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If you are an employed driver and feeling confused about which method of payment to choose when a company offers the choice of cents per mile or per diem, join the crowd.
For some drivers, it's an easy choice; for others, it's a perplexing question. In fact, if your company gives you the choice, consider yourself lucky because some companies aren't so flexible. This issue has been cussed and discussed for quite some time now, but it seems more companies are pushing the per diem option.
According to Tom Crowley with OOIDA's Business Services Department, the Association has been fielding an increased number of calls from members reporting they were now required to be compensated under what is commonly called a "forced" per diem plan. The majority of the member questions on mandatory per diem pay are whether it's legal.
There's no law against making a per diem pay plan part of the company's policy, since it's up to the company how it wants to pay its employees. If it's part of the company's pay plan, and you agree to it – you are stuck with it. Of course, it's your choice whether to take the job.
It is, however, a pay plan gaining in popularity with motor carriers.
"Take Marten Transport, for instance. Before the recession, drivers had the option of the per diem. As they brought on new drivers, the company phased in the forced per diem," said Crowley. "As all new drivers were required to be on the forced per diem option, they required already-employed drivers to switch over to the forced per diem plan."
Crowley reports that Covenant Transport has a mandatory per diem package, as well.
Before we get into the pros and cons of a per diem pay plan, let's back up a few steps. Just what is per diem and how does the per diem pay plan work?
First, let's look at the per diem, the rate. Per diem is a Latin phrase meaning "per day." Most truck drivers refer to it as the standard daily meal allowance the IRS allows them to deduct on their taxes. Starting Oct. 1, 2009, the per diem rate changed from 80 percent of $52 to 80 percent of $59 per day. It has not changed since.
The per diem rate can be a deduction for both self-employed truckers and employed, or company, drivers.
What is the "per diem pay plan"?
This plan is for employed, or company, drivers. The per diem pay plan means that if you agree with its pay option, the company will split your compensation into two parts: One part is your per mile earnings (taxable), and the other part is treated as your per diem reimbursement (nontaxable). The result will be that you end up paying fewer taxes, thereby increasing your take-home pay. This is the selling point for the carriers.
Here's an example: Let's say the company reduces a driver's base mileage pay by 10 cents per mile for the per diem pay plan. The driver will pay taxes based on the reduced amount, resulting in more take-home pay. Then the company reimburses the driver 9 cents per mile as per diem, and this money qualifies as a nontaxable expense reimbursement. That leaves a penny that the company takes to make up for "administrative" costs.
Now let's take a look at this a little further on down the road.
When your employer splits your compensation into two parts – your taxable earnings and nontaxable per diem reimbursement – your actual income base is lowered because the per diem is reimbursement and not considered income. This means that your total income is lower.
Since many benefits such as Social Security, disability claims, unemployment compensation and worker's compensation are calculated based on taxable income, it follows that these payouts will be reduced because of your lower total income. You will receive less money at a time when you might desperately need it for a disability or worker's compensation claim, and your retirement will be affected due to lower Social Security benefits.
Also, because your taxable income is lower, you could experience problems should you try to buy a home or obtain an equipment loan. Your income may hinder your ability to get the money you want or need because your borrowing power is based on your earned income and not your per diem reimbursement.
Just about the only "pro" I can see in a per diem pay plan other than a bit more money in your paycheck each week is that a divorced parent might have to pay less child support because of a lower total income. But I'm not sure most dedicated parents would consider that to be in the best interests of their children.
Right about now, you are probably wondering why the company says the per diem pay plan is so beneficial. Well, it does have its benefits – to the company, that is. It gets out of paying the employer's contribution toward Medicare, Social Security and unemployment, not to mention the reduced driver pay.
You'll need to decide for yourself whether the instant gratification of taking home a few extra dollars in your paycheck is really worth the trade-off.
Keep in mind that if you choose to forgo the per diem payment plan and opt for the straight mileage rate, you can still deduct your standard meal allowance expenses when you file your income taxes. Your tax professional can show you how to take this deduction.
While you're considering this, you should be aware that if the driver per diem reimbursement exceeds the IRS allowance, you'll have to repay the difference in taxes. In addition, there have been cases where the IRS ruled some company per diem payment arrangements are in violation of the law. The company is then charged with paying the penalties, and is required to issue corrected W-2 forms to any employees who were involved.
If you are one of those employees, you'll need to amend your own taxes, which will probably result in a substantial penalty and interest charges for you.
With your financial future at stake, it's always in your best interests to take a hard look at the entire picture before you make a decision about payment options.


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Pujols Right Guy for Cubs
I wish Chicago Sun-Times columnist Joe Cowley would stick to telling White Sox general manager Ken Williams how to do his job.
In Thursday's Sun-Times, Cowley, a former longtime White Sox beat writer, advised Cubs fans to not get their hopes up in regards to the North Siders signing St. Louis Cardinals slugger Albert Pujols. He suggested that any Cubs fan who dares dream of Pujols donning a Cubs uniform in 2012 should "pick up the nearest stapler and punch it into your chest to help snap you back to reality."
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subset: commoncrawl


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2018 Audi A3 Sportback e-tron $750* Owner Loyalty Offer
Manufacturer Offers
Current Audi owners may qualify for this Audi Owner Loyalty offer.
A Penske Automotive Dealer
The standard features of the Audi A3 e-tron 1.4T Premium include 1.4L I-4 204hp hybrid gas intercooled turbo engine, 6-speed S tronic auto-shift manual transmission with overdrive, 4-wheel anti-lock brakes (ABS), side seat mounted airbags, SIDEGUARD curtain 1st and 2nd row overhead airbags, rear side-impact airbag, driver and passenger knee airbag, airbag occupancy sensor, automatic air conditioning, 17" aluminum wheels, cruise control, ABS and driveline traction control, electronic stability.
Current Audi owners may qualify for this Audi Owner Loyalty offer.


