week and we talked about Taskforce in depth.
He told me that "the idea is to change the way people work by attacking the inbox."
I have been using Taskforce for the last three months and it's a handy tool to have. There are existing tools that allow you to list emails as tasks, however most of them do not work within your inbox. Which is what makes Taskforce so great. I don't need to go anywhere externally to make my list of tasks.
Once you install and embed the add on, at the top right on your Gmail inbox there will be a Taskforce Bar. Additionally at the top of each message there will be two buttons; "Convert to a New Task" or "Add to an Existing Task".
What it really does from there onwards is very clever.
If you click 'convert to task', it pulls in the title of the email as the title of your task and then asks you to add a few details. The sender of the task can also be included on the task list. Non Taskforce members don't need to have Taskforce to collaborate. They just email comments and the comments are collated in the Comments section of each task. Along with Comments each task also has a tab for Collaborators, Due Date and Delete.
There is also a news-stream in the Activity tab, next to the Tasks tab on the menu bar. This is especially good for a quick recap of all the activity happening around your collaborated tasks. The tasks themselves can be organized into folders, such as Current Tasks, Completed Tasks and Delayed Tasks.
After a task has been assigned to an email and if you're an inbox zero freak like me, you can hit archive and banish that message from your inbox. Why can you archive messages even though you will need them and they are not completed? Because if you click a task, Taskforce pulls up all messages pertaining to that task, a very good touch.
Creating tasks independent of emails is also possible by clicking the 'plus sign' on the bar.
The only annoying thing that I have encountered is the auto-checked collaboration button when converting an email into a task. I have invited many people to tasks accidentally. As I do not collaborate heavily with tasks, I would prefer the box not to be ticked or the option to remove the auto-check.
Pantucci told me that they are planning on building the mobile version as soon as possible so that accessing tasks on the go would be possible. He also informed me that they are aiming to work on other email clients, Outlook being the next one they want to target. Sadly he was not able to give me time lines.
He also confirmed that there were no plans to charge for the Task manager and monetization would come possibly when they moved into the CRM and Document management space.
There are many competitors in the space of task management such as Google Task Manager, Asana, Salesforce and Basecamp. However Pantucci is not worried and happy to be differentiated;
"The biggest mistake competitors are making is building things outside of email. Which is a huge mistake because for most people it's the first thing they open and last thing they close at work. Email is an outside thought for them, and our primary focus right now," he said.
When you have people tweeting stuff like this (below) about your competitors it must be good thing to know:
Taskforce is available on Chrome, Firefox, and Safari, and plans to offer compatibility with other browsers soon.
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Christine Pittel: I don't think you could fit in one more piece of pottery.
Judith Espinar: Not true! This is just the beginning. In my last house, the walls were completely covered.
Tell me about this house.
It's a traditional adobe, built in 1919 and renovated by Scott Robey and Jim DeVille. They laid out the kitchen, made the cabinets, and painted them that lovely shade of blue, taken from an old cabinet that's still here. Blue is a very important color in New Mexico. Many doors and window frames are painted blue, to ward off evil spirits.
More From House Beautiful
What inspired the yellow?
I pulled it out of an old suzani. I knew it would be a good background for my folk art. It's happy, and not overpowering because of all the plates on top. Every time I walk into the kitchen I feel it's a celebration of my life.
And your art. What draws you to folk art?
It's the voice of a culture, from the time it was made but also reaching back hundreds of years. It's interesting to see how certain patterns endure and evolve. We're attracted to things that tell us about ourselves. I think of these pieces as the beginning of a road that leads to the artists and the stories behind their work. I bought the two green roosters from Juan Almarza, a Spanish artist who was part of our first Santa Fe International Folk Art Market, in 2004. I believe in supporting the work of living artists, and we started the market to connect artists and collectors.
Display is also an art. Did you plan it all out?
I see it in my mind's eye, and then I just play with it until it comes out right. The way I arranged plates around windows and doors is very traditional in Europe. In rural areas, there would be plates on the wall for each family member, and the plate came down when that member visited. It's all part of the tradition of being in a kitchen with people you love. These potters are part of my family. I know them personally. When I come in for my coffee in the morning, I feel as if I'm visiting with my friends.
How do you like the farmhouse sink?
I love it because it's big, and I'm not bumping against metal when I'm washing plates late at night after a dinner party. Everything here is used, and I've broken a lot of pottery over the years. I didn't put in a backsplash because I don't like those shiny tiles. It's simpler without them.
Is a wood countertop practical?
Well, I'll rub it with linseed oil, so if you spill coffee, you can just wipe it off. And I don't slice anything on it. I thought about letting it get all scratched, but I don't cook enough to make that work. Although I did want a Viking stove. It's like the stove I grew up with — no gadgets. In my previous house, you had to have three college degrees in order to use the oven. I'm not big on cooking. My kitchen is really a pottery expo.
Get the Look…
Appliances: vikingrange.com.
Faucet: hansgrohe-usa.com.
Sink: whitehauscollection.com.
Hardware: houseofantiquehardware.com.
Brick flooring: kinneybrickco.com.


