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The Usefulness of Type Ia Supernovae for Cosmology—A Personal Review
Kevin Krisciunas
George P. and Cynthia Woods Mitchell Institute for Fundamental Physics and Astronomy, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Texas A & M University, 4242 TAMU, College Station, TX 77843
Presented at the 100th Spring Meeting of the AAVSO, May 22, 2011; received February 6, 2012; revised March 8, 2012; accepted March 9, 2012
We review some results of the past twelve years derived from optical and infrared photometry of Type Ia supernovae. A combination of optical and infrared photometry allows us to determine accurately the extinction along the line of sight. The resulting distance measurements are much more accurate than can be obtained from optical data alone. Type Ia supernovae are very nearly standard candles in the near-infrared. Accurate supernova distances, coupled with other observational data available at present, allow us to determine the matter density in the universe and lead to evidence for the existence of Dark Energy. We can now address some questions on the grandest scale such as, "What is the ultimate Fate of the universe?"


text:
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Personal in-home care by a Home Helpers professional provides that needed support, so your aging or disabled family member in Lone Tree can be where they're happiest: at home. We can help with a range of needs, including:
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subset: commoncrawl


text:
by Jim Harris
On Oct. 22 Lance Armstrong, by far the world's best-known and most successful professional road racing cyclist, was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles and banned from cycling by the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), cycling's international governing body. When I heard this, I was very surprised. Cycling has an international governing body? Really? Who's on it, Pee Wee Herman? Bart Simpson? More importantly, are they hiring? Because there are a lot of people out there, including me, who could use a high-paying job determining acceptable standards for bicycle horns.
Anyway, UCI's decision was based on a report from the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (another indispensable organization) that alleged Armstrong used banned substances and techniques to enhance his racing performance.
The list of cheating techniques he used included organ transplants, voodoo, cloning, doppelgangers, selling his soul to the devil and human sacrifice. Armstrong's entire team has also been implicated, including his barber, publicist, guru, accountant and proctologist. (Those bicycle seats are hard.)
Besides being banned from cycling, Armstrong has been prohibited from wearing Spandex, even as underwear, for life, forbidden from ever competing on "Dancing with the Stars" and stripped of his membership in Netflix.
Perhaps most tragically, his cat has filed for divorce, and his dog has obtained a restraining order. He is also being sued by the U.S. Postal Service, who sponsored his racing team. According to the Postmaster General, "Like we didn't have enough problems already!"
The U.S. Justice Department has reported that Armstrong is also being investigated on charges relating to transporting endangered wombats across state lines and selling nuclear weapons to Iran. As of this writing, scientists are exploring the possibility that he is also responsible for the hole in the ozone layer, global warming (Democrats in the Justice Department actually believe there is such a thing) and the worldwide economic collapse. In a related development, those yellow "Livestrong" wristbands that Armstrong inspired are being recalled because they were found to contain toxic materials.
Suspicion that Lance Armstrong was cheating began when it was noticed that he was consistently finishing the Tour de France, which normally takes 23 days, in just under an hour. Finally, one of his teammates, Sprocket Smith, stepped forward and said that he had personally seen Armstrong ingest a case of Mountain Dew, 12 gallons of coffee and 33 cans of Red Bull right before a race. "He would have finished the race even sooner," said Smith, "except that he kept having to stop every 5 minutes to go to the bathroom."
Armstrong's banishment from cycling has been the cause of great celebration all over the world. In Paris they held a white-tie gala at which replicas of Armstrong's Tour de France trophies were guillotined and tossed into the Seine River. According to Paris Mayor Bertrand Bonjour Napoleon, "It was more fun than a Jerry Lewis movie."
At a party in Mexico City, kids smashed Lance Armstrong piñatas, and in towns all across the Middle East, the ex-cyclist (and his bike) were burned in effigy and trampled underfoot. "Everyone's having a real good time," said one reveler. "We're always looking for new infidels to trash."
Here in Armstrong's home country, the reaction to the cheating revelations has been harsh. In a recent poll, he edged out Satan as the poster boy for evil. Parents are telling their children "If you don't eat your vegetables, Lance Armstrong will get you," and for their part, the kids are telling their teachers, "Lance Armstrong ate my homework."
It seems like the only people in America who still believe in Armstrong's innocence are Pete Rose, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and a handful of hard-core bike-racing enthusiasts. Interviewed in his cave at an undisclosed location yesterday, Armstrong said, "If I can't race bicycles anymore, I'll probably have to take up something less important than professional sports, like brain surgery."


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They have said and talked about a planned trading system in the game.Bastable wrote:Some things are valuable because they're scarce? Simplistically for a beta tank to have value due too scarcity it would also need to have some mechanism to cash in on it in exchange for goods and services or some form of currency. WOT has no mechanism to allow scarce=valuable in regards to tanks.
Pel wrote:Of course. There are plenty of people who value these things just because they're rare. No usage in the game, nothing, zilch, just because not a lot of other people have it, and no one can get it. Doesn't hurt me that they have it, so if they enjoy having something, why take that away, considering, of course, that WG promised those people their tank would be forever unique.
I happily sold those M5s for the creds. The Tetrarch, however, is totally cool and doesn't exist in the game otherwise, so for free? Hells yes I'll take it. Would I but it if it cost 1000-1500 gold? God no.
Simpsonia wrote:Just saw this over on the forums and had to share. http://i1209.photobucket.com/albums/cc400/WladimirAndrei/WoTForum/17771978144f057cdf3ba31.gif
Mod edit - don't inline images over 500k
Yeah, that's the Russian test, you can see it from the letters (and the pixels).
There are too many of them, but I'm surprised that WG cares. They've made a fortune off them.We will soon be updating the World of Tanks in-game store. As of January 16, 2012, the Type 59 premium tank will be removed from the in-game store after the server restart, which will take place at 6:00-6:30AM EST (11:00-11:30 UTC). While the tank will not be available for purchase, all existing Type 59 owners will keep their tank intact.
This decision has been made to ensure a healthy gameplay balance at higher tiers, and also to encourage a wider variety of tier 8 medium tank usage. If the Type 59 becomes available for purchase again during special events in the future, we will be sure to provide ample notice.
Supraluminal wrote:Wow, crazy. Surprised they didn't just bump the price up, a la the Lowe.
Wargaming "soon" or actual "soon"? The IS-6 is going to be a new tier 8 premium heavy at some point. The T34 is becoming another one, supposedly in the next patch, but no one knows when that'll be, or if they'll be selling it to people who don't get one when they do the switchover. But yeah, the fact that they're getting rid of a moneymaking tank does make you think they've got something else in the offing.acidlacedpenguin wrote:does this mean they'll be adding some other new OP tank to the store soon? I just went full retard and have like 25,000 gold pieces just burning a hole in my e-pocket.
They can't nerf the damage, since they tied damage to shell size
Supraluminal wrote:They can't nerf the damage, since they tied damage to shell size
This is only true in most cases, not all. There are plenty of examples of same-caliber guns with varying damage ratings if you look around for them. So, they could ding the damage on the T34 a bit if they want.
Also, good riddance to the Type 59. I know I won't see any less of them, but damn it, I can at least see fewer new players with them (because it is frigging ANNOYING to see someone with ~40 games, a tier 1, 2, and 3 tank, and then a Lowe, KV-5, and Type 59).
Some TDs have a wide enough threat range that they can still do things, but it's still a pretty valid strategy to go for the tracks.
On a related note, having played the AMX 13 75, this is a tank that's hugely vulnerable to tracking. Your turret turns, sure, but you have maybe 10 degrees of vertical control, so a small hill can completely ruin you. It's interesting how aware you need to be in these things. Does the 13 90 have a similar issue?


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Chelsea Hudson, 6-0 Redshirt Junior Forward, Midland, Texas
What do you love most about TSU?
Coaching staff and atmosphere
What are your expectations for this season?
Winning OVC Championship
What will you do to help Tennessee State Women's basketball be successful?
Being the best physically and mentally for my teammates
What are you looking forward to most this season?
New faces, victories and growing pains
What can Lady Tiger fans expect to see from you on the court?
Leadership, excitement and wins
What do you do to get ready for a game?
Blast my Christian rap
What do you enjoy do outside of basketball?
Church, shopping, sleeping
What is something unique about you that you want to tell Lady Tiger fans?
Enjoy working with kids
What is your favorite food?
Anything with cheese
What is your favorite movie?
Save the Last Dance
Follow TSU Athletics on Facebook.com/TSUTigers <http://www.facebook.com/tsutigers> , Twitter @TSU_Tigers <http://www.twitter.com/tsu_tigers>, Instagram http://instagram.com/tsutigers# and Youtube <http://www.youtube.com/tnstatetigers >


text:
arthritis, painful inflammation of a joint or joints of the body, usually producing heat and redness. There are many kinds of arthritis. In its various forms, arthritis disables more people than any other chronic disorder. The condition can be brought about by nerve impairment, increased or decreased function of the endocrine glands, or degeneration due to age. Less frequently, it is caused by infection (tuberculosis, gonorrhea, Lyme disease, rheumatic fever).
Rheumatoid arthritis, an autoimmune disease of unknown cause, is the most crippling form. Women are much more susceptible to it than men. Although rheumatoid arthritis usually appears between the ages of 25 and 50, it also occurs in children. Osteoarthritis, the most common type, occurs usually in people over 50. It tends to be more severe when the joints have been strained by obesity or overwork. Gout, the third most common form of arthritis, affects men almost exclusively.
Symptomatic treatment for arthritis includes use of heat, physical therapy, and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs such as a cox-2 inhibitor (Celebrex), aspirin, ibuprofen, and naproxen. Remission of symptoms can sometimes be achieved with methotrexate, gold salts, penicillamine, and short-term cortisone, but they often have undesirable side effects. Orthopedic surgery, including artificial joint implantation, may be done in severe cases.


