text:
Hundreds of NHS patients undergoing acupuncture have suffered complications including dizziness, collapsed lungs and even needles being left in their bodies, the Daily Mail warned today.
The story comes from a review looking at the harms reported from acupuncture treatments given within the NHS. Over a three-year period, researchers identified 325 patient safety incidents related to having acupuncture treatment.
The most commonly reported adverse incidents (accounting for 95.5% of reports) were judged to present no or very low risk of harm to patients, and included:
- acupuncture needles being left in patients for longer than prescribed
- dizziness
- temporary loss of consciousness
More serious but rarer side effects of acupuncture were also observed to occur, such as collapsed lung (pneumothorax), which accounted for 1.5% of incidents.
One important drawback is that since there is no information on how many acupuncture treatments were given within the NHS during the same period, we do not know how common such harms are.
Also, as these were NHS trained acupuncturists, their standard of care may be higher than in other sectors. Unlike conventional health professionals (who need to be registered), anyone can offer acupuncture treatment whatever their level of training or expertise (though they do need to register with their local authority in the same way as body piercing shops).
Currently, there is only reliable evidence that acupuncture may be effective in the treatment of chronic lower back pain. There is little or no scientific evidence that acupuncture works for many of the other conditions for which it is often used such as headaches, migraines and joint pain.
Where did the story come from?
The study was carried out by researchers from the National Patient Safety Agency, London and the Department of Complementary Medicine at the Peninsula Medical School, Plymouth. There was no external funding.
The study was published in the peer-reviewed International Journal of Risk and Safety Medicine.
The Daily Mail's report was perhaps alarmist, with a headline describing the 'hidden perils' of acupuncture. As the researchers point out, most of the incidents they recorded were of no or low harm.
Also, acupuncture needles would not normally have been left 'inside' the body, as stated by the Mail, since they are inserted through the skin, with one end remaining on the body's surface.
The researchers stated that 'acupuncture, as practised in the NHS, seems to be a low-harm treatment'.
What kind of research was this?
This was a review of patient safety incidents associated with acupuncture performed within the NHS, which were reported to the National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA) over a three-year period (2009-2011).
The researchers state that acupuncture is one of the best-known forms of complementary medicine in the West and is frequently used to treat chronic pain. The safety of acupuncture has therefore become an important public health issue, with a 'growing literature' on adverse events associated with it.
Acupuncture is a form of complementary medicine in which fine needles are inserted into the skin at certain points on the body. In the UK, the two main styles used are traditional Chinese acupuncture and Western medical acupuncture.
Most acupuncture treatments are provided outside of the NHS. Within the NHS, the Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine is currently said to be the largest provider of acupuncture services, with several thousand patient sessions a year. Acupuncture is also provided at other hospitals, almost all NHS pain clinics and by many GPs and physiotherapists.
What did the research involve?
The researchers used for their review a national database (called the National Reporting and Learning System database), which collects and analyses reports of incidents where patients receiving NHS care have been harmed, or a 'near miss' incident has occurred.
They searched for patient safety incidents relating to acupuncture from January 2009 to December 2011, using the term 'acupuncture' to conduct their search. All relevant incidents were reviewed to provide more details about the harm caused. Only incidents that described harms caused to patients during or immediately following acupuncture treatment were included for analysis in the review.
The database also grades the degree of harm of patient safety incidents (no harm, low, moderate, severe and death).
What were the basic results?
The search produced 468 patient safety incidents, of which 325 met the inclusion criteria. Below are the main results:
- 31% (100) of adverse events related to needles being left in the patient for longer than prescribed. In 59 incidents, the needles were found by patients either on their way home or at home. The remaining incidents often happened in busy clinics, where treatment continued for up to three hours longer than intended. In 12 incidents, staff treating patients had left the department or even gone home at the end of the day.
- 30% (99) of incidents described the patient feeling dizzy and/or faint.
- 19% (63) of incidents related to patients temporarily losing consciousness, 32% of these incidents required assessing by accident and emergency staff. Six of these patients also appeared to have suffered a minor seizure.
- 4% (12) of incidents related to patients having a fall, eight of them off the treatment couch.
- 2% (7) of incidents related to bruising or soreness at the site of the needle entry.
- 1% (5) of incidents described pain and difficulty breathing following acupuncture treatment; two of these incidents were formally diagnosed as pneumothorax caused by acupuncture (where a puncture causes air to collect between the lung and chest wall, causing the lung to collapse).
- 12% (39) of incidents included other harms such as hot flushes, vomiting, headache or other pains during treatment.
- 95% of the incidents were categorised by the staff who reported them as of no or low harm, 4% were categorised as moderate harm and one case of pneumothorax as severe harm. Only two of the incidents describing retained needles were reported as causing moderate harm, one of which required surgery to remove the needle. Overall, in 29 incidents, patients needed further assessment by accident and emergency staff.
How did the researchers interpret the results?
The researchers conclude that acupuncture, as practised in the NHS, appears to be a 'low-harm' treatment, although they point out, the degree of harm reported as being caused by adverse events may have been either understated or overstated by staff. In particular they point out, there were five cases of pneumothorax, a potentially life-threatening condition, yet only one of these was classified as severe by staff reporting harms.
They say it is also possible, even likely, that many adverse events were not reported at all. They say acupuncture practitioners should be aware of and be prepared to manage any significant harm from treatment.
They believe that serious adverse events may be more frequent among patients who receive acupuncture outside the NHS.
At a time of growing public interest in acupuncture and its increasing use within the NHS, this review of its possible harms is timely. Finding out more about both the potential benefits and risks of different types of treatment means we can make a more informed decision about whether the benefits outweigh the risks.
Frustratingly, since there is no information on how many acupuncture treatments were given within the NHS during the same period, we do not know how common such harms are. Also, records of patient harms do not include any information of patient conditions, which may have caused or contributed to the adverse events. Also, as the researchers point out, it is possible that many adverse events relating to acupuncture have gone unreported.
The study does site a number of previous studies that estimated the rate of mild adverse incidents could range from 671 per 10,000 consultations (6.71%) to 1510 per 10,000 (15.1%).
Currently, acupuncture is recommended by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), the body that makes recommendations about which treatments should be available on the NHS, as a treatment option for only one condition - chronic lower back pain. There is little or no scientific evidence that acupuncture works for many of the other conditions for which it is often used.
There is also no statutory regulation on acupuncture in England, although a number of voluntary organisations have drawn up codes of practice. If you choose to have acupuncture, make sure that your acupuncturist is fully qualified and practises the treatment under safe and hygienic conditions, whether the treatment takes place within the NHS or elsewhere.
Analysis by NHS Choices. Follow Behind the Headlines on twitter.
Analysis by Bazian
Edited by NHS Website
Links to the headlines
'Hidden perils of acupuncture: Lost needles, punctured lungs and fainting among NHS horror stories'
Daily Mail, 5 September 2012
Links to the science
Wheway J, Agbabiaka TB, Ernst E.
Patient safety incidents from acupuncture treatments: A review of reports to the National Patient Safety Agency
The International Journal of Risk and Safety in Medicine. Published online September 4 2012
Further reading
Ernst E, Soo Lee M, Choi T.
Acupuncture: Does it alleviate pain and are there serious risks? A review of reviews
Pain. Published online April 2011