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January 27, 2013
by William A. Cook
"We are outraged and shocked at these offensive comments (made by MP David Ward last week) about Jewish victims of the Holocaust and the suggestion that Jews should have learned a lesson from the experience" — Jon Benjamin, chief executive of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, 1/25/2013.
I must apologize for not responding to the lashing given to Lib Dem MP David Ward a week ago as my wife's Mother, 88 years of age, was moved into Hospice care readying her for leaving this vale of tears. Her life, as is true of my own, suffered the horrors of WWII and the Nazi devastation of prisoners including, from 1933, Communists, Socialists, Social Democrats, Roma (Gypsies), Jehovah Witnesses, homosexuals, (and) persons accused of "asocial" or socially deviant behavior, and Jews, between 1938 and 1945 (Holocaust Encyclopedia). Our lives are bookended between depressions and wars. So what have we learned, as David Ward so tellingly asks to the chagrin of many including Mr. Benjamin quoted above. Curiously I found Mr. Ward's comment incomplete. This is what he said:
Having visited Auschwitz twice – once with my family and once with local schools – I am saddened that the Jews, who suffered unbelievable levels of persecution during the Holocaust, could within a few years of liberation from the death camps be inflicting atrocities on Palestinians in the new State of Israel and continue to do so on a daily basis in the West Bank and Gaza.
If truth be told, it did not take "a few years" for the Jews to inflict "unbelievable levels of persecution" on the indigenous people of Mandate Palestine; the persecution began in earnest in 1939 against the British, the British Mandate Government established in 1922 by the League of Nations to maintain order and peace in Palestine. The Zionists undertook "a war against the British Mandate Government, its Police and Soldiers" while it lobbied and subverted the MP's in Westminster with propaganda and money. Here are the words Weizmann and Ben-Gurion promised the Mandate Government:
"if further action was taken against them (by the British Mandate Government) to destroy Zionism, then there would be a blood bath. Nothing could prevent it. Nobody would be safe in Palestine (July 12, 1946, Rhodes Archive Documents). If need be, we shall take the country by force. If Palestine proves too small, her frontiers will have to be extended" (Ben Gurion, Appendix LVc).
This war set the British Government against its own soldiers and police, yea against the nations of the world that had authorized Britain to manage Palestine, and its own Balfour Declaration wording, to appease the Zionists that made this period one of the most destructive and humiliating experienced by the British people through their elected representatives. When in 1948, May of 1948, the Mandate soldiers and police returned home they were virtually shunned by the MPs as Robert Fisk notes in his piece, "The Forgotten Holocaust."
Let's move beyond the "outrage and shock" experienced by Mr. Benjamin to understand why he avoids telling the truth. Should he care to find it, he need only travel a few miles to Oxford, specifically seek in the Rhodes House Archives the "Top Secret" files of Sir Richard C. Catling lodged in a long card board box tied with a shoestring. Catling was Assistant Head Deputy of the Criminal Investigation Division of the Mandate Police. His file contains almost 500 pages of evidence detailing the subterfuge of the Jewish Agency that ostensibly cooperated with the British Government as Jewish immigrants came to Palestine. The documents were seized by the Mandate authorities from the Jewish Agency and its affiliated terror groups, the Haganah, Stern and Irgun "gangs."
Two reports are included, one from High Commissioner Hugh MacMichael written in 1941 and sent to the British Secretary of State's office and the second Catling's report from 1947. The contents of these documents and the commentary of the reports were published by myself as Editor of The Plight of the Palestinians: a Long History of Destruction. That volume was published in 2010 by Macmillan Company with offices in London and New York. More than 20 renowned writers from around the world contributed to this work that describes the original intent of the Zionists as they terrorized the British authorities and the Palestinians from 1939 to May 14, 1948 and never stopped to this day. It is a book about genocide in Palestine.
How do you say that kindly? How do you make people, Jews and gentiles alike, feel comfortable talking about such behavior? How do you atone for the massacres of innocents as the Jewish armies raped, pillaged, slaughtered or drove out the residents of 418 towns and villages in Palestine while the British forces there had to stand by and watch because their fellow British politicians in Westminster called the shots?
Seven to eight hundred thousand Palestinians were driven from their homes and lands, into exile in foreign countries or into Gaza. They are a people without a homeland, contrary to the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights. No passports, no recognized rights to employment or medical care or support of any kind—in Beirut and other cities in Lebanon, in Syria, in Jordan. To this day they live in refugee camps, thousands imprisoned with no place to go, no right of return, yet any Jew living anywhere in the world, who never stepped foot in Palestine, who has no Semitic blood in his/her veins, has a "right of return." How can this be? Where is the justice?
Where is the cry of lamentation by the British MPs for allowing these conditions to persist? Why a cry of "Outrage and Shock"? What hypocritical nonsense from the "Good" people of Britain who walk around in pin striped suits and glittering pearls asking for "decency" and "respect" and "kindness" toward those who suffered the holocaust because they would be appalled at such "words" as David Ward uttered. I'm sorry, I don't believe the Jews of the concentration camps would be "shocked and outraged" by such words; I think they would be "shocked and outraged" if the MPs and the Deputies of British Jews did not speak against the horrors the Zionist government of Israel has perpetrated on the Jews in the name of Judaism. Perhaps they can speak through me:
I saw the pictures children drew at Terezin
As they clustered in the attic's closing darkness, –
Pictures of the sun beyond the rain,
Of Mothers muffled in scarves and solemn dress,
Of Fathers proud beneath their yarmulkas, –
All waiting patiently the promised day
When they would board the silver train
And flee to the Holy City.
And I wept at their plight,
The silent, unknown, gnawing fright
That burned within their Ghetto of sin,
This Terezin.
And then before my eyes there came
Another scene, so strange, as if incarnate in the first
That burst untimely before my weeping heart;
A scene more ravaged than Terezin,
Of streets and alleys swamped in sewage and despair
Where children breathed the fetid air of hate
That smoldered like steaming ashes there.
Suddenly appeared above the graves, the ghosts of Terezin,
Arising like mist around the crematorium;
Fathers and Mothers, in their promised land at last,
Grasping children to their breasts.
Silent as sentinels they stood,
And there they wept as they watched in vain
The wardens wander through the camps
Like Gestapo agents of old,
Stark, cold, indifferent to the pain
Of those who huddled beneath the tin roofs,
Encased like the dead in cement boxes
As the acrid stench of lingering sewage
Flowed through the alleys and the homes.
They saw the tanks rattle through the streets
With ranks of soldiers scurrying behind,
Seeking the vermin that infested this place, –
Homeless, nameless, without a face, –
Sneaking through this ghetto in the dark of night
To drive the children from this transport town,
This resurrected refugee camp, this new Terezin,
Where the new Jew wanders the world
Like the Jews of Terezin,
Joined in their loneliness and despair
As they watch their children there
Become the walls of Terezin!
The "despatch" sent by MacMichael to the Secretary of State resulted from an investigation into the funding practices and use of those funds by various Jewish organizations.
The memorandum illustrates … the fact that the Mandatory is faced potentially with as grave a danger in Palestine from Jewish violence as it has ever faced from Arab violence, a danger infinitely less easy to meet by the methods of repression which have been employed against Arabs. In the first place, the Jews … have the moral and political support … of considerable sections of public opinion both in the United Kingdom and the United States of America. … all the influence and political ability of the Zionists would be brought to bear to show that the Jews in Palestine were the victims of aggression, and that a substantial body of opinion abroad would be persuaded of the truth of the contention.[i]
Quite obviously, MacMichael understands that the Mandatory has little power at home over the zealous actions of the Zionists as they manipulate public and political opinion even as they expand their terrorism against the British Mandate government in Palestine. This is an untenable position to be in, responsible for government control and security of those under its authority, i.e. Palestinians as well as Jews, knowing that the Jews are set on driving the British out of Palestine, and knowing that the home government can offer little help.
To bolster his points, MacMichael offers the following:
… the Jews in Palestine are by no means untrained in the use of arms … large numbers have received training in the Palestine Police… or in His Majesty's Forces. At the present time, in addition to approximately 10,000 Jews in His Majesty's Forces, there are 5,800 in various units of the police force and 15,400 special policemen (31,000) … When to those men … are added the illicit 'defence' organizations of the Jews (Haganah alone had an estimated 60-70,000 men by 1945, see Mss, Med. S20 Appendix XXI), it will be evident that the Jewish people in arms would numerically and in calibre be a very formidable adversary.[ii]
This is in 1941before the full deployment of Jewish terrorism against the legitimate Palestine government got under way.
MacMichael and Catling found themselves missing one of Catling's primary supports for the waging of "irregular warfare" drawn from his image of the 3-legged stool that required the support of the people, the commander and his army and the government, an image, no doubt, from his childhood in Suffolk where his family were butchers and farmers. But the situation only got worse as the end of WWII loomed. The Haganah carried out anti-British military operations, including the kidnapping, killing and booby trapping of soldiers' bodies, conducted against the Mandate Government while the home government remained silent under the pall of Israeli Zionist propaganda.[iii]
But recording the acts of terrorism does not do justice to the conditions the Mandate government faced. MacMichael describes the reality of the forces aligned against the police in Palestine.
A second matter which deeply impressed me is the almost Nazi control exercised by the official Jewish organizations over the Jewish community, willy nilly, through the administration of funds from abroad, the issue of labor certificates in connection with the immigration quota…. The Royal Commission were, in my view, fundamentally at error in describing the Jewish community in Palestine as "intensely democratic". … The Zionist organization, the whole social structure which it has created in Palestine, has the trappings but none of the essentials of democracy. The community is under the closed oligarchy of the Jewish official organizations which control Zionist policy and circumscribe the lives of the Jewish community in all directions…. The reality of power is in the Agency, with the Haganah, the illegal military organization, always in the background.[iv]
And so the authorities in Palestine, the legal authorities, have no power to enforce measures that would curtail terrorism against their own police. "The use of force cannot be contemplated at present as any such action would have to be on a very large scale." MacMichael understands that he can get no help from the Jewish community, even from those who find themselves at odds with the Agency's methods or morality. The consequences to the individual Jew for disobedience is horrendous as the second document seized from the Zionists in 1947 attests.
But we'll stop here; David Ward's comment was nothing to condemn. He didn't know of the years before the end of WWII when the Zionists were destroying Mandate Palestine and the indigenous people there. Yet he knew enough to ask a discerning question. Did the Jewish people learn anything from their experience under Hitler's rule? The Zionists did quite obviously and they used it and continue to use it to decimate and destroy the Palestinian people, to disarm truth with distortion, to steal land and subjugate the innocent, and to verbally assault with deafening, righteous indignation, to avoid the reality and truth that could be discovered if their actions were brought before the International Courts.
Should anyone care to extend their interest in this deception you might read "Deception as Truth: the Myth of Mid-East Peace," "The Birth Date of Fratricide: May 14, 1948," "A Miscarriage of Birth: a Miscarriage of Justice," and the Introduction to the book, The Plight of the Palestinians.
[i] MacMichael, Harold. (1947). "Memorandum on the Participation of the Jewish National Institutions in Palestine in Acts of Lawlessness and Violence" The Palestine Police, Jerusalem, 7-31-1947 in Catling file.
[ii] MacMichael. "dispatch." 1.
[iii] Ibid., "Despatch." 2.
[iv] Ibid., "Despatch." 2.


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The chief of the Army staff, Gen V.K. Singh's interview to The Hindu on March 26, in which he accused a former army officer of making a Rs 14 crore bribe offer, stirred the proverbial hornet's nest last Monday.
The timing of the charge, on the eve of the BRICS summit in Delhi, set tongues wagging.
The paper's interviewer, Vidya Subrahmaniam, provides some perspective in today's issue:
"I met the General at his official residence in Delhi for an hour-long taped interview a few days before its eventual publication on March 26. This time was required to fill in some gaps in information as well as to transcribe the long, meandering content of the conversation.
"It wasn't as if the chief was bursting with unspilled secrets.
"The interview, I assumed, was about the age controversy and the state of the army, and so it was for the large part…. Half way into the questioning, when he was specifically asked who was behind the controversy, he mentioned "the Adarsh lobby and some equipment lobbyists."
"Then suddenly he dropped the bombshell about the bribe attempt. I absorbed the information trying not to show too much excitement, and quizzed him on the details. He said it was for clearing the purchase of a tranche of overpriced trucks that had no proper facility for "maintenance and service."
"Also that he was so enraged by the brazenness of it all that he took it up with Union Defence Minister A.K. Antony. But Gen. Singh simply wouldn't part with more information, nor explain what action he or the Minister had taken.
"'Leave it,' he said.
"Journalists know when they have a scoop and they also know how far to push their source. I do not know if the General knowingly concealed the scoop in a maze of information, I do not know if his intention all along was only to disclose the bribe attempt, but at that point, my overwhelming concern was that he shouldn't retract….
"I emerged out of Gen.Singh's home with the BRICS summit, still many days away, hardly in my consciousness."
Illustration: Keshav/ The Hindu
Read the full article: Sack the general, did you say?


