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By most measures, the Android platform is an enormous success. It dominates the smartphone space in terms of market share, with over a quarter of a billion currently activated devices. It's on phones and tablets made by four of the largest smartphone manufacturers in the world. And its reach isn't slowing.
But with enormous growth comes problems, many of which Google knows quite well. App stores. Competitors. That dirty word: "fragmentation." All of this bogs down Android during a critical phase of its development, just a few years since its initial launch.
Android needs a hero – someone who can unify the platform and work on the many weaknesses that critics attack, and even supportive users grumble about. And Matias Duarte, Android's head of user experience, wants to take that role.
Under Duarte, Android launched Ice Cream Sandwich – aka Android 4.0 – late last year. It's the team's strongest effort yet in offering a robust, well-designed operating system that can measure up to the likes of Apple's and Microsoft's OS platforms. And at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas earlier this month, Duarte launched the other half of the plan, the Android Design web site, which aims to make it easier for designers to create better, more user-friendly apps.
I sat down with Duarte at CES for an exclusive pre-launch interview, and picked his brain about Android, design in general, and competing operating systems like Windows Phone and webOS – the platform he architected for Palm years ago.
On Android Design —————–
Wired: So tell me the philosophy behind launching the Android Design developer site. Is it specifically for what users are going to see in the interface, or is this more engineering focused?
Matias Duarte: It's both what the user sees and how the application functions. Thus far, Android has had a lot of terrific developer API-level documentation. But we haven't really had a style guide, we haven't had interaction guidelines.
We haven't, for example, given you a lot of guidance on how to migrate your application from a phone perhaps to a tablet. We've done so only by example, by showing you the way all the apps function in Ice Cream Sandwich. So we want to just kind of open up our studio's doors, if you will. We want to show you how we think, and how we designed Ice Cream Sandwich to work. What all its principals and its rules and its conventions are so you don't have to try and discover that yourself.
Wired: Is this a response to feedback you've been getting from the Android community?
Duarte: This is something that developers and designers are really hungry for. For any platform, it's really important to understand what its conventions and patterns are. And so this is our chance – now that we've finished running the marathon to get the product out the door – to show them how they too can make apps that look and work as simply and as beautifully as the apps that we've made for Ice Cream Sandwich.
Wired: You know what this strikes me as? Like my Bible, the AP Style Guide, only for developers.
Duarte: That's exactly what it is. There's a lot of generally agreed-upon good interaction design practices, as well as universal mobile interaction practices. Still, every operating system does things a little differently, has its own conventions. The frameworks are different.
Wired: So does this mean – "rules?" There's direction, and then there's mandate.
Duarte: Well, it's a slightly different situation because we don't have an editor who's going to yell at you if you're out of line. In computer ecosystems, the public decides how successful applications will be after they hit the market. So within our style guide we have certain things that we think are absolutely how one should make an Android app. But there are other variables – examples in which code is good in some cases and bad in others. There it's left up to you to make a judgment call as to which pattern you should adopt. There, we don't have a hard and fast rule. But in either case, there's nothing that we do to enforce that.
On Tablets vs. Smartphones ————————–
Wired: I'm thinking of tablets versus smartphones specifically, and where Ice Cream Sandwich fits in. Is this going to help bridge that gap? This is something that – in terms of tablets – people have wanted for a long time.
Duarte: Yes, absolutely.
Sometimes you have to break the rules. But it always helps to know that you're breaking the rules. We have some portions of the guide that are specifically focused on that topic. How to design an app that takes advantage of the extra space on the tablet. How to design an app that will adapt and use a different type of user interface when it recognizes on a screen that is appropriately phone-size, and on a screen that's tablet size.
So what we've launched – it's not a document, it's not a book, it's a site. It's a destination where we continuously add more detail to some of the documentation that we have, and some of it is very nitty-gritty.
To be honest, some of the most valuable content is in our design patterns. It's our thinking that goes into certain conventions, or paradigms, practices. And in these we've started with a set of some of what we think are the most important or new patterns that we've introduced in Ice Cream Sandwich.
Wired: Do you expect this to bolster tablet apps in general?
Duarte: I think it should help tablet apps. Honestly, again, it wasn't a particular goal of ours to focus on tablet apps because we don't really think of tablet apps internally. But I think there's no doubt that several sections of the guide do focus on some of the problems unique to larger screens, and so by nature that will help tablet apps.
On Manufacturers, the Market and Android as a Whole —————————————————
Wired: It seems like this is sort of a real step towards fostering, sort of completing or making the Android market into something more attractive for in users, right?
Duarte: It is absolutely going to be a big benefit to end users and to developers, especially because developers won't have to guess as much. They'll understand what the conventions are. If they want to break them, they'll know they're breaking them. And sometimes you have to break the rules. But it always helps to know that you're breaking the rules. Of course, that ultimately helps the end users. It creates an environment where more of the applications really have that cohesion and coherency that everyone really longs for.
Wired: So where do manufactures "skins" fit into all of this? Is that going to screw up anything up?
Duarte: Not really. What happens is there's the basic Android system itself and then there's the OEM [Original Equipment Manufacturer] skin that comes on top of that. A lot of that changes the look and feel of things.
Sometimes, OEMs customize pieces of the experience, like the launcher, or part of the notification system. And then very frequently what they do is add new features. They'll add new capabilities that the carriers use to differentiate from one another. The important part is, none of that changes the basic paradigms and patterns.
Wired: This sounds great, but there's something bugging me. Why did it take so long? Shouldn't this have happened much sooner?
Duarte: This is a big effort. It was a top priority for me to get the team working on it as soon as I started at Google. So it has been in the hopper for quite some time.
First of all, it didn't make sense to do this for Honeycomb [the previous release of Android 3.0] because it was very much an incremental step for us. And of course, we couldn't finish Android Design before Ice Cream Sandwich was finished. If I could have managed it – you know, by altering the laws of physics – I would have loved to have launched both this and ICS at the same time.
The reality is we're a very small team. And we're working very, very hard. I'm just amazed and thrilled that we got this out as quickly as we did after ICS. In my mind, this is the second part of our Ice Cream Sandwich launch. As this site goes up, I can feel like it's finished. Like ICS is truly complete.
Wired: Is this going to help independent, proprietary app stores? I'm thinking of carriers and manufacturers, specifically.
Duarte: It's definitely going to help manufacturers as well. When we talk about third-party developers, manufacturers are included. They write apps for the platforms at the same time as skins, right? We've never given manufacturers – or anyone, for that matter – this much insight into how the system works or why parts of the system work this way.
On Upgrades and Fragmentation —————————–
Wired: Let's talk about upgrades, and older versions of Android. I'm thinking of older devices, and specifically the problems HTC, Motorola and others have had in putting new versions of Android on their phones.
Duarte: A lot of those issues really are much more related to the hardware capabilities. Things like just how much memory you have. The reality is, right now Android is growing so quickly, it's like it was back in the X86 days of PCs. When you got that 286 and were so excited! 'Yes!' And then Quake comes along and your 286 just couldn't do the job. So right now, we have that issue people call 'fragmentation,' where some of the older hardware just won't run the new OS. So trying to upgrade the OS is really difficult.
Remember when you got the new version of Windows, and you couldn't run it on your PC? You just had to get a new computer, right? It's something that happens at certain inflection points of computing, where the capabilities just grow so quickly that they outpace everything else.
Wired: But there's the expectation that if I buy a phone or a tablet, I want to be able to upgrade to some degree, right? And I don't want to have to necessarily throw my hardware out in a year or two.
Duarte: Well, the funny answer is you should probably have a conversation with Mr. Gordon Moore.
Wired: Touche. But still, I'm thinking of the pace of iteration from you guys. You put out new versions so fast. Why go that fast? Perhaps slowing down could cut some of the consumer frustration with fragmentation?
Duarte: It's a funny thing. Part of the market is saying "Please slow down!" But there's a huge other portion of the market demanding something new. The market is the thing that drives this fury for innovation. Every year our hardware capabilities shoot upward, and we get new ideas to create better software. And people want to give us money for it. So it's kind of hard not to, right?
I think we all wish you could keep upgrading the same software onto the older hardware, but until you reach a plateau of computer power on mobile that we (arguably) see on desktops, you're still going to have this frenzy for a few years.
Wired: Do you think the 18-month partnership cycle that Andy [Rubin] announced at I/O will do anything to remedy this?
Duarte: I think that will help. And it's something we are very much committed to with our Nexus products. But, remember, it is an 18-month cycle. And part of the reason for that is that once you start looking beyond 18 months, it becomes very difficult.
On Other Platforms, and the Death of WebOS ——————————————
Wired: I'm curious to hear your thoughts on the Windows Phone platform. It's been on everyone's lips at CES this year.
I wish HP the best of success with their new strategy. I really hope it can work for them. But I am saddened by their fortune so far. Duarte: I've been in meetings all week, so I haven't seen whatever frenzy is happening at CES with Windows this year. That said, I have to really commend Microsoft for what they did with Windows Phone 7, deciding that they needed a clean slate. They did something that was very audacious, visionary and very design forward. I think their product is a great product. I think Apple's product is a great product. I think HP had a great product in webOS, but, yes, I am biased.
Wired: Ah, webOS, of course. It was like, your baby. And for all intents and purposes, they put it down. How do you feel about that?
Duarte: Yeah, I'm very sad that the tablet was not a success for HP. My team and I actually did some of the foundational work for HP's tablet. And certainly many of the people on my former team and others I have relationships with are still working on it. And you know, I wish HP the best of success with their new strategy. I really hope it can work for them. But I am saddened by their fortune so far.
Wired: I think every reviewer that I've spoken with has told me: "Great OS, terrible hardware execution." Myself included. It's rough.
Duarte: Yeah, it's tough. Sad. The upside is, I think there's a lot of great mobile platform work being done out there right now. And that's great, because that's what drives the innovation. Right?
It's very different I think than it was at the beginning of the PC era, when it was really just Apple and Microsoft. I think now the rate of change and the rate of innovation is so much faster, because you have a lot of people who are pushing mobile OS work. That's what keeps people like me employed. And it's a good thing.
On the Mobile Landscape and Beyond ———————————-
Wired: Do you think that there's an emphasis especially on software design today?
Duarte: It means the technology is maturing, no? It's moved beyond hobbyist and now beyond commercial. There's a point in time where if you wanted a car, you had to build it yourself. That was the hobbyist phase. Then it was a mass-consumer product. But you could get it in any color. You've got a black one, but it's the exact same as the yellow one that your neighbor has. Seventy years of basically all cars share the same characteristics – they go from point A to point B, they have four wheels, what have you.
The technology has become commoditized. And what we're seeing with information technology is that it's approaching the same kind of thing. People are seeing that horizon coming for computing devices. They can see at a certain point, the capabilities for everything are going to be the same, and what's going to matter is how those capabilities are executed. What the fashion is in which they're executed. And that's what's going to drive people's purchasing decisions. That's why there's this huge drive in system design.
Wired: That's a scary thought for manufacturers. Why should I buy X's phone if they're all the same, you know?
Duarte: It's really tough. Especially because these guys aren't services people or applications people. Now we're venturing into territory really beyond my comfort zone, but I imagine there's going to be consolidation much like there was in other industries. When there's this level of sea change. I don't think you're going to see all the same OEMs five, ten years from now.
It's already a radically different world than it was five years ago.