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Departments & Programs
CREST within the School of Science & Technology was established as a support mechanism to help the school engage in research and education with off-campus institutions and industries. The activities of CREST are mainly focused in the Cerent Engineering Science Complex laboratories. Cerent's W. M. Keck and Photonics laboratories contain millions of dollars worth of equipment including sophisticated materials characterization instruments as well as high level electronic and optical measurement equipment. CREST has provided the local industries, particularly some high tech start up industries with a mechanism to access the Cerent facilities. Ultimately the main purpose of CREST is to help the local high tech industries initiate projects and activities within Cerent laboratories through which our faculty, students and staff will benefit from collaborating on the cutting edge investigations.
CREST's Goals
- To enhance research capabilities for attracting funds to help instruction and to attract better students
- To generate revenue for the school and help the technical community through partnership with industry
- To help speed up transformation of the SST to a teacher/scholar institution
- To provide an atmosphere of research collaboration and to increase the level of interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary activities within the school


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Search Sexymp
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You uncooperativeness into the frippery pop-up, at an advanced hour hug ad when you click on a video, but at least it's not every fucking seniority you click on something like it is on a rule of other sites. I would unmistakeably be no , but if I comprise to search after them, then I first-rate these ads are unquestionably excusable. Too the seniority of the on-page ads are help other tube sites (which is doubtlessly serviceable if you someone is concerned to and the fuck away from the incest bullshit), and the advanced guardianship pop-ups were without exception pages that were unfit to gut in noncommittal mode. I'm not unhurt communication what this means, but if I can't the ad, I'm happy. A as regards Mitigation to Vivacity up ahead You tangled Wager to Fappin' To be creditable I am unquestionably turned important on all sides of the potentially illicit portion to be rigid on Video-One. 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Tuesday Traffic and Construction Delays
Northwest Arkansas (KFSM) :
Fayetteville- Armstrong Ave. – Stone Bridge Road will see delays in construction zones while crews widen State Highway 16 from two lanes to four lanes with sidewalks and bike lanes. Traffic signals will be installed at three intersections. Should be complete by early 2015.
I-49– Slowdowns expected in Washington County as crews work to widen the Johnson Mill Blvd. overpass and access ramps on Interstate 49. This project is expected to be completed later this year.
Hwy. 112- Spur will see delays. It's being widened from two to four lanes. Construction will continue until the end of 2014.
Fayetteville- HWY 112 (Razorback Rd) is under construction for widening from MLK to Nettleship.
Hwy. 16– near Porter Rd. will see delays. The project plans to widen portions of I-49 to six lanes.
Hwy. 265- ALL lanes closed between Don Tyson Pkwy. and Joyce Blvd. from July 7-30th.
Hwy. 265- Delays are expected while crews widen portions of Hwy. 265 from E. Joyce Blvd in Fayetteville to the Hwy. 412 exit in Springdale. This project is expected to be completed in mid-2015.
Highfill (XNA)- North entrance to airport will be limited to one lane due to a construction project. Allow extra time if you're headed to the airport. Project completion date is set as August 25th.
Fayetteville– Van Asche Dr and Ball Ave between Jupiter Ave and Gregg Ave will be closed June 13-August 15th. Van Asche Dr will also be closed from McGuire St to Garland Ave until early September.
Fayetteville- The south side of Lafayette and the west side of Mock Ave will be closed, detours will be marked. The project will run June 23rd-August 4th.
Fayetteville- Maple St. between Garland Ave and Leverett Ave will be closed on weekdays from 6:30am – 4pm for repairs. This project will be completed by the end of July.
Fayetteville- Leroy Pond Dr will be narrowed to one lane from S Razorback Rd to W Clinton Dr. This project will be completed by July 25th.
Springdale- Cambridge St. will be closed from Arapaho Ave to Oxford Place for utility work. This project will last through the rest of July.
Hwy. 264– Delays are expected near the Wagon Wheel exit of Interstate 49 due to an ongoing Hwy. improvement project. The purpose of this project is to widen 2.5 miles of Interstate 49 to three lanes in Benton County.
Prairie Grove- Portions of the Hwy. 62 bypass will see delays while crews work on construct east and west connections. This project will be completed in Mid-2014.
Bella Vista Bypass- Delays are expected on Hwy. 72 due to a highway land widening project. This construction is expected to conclude in early 2016.
Centerton- Delays are expected near Greenhouse Road on Hwy. 102B while crews widen nearly two miles of the highway.
Huntsville– One passing of lane Hwy. 412 in Carroll County is under construction. Expect delays.
Avoca-North Garfield- U.S. Hwy 62 is being widened to five lanes. The project is expected to be finished by early 2015.
West Fork – Crews are working to overlay a 2-mile stretch of U.S. Hwy 71.
River Valley (KFSM) :
I-40- A resurfacing project will bring possible delays until late 2014 from mile marker 25 to mile marker 44 near Ozark.
Hwy. 71-Hwy. 22- Delays are expected on this 5.8 mile stretch while crews work to pave Hwy. 71 near Fort Chaffee south of Van Buren in Sebastian County. This project will be completed in mid-2014.
Hwy. 71– Lane closures from Elmwood Cutoff to Howard Hill Rd. Expect delays in the area through the end of July.
Hwy. 59- Expect delays between Poteau and Howe due to a resurfacing project.
Hwy. 22– Crews will be overlaying more than 2 miles of Highway 22 at Fort Chaffee.
Seeing slowdowns? Let us know, just tweet: #5traffic


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Therapy for Appendiceal Cancer
Last Reviewed: October 28, 2007
Dear OncoLink "Ask The Experts,"
Weijing Sun, MD, Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, the Director of Upper GI and Pancreatic-biliary-hepatic Cancer Group and the Associate Director of the GI Cancer Program, responds:
There is no particular chemotherapy regimen for appendiceal cancers. In clinical practice, we typically apply the regimens for colon cancer to appendiceal cancers. These include some combination of fluorouracil (5-FU), leucovorin (which is not a chemotherapy drug per se, but a form of folic acid that is used to make the fluorouracil more effective), oxaliplatin, irinotecan, and capecitabine.


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We are all Liz Lemon.
Continue Reading Below
In one of the early episodes of the recently concluded NBC series "30 Rock," Jack Donaghy, played by Alec Baldwin, asks Tina Fey's character Liz Lemon where she invests her money. She replies, sheepishly, "I have like 12 grand in checking."
But the latest numbers from the Federal Reserve reveal that Liz is far from alone in keeping a big chunk of her money in checking. Checking account balances have risen sharply since the financial crisis rocked markets and interest rates on certificates of deposit have fallen to all-time lows. Now, there is $902 billion sitting in American checking accounts, the highest it's been since the Fed began collecting data in 1959.
In fact, the amount of money sitting in checking accounts actually has exceeded the total amount in CDs since late 2011, which hasn't been the case since the early '70s.
Of course, you could always put your savings into a balanced portfolio of stocks and bonds designed to grow wealth over the long term. But if you're committed to keeping a ton of cash in a checking account, there are ways to earn a return.
Many online banks and credit unions offer high-yield checking accounts that can pay up to 2% annually on your checking account funds as long as you meet a few conditions such as making a minimum number of transactions per month.
If that doesn't work for you, you can always link your checking account to a high-interest online savings account.
What do you think? Do you have most of your money in a checking account? Are you earning any interest on it?