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At the LinuxWorld expo in San Francisco, analyst Jay Lyman of the 451 Group spoke about the potential for enterprise adoption of Ubuntu and the impact that community-driven Linux distributions will have on the market.
Companies are increasingly choosing free community-driven Linux distributions instead of commercial offerings with conventional support options. Several factors are driving this trend, particularly dissatisfaction with the cost of support services from the major distributors. Companies that use and deploy Linux internally increasingly have enough in-house expertise to handle all of their technical needs and no longer have to rely on Red Hat or Novell, according to Lyman.
Procurement practices are evolving overseas, especially in Europe, where distributions like CentOS and Ubuntu are gaining more traction in corporate environments and data centers.
"In Europe there is a greater propensity to consider something that is not from a traditional vendor," Lyman commented. Although he sees lots of room for free Linux solutions in the market, he doesn't believe that there is any danger that the big commercial players will be completely displaced. Competition will, however, have a very real impact on pricing and could make commercial support more affordable.
He also believes that free Linux adoption is ultimately beneficial for the major vendors, because it attracts people to the platform and creates unique opportunities for market growth. To demonstrate the symbiotic relationship between the commercial and community Linux ecosystems, Lyman explained how a school district rolled out Fedora on a handful of machines for a small project and ended up liking it so much that they adopted Red Hat's enterprise Linux distribution across the entire district. In that scenario, small-scale usage of the free Fedora distro translated directly into a major commercial support contract for Red Hat. In turn, Red Hat invests its resources in Linux improvements that trickle back down into Fedora.
Many companies, however, go the other direction and drop costly Red Hat contracts in favor of CentOS, a binary-compatible clone of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The advantage of CentOS is that it is fully compatible with software stacks that companies are already deploying on their Red Hat servers. The implications of this are less apparent, but it could reflect a need for more-granular and less-expensive support options from Red Hat.
The problems with Red Hat's support offerings are very well documented. When I was listening to Lyman discuss some of the reasons why companies adopt CentOS, I started to think about a blog entry I read last year that was written by SmugMug CEO Don MacAskill. SmugMug, which has lots of internal Linux expertise, wanted to pay for Red Hat's updates and software management tools but eschew the costly and unneeded support services. When Red Hat refused to unbundle the software and commercial support, SmugMug went to CentOS. SmugMug's situation is hardly unique, and more companies are starting to see it as the most cost-effective approach.
Lyman also discussed the potential for greater adoption of Ubuntu in commercial contexts. Ubuntu is a community-driven distribution that is developed with financial backing from Canonical. According to Lyman, Ubuntu is "not a flash in the pan." It has been the favorite of enthusiast users for several years and is getting lots of attention from Dell and other large hardware vendors. "We think that staying power shows that Ubuntu is for real," Lyman stated.
He also thinks that Mark Shuttleworth's dedication to Linux leaves no room for doubt about his commitment to Ubuntu and the open source ecosystem. "For Shuttleworth, Ubuntu isn't just a business mission, it's a personal mission," Lyman opined.
The big challenge he sees for Ubuntu is breaking into the server space where it is often overlooked. Canonical has been vigorously pursuing the server market, but has seen little adoption there. This may be a consequence of perception rather than technical issues. Companies tend to view Ubuntu as a desktop play and often don't think of it as a possible contender for their server racks. Canonical has attempted to change that perception through its partnership with Sun and its efforts to get the distro certified for major enterprise applications.
A whole new generation of future system administrators is growing up with Linux and will bring a lot of solid Linux expertise into the IT departments of the companies that eventually employ them. As the number of people with such skills grows in the industry, it is likely that adoption of free Linux distributions will continue to increase. This means more opportunities for Ubuntu and CentOS, and it means that Red Hat and Novell will have to continue adapting their business models.


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The New Yorker Rejects Itself: A Quasi-Scientific Analysis of Slush Piles
By David Cameron
It began as the kind of logical argument that seems airtight to anyone who has never studied logic.
If the New Yorker is the most desirable literary magazine in the world, and if the New Yorker can have any short story the New Yorker wants, then whatever story the New Yorker gets would—logically—be so intrinsically desirable that all lesser literary pubs (e.g., everyone) would pine for it. Just like the prettiest girl at the dance: the guy she picks is the guy chicks dig. Basic deduction 101.
After a few glasses of two-buck Chuck I was ready to test my hypothesis. I grabbed a New Yorker story off the web (no, it wasn't by Alice Munro or William Trevor), copied it into a Word document, changed only the title, created a fictitious author identity, and submitted it to a slew of literary journals, all of whom regularly grace the TOC of Best American Short Stories, Pushcart Prize, O'Henry, etcetera and etcetera. My cover letter simply stated that I am an unpublished writer deeply appreciative of their consideration.
That was it. I sowed the seed, and waited.
As for the result, please sit down and place your Starbucks Venti on a secure surface.
Dear reader, every single one of these journals rejected my poor New Yorker story with the same boilerplate "good luck placing your work elsewhere" auto-text that has put the lid on my own sorry submissions. Not a single personal pleasantry. What's more, the timeframes tracked perfectly. For example, if the Beavercreek Fucknut Bulletin (not a real journal, but representative) generally takes thirty days to relegate my stuff to the recycle bin, then our New Yorker story—which must have been thoroughly confused at this point—fared no better.
As the rejections rolled in, I began to feel sorry for this story in the same way you pity a one-hit wonder who ends up on infomercials: two parts schadenfreude, one part authentic compassion. This poor story, like the sly dude chosen by the dance-floor starlet, thought he had it all. Here he was convinced that he could effortlessly charm the panties off of any university-based handout with "Review" in the title. What the hell happened?
But it wasn't just the lower-tier non-A+ list who rejected this poor devil. Before I name-drop, bear with me. I'm being deliberately coy by not IDing the culprits, mainly because I don't want to be denied any free drink tickets at the next AWP. (For what it's worth, my editor has been fully briefed.) But trust me, dear reader, if you were to be accepted into any of the offending journals, you'd drown in your own serotonin.
However, I'll break my silence to single out just one journal that declined this New Yorker short story: the New Yorker. Yes, in an act of inadvertent self-mortification, the New Yorker rejected itself.
I tried to console this sad, broken-hearted story, explaining to it the vagaries and randomness of the slush pile, how despite what many of these journal editors state in interviews the slush is often just a clean-up chore relegated to overwhelmed readers, and that rejections might mean nothing or might mean everything but there was no way of really knowing—but too late. He had already retreated into a boozy haze.
Still, my work wasn't done! No scientific experiment can be taken seriously unless it is reproduced, and so I grabbed yet another story, this one by a rather celebrated youngish New Yorker author (not Zadie Smith or Karen Russell) and repeated the process. The results, as scientists so often say when describing a perfectly corroborated protocol, were "elegant."
Thus ended my life in research.
Now comes the trickier part. Commentary.
Slush sucks. It's as simple, and as unhelpful, as that. Keep in mind that they do in fact call it the slush pile, not the "jewel in the rough pile," or the "we can't wait to see what serendipity brought us today!" pile, but the slush pile, named after the very same stuff that mucks your driveway up after a dank snowfall. In some cases it would be more accurate to call it the "gotta snake my drain" pile.
A part of me really wanted to be outed, to have some vigilant editor write back and say, "Nice try. Consider yourself blacklisted." Or even to put me in the horribly awkward position of an acceptance!* That would mean there's hope, that open submissions weren't just, in so many cases, empty gestures.
Yes, my ruse makes me snarky, but also sad. But not as sad as the poor New Yorker story that got so brutalized. If you see him standing next to a bar stool searching his pockets for loose change, give him a hug. He's still trying to figure out what went wrong.
*For the record, in the event I received even a nibble I would have immediately withdrawn the story from consideration. I actually do have scruples.
David Cameron lives with his wife and children near Boston, Massachusetts, where he works in higher education, writing about science and technology. A Pushcart nominee, his fiction has appeared in Carve Magazine and Digital Americana. He is also the fiction editor for Talking Writing magazine.