text:
Networking Configurations
The network configuration files store extended per room configurations for communicating outside world into a room.
The usual way is to use the Webcit or the Citadel commandline client to edit these configs. Supported configuration types are:
Pop3 Aggregator
POP3 is here to synchronize mailboxes. You can use it to collect your mails from other sites.
RSS Aggregator
RSS is a way to stay informed whats happening on your news sites, Blogs, tweets, and so on. Citserver does HTTP-Polling for these.
Mailinglist Abbonents
Citadel can distribute the postings of a room to email recipients either in per Post mode, or all posts as a daily digest; Depending on the settings of an aide, users can start/stop their abbonement via the webcit List-Subscription Web Selfcare interface.
Inter Citadel Networking
Citadel has its own TCP communication protocol for fedarated citadel networks; here you can configure which room from a remote site maps to this room. Once messages appear on one site, they make it over; similar to email, this is no realtime protocol.


text:
You are here
Party Time: Guilt-Free Holiday Recipes
Evan Sklar
Appetizers: Sweet and Smoky Pecans
Prep time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 15 minutes
Makes: 6 servings
1 1/2 cups pecan halves
2 tablespoons maple syrup
2 teaspoons olive oil
1 teaspoon smoked sweet paprika
1/2 teaspoon salt
Pinch cayenne
1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper. In a bowl, combine all the ingredients; mix well.
2. Spread the nuts on the baking sheet; roast, tossing halfway through, until browned, 12 to 15 minutes.
3. Let the nuts cool. Serve.
Nutrition facts per serving:
220 calories, 3g protein, 8g carbohydrate, 22g fat (1.9g saturated), 3g fiber
Evan Sklar
Appetizers: Wild Mushroom Crostini
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 25 minutes
Makes: 6 servings
1 pound mixed wild mushrooms, trimmed and sliced
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/4 teaspoon dried rosemary
1/4 teaspoon salt
Freshly ground black pepper
12 slices whole wheat baguette
Olive oil spray
2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. In a bowl, toss the mushrooms with the balsamic vinegar, olive oil, rosemary, salt, and pepper to taste.
2. Line a rimmed baking pan with foil and spread the mushrooms in the pan. Roast, tossing every 5 minutes, until the liquid has evaporated and the mushrooms are beginning to crisp in spots, about 25 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, lightly spray the baguette slices on both sides with olive oil and place them on a baking sheet. Toast in the oven until the tops are golden, about 4 minutes. Sprinkle each toast with 1/2 teaspoon Parmesan cheese and return to the oven until the cheese is melted.
4. Pile the mushrooms on the toasted baguette slices; serve.
Nutrition facts per serving:
198 calories, 7g protein, 29g carbohydrate, 5g fat (0.6g saturated), 4g fiber
Evan Sklar
Appetizers: Cheese, Bacon, and Cranberry Endive Boats
Prep time: 5 minutes
Makes: 6 servings
1/2 cup crumbled blue cheese
6 tablespoons low-fat sour cream
12 endive leaves
4 thin slices turkey bacon, cooked until crisp, crumbled
2 tablespoons dried cranberries
1. In a bowl, combine the blue cheese and sour cream, mashing together roughly with a fork.
2. Spread 1 1/2 teaspoons of the blue cheese mixture into each leaf.
3. Top with crumbled bacon and dried cranberries and serve.
Nutrition facts per serving:
105 calories, 6g protein, 5g carbohydrate, 7g fat (3.7g saturated), 2g fiber
Evan Sklar
Appetizers: Goat Cheese and Apple Canapes
Prep time: 10 minutes
Makes: 6 servings
1/4 cup crumbled goat cheese
1 tablespoon honey
1 large red apple, cored and cut into 24 thin slices
24 watercress leaves
Freshly ground black pepper
1. In a small bowl, stir together the goat cheese and honey.
2. Spread about 1/2 teaspoon of the mixture onto each apple slice and top with a watercress leaf.
3. Arrange the canapes on a platter and sprinkle with black pepper.
Nutrition facts per serving: 45 calories, 1g protein, 7g carbohydrate, 1.5g fat (1g saturated), 1g fiber
Evan Sklar
Appetizers: Artichoke Dip
Prep time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 30 minutes
Makes: 6 servings
1 15-ounce can artichoke hearts in water, rinsed and drained
3/4 cup cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
1/4 cup chopped frozen spinach, thawed and drained well
2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons reduced-fat sour cream
2 tablespoons part-skim ricotta
1/2 teaspoon olive oil
1/8 teaspoon garlic powder
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Combine all the ingredients in a food processor and pulse to a rough puree (the texture of bean dip).
2. Spread the dip in a shallow 8-inch ovenproof serving dish and bake until bubbling, about 30 minutes. Serve warm with pita chips.
Nutrition facts per serving:
68 calories, 5g protein, 9g carbohydrate, 2g fat (1g saturated), 4g fiber
Evan Sklar
Side Dishes: Buttermilk-and-Chive Mashed Potatoes
Prep time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 20 minutes
Makes: 6 servings
2 1/2 pounds Yukon gold potatoes, peeled and cut into 1-inch chunks
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 cup low-fat buttermilk, warmed
1 tablespoon chopped fresh chives
Black pepper
1. Place the potatoes in a large, heavy saucepan with the salt and enough water to cover. Bring to a boil and cook until the potatoes are completely tender, 15 to 20 minutes. Drain well.
2. Return the potatoes to the pan and stir over low heat for a few minutes to cook off some of the moisture. Add the butter; stir until melted.
3. Take the pan off the heat and mash the potatoes with a potato masher. Stir in as much warm buttermilk as needed to make a smooth, creamy puree. (You may not need all of it.) Stir in the chives and season with black pepper to taste.
Nutrition facts per serving:
143 calories, 4g protein, 27g carbohydrate, 2g fat (1.5g saturated), 2g fiber
Evan Sklar
Side Dishes: Green Beans with Olive-Almond Relish
Prep time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 8 minutes
Makes: 6 servings
1 pound green beans, trimmed
2 tablespoons prepared green-olive tapenade
1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
2 teaspoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/4 cup sliced almonds, toasted
1. In a pot fitted with a steamer basket, bring an inch of water to a boil. Add the green beans, cover, and steam until just tender, about 8 minutes.
2. In a bowl, whisk together the tapenade, lemon zest, and juice.
3. Place the steamed green beans in a bowl and drizzle the tapenade mixture over them. Scatter almonds on top and serve.
Nutrition facts per serving:
72 calories, 2g protein, 6g carbohydrate, 5g fat (0.6g saturated), 3g fiber
Evan Sklar
Side Dishes: Sweet Potato and Apple Casserole
Prep time: 15 minutes
Cook time: 1 hour 45 minutes
Makes: 6 servings
2 medium sweet potatoes
1 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon ground allspice
3 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored, and cut into 1/2-inch rings
2 tablespoons maple syrup
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Place the sweet potatoes on a piece of aluminum foil and roast until they can be easily pierced with a fork, about 1 hour. Let cool slightly.
2. Trim the ends and pull off the peels; slice into 1/2-inch rounds.
3. Butter a small (3-1/2-quart) casserole dish with half the butter. In a bowl, stir together the cinnamon, ginger, and allspice. Arrange half the apple rings and sweet-potato rounds in alternating layers in the dish; sprinkle with half the spice mixture and half the maple syrup. Layer in the rest of the apples and sweet potatoes, ending with the apples. Sprinkle with the remaining spices, drizzle with the remaining syrup; dot with the rest of the butter.
4. Cover and bake until the apples are very tender, about 45 minutes.
Nutrition facts per serving:
111 calories, 1g protein, 22g carbohydrate, 3g fat (1.9g saturated), 2g fiber
Evan Sklar
Dessert: Red-Wine-Poached Pears with Red-Wine Drizzle
Prep time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 50 minutes
Makes: 6 servings
2 cups dry red wine
1 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
1 cinnamon stick
3 cloves
3 large, firm pears, peeled and halved, cores scooped out
1 1/2 cups low-fat vanilla ice cream
1. In a large saucepan, combine the wine, water, sugar, cinnamon stick, and cloves. Bring to a boil, stirring until the sugar dissolves. Simmer 10 minutes.
2. Add the pear halves to the pan cut sides down. Cover and simmer gently until the pears are completely tender, about 10 minutes. Gently transfer the pears to a plate.
3. Raise the heat and boil the poaching liquid until it's reduced to a syrup (you'll have about 1/2 cup), about 30 minutes.
4. Serve each pear half with a scoop of ice cream and a drizzle of the syrup.
Nutrition facts per serving: 247 calories, 1g protein, 45g carbohydrate, 1g fat (0.5g saturated), 4g fiber
Evan Sklar
Dessert: Apple Pie with Walnut Crust
Prep time: 15 minutes
Cook time: 45 minutes
Makes: 8 servings
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/4 cup confectioner's sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, cubed and chilled
1/2 cup reduced-fat sour cream
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
5 Golden Delicious apples (2 1/2 pounds), peeled, cored and cut into 1/2-inch slices
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1. In a food processor, pulse the flour, walnuts, confectioner's sugar, salt, and cinnamon until the mixture resembles fine cracker crumbs. Add the butter and pulse until the mixture resembles oatmeal. Add the sour cream and vegetable oil and pulse until just combined.
2. Scoop the dough onto a piece of plastic wrap and press it into a disk. Wrap well and refrigerate for at least 1 hour and up to 3 days.
3. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. In a bowl, toss together the filling ingredients.
4. Cut the chilled dough in half and return half to the refrigerator. Roll out the other half between 2 sheets of plastic wrap to an 11-inch round. Peel off the top piece of plastic wrap and invert the rolled dough over an 8-inch glass pie plate. Place the filling in the pie plate.
5. Roll out the second half of the dough and gently lay it on top of the filling. Trim the overhanging dough to within 1/2 inch of the edge of the pie plate. Fold the edge of the dough over and crimp all around. Use a sharp knife to cut 4 vents in the top center of the pie.
6. Bake the pie until the apples are completely tender, about 45 minutes. Cover the edge of the crust with foil after 30 minutes if it is browning too quickly.
Nutrition facts per serving:
331 calories, 5g protein, 43g carbohydrate, 17g fat (4.9g saturated), 2g fiber
Evan Sklar
Dessert: Chocolate Drops with Pistachios and Cherries
Prep time: 15 minutes
Cook time: 8 minutes
Makes: 5 dozen cookies
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
3 egg whites
Small pinch salt
3/4 cup confectioner's sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup chopped bittersweet chocolate, melted and cooled
1/3 cup chopped dried cherries
1/3 cup chopped toasted pistachios
1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. In a small bowl, whisk together the cocoa and flour.
2. In a mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat the egg whites and salt at medium speed until frothy. With the mixer running, gradually add the confectioner's sugar. When all the sugar has been added, raise the speed to high and beat until the whites have a marshmallow-like consistency. Beat in the vanilla.
3. Reduce the speed to medium and beat in half the melted chocolate, then half the cocoa-flour mixture, scraping the side of the bowl. Repeat with the remaining chocolate and cocoa-flour mixture.
4. Fold in the cherries and pistachios; let the mixture sit until thick enough to scoop, about 5 minutes.
5. Scoop the cookie dough onto the cookie sheets by level teaspoonfuls, leaving about an inch between cookies. Bake 6 to 8 minutes, until the cookies are brown and crackled on the outside.
6. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheets for 1 minute, then transfer them to a wire rack. The cookies can be stored in an airtight container up to 1 week.
Nutrition facts per serving:
30 calories, 1g protein, 4g carbohydrate, 1.5g fat (0.7g saturated), 0g fiber
Evan Sklar
Dessert: Pear and Cranberry Crisp
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 1 hour
Makes: 6 to 8 servings
1/3 cup dried cranberries
2 pounds firm pears (4 large or 5 small pears), peeled, cored, and cut into 1/2-inch slices
2 tablespoons maple syrup
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup sliced almonds
1/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/4 cup brown sugar
3 tablespoons rolled oats
Pinch ground nutmeg
Small pinch salt
2 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cubed and softened
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Place the cranberries in a bowl and cover them with boiling water. Let soak until plump, about 15 minutes. Drain well.
2. Combine the almonds, whole wheat flour, brown sugar, oats, nutmeg, and salt in a food processor; pulse a few times. Add the butter and pulse until the mixture resembles granola.
3. In a 10-inch glass pie plate or baking dish, combine the drained cranberries with the pears, maple syrup, flour, and vanilla. Toss well. Scatter the topping over the fruit.
4. Bake the crisp until the topping is well browned, about 1 hour. Serve warm.
Nutrition facts per serving:
260 calories, 3g protein, 49g carbohydrate, 7g fat (3.3g saturated), 6g fiber
Originally published in FITNESS magazine, November/December 2009.


