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Fit: Honda 2014 Detroit Auto Show ? 2015 Fit Introduction Executive Remarks
John Mendel
After a strong 2013 ... I think the entire industry has a lot to love.
At least that's the spirit we're bringing to 2014.
We're very excited about the year ahead ...with an important and fun new product being unveiled here today for a new generation of buyers ... the all-new 2015 Fit.
But also because 2013 was a banner year for the Honda brand ... that is providing tremendous momentum we're carrying forward into 2014.
We set a new all-time sales record for December, and came darn close to setting a new all-time sales record for the entire year ... with Civic posting its 3rd best year in its 40-year history ... Accord with its best showing since 2008 ... and CR-V topping 300-thousand units for the first time.
In fact, Civic, CR-V and Accord combined to achieve sales of more than one million new retail customers.
And when the official December registration numbers come out in a few weeks, you can bet that four of our highest volume models ... Civic, Accord, CR-V and Odyssey ... will rank number one in retail sales in their respective segments.
That's because our sales momentum is not based on the discount budget of a fleet manager.
Our momentum is real ... and driven by the purchase decisions of individual customers.
And our commitment to retail sales supports the long-term value of our products and protects the investment and good faith our customers place in Honda.
It's why the Honda brand continued to be honored last year ... such as a sixth consecutive ALG Residual Value award, and second straight KBB Most Trusted Brand award.
At the foundation of our success, of course, are innovative new products ... like the ninth-generation Accord, which earned its 28th Car and Driver Ten-Best title and the 2014 Green Car of the Year ... and also the newly-launched and even sportier, more fuel-efficient and well-equipped 2014 Civic ... now America's best-selling compact car three years running.
Industry-leading quality and reliability is also part of the foundation of the Honda brand.
According to Polk vehicle registration statistics, Honda vehicles are the most durable and longest lasting of any mainstream automotive brand... with an industry best 75 percent of all Honda vehicles sold in the last 25 years still on the road.
In addition to our sales accomplishments, we capped off the year by leading the industry in both fuel economy and safety. And that's no easy feat!
According to the EPA, American Honda had the highest fuel-economy, lowest CO2 emissions and largest single year MPG increase of any major automaker.
And this leadership is only going to grow as we accelerate the deployment of new Earth Dreams Technology engines, transmissions and electric drive systems.*
This includes application of the very unique two-motor hybrid system that powers the 50-miles-per-gallon Accord Hybrid ... the first, but by no means the last ... Honda vehicle to employ that system.
And on the Safety front ... IIHS rolled out its revised safety ratings for 2014 ... and our Honda and Acura brands remained at the very top ... with an industry-leading six TOP SAFETY PICK-PLUS models, more than any other company.
Delivering both fuel economy and safety at industry-leading levels ... and doing it while strengthening value for the customer in terms of performance, features and technology ... speaks volumes to the core capabilities of Honda.
So ... we've got great momentum. And we will further strengthen our leadership position in safety, in fuel-efficiency, and in fun-to-drive performance based on a clear product strategy ... that we will execute step-by-step over the next 3-4 years.
You could say we're more focused than ever on what we're best at ... and what our customers and fans really love about us ... and that means innovative powertrain and packaging technologies.
This will help us drive future sales growth by aligning our products with the growth opportunities in today's marketplace.
Nowhere is this strategy more evident ... and our capability more clear... than with the vehicle we are introducing today.
Honda first made its mark in America with a sub-compact car.
But for the past several years, we just haven't had the supply to take full advantage of our opportunities in the marketplace.
That all changes next month with the start-up of production at Honda's eighth and newest auto plant in North America, in Celaya, Mexico.
This will mean that more than 98 percent of the Honda brand vehicles we sell in America will be built in North America.
And it will establish a strong base ... here in North America ... for production of high-value, high-quality subcompact vehicles that we need to attract a new generation of buyers.
There is nothing small about our thinking for this growing segment of the market.
A year ago ...right here on this stage ...we showed you a new compact SUV that, like Fit, is part of our Global Compact Series.
It will come to market late this year and both will be built at our new plant in Mexico.
I don't think I'm going out on a limb when I say that no one ... I mean no one ... does small cars like Honda.
Look no further than the first two generations of Fit, which earned a spot on Car and Driver's Ten Best list for seven straight years from its introduction in 2006.
For years, Fit has set the standard in the subcompact class ... in sporty performance, outstanding fuel economy, safety and the very flexible and spacious interior.
With great powertrains and remarkable packaging, it represents the best of Honda in one tidy package.
We have no intention of changing that formula ... just taking it to new heights.
The new Honda Fit is already the best-selling car in Japan, where it was introduced last Fall ... So, we have a lot of confidence in this new model.
We're excited to bring to market a 2015 Honda Fit that's more functional, fuel-efficient and fun to drive than ever before.
And, as you'll see ... it's a vehicle with capabilities as diverse as the lifestyles of our customers.
[Fit Reveal]
With a more energetic and sporty fascia ... and sharp lines that emphasize its aerodynamic profile ... Fit has sleek and modern exterior styling.
A larger 16-inch tire ... outfitted with a new 5-spoke wheel design ... gives Fit a planted and sporty look ... while rear reflectors and LED taillights highlight the rear design that provides Fit a more aggressive stance.*
Underneath is an all-new platform ... 57 pounds lighter due to the extensive use of high and ultra-high strength steel ... which further advances sporty performance, more nimble handling and fuel efficiency ... while enabling us to add new feature content important to our customers.
Retaining a similar exterior footprint to the current model, the new Fit is an inch and a half shorter ... but thanks to Honda packaging magic ... rear legroom has increased by almost 5 inches ... and passenger volume grows by almost five cubic feet!*
And when it comes to cargo space ... Fit has no rival ... with 52.7 cubic feet of space with a 2nd row 60 / 40 split Magic Seat that folds down flat.
Fit is a true packaging marvel...somehow bigger on the inside than it is on the outside!
Under the hood is an all-new 1.5-liter direct injected engine ...* generating 13 more horsepower than the outgoing model ... as well as an increase of 8 pound-feet of torque.
The engine is mated with two all-new transmissions ... either a short-shifting 6-speed manual that is a lot of fun to drive, or a sporty and fuel-efficient new CVT.
While delivering greater acceleration ...the new powertrain, more lightweight body and more aerodynamic form help the '15 Fit deliver an estimated 33 / 41 / 36 miles per gallon city / highway / combined.
And with our next-generation ACE body structure to provide outstanding collision protection, we anticipate earning a NHTSA 5-star overall vehicle score and a GOOD rating in all of the IIHS crash test modes, further advancing our record of safety leadership.
Now ... if there is a big opportunity in the sub-compact segment, it's in improving handling and ride comfort ... especially in highway driving.
And this new Fit delivers outstanding comfort and quiet, while also improving handling and fun-to-drive performance.
There are new front and rear suspensions, a more rigid body and a host of new noise-reducing design features.
Interior refinement is also significantly enhanced ... with higher-quality finishes and soft-touch materials.
Loaded up with new technology and features this car is anything but standard:
All of it is standard!*
Finally ... the Fit will apply our next-generation HondaLink ... which debuted on the 2014 Honda Civic ... with a 7-inch, Display Audio touchscreen with smartphone connectivity.
This lets the customer tap, swipe and pinch their way through a huge variety of entertainment and information options.
And with the new HondaLink, customers can opt for an in-dash navigation system that is powered by the driver's smartphone ... for less than sixty dollars.
By the way ... this new generation of HondaLink also gives Fit and Civic our first factory-installed application of Apple Siri Eyes Free ... delivering the kind of smart and intuitive connectivity that will appeal to a new generation of buyers.
Other premium features coming to Fit... include smart entry with push button start, and leather-trimmed heated seats... and our highly popular Honda LaneWatch blind spot display system.
I could go on ... but let me conclude by simply saying that the Fit is a small car with big aspirations for a new generation of buyers.
Faster, more fuel-efficient and more fun ... it is a subcompact with super capabilities.
A magically-packaged, do-everything, ready-to-rip, space wonder of a car.
It's simply the best Fit ever and a new benchmark in the segment.
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Are you a fan of embiggened bugs? Alex Wild — master of ceremonies over at Myrmecos — has just posted over 600 of his best photographs from 2011, and it is one of the most jaw-dropping collections of insect macrophotography we've ever seen. Click through to check it out — you won't be disappointed.
Featured up top is just one of our favorites: An Eciton army ant has anchored herself to the tip of Wild's finger with a set of "ice-tong" mandibles, providing her the leverage she needs to sting him at will. [Myrmecos]