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Directed by: Fred Olen Ray
Written by: Fred Olen Ray and T.L. Lankford
Starring: Jay Richardson, Linnea Quigley, Gunnar Hansen
Reviewed by: Tyler B.
They charge an arm and a leg!
The 80's were a great time for horror fans who favored a large helping of cheese with their scares. At one point it appeared that the sex comedy and the horror film merged creating such gems as The Slumber Party Massacre and Frankenhooker. Even popular straight slashers like Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street ascended to either goofy one liners or cheesy and ridiculous kills as their sequels progressed. Even with the fromage piled on, these films turned a profit for their distributors. It also seemed the more goofier and sexier you're movie's title the more those video tapes were flying off the shelves. And as you're walking through a video store how the hell can you pass up a film featuring a buxom babe on the cover holding a chainsaw? Three words: Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers.
In Hollywood it appears hookers are hacking up horny men with chainsaws left and right. Detective Jack Chandler (Jay Richardson) is on the case of trying to track down a missing teenager (Linnea Quigley) whom he suspects is caught up in the middle of the unsolved murders. Upon finding a bloodied strip club matchbook, Jack goes undercover and stakes out the club where he meets Mercedes (Michelle Bauer), one of the chainsaw-happy hookers. Before Jack realizes she's one of them, and that there's more than one, it's too late. Plunged into the dark underground of the Hollywood strip, Jack discovers the murders are linked to a religious cult headed by a chainsaw-worshipping madman (Gunner Hansen) and his cult of deadly beauties. Now he'll have to carve his way out of this mess, and rescue the missing girl, before he loses his limbs. Beware the busty babes, beware the religious fanatics, and most of all beware the Virgin Dance of the Double Chainsaws!
I had a lot of fun watching Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers. It's face paced, considering it's only 72 minutes long, and there's never a dull moment. There's plenty of blood, babes, chainsaws, and copious amounts of nudity to make this one of the better B-movies to come out in the late 80's. Fred Olen Ray mixes a lot of humour in with the horror and I was constantly cracking up during Jay Richardson's screen time as the private detective. Often his character is narrating the film in the tone of 40's/50's detective noir serials. Personally, I thought that it was a great touch and really worked for the overall story structure. The film really felt like a cross between those bikini beach babe flicks and a detective noir mystery. Throw in some chainsaws and some blood and you got a cocktail sure to knock you out. The writing is sharp, the acting is pretty decent for how low budget the film is, and the gore is pretty gruesome, if not at least comical. Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers is a near perfect drive-in/grindhouse horror comedy.
Shot for only a little over $50,000 and in only 5 days, Fred Olen Ray got a whole helluva lot of bang for his buck. Fred Olen Ray has made some bad horror films before, but he's also keen to show you that if you don't have a lot of money you can still get good talent, write a fun script, and be creative to make that budget look bigger than it is. And if you've got a title like Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers that also helps. Some of the set-pieces were shot in the actual production offices since they had limited cash and the Aztec-like temple of the chainsaw worshippers was built from left over sets from the William Katt horror comedy House. As a horror comedy the gore gags are over the top. In one of the opening scenes, Mercedes strips down completely nude except for a shower cap and covers her Elvis portrait hanging on the wall in plastic before hacking up the john she took back to the motel. Limbs fly and blood sprays out all over the place in a very cartoon-esque manner. But just like Friday the 13th, Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers is sending a message to it's audience: practice safe sex. If hookers with chainsaws isn't a bold enough image to suggest that, I don't know what is! And as noted by Linnea Quigley in numerous interviews, all the chainsaws were real! Sure, they may have changed the chain to a felt rope in some scenes for safety, but all the exhaust fumes are authentic.
Retromedia, Fred's personal company, re-released the film on DVD recently in a 20th Anniversary Widescreen Edition. Finally the movie comes to DVD 16x9 enhanced! The transfer is not the greatest as it's taken from the only remaining 35mm film print in existence, which happens to be a print that has been screened across numerous theaters and drive-ins. But for this film, I don't consider this to be a downside; sure there's dirt, dust, debris, grain, and scratches all throughout the print, but this only ups the grindhouse factor of the film and really takes you back to the good old drive-in days. There is a real downside to the transfer however, it's got quite a bit of artifacting, especially in the reds. Rounding out the disc as far as extras we get a commentary track featuring Fred and co-writer T.L. Lankford, a 'making of' featurette, and the original theatrical trailer. I really enjoyed the 'making of' and we get interviews from Fred, Linnea, and Michelle Bauer discussing how this low budget flick became a very successful cult B-movie.
If you're a fan of B-movie horror comedies, Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers will be right up your alley. 72 exhaust-filled minutes of chainsaw hookers, gum shoes, religious madmen, boobs, blood, and even more boobs will satisfy all your cravings. Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers made me feel like I was 12 again, where you'd go to the video store and rent the most ridiculous movies you could find based on the cover or title alone, and sometimes you'd find a real gem. I can gladly say I've added this to my collection and I can see myself revisiting more often than a lot of movies just because it's so much fun. So what are you waiting for? Grab a copy of this movie and get your chainsaw a-buzzing! Buy it!
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The best interests of humanity were long ago abandoned by corporate giants in favor of the almighty dollar. But would companies really make false promises and put babies on the line to boost their bottom line? Well, yes, they would. Baby formula manufacturers first started putting synthetic fatty acids called DHA and ARA in formula about a decade ago. Despite complaints over the years and questionable marketing practices by the companies, these DHA/ARA-enhanced formulas remain on the market today.
DHA/ARA-Enhanced Baby Formula
DHA and ARA are long-chain fatty acids that are naturally present in human breast milk. However, the DHA and ARA in baby formula is synthetic – not natural. Instead, they are produced by a company called Martek Biosciences Corp. They are made in a lab with algae and fungus, and then extracted with hexane, a neurotoxin.
Since the DHA/ARA formulas began showing up on shelves, the FDA has been flooded with complaints from consumers. Letter after letter found parents dealing with sick and unhappy babies – babies who did a complete 180-degree turnaround when taken off the formula.
Initially, according to this AlterNet report, the FDA alerted Martek that they would be convening a group of scientists to look into concerns about the synthetic DHA and ARA. But Martek responded, telling the FDA that such research would "not be productive." For whatever reason, the FDA agreed and didn't look any further at the formula additive.
Many formulas have used these synthetic substances and have been called out for calling their products "The Breast Milk Formula," and suggesting theirs was even better than the breast.
Prior to the additives being placed in bottles, Martek marketed them to companies saying:
Even if [the DHA/ARA blend] has no benefit, we think it would be widely incorporated into formulas as a marketing tool and to allow companies to promote their formula as "closest to human milk."
And there it is– the recognition that a substance may or may not be useful, the seeming disregard of any potential risks, all for the admitted marketing tool and the money that it would bring in.
This detailed report from Cornucopia.org shows that upset tummies and fussy attitudes might not be the only negative mark of DHA/ARA infused formula. They reveal that in Martek's own studies, lab rats showed a "significant increase in relative liver weights." And this is from the manufacturer's studies. Imagine what an impartial study might find.


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Part Two
This collapsible basket pattern is made from 3/4" oak. These baskets are easy to make and look nice in almost any wood.
To get the basket to collapse correctly you will set your scroll saw table to about 5 degrees. You should make test cuts in scrap wood until to get the angle correct for a fully open basket. The one in the photo above needs to open a little more. I used a #7 blade and the table was set to 5 degrees. 4 degrees might have been a better choice.
Normally these baskets fold flat for storage. I made the outside of the bowl a little narrow which makes it a little difficult to get it to fold up. You need to round over the outer bowl so it will pivot freely.
The video will give you some construction tips.
Make A Donation


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Manuel Gonzales was born in Spain, but his family moved to the USA when he was 5 years old, in 1918. He studied at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, where he would copy some of the paintings as a training. He became a staff artist at the Walt Disney Studios in September 1936. He worked at the Publicity Art Department, until he took over the 'Mickey Mouse' Sunday page from Floyd Gottfredson in 1938. Except for his military service (1942-1945), Gonzales continued to draw this page until his retirement in 1981, showcasing Mickey's everyday life in contrast with the adventure stories of the dailies.
'Alice in Wonderland'.
Gonzales added the hustler bird 'Ellsworth' to the Disney universe, a character that was prominently featured in the 'Mickey Mouse' Sunday pages between 1949 and 1959. In addition, Gonzales illustrated newspaper comic adaptations of films like 'Alice in Wonderland', 'Cinderella', 'Peter Pan' and 'Lady and the Tramp' between 1950 and 1955 (inks by Dick Moores). In the mid-1950s he inked several of Al Taliaferro's 'Donald Duck' dailies. From 1956 to 1981 he was the main inker of the daily 'Scamp' comic (pencilled by Bob Grant, Richard Moore, Mike Arens, etc.). Gonzales illustrated several Disney books at Golden Press and Whitman between 1948 and 1954, such as 'Come Play with Mickey Mouse' and 'Three Orphan Kittens'.
'Mickey Mouse'.