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^LoL suddenly, this song has crossed my mind
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The 2013 Nobel Prize in Chemistry: Karplus, Levitt and Warshel
Podcast Transcription
Steve Mirsky: Welcome to this third episode of our special Nobel Prize editions of Science Talk, the podcast of Scientific American. I'm Steve Mursky.
Staffan Normark: This year's prize is about taking the chemical experiment to cyberspace.
Steve Mirsky: Staffan Normark, Permanent Secretary of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences at a press conference in Stockholm that took place at 5:45 a.m. U.S. Eastern Time, this morning.
Staffan Normark: The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the 2013 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Professor Martin Karplus at Universite de Strasbourg, France, and Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA; and Professor Michael Levitt at Stanford University School of Medicine, California, USA; and Professor Arieh Warshel at University of Southern California, Los Angeles, USA.
And the academy citation runs for the development of multiscale models for complex chemical systems.
Steve Mirsky: Sven Lidin, the Chair of this year's Nobel Committee for Chemistry then gave a short summary.
Sven Lidin: Chemistry is an experimental science but today theoretical chemists are providing answers to questions concerning complex chemical reactions. Theoretical chemists are working together with experimentalists to help us understand the complex reactions in photosynthesis, how to design drugs to fit with their target molecules in the body, and how a catalyst works in your car or in chemical industry to model chemical reactions. You can use two completely different sites of physics and chemistry. That is the world of quantum physics and the world of classical physics.
Quantum physics allows us to look at chemical reactions in exquisite detail but it is a method that demands a lot in terms of computer power and for large complex systems it is beyond what is possible today and will remain impossible to reach even for the foreseeable future.
Classical Newtonian physics on the other hand is relatively easy to handle and can be used for very, very large systems indeed but these models have the drawback that they cannot model the making and breaking of chemical bonds, chemical reactions. The natural way to use the two is together and so what is needed is a way to find quantum mechanics and classical mechanics to shake hands.
Now actually handshaking isn't all that simple and the contributions from this year's laureates, Professor Martin Karplus, Professor Michael Levitt and Professor Arieh Warshel is that they have provided that secret handshake that brings theoretical chemistry together as one unit.
Staffan Normark: Thank you, Professor Lidin, and now Professor Gunnar Karlstrom, are you ready to give a more detailed presentation?
Gunnar Karlstrom: Well I don't know if anything more needs to be said but I'll try to do something anyway. This year's Nobel Prize laureates, they have done something extraordinary. They have actually made theory an equal partner to experiment.
For me as a theoretician this was unthinkable 20 years ago or so. We were always inferior to the experimentalists. They always knew what was right and we were always saying – we tried to stay with it but now today theory is actually an equal partner and why has that happened?
Well the reason is that today's chemistry is focused a lot on function and reactions, and these are issues which are hard for experimentalists to assess. Basically molecules are lazy creatures that – most of the time they don't do anything. They're just sitting around and doesn't do anything and then suddenly when they react everything goes quick like that and that's very hard to study experimentally because you look at it and nothing happens and then suddenly everything happens.
Theory doesn't suffer from this. Theory controls time, theory controls everything so we can make things do exactly what we want and in that way theory is an excellent complement to experiment and normally the experimentalist provides the structure to the theoretician and the theoretician, he analyzes the structure and he suggests reactions, mechanisms, so on; gives them back to the experimentalist who verifies or falsifies and gives back suggestions about new calculations that should be done, and together, they climb the never-ending stairs of chemical knowledge.
So what can we do with this type of modeling? Photosynthesis is something which is interesting to everybody. Can we solve the problem of photosynthesis? We have an infinite amount of energy available to us or new pharmaceuticals, the docking of a protein with a drug is an extremely important phenomenon; can we solve these problems in the computer, then we don't need to do any experiments on rats maybe, at least can do fewer.
The problem is quantum chemistry works with wave functions. Wave functions doesn't allow it to calculate position and velocity; position and speed at the same time, because that's the way quantum mechanics is. So you can't really make them work together, not easily, but this year's Nobel Prize laureates realized that if you treat some degrees of freedom using quantum mechanics and some degrees of freedom using classical mechanics then it may work if you provide a suitable coupling between the classical and quantum degrees of freedom.
The advantage of this is that you reduce the number of particles and when you reduce the number of particles simulations modeling is quicker. So it's all about making the calculations with the minimum needed effort but getting the maximum possible accuracy and this – for some type of application this is a very good model.
So what do we gain from this? We gain understanding. Understanding is something which cannot easily be provided by experiment but from the calculations that we do we can say why is this reaction proceeding, what is the reason for the reaction barrier, can we live with the barrier by some technique maybe, has it an electrostatic origin, does it require a lot of energy to bring direct and – I mean direct – to react molecules together maybe?
Okay, then maybe we could put something which facilitates that, some charged particle which facilitates that. So the immense success of this basically is that it gives us understanding and with that I think I should stop here and hopefully we have some of the laureates on the line.
Staffan Normark: We have Professor Warshel here with us on the phone. It's very early, 3:00 or so in Los Angeles. Are you there, Professor Warshel?
Arieh Warshel: Yes.
Staffan Normark: How do you feel at this very early morning time for you?
Arieh Warshel: Extremely well.
Staffan Normark: That's good to hear. I'm sitting here in the session hall of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and in front of me are --
Arieh Warshel: I see you.
Staffan Normark: Oh, you see us as well? Well we have a lot of persons from the media all over the world and are you willing to take some questions from them?
Arieh Warshel: Very glad to.
Staffan Normark: Do we have a question?
Arieh Warshel: Yes.
Staffan Normark: Please start there.
Question: Yes, hello Professor Warshel, my name is Maria Gunther Axelsson. I am writing for Swedish daily newspaper, Dagens Nyheter and we just had a presentation here on what you have done and could you just say something that have been easier to understand now that you couldn't understand before you had this?
Arieh Warshel: Usually I say it in a more complex way but what we've done from what I was able to see from the presentation of Gunnar is to develop methods that allow how things actually work because x-ray structure have been exist for some time and it's like seeing the watch and wondering how actually it works.
So in short what we develop is a way which require a computer to look, to take the structure of a protein and then to eventually understand how exactly it does what it does, like if you have an enzymes that digest food and the structure exists you want to understand how this is happening and then you could use it for example to design drugs or just, like in my case, to satisfy your curiosity.
Question: Hello, my name is Joanna Ross.
Arieh Warshel: Hello.
Question: I am writing for a Swedish popular science magazine, Forske Ramsteg. Congratulations for the prize. I am curious about what is the work that you are doing now.
Arieh Warshel: On one hand I continue to use this combined quantum molecular mechanics to understand how are things that are responsible to transfer signals in the cells, how they exactly work, so this is like 30 percent of what I am doing and I also use this simpler representation to understand how molecules – how molecular models work; to understand how very complex molecules are working.
So it's – all the time it's how these things are working and every time it's for a more complex question.
Staffan Normark: Thank you, once again, Professor Warshel and congratulations. We are looking forward all to see you here in Stockholm in December for the Nobel Prize Ceremony.
Arieh Warshel: Thank you very much in looking forward.
Steve Mirsky: Sven Lidin then spoke with Swedish Science Journalist, Joanna Ross. Sven Lidin, you mentioned that nowadays the chemistry is in the cyberspace. I thought it's far away. I thought that chemistry is just in laboratories.
Sven Lidin: Well of course, chemistry is an experimental science but what has happened over the past few years, it's really a fascinating development. When I was a young chemist theoreticians would come to us with ideas about how a system behaved and if they – if their predictions would scan with our experiments they would be happy.
If the two did not agree we were always sure that the theoreticians were wrong again. Today when theoreticians come with a prediction that we cannot prove is correct or disprove, well, normally we as experimentalists go back and check our experiments again because it may just as likely be we who are in the wrong today.
This is how far theoretical chemistry has come to become one of the tools, I would say, of experimental science because the sort of theoretical chemistry that this year's laureates have been laying the foundation for are simulations.
They're really numerical experiments that tell us a lot about how chemical systems work. So I would say to us theory has become the new experiments.
Joanna Ross: What happened then? What made the theory to be in this role now?
Sven Lidin: Definitely the contribution of this year's laureates is central to that because what they have done is marrying the two worlds of quantum physics and classical physics. Quantum physics will really provide us with all the answers that we could possibly look for. Quantum physics has the wonderful ability to stop time and to expand space so that we can look at the tiniest detail of a system and we can look at this during any fraction of time that we choose.
The problem is that the demands on computer power are immense and it's completely impractical to use this for any system of size. Therefore we have to use classical physics to describe the bulk of a system and it turned out that to marry these two is no simple matter. It really took a large concerted effort over a number of years to show that it was even possible which is, of course, what the laureates did.
Joanna Ross: Quantum physics is a lot about probabilities and statistics. Is this a difficulty?
Sven Lidin: Yes, quantum physics is one way of parameterizing the world. Classical mechanics is a completely different way of giving a model for basically the same system. Now one thing is that you can make the two and compare them and that works beautifully.
The problem is to take one part of a system and describe it in terms of quantum physics, and another part of the system and describe it in terms of classical physics.
You then have to find the correct boundaries to put between the two systems and to use the input from the classical mechanics as boundary conditions for the quantum mechanics and vice-versa.
And this means that we can look at systems of -- I shouldn't say any size -- but we can look at vastly more larger systems and more complicated systems, and this is of course what we need in order to understand the systems that chemists are studying today; huge supermolecular systems, biochemical molecules, large assemblies in material science, and all these disciplines use the theory that was – that was founded by our three laureates.
It is really a cross-disciplinary part of chemistry which goes into all the fields and enriches them.
Joanna Ross: Does it mean that if you don't have the theoretical model you don't really understand what's going on?
Sven Lidin: It's always a question of complexity. If you have a simple system you can get very dependable answers by using just experiment but experiment and theory go hand in hand. We need to understand why things happen, we need to understand what makes things happen and as Gunnar Karlstrom was explaining during his resume of the prize the real problem is that most chemical methods tell us about what things looked like before a reaction and what they look like after reaction.
There is a classical picture of this which is given in many textbooks of chemistry where a chemical reaction is likened to a piece of drama and if you go in and make the measurements before and after it's like seeing the actors before Hamlet and all the dead bodies after and then you wonder what happened in the middle, and actually there is some interesting action there and this is what theoretical chemistry provides us with, the whole dram.
Joanna Ross: Yeah, so you want to be in the eye of the storm, so to say?
Sven Lidin: Absolutely.
Joanna Ross: I understand but what are the possible applications of that? What are the benefits besides inside science?
Sven Lidin: I would say they're not possible. They are there already today. There is not a pharmaceutical company that doesn't have a theory division that works on trying to predict how a molecule will interact with the targets in the body.
This means that all development of new pharmaceuticals has a background in theory. When you are looking at devising new chemical reactions, when you are trying to create a new hard material or a new material with specific properties, if you want to optimize the electronic properties of material , the magnetic properties of material, you always start out with theory because it saves you so much time in the lab.
Now theory is not perfect. You still have to do the experiment but the predictions that theory make are becoming so much more powerful these days that we can perhaps save 90 percent of the experimenting and concentrate on the 10 percent where we know that the most important results, we like.
So we save a lot of money, we save a lot of time and we save a lot of effort by doing the theoretical homework first. It's like in the old days when everyone told you you have to read the literature now everyone will tell you you have to make the calculations.
Joanna Ross: So now you just sit by the computer instead of being in the lab most of the time?
Sven Lidin: Yes, there is some truth in that, although of course what happens is that we can now turn to evermore complex systems. We can always devise a system that is so complicated from the experimental point of view that theorists still are struggling to keep up with us.
Joanna Ross: You challenge them.
Sven Lidin: But on the other hand they keep challenging us. If you look at the physics prize for graphene, for example, now the extraordinary properties of graphene were predicted before by theorists.
This is why the experimentalists tried to make the material because it's no simple matter to make it. They tried to measure the properties because they knew that there was something interesting in there and they succeeded but it was all thanks to theory that someone even tried.
Joanna Ross: So theory and the experimental had to provide –
Sven Lidin: They really do.
[Music playing.]
[End of Audio]