text:
Cheers erupted at a home in Davie Tuesday night after Scott Israel called himself the new Broward County sheriff over incumbent Al Lamberti.
"I thank my kids, my in-laws, this beautiful lady, I thank my wife, just thank everybody," Israel said.
With 100 percent of precincts reporting, Israel had 53.31 percent of the vote to Lamberti's 46.69 percent, according to the Broward Supervisor of Elections.
Complete Decision 2012 Coverage
Israel had been defeated in 2008 by Lamberti, a registered Republican who managed to secure a win in the Democratic stronghold of Broward.
Through the race, Lamberti had emphasized partisan politics don't come into play for him when it comes to saving lives.
"I stand for victims, and again, victims aren't Republicans or Democrats, they're people," Lamberti said before the election.
VIDEO: Lamberti Talks With Media on Election Day
At a party thrown at a friend's home in Davie Tuesday night, Israel, a registered Democrat, essentially called himself the underdog in the race, citing fewer resources than his opponent.
"When you go into a campaign, you go in and you get volunteers, and you get campaign helpers and you get supporters," Israel said. "I had none of that, I had friends, it was just friends who were committed to me and I was committed to them."
Even the victory parties the campaigns planned were markedly different. While about 100 or so of Israel's friends and supporters packed into the backyard of the Davie residence, Lamberti's was at the Signature Grand, where he was introduced with pomp and circumstance preceded by bag pipes and drums.
Voters Endured Delays Amid Election Day Glitches in South Florida
During his campaign, Lamberti touted his efforts to tackle problems affecting Broward, like decreasing the number of pill mills, and battling identity theft.
After Israel made his victory speech, Lamberti declined requests to speak until all the results came in.
Wednesday morning, he posted a brief message on his Facebook page, thanking his supporters.
"I have spent the last 35 years of my life at the Broward Sheriffs office serving the people of Broward County. It has been my honor and privilege to serve you," Lamberti wrote. "I have witnessed many positive accomplishments and milestones at BSO and I will always be proud of the BSO family."
He went on 850 WFTL to defend his record and his name later.
Lamberti was first appointed sheriff in 2007 before his election win the next year. He told NBC 6 South Florida he's still trying to come to grips with leaving the BSO.
"It's going to be disturbing, but again, I've said before, it's not the Al Lamberti Sheriff's Office. It's the Broward County Sheriff's Office," he said. "And again, when you give 35 years of your blood, sweat, tears and soul to an agency, to have it ripped out from underneath you, it's shocking, it really is."
Minutes after declaring victory Tuesday night, Israel said he was ready to get to work and ready to start carrying out the platform he ran on.
"Reducing crime, enhancing the quality of life, diversifying the work force. And keeping kids out of jail," Israel said.
At a Glance: Broward Sheriff, Local Congressional Races and Proposed Amendments

subset: commoncrawl


text:
GHC Commentary: The GHC API
This section of the commentary describes everything between HscMain and the front-end; that is, the parts of GHC that coordinate the compilation of multiple modules.
The GHC API is rather stateful; the state of an interaction with GHC is stored in an abstract value of type
GHC.Session. The only fundamental reason for this choice is that the
Session models the state of the RTS's linker, which must be single-threaded.
Although the GHC API apparently supports multiple clients, because each can be interacting with a different
Session, in fact it only supports one client that is actually executing code, because the RTS linker has a single global symbol table.
This part of the commentary is not a tutorial on using the GHC API: for that, see Using GHC as a Library. Here we are going to talk about the implementation.
A typical interaction with the GHC API goes something like the following:
- You probably want to wrap the whole program in
defaultErrorHandler defaultDynFlagsto get error messages
- Create a new session:
- Set the flags:
- Add some targets:
- Perform Dependency Analysis:
- Load (compile) the source files:
Warning: Initializing GHC is tricky! Here is a template that seems to initialize GHC and a session. Derived from ghc's Main.main function.
import DynFlags
import GHC
mode = Interactive
main = defaultErrorHandler defaultDynFlags $ do
s <- newSession mode (Just "/usr/local/lib/ghc-6.5")
flags <- getSessionDynFlags s
(flags, _) <- parseDynamicFlags flags []
GHC.defaultCleanupHandler flags $ do
setSessionDynFlags s flags{ hscTarget=HscInterpreted }
-- your code here
You must pass the path to
package.conf as an argument to
hscTarget field of
DynFlags tells the compiler what kind of output to generate from compilation. There is unfortunately some overlap between this and the
GhcMode passed to
newSession; we hope to clean this up in the future, but for now it's probably a good idea to make sure that these two settings are consisent. That is, if
mode==Interactive, then
hscTarget==Interpreted, if
mode==JustTypecheck then
The targets specify the source files or modules at the top of the dependency tree. For a Haskell program there is often just a single target
Main.hs, but for a library the targets would consist of every visible module in the library.
Target type is defined in compiler/main/HscTypes.hs. Note that a
Target includes not just the file or module name, but also optionally the complete source text of the module as a
StringBuffer: this is to support an interactive development environment where the source file is being edited, and the in-memory copy of the source file is to be used in preference to the version on disk.
Dependency Analysis
The dependency analysis phase determines all the Haskell source files that are to be compiled or loaded in the current session, by traversing the transitive dependencies of the targets. This process is called the downsweep because we are traversing the dependency tree downwards from the targets. (The upsweep, where we compile all these files happens in the opposite direction of course).
downsweep function takes the targets and returns a list of
ModSummary consisting of all the modules to be compiled/loaded.
The ModSummary type
ModSummary (defined in compiler/main/HscTypes.hs) contains various information about a module:
- Its
Module, which includes the package that it belongs to
- Its
ModLocation, which lists the pathnames of all the files associated with the module
- The modules that it imports
- The time it was last modified
- ... some other things
We collect
ModSumary information for all the modules we are interested in during the downsweep, below. Extracting the information about the module name and the imports from a source file is the job of compiler/main/HeaderInfo.hs which partially parses the source file.
Converting a given module name into a
ModSummary is done by
summariseModule in compiler/main/GHC.hs. Similarly, if we have a filename rather than a module name, we generate a
ModSummary using
Loading (compiling) the Modules
When the dependency analysis is complete, we can load these modules by calling
GHC.load. The same interface is used regardless of whether we are loading modules into GHCi with the
:load command, or compiling a program with
ghc --make: we always end up calling
The process in principle is fairly simple:
- Visit each module in the dependency tree from the bottom up, invoking HscMain to compile it (the upsweep).
- Finally, link all the code together. In GHCi this involves loading all the object code into memory and linking it
with the RTS linker, and then linking all the byte-code together. In
--makemode this involves invoking the external linker to link the object code into a binary.
The process is made more tricky in practice for two reasons:
- We might not need to compile certain modules, if none of their dependencies have changed. GHC's recompilation checker determines whether a module really needs to be compiled or not.
- In GHCi, we might just be reloading the program after making some changes, so we don't even want to re-link modules for which no dependencies have changed.


text:
If the image prompt is anything to go by Sepia Saturday will be packed full of sporty antics this week. Not being much of a cricket or baseball player, or follower, I was contemplating that I might have to resort to including several quotes from my dusty copy of The British Academy of Cricket Manual for Gentlemen and Players. However, I came across a couple of postcard images which just fit the bill, and can therefore be a theme-follower as usual.
Unidentified group of hockey players, undated
Black and white postcard by W.W. Winter of Derby
This postcard-sized photograph is a silver gelatin print, with that characteristic partly reflective surface that does not scan well. It shows a group of 32 men and women, actually 15 males and 17 females. They appear to be members of a men's and a women's hockey team - nine of the men wear distinctive uniforms - with a few extras in suits who are possibly team coaches, managers, etc. I can only count nine hockey sticks, but presumably the rest are lying on the grass somewhere.
The reverse of the postcard is no help in dating whatsoever, as it is completely generic, with no printed words at all. The only clue to where it is from is W.W.Winter's usual signature blind stamp in the lower right hand corner (left on this image of the reverse).
The brow band, sported by one young slightly disheveled woman seated at far right, and really not much more than a ribbon, first appeared immediately after the end of the Great War and remained a distinctive feature of post-War fashion until about 1924. Many of the women in this image have hair styles similar to those described by Geoff Caulton on his British Photodetective web pages as the Great War Look. The white blouses and plain skirts worn by the women also fit that era.
It seems likely to me, therefore that this group portrait was taken shortly after the War, say between 1918 and 1922. Many of the young men pictured would not have been long back from the trenches, and such leisure time activities no doubt provided welcome distractions from the horrors of what they had experienced.
Unidentified group of female hockey players, undated
Black and white postcard by W.W. Winter of Derby
A second postcard depicting a group of 13 hockey players, this time all young women, is on postcard stock that is a variant of a a style that I have classified as Type B in my study of W.W. Winter's Derby studio, used in the 1910s and 1920s.
Reverse of Type B (variant) postcard by W.W. Winter of Derby
The fact that it has Winter's name printed on the reverse, and has no blind stamp, makes me think that it is earlier rather than later, and possibly before he sold the studio to W.H. King and H.B. Sheppard in 1910. The negative number (126214B), written in black pen on the negative and therefore appearing white on the print, by comparison with others from this studio, suggests to me that the group portrait was taken somewhat earlier than the previous one, say between 1905 and 1910.
Low pompadour, Side-swirl and Transitional hair styles
The hair styles and clothing, too, are more typical of the pre-War era. Geoff Caulton again has some good photos of the "low pompadour," "side swirl" and "transitional" hair styles which were popular amongst young women between 1905 and 1915, and examples of all three types are sported by the members of this fashionable hockey team.
Unfortunately the image is not quite clear enough to make out the letters on the uniform badge, although I can vaguely make out a possible T, D and C - perhaps it is something like Trent & Derwent (Hockey) Club? According to Wikipedia, the Derwent Hockey Club, established in 1897, was the oldest hockey club in Derbyshire.