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Are your DNS nameservers impeding your gaming experience? For me it was packet loss/return errors, That and every other device in my house that connected thru the same dns server to the internet.
This DNS Benchmark will give you visibility into what's going on with your system's currently assigned DNS servers by automatically comparing their performance with many well known publicly available alternatives. It's super easy download here https://www.grc.com/dns/benchmark.htm then open and tab to Nameservers then RunBenchmark, when done tab on Conclusions to see the recommendations. To familiarizing yourself with GRC's DNS Benchmark go to https://www.grc.com/dns/operation.htm
Forum Rules


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Last updated: June 18, 2010
Building Bridges: Moving Genomics Into Clinical Care
Building Bridges: Moving Genomics Into Clinical Care
The National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) has recently created the Genomic Healthcare Branch (GHB) to help bridge the gap between genomic discoveries made in the research lab and the realities faced by patients and healthcare providers in the clinic.
"Genomic technologies have already made substantial inroads into everyday clinical practice. In the future, genomics will become even more central to clinical care. It is critical that healthcare providers are prepared to use these technologies to care for their patients," said W. Gregory Feero, M.D., Ph.D., chief of the Genomic Healthcare Branch, which is part of the Office of Policy, Communication and Education within NHGRI's Office of the Director.
Dr. Feero and his colleagues possess first-hand knowledge of the many challenges facing today's healthcare professionals as they attempt to integrate genomic tools and technologies into their daily practice. Trained as a family practice physician and as a research geneticist, Dr. Feero still spends one day a week seeing patients in a clinic in West Virginia.
Other branch members have extensive experience in primary care, nursing and health education. Jean Jenkins, R.N., Ph.D., has more than 30 years of experience as a nurse and nurse educator. Dale Lea, R.N., M.P.H., C.G.C., is a genetics counselor and health educator. She has developed genetics, health education, and community involvement programs and resources. Alan Guttmacher, M.D., is a former director of the Vermont Regional Genetics Center at the University of Vermont College of Medicine where he practiced clinical genetics, conducted research, and was a tenured associate professor of pediatrics and medicine. In addition to his adjunct position with the Genomic Healthcare Branch, Dr. Guttmacher currently serves as the deputy director of NHGRI.
"Clearly, there are many priorities competing for the healthcare provider's time in the context of the all-too-short office visit. One of our priorities is to find novel ways to integrate genomics into healthcare that have a minimal — and possibly positive — impact on the time crunch everyone in medicine feels," said Dr. Feero.
The new branch will use a wide range of approaches to reach out to doctors, nurses, physician assistants and other healthcare professionals to help them leverage state-of-the-art genomic technologies. For example, the branch evaluates and develops educational materials, such as a toolkit for nursing faculty to teach genetic and genomic competencies and other Web-based learning tools on genetics and genomics for health providers. Branch staff also write and edit articles focusing on genomics for professional journals and other educational publications aimed at healthcare professionals.
In addition, representatives of the Genomic Healthcare Branch will attend and convene meetings with the intent of enhancing healthcare professionals' knowledge of the latest research related to genomics and clinical care. For example, the branch currently is planning a State-of-the-Science Conference on the use of family health history as a screening tool in primary care. The conference, which will take place within the next two years, will be held at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Md. The branch is also coordinating a meeting to examine carrier screening in the context of emerging genomic technologies. This event, which will be hosted in conjunction with other partners from NIH, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Health Resources and Services Administration, is expected to take place in the spring of 2008.
The branch also is working to standardize informatics technologies developed by governmental institutions for collecting and storing family health history information. The goal is to establish a standard family history tool that can link information to electronic health records systems. To accomplish this goal, Dr. Feero and his colleagues participate in the American Health Information Community Personalized Healthcare Workgroup and play a lead role in networking with other federal agencies involved in health informatics applications.
"Incorporating family health history into electronic health records would make it possible for healthcare providers to quickly get an idea of whether a patient has genetic factors that might put him or her at increased risk for disease. Healthcare providers could then use this information to recommend follow-up tests, as well as strategies for disease management and prevention. What's more, electronic health records would enable this information to be quickly and easily shared with specialists or other healthcare professionals in a wide range of clinical settings," said Dr. Feero.
Another vital role of the new branch is to serve as a liaison between NHGRI and other public and private organizations with an interest in moving genomics into the clinical setting. Recently, branch staff participated in meetings with the American Academy of Family Physicians and with the physician assistant community. Also, Genomic Healthcare Branch partnerships with professional nursing organizations are expanding awareness of the importance of integrating genetic and genomic knowledge into healthcare. For example, collaboration with the American Nurses Association resulted in meetings to finalize an "Essentials Competency" document, which has been endorsed by 48 organizations (See: Essential Nursing Competencies and Curricula Guidelines for Genetics and Genomics ), as well as follow-up meetings to create a strategic plan for these efforts. Included in this strategic plan is a Toolkit for Faculty which is in the process of being developed with the support of the American Association of Colleges of Nursing. Additionally, the American Academy of Nursing is working with Dr. Jenkins to determine how to establish the evidence base in support of using genomic applications in nursing care.
The Genomic Healthcare Branch also participates in various education research projects. One project, which is being conducted in collaboration with researchers from NHGRI's Social and Behavioral Research Branch, will analyze data from a large survey that asked family physicians about their attitudes and practices related to genomics.
"The NHGRI is proud of its leadership in such programs as the Human Genome Project, the ENCODE Project, the HapMap Project and the Genes and Environment in Health Initiative," said Dr. Guttmacher. "However, we realize that the ultimate worth of such efforts will be the use of the genomic tools and approaches that they have pioneered to improve human health. We look forward to our new Genome Healthcare Branch playing an important role — in partnership with other governmental agencies, health advocates, the private sector and health professionals — in translating these tools and approaches so that the promise of genomics becomes the reality of better health for all."
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Two out of every three people surveyed don't eat more than two servings of vegetables per day (Mintel Group Ltd., 2012).
The Importance of Healthy Living
Americans face a number of health challenges today.
+ More than 800,000 Americans die each year from cardiovascular disease and strokes (Centers for Disease Control).
+ Two-thirds of adults and one-third of children are obese (The Journal of the American Medical Association, 2010).
+ 25.8 million children and adults in the United States have diabetes (American Diabetes Association, 2011).
So how can they live healthier lifestyles? Eating a healthy diet is a start, though that can be easier said than done. Fruits and vegetables provide proven benefits such as improved cardiovascular wellness, immune system support and reduction of systematic inflammation, as well as oxidative stress. However, many of us struggle to get full servings of fruits and vegetables daily.
2 out of 3
7% of people
Seven percent of people don't eat any daily vegetable servings, and 14 percent say they don't eat any fruit servings (Mintel Group Ltd., 2012).
And that's where Juice Plus+ and our independent representatives come in. Juice Plus+ helps bridge the nutritional gap between what we should eat and what we actually do eat, delivering 30 fruits, vegetables, grains and berries in a convenient capsule or chewable form. Additionally, our Tower Garden products provide an easy way to grow fruits and vegetables at home.
The Growing Health Industry
The time is right to start a business in the health and wellness industry. The media and the public are focusing increased attention on health and nutrition, telling the story of the importance of eating healthy with fruits and vegetables. Here are just a few examples:
The Centers for Disease Control emphasizes how important fruits and vegetables are to overall body health
The Mayo Clinic shares The American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiologists guidelines for preventing obesity and heart disease, including emphasis on vegetables fruits and whole grains
Forbes highlighted that Americans continue to underspend on fruits, vegetables, and whole grains based on a recent report from the U.S Department of Agriculture
Medical News Today emphasized the importance of a heart healthy diet for cardiovascular disease prevention, as heart disease leads to 17 million deaths per year
The Wall Street Journal revealed a USDA study that suggests American's eating habits may be taking a more healthful turn; however, also highlighted that obesity and health risks still exist
The USDA revamped the traditional food pyramid into an easy to understand plate graphic called MyPlate, showing that half of a person's plate at every meal should consist of fruits and vegetables
Put yourself at the forefront of this profitable, growing industry with a Juice Plus+ Virtual Franchise. Ready to launch your Virtual Franchise?