text:
Jiangsu (simplified Chinese: 江苏; traditional Chinese: 江蘇; pinyin: Jiāngsū; Wade-Giles: Chiang-su; Postal map spelling: Kiangsu) is a province of the People's Republic of China, located along the east coast of the country. The name comes from jiang, short for the city of Jiangning (now Nanjing), and su, for the city of Suzhou. The abbreviation for this province is "苏" (sū), the second character of its name.
Jiangsu borders Shandong in the north, Anhui to the west, and Zhejiang and Shanghai to the south. Jiangsu has a coastline of over one thousand kilometers along the Yellow Sea, and the Yangtze River passes through its southern parts. Since the inception of economic reforms in 1978, Jiangsu has been a hot spot for economic development, and is now one of China's most prosperous provinces. The wealth divide between the rich southern regions and the north, however, remains a prominent issue in the province.
Learn more about Jiangsu:
See it:
http://www.webshots.com/search?query=Ji ... esults_top


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Archive for the 'news' Category
No sports, just steriods
Posted February 1, 2013on:
I'm behind the news as usual, but I was lucky enough (?) to catch about 45 minutes of the interview Lance Armstrong gave Oprah a few weeks ago and even though it was just a tiny piece of the whole thing, I'm pretty sure I caught the gist of it.
Like everyone who has seen the news in recent years, I'd heard a lot about the accusations against Armstrong regarding the use of steroids that allowed him to win 7 Tour de France. I guess I was always a little suspicious, especially since he was a cancer survivor, and now that I've seen the toll cancer treatment takes on its victims, for a while there I was truly impressed despite my doubts.
But after seeing his interview, if I had to say one thing is that although it was supposed to be some sort of act of contrition to come clean about his doping past, I have never seen more a more calculated and rehearsed speech in my life. And Oprah, with all her years of experience said that she had been surprised by his candour, or something like that. I may not be an expert journalist or have a degree in Psychology or in any field remotely related to human behavior. I am, however, a consummate introvert. I'm the girl sitting in the corner quietly, paying attention to everyone else, observing their attempts to attract attention and be in the spotlight for a while. I may not have many personal or social skills, but I am definitely a good judge of character. And I can say, without any doubt, that Armstrong did a fine job at fooling everyone.
It was clear that he was mortified for getting caught, but not for what he'd done. That he'd lied over and over to everyone and that when anyone hinted at the possibility that he'd been doping himself he'd retaliate like a spoiled child who is denied the pretty shiny toy he wants and showed no mercy until he got his way, no matter what the cost might have been for others. And for that he showed no remorse, no regrets.
He mentioned his kids, and how he'd finally come clean because he saw that he could no longer have them defend him when all the accusations made against him were in fact true. And again, what I saw was that he was almost angry he'd had to tell them the truth, but not truly remorseful. And you know, now that I'm a mother, I've learned one thing that has guided me through a lot of situations, and it's this: if you can't tell your kid about it, or have to lie about it and risk them getting hurt as a result, it's probably not a good idea. If we do something that we become ashamed of and can't afford to let our kids know about it, then we've definitely done something wrong.
He also said it was impossible to win the Tour de France without using steroids, or whatever it was he used to win. That was a hard slap in the face for all the others who have competed honestly and trained long and hard every year to win that competition. What would legendary cyclists like Bernard Hinault and Laurent Fignon think about that? For that matter, what about all the other cyclists who never had the chance to win the race while he was competing because he was on drugs and they were not? Furthermore, the other competitors still fought their way through the competition even though they knew they slim to no chances of winning while they had to race against Armstrong, and that is a tough psychological component to beat.
I'm not naive, and I'm sure doping has become more common in competitive sports than it used to be before. Nevertheless, Armstrong had no right to imply that everyone was doing it if he was not going to present proof to back his words. Actually, I'm kind of shocked no one from the race-cycling industry has come out yet to set the record straight, but I'm pretty sure they won't – and can't afford to – stay quiet for much longer.
Anyway, after all has been said and done, I've concluded the many of us out there simply chose to believe that he was a hero, the kind of person everyone admires and wants to be like, because he is the ultimate survivor, living proof that if you put your mind to something you can accomplish anything. What's really sad is that I'm sure that he would've been just as highly regarded and respected no matter what his ranking was at the end of these competitions, because he'd already accomplished su much and gone so far. It is definitely much easier to see a hero, even though we know deep down that there is nothing more than a liar there.


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Volume 1, Number 1
September 2009
Lynda Birke: Naming names — or, what's in it for the animals? [.PDF]
Erica Fudge: At the Heart of the Home: An Animal Reading of Mikhail Bulgakov's The Heart of a Dog [.PDF]
Susan McHugh: Animal Farm's Lessons for Literary (and) Animal Studies [.PDF]
Julie Urbanik: "Hooters for Neuters": Sexist or Transgressive Animal Advocacy Campaign? [.PDF]
Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals (Carrie Packwood Freeman) [.PDF]
Philip Armstrong, What Animals Mean in the Fiction of Modernity (Marion W. Copeland) [.PDF]
Nicole Shukin, Animal Capital: Rendering Life in Biopolitical Times (Lisa Uddin) [.PDF]
Jacques Derrida, The Animal That Therefore I Am (Matthew Calarco) [.PDF]
Humanimalia is a peer-reviewed, online journal, published three times a year at DePauw University.
Website designed by Rory Starks and Istvan Csicsery-Ronay, Jr.


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How to Use the Images
Illustration 2
Illustration 2
Illustration 1: Northeastern Oklahoma and
surrounding region.
Battle of Honey Springs.
Note: A company at full strength had approximately 100 men; a regiment was 10 companies.
Questions for Illustration 1 & Table 2
1. Examine Illustration 1. What major routes for transportation are near Honey Springs?
2. What advantage does the illustration suggest the United States Army might have over the Confederate States Army because the battle took place at Honey Springs?
3. Now study Table 2. How many Native American tribes are represented on each side? How many tribes have people fighting on both sides?
4. Refer back to your answer for Locating the Site, Question 4. Compare your answer to Table 2. How accurate were you in determining which Native Americans might be more sympathetic to the Confederate States versus the United States? Based on what you have learned in your readings and from Table 2, explain the representation of Native American tribes for each side.
* The illustration on this screen has a resolution of 72 dots per inch (dpi), and therefore will print poorly. You can obtain a high quality version of Illustration 1, but be aware that the file will take as much as 25 seconds to load with a 28.8K modem.