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Holy crap! China reworked Gundam Seed, and a bunch of other things, into this mind melting cartoon extravaganza.
This brings back memories of the Chinese Gundam!
Dubbed Xu You Ji, it is populated with creepy Uncanny Valley children in Evangelion style plugsuits and creatures from Monsters vs. Aliens. The cartoon even has music from anime Code Geass.
Copyright right violations and unnervingly animation aside, I would totally watch this.
Be sure to soak up the entire six-minute clip. Your brain will never be the same.
Update: As a Kotaku reader pointed out, XuYouJi isn't a cartoon, but a digital photography studio that takes 3D images of children's heads and then inserts them into CG cartoons. That, however, doesn't skirt around any inevitable corpyright issues, if this company isn't already paying for licensing.
The Chinese Gundam Seed XuYouJi 虚游记 [YouTube]

subset: commoncrawl


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A recycling program is now mandatory for all commercial establishments on Estero Island.
The Fort Myers Beach Town Council unanimously adopted an ordinance to approve the action for businesses on Estero Island during a public hearing Monday. The policy goes into effect Nov. 1, 2013.
Commercial establishments will be required to recycle at least one type of recyclable material that they generate, and that matter must constitute the largest portion of the business's waste stream. For instance a bar would have to recycle bottles and/or cans.
Article Photos
Town officials have made recycling a mandatory priority for Beach businesses and will implement policy on Nov. 1, 2013. That adoption comes after recycling trash cans were approved to be placed at beach accesses on the beachfront.
The Town business recycling adoption was a topic of discussion for Town officials at a work session on Feb. 7, before it was moved to a Council meeting on Feb. 22. It was then talked over again at another work session on May 20. A draft ordinance was re-introduced at a Council meeting on June 17, after revisions were made to it at the prior work session.
"My biggest concern is that you have to make it easy for people to recycle," said Councilman Dan Andre. "For the most part, I think most of the businesses on the island are doing it already."
Before Council voted on the matter, Town Manager Terry Stewart reported "no feedback" regarding the ordinance. He recommended the time allowance to help all involved some leeway to get adjusted and prepared.
"It seems as if there is a pretty strong acceptance by the business community," he said. "My recommendation gives Town staff the opportunity to reach out to businesses and make sure that they understand what the requirements are."
Required participation in recycling among Beach businesses would involve "recovered materials," including metal, paper, glass, plastic, textile or rubber materials that have known recycling potential, according to Town records. Lee County has a mandatory business recycling program, but Fort Myers Beach is exempt from it.
Businesses at Time Square will most likely have a shared recycling bin. Andre expressed concern about recycling in that Town center.
"Town staff has been looking into it, and they are trying to work out the kinks. They are trying to find a central location where all the recyclables could be," said Andre. "That would be opposed to each business having to have a separate container."
Andre, the co-owner of Mango Street Inn, recycles at his business and recently stated he pays $76 per month for Advanced Disposal to pick up both trash and recycling materials. Of his business' total solid waste, roughly 65 percent is recycled materials.
Commercial establishments can go that route by contracting with the County franchise hauler or with any properly certified recovered materials dealer, one that is certified by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to handle, purchase, receive, recover, sell or is an end user of recovered materials.
To prove that a business is participating in the program, the Town will have jurisdiction to request proof of a valid and current contract with either a hauler or a dealer. The commercial establishment can also supply copies of receipts for delivery of recyclable material to said dealer come November.
Any business found in violation or failing to comply could be punished.
Andre, a noted conservationist who was instrumental in getting recycling bins at each of the Town's beach accesses as a member of the Marine Resources Task Force a few years back, sought feedback to see if the program would financially hurt businesses. A round table discussion with affected Beach business owners was proposed before passing an ordinance, but not enough Beach business representatives showed up to express a concern at the June 17 meeting.
The councilman is still willing to help any business officials that may have concerns in recycling. He can be reached at 765-0202 (ext. 120).
"I'd be happy to talk to anyone," said Andre. "They can contact me and I'll arrange a meeting with someone at Advanced Disposal. We just want to work it out so that everybody will recycle."
Town re-finances water loan
The Town of Fort Myers Beach has re-financed the original purchase debt for the island's potable water system through resolutions with a 1.81 interest rate.
Council unanimously approved the action before the prior utility system note matured in August 2013.
According to Town records, Town officials financed the acquisition of the water utility in 2001, then re-financed in August 2010. The note is now good for 11 years.


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Matthew Jonas / Longmont Times-Call
Matthew Jonas / Longmont Times-Call
A backhoe cleared debris from Left Hand Creek on Monday morning, breaking up a tangle of wood that could have increased the risk of future flooding.
Longmont workers and residents have kept a closer eye on both Left Hand Creek and the St. Vrain River during the last week, when the annual spring runoff of mountain snowmelt began.
During a regular inspection for the water division, Longmont city workers spotted flood debris clogging a stretch of the creek near the 1300 block of Missouri Avenue. Such debris has been a special concern since a blocked channel could lead to more flooding.
For more information on spring runoff, click here.
"The amount of the material was more than they could just grab by hand," said Charles Kamenides, Longmont's parks maintenance and sanitation operations manager. "Nothing major was going on, just keeping an eye and keeping the waterways open and clear, keeping the river flowing."
In September's flood, water from Left Hand Creek turned Missouri Avenue into a small river. The flooding left large amounts of mud in the nearby Southmoor Park neighborhood, but city officials and neighbors said afterward that damage would have been even worse without the flood-control improvements that the city made to the creek last summer.
Flows in Left Hand Creek were at 87 cubic feet per second Monday evening, according to online information from the Colorado Division of Water Resources. Levels in its parent stream, the St. Vrain River, were at about 350 cfs at midday — higher than average for the Longmont area at this time of year, according to public works director Dale Rademacher — but had fallen to 307 cfs Monday evening.
Contact Times-Call staff writer Scott Rochat at 303-684-5220 or email@example.com


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Jersey City, N.J. - The Farmingdale State men's and women's cross country teams ran at the Stevens Invitational on Friday, September 21st. The men's team placed 4th of 6 teams in the 4000-meter race. Junior Brandon Gillis (Hudson, N.Y./Hudson) led the team with an 8th place finish in a time of 14:54.
Freshman Gregory Denis (Elmont, N.Y./Elmont Memorial) finished in 12th place, followed by sophomore Thomas DiCamillo (Garden City, N.Y./Holy Trinity) in 15t, junior Jason Chin Chitty (Beacon, N.Y./Beacon) in 24th and sophomore Eric Harris (West Islip, N.Y./West Islip) in 26th.
The women's team also finished fourth, as junior Teresa Cox (Brooklyn, N.Y./Bellport) and freshman Kristyn Ruggiero (Commack, N.Y./Commack) led the pack in 22nd and 24th, respectively. Freshman Danielle Zugajewicz (West Babylon, N.Y./West Babylon) finished in 36th and sophomore Nicole Zarek (Massapequa, N.Y./Farmingdale) finished 47th.
The Rams run next on October 7th at the Highlander Invitational at Branch Brook Park in Newark, N.J.