subset: commoncrawl


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After the massive flow of dividend payments that came at the end of 2012 in reaction to changes in the tax law, the pattern is returning to normal. Life goes on, and most companies declare dividends when they report earnings in January, then "pay" them -- in other words, they go ex-dividend -- in February. So now is the time to crank up your dividend research effort and make hay while the sun shines.
I am enjoying the start-of-year rally as much as you are, but there is one sad consequence: Dividend yields are falling as stock prices rise more quickly than companies can increase their dividends. Just like a falling market can produce accidental high yielders, a strong rally can produce accidental paltry yields.
The table below lists the interesting dividends coming up in the next couple weeks. Many names whose quarterly dividends were always around 1% are suddenly not looking so great. For instance, Exxon Mobil's (XOM) dividend will be only 0.63%, rather than the old 0.8% to 0.9%. Southern Copper (SCCO) will now pay an uninspiring 0.6%.
As a dividend trader, you must simply accept the slightly lower yields and plan on trading a bit more. You do not want to increase your risk profile by playing higher yields. For instance, as you look over the list, you will see a ton of master limited partnerships (MLPs), which are identifiable by the "LP" in the company name. These are not more risky businesses per se -- in fact, many are low risk -- but the security is often riskier, as they trade more efficiently, and it is harder to exit your position. For this reason, and because the tax accounting for LPs adds complications, I tend to avoid LPs.
I highlighted names that I just added to the portfolio: Intel (INTC), New York Community Bancorp (NYCB), Wynn Resorts (WYNN), Eli Lilly (LLY) and DuPont (DD). All have reasonably large dividends and OK fundamentals that are unlikely to surprise negatively in the near term. And they are highly liquid, so they are easy to trade into and out of.


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If you want to ward off evil spirits, it pays to be wield some serious firepower. Farmers in the Cambodian countryside have thusly armed their scarecrows with spectral munitions. These martial manikins were spotted by the bloggers at Asia Obscura. Here's how they describe them:
Somewhere between Siem Reap and the River of 1000 Lingas, one of the roads leads through an area where every house is guarded by a vicious scarecrow. They're not in the fields, or guarding the crops. They're keeping watch on the houses.
"It's an old superstition," said our driver. "It's nothing. It's to stop bad spirits coming inside."
One of the guards wore a motorcycle helmet, like a goon from The Road Warrior. One held out a gun, another a sword, another a bazooka.
You can see more heavily armed scarecrows at Asia Obscura. Hat tip to Andy!


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KU School of Music: In the News
Recent news
New York Times review of the KU Wind Ensemble's performance of "In the Shadow of No Towers" March 29, 2013.
KU School of Music students performing in two operas in Eutin, Germany July 19, 2011.
Summer academy to feature student musicians from abroad, area. June 27, 2011.
Professor Debra Hedden: Faculty to receive awards for outstanding teaching. May 9, 2011.
Student sweeps annual music theory and music composition division awards. April 29, 2011.
Sister city delegates to visit School of Music. April 11, 2011.
Clarinet student performs in Holland to raise money for Dutch Council for Refugees. April 7, 2011.
Past Articles
Undergraduate Students: School of Music announces students performing in undergraduate honors recital. March 28, 2011.
Student Crystal Lam: Doctoral student scores music fraternity scholarship. March 28, 2011.
Students: Tuba students win big at regional competition. March 28, 2011.
Alumnus Terry Resseguie: An Old World homecoming. March 16, 2011.
Professor Paul Stevens: KU professor's music career took him to Hollywood. March 7, 2011.
Professor Joyce Castle: Queen's Castle: Singer Joyce Castle celebrates her ruby anniversary. January 20, 2011.
Professor Michael Davidson: Trombone professor releases new CD. December 15, 2010.
Professors Davidson and Wong-Cruz: KU People. December 6, 2010.
Holiday Vespers: Vespers in Douglas County bring in songs of the holiday season. November 21, 2010.
Professor Robert Foster, KU School of Music Alum: Professor Robert Foster wins ASCAP award; musicology alum wins book collecting contest; Nov. 3 Jazz concert welcomes notable guest artists. November 1, 2010.
KU Symphony Orchestra: Halloween Concert; Music student wins awards for CD; Instrumental Collegium Musicum. October 14, 2010.
Student Cory Hills: Music student wins multiple awards for children's CD. October 7, 2010.
KU Alumnus James Zakoura: Alumnus contributes more than $400,000 to School of Music. September 29, 2010.
New KU Opera; Music student performs internationally. September 27, 2010.
Collage Concert; Paul Laird publishes book. September 27, 2010.
Professor Tami Lee Hughes: Helping students hit the right note. September 22, 2010.
KU Band Day: KU Band Day is this Saturday--KU to welcome more than 30 high schools to Band Day this year! September 20, 2010.
KU Trumpet Ensemble: The KU Trumpet Ensemble returns from a performance at the International Trumpet Guild Conference in Sydney! September 20, 2010.
Professor Jim Barnes: Professor to compose for Berlin Philharmonic. September 1, 2010.
Professor Jim Barnes: Berlin Philharmonic commissions music professor to compose work. August 25, 2010.
Dean Robert Walzel: Campus Closeup. August 23, 2010 -and- Meet the Dean. July 23, 2010.
Professor Robert Foster: Band director invests life in music community. July 26, 2010.
Press Contact
To receive press releases and photos by email, please contact J.D. Warnock, School of Music Communications Coordinator.
Christine Metz Howard
Communications Coordinator
KU School of Music
Faculty Biographies