text:
7 February 2014 at 12.03pm | 1 Comment
'The ballet is a purely female thing; it is a woman, a garden of beautiful flowers, and man is the gardener' said George Balanchine. A characteristically sweeping statement from the choreographer perhaps, but one that chimes with a common perception of the art form as feminine, in which the ballerina is the star, supported by her male cavalier.
In the 19th century the male dancer's role was indeed secondary to that of the female. Innovations in choreography and technique at this time, particularly the development of pointe work, led to ballerinas becoming regarded as ethereal, magical creatures, to whom men were little more than consorts and porters. In spite of the rigorous training and tremendous strength required to perform the leading male roles in ballets such as La Sylphide and Giselle, it is names such as Marie Taglioni, Carlotta Grisi and Fanny Elssler that we remember, and not those of their male counterparts.
Over the last 100 years, however, there has been a shift towards the male dancer. The transformation can be attributed to several prodigiously talented performers, and choreographers eager to place them centre-stage. Carlos Acosta, one of the most famous ballet dancers alive today, explained in an interview for The Culture Show, 'Thanks to Nijinsky and then later on Nureyev and Baryshnikov we are given a role that is equal. We now have the opportunity to show off just like the ballerina'.
In 1911, Vaslav Nijinsky, a member of Sergey Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, launched the male ballet dancer onto the stage quite literally with a spectacular leap through a bedroom window in Michel Fokine's new ballet Le Spectre de la rose. The stunning entrance, and the idea that you could have a spinning, leaping male rose rather than a dainty female one, amazed audiences, and from this point onwards choreographers began to explore the male virtuoso.
If Nijinsky emancipated male ballet dancers, it was Rudolf Nureyev who cemented their position in the limelight. His re-interpretations of roles such as Basilio in Don Quixote and Prince Siegfried in Swan Lake – into which he interpolated new variations and gave the male character his own identity – made him an international superstar, and revolutionized the way people viewed the male dancer.
Mikhail Baryshnikov won worldwide acclaim for his performances of classic virtuoso roles. He also had parts created especially for him, one of the most enduring of which is the leading man in Rhapsody (1980). Zoë Anderson, Dance Critic of the Independent, describes how choreographer Frederick Ashton planned the ballet as a star vehicle, with Baryshnikov 'a dazzling visitor, shooting through the ballet like a comet… the triumphant virtuoso'. The role has since become one of the most coveted by premier danseurs, and a spectacular showcase for many of The Royal Ballet's men.
The Company's current repertory features a remarkable collection of virtuoso male roles, each of them with unique challenges and displaying different strengths. These range from Crown Price Rudolf in Mayerling – a physically and emotionally exhausting role created for David Wall by Kenneth MacMillan in 1978 – to the skittish and fleet Oberon created for Anthony Dowell in Ashton's The Dream (1964). Contemporary choreographers continue to explore what the male dancer can do: Arthur Pita's 2011 The Metamorphosis drew on the extraordinary technical abilities of Royal Ballet Principal Edward Watson to create a spine-chilling alternative to the classical virtuoso.
Male ballet dancers have emerged from the shadows and at last won recognition as extraordinarily talented artists in their own right – as the immense success of Ivan Putrov's all-male show Men in Motion confirms. The ballerino has arrived, and he's here to stay.
Mayerling runs 28 April–13 May 2017. Tickets are open to Friends on 7 December 2016. General tickets will be available on 24 January 2017.
The Dream / Symphonic Variations / Marguerite and Armand runs from 7–10 June 2017. Tickets are still available.


text:
By Karin Calloway
Related Menus
Recipe Categories
Spicy Pork Wontons with Sesame Sauce
Dumplings abound in Asian cuisines, and these Spicy Pork Wontons are a delicious twist on classic pork dumplings with an added kick of spice. You can form the wontons ahead and refrigerate them on a parchment-lined baking sheet covered with plastic wrap. They also can be frozen on the baking sheet and stored in a zip-top plastic bag once they're frozen. There's no need to defrost them before boiling.
Sesame Sauce
Combine the sesame sauce ingredients together in a bowl. Set aside.
Prepare the wontons. Combine pork, green onions, sriracha, soy sauce and brown sugar. Fold a bit of the mixture inside each wonton wrapper, pressing the edges together to make wontons. Boil the wontons for about 5 minutes, until they float. Drain the wontons, place them in a serving bowl and toss with the sesame sauce.
Makes about 2 dozen wontons.


text:
Students learn not only what to teach, but how to teach it. The instructors model a variety of teaching techniques including lecture, use of audio-visual aids, role-playing, and small group activities. Students apply their learning through practice teaching sessions, which offer each student a chance to give a short presentation to peers and receive an experienced childbirth educator's feedback.
Since most expectant parents plan to give birth in a hospital, most opportunities for childbirth educators involve teaching about hospital birth. Therefore, the class focuses primarily on how to teach about hospital birth, although out-of-hospital birth is also addressed.
Certificates of completion will only be issued to students who have completed and submitted all online coursework and assignments, and must be present for all of the sessions each day. Read Simkin Center Registration Policies.
Required Text (click here for information on where to obtain texts.)
1) Pregnancy, Childbirth, and the Newborn by Simkin, Whalley, and Keppler et.al. Latest editions encouraged.
Recommended Texts:
2) Maternity & Women's Healthcare
3) The Anatomy Coloring Book by Kapit and Elson
4) The Breastfeeding Answer Book by Mohrbacher and Stock OR the Ultimate Breastfeeding Book of Answers by Newman and Pittman
Recommended Preparation
This training is appropriate for a wide variety of students, from lay people who wish to become childbirth educators, to birth professionals who wish to enhance the educational aspect of their practice.
Participants are expected to complete the reading assignments and the study guide, which will be available to you one month before the course starts.
For students without prior experience in the field, it may be helpful to attend our DONA-approved Labor Support Course or observe a childbirth education series as preparation for the class. It is also helpful if you have attended at least one labor and birth, either as a birthing woman or as a support person.
Tracy McPhillips, LCCE, CDP(DONA)
Joni Parthemer MEd, ICCE, CGE.
Lisa Tankersley, CCE
To read more about your instructors, click here.
Contact Us:
Call us at (425) 602-3361


text:
(And how can I get all of my lookup fields to have type ahead?)
So here is the weird thing: I have several lists and lookups which I am deploying as a part of a .wsp.
Of all of the lookups that are deployed, one gets this nice little type-ahead feature in the UI which I thought I had to add a third party JavaScript library to accomplish.
See evidence below:
To be clear, this is not a managed metadata field; it's a regular lookup field. But the markup is definitely different in the HTML. It renders as a
input type=textbox and
img which overlays a
To wit, I have not been able to get any of my other lookup fields to behave this way. Only this one.
So my question is what is the magic sauce that allows me to get this behavior "for free"?


text:
- A dictionary page for the shade;
- A round-bottomed flask for the stand.
The main thing is to remember that a light bulb can get really hot while on, so don't let it be close to the paper.
More awesome lamp ideas:
On: Thursday, May 5, 2011
On: Sunday, May 1, 2011
© 2010 DIY gadgets | Powered by Blogger


text:
You're in no danger of falling in, but a large group of possible cosmic vacuum cleaners have just been identified. Researchers have come upon 26 possible black holes in Andromeda, a galaxy near our own.
This is the largest number of possible black holes found in a galaxy outside the Milky Way, but that may be because of Andromeda's relative proximity to our galaxy. It's probably easiest for Earth-based scientists to find black holes outside the Milky Way there, said Robin Barnard of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Combining this discovery with previous observations of nine other black hole candidates, scientists can say that Andromeda has a total of 35 possible black holes. The research is published in The Astrophysical Journal.
NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory made more than 150 observations over the course of 13 years to identify these black hole candidates.
Seven of the new potential Andromeda black holes reside within 1,000 light years of the center of that galaxy. This supports earlier research showing that, near the center of Andromeda, there are an unusual number of X-ray sources.
Black holes can't be seen directly. But astronomers can detect material falling into them when they interfere with other stars.
A black hole is a dense region of space that has collapsed in on itself in such a way that nothing can escape it, not even light.
In a binary system of this nature, a black hole and a star orbit each other closely. Material from the star falls into the black hole and "as it spirals in, it gets hotter and hotter, and faster and faster, and eventually it gives off X-rays, so we see lots and lots of X-rays coming out of it," Barnard said.
The material as it has been swallowed gets incredibly hot, up to about 10 billion degrees. Because of the tremendous amount of energy released, some of the brightest objects in the universe are black holes.
It's hard for scientists to distinguish distant black holes from neutron stars, however.
When a star explodes in a supernova, its fiery death leaves behind either a neutron star or a black hole, which is a more extreme version of a neutron star.
If our own sun were a neutron star, it would be only about 10 kilometers, or 6.2 miles, across, Barnard said. By comparison, as a black hole our sun might be only 2 kilometers across. Black holes of the kind that scientists may have spotted in Andromeda have masses that are typically five to 10 times that of the sun.
Neutron stars have a surface, so falling material pounds onto it, Barnard said. Material rains down at enormous speeds, causing huge explosions and energy emissions.
Billions of years from now, the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies will collide, marking the end of the galaxy as we know it.