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Michigan State pounds Central Michigan
Mount Pleasant, MI – Andrew Maxwell threw for 275 yards and two touchdowns on 20-of-31 passing as No. 11 Michigan State thumped Central Michigan, 41-7, on Saturday.
Le'Veon Bell carried the ball 18 times for 70 yards and two scores for the Spartans (2-0), who topped Boise State in Week 1.
Bennie Fowler caught eight passes for 99 yards and a touchdown and Dion Sims caught a touchdown pass in the victory.
"I thought our guys came out and played hard today," Michigan State coach Mark Dantonio remarked. "Our goal was to get our first road win and eliminate some mistakes that we had last week. I'm proud of our team for winning our first road game against a very competitive team."
Ryan Radcliff completed 17-of-38 through the air for 173 yards and two interceptions, while Zurlon Tipton led the Central Michigan (1-1) rushing attack with 62 yards on 11 carries.
Jason Wilson accounted for the lone score with a 55-yard interception return for the Chippewas.
Michigan State struck first on its second drive of the game, beginning the trek with excellent field position at the Central Michigan 32-yard line.
Bell carried the ball five times, including a huge 4th-and-1 conversion during the nine-play drive, and capped it with a 1-yard touchdown push to give the Spartans the lead.
Michigan State extended its margin to 14-0 early in the second quarter, with Bell again a focal point of the offense. He ran it six times on the 10-play, 87-yard march and finished it off with a 7-yard TD plunge for his second score of the game.
Late in the second quarter, Michigan State made it a 21-0 game. Maxwell led the offense down the field, completing 6-of-8 during the 9-play, 73-yard march and capped it with a 20-yard touchdown strike to Sims.
Following an interception by Johnny Adams at the Chippewas' 32-yard line, the Spartans capped a dominant first half with a 29-yard field goal by Dan Conroy to lead 24-0.
"I think early in the game we had chances to keep the game closer and we didn't make the plays," Chippewas coach Dan Enos said. "In the first half there were plays that we missed on that could have kept the game closer going into the third quarter."
The Spartans kept the offense rolling on their first possession of the second half as Maxwell hit DeAnthony Arnett over the middle for 48 yards on 2nd-and-5 before finding Fowler for a 7-yard TD pass, extending the lead to 31-0.
With less than a minute to go in the third quarter, Conroy connected on a 29- yard field goal to widen the margin to 34-0 for Michigan State.
Hill capped a 7-play, 28-yard drive with a 1-yard touchdown push early in the fourth quarter, and Wilson broke up the shutout for Central Michigan when he jumped in front of a Connor Cook pass and hustled 55 yards to the end zone to cap the scoring.
Game Notes
Saturday's game marked just the ninth meeting between Michigan State and Central Michigan, and the first time Michigan State has faced the Chippewas on the road ... The Spartans lead the all-time series 6-3 ... Central Michigan fell to 4-22 all-time against Ben Ten programs ... Since 1999 Michigan State is 42-16 against non-conference opposition and have won 25 of its last 34 non- league games ... Michigan State has not allowed an offensive touchdown this season.


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text:
Mobile games for smart people - m.abroy.com
Play puzzle games, including adventure games, sim games, strategy games, escape games, hidden object games, new games daily!
Crossy Path
Crossy Path is a tricky and highly addictive brain teaser game that requires visual thinking and quick decision making. The player has to reach the exit point of a puzzle while navigating through what can only be described as Escheresque levels. The geometric figures in this game might not be able to exist in reality but they will for sure make you feel like your brain is melting for real. Are your quick enough to find your way through the levels? Can you think quick under pressure? Play Crossy Path now for free and step into the realm of imagination! You will find tons of fun and fascinating geometric puzzles!
Skill, Puzzle Games
Tip Tap 2
Tip Tap is back! Just like its beloved and highly addictive predecessor Tip Tap 2 is a fast paced skill game that is all about perfect timing. Your character bounces back and forth on a bar and with a single click you can change its direction and take a turn. In the beginning you can take your time to do so as the walls are solid and you can take all the time you need. But soon the walls will start to crumble when bumping into them and you need to take the turn fast. Play Tip Tap 2 now for free and find out how far you can go!
Classic Games, Skill, Action Games


text:
| Association for Dietetics in South Africa
The Association for Dietetics in South Africa (ADSA) is the professional organisation for Registered Dietitians. The primary aims of the Assocation are to serve the interests of dietitian in South Africa and promote the nutritional well being of the community.
All rights reserved. Copyright © 2020. Republish permission. ADSL & Web hosting proudly provided by Afrihost. Bizcommunity.com, its sponsors, contributors and advertisers disclaim all liability for any loss, damage, injury or expense that might arise from the use of, or reliance upon, the services contained herein. Privacy policy, Terms of Use, PAIA.


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Cotton futures are trading very close to UNCH this morning, plus or minus a single tick from Wednesday's close. They settled the Wednesday session with most nearby contracts 126 to 146 points in positive territory. Sharply higher crude oil prices and a weaker dollar were supportive. The dollar is a little firmer this morning. Some of the focus in the recent US/China trade talks was over China's pledge to buy a substantial amount of US goods. At the moment, we have limited means for gauging current export demand with the government shutdown keeping the Export Sales reports from being released. The Cotlook A index was up 40 points from the previous day on January 8 at 81.90 cents/lb.
--provided by Brugler Marketing & Management


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So just what kind of Safari speed improvements can you expect when iOS 4.3 rolls out? I think the word you're looking for is "moderate." Or maybe "incremental." Still, faster is faster, and this test over Wi-Fi shows that iOS 4.3 is a definite uptick.
Update: Looks like the video's been pulled. We're looking for an alternative, but in case one doesn't exist: iOS 4.3 GM was just a few seconds faster than iOS 4.2 loading the NY Times in Safari. [Thanks, Rich!]


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According to a ZDNet article (by John Hazard, March 9, 2011) "IT manager jobs to staff jobs in move to the Cloud":
The typical IT organization usually maintains manager-to-staff ratio of about 11 percent (that number dips to 6 or 7 percent in larger companies), said John Longwell, vice president of research for Computer Economics. The ratio has been volatile for four years, according to the Computer Economics recently released study, IT management and administration staffing ratios. As businesses adjusted to the recession, they first eliminated staff positions, raising the ratio to its peak of 12 percent in 2009. In 2010, businesses trimmed management roles as well, lowering the ratio to 11 percent, Longwell said. But the long term trend is toward a higher ratio of managers-to-staff ratio, he told me.
"Over the longer term, though, I think we will see a continued evolution of the IT organizations toward having more chiefs and fewer Indians as functions move into the cloud or become more automated."
For a complete copy of the article see: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/it-manager-jobs-to-staff-jobs-in-move-to-the-cloud/45808?tag=content;search-results-rivers