text: Springfield's Eoghan Bees goes to the basket as St. Thomas' Will Burger goes up for a block on Tuesday in Salem. Throughout their undefeated Inter-Tri County League upper tier campaign, Springfield never had to contend with a defense like they faced from St. Thomas Aquinas in Tuesday night's Div. III district semifinal. Morning Journal/Patti Schaeffer


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Listen, the espresso machine was invented for a reason: to be "espress," a.k.a. fast (and, ironically, to replace the siphon and slow-brew.) Listen up, geeks: Drop the slow-brew renaissance and pick up the pace. We have work to get to.
Beware the presence of the $17,000 coffee machine. It's a lot like the fad of the $100 hamburger: The beef may be good and the press may love it (at least for a day), but if you order it, someone in public relations will be laughing at you. No one was actually supposed to buy it.
Beware the barista who goes techno-nerd on you when describing how he makes coffee: heat-surfing, pre-infusion profiling, tamp-dialing. Seriously, and how would you describe the act of opening a beer, liquid-load pressure breaching?
Super-geeks love to claim their coffee hails from single-origin Valhalla, unapproachable for any other roaster. Truth is, we live in the computer and commuter age; the world is tiny and coffee only comes from the small band around the middle. We all have access to the same beans.


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|Swift-Daley House built after Josias's time in 1741
|Nauset Lights, Eastham
Massachusetts Genealogy, With a Focus on Mayflower Families & Other Early Settlers of Plymouth & Barnstable Counties
|Swift-Daley House built after Josias's time in 1741
|Nauset Lights, Eastham
Thank you so much for this post. I was a little confused on Francis Cooke, but this cleared that right up. =)ReplyDelete
I'm glad to hear that. Thank you for your comment. ChrisReplyDelete
Thank you for sharing the family information. All I had on Josiah were dates and places. It is interesting to know about the real man.ReplyDelete
This is interesting. I recently found out that josias was my great x 6 grandfather. My birth name was harding.ReplyDelete
Thank you so much for all your information. Josiah is my 8x Great Grandfather, Joseph Harding my 7x, and Amaziah Harding my 6x, the Harding's continue to me until my Grandmother Margaret Jane Harding, she married Ernest Alfred Ward my Grandfather. I live in Baker City Oregon and not 20 miles from here is a descendant of Edward Doty a Mayflower Passenger. What is interesting is the fact that Josiah Cooke and Edward Doty got into a fight with each other on March 24, 1633. They were both fined six shillings eight pence for fighting and since Edward Doty drew first blood he had to reimburse Josiah three shillings four pence which was half his fine. I can't imagine the odds of descendants of those two men living just 20 miles away.
If anyone in that area has any family stories or any Cooke's or Harding's, or any descendants of William Ward 1603-1687my 8x Great Grandfather one of the founders of both Marlborough and Sudbury want to contact me my e-mail is firstname.lastname@example.com . Thanks for the info Cousin
Josiah Cook family married relation to Frances Cooke of Mayflower. While Josiah Cook was not related to Frances Cooke one of his descendants Obadiah Crowell Harding Married Maria Griswold Cook (descendant of Frances Cooke) creating a linage to the Mayflower.ReplyDelete
Josiah Cooke was my 10th great grandfather. I descend through two more Josiahs and a Jacob. I guess I can still claim Mayflower lineage through Deborah Hopkins who married the third Josiah in that line (my 8th great grandfather.) Neato!ReplyDelete


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Woman in iconic photo from Boston Marathon blast survives tragedy twice
LOWELL, Mass. -- Sydney Corcoran, pictured in one of the iconic images of the Boston Marathon blast, had already cheated death once.
While crossing a busy street at Salisbury Beach, Mass., in June 2011, Corcoran was struck by a car driven by a senior citizen. The accident left her with severe injuries, including a fractured skull.
But Sydney, 18, a Lowell High School senior bound for Middlesex Community College this fall, dug deep and fought to survive.
On Monday, shrapnel from one of the bombs that exploded during the Boston Marathon shredded both of Sydney's legs, leaving her with deep arterial injuries, her older brother, Tyler Corcoran said. He spoke during an interview Tuesday morning in the kitchen of the family's home in Lowell.
Sydney, with her mother, Celeste, and father Kevin, were in Boston to watch her aunt, Carmen Accabo, finish the storied event. Celeste, too, was struck by shrapnel, and had both legs amputated below the knee overnight, Tyler said.
Kevin suffered only minor injuries. He was at the Boston Medical Center bedsides of both his wife and daughter Tuesday, said his brother, Tim Corcoran, of Rhode Island.
"My brother is just heartbroken, just devastated," Corcoran said as he drove up Interstate 95 to be with his brother.
Like his uncle, Tyler was also heading to the hospital today to be with his father, mother and sister. Tyler had planned to be with his family at the finish line Monday, but the Middlesex Community College student was scheduled to meet with a study group.
"I was supposed to be there," said Tyler, fighting back tears. "I didn't even think this whole thing was real until my phone started ringing like crazy later in the afternoon."
The explosive devices were detonated seconds apart, several hundred feet west of the finish line near the Boston Public Library, both near the Boylston-Exeter streets intersection. It's unclear precisely where the Corcoran family stood. Tyler said his father described a surreal scene of gusts of wind generated by the blasts and "debris flying everywhere." Three people were killed, including an 8-year-old Dorchester boy, and nearly 200 were injured, many seriously.
"My father said everyone seemed in a daze. He looked down and saw my mom and her eyes were open. Once he realized she was alive, he noticed both her legs hanging on by skin. He asked a guy for a belt."
Tyler said her sister was just nearby. "Her legs were hit pretty bad," said Tyler.
"I thought we were done with traumatic events," added Tyler.