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DENVER (AP) ? Medical and recreational marijuana may be legal in Colorado, but employers in the state can lawfully fire workers who test positive for the drug, even if it was used off duty, according to a court ruling Thursday.
DENVER (AP) ? Medical and recreational marijuana may be legal in Colorado, but employers in the state can lawfully fire workers who test positive for the drug, even if it was used off duty, according to a court ruling Thursday.
The Colorado Court of Appeals decision found there is no employment protection for medical marijuana users in the state since the drug remains barred by the federal government.
"For an activity to be lawful in Colorado, it must be permitted by, and not contrary to, both state and federal law," the appeals court stated in its 2-1 conclusion.
The ruling concurs with court decisions in similar cases elsewhere and comes as businesses attempt to regulate pot use among employees in states where the drug is legal. Colorado and Washington state law both provide for recreational marijuana use. Several other states have legalized medical use. Police departments have been especially concerned since officers are sworn to uphold both state and federal laws.
The Colorado case involves Brandon Coats, 33, a telephone operator for Englewood, Colo.-based Dish Network LLC. Coats was paralyzed in a car crash as a teenager and has been a medical marijuana patient in the state since 2009.
He was fired in 2010 for failing a company drug test, though his employer didn't claim he was ever impaired on the job.
Coats sued to get his job back, but a trial court dismissed his claim in 2011. The judge agreed with Dish Network that medical marijuana use isn't a "lawful activity" covered by a state law intended to protect cigarette smokers from being fired for legal behavior off the clock. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, more than half of all states have such laws.
Dish Network did not return a call seeking comment.
Coats answered the door Thursday at his Denver home but said he wanted to talk to his lawyer before commenting.
His attorney, Michael Evans, issued a statement saying the ruling has wide implications for Colorado marijuana laws.
"This case not only impacts Mr. Coats, but also some 127,816 medical marijuana patient-employees in Colorado who could be summarily terminated even if they are in legal compliance with Colorado state law," Evans noted.
The ruling is expected to be appealed.
Morgan Fox, spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project in Washington, called it a setback.
"It's unfortunate, considering how much support there is for medical marijuana, that employers don't see this like any other medication," Fox said.
The Marijuana Policy Project said the ruling appears to be limited to state law because it does not fall under the federal Americans with Disabilities Act.
Judge John Webb dissented in the split decision, saying he couldn't find a case addressing whether Colorado judges should consider federal law in determining the meaning of a Colorado statute.
Marijuana supporters say the courts are discriminating against them because Colorado's Lawful Off-Duty Activities law protects workers being fired for legal behavior off the clock, citing cigarette smoking as a protected activity.
The Washington state Supreme Court also has found that workers can be fired for using marijuana, even if authorized by the state's medical marijuana law.
Last year, a federal appeals court ruled against a cancer survivor fired from his job at Wal-Mart in Battle Creek, Mich., after failing a drug test for marijuana. Joseph Casias had a medical marijuana card and said he used pot to alleviate symptoms of an inoperable brain tumor.
According to the Marijuana Policy Project, the California Supreme Court also has ruled that people could be fired for testing positive for marijuana. The Legislature passed a bill to change that in 2008, but it was vetoed.


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Thanks to support from AT&T, the BSA's exclusive communications services sponsor, it will be easy to stay connected at the 2010 National Scout Jamboree next month.
As we reported in October, AT&T is offering a vast communications network for jamboree attendees. That's notable because Fort A.P. Hill, Va., the site of this year's jamboree, has in the past experienced spotty cell phone coverage and limited Internet access.
This year, however, AT&T customers will have access to AT&T's wireless network for data services and voice calls.
And everyone, even those who aren't AT&T customers, will have free access to the AT&T Wi-Fi network to get a fast wireless connection while on the jamboree site. That's perfect for sending videos and photos to envious friends and family back home.
Check out the rest of the details:
- Six "Connection Zones" equipped with AT&T netbooks and wireless devices throughout the jamboree will let Scouts get online and even make free phone calls home.
- AT&T will offer Wi-Fi network access for all jamboree participants, staff, and visitors to access the mobile Internet using their Wi-Fi enabled smartphones, laptops, netbooks, or other wireless devices
- A special text-message service will provide important safety and logistical information.


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Gianni is Daily Turismo's Pacific Northwest correspondent.
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Culture clash
The Christmas markets are over, carnival -season is not here yet. These winter celebrations will help to keep boredom at bay.
Dancing firebrands
At the Up Helly Aa celebrations in Lerwick, the Shetland Islands' capital, a flaming torch parade is followed by a Viking ship being set alight, then drinking and dancing till dawn, which arrives very late up there on January 29.
Reindeer Revels
The 400-year-old Sami winter market in Jokkmokk, nothern Sweden (February 7 through 9) celebrates everything reindeer, including pelts, meat, racesand parades.
Furry Fun
Originally a big fur traders' market, the Fur Rendezvous, aka Rondy, is now Alaska's biggest winter party. Held in Anchorage from February 22 through March 3, the event ends on a climax with the legendary Iditarod dogsled race.


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Tragic Loss: Chad Ochocinco's Emotional Reaction To Chris Henry's Passing Away
"Chad was probably the closest to Chris Henry on the Bengals team and his mentor. Often seen with him & even appearing on ustream with together at times this year." - Mr. Exclusive. R.I.P Chris
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text: 27 Oct Live at McCalls I love filming and having the opportunity to talk about the things I'm passionate about. Today my friend Nidia and I drove into the city for a day of creative live streaming with the McCall Pattern Company regarding the Fashion Fusion Challenge at Creativation. Nidia Negron is the Director of Education at CHA, together Nidia and Myself headed to McCalls to meet with Stacy and Kathleen to get everyone acquainted with this exciting challenge. Stacy and Kathleen gave us a fabulous tour of their