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It's pretty self explanatory, but I haven't seen a recent suggestion topic for it. GW games thrive on being able to create your own armies and/or fleets and a lot of us put considerable time and effort as well as passion into creating our own banners/insignia and colour schemes. So far, we are able to play our own armies/factions in all of the really good GW PC games.
What BG:A needs is the ability to use your own colours and faction names and ideally also a custom badge. Worries about "outlandish" fleets that ruin immersion is, in my opinion, unreasonable since most colours already exist in canon anyway - a common "fear" of people are purple fleets. Look up the "Emperor's Children" chapter, please. All colours are canon. The custom badges might lead to more problems, however Relic's titles allow it and never has anything bad happened, inappropriate badges could be reported and dealt with or you could add a clientside toggle to disable badges.
But badges are essential. If you take a look at the Tau for example, you included a few septs to choose from - yet their badge never changes. Sa'Cea doesn't use the Tau default insignia, neither does the Farsight Enclave. Please understand that this is very important for quite a few players
I'm looking forward to hear your plans and opinions on the matter
Fully customizable colours / Fleet painter
Share your ideas and suggestions for Battlefleet Gothic: Armada.
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Re: Fully customizable colours / Fleet painter
For me, the bigger issue would be with making ships that are camouflaged in to the background, and having ships that are so jarring to look at it's hard to make out what they are at a glance.
That said, I ain't opposed to the idea (Especially for singleplayer).
That said, I ain't opposed to the idea (Especially for singleplayer).
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Boxer Mike Tyson may have a one-of-a-kind tattoo around his left eye. And according to a lawsuit, his tattoo artist thinks any copycats must pay.
S. Victor Whitmill, the tattoo artist who inked Tyson's signature tat, is suing Warner Brothers Entertainment for using the graphic in "The Hangover Part II," The New York Times reported. Ed Helms' character wakes up after a night of drunken debauchery with a tattoo exactly like Tyson's.
Like a company logo, Whitmill thinks the tribal tattoo is copyrighted work.
"Mr. Whitmill has never been asked for permission for, and have never consented to, the use, reproduction or creation of a derivative work based on his original tattoo," argues the lawsuit, which The New York Times reported was filed April 28.
Tyson has agreed that Whitmill would own the artwork and the copyright of the "Maori-inspired" tattoo. In fact, the lawsuit claims that Tyson's image or likeness has nothing to do with the issue. It's just Whitmill between Warner Brothers.
Warner Brothers' claims the suit is baseless. In a brief filed May 20, Warner Brothers said there was "no legal precedent for Plaintiff's radical claim" to "control the use of a tattoo that he created on the face of another human being." They added that any delay of the film's release would be an enormous financial burden.
Tyson himself has a cameo in both films. Helms told Entertainment Weekly last week that the boxer had no idea the actor was sporting a copy of his tattoo for the movie, and his reaction was caught on camera.
"His reaction to the tattoo is in the movie because they did not prep him or me before hand," said Helms, who is also known for his role on "The Office." "As his arrival on set was imminent, it became clear that no one had told him about the tattoo bit, and I was actually worried he'd be mad at me and the switch would flib. But he was so cool about it."
The tattoo artist? Not so much.
Selected Reading: The New York Times, Entertainment Weekly


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... by iteratively improving the efficiency of the solution.
First up, list compression is a powerfully expressive programming technique that so naturally embodies the nondeterministic programming style that users often don't know they are programming nondeterministically. List compression is of the form:
[ x | qualifiers on x]where
xrepresent each element of the generated list, and the qualifiers either generate or constraint values for
Given the above definition of list compression, writing the solution for our cryptarithmetic problem becomes almost as simple as writing the problem itself:
[(s,e,n,d,m,o,r,e,m,o,n,e,y) | s ← digit, e ← digit, n ← digit,
d ← digit, m ← digit, o ← digit,
r ← digit, y ← digit,
s * 1000 + e * 100 + n * 10 + d
+ m * 1000 + o * 100 + r * 10 + e
≡ m * 10000 + o * 1000 + n * 100
+ e * 10 + y]
where digit = [0..9]
Easy, but when run, we see that it's not really what we needed for the answer is ...
... and 1153 others. No, we wish to have
SEND + MORE = MONEY such that
S and
M aren't zero and that all the letters represented different digits, not, as was in the case of the first solution, all the same digit (
0). Well, whereas we humans can take some obvious constraints by implication, software must be explicit, so we need to code that
S and
M are strictly positive (meaning, "greater than zero") and that all the letters are different from each other. Doing that, we arrive at the more complicated, but correct, following solution ...
[(s,e,n,d,m,o,r,e,m,o,n,e,y) | s ← digit, s > 0,
e ← digit, n ← digit, d ← digit,
m ← digit, m > 0,
o ← digit, r ← digit, y ← digit,
different [s,e,n,d,m,o,r,y],
num [s,e,n,d] + num [m,o,r,e]
≡ num [m,o,n,e,y]]
where digit = [0..9]
num = foldl ((+).(*10)) 0
different (h:t) = diff' h t
diff' x [] = True
diff' x lst@(h:t) = all (/= x) lst && diff' h t
A bit of explanation -- the function
num folds the list of digits into a number. Put another way ...
num [s,e,n,d] ≡ ((s * 10 + e) * 10 + n) * 10 + d
... and the function
different, via the helper function
diff', ensures that every element of the argument list are (not surprisingly)
different -- a translation of
diff' is ...
diff' x [] = True"A list is 'different' if there is only one number"
diff' x lst@(h:t) = all (≠ x) lst && diff' h t"A list is 'different' if one of the numbers is different than every other number in the list and if this is true for all the numbers in the list"
... and after a prolonged period [434 seconds], it delivers the answer:
Okay! We now have the solution, so we're done, right? Well, yes, if one has all that time to wait for a solution and is willing to do tha waiting. However, I'm of a more impatient nature: the program can be faster; the program must be faster. There are few ways to go about doing this, and they involve providing hints (sometimes answers) to help the program make better choices. We've already done a bit of this with the constraints for both
S and
M to be positive and adding the requirement that all the letters be different digits. So, presumably, the more hints the computer has, the better and faster it will be in solving this problem.
Knowing the problem better often helps in arriving at a better solution, so let's study the problem again:
The first (highlighted) thing that strikes me is that in
MONEY, the
M is free-standing -- its value is the carry from the addition of the
S from
SEND and the
M from
MORE. Well, what is the greatest value for the carry? If we maximize everything, then the values assigned are 8 and 9, then we find the carry can at most be 1, even if there's carry over (again, of at most 1) from adding the other digits. That means
M, since it is not 0, must be 1.
What about for
S, can we narrow its value? Yes, of course. Since
M is fixed to 1,
S must be of a value that carries 1 over to
M. That means it is either 9 if there's no carry from addition of the other digits or 8 if there is. Why? Simple:
O cannot be 1 (as
M has taken that value for itself), so it turns out that there's only one value for
O to be: 0! We've fixed two values and limited one letter to one of two values, 8 or 9. Let's provide those constraints ("hints") to the system.
But before we do that, our list compression is growing larger with these additional constraints, so let's unwind into an alternate representation that allows us to view the smaller pieces individually instead of having to swallow the whole pie of the problem in one bite. This alternative representation uses the do-notation, with constraints defined by guards.
A guard is of the following form:
guard :: MonadPlus m ⇒ Bool → m ()
What does that do for us? Recall that MonadPlus kinds have a base value (
mzero) representing failure and other values, so guard translates the input Boolean constraint into either
mzero (failure) or into a success value. Since the entire monadic computation is chained by
mplus, a failure of one test voids that entire branch (because the failure propagates through the entire branch of computation).
So, now we are armed with guard, we rewrite the solution with added constraints in the new do-notation.
do let m = 1
o = 0
s ← digit
guard $ s > 7
e ← digit
n ← digit
d ← digit
r ← digit
y ← digit
guard $ different [s,e,n,d,m,o,r,y]
guard $ num [s,e,n,d] + num [m,o,r,e] ≡ num [m,o,n,e,y]
return (s,e,n,d,m,o,r,e,m,o,n,e,y)
where digit = [2..9]
Besides the obvious structural difference from the initial simple solution, we've introduced some other new things --
- When fixing a value, we use the let-construct.
- As we've grounded
Oto 1 and 0 respectively, we've eliminated those options from the
- Since the do-notation works with monads in general (it's not restricted to lists only), we need to make explicit our result. We do that with the return function at the end of the block.
What do these changes buy us?
[(9,5,6,7,1,0,8,5,1,0,6,5,2)] returned in 0.4 seconds
One thing one learns quickly when doing logic, nondeterministic, programming is that the sooner a choice is settled correctly, the better. By fixing the values of
M and
O we entirely eliminate two lines of inquiry but also eliminate two options from all the other following choices, and by refining the guard for
S we eliminate all but two options when generating its value.
In nondeterministic programming, elimination is good!
So, we're done, right? Yes, for enhancing performance, once we're in the sub-second territory, it becomes unnecessary for further optimizations. So, in that regard, we are done. But there is some unnecessary redundancy in the above code from a logical perspective -- once we generate a value, we know that we are not going to be generating it again. We know this, but
digit, being the
amb operator doesn't, regenerating that value, then correcting that discrepancy only later in the computation when it encounters the
different guard.
We need the computation to work a bit more like we do, it needs to remember what it already chose and not choose that value again. We've already use memoization when we implemented the Fibonacci sequence and the Ackermann function with the State monad; so let's incorporate that into our generator here.
What we need is for our
amb operator to select from the pool of digits, but when it does so, it removes that selected value from the pool. In a logic programming language, such as Prolog, this is accomplished easily enough as nondeterminism and memoization (via difference lists) are part of the language semantics. A clear way of dissecting this particular problem was presented to me by Dirk Thierbach in a forum post on comp.lang.haskell, so I present his approach in full:
- I need both state and nondeterminism, so I have to combine the state monad and the list monad. This means I need a monad transformer and a monad (you need to have seen this before, but if you have once, it's easy to remember).
- The state itself also has to be a list (of candidates).
- So the final monad has type
StateT [a] [] b.
- I need some function to nondeterministically pick a candidate. This function should also update the state.
- Played around a short time with available functions, didn't get anywhere.
- Decided I need to go to the "bare metal".
- Expanded
StateT [a] [] ainto
[a] → [(a,[a])], then it was obvious what
chooseshould do.
- Decided the required functionality "split a list into one element and rest, in all possible ways" was general enough to deserve its own function.
- Wrote it down, in the first attempt without accumulator.
- Wrote it down again, this time using an accumulator.
With this approach presented, writing the implementation simply follows the type declaration:
splits :: Eq a ⇒ [a] → [(a, [a])]
splits list = list >>= λx . return (x, delete x list)
Although, please do note, this implementation differs significantly from Dirk's, they both accomplish the same result. Now we lift this computation into the State monad transformer (transformers are a topic covered much better elsewhere) ...
choose :: StateT [a] [] a
choose = StateT $ λs . splits s
... and then replace the (forgetful)
digit generator with the (memoizing)
choose (which then eliminates the need for the
different guard) to obtain the same result with a slight savings of time [the result returned in 0.04 seconds]. By adding these two new functions and lifting the nondeterminism into the StateT we not only saved an imperceptibly few sub-seconds (my view is optimizing performance on sub-second computations is silly), but, importantly, we eliminated more unnecessary branches at the nondeterministic choice-points.
In summary, this entry has demonstrated how to program with choice using the MonadPlus class. We started with a simple example that demonstrated (naïve) nondeterminism, then improved on that example by pruning branches and options with the guard helper function. Finally, we incorporated the technique of memoization here that we exploited to good effect in other computational efforts to prune away redundant selections. The end result was a program that demonstrated declarative nondeterministic programming not only fits in the (monadic) idiom of functional program but also provides solutions efficiently and within acceptable performance measures.