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- Description
Projects never go quite as planned. We expect that, but we don't expect disaster. How can we get better at spotting disaster when there's still time to prevent it?
What's on this page:
Project failures — even project disasters — are much more common than most of us realize, because most failures are concealed by the facts that the project was completed, and that it accomplished more or less what we thought it would. The projects that fail utterly, and end in cancellation, are the obvious disasters. But most troubled projects are hidden. Finding them while there's still time to avert the trouble, and then preventing trouble or extricating these projects from trouble, can make a big difference in organizational performance.
Hidden disasters were disasters financially, because they ran over budget, or they were completed late, or both. Other disasters perhaps were completed on time and on budget, but only at the expense of other projects, which were stripped of talent at critical times. And some disasters were on time and on budget, but never led to the market success they originally promised.
How to Spot a Troubled Project Before the Trouble Starts tells you how to identify disasters — both hidden and obvious — before they become disasters. Written specifically for the executive and senior manager, it tells you how to read a project, to determine what secrets might lie beneath its tranquil surface. Armed with these techniques you not only can prevent projects from becoming disasters themselves, but you can also prevent projects from wrecking your organization.
Most important, you'll be able to identify troubled projects while there is still time to fix them or cancel them with minimal waste of resources.
Read How to Spot a Troubled Project Before the Trouble Starts to learn techniques for identifying trouble projects that seem to be on track — tips and insights that could take you a lifetime to invent on your own. For example, you'll learn:
- Not only what to look for, but also how to look for what's missing — for instance, passion at the top
- What to measure, and how to get around the Hawthorne Effect when you do
- How to adjust organizational policy to limit the risk of troubled projects and get more done with the same resources
- What usually goes wrong with risk management
- How to spot project trouble by monitoring contract negotiation activity
- Special risks of projects that have external customers
How to Spot a Troubled Project Before the Trouble Starts is packed with tips and techniques for recognizing trouble that arises from:
- Workplace politics
- Project management practice
- Organizational issues
- Interactions with external customers
- Human behavior
- Dealing with defects in deliverables
And it's all packaged in a single, compact e-booklet. Load it onto your Acrobat-enabled mobile device or laptop and carry it with you on your next trip. At over 16,000 words, it's about 1.3 times the size of Who Moved My Cheese?.
- Organizational leaders who want to set organizational policy to maximize the success of all projects
- Senior managers who want to guide sponsors and leaders of project teams within their organizations
- Sponsors of projects who want better results faster
- Managers of project managers
What you do with it depends on your role in your organization. Here are just a few ideas:
- Organizational leaders
- Use the ebook as part of a program for enhancing your organization's sophistication with respect to project disasters. Pick and choose ideas, add your own insights, and examine organizational policy for ways to tighten project creation and management practice, and for ways to enhance and focus monitoring. Or have us customize the ebook to your organization to create training and reference materials for executives, senior managers, sponsors, auditors and project managers.
- Senior managers
- Whether managing a crisis or creating a risk management plan, understanding the problems and pitfalls of the project management helps you deliver a successful project or operate with enhanced predictability. By focusing your attention on the right projects, early in the unfolding of failure, you can intervene when needed and only when needed.
- Sponsors of projects
- Sponsors are uniquely positioned either to create disaster or to prevent it. They act as an important part of the interface between the project and and the rest of the organization, arranging for resources, championing the project, and curtailing project excesses. Finding the balance is critical, and this ebook provides essential guidance.
- Managers of project managers
- Managers of project managers, or leads of project management offices, can also benefit from How to Spot a Troubled Project Before the Trouble Starts. They can advise project managers about high-risk practices; advise senior managers about policy that supports risk reduction; and help devise reporting mechanisms to focus monitoring and auditing activities to increase risk identification efficiency.
Here are some sample tips.
- Be alert when the budget for contingencies was driven down during initial negotiations
- If the project manager or risk manager presented a budget for contingencies, and that budget was driven down in negotiations with the sponsor, the customer, Marketing, Sales, or management, take care. It's possible that the project manager or risk manager yielded under the weight of superior political clout. The true cost of those contingencies is probably closer to the proposed number than it is to the number that emerged from negotiations.
- To limit repetitions of this sort of thing, collect data about negotiations. Let everyone know that it's OK to negotiate, and it's OK to make these adjustments, but the adjustments must be included in a Negotiation Report. That alone might deter some from using political clout to arrive at unrealistic results.
- You can then create software to automatically alert internal "troubled project monitors" to flag the project, even in cases where deterrence isn't achieved.
- Beware projects with a high incidence of split assignments
- An individual has a split assignment when he or she is working on two or more projects, and is responsible to two or more different project leads. If this practice is widespread in your organization, it could mean that there are too many projects active at once. It could also mean that there is a shortage of people with particular skills. In either case, the projects that share people are at risk, for three reasons.
- First, if trouble arises in one project, in the area covered by the split team member, the other project(s) will temporarily have to make do with a reduced level of services of the split team member. This might work out, but there is a finite chance that trouble will hit more than one of these projects simultaneously.
- Second, it's unlikely that the project leads who share team members have enough schedule control or flexibility to avoid contending for the split team members simultaneously. Even if they do have such flexibility, they have to discuss and compare schedules, which takes time that many don't want to use, given the low likelihood of a good outcome.
- Finally, split assignments are usually arranged so that the split person's total effort summed over all projects is 100%. But that's unrealistic. The splitting itself costs time. A good rule of thumb is 5% per project. Thus, a person shared by two projects is only 90% available.
- And split assignments have subtle effects on the level of trust in the organization — they tend to erode trust. In projects where trust is very important (example: dispersed or virtual teams), this effect can create both unrecognized cost and unanticipated risk to the project.
- More info on split assignments.
- Be alert to financial trouble at bet-the-ranch suppliers
- When a project relies on elements delivered through an outsource arrangement, and when the vendor is severely extended and in trouble, that project must be considered at risk, even if all is well in terms of schedule and budget. Project leads who do not monitor the financial health of such vendors are flying blind and without instruments.
- When a project contracts with a vendor, and when that project is a stretch for that vendor, the situation calls for an elevated level of risk monitoring by the project lead and sponsor. Have the project lead set an appropriate Google Alert for the supplier, key locations for that supplier, and all key personnel of that supplier.
Click the folder icons to reveal (or hide) chapter content summaries.
Reveal all chapter content summaries.
Workplace politics
- Two organizational heavyweights are at war
- The denial/compliance cycle
- The current project lead didn't devise the current project plan
- Early scope creep
- The usual designated winners are in charge
- Emigration of designated winners
- Sponsor anxiety
Project management practice
- Project vision statement addresses the wrong audience
- Project plan contains no definition of "we're in trouble"
- The requirements were supposed to be stable by now, but they aren't
- Confused team meetings
- Risk plan fossilization
- Lack of consensus about the risk plan
- Lip service to the open issues list
- Long gaps between scheduled milestones
- Limited use of checklists
- Deadlines are redefined only after they're obviously impossible
- People write progress reports, but rarely are they read
- Late downscoping
- Intraproject communication is ineffective
- Upward trend (or spike) in cell phone minutes
- A dispersed project has tasks that span site boundaries
- Critical documents weren't professionally translated for offshore units
- A dispersed project team lacks a formal communications plan
- Lack of a defined process for project turnarounds
- Failure to conduct retrospectives
Organizational issues
- Lack of coordination between project teams and internal service departments
- We exported onto the project the consequences of executive and board room delays
- The organization has undertaken process change without replanning projects
- The project team has outdated or inadequate equipment and tools
- We changed some of the tools they use without replanning the project
- The budget for contingencies was driven down
- The schedule assumes full-time availability of all team members
- The schedule assumes overtime
- High incidence of split assignments
- Gross asymmetry in a critical split assignment
- The project lead has three or more projects to lead
- The project plan was overconstrained
- Travel budgets were cut below what a dispersed project originally proposed
- For bet-the-ranch projects, unexpected defection of cognizant management
- Financial trouble of bet-the-ranch suppliers
- The contract is under renegotiation
- The project manager is a contractor
- The project manager is formally a hands-on project manager
- The project manager isn't hands-on, but has only hands-on experience
Projects with internal customers
- The principal champion is one of the developers
- The schedule was specified mostly as a cost control device
- The schedule was determined by the need for revenue
- The sponsor resists stabilizing the requirements
- The customer doesn't acknowledge the need for rational project management
- A pattern of resource yanking
Projects with external customers
- The price was quoted before the requirements were defined
- The price was quoted without a real estimate
- The price quoted was significantly less than the project manager's estimate
- The customer resists participation in necessary decisions
- Client staff argue among themselves during meetings
- Relationships between client leadership and client staff are breaking down
- Turnover in the client project lead position
- Customer demands modification (or abandonment) of your customary working process
- Customer initiates contract amendment
- Customer is taking longer and longer to pay invoices
Human behavior
- The high priests are the only ones with a clue
- Project meeting absenteeism
- Late attendance at meetings or early departures
- Sudden increase in meetings centered around one particular subtask
- Overtime is mandatory
- Burnout
- Red flags on the morale flagpole
- High nose count of elephants in the room
- Difficulty finding volunteers
- Sudden increase (or steady uptrend) in emigration per capita
- High density of warm bodies
- Closely held information
- Downside surprises
- They didn't (don't) celebrate their successes
- Passion deficit at the top
- Nobody answers the doorbell
- Sudden drop in the ratio of bad news to good
- A trend of increasing (or a spike in) vending machine sales per capita
- A trend of increasing (or a spike in) off-hours headcount
Defects in deliverables
- Quality Assurance reports to the same organization that does the work
- The testing cycle has been shortened
- See no evil
- Defect denial
- Failure to categorize defects
- Patterns of defect reclassification
- Zero defects
This item is also available in 10-copy packs (USD 15.00 per copy), in 50-copy packs (USD 13.90 per copy), in 100-copy packs (USD 11.39 per copy) and in 500-copy packs (USD 9.39 per copy).
How to Spot a Troubled Project is in Acrobat format, which gives you several advantages. You can print it, and read it like any book. Or in electronic form, you can use the search capability of Adobe Reader to find passages of special interest to you. If you load it onto your laptop, tablet, or other mobile device, you can read it anywhere — and it's weightless, too. 30 pages.
File size: 596 KBytes Print length: 30 pages ISBN: 978-1-938932-07-6 Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited devices, but single user Publication date: April 11, 2008 Sold by: Chaco Canyon Consulting Language: English
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Last modified: 26 Oct 2016 04:28 Eastern Time
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text:
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text:
Remember Def Jam Rapstar? The SingStar for...rap? It had promise, but ultimately fizzled on the vine and died without making much of a splash. Now, making things worse, a record company is trying to squeeze the game's creators for millions.
EMI is suing both 4mm Games and Terminal Reality, claiming that they used songs in the game they weren't entitled to. Sounds clear-cut, but it's actually far from it: while Rapstar obviously got clearance to use songs from labels like Def Jam, EMI says it owned small percentages of other tracks nominally owned by other labels.
Examples include DJ Khaled's "I'm So Hood," which EMI claims 10 percent ownership, MIMS' "This Is Why I'm Hot," a song with 16 writers which EMI claims 16 percent ownership, and Lil Wayne's "Got Money," which EMI claims 30 percent ownership.
In total, EMI claim 54 tracks infringe on their rights, and they're after over $8 million in total damages.


text:
Hantzfevry necesitaba un nuevo diseño de impreso o envases y lanzó un concurso de diseño en 99designs.
Un ganador ha sido elegido entre 2 diseños de 1 diseñadores freelance.
Our company I.Trade International Trade Ltd. introduce in third world country technologies that can solve problems. The early warning system for earthquake can alert up to 30 seconds before the big shock. They prevent false alert that can be caused by any other shake...
According to scientists Haiti will at any time face another major earthquake. No one will be able to stop this upcoming earthquake from happening. Nevertheless,by providing our DX early warning earthquake detectors to a family we can save thousands of lives, now,not later which will simply make us repeat history.Our Earthquake Detectors detect the first wave of an earthquake and alert up to 30 seconds before the big shock.
Our market is in Haiti. The first language there is French our text on the brochure will be in french.
We are will promote the products on the brochure.
We will also talk about our after sale service... and the new detectors that come with the solar panel..
You will find all picture of the products attached . for more info go on our website http://www.itradeint.com
Tri fold brochure
size : 8.5 X 11
First page : Title , image ect...
Inside ( Banner at the top )
Back contact information
all text will be given later after the first designs