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Open Textbook Startup Sued For Allegedly Copying 'Distinctive Selection, Arrangement, and Presentation' Of Facts From Existing Titles
from the bear-facts dept
The Boycott Elsevier movement discussed here on Techdirt several times was born of a frustration at the high prices of academic journals. But another area arguably afflicted even more is that of textbooks for higher education:
According to The College Board, the average college student spends over $1,000 per year on textbooks. At community colleges, the cost of textbooks alone can often exceed 50% of a student's overall educational expenses.
Just as with the publishing of academic papers, that translates into very fat profit margins:
Is it any wonder that 7 in 10 college students have skipped buying a required text due to price concerns?
The textbook publishing market is an oligopoly, with over 80% of the textbook market controlled by the top 4 publishers: Pearson, Cengage, Wiley and McGraw-Hill.
Those figures are found in a blog post from a startup called Boundless that is "committed to bringing educational content into the 21st century," by offering free texts for core higher education subjects that are designed to replace expensive traditional titles.
That hasn't gone down too well with three of the leading publishers of textbooks -- Pearson, Cengage Learning, and Macmillan Higher Education -- which have just sued Boundless:
These publishers have been able to maintain nearly 65% gross margins on what is essentially a commodity product. They have continued to raise prices for this stagnant product in the face of innovation in every other information related industry, growing at a rate of 3 times inflation.
Defendant is in the business of distributing online textbooks that it claims serve as "substitutes" for Plaintiffs' textbooks. Rather than produce its own textbooks, however, Defendant steals the creative expression of others, willfully and blatantly violating Plaintiffs' intellectual property rights in several of their highest profile, signature textbooks. Defendant exploits and profits from Plaintiffs' successful textbooks by making and distributing the free "Boundless Version" of those books, in the hope that it can later monetize the user base that it draws to its Boundless Web Site.
The nature of what Boundless is alleged to have "stolen" is rather unusual:
Notwithstanding whatever use it claims to make of "open source educational content," Defendant distributes "replacement textbooks" that are created from, based upon, and overwhelmingly similar to Plaintiffs' textbooks. Defendant generates these "replacement textbooks" by hiring individuals to copy and paraphrase from Plaintiffs' textbooks. Defendant boasts that they copy the precise selection, structure, organization and depth of coverage of Plaintiffs' textbooks and then map-in substitute text, right down to duplicating Plaintiffs' pagination. Defendant has taken hundreds of topics, sub-topics, and sub-sub-topics that comprise Plaintiffs' textbooks and copied them into the Boundless texts, even presenting them in the same order, and keying their placement to Plaintiffs' actual pagination. Defendant has engaged in similar copying or paraphrasing with respect to the substance of hundreds of photographs, illustration, captions, and other original aspects of Plaintiffs' textbooks.
So the accusation seems to be that Boundless books are functional "clones" of existing textbooks, with the same overall organization and pagination, but with different words filling out the topics, sub-topics and sub-sub-topics. The question then becomes whether there is copyright in that arrangement.
The plaintiffs are also concerned about what they term "photographic paraphrasing":
An example of the obvious nature of Defendant's photographic paraphrasing can be found in Chapter 8 of the authentic version of Campbell's Biology where Plaintiff Pearson and its authors describe the First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics. To exemplify those laws, Plaintiff Pearson and its authors included two photographs, one of a bear catching and eating a fish, and another of a bear running. Plaintiff Pearson and its authors could have used any one of a universe of possible photographic subjects to demonstrate the laws of thermodynamics, but, based on the manner in which they wished to express their aesthetic and scholarly judgments, they opted for the bear engaged in these activities. In Chapter 8 of the Boundless Version of Cambell's Biology, Defendant also discusses the first and second laws of thermodynamics. Defendant also includes two photographs to exemplify these laws, but instead of basing its selection and ordering on their own aesthetic and scholarly judgments, the two photographs Defendant includes are also of a bear eating a fish and a bear running, reflecting only the previously made creative, scholarly and aesthetic judgments of the authors and editors of Campbell's Biology.
Is the use of a bear eating a fish a creative choice? Or is the creativity only in how the bear and the fish are depicted? In many ways, this is the same question put to a UK judge recently concerning a photo with a red double-decker bus crossing a bridge in London. In that case, rather surprisingly, the judge found that you could copyright the basic idea of a photograph.
In response to the publishers' lawsuit, Boundless says:
We're currently preparing our full response, and we believe that the allegations in this lawsuit are without merit and we will defend our company and mission vigorously.
So it sounds as if we may get a chance to see where a US judge stands on that key issue of the idea/expression dichotomy in the case of academic textbooks and pictures of bears. This could be interesting.
Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and on Google+
Filed Under: academics, education, textbooks
Companies: boundless, cengage, elsevier, macmillan, mcgraw-hill, pearson, wiley


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Gustav 'Gus' Hiebert
Gustav "Gus" Hiebert, 88, of Little River, died Tuesday at Sandstone Heights Nursing Home, Little River. He was a retired construction worker and backhoe operator.
He was born May 23, 1924, in Goessel to Peter and Sara (Schmidt) Hiebert. He married Opal E. (Morgan) Hunley on July 3, 1965, in Huntsville, Ark. She preceded him in death on July 23, 1982.
He was also preceded in death by his parents; a brother, Herman Hiebert; a sister, Elvina Schultz; and two stepsons, Ray and Marvin Hunley.
He is survived by a stepdaughter, Bertha "Bert" Long of Windom; eight grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren.
A graveside service will be at 2 p.m. Friday at Tabor Mennonite Church Cemetery, rural Newton. There will be no visitation.
Memorial funds have been established for Sandstone Heights Nursing Home and Windom Senior Center
Last modified Nov. 29, 2012


text:
Suppose the machine being modeled is some kind of arithmetic unit. Suppose the model can be initialized so as to multiply x times y and leave the answer in z. Then if we initialize s to multiply with x=5 and y=7 and run the machine long enough, we can read the answer 35 in the final state.
Because ACL2 is a programming language, our model can be run or executed.
If you defined the model in ACL2 and then typed
> (lookup 'z (mc (s 'mult 5 7) 29))
then ACL2 would compute 35. You can emulate or test the model of your machine.
This is obvious because ACL2 is Common Lisp; and Common Lisp is a programming language.


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Fox Again Turns To Tabloid For Climate Science
Blog ››› ››› SHAUNA THEEL
The Daily Mail is a British tabloid that has repeatedly misrepresented climate research. Naturally, it is also one of Fox News' chief sources on climate science.
Last week the Daily Mail ran a story headlined: "Is this finally proof we're NOT causing global warming? The whole of the Earth heated up in medieval times without human CO2 emissions, says new study." Fox Nation ran a Newsmax summary of the article under the headline "Study Refutes Manmade Warming."
The Daily Mail, along with Newsmax, Fox, and other conservative media, distorted the very research they are trumpeting. The study's lead author, Professor Zunli Lu, said his paper "has been misrepresented by a number of media outlets" and "does not question the well-established anthropogenic warming trend."
It is unfortunate that my research, "An ikaite record of late Holocene climate at the Antarctic Peninsula," recently published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters, has been misrepresented by a number of media outlets.
Several of these media articles assert that our study claims the entire Earth heated up during medieval times without human CO2 emissions. We clearly state in our paper that we studied one site at the Antarctic Peninsula. The results should not be extrapolated to make assumptions about climate conditions across the entire globe. Other statements, such as the study "throws doubt on orthodoxies around global warming," completely misrepresent our conclusions. Our study does not question the well-established anthropogenic warming trend.
Lu also told Peter Sinclair that "The reporter of that Daily Mail article published it anyway, after we told him the angle that he chose misrepresents our work." If this reflects poorly on the quality of journalism at the Daily Mail, what does it say about outlets like Fox who simply parrot the tabloid's inaccurate reports?
According to Newsmax, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change rests its case for manmade global warming on an argument that that the "Medieval Warm Period" was not a global phenomenon. In fact, the IPCC simply said "there are far from sufficient data" to determine if it was global. More importantly, this whole debate over medieval climate has little bearing on the question of what is driving the current warming trend.
If scientists did find that the Medieval Warm Period was global in nature, that would not "refute" the extensive evidence that greenhouse gas emissions have been the "dominant cause" of the recent warming period. The Newsmax article said "Skeptics of manmade global warming claims can bolster their position with a new study showing that the Earth went through a previous warming period not caused by human CO2 emissions." In reality, no climate scientist would dispute that the Earth warmed and cooled before. And as SkepticalScience points out, to argue that natural climate change in previous eras refutes manmade warming now is "like arguing that humans can't start bushfires because in the past they've happened naturally."
- Posted In
- Environment & Science, Climate Change
- Network/Outlet
- Human Events, Investor's Business Daily, New American, Fox Nation
- Person
- Newsmax
- Show/Publication
- Daily Mail
Instructions for signing up and claiming your comment history are located here.
Updated rules for commenting are here.