text:
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- Under Company Settings, click the Spam tab.
- Make your desired selections for the options displayed on the page:
Option Details Spam Sensitivity Default level is 7. The lower the number, the more sensitive, and the more spam that gets stopped. The higher the number, the less sensitive. Quarantine bulk email If selected, this will not allow any email that is identified as bulk email through. This is all messages from any email marketing services, or any other sender that is known to be sending email in bulk. Quarantine email suspected of being phish If selected, this setting will stop any email that the system thinks is a phishing attempt, trying to steal personal information. If you choose to quarantine suspected phishing emails, you also must decide if you want to Require administrator privileges to release suspected phishing email, below. Spam stamp & forward If selected, this will mark the email as Spam in the subject line, but will still deliver to the intended recipient. You can set what you want your Spam stamp in the subject line to be, next to Spam stamp & forward subject tag, below. Include an easy-spam-reporting disclaimer in passed email If selected, this will add a footer to the bottom of all incoming email, stating that it has been scanned for spam and viruses. It also includes spam reporting, which allows users to report any emails incorrectly classified as spam. (Here are instructions on adding a disclaimer to outgoing emails.) Quarantine inbound email sent by active domains associated with this organization If selected, any incoming message that has a "from" domain impersonating one of yours is blocked. Update spam detection settings above for all existing user accounts If selected, all the above settings will be applied to all your users, regardless of their personal spam settings. Inbound sender DNS check If selected, this will check incoming emails for a properly set up email domain record. If the sending domain is not set up properly to receive emails, the email will not get through. This helps stop spam that is sent from a fake domain.
- When you're finished making changes, click Save.
Next step
- If you have elected to quarantine any messages on this page, or have created any filters that quarantine certain messages, you may want to check out your Quarantine Digest settings.


text:
Farmingdale, 1
Mount Saint Mary, 1 (2OT)
Farmingdale, NY � The Farmingdale men's soccer team (5-4-2, 2-2-1) ended in a deadlock today in a double-overtime game against Skyline opponent Mount Saint Mary College (5-6-1, 0-3-1) in Farmingdale, NY. The Rams took the lead in the first half as senior midfielder Carlos Proano (Brentwood, NY/Brentwood) ripped a shot past the Blue Knights' goalkeeper from six yards out for the 1-0 advantage.
Farmingdale kept the pressure on and held the lead until Mount Saint Mary's Chris Lahar (Wallkill, NY/Wallkill Senior) sailed a free kick over the Rams defense and between the pipes to tie the score at 1-1 with 12 minutes remaining in the game.
Neither team could capitalize throughout the two overtime periods, ending in a 1-1 conference tie. Junior goalkeeper Kyle Reiss (Oxford, NY/Oxford Academy) made 15 saves on 26 shots faced for the Blue Knights. Farmingdale's freshman goalkeeper Joseph Caccavale (West Islip, NY/West Islip) made five saves on eight shots.
The Rams host New Jersey City University on Monday, October 9th in a non-conference game at 3:00pm.