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"One thing that every beginning trader needs to learn is there are a lot of ways to skin the cat," says Tommy Goelz who's been a stock trader for the past 33 years. For the past five, Goelz has been running the training program at First New York, a leading multi-strategy trading firm and one of the few remaining independent partnerships on Wall Street.
"What works for one might not work for the other, and vice-versa," he says, and this is why he hands every incoming trader-to-be at FNY a laundry list of 40-some-odd books -- their effective summer reading. Wherever these new employees are in terms of experience -- from fresh-clipped English majors to semi-trained finance rookies -- they're expected to knock off most of these titles. But don't be mistaken, these books aren't meant to teach new employees how to trade. (That happens over months or even years wedged between Goelz and other grizzled trading vets, including -- in the interest of disclosure -- my father, who's a partner at the firm). Instead, these books are meant to teach each newbie how to think, as their eyes become accustomed to the up- and downticks of the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI).
"Different things work for different people," Goelz explains. "Now, there are certain rules of trading that are important across asset classes or across styles. How to take and manage risk would be the two most important, no matter what or how you're trading. We focus on those things, too. But really what we are doing here is showing them the buffet [of trading styles] and letting them pick what dishes they want to eat, what will make them successful."
[More from Minyanville: The New Year Brings Strength to Markets, But Is It Real and Can It Last?]
Here, Goelz sits down with Minyanville and checks-off his and his team's top picks, giving all of you future traders a heads up on the books that should probably be on your shelves, and all of you seasoned ticker-jockeys a reminder of where your fundamentals should lie.
1. Reminiscences of a Stock Operator by Edwin Lefèvre
"It's still on my bedside table, and I pick it up every so often to read a few pages," Goelz says of Edwin Lefèvre's thinly veiled biography of the infamous speculator Jesse Livermore and his time on Wall Street in the early 1900s. "If you think algorithms and the speed of news have changed the game, then you're mistaken. Just read this book."
Reminiscences of a Stock Operator traces Livermore's fictional counterpart Lawrence Livingston from the age of 14 into adulthood, as he cuts his teeth in so-called "New England bucket shops," embraces his supreme talent for numbers, amasses a million-dollar fortune, and continues to lose and win it back several times over on Wall Street throughout the first two decades of the 20th century.
Reminiscences is widely considered a timeless compendium of trading wisdom, with generations turning to tried and true nuggets such as:
"A battle goes on in the stock market and the tape is your telescope."
"I never argue with the tape. Getting sore at the market doesn't get you anywhere."
"Speculation is a hard and trying business, and a speculator must be on the job all the time or he'll soon have no job to be on."
2. Way of the Turtle: The Secret Methods that Turned Ordinary People into Legendary Traders by Curtis M. Faith
It's an age-old question: Are good traders taught or are they born? In the early 1980s, trading guru Richard Dennis decided he was going to find out, explaining to his longtime friend and fellow trader William Eckhardt, "We're going to raise traders just like they raise turtles in Singapore." Thus began one of the most renowned -- and profitable -- trading experiments of all time.
Way of the Turtle follows the success of a group of 23 people plucked from all walks of life and trained by Eckhardt and Dennis in a short two weeks, who went on earn an average return of over 80% per year and profits of over $100 million. Only 19 years old at the time, the littlest "Turtle," Curtis M. Faith, is regarded as the most successful of this group. In his book he details the entire experiment, including a secret methodology that has since been exposed. This system combines different breakout techniques tailored with specific money management rules such as pyramiding, correlation limits, and position size control in tight markets, to name but a few. But don't be mistaken: Way of the Turtle isn't so much a how-to-trade guide as it is a meditation on taking risk -- in any market.
3. Market Wizards: Interviews With Top Traders by Jack D. Schwager
The original Market Wizards published in 1988 -- and, for that matter, its follow-ups The New Market Wizards (1992) and Stock Market Wizards (2001) -- offers a glimpse into the minds of dozens of past decades' most successful traders. Author Jack D. Schwager set out to find the ultimate secret to each trader's success; through in-depth interviews he learned that each trader operated by a unique method tailored to suit his or her personality. Again and again, regardless of how these master traders did it, Schwager found a combination of firm methodology and the right mental attitude yielded the greatest trading success.
The book drives home that fact that there are as many -- if not more -- ways to make money from trading as there are markets to trade in, and that the true secret to trading success lies within the individual. Markets are a collection of individual action, thus, they are a representation of human psychology. Mastering them not only requires talent and hard work, but also a commitment to a single method of trading, which a trader must refine and adapt over time.
4. The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis
"Really, any of Michael Lewis' books are worth a read," Goelz says, mentioning 2003's Moneyball and 1989's Liar's Poker in addition to 2010's The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine. The Big Short, a New York Times bestselling book, charts the 2010 housing and credit bubble from shady feeder markets in the early 2000s to a full-blown national crisis by the end of the decade, with a cast of characters including the investors who called the bubble early, the quant behind the first CDO market, and a one-eyed, Asperger syndrome-suffering ex-neurologist turned hedge fund manager. In addition to being an entertaining read, the book accurately depicts the simultaneous inflation of the housing bubble and how some of the biggest investment banks managed to sell junk bond securities with AAA ratings to institutional investors, which, when everything unraveled in 2007, arguably drove the United States into its current recession.
[Lewis' Liar's Poker recently made Minyanville's list of The 11 Books Investors Must Read to Prepare for 2013.]
5. Secrets for Profiting in Bull and Bear Markets by Stan Weinstein
In 1988, financial expert Stan Weinstein decided to sit down and put his market-tested trading strategies down on paper. What came next was a book outlining his stage analysis technique, which is widely regarded to still hold true over two decades later. Weinstein's methodology discourages traders from betting on the news, and urges them instead to trade future trends, the four market cycles that every stock will pass through. By looking for specific patterns in stock charts, investors can pinpoint the right times to buy and sell shares. This might seem obvious to some, but for many beginning traders, this can be misconstrued.
Secrets for Profiting in Bull and Bear Markets has remained such a solid fixture of the trading canon that Weinstein has often found himself pressured to write another book. To these requests he has famously replied: "I've already said everything I could have said."
6. Technical Analysis of the Financial Markets: A Comprehensive Guide to Trading Methods and Applications by John Murphy
This thick, technical tome is less a casual beach read and better suited for coffee-fueled highlighting and copious margin notes. John J. Murphy's Technical Analysis of the Financial Markets has earned its place as one of the foremost references for learning the ins and outs of complex charting techniques. It's not only been cited in Federal Reserve studies, but is also used as the primary source in the Market Technicians Association testing program. A recently updated edition is suited better to modern technologies and markets, and includes coverage of intermarket relationships, stock rotations, and candlestick charting.
7. The Art of Short Selling by Kathryn F. Staley
Goelz and his team are quick to notice a poor understanding of how to sell short among their new trainees. Kathryn F. Staley's The Art of Short Selling offers a dexterous explanation of an incredibly profitable but oft misunderstood discipline that no novice trader should be without. Staley gives insight into the key signals for when a stock's price is going to drop, where these signals are found, and how to utilize these signals to make a profit. Short selling, however, remains incredibly risky, and a few missteps can yield an irrevocable loss. Having a good foundation in the practice is a must, and Staley's guide is a fantastic resources to build one.
[More from Minyanville: A Survival Guide for Bears in a Bull's World]
8. Trader Vic II: Principles of Professional Speculation by Victor Sperandeo
Victor Sperandeo, the author of what Goelz considers an overlooked book, Trader Vic II: Principles of Professional Speculation, proposes that market moves are not random, but instead are driven by fundamental economic forces, which themselves are influenced by political decision-making. Because of this, Sperandeo argues that the first step in making successful investment decisions is to think about the effects that changes in the tax law and fiscal policy will have on the market, as well as on individuals and groups. While others might focus on precise timing to master the markets, Sperandeo believes success comes in pinpointing the commonsensical effects of changes in the country's economy, which, in time, will drive the market in a predictable direction. Trader Vic's well-learned philosophy is geared to both amateurs and pros, helping all make more prudent investment decisions.
9. Elliott Wave Principle: Key to Market Behavior by A.J. Frost and Robert R. Prechter
Developed in the 1930s by Ralph Nelson Elliott, a financial accountant, the Wave Principle remained relatively obscure for decades until two analysts, Robert R. Prechter and A.J. Frost, began utilizing the method in the 1970s. When they published Elliott Wave Principle: Key to Market Behavior in 1978, the investing community quickly became aware of how fundamental mathematical patterns not only observed throughout the scientific and natural world, but also in historical human behavior, could be utilized to profit from seemingly unpredictable markets. The book has since proven to be an investing classic and as one of the few that promises a tried and tested, reliable trading method.
10. Options as a Strategic Investment by Lawrence G. McMillan
Options as a Strategic Investment by Lawrence McMillans is great resource to help novice investors wrap their heads around the world of options investing. It covers the basics of how options work, and offers numerous strategies for a variety of different markets. The newest edition of this guide showcases a variety of options trading products now available, as well as contains a section on volatility trading. If you're thinking of using puts and calls, read this book first.
11. The Day They Shook the Plum Tree by Arthur H. Lewis
While being familiar with trading strategies and market behaviors will take you far, understanding the history and culture of Wall Street is a quintessential part of any new trader's education. The Day They Shook the Plum Tree by Arthur H. Lewis recounts the life of Hetty Green, the infamous financier nicknamed "The Witch of Wall Street," whose accumulation of wealth throughout the Gilded Age put her on par with Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Morgan. As "The First Female Tycoon," Hetty was, at the time, the richest woman in the world -- a reputation topped only by her infamous penny-pinching. Hetty was a notorious miser, making the story of how she made her money almost as interesting as the ways she managed to keep it.


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CATAWBA � Authorities in North Carolina have seized an unfinished home and land belonging to former NASCAR driver Jeremy Mayfield.
Catawba County Sheriff's Sgt. Kerry Hayer told the Hickory Daily Record that deputies changed the locks on the door of the home in Catawba on Wednesday.
Carolina Farm Credit received an order earlier this month transferring the land and buildings to the company. Court records show the bank bought the land for $1,725,000.
Mayfield had a court date scheduled in Catawba County for Dec. 3 on charges of one count of felony possession of methamphetamine, one count of felony obtaining property by false pretense and three counts of felony possession of stolen goods or property.