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Part of this interview was posted here . Nothing new about the SWATH feature. Cosmopolis coverage starts at 3:45 - Rob and DC's interviews start at 5:28 and 6:32. Thanks to veronicaspuffy for the vimeo vid.
Or watch @TVI Cinebox
This blog is in no way affiliated with Rob, Kristen, Stephenie Meyer, or their management. All photos and media are copyrighted to their respective owners, no copyright infringement is intended.


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Pole Dancing for Jesus Is a Real Thing [VIDEOS]
For the past several years, pole dancing classes have been springing up around the country, with attendees saying the activity is a pretty good way to stay in shape.
Now even the pious are embracing the trend, which they've rebranded "Pole Dancing for Jesus."
Crystal Dean, who teaches PDFJ classes in her Old Town Spring, Texas studio, says, "God gives us these bodies and they're supposed to be our temples and we're supposed to take care of them, and that's what we're doing."
Even men are getting in on the action. YouTuber MrPhatLips, who's posted videos of himself on the pole while religious music plays, says on his profile, "I am a very deeply spiritual follower of Christ. Partaking in pole fitness does not mean that I am automatically driven by sex."
Seems the answer to "What would Jesus do?" might very well have been, "Carry a big wad of singles."
Take a look at Dean and MrPhatLips in action:
[via The Daily Mail]


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product_id (PK), category_id (FK), title, description, image, price, quantity, start_date, lifetime, renewal_date
order_id (PK), product_id (FK), user_id (FK), order_date, eta, payment_method, status
products contains a listing of all the products on offer (they are second hand computers in this case). If a product listed has a quantity of more than 1 (1 being the default) then this means that we have more than one identical product available matching the entry in the products table.
orders contains all the orders placed by visitors to the website. Each procuct can have orders a maximum number of orders matching its quantity value.
If a product has a quantity of 6, then it will be listed on the website as for sale until it has 6 matching orders in the orders table. Once it has 6 orders it will should no longer appear in the query that lists all the available products. It's this query that is causing me grief. I've got:
MySQL seems to have trouble with the bit where I'm trying the compare the numerical values returned by the two sub-queries. It says:
Code: Select all
product_id AS prod_id, title AS product_title, description AS product_description, image, price, start_date, lifetime, renewal_date
FROM products
WHERE category_id=8
(SELECT COUNT(*) FROM orders WHERE product_id=prod_id) < (SELECT quantity FROM products WHERE product_id=prod_id)
ORDER BY title, description;
[localhost] ERROR 1064: You have an error in your SQL syntax near 'SELECT COUNT(*) FROM orders WHERE product_id=prod_id) < (SELECT quantity FROM pr' at line 10
Is there some function I can use to get the numerical value returned by each sub-query before I ask it to do a less-than operation? Or is there a better way to do this?
I have also posted this question at http://www.vbforums.com/showthread.php? ... ost1239840


text:
Cog is an audio player that supports many popular file formats, including Ogg Vorbis, Flac, Musepack, Mp3, Shorten, Wavpack, AAC, and Monkeys Audio. Features include gapless playback, seeking, shuffle, and the ability to read unicode tags.
What's New in Cog
Version 0.08:
- No attempt to start Last.fm is made now if Last.fm 2.x.x is already running
Requirements for CogOS X 10.6 or later
Similar Software
Suggest other similar software


text:
IRC 0218 Lensing Feature Without Foreground Cluster
The image was created from Hubble data from the following proposal: 12590, PI: C. Popovich (Texas A & M University) et al.
The science team comprises: K. Wong (Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy & Astrophysics, Taiwan), K.-V. Tran (Texas A&M University), S. Suyu (Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy & Astrophysics, Taiwan), I. Momcheva (Yale University), G. Brammer (STScI), M. Brodwin (University of Missouri), A. Gonzalez (University of Florida), A. Halkola and G. Kacprzak (Swinburne University), A. Koekemoer (STScI), and C. Papovich (Texas A&M University).
ACS/WFC: F475W (g) and F814W (I)
WFC3/IR: F105W (Y), F125W (J), and F160W (H)
This image is a composite of separate exposures acquired by the ACS/WFC and WFC3/IR instruments. Several filters were used to sample various wavelengths. The color results from assigning different hues (colors) to each monochromatic (grayscale) image as follows:
Blue: F475W (g)
Green: F814W (I)
Red: F105W (Y) + F125W (J) + F160W (H)
NASA, ESA, K.-V. Tran (Texas A&M University), and K. Wong (Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy & Astrophysics)


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Daniel Williamson
|Union City, Tenn.
|High School:
|Union City HS
The Golden Eagles boast a solid incoming class of freshmen,
including all-state runner Daniel Williamson...a muliti-talented
athlete, he lettered in five different sports during his high
school career...also a knockout in the classroom.
HIGH SCHOOL: Daniel lettered four years each in both cross country and track & field during his time at Union City High SChool...also lettered twice on the soccer team, twice in baseball and once in basketball...was crowned all-region all four years in cross country...two-time regional champion and twice named all-state.
PERSONAL: The son of James and Amy Williamson...born May 29, 1995 in Union City...full name is Daniel Eric Williamson...majoring in civil engineering.


text:
Pinnacle Programs needed a new logo design and created a contest on 99designs.
A winner was selected from 25 designs submitted by 7 freelance designers.
Outfitter Support
This is a small-scale business specializing in designing and managing websites for hunting and fishing guides and outfitters. In addition to designing and running their websites, we will help manage their customer and prospect lists; print mail; and online social networking campaigns.
White males 35-60 years old who run full time outfitting operations in North America. They are generally not very computer-friendly and spend a great deal of time outdoors and away from electronic gadgets.
This logo should be appropriate for use on business cards, a brochure, and our own website from which we will promote our services. Common themes would be animal images; old growth forests; the target reticle on a rifle scope; and web design services. Cross hairs on a computer is one idea.
Find out how a design contest works or learn more about our logo design services.