text:
For 11 years, WJCT has honored the memory of Fred Rogers (aka Mister Rogers) by collecting gently-used sweaters, jackets and blankets for local residents in need. The Mister Rogers Neighborhood Sweater Drive runs through the month of November with donations being accepted at WJCT Studios and all VyStar Credit Union and Two Men and a Truck locations.
Getting residents neighbors to donate the the Sweater Drive is the whole point of this blog post, so feel free to stop reading and begin collecting your donations if you have no interest in the remainder of this completely self-indulgent (yet educational) post.
1. Pennsylvania: Mister Rogers was born in Latrobe (home of Latrobe Brewery, original brewer of Rolling Rock), and I was born in Aston.
2. Puppetry: Mister Rogers voiced many of the characters in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe including King Friday XIII, X the Owl, Daniel Striped Tiger and Lady Elaine Fairchilde. As a child, I had a Mickey Mouse ventriloquist dummy and performed at family functions until Mickey broke his neck (translation: the rubber band that attached his head to his body snapped). For the record, I am still trying to master the phrase: "Please pass me the butter" (sounds like "Hlease hass ee the utter").
3. Ministry: Fred Rogers earned his divinity degree from the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and was ordained by the Presbyterian church. I received my credentials of ministry from the Universal Life Church Monastery, a non-denominational ministry, via the Internet (I can legally perform marriages, by the way, if anyone is interested).
4. Cardigans: We both love cardigan sweaters, though, my mom didn't knit any of mine like his did (she did crochet some lovely afghans, however).
5. College: Fred and I graduated from small, private colleges in Florida (Rollins College and Jacksonville University, respectively).
6. Piano: Both of us took lessons as children (in my case, "took" means "was forced to").
7. "Dancing": Fred displayed his lack of skill at doing the wave and the moonwalk:
while I flopped at the "WOP" during Dancing With the Stars complete with the white man's overbite (scroll to 1:06 to get straight to the wreckage):
8. Rumors: Contrary to popular belief, neither Fred nor I were Navy Seals and/or snipers.


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Shabbat Candles and Martyr Fires
"On Erev Shabbat, 27 Elul 5070 (1310), the saintly woman Adel, daughter of Rabbi Moshe Kiknish, sanctified the Name of G-d and martyred herself on behalf of the Jewish People, may G-d avenge her blood in this merit."
Thus read a tombstone in the European town of Drohovitch. Behind this inscription is a moving story of heroism.
A dead Christian child was found in the home of Adel on Pesach eve and the gentile maid claimed that she had slaughtered the child at her mistress' command on behalf of the Jewish community. In order to save the community from the tragic consequences of this blood libel, Adel decided to take the entire blame. The confession of the maid that she had lied failed to persuade the judges to change their verdict of death by the burning stake for Adel. Efforts by the priests to convince Adel to convert to Christianity and be spared proved futile.
The execution was scheduled for late Friday. Adel donned her fine Shabbat garments, lit Shabbat candles and went to her fiery death as a martyr for her people.


text:
As some of the web went dark Wednesday to protest SOPA, just how much impact did it have?
Google, Facebook and Twitter all kept the light on on their homepages but still made their stance against the controversial Congressional measure well known.
Wikipedia was joined by other sites in taking down their site for the day. Google instead decided to black out its Google Doodle and link to a anti-SOPA petition.
Google is part of a coalition of tech companies that includes Twitter, Yahoo, Facebook, Craigslist, LinkedIn, eBay, AOL, Zynga, Wikipedia and more, who oppose SOPA.
The company said Thursday it was able to draw about 4.5 million people to sign its petition.
On Google and off, SOPA was a trending topic across the web Wednesday.
Twitter tracked the conversations about SOPA and said there were more than 2.4 million SOPA-related tweets between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. on Wednesday.
There were about 3.9 million total SOPA-related tweets through out the day.
The top words used in those tweets were SOPA, Stop SOPA, PIPA and Tell Congress.
Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg sent one of those 3.9 million tweets. He took to his Twitter account for the first time in almost three years to link to an anti-SOPA article he wrote.
Stories about Zuckerberg's tweet were one of the top trending stories on Google News Wednesday.


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Hope College is sponsoring two appearances by guest artist Norman Spivey on Wednesday and Thursday, Oct. 21 and 22.
Spivey will present "Écoute: pieces of Reynaldo Hahn" on Wednesday, Oct. 21, at 7:30 p.m. at the Holland Area Arts Council. He will lead a masterclass on Thursday, Oct. 22, at 11 a.m. in Wichers Auditorium of Nykerk Hall of Music.
The public is invited to both events. Admission is free.
"Écoute: pieces of Reynaldo Hahn" is an original one-man show on the life and music of French composer Reynaldo Hahn. The show draws on his experiences and relationships--particularly those with his closest friends, the famous actress Sarah Bernhardt and the exceptional writer Marcel Proust (who in many ways acted as his greatest muse)--and celebrates the inspirations of his music. The performance moves between text, music and poetry to evoke not only a singular composer, but also an era when cultures were defined by their artists.
Reynaldo Hahn (1875-1947) has been called the musician of the Belle Époque. When he was quite young the family moved from Venezuela to Paris, where his musical gifts blossomed. He entered the conservatoire at age 10, wrote many of his most enduring mélodies during his teen years, and became the darling of the salons, many of which were major centers of literature and music.
"Écoute: pieces of Reynaldo Hahn" began touring to theatres, music conservatories and universities around the country earlier this year, and has been invited to be part of an upcoming off-Broadway reading series in New York. The show will also be featured at the 2010 national meeting of the National Association of Teachers of Singing in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Spivey, a veteran of musicals, operetta and opera, earned degrees from Southeastern LouisianaUniversity, the University of North Texas, and the University of Michigan. A Fulbright grant to Paris, where he worked with renowned baritones Gabriel Bacquier and Gérard Souzay, led to concert and opera engagements throughout France, as well as a tour of France and Canada as Papageno in Mozart's "The Magic Flute." He has sung Schubert's song cycle "Winterreise" at Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall and performed the American premiere of Poulenc's rediscovered "Quatre Poèmes de Max Jacob."
Spivey has received fellowships from the Aspen Music Festival and the Institute for Advanced Vocal Studies in Paris; in 2003 he received the prestigious Van L. Lawrence Fellowship awarded jointly by The Voice Foundation and the National Association of Teachers of Singing. He has served as an officer on the local, regional and national level for NATS, and his writings on musical theatre singing have appeared in the NATS "Journal of Singing." Along with PennState musical theatre voice colleagues, he is on the faculty of Bel Canto/Can Belto: Learning to teach and sing for musical theatre.
The Holland Area Arts Council is located in downtown Holland at 150 E. Eighth St., between College and Columbia avenues. Nykerk Hall of Music is located in the central Hope campus at the former 127 E. 12th St. between College and Columbia avenues.


text: World Awash in Oil Shields Markets From 2008 Price Shock By Lynn Doan, Grant Smith and Moming Zhou Aug 14, 2014 Fighting across Iraq , Libya, Ukraine and Gaza, and an accelerating economy, should mean higher oil prices . Yet crude is falling. Six years ago, oil soared to a record $147 a barrel as tension mounted over Iran's nuclear program and the world economy had just seen the strongest period of sustained growth since the 1970s. Now, West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. benchmark price, has traded below $100 for 10 days and Brent, the European equivalent, tumbled to a 13-month low. What's changed is the shale fracking boom. The U.S. is pumping the most oil in 27 years, adding more than 3 million barrels of daily supply since 2008. The International Energy Agency said yesterday that a supply glut is shielding the market from disruptions. Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc. and BNP Paribas SA concur. Iraq's Oil " North America has pushed out an incredible amount of crude oil that it used to import," Ed Morse , the head of commodities research at Citigroup, said in a phone interview from New York yesterday. "The world doesn't need that much." The U.S. imported 7.17 million barrels a day of crude in May, a 26 percent drop from the same month in 2008, according to data compiled by the Energy Information Administration, the Energy Department's statistical arm. Foreign deliveries will meet 22 percent of U.S. demand next year, the lowest level since 1970, the agency said yesterday. U.S. Growth U.S. gross domestic product will grow 3 percent in 2015, accelerating from 1.7 percent this year, according to the median forecast from 84 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. Job openings rose in June to the highest level in more than 13 years, firming up the labor market picture for the second half of the year, according to the U.S. government. The nation's output is forecast to climb to 9.28 million barrels a day next year, the highest level since 1972, the EIA said. The agency cut its 2014 price forecast for WTI to $100.45 a barrel yesterday from a July projection of $100.98. Related: -Oil Stocks Rise for First Time in Seven Weeks Oil markets became more resilient to the threat of global supply disruptions because of "spare capacity" and softer global demand, Francisco Blanch , the head of commodities research at Bank of America in New York, said by phone yesterday. Saudi Arabia , the world's largest crude exporter, has been very reactive to oil price moves resulting in markets that are the most stable since the early 1970s, the bank said in a report today. "Growth in oil demand was far outpacing our ability to physically supply oil" in the first half of 2008, Harry Tchilinguirian , the head of commodity markets strategy at BNP Paribas in London , said by phone yesterday. "The price of oil needed to rise promptly to ration demand." Speculative Advance The 2008 price rally was supported by investors pouring money into oil futures as they sought alternatives to stocks. Today, speculative interest in crude is shrinking, Tchilinguirian said. Net-long positions in both Brent and WTI fell to the lowest level in at least six months in the week ended Aug. 5, according to data compiled by the ICE Futures Europe exchange in London and the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission. "There was a bubble in the market in 2008," with the view that the world was running out of oil and other commodities, Morse said. "Everything changed soon after 2009." Brent crude for September delivery rose $1.26 to end at $104.28 a barrel on the ICE exchange, after closing yesterday at the lowest since July 2013. WTI oil climbed 22 cents to $97.59 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange . Global Conflicts Violence flared in Iraq, the second-largest producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, in early June as Sunni Islamist militants captured towns in the northwest and then pushed toward Baghdad . Clashes between political factions intensified last month in Libya, where oil exports have been choked by political protests. Israel deployed forces in Gaza last month with the stated aims of quashing rocket fire and destroying dozens of infiltration tunnels. Tension between Russia and western governments has escalated over President Vladimir Putin 's backing of separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine. Retail gasoline in the U.S. has dropped 22.3 cents a gallon since peaking in April at $3.696, data compiled by Heathrow, Florida-based AAA show. Prices are at a four-year seasonal low and capped the biggest July drop in six years as the nation's refiners ran the most oil on record to take advantage of cheap domestic supplies. Oil Demand The recent decline in oil prices may prove to be just a phase as global demand is forecast to pick up in the second half of the year, Bhushan Bahree, senior director of global oil at IHS Energy, said by phone yesterday. Demand will rise 1.71 million barrels a day to 93.45 million in the third quarter and climb again to 94.04 million in the fourth, the Paris-based IEA said in a report yesterday. "There are different moving parts when you go forward, and what we're expecting now may not play out the same way," Bahree said from Washington . "I would still think we are going to see more demand and there will be some support for prices." Global oil demand grew last quarter at the weakest pace since 2012, helping to calm world markets amid the conflicts, the IEA said in its report. The agency cut estimates for total growth in 2014 by 180,000 barrels a day. OPEC Supplies Supplies from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, which pumps about 40 percent of the world's oil, rose to a five-month high of 30.44 million barrels a day in July as Libyan output recovered and Saudi Arabia increased production, the IEA said. Industry oil inventories in developed nations swelled in June to their highest since September, the agency said. Stockpiles of crude and refined products in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development increased for a sixth month in June, by 13.8 million barrels to 2.67 billion, narrowing their deficit to their five-year average. "Market participants are obviously fed up with events that are built up as geopolitical risks, but which never realize as material disruptions in supply," Eugen Weinberg , the head of commodities research at Commerzbank AG in Frankfurt, said by e-mail yesterday. "At the same time the demand growth has been rather disappointing." Libyan Oil Libya loaded the first oil cargo from the port of Ras Lanuf since it was closed by rebels a year ago. The tanker will soon leave port with 680,000 barrels of crude and head to Italy, Ibrahim Al-Awami, the oil ministry's director of measurement, said by phone yesterday from Tripoli. State-run National Oil Corp. plans to double exports this month. U.S. oil production is outpacing unplanned outages that cut into global supply, Adam Sieminski , the EIA's administrator, said by phone from Washington. Global outages affected about 3.2 million barrels a day in July, up from 1.5 million at the end of 2011, he said. U.S. output has meanwhile risen 2.61 million barrels a day since the end of 2011. "Production is continuing to grow, and in the meantime, global demand is slowing down a little bit and efficiency gains are beginning to have an impact," Sieminski said. "It's a very positive story for consumers."