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- What is the swine flu (H1N1 influenza A virus) and what causes it?
- What are the symptoms of swine flu (H1N1 flu)?
- How is swine flu (H1N1 flu) treated?
- Where can I get more information about swine flu (H1N1 flu)?
What is the swine flu (H1N1 influenza A virus) and what causes it?
The 2009 swine flu virus (otherwise known as H1N1 influenza) is caused by an H1N1 influenza A virus. H1N1 influenza viruses are the normal cause of influenza in humans and may also infect other animals, including pigs. This particular variant is an example of a virus that likely originated in swine and has mutated (changed its biological characteristics) so it is now affecting humans.
What are the symptoms of swine flu (H1N1 influenza A virus)?
Symptoms of swine flu vary widely and are similar to symptoms of seasonal flu. Infected individuals may experience
Vomiting and diarrhea have been reported and severe cases may result in respiratory failure and even death.
How is swine flu (H1N1 flu) treated?
Like seasonal flu, most people will recover from swine flu (H1N1 flu) within a week without any antiviral medications. The U.S. centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that all individuals with suspected or confirmed swine flu infection be considered for treatment with antiviral agents, especially hospitalized patients and patients at higher risk for complications.
Antiviral agents prevent, shorten, and reduce the severity of flu. Antiviral agents used for treatment and prevention of swine flu are oseltamivir (Tamiflu) and zanamivir (Relenza). Swine flu is resistant to amantadine (Symmetrel) and rimantadine (Flumadine). Oseltamivir and zanamivir are approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for treatment and prevention of flu in adults and children. They are most effective when administered within two days of an infection. Oseltamivir is administered as a capsule, and zanamivir is administered by oral inhalation.
Where can I get more information?
- For current CDC recommendations for swine flu treatment
- H1N1 Flu (Swine Flu)


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Sports Beat: Not a bad tradeoff; not bad at all
Given the current schematic guiding our good intentions, Gulf Coast State College's celebration of Roonie Scovel's contribution to the school and the community got it right Saturday afternoon.
It put a appropriate emphasis on people, and not just the coach who along with assistant Grover Hicks led the Lady Commodores women's basketball team to three national titles and other notable achievements. It graciously welcomed back those whose commitment along the way paid dividends not only on the moment, but on the future.
Make no mistake, Scovel was the centerpiece Saturday and deserving of that distinction. She has stepped aside after re-establishing the women's basketball program at Gulf Coast and maintaining its excellence for 16 seasons.
It is time for another custodian to take charge, and like most institutions amateur and professional that seek the proper shoe size to fit giant foot prints, Gulf Coast selected Vernette Skeete, a former player under Scovel to grab the baton and lead the Lady Commodores on the next leg of the journey.
That is not the sole measure of what appears today. No small matter of what Penn State University decides to do with Joe Paterno's statue outside Beaver Stadium also refracts the spotlight of how we bestow honor and prestige on beloved coaches and athletes.
As in most endeavors, sports did not begin this procession. Nowhere do students graduate from Rocky Marciano High School, although a post office bears his name in his hometown. Nor do they matriculate to Nagurski and Csonka University. That tradition is linked to long dead presidents and in a more parochial sense to statesmen and stateswomen.
Having competed against athletes representing Harding High School, I only can surmise they represented the halls named for President Warren G., who died during his first term presumably before enveloped by more scandal. I can, however, state for a fact the school was not named for a female figure skater.
We've seemingly ramped our willingness to commemorate perceived greatness and often can no longer wait for the honoree to die before being cast in bronze. Thus the dilemma of what to do with the statue of a football coach in Happy Valley. Also be aware that already there are schools in nine states named for Barack Obama, and some bear the name of George W. Bush. The same with street signs.
Perhaps there is an online university that venerates Al Gore.
The rush to celebrate immediacy also includes some living, and in the case of Nick Saban active college football coaches whose statues can be visited in the tall shadows cast by stadiums they helped expand and fill.
Which begs the question what would be done with said statue should the living replica be found guilty of tax evasion in the coming years. Or be linked to tawdry comments and conduct within the confines of social media.
This isn't intended to sanitize our desire to commemorate schools, streets and football arenas. Nor to provide guidelines for which crimes and indiscretions rate carting away a statue in the dead of night or sand blasting the namesake from above a school entrance.
Merely one opinion that people should be allowed to live their lives before we sit in judgment of their greatness and the weight of their contribution, albeit balanced by the desire to pay proper homage while they are with us.
There was a simpler time when games were played in Memorial Stadium and Veterans Stadium instead of theme parks named for corporate empires. Even some collegiate venues have invited hyphens and additions into their titles and sometimes read like a law firm logo.
A sensible time returned Saturday when Roonie Scovel received more than a wink and a nod from Gulf Coast. She was embraced by an extended family including administrators and boosters, but mostly players who will reflect some of her values and spirit in the coming years.
And all without having to dodge pigeons and the tarnish of perpetuity. Just the thought of sneakers squeaking across her court and a lot of drops of sweat deposited along the way.
Not a bad tradeoff. Not bad at all.


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|United States
Roosevelt's popularity was at its peak as the campaign of 1908 neared, but he was unwilling to break the tradition by which no president had held office for more than two terms. Instead, he supported William Howard Taft, who won the election and sought to continue his predecessor's programs of reform. Taft, a former judge, governor of the Philippines and administrator of the Panama Canal, made some progress. He continued the prosecution of trusts, further strengthened the Interstate Commerce Commission, established a postal savings bank and a parcel post system, expanded the civil service and sponsored the enactment of two amendments to the Constitution.
The 16th Amendment authorized a federal income tax; the 17th Amendment, ratified in 1913, mandated the direct election of senators by the people, replacing the system whereby they were selected by state legislatures. Yet balanced against these achievements was Taft's acceptance of a tariff with protective schedules that outraged liberal opinion; his opposition to the entry of the state of Arizona into the Union because of its liberal constitution; and his growing reliance on the conservative wing of his party.
By 1910 Taft's party was divided, and an overwhelming vote swept the Democrats back into control of Congress. Two years later, Woodrow Wilson, the Democratic, progressive governor of the state of New Jersey, campaigned against Taft, the Republican candidate, and against Roosevelt who, rejected as a candidate by the Republican convention, had organized a third party, the Progressives.
Wilson, in a spirited campaign, defeated both rivals. Under his leadership, the new Congress enacted one of the most notable legislative programs in American history. Its first task was tariff revision. "The tariff duties must be altered," Wilson said. "We must abolish everything that bears any semblance of privilege." The Underwood Tariff, signed on October 3, 1913, provided substantial rate reductions on imported raw materials and foodstuffs, cotton and woolen goods, iron and steel, and removed the duties from more than a hundred other items. Although the act retained many protective features, it was a genuine attempt to lower the cost of living.
The second item on the Democratic program was a long overdue, thorough reorganization of the inflexible banking and currency system. "Control," said Wilson, "must be public, not private, must be vested in the government itself, so that the banks may be the instruments, not the masters, of business and of individual enterprise and initiative."
The Federal Reserve Act of December 23, 1913, was one of Wilson's most enduring legislative accomplishments. It imposed upon the existing banking system a new organization that divided the country into 12 districts, with a Federal Reserve Bank in each, all supervised by a Federal Reserve Board. These banks were to serve as depositories for the cash reserves of those banks that joined the system. Until the Federal Reserve Act, the U.S. government had left control of its money supply largely to unregulated private banks. While the official medium of exchange was gold coins, most loans and payments were carried out with bank notes, backed by the promise of redemption in gold. The trouble with this system was that the banks were tempted to reach beyond their cash reserves, prompting periodic panics during which fearful depositors raced to turn their bank paper into coin. With the passage of the act, greater flexibility in the money supply was assured, and provision was made for issuing federal reserve notes to meet business demands.
The next important task was trust regulation and investigation of corporate abuses. Congress authorized a Federal Trade Commission to issue orders prohibiting "unfair methods of competition" by business concerns in interstate trade. A second law, the Clayton Antitrust Act, forbade many corporate practices that had thus far escaped specific condemnation -- interlocking directorates, price discrimination among purchasers, use of the injunction in labor disputes and ownership by one corporation of stock in similar enterprises.
Farmers and other workers were not forgotten. A federal loan act made credit available to farmers at low rates of interest. The Seamen's Act of 1915, improved living and working conditions on board ships. The Federal Workingman's Compensation Act in 1916 authorized allowances to civil service employees for disabilities incurred at work. The Adamson Act of the same year established an eight-hour day for railroad labor.
The record of achievement won Wilson a firm place in American history as one of the nation's foremost political reformers. However, his domestic reputation would soon be overshadowed by his record as a wartime president who led his country to victory but could not hold the support of his people for the peace that followed.
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Source: U.S. Department of State