text:
David McCann
Disclaimer: The views, actions and activities posted by participants on My Ocean are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Project AWARE Foundation.
- Name
- David McCann
- Location
Sabah, Malaysia5.57225, 117.158203 View on map
- Member Type
- My Website
- My Summary
Scuba Junkie is a dive center and resort based in Semporna and on the island of Mabul in the Celebes Sea in Sabah. Our dive center and its staff pride ourselves on our level of professionalism and our commitment to the environmental issues that are present in Sabah and worldwide. We have initiated many projects within the build of our resort such as investing in solar energy and green waste plants as well as building Mabuls only Turtle hatchery, weekly beach and dive against Debris activities and creating the Scuba Junkies S.E.A.S. (Shark Education, Awareness & Survival) project and the Sea Turtle project. We are aware that any industry, including the dive industry can have an effect both negative and positive on its surroundings but if we work together and manage them correctly we can all have much more of a positive impact on the environment. The waters around Sabah boast some of the richest marine diversity in the world and it is up to all of us to protect such a delicate and important Eco system...
Scuba Junkie is also a proud supporter and advisor to the 'Semporna Shark Sanctuary' a proposal we have been advising on since its conception by the Borneo Conservancy several years ago. The area around Semporna and East Sabah has some of the most diverse marine ecosystems in the world boasting around 63 species of shark and 68 species of ray form the graceful Manta to the shy and elusive Hammerhead shark. As you all know, shark and ray species are in decline and globally their populations are dropping quicker than we can set up projects to protect them. Some species have declined by up to 90% worldwide. The Scientists, environmentalists and now, the general public are aware of this and in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence a change must happen, and happen now. The Semporna Shark Sanctuary is a pioneering project to not only protect these beutiful waters, but to protect and work with the local communities who relay on the oceans to survive. They cannot be forgotten of left out and the SSS is dedicated to including them in the inception and implementation of the Sanctuary so they can relay on eco tourism for many many years to come. Shark fishing is Sabah brings in around 500,000 rm per year, dive tourism.... 190 million and is a completely sustainable resource. The SSS has the backing of all the operatoers in the area, many local and international NGOs, government bodies and local communities and over 22,500 signatures of support. Please show your support for the 'Semporna Shark Sanctuary' by visiting the links below...
My Events
My Ocean Community
My Dive Against Debris Surveys


text:
I have been playing for over a year. recently moved to Houston. Need someone to play with, I can play weekdays after work or weekends. I live in the spring shadows area. Don't mind to drive.
Views: 92
Replies to This Discussion
I can hit w/you on weekends at Bear Creek. I've been playing a while longer but still need lots of practice. Currently trying to teach my 11 y/o and that's all the practice I'm getting.
Great. My phone no. is 2254563252. Would be great to play early morning this weekend.
Hello Mohamed,
I am looking for people to play, I am intermediate as well and I play at Memorial or around the Heights in several places.
Let me know if you want to hit some tennis balls,
© 2019 Created by Mark / The Mayor. Powered by


text:
Is Scott Brown Using Fox To Launch The Next Stage Of His Political Career?
Blog ››› ››› ERIC HANANOKI
Fox News contributor Scott Brown reportedly said he's not "done with politics" and refused to rule out running for New Hampshire's U.S. Senate seat in 2014. Brown has followed the well-trodden path of other Fox-favored politicians by signing with the conservative network, which has afforded him a paycheck and a national platform while allowing him to consider future runs for political office.
Since signing with Fox News in February, Brown has been a regular presence across the network and Fox Business. His most high-profile stint came on April 1, when he guest hosted The O'Reilly Factor and delivered an opening commentary built off of a Republican press release.
Brown reportedly told media gathered at a New Hampshire non-profit event yesterday, "I don't think I'm done with politics." When asked if he is considering running for office in New Hampshire, Brown -- who owns a home in New Hampshire -- replied: "I'm not going to rule out anything right now, because I really haven't thought a heck of a lot about it."
While Brown reportedly said yesterday he won't rule out "anything right now" in New Hampshire, he appeared to take a different approach last month. When asked during a March 11 press conference if he would "rule out any sort of political race in New Hampshire," Brown replied: "Yeah, it's something I read about actually and was a little bit surprised about. Certainly my mom lives there, my sister lives there, I have a house there, and I have a lot of good feelings about New Hampshire. But Massachusetts is my home, and if I do anything in the future, it'll most likely be in Massachusetts."
Brown has also recently said that he's "thinking about" running for Massachusetts governor next year, telling a local Fox affiliate in February: "Of course I'm thinking about it. I'm thinking about a lot of different thing. But right now the best thing I can do for myself and for my peace of mind and I think for the people of Massachusetts is just to hang tight and recharge and be active." A report in the Boston Globe last month indicated such a run isn't likely for Brown.
Should Brown decide to reenter politics, he would be following a similar path as several other politicians that were hired by Fox News during their time out of office. For example, after leaving congress, former Rep. John Kasich (R-OH), stayed in the public eye by signing with Fox News and becoming one of The O'Reilly Factor's regular guest hosts in addition to hosting his own program. He then successfully ran for Ohio governor with the aid of his Fox News colleagues.
On the other hand, Republicans like Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum joined the network after they both left office, but were unsuccessful in their subsequent campaigns after joining Fox. Early in the 2012 primary, Santorum credited his role at Fox News with having "helped folks remember who I am ... It's a great platform, being able to talk about the current issues of the day."
Fox News host Geraldo Rivera is reportedly considering running for senate in New Jersey and has said that he will continue to appear on Fox News to "hone a message" until "it's no longer legal" to do so.
The former Massachusetts senator will appear at another New Hampshire event on April 20 for the Grafton County Republican Committee's Lincoln-Regan Luncheon. An invitation to the fundraiser, which runs from $25 for students to $150 for VIPs, notes Brown's Fox News position.
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- Scott Brown
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Automated Installer
If you are new to MinGW, see the MinGW Getting Started instructions to use the automated GUI or manual CLI (Command Line Interface) installers.
We highly reccommend that you use the automated installers provided by MinGW
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- The MinGW GCC specific release notes for detailed notes, including known issues.
- The release notes for each individual package. Links to each of these can be found next to the name of each package file listed on the MinGW Download Page.
Manual Installation
First, create a directory (e.g. C:\MinGW). You can download all of the packages to that directory and unzip them from there.
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Next, you may need a program that can extract .tar.gz and .tar.lzma files, such as 7-Zip or one that provides command-line tar, gzip, and lzma tools. A basic standalone tar program that includes gz and lzma support is available from the MinGW project and is called bsdtar
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Download at least the following (or newer) packages from the MinGW Download Page. Where two or more component packages are indicated, you need both / all of them. (Note that the package links provided here refer to current releases at the time of writing; these links may not necessarily be updated immediately when new releases become available.):
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Information on other libraries commonly used by Open Source compilers using MinGW is available on the Libraries and Tools page.