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CHICAGO - A 29-year-old Chicago man accused of plotting a suicide bombing overseas and claiming he was inspired by a radical Muslim cleric has agreed to change his plea to guilty, bringing to an end one of the last terrorism trials pending in the city's federal court.
A lawyer for Shaker Masri - whose plea deal was announced Thursday at a status hearing - told reporters that the agreement hammered out with the U.S. Attorney's Office was favorable to his client, though he declined to elaborate.
"Suffice to say, there comes a time when the government makes offers that are difficult to refuse in the light of the potential consequences," Thomas A. Durkin said.
Masri, who was born in Alabama and lived abroad before returning to the U.S. at age 18, was arrested in 2010 after the FBI exposed his alleged plot to attend a Somalia training camp to become a suicide bomber for terrorist groups al-Qaida and al-Shabab.
Attorneys left open the possibility that the plea deal could still unravel, but Durkin told U.S. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman he was confident enough to have the Sept. 12 trial date cancelled. Coleman set July 20 as the day for Masri to change his plea.
None of the government attorneys spoke to reporters after the hearing.
Masri was charged with attempting to provide material support to a violent extremist group and trying to offer material support by use of a weapon of mass destruction outside the U.S. Those charges could carry a sentence of several decades in prison.
Masri allegedly told an informant he admired Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S.-born cleric who is believed to have inspired the Fort Hood, Texas, shootings and the failed Christmas Day bombing of a jetliner approaching Detroit. A U.S. drone attack killed al-Awlaki last year.
Several others jailed in Chicago on terrorism charges also have cut plea deals recently, short-circuiting the need for trials and promising lesser sentences.
Suspects also know odds will be against them at trial.
According to the Center on National Security at Fordham Law School, out of 234 terrorism or terrorism-related criminal cases since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, 207 have resulted in convictions - a conviction rate of nearly 90 percent.
"If you go to trial with a terrorism client, your chances are very slim," said Karen Greenberg, the director of the New York-based center.
But Greenberg said a string of recent plea deals in Chicago and elsewhere also might reflect a growing sophistication among defense attorneys, who after 9/11 didn't always have sufficient expertise to secure fair plea deals in terrorist cases.
"Until recently, it was an unfair fight" favoring prosecutors, she said. "Defense attorneys now have a better sense of how to get a good plea deal for their clients."
Among those who changed their pleas before ever making it to trial in Chicago was Sami Samir Hassoun. The Lebanese immigrant pleaded guilty in April to placing a backpack he thought held a bomb near Chicago's Wrigley Field. His sentencing date is Dec. 6.
And last month, a federal judge sentenced Chicago cabdriver Raja Lahrasib Khan for attempting to send aid to al-Qaida to a relatively lenient 7 1/2 years in prison after he changed his plea. He had faced up to 15 years.


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I've started studying brownian motion, and gathered some books on the subject but something looks odd to me : All of the presentations I've seen this far consider the continuity of the brownian motion as an axiom.
Well, if you recast the brownian motion in the wider setting of Levy processes with stable independent increments on non-overlapping intervals then this is a very special properties of the brownian motion. Considering that, there should be a way to prove this almost sure continuity property as a consequence of the other axioms, namely :
- For all $0 \le t_1 \le t_2 \le t_3 \le t_4$, $W(t_2) - W(t_1)$ and $W(t_4) - W(t_3)$ are independent random variables.
- For all $0 \le t_1 \le t_2$ , $W(t_2) - W(t_1)$ is normally distributed with mean 0 and variance $\sigma^2\,(t_2 - t_1)$.
The third axiom being the one which is special to brownian motion. The normality condition entering it appears to be sufficient to tame any wild excursion from continuity.
What motivates my question is that when doing a numerical simulation on equally spaced time intervals using only these axioms, the continuity property is rather ovious. Especially when one refines the simulation by taking smaller and smaller time intervals.
While the result seems experimentally obvious I can't find anything that doesn't state it as an axiom.
A typical proof could be to look at the probability that the brownian motion on $[0, 1]$ doesn't get too far from the nodes of the simulation in between them.
For instance uniform continuity could be :
The probability of a brownian motion escaping the nodes farther than say $\delta > 0$ is lower than any $\gamma > 0$ provided that the steps of the simulation is smaller than some $\epsilon$ depending on both $\delta$ and $\gamma$.
Does that seems sensible to anyone ? Does anyone know of such result in the literature ?
Any help or reference will be greatly appreciated.