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Flying Forward
I was very tired this morning. I woke up after three hours of sleep for a flight that left much earlier than it would have had the scheduling people consulted with me first. But I still managed to avoid being an idiot.
People constantly don't think ahead. I don't mean a month ahead or a day ahead or an hour ahead. People don't think a minute ahead. For example, some of you don't even realize how funny this column is going to get just six paragraphs down.
A car cut me of while I was on my way to the airport, only to get caught behind someone making a left turn. I breezed by in the now vacant right lane. It was fun to watch the car in my rear view mirror. It was even more fun when it happened to another car within a block. That's right - even glancing behind me, I was still able to think ahead.
I don't understand people who leave windows open when they leave the house and wonder why it's cold when they get back. I don't understand people who don't close the potato chip bag and wonder why they all the chips are stale. I don't understand people who watch Dr. Phil and wonder why they got bogus weight loss advice from a phony doctor that's a real fat guy. That's right - I said it.
Life is cause and effect. The longer you live, the more causes you should learn to produce your desired effects. My first flight touched down, and there was a full ten minutes between arriving at the gate and the row in front of mine deplaning. But a woman in front of me waited until no one else was in front of her to get her bag down. I know I was only delayed by thirty seconds. But those are thirty seconds I could have used to take cheap shots at television personalities.
Why would she not get her bag while she was waiting for that ten minutes? You have two jobs when you deplane from a plane you have previously planed: gather your belongings and leave. Since she was unable to levitate (I'm assuming), she couldn't leave while there were dozens of people in front of her. So the logical thing to do would be beginning work on her other job.
I tried to imagine a scenario in her head where not getting her bag would be the right choice.
"There are several people behind me who look like they're in a hurry. My bag is within arms reach. There is room for my bag to sit next to me once I retrieve it. I have several minutes before I can start moving forward, and there is nothing to keep me otherwise occupied. I do not know how to levitate. Therefore, I should…oooh, shiny.â€
That's the best I could come up with.
While driving last week, I noticed a bright orange car on the interstate. And not just because redheads gravitate to all things orange. It was an orange Dodge Neon with a spoiler - the very same kind of car I'd rented a few weeks earlier. I have a philosophy that while renting a car, I get the kind of car I would never own myself. Like when I rented a Kia Rio. I'd never buy one on my own because I like cars with engines.
But this orange car was also noticeable because the driver made it do crazy things. Like go 90 in a 55. And get stuck behind two trucks. And go 90 again. And get stuck again. And speed into a line of cars at a toll booth. Without realizing that though the truck line seems longer, it contains fewer vehicles.
I know all of this because the entire time, I was on cruise control at 63 miles per hour while passing and being passed by a Neon-drathal alternating between 90 and 45. Until we came to the toll plaza twenty minutes after I first noticed the car, I didn't hit my breaks once. I drove through the toll ahead of the Orange-utan (was that stretching?) and watched as he faded in my rear view mirror, stuck behind a dozen drivers not forward thinking enough to fish for change before they got to the booth.
Of course, I'm not perfect. If I truly had foresight, I'd have booked a later flight this morning.


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Wreck diving
This article is a travel topic
Wreck diving is a specific type of scuba diving. Most wreck diving is done on shipwrecks, but wrecks of aircraft are also commonly explored by scuba divers. There are also a lesser number of more exotic wrecks which are dived upon, ranging from trains and buses to collapsed naval radar stations.
All scuba divers require some form of training, but many divers engage in additional training before diving on wrecks. Wreck diving is often subdivided into three types:
Non-penetration diving can usually be undertaken safely by most certified scuba divers. Divers are often recommended to undertake additional training, such as a wreck diver specialty course, before engaging in limited penetration diving. Full penetration diving is regarded as a type of technical diving, which requires significant additional experience, training and equipment.
Almost every scuba diving destination in the world offers some form of wreck diving. For many areas this is as an alternative to diving on coral and other reefs; in other areas, the wrecks are the only diving attraction.
Scuba diving publications frequently print articles about "the top 10 wreck dives in the world",[1][2] and broadly speaking the 10 wrecks in any particular article tend to be drawn from the following list:
However there are a huge number of other very popular wreck dives elsewhere in the world, including:
Regional articles which include wreck diving sites:
Isolated wreck site articles:
In addition to basic scuba diving certification, many people intending to dive on wrecks seek further training, both for their own safety, and also to increase their enjoyment.
Specialty courses[edit]
Many recreational diver training organisations offer wreck diving 'speciality' courses, as a supplement to basic training.[3] According to statistics from PADI (the largest diver training organisation in the world), wreck diving is their single most popular speciality diving course.
Wreck diving speciality courses focus on the particular hazards presented by wrecks, and introduce divers to basic reel handling skills to enable them to engage in safer penetrations into the wreck. Most agencies impose a limit on recreational divers of a cumulative distance of 130 feet/40 meters of combined depth plus penetration.
Also bear in mind that shallower wrecks tend to get broken up by the elements much more quickly. Accordingly, the better preserved shipwrecks tend to be deeper. Many divers who engage in wreck diving undertake further training in deep diving as well.
Technical courses[edit]
Divers who wish to engage in more extensive penetrations usually undertake specialist technical diver training. Two of the best known technical wreck diving courses are the Advanced Wreck Diver course from TDI (the largest technical diver training organisation in the world),[4] and the Wreck Penetration Diver course from NAUI.[5]
Certification agencies[edit]
Recognised recreational certification agencies include:
Get in[edit]
For a general synopsis of this topic, see the relevant subsections under Scuba diving - Get in and the national and regional dive guide articles. A general listing of national dive guide articles can be found under Scuba diving — Destinations, and some of these will list regional dive guide articles in their destination sections.
Do[edit][add listing]
Wreck diving is an attractive activity for scuba divers for several different reasons:
Buy[edit][add listing]
In addition to conventional scuba diving equipment, wreck divers will normally carry additional items of kit.
Wreck divers also try to configure their kit so as to minimise "danglies", or any item of kit which might snag on the wreck, or any monofilament which may be lying around on the wreck. When penetrating a shipwreck, all equipment should be clipped in and secured close to the diver's body to stay streamlined. The clips used should be of a type which can not accidentally clip onto a line (those are known as suicide clips by cave divers), or should be weak enough to be broken free if they get snagged.
Stay safe[edit]
In addition to general safety advice relating to diving (as to which, see Scuba diving - stay safe) wreck divers face a number of hazards in addition to those present in conventional scuba diving. Overhead environments may prevent direct access to the surface. Sharp edges may be present on the wreck. Some wartime shipwrecks may contain explosive cargos, and some wrecks may contain toxic materials or pollutants. Wrecks are also a magnet for fisherman, due to the fish that often gather on them, and fishing line and nets may become snagged on the wreck and present an entanglement risk for divers.
Most wrecks are slowly disintegrating. The structure becomes weaker as the material corrodes or rots, and at some stage it will collapse. This is not a good time to be inside. Those wrecks which are exposed to rough sea conditions will generally deteriorate faster, but oddly enough, are also usually less of a risk for collapsing on divers, as this usually happens during a storm when no divers are around. The wrecks that are below the wave action are the ones which are more likely to collapse without warning, possibly when an unlucky diver bumps againat a critically weakened structure, and precipitates a collapse. This is very unusual, but remains a possibility, and is one of the reasons why divers should be adequately trained before attempting penetrations — it helps if you can recognise some of the signs of impending structural failure.
In conditions of poor visibility it is possible to accidentally penetrate some wrecks. If you are lucky, you will also accidentally find your way out again. If you are suitably skilled, you may also find your way out. When diving at a site where this is a possibility, it is prudent to tow a surface marker buoy on a line, or tie off a line at a point known to be outside the wreck before venturing too close in the darkness. Your line is the only guarantee of a way out.
Basic safety precautions[edit]
All diving involving overhead environments is inherently more risky. Cave divers are taught the following mnemonic in relation to ways in which the risks can be minimised: The Good Divers Are Living (or sometimes: The Good Divers Always Live).
Many popular diving wrecks have suffered over the years due to the depredations of souvenir hunting divers. In the past, many areas have had a culture of artefact removal from wrecks, but more recently there has been far greater emphasis on preserving the historical nature of the wrecks. Many countries now impose stiff criminal penalties on divers who remove artefacts. Other wrecks have suffered over the years due to heavy usage by divers and the resultant accidental impacts.
Although increasingly less common, some wrecks which attract divers still contain human remains. Divers are well advised to respect the last resting place of the people who perished when the vessel sank.
Divers should strive to abide by the following basic guidelines when on wrecks:
Some dive organisations promote a diving variant of the leave no trace motto: "take nothing but photographs, leave nothing but bubbles."
Specific guidance to local wreck legislation may be found in some of the national dive guide articles:


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Given that the (perhaps) main feature of "4:2:0" is that it lays the ground for 10:1 or 100:1 lossy compression in codecs that seem to have been tuned to the characteristics of YCbCr (BT 601 or 709) in the way that it trades visual errors for bandwidth reduction in a way that can only be reliably measured using largish panels of viewers, how would you go about to make a replacement, and confirm that it improves the end-to-end characteristics significantly more than the measurement uncertainty?-h
'Some are suggesting that up to a stop can be gained by not filtering out 2/3rd of the spectrum at a given sampling position, which is not true because the 2/3rds are added through interpolation instead of being sampled directly.'
... As you can see, the interpolation guessed right regardless of the filter color (because a uniform patch is simple to interpolate) regardless of the amount of light that was recorded through the filter and the colors that were absorbed by the filter. The missing channel data and the level were interpolated/reconstructed from the surrounding pixels.
Thanks Bart, I am starting to see where you are coming from. My question concerned the following quote:I framed it in terms of the same sensor with or without CFA because I understand those better and I do not know Foveon at all. Let's see if I can rephrase it to include Foveon.To make things simple I will assume APS-C size for both. As far as I understand this should mean that (simplifying) 1 Foveon sensel will have about the same area as 3 RGB ones. For a given Exposure, 384 photons of daylight spectrum will fall on the area of the Foveon sensel which (simplifying) will capture them all and sort them producing a raw count of (simplifying) (128,128,128) as you suggested.For the same exposure a similar set of 384 photons will arrive over the 3 RGB simplified-bayer sensels, or 128 each. However, the sensel under the Red filter will only see (simplifying) 42 photons because the others will have been rejected by the passband of the filter. Similarly for the other two sensels under the respective idealized Blue and Green filters. The result will be a raw count of (simplifying) (42,43,43).
For what you acknowledge is the easiest possible case, where there is no color variation so that all three color channels are providing accurate luminosity information. Can you please at least acknowledge that real world subjects often have some significant color variation, making it somewhat harder for CFA interpolation to retain resolution while avoiding problems like moiré? At least so long as we do not have totally oversampled sensors.
If the Bayer CFA happens to have a Green filter, it will see the same number of photons as the Green recording depth of silicon, and likewise for the other colors. It's actually a whole lot more uncertain, but that is roughly the concept.
Simplifying, the Foveon R+G+B sensels have the same surface area as the R, or G, or B, filtered Bayer CFA sensels. Over that same surface area, they receive the same number of photons. The Bayer CFA filters out 2/3rd of the spectrum (later to be reconstructed from surrounding sensels), the Foveon type filters out the 3 spectral bands (and keeps all 3/3rd) by using the absorption depth of visible light in silicon as detectors, let's say 1/3rd Blue depth, 1/3rd Green depth, and 1/3rd Red depth. So the corresponding spectral bands receive the same number of photons. If the Bayer CFA happens to have a Green filter, it will see the same number of photons as the Green recording depth of silicon, and likewise for the other colors. It's actually a whole lot more uncertain, but that is roughly the concept.
I think that there is some transmission loss in the Bayer CFA. So a "bare" Foveon type device without a color filter in front should possibly collect more of those photons that are otherwise absorbed in the filter layer.
Ah, ok. Therefore with that assumption 1 ideal Foveon 'pixel' is the same size as 1 Bayer 'sensel' (as opposed to the three I had imagined) in current DSLRs. In that case the result of our simplified thought experiment would indeed be what you suggest, raw values (128,128,128) vs (128,0,0) respectively, and with a Bayer pattern in a uniform patch you could indeed take a guess at the missing information.In this case too, however, the 2/3s of information thrown away would be apparent. Let's say for instance that the pixel under examination was receiving light from an isolated star that produced a circle of confusion on the sensor with a diameter equal to the pixel pitch: for a given exposure 384 photons recorded by the ideal sensor; 128 by the ideal Bayer, 1/3 the SNR for the Bayer.
Of course if you took pictures of scenes with a lot less detail, say a foggy day, you could fill-in a lot of the missing information by interpolation. But then you would not need a sensor with such a high resolution. So the issue is still there, simply shifting from noise to resolution and back. And people appear to like having clean images and/or more resolution these days of cameras that end in 'e' :-)
While I was thinking about your comment, I decided to compare for fun the Sigma SD15 (pixel pitch about 8um) to the Nikon D3200 (sensel pitch about 4 um): 1 SD15 contains almost exactly 1 D3200 RGBG quadruplet - now we are back to my example in the post above with SNR the issue instead of resolution. But let's take it a step further: assume comparing the SD15 sensor to a Bayer with a 1um pixel pitch: now 16 Bayer quadruplets fit inside 1 foveon pixel. You use the best demosaicing algorithm in town... You see where this is going?
So at one extreme the missing information results in degraded resolution, at the other noise performance. Some believe that truth lies in the middle: perhaps it's because that way six of one can ignore the half dozen of the other ;-)? Correct me if I am wrong.
Bart,I'm not (maybe later) buying your explanation on bayer having better full well capacity based on foveon being layered. The foveon technology is saying nothing from blue will go deeper than they make their layer. The same for green. Being able to make a blue bayer sensor deeper is not going to do anything.I can accept the value of putting the electronics underneath so as to not interfere with the light path. Of course foveon must put electronics in the side with their layers. Good micro-lenses would even that advantage quite a bit.
You know a lot more about the technology than me. What I will say is I have seen 3 chip HD video vs 1 chip HD video. The 3 chip systems look way better. Maybe an order of magnitude better. Go to your local electronics store and compare the cameras for yourself. Panasonic makes a nice 3CMOS camcorder. Compare it to any manufacturer using 1 chip of similar size. Not the sony nex, that is a much bigger chip.Edit: by compare I mean shoot video in the store with each. Output it to a HDTV.
Bart,As I mentioned in the medium format discussion on CCD vs CMOS:If the theory of Bayer is so close to delivering as much as non- bayer why do 3 chip HD camcorders seem to have such a huge advantage? I am not talking theory, I am talking the units for sale in the stores. About a year and a half ago I was undecided on a new camera. When I was in the store they had the camcorders that take stills right beside the cameras. I spent some time in several stores comparing the models. There was one camcorder that seemed to have a massive advantage as output was viewed on a HDTV. The Panasonic 3 chip cameras. Anyone can go to test for themselves in their local electronics store. I doubt much as changed in the last year.Record some video in the store. Why wouldnt 3 chip or non-bayer via some other method not have the same advantage? My understanding is almost all Pro video systems use 3 chips.
B&H's Pro Video Studio equipment pageJVC, Panasonic, Sony all 3 chip unitshttp://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/buy/Studio-EFP-Cameras/ci/16764/N/4256818816
the photon shot noise is equal to the square root of the number of photons, so the difference would be 384/sqrt(384) = 19.6, versus 128/sqrt(128) = 11.3 . That doesn't account for the fact that the per channel noise adds in quadrature, and that interpolated channels (from a properly low-pass filtered image source) will probably have a lower than actual spatial noise frequency (interpolation usually gives some loss of modulation due to the weighted averaging), and that should be included in the total equation.
Yes, there is no such thing as Bayer quadruplets, unless one does binning which averages noise.
compare for fun the Sigma SD15 (pixel pitch about 8um) to the Nikon D3200 (sensel pitch about 4 um): 1 SD15 contains almost exactly 1 D3200 RGBG quadruplet - now we are back to my example in the post above with SNR the issue instead of resolution