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Leda and the Swan is a story and subject in art from Greek mythology in which the god Zeus, in the form of a swan, seduces, or rapes, Leda. According to later Greek mythology, Leda bore Helen and Polydeuces, children of Zeus, while at the same time bearing Castor and Clytemnestra, children of her husband Tyndareus, the King of Sparta. In the W.B. Yeats version, it is subtly suggested that Clytemnestra, although being the daughter of Tyndareus, has somehow been traumatized by what the swan has done to her mother. According to many versions of the story, Zeus took the form of a swan and raped or seduced Leda on the same night she slept with her husband King Tyndareus. In some versions, she laid two eggs from which the children hatched.In other versions, Helen is a daughter of Nemesis, the goddess who personified the disaster that awaited those suffering from the pride of Hubris.
Greco-roman mosaic
(atributed to) Leonardo da Vinci
Théodore Géricault
Henri Matisse
Kate Moss photographed by Steve Klein


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Proving once again that there are no qualifications needed to be a middle-school vice-principal besides being kind of a dick, a San Diego veepee called the bomb squad to investigate an 11-year-old's Gatorade-bottle-based science experiment. Stay classy, San Diego.
Apparently the kid, who sounds like a bit of a prodigy, really, brought in a homemade motion detector made of empty Gatorade bottles and "some electronics." Cool, right? Shows initiative, and it even recycles old bottles! This kid should be rewarded with a blue ribbon, or allowed to star in a remake of Real Genius! But no.
Instead, this alarmist puritan called the bomb squad to investigate and x-ray the kid's science project, evacuate the entire school, and search the kid's home. When the project was found to not, in fact, be a Gatorade-bottle-based explosive, the a-hole vice-principal didn't apologize, or resign, or laugh it off. No! He recommended that the student and his parents seek counseling. For making a project that would totally stump me! And I'm twice his age! Outrageous, I say. Out. Rage. Ous. [SignOn San Diego via Boing Boing]


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Hepburn, William Peters
Hepburn, William Peters, 1833–1916, American legislator, b. Wellsville, Ohio. He was raised in Iowa and entered law there. He was a Civil War cavalry officer. From 1881 to 1887 he served as a Republican Congressman from Iowa. After four years as solicitor of the Treasury, he reentered Congress in 1893, serving 16 years. He was vitally interested in railroad regulation and was for many years chairman of the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce. He drafted the Hepburn Act of 1906, which strengthened the Interstate Commerce Commission (see also rebate), and was joint author of the Pure Food and Drugs Act (1906).
See biography by J. E. Briggs (1919).
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2023, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
See more Encyclopedia articles on: U.S. History: Biographies


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Money Minute: Home Heating Costs Climb; Solar Panel Sales Rise
As temperatures go down, heating bills are set to soar.
Temperatures are unseasonably cold in many areas of the country, and the cost of heating your home this winter could rise sharply from last year -- especially if you use natural gas. The Energy Department estimates it will cost 17 percent more if you live in the Northeast. For residents in the South, the cost goes up more than 12 percent, and by nearly that much in the Midwest. The increase in the West is expected to be about 7 percent higher. Electricity costs are likely to rise by 2 to 5 percent across the country.
That may have you thinking about alternatives. You could join the move to solar panels. Installations rose by about 20 percent this year and an industry trade group expects even faster expansion in 2014. Solar stocks have done even better. SolarCity (SCTY) and SunPower (SPWR) both up more than 300 percent this year.
Here on Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average (^DJI) fell 129 points Wednesday, the Standard & Poor's 500 index (^GPSC) lost 20 and the Nasdaq composite (^IXIC) dropped 57 points.
Standard & Poor's has friended Facebook (FB). It was only a matter of time until the social media giant joined the closely watched S&P 500 index. That takes effect at the close of trading next Friday. Facebook's market value now tops $120 billion.
The world's largest hotel chain goes public this morning. Hilton Worldwide raised $2.3 billion with its IPO, pricing its stock at $20 a share. That values the company at nearly $20 billion. Eventually, some of the money could be used to spruce up rooms and facilities. Private-equity firm Blackstone Group (BX) bought Hilton in 2007. It will trade under the same ticker symbol it had back then -- HLT.
And Vera Bradley (VRA), the maker of women's accessories, is out of style with today's investors. It posted solid earnings, but issued a disappointing outlook for the current quarter and next year.
-Produced by Drew Trachtenberg.


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Who are the leading advocates for LGBT rights inside the Beltway? Well, common sense would lead you to the three openly gay and lesbian politicians currently serving in the U.S. Congress –- Rep. Tammy Baldwin, Rep. Barney Frank, and Rep. Jared Polis. Great or legendary figures, but what happens when you get beyond these three folks?
5. Senator Tom Harkin – Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin did what a handful of Senators did this year –- publicly stated that he regretted his vote on the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996. Harkin joined Sen. Arlen Specter and Sen. Chris Dodd in denouncing their vote for DOMA. But Harkin had a sense of eloquence in his comments that made his thoughts seem particularly genuine. It also helps that they came right after Iowa's Supreme Court ruled that the state's constitution required the recognition of same-sex marriage in order to ensure equal rights for all of Iowa's residents. Talk about reinforcements. "We all grow as we get older, and we learn things and we become more sensitive to people and people's lives," Harkin said. "And the more I've looked at that, I've grown to think differently about how people — how we should live. And I guess I'm at the point that, you know — I'm to that point of live and let live." Anyone else see visions of their own parents in that statement?
4. Rep. Earl Blumenauer – Count Oregon Rep. Earl Blumenauer among the legislators blasting the Defense of Marriage Act. Like Sen. Harkin above, Rep. Blumenauer also issued a blaring statement regretting his original vote for DOMA. (Note: Nothing is quite so blaring as one of Rep. Blumenauer's bow ties.) But Blumenauer not only said he was regretful – he went so far as to say it was the worst vote he ever cast in his entire political career. And that covers more than 37 years (we're going all the way back to the times of Richard Nixon). Blumenauer also said that he would lobby his fellow legislators in efforts to overturn DOMA. "I will work to make sure that my colleagues who once, for whatever reason, joined me in supporting [DOMA] take this opportunity to correct their record and eliminate an injustice," said Blumenauer.
3. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand – Talk about crossing the ocean in support of LGBT rights. New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand started this year as kind of a Blue Dog Democrat in the U.S. House, and is ending this year as one of the Senate's biggest supporters for equal rights. Gillibrand is one of the lead voices in the U.S. Senate for repealing the military's discriminatory "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, and in an interview with the Women's Rights blog here at change.org, went so far as to say that marriage equality could be the civil rights battle of today's generation. She even tried to exert some pull with the New York State Senate, encouraging the body to vote for marriage equality legislation earlier this year (sadly, that vote failed). And to top it off? She's also a supporter of a fully inclusive version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which ought to be a legislative goal for every LGBT rights activist in 2010.
2. Rep. Patrick Murphy – As the first Iraq War veteran to serve in the halls of Congress, Pennsylvania Rep. Patrick Murphy certainly has the bonafides to talk about military issues. That's why his voice on ending "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" is so critical. But Rep. Murphy isn't just a casual proponent of repealing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." He's a downright leader on the issue, making it one of his legislative goals, and touring with the Human Rights Campaign's "Voices of Honor" tour, calling attention to how eliminating gays and lesbians from the U.S. Armed Forces not only smacks in the face of equality and freedom – the very principles that our military stands for – but also threatens our national security. "'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' clearly isn't working for our military, and it hinders national security and military readiness at a time when America is fighting in two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan," Rep. Murphy said. "My time in Iraq taught me that our military needs and deserves the best and the brightest who are willing to serve -- and that means all Americans, regardless of their orientation." Anybody have the resume to argue with Rep. Murphy on that? Didn't think so.
1. (Tie) Rep. Joe Sestak - Another Pennsylvania Congressman, Rep. Joe Sestak has emerged as a fighter for LGBT equality. As Rep. Sestak wrote for change.org earlier this year, one of the fights that keeps him going in politics is the battle to end the only form of institutionalized discrimination still legal in the U.S. – discrimination against LGBT people, as evident by policies like the Defense of Marriage Act and "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." In fact, that's one of the best things about Rep. Sestak – he draws the connection between both of those bad policies in ways that would make even the hardest heart melt. "How can we demand that the 65,000 of our troops who are estimated to be gay act dishonestly and conceal information from their comrades and commanders? No one who serves in defense of liberty should be forced to live a lie," writes Rep. Sestak. "I cannot imagine denying equal rights to anyone I served with. How can anyone say, we fought and served together, we depended on one another, we risked our lives for this country, but back home you shouldn't enjoy the rights that you defended?"
1. (Tie) Rep. Jerrold Nadler – Being the lead voice in the U.S. Congress on dumping the Defense of Marriage Act better be good enough to get you first place! Rep. Nadler, long one of the biggest allies the LGBT population has in Congress, continued his streak of homerun hitting for equal rights. This year it came in the form of introducing the Respect for Marriage Act. It's a proposed piece of legislation that will dismantle DOMA, billed by many as the most discriminatory law passed by the U.S. in decades. Rep. Nadler's reason for introducing the Respect for Marriage Act (ROMA, if you will!): he wants to send DOMA "into the history books where it belongs."
Crossposted via Gay Rights @ Change.org
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
The Top Five Straight Allies in Congress for 2009
Who are the leading advocates for LGBT rights inside the Beltway? Well, common sense would lead you to the three openly gay and lesbian politicians currently serving in the U.S. Congress –- Rep. Tammy Baldwin, Rep. Barney Frank, and Rep. Jared Polis. Great or legendary figures, but what happens when you get beyond these three folks?
2 comments:
- Online Casino said...
Tom Harkin did what a handful of Senators did this year –- publicly stated that he regretted his vote on the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996.
- December 30, 2009 at 5:15 AM
- libhom said...
I strongly disagree with this view on my not so fabulous Sen. Gillibrand. Her initial proposal on the military ban was to lift it temporarily. This might sound like progress, but it really is retro and vicious. The elected Bush administration largely suspended enforcement of the military ban during the first US/Iraq War, only to kick queers out after that war was over. Ms. Gillibrand is taking the same cannon fodder approach to queers in the military.
This should hardly be surprising given the fact that she is part of the same GOP political machine as Al D'Amato and convicted criminal Joe Bruno.
Don't believe the hype. Gillibrand is a bigot.
- December 31, 2009 at 9:17 PM