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Author: Bruce Byfield
After nine months, an open secret can finally be acknowledged: The OpenGL code that is responsible for 3-D acceleration on GNU/Linux, which was released by SGI in 1999, has been running on licenses that were accepted by neither the Free Software Foundation (FSF) nor the Open Source Initiative. Today, however, the FSF has announced that the licenses in question, the SGI Free License B and the GLX Public License, have been rewritten after months of negotiation between the FSF and SGI. The problem is now resolved, and the result is a code contribution that the FSF ranks as one of the greatest given to the community by a proprietary company.
OpenGL is the specification behind 3-D acceleration. Without an implementation of OpenGL such as the ones found in Mesa and X.org, free operating systems are restricted to 2-D graphics, which are suitable for email and office productivity, but nothing more. Compositing window managers, many games, animation, high-end graphics — in short, many aspects of modern computing that users often take for granted — all require implementations of OpenGL.
The licensing problem has been an open secret for some time. A Debian bug report reported part of the problem as early as 2003. However, little was done with the knowledge until January of this year, when an OpenBSD user reported the problem to the FSF, according to executive director Peter Brown. In response to the news, the GNewSense distribution, whose goal is to remove all non-free software, has been omitting OpenGL-related files from its distribution in the months since.
Steve Neuner, director for Linux engineering at SGI, says, "SGI became aware of this issue a while back, and has been talking to people in the community." However, no formal announcement was made about the problem. "We didn't want to draw attention to it," Brown says, "because we didn't want to pressurize SGI. We wanted to get their cooperation."
The alternative, he says, was not only "strains in community relations," but also "a huge amount of time and energy and resources that we would have to pump in to replace this code. We started figuring the funding needed to do it, and it was scary, frankly. That is why it was so worthwhile spending all this time speaking to SGI, because the alternative was really frightening."
As things were, keeping the problem from becoming public was difficult. FSF compliance engineer Brett Smith says, "Someone came to me on IRC and asked if people should start sending angry faxes to SGI, telling them to please clean up their licenses. And I was like, 'No, that's not the right message right now.' We were trying to avoid that kind of reaction, because among the people in the GNewSense community, there was a visceral reaction initially, and it took some time for people to realize that we needed to give them a chance. And it really paid off. SGI was very willing to work with us throughout the entire process."
Warned of the problem, the FSF contacted SGI. According to Brown, SGI was initially slow to respond, since neither its OpenGL code nor the licenses were a priority for the company. However, SGI listened sympathetically to the FSF's concerns, and was soon cooperating fully.
"It was friendly throughout the process," Brown stresses. "It was a case of education, then of working together to find an optimal solution."
The licensing problem
Smith says that the SGI Free License B and the GLX Public License, which are "pretty similar, although there are slight variations in the details," had three main problems for both free software and open source.
The first problem is that section 6 of the SGI Free License B and section 7 of the GLX Public License forbid the distribution of code that infringes on somebody else's intellectual property rights. "The problem here," Smith says, "is that, the patent system being what it is, especially in the United States, it's pretty difficult to distribute code that you know for sure doesn't violate someone's patents. Given that you are prohibited from distributing the software at all if this happens, the clause[s] are so broad and the prohibition so difficult that we felt it effectively curtailed users' rights to distribute the code at all."
The second problem also occurs in section 6 of the SGI license and section 7 of the GLX license. Under both licenses, distributors of the code are required to obey any export laws that might apply. Smith points out that, while no license can permit users to break the law, this language places users in double jeopardy: If they violate export laws, they also lose the right to distribute OpenGL-related software. "If a user does something to violate a law, that's the government issue, and it can prosecute accordingly," says Smith. "But the software license shouldn't have any say in the matter."
Thirdly, section 7 of the SGI license and section 8 of the GLX license require users to inform the distributor if they learn of any potential intellectual property infringement of code releases under the licenses. The problem here, according to Smith, is that the licenses could force users to reveal privileged information. For example, if you asked a lawyer to review a piece of software and were told that it might infringe a patent, you would be obliged to waive your legal rights to confidentiality.
Brown states that, in both cases, "It was clearly the intention to make a free software license. It just didn't turn out that way." So, in seeking a solution that would allow free software to use OpenGL-related software, the FSF was also helping SGI to achieve its original intentions.
The solution
The FSF suggested a number of potential solutions to SGI, including removing the problematic clauses from the licenses, rewriting the licenses entirely, dual-licensing with a free license as the second license for each piece of software involved, and assigning code to a third party that would assume the responsibility of possible patent infringement that seemed to concern SGI so much when it wrote the licenses.
From the first, the FSF wanted to find the simplest solution that would satisfy everyone. This was especially important because, given that much of the OpenGL code that SGI had released was written years ago, it was difficult to track what code was involved, what licenses it had used, and where it might need to be updated. In many cases, the code's relevance or licensing was unclear.
As a result, Smith says, "I was hunting down contractors who worked on SGI code years ago to ask them if they remembered anything about the license on particular files." However, "in the end, we came to the conclusion that everything affected was OpenGL-related" — something that, while likely, could not be taken for granted without checking.
In the end, SGI chose to take advantage of the upgrade clauses in both licenses. These clauses are similar to the one in the GNU General Public License, but, unlike the GPL's update clause, theirs are automatic. In other words, users of the SGI Free License B or the GLX Public License have no choice when a revised license comes out; their terms of use are automatically switched to those of the new license version.
Armed with the update clauses, SGI decided that it would replace the existing text of the licenses with text based on the MIT or X11 License. By using this solution, SGI ensured both that the code on which it held copyright was released under a free license, and that, because of the update clauses, it would need neither to be tracked down nor edited to reflect the change. Instead, with the publication of the licenses with the new text, the licensing issue would be instantly and painlessly solved.
A gift to the community
Those outside the process might wonder why nine months were needed to reach such a straightforward solution. Brown explains the time involved by saying, "All avenues were looked at, and the SGI attorneys had to carefully look at the issues. So, when you add everything up, the nine months really seemed to by quickly. There wasn't any time that this felt like a dead conversation. It was simply a complexity that SGI usually doesn't have to deal with, and therefore it was unusual territory for them. They had to come to the realization of the importance of the issues, and they wanted to make sure that they were doing the right thing for their community of users."
In the end, Brown says, "We have a huge mountain of appreciation for SGI. It was really hard to explain the huge pain in the ass that this was going to cause the free software community. These licenses are vital to the code base of GNU/Linux, and I think that SGI has proven to be a fantastic community member. And, like Sun releasing Java as free software, this represents a huge gift to the free software community."
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It's unknown if Koushik Dutta first came up with the idea of an Android Market for banned apps, but he's becoming known for attempting to create one.. "We need an app store for root apps. We ... need an app store for apps that are getting shut down for no good reason, other than carrier, or some random corporation doesn't like it," he wrote on Google+.
Dutta, also known as the creator of CyanogenMod, an alternative to the Android operating system that takes screenshots and doesn't have spyware like Carrier IQ, according to Business Insider. Dutta is also well-known in Android hacking circles, according to TechCrunch.
The alternative Android market will be more for the tech-savvy than the general population -- who else roots their Android phone? -- but Dutta doesn't really give any information on how secure such a store would be. Granted, the Android Market isn't totally secure either, as we have written about time and time again, but most users want to make sure their phone won't be infected with the latest in Chinese malware.