text:
Blown Away
The wheeled blower is, as its name suggests, a blower that rests on wheels instead of your shoulders. Consisting of a fan, housing and engine, the wheeled blower is, mechanically anyway, quite a simple device, especially considering the engineering that goes into many of the professional tools found on landscape contractor trailers and trucks. However, the best wheeled blowers available today are highly engineered for maximum performance.
The primary users of wheeled blowers are lawncare contractors and homeowners. Autumn leaf removal is job No. 1, but wheeled blowers are also used for spring cleanup prior to fertilizing and mowing. The wheeled blower is also an excellent tool for removing thatch from lawns following power raking. Some contractors prefer wheeled blowers to backpacks for final cleanup after mowing and trimming because they cover so much more ground than backpack blowers do and the operator doesn't have to wear it on his/her back. Many contractors in the Mid-Atlantic states keep wheeled blowers on their trailers during the spring and summer to clear parking lots and drives of fallen pine needles.
The wheeled blower succeeds where backpack and handheld blowers fall short: moving large volumes of debris as quickly and efficiently as possible. The top-performing wheeled blowers produce up to four times the volume of air produced by the best backpack blowers; yet maintain the high velocity (more than 190 mph) users have come to expect.
Because the primary use of wheeled blowers is leaf and debris removal in the autumn, the air volume they produce matters a lot. Volume, typically measured in cubic feet per minute (cfm) is the output component that determines how much work gets done over a certain period of time. Velocity, measured in miles per hour (mph), is the other output component. High velocity is required to break the surface tension between the debris and the ground to create the initial momentum. In wheeled blowers, the two measures are inversely related, meaning that as volume is increased, velocity is lost, and vice versa. Manufacturers of wheeled blowers work to find the optimum balance between volume and velocity for the available horsepower.
To better understand velocity, consider these examples:
The ceiling fan. An ordinary 52-inch ceiling fan produces a whopping 5,000 cfm (volume), but you won't find a design like this on a contractor's trailer because the ceiling fan's velocity isn't high enough to move any leaves. More velocity is required.
The air compressor. Pressure from a compressor is high enough to fill automotive tires beyond 60 psi, but it's not enough to move leaves because there is very little air volume. Only when volume is added does the air stream have the necessary force to move mountains of leaves.
Wheeled blower design has evolved significantly over the years. Early models were fashioned of simple round steel housings and four-bladed steel fans. Eight-hp engines were most common. All-steel blowers worked reasonably well, but they were loud, heavy and not very efficient. Changes in fan design and materials produced some improvements in velocity and helped to reduce noise as well. Housing shapes were modified to produce more volume, but because they were made of metal, unit weight increased substantially. One manufacturer even added a patented feature to control the discharge air from the handle. Overall performance was improved but weight and noise were still problematic for contractors and homeowners alike.
Some contractors moved to backpack blowers because of all the advancements manufacturers made in the past 10 years. Many top-performing backpack units now approach 30 pounds and create uncomfortable back strain with all their torque. To reverse that trend, today's high-tech wheeled blowers are made largely out of composites. Performance gains achieved through computer simulation and design are impressive, but perhaps more importantly, both unit weight and noise decreased dramatically. Nine- and 13-hp engines are now the most common choices of contractors; 5-hp is often all the homeowner requires.
As you might have guessed, the primary consideration to look for in a wheeled blower is performance. Will this investment help you to cut labor and maximize your profit? Contractors often tell us they've cut hours, even days, from big leaf removal jobs. For detail cleaning, there is no substitute for backpack blowers. But wheeled blowers can produce as much as four times the amount of air of backpack blowers, so it is not unreasonable to expect to be able to cut your staffing by two or three employees on many jobs. Obviously, that flows to your bottom line.
Performance is one thing, but you also have to consider design. If your staff fatigues early, you've not accomplished your goal. Always look at unit weight. Ask yourself these questions: How easily does the blower roll? Can my staff push it uphill without killing themselves? Is it easy to load/unload or roll over a curb? Would my employees rather walk behind a blower than have one strapped to their backs?
In many parts of the country, blowers and noise are evil bed partners. Advances in fan and housing design and materials shift noise frequency and reduce decibels, making wheeled blower design both a logical and appealing solution. At less than full engine rpm, it's entirely possible to begin using the latest high-tech wheeled blower first thing in the morning without driving the neighborhood up in arms.
Finally, make sure the wheeled blower you're considering purchasing is easy on the hands. Some manufacturers isolate vibration by using shock mounts; others design the engine base to deflect vibration away from the handle. Either way, be sure the wheeled blower is comfortable to operate and that your staff is in favor of the model you're considering or else they'll fight using it.
Believe it or not, some contractors still use rakes and tarps to haul off leaves. Not only is this a grossly inefficient technique, it's incredibly hard work. Because the wheeled blower is affordable, versatile and requires very little maintenance, most contractors can justify the purchase of one or more. Leaf removal is significantly more profitable than mowing lawns, so even though the season is shorter, contractors achieve payback on their investment in a matter of a couple of weeks. The newest high-tech wheeled blowers are available starting at $999. By contrast, the top-performing backpack blowers retail for around $500. If you have only one or two jobs each autumn that require wheeled blowers, rental is certainly a good option and allows you to try different brands before buying.
With advancements in design, the wheeled blower is an important tool to consider adding to your fleet of equipment. Improved output, enhanced user comfort and dramatically lower noise levels make the wheeled blower a compelling argument for increased profitability.
Will Coates is the president of Billy Goat Industries, Inc. (Lee's Summit, Mo.).
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text:
The new Good Practice Guidelines for GP electronic patient records version 4
will act as a reference source of information for all those involved in developing,
deploying and using general practice IT systems. The scope is extended in this fourth
version to include new services (including the Summary Care Record, Electronic Prescription
Service and GP2GP). There is also a greater focus on information sharing and the central
themes of the guidelines are interoperability and data quality.
Download The Good Practice Guidelines for GP electronic patient records v4 (1.69Mb)
Your IG Toolkit session will automatically timeout in 5 minutes
Please press Ok within 5 minutes of this message appearing to stop your session
timing out