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Virtual Personal Assistants (VPA) and Smart Advisors use Autonomous Agents and Smart Machine technology to enable an Ambient User Experience for applications and services. VPA solutions go way beyond automating CRM and reducing costs as AI enabled Smart Assistants also function as a marketing and sales agent as well as an extension of a company's brand. The millennial market in particular is anticipated to be a significant driver of overall usage including social media as well as digital content purchases and commerce involving physical goods and services as well.
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Significant advances have been made in VPA technology thanks to market leaders such as Amazon's Alexa, Apple's Siri, Google Home, and Microsoft's Cortana. VPA enabled apps are becoming widespread to the point that they will be embedded within most services. The preferred user interface for many Internet and wireless apps will ultimately become integrated with smart advisors and rely upon next generation interactions such as Haptic UI and other dynamic and contextual actions and interfaces. VPA systems will also become increasingly dependent upon advanced data analytics to process the huge amount of data from a variety of sources to learn about users and organize information.
This research provides an in-depth assessment of intelligent VPA and Smart Advisor market including an assessment of the emerging VPA market ecosystem including suppliers, customers, and partners. The report includes analysis of the key market players including their products, solutions, strategies, M&A, and partnerships. The report evaluates VPA and autonomous agents in all major market segments, business functions, and industry verticals with accompanying forecasts for 2017 through 2022. All purchases of Mind Commerce reports includes time with an expert analyst who will help you link key findings in the report to the business issues you're addressing. This needs to be used within three months of purchasing the report.
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Forecasts for AI, VPA, and Chatbots 2017 – 2022
Use cases for AI, VPA, and Chatbot apps and services
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Understand the economic impacts of AI, VPA, and Chatbots
Target Audience:
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Enterprise, SMB, and companies of all types
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Research Background Information
Executive Summary
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Technology, Applications and Industry Use Cases
Regional Market 2017 – 2022
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Figure 1: Attention Stream of EVA
Figure 2: Intelligent VPA and Smart Advisor Ecosystem
Figure 3: Chabot Architecture
Figure 4: Chatbot Ecosystem
Figure 5: Maturation of Intelligent VPA and Smart Advisor Applications
Table 1: Global Intelligent VPA and Smart Advisor Market by Segment 2017 – 2022
Table 2: Global Intelligent VPA and Smart Advisor User by Segment 2017 – 2022
Table 3: Intelligent VPA and Smart Advisor Market SWOT Analysis
Table 4: PESTEL Factors of Intelligent VPA and Smart Advisor Market
Table 5: Successful VPA Business for Enterprise, Industrial, and Consumer Segment CSF
Table 6: Global Intelligent VPA and Smart Advisor Market by Types of Autonomous Agents 2017 – 2022
Table 7: Intelligent VPA and Smart Advisor Revenue by Region 2017 – 2022
Table 8: Intelligent VPA and Smart Advisor Users by Region 2017 – 2022
Table 9: Global Intelligent VPA and Smart Advisor Market by Value Chain Partner 2017 – 2022
Table 10: Global Intelligent VPA and Smart Advisor Market by Business Model 2017 – 2022
Table 11: Slack Investment Lists of Fourteen companies
Table 12: Global Intelligent VPA and Smart Advisor Market by Text-to-Speech Recognition Technology 2017 – 2022
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"We're going to try to get the best hitters on the market, from an offensive perspective. Like I said, we've got to get a left-handed hitter in here that can do some damage. Do you need power in the middle of the order in the American League? I have always believed that. One thing that you have to keep in perspective is, we have a team or are evolving into a team that has power throughout the lineup and it will be spread out because Morel, as you've seen, is going to grow into a little power. Alexei has his share. Beckham has his share. Flowers is going to be a guy. Viciedo, Rios, you're got it throughout the whole lineup. I think we just need somebody to balance us out in the middle of it. It isn't easy to get."
Will Sox lower attendance affect what they can do in off-season? KW: "How much I don't know. Will it? Yes."
Reifert Kenny's comments in a lot more subjects.


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Luxury Red Picnic Rug
Product Description
This luxury red picnic rug is a traditional piece of picnic equipment with a modern twist. The tartan pattern indicates quintessentially British picnicking while the padded plastic backing provides extra comfort and acts as a waterproof layer. The rug's modern design also incorporates a carry handle and secure fastening, meaning the blanket can be folded, carried and stored with the minimum of fuss.
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Last Friday (February 25), the Disunion blog in the New York Times published a piece of interest to Civil War Emancipation. Having given priority to pressing anniversaries, I would now like to return to this article, "Frederick Douglass's Irish Liberty," written by Tom Chaffin of the University of Tennessee. Chaffin deals with Douglass' 1845 visit to Ireland and its insight into Douglass' views of how the law and government should relate to emancipation. Like Irish nationalist, Daniel O'Connell, whom he met on his trip, Frederick Douglass was a strong believer in the law even in the face of terrible oppression, although he did not also share O'Connell's commitment to non-violence.
It was his respect for the law, Tom Chaffin asserts, that increasingly put him at odds with his mentor, William Lloyd Garrison, the abolitionist firebrand and publisher of the Liberator, and eventually led to a break between the men. Chaffin writes:
Like Garrison, Douglass would have welcomed the immediate abolition of slavery across the entire United States. But both men knew that wasn't going to happen. Garrison, however, was willing to settle for another means of eliminating slavery in the United States — to allow the slave states to leave the Union. Or, if that didn't happen, Garrison argued, the Northern free-soil states should simply "come out from" the Union; in other words, the states of the North should do their own seceding from what Garrison considered a morally tainted federation.
Douglass, after his trip across the Atlantic, increasingly rejected such intellectual legerdemain. He knew that, regardless of what flag waved over the South, Garrison's envisioned "Come-outism" future would leave the region's slaves in shackles. In a February 1861 article in his journal, Douglass' Monthly, Douglass thus rejected Garrison's and all other dodges intended to avoid confrontation: "Slavery is the disease," he inveighed, "and its abolition in every part of the land is essential to the future quiet and security of the country."
True to form, in December 1860, Garrison welcomed South Carolina's secession and agreed with arguments by secessionists that the American Constitution legally enshrined chattel slavery. By then, such arguments belonged to Douglass's past. Animated, in part, by Daniel O'Connell's political vision, the former slave was, by February 1861, girding himself for his public career's most defining work — his eventual equation of the Union's war efforts against the Confederacy, policies that he would help to shape, with his own long battle against slavery.
Another wonderful piece by Disunion, which is doing a nice job thus far at keeping the story of African Americans in the Civil War front and center where it belongs.


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Tucked adjacent to the rolling hillside of Dimple Dell Park, this premier lot is located in the prestigious Quail Crest Development in Dimple Dell. Breathtaking mountain views are yours in this outdoor lover's paradise. Skiing, hiking and biking trails are just minutes away, as well as nearby shopping and restaurants. Bring your own builder or use Bradshaw Builders.
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Exclusive for History Detectives. Rusty Richards performs 'So You Want to be a Cowboy'.
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Tackling the mystery of the SS Sultana
The story of the SS Sultana. What caused the deadly explosion?
Deleted Scene: Wartime Contradictions
London professor Les Back tells Tukufu about segregation of black soldiers during WW II.
Deleted Scene: Swing Kids in Hamburg
London professor Les Back tells Tukufu about WWII-era Germany's underground jazz scene.
History Detectives Special Investigations Preview
The detectives are back solving the biggest mysteries in American history!
Extended Interview: New insights into Abraham Lincoln
Wes Cowan interviews Lincoln scholar Harold Holzer about Rueben Hatch,
The History Detectives come to a conclusion about the Sultana mystery.
Eduardo Pagan provides background on Bob Nolan, a member of the Sons of the Pioneers.
Archive footage of the Sons of the Pioneers performing Tumbling Tumbleweeds.
Tukufu Zuberi meets with fellow detective Wes Cowan to discuss Kit Carson's background.
Integration Report, 1960, showing African American students arrested for staging a sit-in
President Franklin Roosevelt explains the threat of Nazi spies within the United States.
Archive propaganda film - what can happen when the enemy gains access to military secrets.
HDSI - Texas Servant Girl Murders
Before Jack the Ripper, a serial killer walked the streets of Austin, Texas.
HDSI - The Disappearance of Glenn Miller
In 1944, bandleader Glenn Miller boarded a plane for Paris and was never seen again.
The steamship Sultana exploded without warning one night in 1865, killing 1,800 people.


text: For years, I've used various film and digital cameras to record moments in time, and put into practice all the usual and what are often regarded as the 'essential' photography skills - composition, exposure, focus, depth-of-field, etc. But I concluded that it's not enough to simply make a record of a moment and that I wanted to move away from straightforward capture to a more abstract and hopefully artistic documentation of these moments. I started using slow shutter speeds and camera movement to blur and abstract these moments and I was pleased with the results the techniques produced. And then later it was time for another change.I was standing on a platform on the London Underground, waiting for a train home. People were rushing by, trying to get to or away from somewhere, or in some cases it seemed, delaying getting to or away from that somewhere. I wondered how I could take these everyday scenes and transform them into something less mundane, something potentially artistic. Crucially, I wanted to experiment with how quickly I could do this and not spend time re-working an image (so tempting especially with digital tools), tweaking again and again the composition, or exposure, or saturation. I wanted to do it while I was waiting to get to or from wherever I was going or had been.All the images here are made using an iPhone and various apps. The images are the final images: the originals have been deleted so it's not possible to go back on various decisions I made: I can't go back and re-think, re-start, re-do. Each of these images is still of course a short timeframe as every photograph or image is. And although the everyday scene is still identifiable in most cases, I hope that these perhaps ordinary fractions of a second have been transformed into something more significant and that a sense of importance has been created from these moments and that it's worthwhile revisiting the images created.