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Come out and taste our wines and enjoy the new Trattoria-patio café, while overlooking the vineyards.
Enjoy a tasting at our urban-inspired tasting room in the heart of historic Main Street, Fredericksburg
Enjoy a glass of wine inside or on our outdoor patio with a view of the courthouse! Exclusive Wine Club member lounge upstairs with views of the square.
Choose your tasting experience. Stand, sit or tour.
Relive the moment by enjoying wine at home. Purchase wines online and have it delivered to your door.
Experience the richness and texture of superior sparkling wine at our NEW tasting room opening Summer 2019.
All aboard the Grape Creek tram for a short ride through the vineyards to our state-of-the-art wine production complex and cellar.
Start planning your visit to Grape Creek Vineyards with these tips, rules, and suggestions.
Stout's Trattoria at Grape Creek Vineyards is open every day. Enjoy fine dining during the day, our dinner menu Friday and Saturday nights, or just a cheese tray from the side window.
A working vineyard and winery, the Grape Creek family grows estate grapes and vints and bottles all our wine at our Hwy 290 location.
Stroll through images of the property.
Learn about our Wine Club membership. Enjoy discounts on all our wines and at the Trattoria, special seating areas and more!
Available to Wine Club Members only, join the owner's clubs to try our select reserves.
A terroir that is rich in legacy beyond it's recent wine history.
Get the latest information on our wines, enjoy wine lifestyle ideas and even a little Wine 101.
Join us for signature wine club events, pairing experiences and weekend music.
Enjoy our wine tasting descriptions, compliments of Jeff's Corner.


text:
Stacy Keibler Teases About Dancing With The Stars All-Star Season (Video)
"You'll have to wait and find out", says Stacy Keibler so "coyly" when Hollyscoop asks if she's doing the next season of Dancing With The Stars!! Watch her below to see what I mean?
I think she's dancing. What do you think? 🙂


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Gubbins Earns Third Straight Shutout in Win over NYU-Poly
Farmingdale State - 2, NYU-Poly - 0
Brooklyn, N.Y. - The Farmingdale State men's soccer team (5-4-1, 4-1 Skyline) defeated NYU-Poly (5-6, 1-1 Skyline) 2-0, Saturday evening in Brooklyn, N.Y. The Rams have not allowed a goal in the last three games (3-0). Senior goalkeeper Patrick Gubbins (East Patchogue, N.Y./Bellport) has started all the games for Farmingdale over that span.
Junior forward Ryan Paul (Sayville, N.Y./Sayville) scored off the pass from freshman midfielder Joe Brantmeyer (Center Moriches, N.Y./Center Moriches) only 10 minutes into the contest, putting Farmingdale ahead 1-0. The Rams would take the 1-0 advantage into the locker room.
In the second, Brantmeyer scored an own goal off a corner kick at the 70:35 mark. Farmingdale would hold on for the 2-0 road victory.
Gubbins had six saves in goal for the Rams, while senior goalie Rob Petri (St. Louis, MO./St. John's Vianney) had five saves for NYU-Poly.
Farmingdale will travel to Purchase College for a Skyline Conference game on Tuesday, October 6th at 7:00pm.


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For the full itinerary and more chances to win, check the AUTHOR PAGE!
Join Romance Giveaways for all Giveaway Information
Nina Jade Singer, author of Secret of the Knight & Giveaways!
For the full itinerary and more chances to win, check the AUTHOR PAGE!
31 comments:
Hi Nina,ReplyDelete
Great to meet you at Nas'. Book Talk sounds like a fun thing to do :) I am all for introducing children to books! I was/am a bookworm myself (btw, my grandma named me that!)
And yeah, picking a single book out of so many is so tough :)
You had me at "Caribbean Island!" :-)ReplyDelete
I think your book sounds fun and intriguing.
My middle grade novel, The Christmas Village, came out this past fall, and I had a ball reading from it and talking with kids in the 3rd to 5th grades. They were SO engaged.
Hello Ju!ReplyDelete
You're back! I hope you enjoyed your vacation time? Thank you for coming along!
Hi Melissa,ReplyDelete
Congrats on your release! You do the most sweetest thing ever- writing for young ones! And then connecting with them by reading to them. Thank you for coming along!
This book sounds great!ReplyDelete
Hi, Nina,ReplyDelete
The island/supernatural/suspense angle makes this sound like an intriguing read.
Hi Chey, thank you!ReplyDelete
Hello Joy, it is an intriguing book! Thanks for coming along!
Hello Nas. Hello Nina Jade. This was great. I loved hearing about your school experience. Nothing like seeing children delving into books.ReplyDelete
Did I wish you a happy New Year yet Nas? If I didn't, have a great 2012 and may we continue to enjoy our interaction.
Hi Nina, your books sounds intriguing.ReplyDelete
I love the sound of getting kids excited about reading. :-)
Hi Nina,ReplyDelete
Your book sounds FABULOUS!! I can't wait to read it! And I'm looking forward to having you as my special guest on my own blog tomorrow! All arranged by the lovely Nas.
I'm becoming intrigued by this book the more I read about it. In paranormal romance, how much importance does one give to the main characters? I would imagine that the paranormal world is the main work of the author rather than the characters? Am I wrong?ReplyDelete
Hi Ju,ReplyDelete
I've also been called a bookworm by some of those closest to me! Thanks for you comment.
Hi Melissa.ReplyDelete
I'm so glad you stopped by. Congrats on your release of the Christmas Village recently.
Hey NasReplyDelete
Thanks for having me today!
HI CheyReplyDelete
I'm so glad you stopped by and thanks for the lovely comment!
Hi JLReplyDelete
Thank you for stopping by. I'm so glad you think the book sounds intriguing.
Hi Denise,ReplyDelete
It really was something to watch those kids talk about books. I'm so glad you stopped by to read the post and commented.
Hi MishaReplyDelete
Thanks for stopping by and reading the post. I appreciate your comment.
Hi SerenaReplyDelete
I'm looking forward to being your guest tomorrow. Thanks for stopping by!
Hi MariaReplyDelete
Interesting question. I guess I don't see writing paranormal as all that different in terms of character than say contemporary. I try to make my characters come alive in the worlds I've placed them in. And then I throw a bunch of stuff at them to deal with. Mine happen to have to deal with witches, vampires, and sorceresses. Hope that makes sense!!
Thank you for stopping by!
Congratulations on your book release, Nina!ReplyDelete
I taught elementary school for almost 20 years. Book Talk was always my favorite part of the week. The excitement certain books caused was fantastic. I loved it when a book would be passed around the class based on Book Talk recommendations.
I'm halfway through reading Secrets of the Knight and I have to say I'm truly loving it. I love the atmosphere, the characters and the whole story.ReplyDelete
Hi Sharon,ReplyDelete
Wow. Twenty years of teaching. Kudos! Thanks for stopping by and commenting on the post.
Hi LyndaReplyDelete
Thank you! I'm so glad you're enjoying Secrets!
Hi Nina and Nas. Nina, your book sounds fabulous. Am just about to fire up my Kindle. I wish you wonderful sales on your debut novel.ReplyDelete
Good luck with it, Nina! An intriguing cover, and the story line sounds fascinating, too. Is it related to voodoo?ReplyDelete
Hi Helen,ReplyDelete
Thanks for stopping by and for the lovely comments!
Hi Azarimba,ReplyDelete
Thank you for reading the post. There are definitely voodoo elements in Secrets. I appreciate the comment!
Hi Nina.ReplyDelete
I loved reading your Secret's of The Knight!
It had all the elements I like- mystery, thrill, adventure and romance!
Thank you.
Congratulations on your book release, Nina! And ooh, you're braving, giving a talk in front of a crowd. Kids or adults, I could never do it :-)ReplyDelete
- AnonymousJanuary 14, 2012 at 5:54 AM
Youre so right. Im there with you. Your blog is definitely worth a read if anybody comes throughout it. Im lucky I did because now Ive obtained a whole new view of this. I didnt realise that this issue was so important and so universal. You absolutely put it in perspective for me.ReplyDelete
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By Danny Smith
A standing room only crowd witnessed a game for the ages Friday night as the Appling County Pirates traveled to Barnesville and defeated the Region 4AA Champion Lamar County Trojans 35-33 in quadruple overtime in Round Three of the state high school football playoffs. As expected, it was a tough, hard-fought contest between two evenly matched teams. Lamar County came into the game with a record of 12-0, averaging nearly 32 points per game in the playoffs. Appling County came into the game as a slight underdog despite an impressive win the week before against unbeaten and number five ranked North Oconee High School.
[Full Story »]