text:
I was wondering Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, so I watched the movie finally. It's a sick, dark tale of derangement and family dysfunction, with a heavy dollop of really black comedy. Of course, the real attraction is Bette Davis in a wonderful star turn, with Victor Buono doing a memorable supporting bit. He manages to convey contempt, pity, amazement, self-disgust, and greed all with a few twitches of the lips and eyebrows. The film was directed by Robert Aldrich, who made one of my favorite noirs, Kiss Me Deadly. (The two films use the same stretch of beach for their final scene.) Looking into Aldrich's career, I found that he also made the 1956 film, "Attack."
As this interesting review suggests, the quotation marks around the title of "Attack" are original with Aldrich. This is no ordinary WWII film, and it was made on a very small budget with no cooperation from the military. It is based on a play, and it runs like one – the drama is in the characters and their conflicts, so no need for big budget effects. The themes are cowardice and corruption; not the stuff of your usual GI Joe flick of that era.
Eddie Albert (later of Green Acres fame) plays Cooney, a captain with no guts. (In reality, Albert was a decorated combat veteran.) Worse, he's a full-fledged coward. In civilian life, he's a businessman with a big-wheel father who tried without success to beat some virility into him. As a captain, his fear of doing anything, and his need to cover up his failure, leads to the needless deaths of nearly twenty men under his command. One of his men decides it's time to change the chain of command.
Cooney's commander is Bartlett (Lee Marvin at his slithery, frightening best). He doesn't care what Cooney does or how he destroys his men: he's more concerned with keeping in good graces with Cooney's dad back home in the states. He despises Cooney, but after the war, he'll get his payoff for getting Cooney through the war, maybe with a medal.
The review linked above mentions the "rampant" phallic imagery in the film -tank guns, big cigars fondled and chomped, rifles…- and remarks that it is typical of the era. I'm not so sure that this is not over interpretation. Below, a German tank on the prowl; the view of the German gunner in the tank as it moves in on Costa; Costa tries to blast the tank with his trusty bazooka, but the trigger won't work! You connect the dots if you like…
The brutality of the war is conveyed through spare, frightening combat scenes: the men make a terrifying run under enemy fire over a long open field; a tense confrontation with a German sniper is resolved with some backwoods trickery and good shootin'; Costa (Jack Palance) screams like an animal as his arm is crushed by a tank. When the bodies of Costa and Cooney are laid side by side, Cooney's look likes he's sleeping; Costa's face is frozen in an anguished scream, his mouth and eyes wide open. The men are loyal to one another and fixed on their mission, the proverbial GI grunts. When they are trapped in a basement in a town during house to house fighting, they resolve to carry one of them, Bernstein, out on stretcher since his leg is broken. He's a Jew, and the SS in town won't take him prisoner. Cooney wants to surrender, so the men shoot him.
The moral corruption of Bartlett is just as brutal as the combat. He knows what happened, and he couldn't care less. As he kicks Cooney's body he says, "Well, the judge wanted a son, so I guess he had to loose one to get one!" He'll write the coward up for a medal and get the next in command, Woodruff (William Smithers) to sign-off on it. He's got no choice…or does he?
Cooney collapses in a heap and fondles his sheepskin slippers, wishing he were home safe in bed.
Woodruff approaches the bodies of Cooney and Costa before deciding what he must do.
One more thing about Baby Jane: when Jane is a young girl in 1917, a vaudeville sensation, Blanche hates her and smolders inwardly over the favoritism shown her spoiled brat sister. In 1935, the tables have turned, and Blanche is a big film star, while Jane, with no acting talent at all, works in a series of junk B-films. A few clips of these movies are shown in a scene in which some film executives bemoan the fact that they have to humor Blanche by giving Jane work in the studio. Boy, that young woman in the clips sure looked like Bette Davis! Where did they find her? Turns out it was Davis, and Aldrich dug up clips from some truly awful films that Davis was in at the start of her career. Did it hurt Bette to see them up there on the screen? I doubt the sting was too great, given the acclaim she got for her performance.


text: Eighteen years after the genocide that made Rwanda international news, but left it all but abandoned by the West, the country has achieved a miraculous turnaround. Rising out of the complete devastation of a failed state, Rwanda has emerged on the world stage yet again-this time with a unique model for governance and economic development under the leadership of its strong and decisive president, Paul Kagame. Here, Patricia Crisafulli & Andrea Redmond look at Kagame's leadership, his drive for excellence and execution that draws comparisons to an American CEO and emphasizes the development of a sophisticated and competitive workforce that leverages human capital. In Rwanda, the ultimate turnaround, strong and effective leadership has made a measurable and meaningful difference. Rwanda's progress offers an example for other developing nations to lift themselves out of poverty without heavy reliance on foreign aid through decentralization, accountability, self-determination, and self-sufficiency. The authors also explore Rwanda's journey toward its goal of becoming a middle-income nation with a technology-based economy, and its progress to encourage private sector development and foster entrepreneurship, while also making gains in education, healthcare, and food security-and all with a strong underpinning of reconciliation and unification. As so many nations stand on the brink of political and economic revolution, this is a timely and fascinating look at the implications of Rwanda's success for the rest of the continent-and the world.


text:
UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN River Falls
The Office of University Advancement incorporates the University of Wisconsin-River Falls Foundation and UW-River Falls Alumni Association. These distinct entities, served by the same staff, connect with and engage the alumni and friends of the university on a variety of levels in order to keep them informed about and engaged in UW-River Falls.
The University of Wisconsin-River Falls Foundation is a private non-profit organization that has a rich history encompassing more than 60 years of connecting alumni as well as providing much needed funding for the UW-River Falls. The Foundation serves as the fundraising entity for the university responsible for regularly soliciting and stewarding UWRF alumni and friends.
The UW-River Falls Alumni Association actively builds and strengthens relationships with alumni and friends of UW-River Falls. The Alumni Association serves to keep the interested parties informed about the institution and in contact with one another by providing a wide variety of alumni events and mentoring opportunities.
UW-River Falls continues to be successful because of the generous support and active involvement of alumni and friends of the university. Private support helps enhance the educational experience offered at UW-River Falls by providing funding for research activities, scholarships, faculty and staff development and more.
We look forward to helping you engage in UW-River Falls in ways that have the most meaning for you and the greatest impact on our university. Please explore our website further. I encourage you to contact a member of our University Advancement Team for further assistance and information.
Rick Foy
Assistant Chancellor for
University Advancement