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"Tax equity, I think, is one of the biggest challenges that we have as an industry. It is highly illiquid and expensive, and I think the sooner we can avail ourselves of some cheaper, deeper sources of capital, the better off we'll be," Paul Gaynor, CEO of Boston-based First Wind told the recent Infocast Wind Power Finance and Investment Summit in San Diego.
The US industry's main support mechanism is the $0.022/kWh production tax credit (PTC), paid on the first ten years of a project's output. The challenge is that most project developers have insufficient taxable income to use it or the other federal tax write-offs wind projects receive, forcing them to go out and find investors who can.
But the money those so-called tax equity investors expect in return, industry players complain, is out of step with other sources of capital.
Current tax equity returns are in the 8% after-tax range, Infocast delegates heard. "That is the equivalent of 13% pre-tax," said Joseph Slamm, partner of the private equity firm Hudson Clean Energy Partners.
"That is a 400 or 500 basis points (0.4%-0.5%) higher cost of funds than anywhere else in the world."
One factor in the cost of tax equity is the limited number of players in the market.
"It's a supply demand issue," said Kevin Walsh, managing director of power and renewable energy at GE Energy Financial Services, a tax equity provider.
"We do think we may be able to corral some new investors in the space. We take credit for bringing Google to the table two years ago, and we are working on others like them."
However, Gaynor does not expect a great deal of interest. The wind industry had been hoping Google's entry would draw other cash-rich Silicon Valley companies such as Apple or Microsoft into the market, he said, but that hasn't happened. The highly complex deal structures that are necessary to incorporate tax equity into project financings are a hurdle, especially given uncertainty over whether the PTC will even be in place beyond its scheduled expiry at the end of this year.
"Not that this is going to happen, but if there was a permanent PTC, I think you'd see floods of money coming in. That's the problem. There's no duration to the investment."
The complicated tax structures also act as a deterrent to other providers of capital that might otherwise be interested in the sector, said David Zwillinger, vice-president of private equity firm DE Shaw & Co.
"Unfortunately, it is restricting a huge pool of investors," he said. "You would open up the market massively more if you looked like every other industry."
Accessing that broader investor pool will be key to the industry's growth, delegates heard, especially as it tries to compete in an era of low natural gas prices and flat power demand.
"If you really want to unlock the investment into renewables, we've got to be able to bring in lower-cost capital. Reducing some of the barriers that are inherent with tax equity structures would really help the industry," said Ty Daul, CEO of Element Power's North American operations.
Gaynor said he sees master limited partnerships (MLPs), an investment vehicle used widely by pipeline and other energy-related companies, as a viable alternative if the industry can win the legislative changes needed to allow wind projects to use them. MLPs raised $22 billion of equity last year from stock market investors at yields of 7% or below.
"It is a cheap, deep source of capital," he said. "I do think it could be a real, practical, winning solution for industry on a long-term basis."
Other industry players are exploring options such as publicly traded real-estate investment trusts (REITs), and Yieldcos, a type of corporation that would own operating wind energy projects and pay dividends to individual and institutional investors who buy shares.
Whatever the vehicle, said Slamm, the industry will be better off outside the tax equity framework.
"A systematic phase-out of the PTC is the way to go," he said.
"What replaces it will not only potentially be MLPs, but really any capital market structure that's available in the world."


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The tradition and practice of Christian Meditation - 2
Laurence Freeman continues: "In the second half of the last century John Cassian's 'Conferences' led John Main back to the practice of meditation in the Christian tradition, which he had first discovered as a young man in the East.
Cassian's two conferences 'On Prayer' moved from a general overview of the theology of prayer to a specific recommendation of how to live it at its most radical depth. In the '9th Conference' he describes the spectrum of prayer – its many expressions – but shows how all these forms converge in the 'prayer of fire', the mystical experience of union with the prayer of Jesus himself. This theology is at the heart of Christian meditation. John main saw that in meditation we move beyond an egotistical, self-centred focus on 'my prayer' into a lived understanding that Christian prayer is centred in the prayer of Jesus. 'We do not know how to pray but the Spirit prays within us'.
In the '10th Conference' Cassian describes the monologistic prayer – the prayer of one word –that became the basis of the Jesus Prayer of the Orthodox Church. For reasons too long to explore here the Western Church lost touch with this simple method which, for the Orthodox, was and remains their touchstone of lived faith. Cassian – recognized as a saint by both Churches – describes the formula or mantra as a way to the first Beatitude. By the "renunciation of all the riches of thought and imagination" we come directly to that poverty of spirit which is the condition for our entry into the Kingdom of God – the Kingdom or experience of God that Jesus says lies within us and among us.
Cassian goes on to describe the various states of mind through which we will be led and with which we sometimes have to struggle as we keep returning to the word in faith and love. The whole Christian mystical tradition with its many schools and great teachers can be said to be an elaboration of this fundamental insight. Cassian ends by saying that his own practice of meditation was not as easy as he had thought it would be but that it led him to read the Scriptures with new eyes and as if he had written them himself. Finally he affirms that the very simplicity of this prayer of the heart makes it universal. It is not a prayer just for the educated but for all. We might add now – and as this conference will witness – that it is for all ages as well.
A thousand years later this same tradition manifested in the flowering of the 14th century English mystical tradition. The Cloud of Unknowing was written for a select audience but has since become one of the most influential and popular works of contemplative prayer in this tradition. His teaching on the 'one little word' and the 'laying aside of thoughts' is in direct line with the Desert spirituality and John Main's teaching. Tradition like doctrine develops – we can see how this tradition of prayer has remained essentially constant but kept pace with the evolving mind of the Church. Meditation has today become democratic. No one is excluded from it and in practising it we affirm the universality of the gospel and of faith in Jesus.
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Art is usually defined as follows:
the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.Doesn't sound much like genealogy. But the problem is that there is no universal consensus as to what is and what is not art. So perhaps, it might be just as difficult to decided what is and what is not genealogy?
Now, what about science? Here is a one of the common definitions:
the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.But on the other hand, science also has a multitude of definitions and one of them is:
a systematically organized body of knowledge on a particular subject.This could work. Genealogy might be a science if the term is used as generally as possible. If we take this one step further, we get the definition of "social science."
the scientific study of human society and social relationships.Hmm. That seems to be getting closer to what I am thinking about. History is a social science, so how does genealogy relate to history? Here is the definition of history:
a branch of knowledge that records and explains past eventsSounds to me like we are on the track of something here. Genealogy falls into the category of history which is part of social science. Wait. I am assuming that history is a social science. Is it? After a bit of searching, there seems to be a lot of disagreement on that account. History, as a study, is sometimes lumped in with something called Art and Humanities. Wikipedia seems to think that history is a social science. See Wikipedia: List of social sciences. Let's take this a little further, quoting from the Wikipedia article on history:
History can also refer to the academic discipline which uses a narrative to examine and analyse a sequence of past events, and objectively determine the patterns of cause and effect that determine them.There seems to be a fair measure of obfuscation and disagreement at each step in this investigation. I find yet another term; Liberal Arts and Sciences. So what are liberal arts and sciences? I decided to check out what my local university, Arizona State University, had to say on the subject:
Just as ASU is positioning itself as a model of the New American University, the college is redefining liberal arts education for the 21st century. Along with such traditional core departments as chemistry, English, physics and psychology, the college has created a number of transdisciplinary schools that facilitate the creation of new knowledge across disciplinary boundaries. Among these are the schools of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies, Earth and Space Exploration, Human Evolution and Social Change, International Letters and Cultures, and Social and Family Dynamics.Apparently genealogy doesn't seem to be included in all that mumbo jumbo. A search on the term "genealogy" at ASU brings up a class in American Indian Genealogy which is part of something called American Indian Studies. I guess only Indians have genealogy at ASU.
Now what is the point of all this? And my usual question, what has all this got to do with genealogy? One of the recurring issues in the genealogical community is the acceptability of Genealogy as an academic discipline. Maybe we don't really want what we think we do? Maybe we don't want to be found competing with majors such as "Ethnicity, Race and First Nations Studies."