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Cooking for two presents a challenge, especially since I'm accustomed to cooking for a large crowd. Cutting down to accommodate only my husband and me is not always easy. Leftovers are not always appreciated, especially if served a few days in a row. One way is to cook lesser portions, using smaller pots that leave no leftovers. Another solution is to cook double and freeze half that can be served on a different occasion. This can free up valuable time for more pleasurable activities.
Here are some easy gourmet suggestions for those cooking for two.
Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms
Portobello mushrooms have become popular in the last few years. They are extremely versatile and can be stuffed with a variety of grains or mixed vegetables. Served with a salad they are almost a full meal.
4 large Portobello mushrooms
4 thick slices tomato
2 ¾ Tbs (34 mL) mozzarella or other grated cheese
1/3 clove minced garlic
Salt to taste
Remove stems (save for another use).and clean out the gills from Portobello mushrooms. Chop garlic until fine (use powdered garlic if you wish) Mix cheese and garlic together.
To assemble:
Place Portobello mushrooms with cleaned surface up, stuff with a slice of tomato, cheese garlic and salt mixture. Broil until cheese melts. Serve immediately.
Preparation 20 minutes
Serves 2.
Variation: To keep it parve use Tofutti cream cheese, and pareve cheese slices.
Quick Basmati Rice Pilaf
Basmati rice a very aromatic rice that is available in white or whole grain. It has a nutty flavor and a wonderful aroma that entices the appetite, as it wafts through the house. Brown rice has more fiber, fatty acids, B vitamins, and magnesium (among other vitamins and minerals) than does white rice and its dense, chewy texture is great in salads, soups, stuffing and casseroles. When combined with sunflower seeds it is considered a full protein. Turmeric is an exceptionally healthy spice. Basmati rice is one of my favorite rice choices.
2 tsp (10 mL) canola oil
¼ cup (50 mL) carrots, diced
½ cup (75 mL) fresh or frozen peas
¼ cup (50 mL) onions, diced
2/3 cup (150 mL) Basmati rice
½ cup toasted sunflower seeds
½ tsp each of Turmeric, Cumin, Paprika (optional)
2 cups water or 2 ½ times as much water as the rice.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Toast sesame seeds in a baking pan for 8 minutes, making sure they do not burn. Remove from oven and set aside.
In saucepan, cook carrot and onion in oil until softened, 4 minutes. Stir in rice. Add water or chicken broth if you prefer then bring to boil. Reduce heat, add spices cover and simmer until tender and no liquid remains, about 40 minutes. Lastly add sunflower seeds and mix well.
Serve with a tossed salad for a nourishing meal.
Preparation 15 minutes +cooking time
Serves 2
Chicken in sweet pepper sauce
When cooking for two I like to use common ingredients that are readily available. I try to choose dishes that do not require much preparation and can be ready in a minimum amount of time. This recipe fits all these criteria.
2 - 4 ounce (125 grams) skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
3 Tbs corn starch or whole wheat pastry flour
¼ tsp salt
¼ tsp pepper
2 Tbs oil
½ cup chicken broth or water
¼ cup chopped sweet yellow pepper
¼ cup red peppers
¼ cup diced tomatoes
1 Tbs minced fresh cilantro (optional)
Flatten chicken to 1/4-in. thickness. Cut chicken into 2 inch pieces or leave them whole. In a large resealable plastic bag, combine the corn starch/flour, salt and pepper; add chicken and shake to coat. In a large skillet, brown chicken in oil on both sides. Stir in the broth/water, and peppers. Bring to a boil; cook for 5 minutes or until liquid is reduced by half. Stir in the tomato and cilantro. Cook another 10 minutes until dish is well blended.
Serve over a bed of rice pilaf and decorate with some cilantro leaves.
Preparation 25 minutes
Serves 2
Creamy Broccoli Alfredo
This dish is the perfect choice when you need supper really quick. It takes just a few minutes to make and tastes great. A super winner for two.
4 ounces Buckwheat, whole wheat, or spelt pasta (or your favorite choice)
3 cups water
½ tsp salt
1 cup frozen broccoli florets
2 Tbs Tofutti cream cheese or sour cream
1 Tbs Osem mushroom soup
Boil up water add pasta and al dente 6-8 minutes, as per package directions. To save a step put in broccoli florets into the same pot and cook an additional 5 minutes. Add all other ingredients and simmer for another 5 minutes blending all ingredients well. Serve immediately.
Preparation 10 minutes
Serves 2
Mixed Berry Cobbler
2 cups mixed fresh berries (strawberries, blueberries, raspberries)
1/2 cup plus 3 Tbs sugar, divided
1 Tbs. cornstarch
¼ tsp ground cinnamon
½ cup water
1 Tbs lemon juice
¾ cups unbleached white flour
½ tsp baking powder
½ cup Almond Breeze or Rice Dream
HEAT oven to 375°F.
PLACE berries in two oversize cupcake foil pan sprayed with cooking spray.
Mix ½ cup sugar, corn starch and cinnamon in large saucepan; stir in water and lemon juice. Bring to boil on medium-high heat, stirring constantly. Pour over berries in baking dish; set aside.
STIR flour and baking powder, remaining sugar and Almond breeze or Rice Dream until mixture forms soft dough. Drop by heaping tablespoonfuls over fruit mixture.
BAKE 28 to 30 min. or until topping is golden brown. Cool slightly. Serve in martini goblets. Tastes great warm or cold.
Instead of berries, any summer fruit combination can be used. Simple and delicious.
Preparation 20 minutes
Serves 2


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The Oldmans
Kevin Oldman has researched his ancestry back seven generations to Henry Oldman, who appeared in Kentucky in 1820 from nowhere.
Bubba Oldmann has researched his ancestry back seven generations to Thomas Oldman, who also appeared in Kentucky from nowhere in 1820.
Thomas and Henry Oldman lived in the same Kentucky county in 1820 and 1830, but their listing on those two population census schedules are the only documents on which they appear together. Their farms are in the same township, but not adjacent. After 1830, Henry leaves Kentucky for Indiana. Thomas dies in Kentucky. No record ties them together other than the census. There's no hint they were related other than their enumerations in the same census district in 1820 and 1830.
Kevin and Bubba learn of each other through the internet and discover that they are potentially related through a common Oldman ancestor. They speculate that Henry and Thomas are most likely brothers or first cousins.
Kevin and Bubba decide to have a y-DNA test performed to determine if they share a common male ancestor. The test indicates that Kevin and Bubba do not have a common strict paternal line ancestor. Kevin and Bubba conclude that Henry and Thomas are not related based upon the test results. They continue to compare research notes, but are left convinced they are researching different Oldman lines. After all, if Henry and Thomas were related through a paternal ancestor, it would have showed up on the y-DNA test Kevin and Bubba took wouldn't it?
There's something Kevin does not know.
Kevin's ancestor, Clueless Oldman (son of Henry), thinks he was the father of all the children his wife had. Clueless is not aware of the fact that during his marriage his wife had an ongoing relationship with an unmarried neighbor. During her lifetime, the wife was relatively certain that the neighbor was actually the father of two of her children and not Clueless. One of those children Clueless' wife had with the neighbor is Kevin's Oldman ancestor.
So "technically" Kevin's not really and Oldman at all--that's what the paper trail says, but it's not the biological reality. Kevin is not actually a descendant of Henry Oldman.
And it turns out that Henry and Thomas Oldman were indeed brothers.
Bubba Oldman and Kevin Oldman are not related--because Clueless Oldman didn't father all his supposed children. And that has nothing to do with whether or not Henry Oldman and Thomas Oldman were brothers.
The Inverse
Readers with a mathematical or logical bent, may notice that there's a logical fallacy at work here. The original statement is:
- If Kevin and Bubba share a common ancestor, then Thomas and Henry are related.
- If Kevin and Bubba share a common ancestor, then Thomas and Henry are not related.