text:
|Total Score
|People Score
|Events Score
|May 31, 2013
|ASCO Annual Meeting 2013
|Pathways in Gynecologic Malignancies
|Anil K. Sood
|Ovarian Cancer: Old Subtypes, New Approaches
|David M. Gershenson
|Education Sessions
|Eduardo Bruera
|Special Session
|Merrill S. Kies, Jubilee Brown
|April 6, 2013
|AACR Annual Meetings
|The Molecular Basis for Improvement in Endometrial Cancer Therapy Co-Chairpersons: Cheryl Lyn Walker, Texas A&M University Health Science Center, Houston, TX, and Douglas A. Levine, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY
|Karen H. Lu
|September 13, 2012
|International Society of Gastrointestinal Oncology
|Multidisciplinary Management of Locally Advanced and Borderline Disease
|Jason B. Fleming
|December 13, 2011
|New Horizons in Cancer Research: Biology to Prevention to Therapy
|Session 2 | Microenvironment in Hematological Malignancies
|Varsha Gandhi
|July 30, 2011
|MD Anderson Physicians Network Symposium Changing Paradigms in Cancer Treatment and Patient Management
|Challenging Thoracic, Esophagus, and Head and Neck Case Presentations and Interactive Audience Participation
|Merrill S. Kies
|New Evidence for IMRT and Proton Therapy and the Emerging Role for Both in the Management of Head and Neck Cancers
|Steven J. Frank
|Combined Modality Management for Head and Neck Cancer Patients with HPV-Positive Disease: Strategies to Maintain Efficacy and Reduce Long Term Toxicity
|Merrill S. Kies
|Current Approaches in the Management of Squamous Cell and Adenocarcinoma of the Esophagus
|Stephen G. Swisher
|Advances in Novel Therapeutics for Lung Cancer
|Edward S. Kim
|Stereotactic and Proton Radiation for Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer
|Melinda Jeter
|Small Cell Lung Cancer | Current Strategies and New Directions
|Bonnie S. Glisson
|What is the Surgeon's Participation in Contemporary Management of Lung Cancer?
|Stephen G. Swisher
|Keynote Speaker | Cancer Care Delivery in a Time of Healthcare Reform
|Thomas W. Feeley
|Introduction and Welcome
|William A. Murphy
|HER-2 Testing in Breast Cancer: What Are the Issues?
|Aysegul A. Sahin
|What is the Appropriate Margin in Breast Conserving Surgery?
|Karen Hoffman
|Should We Still Be Performing Axillary Lymph Node Dissection In Breast Cancer?
|Kelly K. Hunt
|Excisional Biopsy for Breast Cancer Diagnosis is Not Justified
|Anthony Lucci
|Processing of Sentinel Nodes and the Significance of Micrometastases
|Aysegul A. Sahin
|Genetic Testing and the Impact on Decision Making
|Banu K. Arun
|Kelly K. Hunt
|Challenging Breast Cancer Case Presentations and Interactive Audience Participation
|Kelly K. Hunt
|Do Circulating Tumor Cells and Disseminated Tumor Cells Add Value in Prognosis and Treatment?
|Anthony Lucci
|The Case for Postmastectomy Radiation Therapy
|Karen Hoffman
|What is the Role for Surgical Resection in Patients with Stage IV Disease?
|Kelly K. Hunt
|Challenging Case Presentations and Interactive Audience Participation
|Jason B. Fleming
|New Options for Therapy in Localized Pancreatic Cancer
|Jason B. Fleming
|Challenging Lymphoma, Myeloma, and Leukemia Case Presentations and Interactive Audience Participation
|Miloslav Beran, Peter W. McLaughlin
|Leukemia Introduction
|Miloslav Beran
|Front Line Combination and Maintenance Strategies In Myeloma
|Sheeba K. Thomas
|Lymphoma and Myeloma Introduction
|Peter W. McLaughlin
|Merrill S. Kies
|Making Sense of the Alphabet Soup in Advanced Colorectal Cancer: Novel Agents in Preclinical Development
|Cathy Eng
|Advances in Minimally Invasive Surgery for Rectal Cancer: Local Excision or Robotics?
|George J. Chang
|Diffusion Weighted MRI in Staging and ResponseMonitoring for Rectal Cancer
|Harmeet Kaur
|Immunohistochemistry, PCR, and Genomics for Colorectal Pathology: When, Why, and For Whom?
|Melissa Taggart
|Adjuvant Chemotherapy for Colorectal Cancer: Where To Now?
|Cathy Eng
|Imaging Evaluation of Colorectal Cancer: X-rays, Magnets or Metabolic Agents?
|Harmeet Kaur
|George J. Chang
|Challenging Colorectal Cancer Case Presentations and Interactive Audience Participation
|George J. Chang
|What the Blood Compartment Can Teach Us About Colorectal Cancer: Circulating Tumor Cells and DNA
|Melissa Taggart
|Quality Assurance and Recurrence Risk Reduction in the Surgical Treatment of Colorectal Cancer
|George J. Chang
|June 30, 2011
|2011 AHPBA Americas Post Graduate Course
|Invocation of AHPBA Chile Chapter
|Jean-Nicolas Vauthey
|Where Do We Go Next? Top 5 Future Clinical Trials in Hepatocellular Carcinoma
|Ahmed Kaseb
|Liver Transplantation for Cholangiocarcinoma | Lessons Learned and Future Directions
|Thomas Aloia
|Introduction, Remarks from Leadership, Presentation of Young HPB Surgeons on Scholarship
|Jean-Nicolas Vauthey
|The Expanding Role for Portal Vein Embolization and Chemotherapy Prior to Resection of Colorectal Liver Metastases
|Jean-Nicolas Vauthey
|Session 4 | Current Molecular Diagnostic and Management Strategies for Colorectal Liver Metastases
|Thomas Aloia
|Video Awards and Closing Remarks
|Jean-Nicolas Vauthey


text:
We love quality tasty food, good wines and ice cold microbrews. We wanted to create a restaurant that we could feel good about; a place that we'd want to eat ourselves, a place that we'd want to hang out in. We wanted to ensure that we were serving top notch food with excellent service in a fun, non pretentious, urban vibe environment. We are proud to serve hand chosen, small production and difficult to find wines by the glass and bottle. You can enjoy one of seven "mini micro" beers that we have on tap. We serve simple, non pompous, but familiar food that is being prepared the Par*take way which is using farm fresh ingredients to make house made condiments, pickles, dressings, pastas and desserts. We will be hosting winemaker dinners, beermaker dinners, wine 101 classes, and dessert dinners. Live music on Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday!
721 South Sante Fe, Vista, CA, 92083


text:
Cloud is becoming computing and storage platform of choice for MySQL DBAs. In this session, we will discuss backing up on-premises MySQL databases to Storage Cloud (e.g. S3 or Sun Cloud), as well as backing up MySQL databases running in the cloud. We will demonstrate Zmanda's Cloud Backup Solutions.
Chander is the CEO and founder of Zmanda. Chander provides a unique combination of leadership in open source and data protection software. He has been involved on both the technology and business sides of open source software and was named one of the "Top 20 Linux Luminaries" by Linux World Magazine in 2004. Prior to Zmanda, Chander founded and ran LinuxCertified, Inc., an open source product and services company. Earlier in his career, Chander was a business development executive at VERITAS software and served as a product line manager for storage software at SGI. Chander holds a Master's degree in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (where he did research work in Database Management Systems) and a BS in Computer Science from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur.
For information on exhibition and sponsorship opportunities at the conference, contact Sharon Cordesse at email@example.com
Download the MySQL Sponsor/Exhibitor Prospectus
Download the Media & Promotional Partner Brochure (PDF) for information on trade opportunities with O'Reilly conferences or contact mediapartners@ oreilly.com
For media-related inquiries, contact Maureen Jennings at firstname.lastname@example.com
To stay abreast of conference news and to receive email notification when registration opens, please sign up for the MySQL Conference newsletter.
View a complete list of MySQL contacts.


text:
The end of something really big
As soon as we read about the dead whale, it was clear we were about to take a field trip.
"Let's go," said my friend Nathan, peering at a newspaper photo of a giant beached vertebrae. He's a sculptor, so he has an artist's appreciation for bones. Besides, his mother had recently cracked one of her own vertebrae in a boating accident, and he thought a photograph of a jumbo replacement would make a perfect gift. I've known Nathan since we were both in nursery school, and I've learned to trust his instincts.
So Nathan, his wife Morgan, and I piled in their Subaru and set out for Half Moon Bay, winding over the Coast Range of California and abruptly trading sun for long fingers of late summer fog. The beach, when we arrived, was blanketed by clouds. We asked a lone man on a horse about the whale, and he pointed and wrinkled his nose. "Esta casi descompuesta," he said, which, I slowly remembered, meant that the whale had seen much, much better days.
We crested a rise, and there it was, a dark blotch in the surf surrounded by a handful of onlookers. As we approached, we could see that the waves and the sand had reduced the whale to a great shred of flesh, which sloshed limply in the sea.
No one was certain how this young humpback had died. Federal officials had recorded its cause of death as "unknown," surmising that the shark bites on its body had been inflicted only after its death. All we knew was that it had washed into the surf zone nearly a week ago, and that in recent days, the sea had gradually pushed it along the state beach. The endangered mammal had quickly created something of a stink, both literal and political.
When the 35-foot-long body swelled to grotesque extremes, local officials warned off gawkers, since gases inside the whale's stomach could cause it to explode. And who would want to be showered with whale parts? The carcass soon deflated without incident, but its rotting flesh began to reek, and local and state bureaucrats squabbled over how to get rid of it.
The day before we visited, the state had tried to tow the remains out to sea, but the rope had broken, and the ebbing tide had postponed a second attempt. "I think everybody is hoping the tide will take it out, and it will become someone else's problem," a member of the local police department told the press.
But the whale's body had, stubbornly, remained close to shore. The three of us stood on the beach, just out of reach of the waves, and looked at the disorderly mass of bones and flesh. Yet as the remains of its tail and barnacled flippers heaved in the ocean, it was still possible to imagine how the young humpback might have breached and leaped in the open sea, how it might have jostled with others in its pod.
It was as close as I had ever gotten to a whale, and, rot aside, I was awed by its size and bulk, its so recently powerful body. Near us stood two other carcass tourists, a middle-aged man and his young son. Nathan asked the man about the whale and its postmortem migrations, and soon the two of them had forgotten the whale, embarking instead on a discussion of local politics and the recent Supreme Court decision on eminent domain.
The boy, about 10, crouched at his father's feet, the adult small talk cresting over him. Suddenly he looked up and, with preternatural clarity, said, "Hey, excuse me? We're standing right in front of a dead whale. What happened to that topic?" We all laughed, surprised. "We moved on," said Nathan in a friendly way, and then he pointed at what remained of the humpback. "And so has he."
To the north, another father supervised the construction of elaborate sandcastles. A couple walked behind us, laughing and talking. But for a moment, our small group took on a funereal mood. We stood close together, looking out at the gray sky and the chilly sea and the whale's discarded earthly suit, tossing and turning in the waves.
Several days later, the whale's body traveled yet again, finally lodging itself in a rocky crevice beneath the beachfront Ritz-Carlton Hotel. There it remained, far from the more dignified depths of the open sea.