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Hey, I'm like six days late but… oh well. I like this prompt: A sanctuary is a place you can escape to, to catch your breath and remember who you are. Write about the place you go to when everything is a bit too much.
Oh, wow. This is a toughie. Um… I go to the back of my mind? I've been pretty stressed out lately with school, my family and all the other typical problems that come with being a teenager. Exams are looming, meaning my teachers are hounding me – and the rest of the class – to study, revise and just do a damn good job. I'm trying to make nice-nice with the relatives, seeing as I'm holidaying over at the Philippines for Christmas break, and finally I can't seem to deal with the people in general (typical teenage angst; O woe is me, O woe is me, blah blah blah).
It's no wonder I seek refuge in my so-called 'oasis' as much as I can, practically after the end of every day. My oasis, of course, happens to be my flat. In that little studio apartment, I can just be. No coursework to worry about. No errands to do. No people to deal with. I'd have to deal with all that the moment I step back out again but, what the hell, I'm watching Supernatural and munching on mini muffins. Go away and don't bother me, I'm in my happy place.
I listen to music as well and, on the off chance, I get into this cheerfully energetic (or energetically cheerful) and I just dance. Chill. I indulge in the pop songs I usually turn my back on. And on a completely different note, here's one of my favourite songs by this band called Oasis:
Appropriate, don't you think?
If you're a long-time reader of mine, then you'd have probably realized by now that I'm an introverted kind of gal. If you know me in real life, then you'd see that I'm as socially awkward as can be: you should see me interact with people on a day-to-day basis. I'm like a walking guidebook on what not to do if you want to function socially. Maybe that's why I visit my sanctuary almost daily… I value these moments I get to be alone and think about things and not worry so much and woah, was Jensen Ackles just lip-syncing to Eye of the Tiger? I need this in my life!!
Over and out.


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Google has been vocal about the "patent troll" problem for years now. It's an issue that has started to get serious attention from the government, and for good reason. Newest statistics show 61 percent of patent lawsuits are now filed by entities with no business outside patent-licensing, costing an estimated $29 billion each year in direct legal costs.
While many tech companies continue to push for a legislative fix to the problem, Google has decided to engage in some patent "self-help," as well. A new company initiative has synthesized some ideas that have been kicking around legal conferences for several months now about things that victims of patent trolls could do to help themselves.
One serious, and relatively new problem: many operating companies tend to keep "feeding the trolls," by selling off patents that end up in the hands of non-practicing entities.
"In a growing trend, companies are selling patents to trolls that then use those patents to attack other companies," writes Google lawyer Eric Schulman in a blog post on the new patent initiative. "In some cases, those companies arrange to get a cut of revenue generated from the trolls' suits."
Google has faced that issue itself. British Telecom, for example, not only sued Google over patents directly, it handed off patents to Suffolk Technologies, a patent-holding company. That behavior caused Google to file its first patent infringement suit last month. In December, a holding company called MobileMedia Ideas won a jury trial, wielding patents from Sony and Nokia.
A new company website introduces four kinds of royalty-free patent licenses it suggests companies might use to combat the problem.
- License On Transfer Agreement: Under this agreement, every participating company would agree that when they sell their patents, they become licensed to the entire group. Companies could use their own original patents to fight each other, while they own them, but couldn't hand them off to anyone else.
- Non-Sticky Defensive Patent License (Non-Sticky DPL): This would simply stop companies from asserting their own patents against each other while they're participating in the license. Companies would be allowed to withdraw, and could then use their patents offensively; however, damages would not be available for the period in which they were in the pact. It includes a transfer provision, so if one company handed off a patent to a troll or other aggressor, the patent must first be licensed to all the DPL participants.
- Sticky Defensive Patent License (Sticky DPL): This is a permanent version of the defensive patent license, based on a proposal by Jason Schultz and Jennifer Urban, law professors at UC Berkeley. Once a company is in, all its patents are licensed permanently.
- Field-of-Use Agreement: Similar to the Open Invention Network, which provides free patent licenses to companies that agree not to assert any patents against the Linux system. One danger of using a license like this is that patent claims could be drafted to avoid whatever field of use is defined in an industry agreement. Certainly, the OIN's agreement hasn't stopped Linux-using companies from being attacked by trolls.
As a first step, Google is asking operating companies of any size to take a survey about which of these licenses, if any, appeals to them. It's gathering the responses by April 9. A lot of companies are thinking about the issue right now already, especially since the nation's antitrust regulators, the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice, have asked for public comment to be submitted about what they call "patent assertion entities" by April 5.
Even if one of these agreements were widely adopted, it wouldn't affect some parts of the patent troll problem. Plenty of non-practicing companies use patents that originate with independent inventors, not big companies; some companies get into the patent-trolling business and then acquire their own patents, from their own research.
Still, a defensive patent license could hamper the ability to throw more and more intellectual property into a growing marketplace of patent "ammunition." Once-successful companies that are now struggling, or simply have expired patents or business lines, currently have a strong incentive to hand their patents off into the open market, where they can cause problems for competitors.
We're still a long way from a world in which companies give up the ideology of patents-as-swords and simply compete "on the merits of their products or services," but more companies and reformers are getting interested in taking some first steps.