text:
Alabama to Latino immigrants: No room at the inn
In the wake of a harsh new immigration law, the popular devotions of a small Alabama parish mirror the new fears and hardships of its members.
Last December's Posadas and Our Lady of Guadalupe celebrations were different at St. Mary's Church in Opelika, Alabama. Over the past 11 years the small Catholic parish in east central Alabama has seen a steady growth in the attendance at its Spanish Masses, and for several years now the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe (December 12) and the Posadas (the nine-day pre-Christmas processions during which the search for shelter by Joseph and the pregnant Mary is reenacted) have been annual highlights that its many Latino parishioners look forward to.
But two and a half months after Alabama's harsh new immigration law—known as HB 56—took effect, the parish decided it had to take some new precautionary steps before the most recent celebrations.
Vincentian Father Jack Kane, the pastor, says the parish decided to keep the procession that follows its outdoor Mass for the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe shorter than in previous years. Mindful that HB 56 requires police to follow up on any "reasonable suspicion" and determine a person's legal status—a provision that encourages racial profiling of Latinos—Kane says, "We didn't want to do anything big, so as not to call attention."
The Posadas involve different families hosting the celebrations on the nine nights before Christmas. "This year we did not want to have big celebrations with overflowing crowds that could not fit into a trailer," Kane says. "A neighbor, not understanding Spanish or knowing what it was all about, might call the police about a 'disturbance' in the trailer camp. Parishioners that lived in an area that might be more English-speaking would sponsor the gathering that night, but they would bring the food to the parish hall. That's the first time we've ever done that."
As parishioners held their Posadas, it brought home how the increasingly inhospitable and hostile treatment many of them experience today mirrors the "no room at the inn" treatment Mary and Joseph received in Bethlehem.
The traditional Posadas song, which is sung as the parishioners process from house to house asking for lodging, includes the plea from the pilgrims to the shelter-refusing "innkeeper": "Do not be cruel. Have mercy on us, for God in the heavens will come to reward you."
The sung response from inside the "inn" seems like an eerie precursor of HB 56 and the anti-immigrant sentiments Latinos encounter today: "You can just leave now and bother me no more. For if I get angry, I will come out and strike you."
Abel Carrias, a leader in the parish's Hispanic ministry committee, says, "This year several immigrants commented on how much they personally identified with the Posadas and how they related it to the difficulties they face because of the immigration law. One of the members mentioned that during this time he finds solace in the birth of our Savior, who is always there to comfort everyone, regardless of nationality."
According to Kane, who also serves as the vicar for Hispanic ministry in the Archdiocese of Mobile, Alabama, the controversial new law has instilled widespread fear among the state's Hispanic population. Along with thousands of other Latinos, several St. Mary's families have left the state "out of fear," says Kane, "because of the school regulations and fear that they could be deported and would have to leave their children behind. So they took themselves out of that situation."
The requirement that public schools determine students' and parents' legal status was among the most extreme provisions of HB 56. Last fall it was temporarily blocked, along with other provisions such as a broad one against knowingly "concealing, harboring, or shielding" an undocumented immigrant. Mobile Archbishop Thomas Rodi had condemned that part of the law, saying it would "make illegal the exercise of our Christian religion."
Kane can't help but comment on what he calls the "stupidity of the law," with some parts of the law being so absurd, he says, that in December even Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley had to acknowledge that it would need to be changed.
The fact that the state's economy is now feeling the impact of the law has led political leaders to reassess what they have wrought. "In northern Alabama the tomato crop went to waste," says Kane, "and I've heard they are now importing tomatoes to the region from Tennessee."
The majority of St. Mary's Latino parishioners work in construction and landscaping. Some estimate that one in four construction workers has left Alabama, severely hampering the reconstruction after last year's devastating tornadoes.
More recently the situation has somewhat quieted down, according to Kane, and police chiefs have stated they don't have the resources to enforce the law. Kane says that, although the general expectation now is that the law will be reassessed, "No one knows what it is going to be changed to, and so some fear remains."
He adds, "The other day I invited a young man I know very well to a Cursillo retreat in March. His response was, 'It depends if I'm still here.' Their whole life is up in the air. It must be very hard to live that way."
Carrias says that after the first group of parish families left right after the new immigration law took effect, others who initially were terrified "are still thinking of leaving but at the moment have adopted a wait-and-see approach. . . . Life has definitely changed for immigrants around here," Carrias reports. "For example, people have told me they are avoiding leaving their homes unless they have to, or they make one single trip to do laundry, buy groceries, and cash their checks. People are avoiding driving at night. Many no longer take their kids out to the movies, sports activities, or restaurants."
Kane has focused his ministry in the parish on providing a welcoming home for the area's Latino population, while also trying to bring the English- and Spanish-speaking parish communities together. "One of the things the Hispanic population really needed was a sense that this was their parish, because nothing else would give them that," he says. St. Mary's is the only Catholic church in the area that offers Mass in Spanish every Sunday, and parishioners travel to the parish from far away.
"Not only does the church fulfill the spiritual needs of the Hispanics," Carrias explains, "it also provides a platform for people to get to know others, to find support, and to share information." The parish's Hispanic ministry includes not only liturgy and sacramental preparation, religious education, Cursillos, retreats, and Bible classes, but also question-and-answer sessions with immigration lawyers, an annual health fair, English classes, and assistance with translating and filling out forms.
"We would like to provide a lot more services," says Carrias, "but our church is small, and it has been a bit challenging to get funding to provide additional support for those in need."
This article appeared in the March 2012 issue of U.S. Catholic (Vol. 77, No. 3, pages 18-21).
Image: Wes Frazer


text:
The OWASP Top 10 is a list of the most common vulnerabilities found in web applications. It provides software development and application delivery guidelines on how to protect against these vulnerabilities. The list is not focused on any specific product or application, but recommends generic best practices for DevOps around key areas such as role validation and application security. A web application firewall provides a key component for protection against the vulnerabilities identified in the OWASP Top 10 when implemented as part of a wider application security project. The Kemp Web Application Firewall Pack (AFP) provides protection beyond these core vulnerabilities by offering a subscription to a continuously updated set of rules that not only address the OWASP Top 10, but also offers protection for application specific vulnerabilities. The use of a subscription ensures that protection is automatically provided against the latest vulnerabilities for the widest possible number of applications. The Kemp AFP also plays into the defense in-depth approach to information security by providing a layer of application security to complement the built-in IPS (intrusion protection) and TLS (SSL) offload services.
The vulnerabilities identified in the OWASP Top 10 are as follows:
|OWASP Vulnerability
A1: Injection
This is when an attacker sends rogue content to a web application interpreter causing the interpreter to execute authorized commands.
A2: Broken Authentication & Session Management
Incorrect implementation of authentication schemes and session management can allow unauthorized users to assume the identities of valid users.
A3: Cross Site Scripting (XSS)
This is when a browser unknowingly executes scripts to hijack sessions or redirect to a rogue site.
A4: Insecure Direct Object References
An attacker can access a reference to a file or directory and manipulate that reference to gain unauthorized access to other objects.
A5: Security Misconfiguration
This is a very wide catch-all section that covers a variety of scenarios, including the application of latest security patches, default enablement of unnecessary features and the use of default accounts.
A6: Sensitive Data Exposure
Sensitive data such as credit card numbers and tax ID must be protected both in-transit and at rest.
A7: Missing Function Level Access Control
Preventing access to an application function in a browser is not sufficient and authorization checks should also be applied at the server.
A8: Cross Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
This attack sends forged requests to the vulnerable application from the authenticated client browser.
A9: Use of Components with Known Vulnerabilities
Third-party libraries and frameworks used in application development may have known vulnerabilities that compromise the overall application security.
A10: Unvalidated Redirects and Forwards
Without proper validation, users may be redirected to malicious websites.


text:
For months, I have warned about the possibility that Connecticut could be identified as an alternative venue for the trial of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.Yikes! You mean an accused murderer might actually be held accountable for his alleged crimes? Yes, that would be terrible! (sarcasm, in case you couldn't figure it out)
Today's report confirming that the White House is considering such a move should be extremely troubling to Connecticut's political leadership. As New York finally realized, the costs and security risks that come with such a trial are enormous, and Connecticut is in no position to assume them any more than Manhattan.Of course Mr. Simmons leaves out the little fact that the US Government is going to pay for security, and the trial will likely bring much needed economic benefits to our state.
KSM is responsible for the deaths of nearly 3,000 Americans in an act of war against our country. He should be tried in an offshore military tribunal where he belongs.Uh, ignoring the silly "KSM" thing for a second (why does it bring the image of fried chicken in a bucket to mind?), the reason President Obama wants to move the trial onto US soil is so we can FINALLY get around to delivering the justice to Mohammed that has thus far eluded him and the mourning families of the 9/11 victims! If military tribunals are so goddamned swell, how come they haven't already convicted the guy?
Because there is obviously some kind of problem with the tribunal system. There are hundreds of enemy combatants being held indefinitely at Gitmo for the simple reason that the military doesn't want anything to DO with holding tribunals, which may expose them for mistakes they might have made.
And here we are, going into our ninth year after the terrorist attack, why is it at all surprising that a Republican goes back to the well once again and serves up a nice bucket-full of fear to the citizens?
Even Rudy Giuliani was for domestic trials before he was against them. What changed?
Obviously, the answer is "the party of the President". With that little development, we've suddenly seen the Republicans go from a gung-ho, anti-terrist, hang-em-high, frontier-style lynch mob to a bunch of scared, weak-willed, lily-livered, pants-wetting crybabies!
Hell, I'll be thrilled about finally getting some justice for 9/11. If they decided to hold the trial right here in the Milford Superior Court, I'd get in line each morning at 2AM to try and get a seat in the courtroom! I'm sure there will be a lot of empty chairs available that would have gone to Republicans, if they weren't so busy hiding under their beds!
The entire text of the press release is here.
Nice going, Rob. You're really lowering the bar for your party.
You know what else he's scared of?


text:
The mayor of Boston has ordered the city to "fire up the duck boats" for the New England Patriots victory parade following the team's come-from-behind, 34-28, overtime win over the Atlanta Falcons.
Democratic Mayor Marty Walsh took to Twitter late Sunday night to offer his congratulations "to the greatest team, the greatest coach and the greatest quarterback of all time."
Walsh says a parade celebrating their championship will be held Tuesday at 11 a.m. He says the Pats "have made Boston and New England proud."
The Patriots, Red Sox, Celtics and Bruins have all celebrated championships in recent years by climbing aboard duck boats, amphibious vehicles that are normally used to show tourists around town.
This is the Patriots fifth Super Bowl win.
The MBTA will maintain rush-hour levels of service on all subway lines beginning at approximately 9 a.m. Government Center Station will be closed beginning at 9:30 a.m. with Blue and Green Line trains bypassing the station.
Customers are encouraged to purchase round-trip fare in advance to avoid long lines.
If you're going, better bring a raincoat. Rain is all but guaranteed, with temperatures in the mid 30s and a cold wind from the east-northeast.


text:
Calling all EX members
The Reay Youth Club are searching for its past members to gauge interest regarding celebrating the clubs 50 years in operation. The club first started in the Manse in Reay on 15th Feb 1964 led by Rev Ian Cameron, moving then to the Drill hall with Dick Warner and then to the Victoria Hall when I took over. Many members and leaders have benefited through the years by being involved in training courses,club events, outings, concerts and dances. We would like to hear from you all to reminisce about what happened back then. Please contact me with your stories, photos and memories so we can collate them. Don Forbes RYC Chairman and leader on 01847811402 or firstname.lastname@example.com 4 the Terrace, Reay, Caithness, KW147RQ.