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text: TV 10 Power Showrunners: A Day in the Life, From Carlton Cuse to Jenji Kohan 10:00 AM PDT 10/16/2013 by Edited by Stacey Wilson FACEBOOK TWITTER EMAIL ME Jessica Chou Ann Biderman A voyeur's look through the bleary eyes of TV's busiest movers and shakers -- Ann Biderman, Jason Katims, Hart Hanson and Stephen Nathan, Scott M. Gimple, Armando Iannucci, Greg Berlanti, Kerry Ehrin, Jeff and Jackie Schaffer and Terence Winter. These stories first appeared in the Oct. 25 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. ANN BIDERMAN Ray Donovan (Showtime) With the early-fall sun piercing the windows of her scenic home office, Biderman reclines on her custom-made couch ("It's comfy but not too soft," she says) and digs into her morning's biggest to-do: Plowing through dozens of scripts in the hope of finding two new voices to add to her five-person writing team. "I don't want to read sample scripts for Ray," she says, flipping through one quickly and making notes with her pencil. "I want to read original material. I need to know their personal voices because I cast the writers room as carefully as I do the series." Biderman, 62, is enjoying the peace of working solo inside her rustic 1940s home in L.A.'s Laurel Canyon while she can as she preps to return to the writers room for season two of Ray Donovan, the Showtime drama she created that stars Liev Schreiber as a clandestine Hollywood fixer. Today, in between binge-reading scripts and consulting with her assistant Alex, she fields e-mails from her fellow writers and Showtime execs about the sophomore season. "I know solitude well, having spent so many years as a screenwriter," says Biderman of writing such films as Primal Fear and Public Enemies. "That's why I enjoy the conviviality of the writers room experience. I can't wait to get back in there." A few moments pass as she ponders both what she's looking for in new blood -- and what she isn't. "The minute I read 'handsome CIA agent,' I throw the script across the room," she says, laughing. "This process really is like sifting for gold." -- STACEY WILSON [pagebreak] JASON KATIMS Parenthood (NBC) Katims is running a bit behind. It's already 10:15 a.m. as he weaves his way through a series of hallways lined with reminders of his work, be it a Welcome to Dillon placard from Friday Night Lights or a shot of Parenthood's Sarah (Lauren Graham) and Amber (Mae Whitman), joining the About a Boy writers meeting in progress. The new midseason dramedy's room opened a week earlier, and Katims takes a seat among his nine writers and two writers assistants. First up: determining the direction that the Minnie Driver-David Walton vehicle should go. "What I really want to do at this stage is to create an environment where everyone feels free to bring themselves to it," he says, noting the value of being able to infuse his series with relatable stories that often come from the real-life experiences of those in his writers room. Katims, 52, excuses himself at 11:30 a.m. to tend to his other show, Parenthood, which recently launched its fifth season. He scurries across the West L.A. complex to check in on the latter's edits, a process he jokes he rarely gets through without a few tears -- a trademark reaction to his shows. Fortunately, the married father of two has had experience with the dizzying -- or "daunting," as he describes it -- act of running two shows (the final two seasons of FNL overlapped with the first season of Parenthood). "When I was young, I wanted to be a short-order cook," he says, seated now in his office where a sign with the FNL rallying cry, "Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can't Lose," hangs above. "I remember growing up in Brooklyn, and as a teenager I'd watch them at the grill with 10 things going at once, and somehow they all magically came out at the same time. After I became a showrunner, my wife looked at me and said, 'You got your dream.' " -- LACEY ROSE [pagebreak] HART HANSON and STEPHEN NATHAN Bones (Fox) Over late-morning coffee and biscuits (with pancakes and scrambled eggs on the way), Hanson (left) and Nathan are going over the latest Bones script at John O'Groats on Pico Boulevard, a few blocks west of the Fox lot where they've made the procedural for nearly a decade. Their giggling (or whatever you call the infectious laughter of two bubbly middle-aged men) likely would concern fellow diners if they saw what was on the pages before them: a gory description of a dead body, the latest of Bones' notoriously comical and gruesome opening sequences. "We have 70 years of doing this between us," says Hanson, who admits that scheduling usually requires that their morning meetings take place at the studio. "There's an old-man shorthand for us. If we talk through things with the other writers around, it would take forever." Adds Nathan, "And when we meet in the office, 25 people will come in and interrupt us." Such is their friendship and the creative process that has kept the series on the air for 171 episodes. The two never sit down to write an episode together -- Nathan says his patience for that ended when he moved out of comedy -- but their collaborative process takes on a good cop/bad cop approach while they dissect the script, a process that exudes a true yin-and-yang approach. Hanson's script is bound in leather and filled with detailed and pristine notes; Nathan's is bent and covered with indiscernible scrawling. "It's like an anger relay race -- we pass the baton," jokes Hanson of his partner, as Nathan heads out for a meeting with postproduction. "When one is being really negative, the other is always really optimistic and excited." -- MICHAEL O'CONNELL [pagebreak] JENJI KOHAN Orange Is the New Black (Netflix) "This whole scene is better if she's giving him a hand job," Jenji Kohan says as she gives one of her writers, Lauren Morelli, notes on a script for Orange Is the New Black. Kohan will take her own pass at the episode -- No. 9 of the Netflix series' second season -- but right now, she's moving her pink pen from page to page and offering suggestions, which range in topic from sex to riffraff. The married mother of three proved years earlier with Showtime's Weeds, about a pot-dealing suburban mom, that pushing the envelope is where she's most comfortable. At half past 11 a.m., she moves over to her treadmill desk, a gift from her agent, CAA's Peter Micelli, to catch up on e-mails and organize herself before joining the jailhouse dramedy's seven-member writing staff to start breaking stories. Kohan tends to do her best writing at a Chinatown coffee shop or on the couch, wrapped in a blanket she "stole" off of the Weeds set, but there's no time for that on this early October afternoon. Twenty minutes pass and she walks over to the nearby writers room, which could be mistaken for a children's playroom with its mix of Lego sets, Nerf guns and Silly Putty lining the table. Soon, lunch will arrive from upscale Loteria, with Kohan noting that "good food" is one of the secrets of her room's success. She deadpans, "No KooKooRoo here." -- L.R. [pagebreak] SCOTT M. GIMPLE The Walking Dead (AMC) It's midday on Oct. 4, the day after the season-four premiere event for AMC's ratings juggernaut The Walking Dead, and newly minted showrunner Gimple already has been back at his Hollywood offices for a few hours following a night spent shaking hands and schmoozing. The famously shy writer-producer seems relieved to have completed the media-heavy day, which included a junket with reporters, red-carpet interviews and a speech at its premiere, which he attended with his wife. In his first official season as showrunner, Gimple shuttles back and forth between Los Angeles and Walking Dead's rural Georgia set. So he's a little giddy (and relieved) about having scored some rare face time with New York-based AMC execs at the premiere party the previous night. "It's so much more expeditious for us to all be in the same place and move quickly through things," he says while taking a break to sit as his desk, which is covered with The Walking Dead comics. Given that he's constantly in transit, this day is all about locking in the season's 13th episode, so by 1 p.m., Gimple is conferring with writer/co-executive producer Seth Hoffman and executive assistant Alex Coley Brown. Soon after, he bounces between story meetings and the editing bay. "It would have been a lot more nerve-racking starting something new," Gimple says of his fresh and now seemingly endless responsibilities. "At least here, I know where all the keys are kept." -- LESLEY GOLDBERG [pagebreak] ARMANDO IANNUCCI Veep (HBO) Iannucci and his six-person writing staff are having a blast hashing out the final arc of Veep's upcoming season. It's a process, he says, that works largely because of his core professional tenet. "I don't recruit assholes," says a laughing Iannucci of his all-British team, which on this early October afternoon in urban London is delving into the sixth, seventh and eighth episodes of the political comedy's third season. The mood is communal and intimate, as scripts are passed around the (very small) room and Iannucci places very detailed notes on each one. At this stage of the writing process, drafts are "very lengthy," but that will change after the brilliant Veep cast sinks its collective teeth into them. "We always make sure to have 15 alternative gags," says Iannucci. "People think the show is largely improvised, but it's not. It's just that the cast is good; they make it feel that way." The Scottish-born married father of three says it's not as tricky as it sounds to maintain control of a series that shoots in Maryland in two-week blocks, sometimes rehearses in Los Angeles and bases its writers room here in London at Goldcrest Films. (The single-camera comedy also is edited and postproduced here.) And why isn't there a single American scribe present to help pen a series about a bumbling vice president of the United States? "I promise, I don't have a ban on hiring Americans!" says Iannucci. "It's just that all of these writers already knew me. But I do require them to check their egos at the door." -- S.W. [pagebreak] GREG BERLANTI Arrow (The CW) It's Tuesday at the Warner Bros. headquarters of Berlanti Productions, a homey and spacious bungalow in the shadow of the studio's famous water tower. Today, its principal finds himself on the verge of being double booked. Meetings with the showrunners on Berlanti's CW series Arrow and The Tomorrow People are running back-to-back, just as the shows do on the air. One of them was supposed to take place at the writers offices, but a fire drill has sent much of his growing operation to his own office. Here, Arrow showrunner Andrew Kreisberg outlines season-two episodes 12 though 17, writing on a dry-erase board in rapid succession as Berlanti chimes in while simultaneously petting the doxiepoo -- a dachshund/poodle mix -- he has smuggled in for the day. ("I've never brought a dog in here before," he says. "I'm dogsitting!") Less than a half-hour later, Tomorrow People's showrunner Phil Klemmer arrives. Berlanti wipes the Arrow board clean (as if to erase signs of show infidelity), and the next rundown begins in the neighboring room. It's a den of sorts, where plush couches are covered with pillows embroidered with the titles of Berlanti's impressive TV credits: Political Animals, Brothers & Sisters, Everwood, Jack & Bobby, Dirty Sexy Money and Eli Stone, among others. "My mom makes them," he says proudly before correcting himself to hint he might have inherited a specific strain of her genetic material: "She really has someone else make them, so technically she produces them." -- M.O. [pagebreak] CARLTON CUSE and KERRY EHRIN Bates Motel (A&E) Since the premiere of their Psycho prequel drama in March, co-showrunners Cuse and Ehrin have been taking turns heading north to the rainy Vancouver set of their series. But on this late September afternoon, they are -- shockingly -- in the same room at the same time tackling many tasks, including prepping a new script as well as doing on-camera interviews for a forthcoming featurette about Bates Motel for A&E. "Our job keeps getting bigger and bigger," says Cuse following a 3:15 p.m. script meeting with Ehrin. "We are now brand managers, with responsibility for everything that falls under the moniker of Bates Motel, from T-shirts to Bates Lego houses." The duo, as well as their large writing staff, today also are navigating the team's busy schedule of script notes (4 p.m.), editing and, yes, even their own makeup session (4:30 p.m.) as they prep to film a writers roundtable video for A&E. The halls of their new office space (season one's digs were a few miles away in the Valley, in a smaller building) are appropriately lined with Alfred Hitchcock posters and Bates artwork in addition to an unruly amount of filming equipment cluttering the floor -- not for the series but for the on-air short. Cuse admits he enjoys the chaos of this environment ("I liken it to doing a decathlon," he says), while his counterpart admits she'd rather keep a lower profile. "The biggest part of this job is communication, which I hate," says Ehrin with a laugh. "I'm a very internal person, and we are constantly having to communicate what's in the writers room from this group to that group. Thankfully, Carlton is really good at that stuff." -- L.G. [pagebreak] JEFF and JACKIE SCHAFFER The League (FXX) It's a cool, early evening in October, and Jeff Schaffer is sitting beside his partner and wife, Jackie, in their spacious dining room during a rare moment of not working, though you wouldn't know it -- the table is covered with scripts, production schedules and myriad Apple products and chargers. Their 15-month-old daughter, Arwen (named for The Lord of the Rings character), eats her dinner of sweet potatoes, peas and broccoli at the kitchen counter. It's a rare moment of togetherness for the family as Jeff and Jackie, who generally write and direct every episode of The League, have a much-needed week off from shooting the fantasy-football comedy, though that only means they have more time for editing and location scouting (the latter of which, Jeff says, is "as awful as going on a lot of first dates"). It's the second season the Schaffers have had to balance caring for little Arwen with their series' "street-fight-like" production schedule. "Last year was much easier," admits Jackie, peeking her head around the corner to see if Arwen has finished eating. "We'd just strap her on our chest and go to set. Now she is ambulatory! Thankfully, she's had her hep C and hep A shots, so it's not as dangerous for her to visit the scary places we shoot in downtown L.A." Arwen will go to bed soon, at which point her parents will leave her in the nanny's care while they return to their offices near their home to edit late into the night. Admits Jackie: "I have this Paranormal Activity-looking nanny-cam thing I watch all day on my iPad -- probably too often." -- S.W. [pagebreak] TERENCE WINTER Boardwalk Empire (HBO) Here is serious cause for celebration on this Friday evening inside Brooklyn's famed Steiner Studios -- and not only because Winter and his cast and crew have just logged the final frames of their series' fourth season. "We actually only worked for 13 hours today … that's pretty civilized for us!" says Winter as actor Jeffrey Wright -- who joined the cast this season -- snaps a photo with his phone of a celebratory chocolate cake. "We are all going to eat cake now and have some drinks to toast the occasion." Winter, along with his esteemed director, Emmy winner Tim Van Patten, and co-writer Howard Korder -- and the dozens of actors and crewmembers also on hand -- all have earned a round (or two) after wrapping this last day of shooting on Boardwalk's Onyx nightclub set. It's here where tricky song-and-dance routines have consumed three full days of the crew's energy. "This year, 1924, was huge for jazz," says Winter of his Prohibition-era saga. "So we've infused a lot of performances into the storyline, which is very complicated but also a blast." Having shot at the Brooklyn studio space since the series' inception in 2010, Winter feels mixed emotions on the occasion of another season in the can. "It's daunting but also thrilling to think, 'How can we possibly do this again next year?' " -- S.W. FACEBOOK TWITTER EMAIL ME Edited by Stacey Wilson email@example.com GalinHollywood