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plasma, in physics, fully ionized gas of low density, containing approximately equal numbers of positive and negative ions (see electron and ion). It is electrically conductive and is affected by magnetic fields. The study of plasma, called plasma physics, is especially important in research efforts to produce a controlled thermonuclear reaction (see nuclear energy). Such a reaction requires extremely high temperatures; it has been computed that a temperature of about 10 million degrees Celsius would be needed to initiate the reaction between deuterium and tritium. By passing a very high electric current through plasma great heat is produced and, simultaneously, an electromagnetic field is created, causing the plasma to withdraw from the walls of its container. The contraction of the plasma, called the pinch effect, prevents the container from being destroyed, but the effect may become unstable too quickly for the fusion reaction. The properties of plasma are distinct from those of the ordinary states of matter, and for this reason many scientists consider plasma a fourth state of matter. Interstellar gases, as well as the matter inside stars, are thought to be in the form of plasma, thus making plasma a common form of matter in the universe. See also condensate.
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2023, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
See more Encyclopedia articles on: Physics


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How did you celebrate Poem in Your Pocket Day?
In class today, I gave my kids a handout explaining what Poem in Your Pocket Day is and how is is celebrated in places like New York City. On the bottom of the page I included six pocket-sized poems. They had the option of cutting out one of those poems or using a poem of their choice to carry in their pocket for the rest of the day. But that wasn't the best part!
Their second task was to choose a poem they have read this month- or a poem they wrote. Choosing their own poem took a little more bravery. They copied that poem onto loose-leaf, decorated it, folded the page in half, and wrote the first line on the front. Tonight, they had to drop that poem off somewhere in town where another person will find it. Then they would write a 1-paragraph reflection about where they dropped the poem and why they chose that spot. I can't wait to hear where the poems ended up! Before the end of the idea I heard the following ideas- the lobby at dance school, my sister's soccer practice, my baseball game (in the dugout), my dad's suit pocket, my mom's work bag.
Hopefully, today spread a little more poetry throughout our town. 🙂
So, how did you celebrate?
Filed under: poetry | Tagged: poem in your pocket day | 3 Comments »


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[Editor's note: When I've traveled to Paris or Beijing I like to take public transit both below and above ground. It gives me a good sense of the people and the place. And it reduces my carbon footprint. But sometimes figuring out transit systems can be irksome. I've got a great pocket atlas of Beijing that shows major bus lines and their stops which is helpful. And Paris offers some good printed material. But figuring out which station or stop is closest to the start and end of the trip is just the beginning. Which route is best? And when will I get there are two important questions. If you've missed it, Google Transit solves many of these challenges. New transit systems are being added monthly, check to see if your city participates.]
I live in metro Washington DC and our transit agency finally released their network topology, routing, scheduling in Google Transit format after a long petition drive. Now 3rd party developers, including Google, can use this to build out web apps or even mobile phone apps like iBART. DCist has coverage of both the recalcitrance of this public agency in giving out data we've already paid for as tax payers (sound familiar). Cartographers should use the station and bus stop locations included in these transit feeds to locate these features on their city maps.
Cartographers need to get on the mobile app development bandwagon and provide customers with tools that leverage these types of datasets. Imagine an app that has a proximity sensor / alert for nearby bus or transit stops or tells you the bus you want is coming in 5 minutes, time to pack up. And can do all the routing for you. And can be leveraged to provide the customer with, say, trail routing in the backcountry, too.
Why is transit on Google Maps a big deal? From WorldChanging:
[Including transit on maps and routing] make public transit more accessible and easier for everyone to understand; and in doing so, it will certainly increase transit ridership and reduce driving.
One of the big barriers to public transit use is the knowledge required to use the system: where to wait, when to wait, where to transfer, how much to pay, etc. Some readers may remember that two years ago we helped cause Google Transit to happen, but it's taken off far beyond what we had suggested, and they keep getting better. What's more, they're doing it at no charge to the transit agencies (a perpetually under-funded sector of local governments). More cities are coming on board, as well; if you live in one of the eleven cities now participating, enjoy! If you live elsewhere, consider writing to your local transit agency and telling them to join the 21st century. (ahem… San Francisco, right in Google's back yard, no excuse… ahem.)
What are these tools? In addition to being able to type in your route and get comprehensive directions (including walking to stations, showing the bus or train route, walking directions between stations, how much it costs, etc.), you can plan trips by departure or arrival time and see when the next couple buses come if you miss the one you're aiming for. Now, if you zoom in enough on any Google map in the right city, all the transit stops appear, with different icons for bus, light rail, etc.; click on a bus stop and up pops a list of the buses or trains that stop there; click on the bus number, and up pops the timetable for the next several buses stopping there.
Want to get your transit data on the map? Aaron Antrim, who heads Trillium Transit Internet Solutions helps smaller agencies get online with Google Transit, in particular, those small-to-midsized transit agencies that don't have dedicated IT staffs (ref). Aaron went to the same university as me and is quite active in transit circles.
There's a petition to add "By bike" like there is "Walking" and "Transit" to Google Maps (ref). See this in action at byCycle.org as seen at Treehugger.


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Bangalore, Aug 14, 2013;Heightened security measures and close vigil have turned the Field Marshal Manekshaw Parade Ground here into a fortress for the 67th Independence Day (I-Day) celebrations Thursday.
"Entry of unauthorised persons into the parade ground and assembling of people around the venue have been banned till Thursday evening to secure the area for the Independence Day events," Additional Commissioner of Police (Law & Order) Kamal Panth told IANS Wednesday.
Located in the heart of the city across the famous Cubbon Park and popular hangouts like M.G. Road and Brigade Road, the sprawling parade ground has been sanitised for the main I-Day event where Karnataka Chief Minister K. Siddaramaiah will inspect a guard of honour and unfurl the tricolour.
"About 1,200 personnel drawn from various contingents have been deployed in and around the ground to prevent any untoward incident and ensure the event is held peacefully. Police across the city are also on high alert as part of the security drill, with reinforcements at vital installations and in sensitive (VIP) areas," Panth asserted.
As part of the elaborate security arrangements, about 40 closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras have been installed in and around the venue to monitor movement of people, participants and dignitaries. Special commandos have also been stationed at strategic points at the venue for quick response or emergency rescue operation.
Police and the army, in charge of the parade ground, have pressed into service a bomb squad and sniffer dogs to detect unidentified objects and harmful substances. Metal detectors have been installed at all entry points around the venue for frisking and preventing people from carrying banned items inside.
After flag-hoisting ceremony and delivering the I-Day speech in the presence of Governor H.R. Bhardwaj, cabinet ministers, opposition leaders, defence personnel, officials and special invitees, the chief minister will witness the parade in which about 2,000 personnel, including 56 platoons and police, scouts and guides will participate with their respective music bands in attendance.
About 3,000 schoolchildren will present cultural shows and render patriotic songs.
Besides restricting and regulating traffic movement, police have banned vehicular parking in and 1 km around the ground. Barring a few VIP vehicles, cars or bikes will not be allowed at the venue till the event is over Thursday noon.
"Vehicular traffic will be diverted from the ground for VIP movement and to prevent traffic jam, so the public can easily reach the venue on foot," Panth added.