text:
[Samui hotels]
中 文
日 本
Mercure Koh Samui Beach Resort ( Fenix )
26/1-3 Moo 3, T. Maret
Koh Samui, Suratthani 84310
Lamai Beach
Hotel category:
Traveler ratings
Summary of 8 reviews :
Room :
Facilities :
Service :
Location :
Mercure Koh Samui Beach Resort ( Fenix ) - is a beautiful 3-storey hotel complex featuring 52 rooms and 8 villas on the southern end of Lamai Beach. All rooms are equipped with most modern facilities, including tea & coffee maker, hair dryer, satellite TV LCD with DVD player, wireless internet and of course a bathroom with shower. Most of the superior rooms have sea view and you can choose between double bed or twins beds.
Wether you opt for a day at the beach, a boat trip around the island or to just hang out at the lovely free form swimming pool, pamper yourself in the restaurant and burn the calories in the gym – all is right here on spot to make sure you have a great holiday.
Hotel summary
Rates & Reservation
Pictures & Facilities
Travel reviews
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Travel reviews for Mercure Koh Samui Beach Resort ( Fenix )
Date of stay:
Aug 26, 2017
Accommodation and facilities:
This hotel is to be avoided if there are more than 2 people staying. The customer service is to be questioned. On our stay here we asked for one extra blanket and one extra towel on our arrival. We had children in our room. It is the perogative of hotels around the world to fulfil a request like this as some people need more bedding than others. To our request they said that they didn t have any spare blankets or towels in the hotel. .. this I found very strange as I have family who own hotels and they have to provide extra blankets on request. They took the stance of wanting to charge us 25 pounds sterling per day to get the extra blanket. ... very shocking and petty. I would avoid this hotel if you take children as the management are very petty and will take money off you whenever they can. .. they are almost like thieves!
Reservation service:
Aug 29, 2017
written by:
yogesh patel
Date of stay:
Mar 08, 2016
Accommodation and facilities:
Bra, lugnt prisvärt hotell. Stor fin pool. Fint läge en bit utanför centrum på egen strand. Hotellet ordnar gratis transport till och från Lamai centrum varje dag, tar ca 5-10 minuter en väg. Tyvärr så är stranden inte så badvänligt då det kommer in mycket skräp från havet som ligger kvar, hotellet städar dock sin stranremsa varje dag. Mycket vänlig och hjälpsam personal. Rekommenderar detta hotell om man vill besöka Lamai men inte vill bo mitt i smeten .
Reservation service:
Mar 11, 2016
written by:
Nicklas Johansson
Date of stay:
Dec 30, 2013
Accommodation and facilities:
I think the overall stay at the Fenix resort was excellent.
Reservation service:
Jan 04, 2014
written by:
Christopher Manfred Chan
Date of stay:
Dec 29, 2013
Accommodation and facilities:
Super Hotel! Wir haben eine Villa gebucht,waren sehr zufrieden! Würde dieses Hotel nur weiter empfehlen.Weiter so!
Reservation service:
Vielen Dank!
Jan 04, 2014
written by:
Date of stay:
Nov 18, 2013
Accommodation and facilities:
The view is very good, hotel staff very nice. But the ground of swimmingpoor is not safety, hurt my foot and make my toe bleed.
Reservation service:
Dec 10, 2013
written by:
Xin Zhou
Date of stay:
Sep 27, 2013
Accommodation and facilities:
Reservation service:
Oct 02, 2013
written by:
Jing Chen
Date of stay:
Nov 17, 2012
Accommodation and facilities:
Very Relaxing & Quiet Hotel with spacious room & huge comfortable King Size Bed. Nice View from the room can see pool & private beach. The best thing is just 5 min walk to grandfather grandmother Rock where also can find lots of local sovenior shop to bring home. The Seafood Restaurant,SABIANGLAY, serve nice Seafood in very nice scenery, cozy environment. And the price is actually reasonable for the kind of food & place you can find in Koh Samui. The hotel also provide free shuttle to Lamai city where you can find more food, massage services, soveniour shops around. Ya, the last thing I must mention is the Tour Service Counter at the hotel. The lady really provides good service & information for good tour packages. Really appreciated her. We really enjoy our stay in Koh Samui & bring back lots of good memories...
Reservation service:
So far so good with the booking. But for more details on Hotel Rules & policies are better to contact hotel directly.
Nov 22, 2012
written by:
Woon Kia Yee
Date of stay:
Nov 11, 2012
Accommodation and facilities:
Good Hotel, good rooms, cleaning rooms every day, large pool, food not so good (we enjoy only pizza and wine :)), beach not so good (rocks and shells, i damage my foot), place is good too (many shops and restaraunts around)
Reservation service:
Nov 19, 2012
written by:
Andrey Rusanov
THB ฿ Thailand
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The 4 star of
Mercure Koh Samui Beach Resort
is located on famous Lamai Beach, Samui Island's second largest resort area after Chaweng Beach. Boasting an idyllic beachfront location and incredible view, the modern and trendy Mercure Samui Fenix has it all, Situated on Lamai Beach.
Just a 30 minute drive from Samui Airport this peaceful resort offers the best in Modern Thai hospitality, with contemporary rooms and villas. Relax by the pools, chill out in the bar and restaurant or explore the famous Miracle rock (Grand Father and Mother Rock).
Mercure Samui Fenix offers
52 Superior rooms and 8 Villas
. The Superior Sea View rooms are located on the upper floors facing the ocean, while the villas provide an extra dose of privacy.
:: Superior Room ::
Superior Room is 32 sq.m. in size and offers a great view of delightful flora and tropical garden. All the rooms in this category have a spacious private balcony and in - room amenities such as TV with satellite channels, in-room mini-bar, coffee & tea making facilities, electronic safe, beach bag and also en - suite bathroom with rain shower. Superior Rooms are available in King or Twin sized beds.
In Room Amenities
Private balcony
Individual controlled air - conditioning
IDD telephone
Wi-Fi & cable internet access
Writing table with chair
TV with satellite channels
In - room safety box
Complimentary coffee / tea making facilities
Fridge with fully stocked mini - bar
Beach bag
Shower cubicle with rain shower
Bathroom amenities
Electronic door locks
Peep hole
Door latch
Fire escape plan
Smoke detector
Fire sprinkler
:: Superior Seaview ::
The Superior Sea View is 32 sq.m. in size and is the perfect choice for those who love to view the beauty of sea. It boasts panoramic pool and sea view. The Superior Sea View also features all the mod - cons such as TV with satellite channels, in - room mini - bar, coffee & tea making facilities, electronic safe, beach bag, en - suite bathroom with rain shower & a private balcony. Available in King or Twin sized beds.
In Room Amenities
Private balcony
Individual controlled air - conditioning
IDD telephone
Wi-Fi & cable internet access
Writing table with chair
TV with satellite channels
In - room safety box
Complimentary coffee / tea making facilities
Fridge with fully stocked mini - bar
Beach bag
Shower cubicle with rain shower
Bathroom amenities
Electronic door locks
Peep hole
Door latch
Fire escape plan
Smoke detector
Fire sprinkler
:: One Bedroom Villa ::
For those who seek for more space and privacy, the One Bedroom Villa offers a 42 sq.m. sized room, with a private 10 sq.m. terrace with sun beds, easy access to the swimming pool, TV with satellite channels, in - room mini - bar, coffee & tea making facilities, iPod dock, DVD player, spacious bathroom with rain shower and much more. Available in Queen sized bed.
In Room Amenities
Individual controlled air-conditioning
IDD telephone
Wi-Fi & cable internet access
Writing table with chair
TV and satellite channels
iPod dock
DVD players
In - room safety box
Coffee maker
Complimentary coffee / tea making facilities
Fridge with fully stocked mini - bar
Bathrobes and slippers
Beach bag
Shower cubicle with rain shower
Bathroom amenities
Electronic door locks
Door latch
Fire escape plan
Smoke detector
Fire sprinkler
Hotel Layout
:: NEST Restaurant ::
Main Restaurant offering all day dining & drinking serving international, Thai cuisine with seafood and special healthy & Vegetarian Menus, Private Beach Dinner also your diet plans is available on request. Open daily: 06.00 - 23.00 hrs.
:: Beach Bar ::
Relax by the Beach Bar with magnificent sea view and enjoy your light meal and refreshment drinking. Happy hour Buy 1 Get 1 Free 18.00 - 19.00, 21.00 - 22.00 hrs. daily. Open daily: 09.00 - 19.00 hrs.
:: Room Service ::
From 06:00 - 24:00 hrs. (Daily)
Function Room
Area (sq.m.)
Height (m)
Class Room
U - Shape
Fenix Meeting Room
30 sq.m.
2.6 m.
:: Meeting Equipment ::
Flip Chart
Standard Meeting Equipment
Meeting room rental Free of charge
:: Hotel Facilities ::
Pool Bar
Coffee Shop
Business corner
Conference / Meeting Room
Facilities for the Disabled (Superior Room)
Luggage Storage
Beach Bar
Restaurant Thai / International
:: Hotel Services ::
Airport Transfer
Baby Cot Available
Beach B.B.Q Dining
Credit cards accepted: Visa, Master, AMEX,
Dinner's club, JCB International
Free Drinking water and welcome drink
for all room type
Currency Exchange
Doctor on call
Fax Service
Laundry Service
Reception24 hrs.
Security 24 hrs
Free Shuttle service to Lamai City
(As per schedule)
Room Service
Taxi Service
Tour Desk
Vegetarian Food
Wake Up Call
Weddings (Faraway, Organizer)
Free Unlimited Wi-Fi for all room types
:: Leisure & Sports at Hotel ::
Kayak for rent
Car for rent
Children's Pool
Fruit Carving Class
Free GYM and Fitness usage for whole stay
Motorbike for rent
Snorkeling Equipment
Swimming Pool Outdoor
Table Tennis
Thai Cooking Class
Towel folding
Beach Volley Ball
Mercure Koh Samui Beach Resort
is located on famous Lamai Beach, Samui Island's second largest resort area after Chaweng Beach. Just a 30 minute drive from Samui Airport.
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[Mercure Koh Samui Beach Resort ( Fenix ) ]
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