text:
DTP Connectivity Ganymede Project Plan: First Draft
← Back to DTP Ganymede Project Plan
DTP Connectivity Ganymede
Beside each entry, we will put the following acronyms:
- MH for Must Have
- LTH for Like To Have
For Ganymede, we will focus on Must Have (MH) items before Like to Have (LTH) items.
Things to Consider...
1) Ability to pre-populate a connection UI with driver definitions. (This already exists with the ability to auto-create a default instance of a particular driver template at startup.) (MH) (BZ entry: 202641[1])
2) Provide common user interface for selecting existing connection profiles. Features of this UI should include filtering of the existing connections based on an arbitrary set of attributes and it should display an extensible set of properties for the selected connection. (This already partly exists with the ability to host the DSE on a dialog page/composite/wizard/property/preference page where necessary.) (MH) (BZ entry: 202643[2])
Here is the UI from WTP to use as a starting point:
3) Provide best-practices for prompting users when to create new profiles, select existing profiles, and prompt the user for authentication information. Perhaps create code sample to help demonstrate best practices. (MH) (BZ entry: 202644 [3])
4) Ability to inject from a runtime instance of a profile at startup to populate a profile in the DSE. This may be supported already with the repository code. (MH) (BZ entry: 202647[4])
5) Filtering needs to become much more extensible and flexible. Perhaps split out catalog-loader (SQL-level) filtering from client-level (viewer-level) filtering. Also provide the capability to use client-level filtering by default, if a db-specific extension did not implement catalog-loader filtering. (MH) (BZ entries: 200140[5], 177272[6], 199689[7])
6) Provide extensible encryption capabilities for exporting profiles. Perhaps a new extension point to register an encryption method. Need to research different encryption methods. (LTH) (BZ entry: 202648 [8])
Possibly add a new extension point that points to a class and provides a name and description for the encryption provider. The encryption provider (IProfileEncryptionProvider) would implement two methods (similar to BIRT's IEncryptionHelper) -
public String encrypt ( String input ); public String decrypt ( String output );
The current encryption/decryption method will be moved to this extension point and used as the default method.
When exporting via the Export dialog, the user can select via a drop-down list from the list of available encryption providers (or the drop-down will be disabled if only the default is available).
When importing, the Import routine will look at the file and (somehow) determine which encryption provider was used and decrypt accordingly or pop up a message indicating that the encryption method is not available.
We will need to change the internal ConnectionProfileMgmt class (that does the saves and loads of profiles) so it would take one of these encryption providers to handle encrypting and decrypting the streams.
7) Provide plug-in wizards to aid driver template and connection profile development. (MH) (BZ entries: 151738[9])
8) Focus on sorting and see if we can come up with ways to make that work for various levels of the DSE within the Platform's Common Navigator Framework (see if any changes are upcoming for Ganymede) (LTH) (BZ entries: 150592[10])
9) Connection timeout such that connections in the DSE will be closed if unused for a certain amount of time specified in a preference page. This is a WTP feature that needs to be ported to DTP. It will probably need to be redesigned as the DSE in DTP is not exclusive to database connections and it may not make sense to timeout connections to other types of servers. (MH) (BZ entry: 202653[11])
Perhaps look at it so that each individual server type implements an extension point (perhaps an extension on the CP extension point), listens in a server-specific way for disconnects, and then triggers a reconnect. It will be difficult to handle in the generic case.
Here is the UI from WTP to use as a starting point:
10) Provide enablement support for JNDI connections for getting a pooled JDBC connection through a JNDI service. Check out Apache Tomcat 5.5.x and BEA WebLogic 8.1 as examples. Both are fairly simple to use and configure. However, Tomcat does not support client-side access, which we will need in the DSE. (LTH) (BZ entries: 202640[12])
11) Clean up internal Discourage Access warnings in Connectivity. (MH) (BZ entries: 201125 [13], 201126 [14], 201127 [15], 201136 [16])
-------------------Bugs for Consideration (Start)-----------
12) Connection profile with commas in its driver files names will fail (LTH) (BZ 202338[17])
13) Default DB Location should be platform specific (LTH) (BZ 201682 [18])
14) Need a way to access connection information for table in DSE (MH) (BZ 198000 [19])
15) Usability items for Driver Managment/Editing (LTH) (BZ 164534 [20])
16) Display properties for SQL objects when selected in DSE (LTH) (BZ 154169 [21])
17) Detect cp name collision only within repository (MH) (BZ 200774 [22])
18) Connection is already closed when aboutToClose() is calling (MH) (BZ 199509 [23])
19) General tabbed properties page issue (MH) (BZ 195301 [24]) and Need ability to register custom property source providers based on provider ID (BZ 193869 [25])
20) Need ability to repurpose DSE content/actions for other viewers (MH) (BZ 194859 [26])
21) Preference pages inconsistent (MH) (BZ 193791 [27])
22) org.eclipse.datatools.connectivity.db.generic has dependency to UI (MH) (BZ 192828 [28])
23) Need mechanism for supporting migration of driver definitions (MH) (BZ 184807 [29])
-------------(End) Bugs for Consideration---------------
24) Refactor Generic JDBC Connection profile plug-ins so that the Generic JDBC Connection profile can be excluded from the new connection wizard by adopters. (MH)
Open Data Access (ODA)
1) Integrates with Database (JDBC) connection profile category (MH)
2) Integrates with the visual SQL Builder and SQL Query Model for use by ODA consumer applications (MH)
3) Support for multi-dimensional result sets (LTH)
High-Level Grouping
Bugs: 11, 14, 17, 18
General UI: 2, 16, 21
Migration: 1, 4, 6, 12, 13, 23
New Functionality: 9. 10
Refactoring: 20, 22, 24
Usability: 3, 5, 7, 8, 15, 19
Must Haves (20): 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11, 14, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24 ODA-1, ODA-2, ODA-3
Like To Haves (7): 6, 8, 10, 12, 13, 15, 16


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With characteristic eclecticism, Steven Soderbergh follows "Che," his sweeping four-hour epic about a revolutionary hero, with "The Girlfriend Experience," a small-scale, digitally shot 77-minute chamber piece about a high-priced prostitute. Despite the pic's erotic subject matter and star (vet porn diva Sasha Grey), nothing could be less sensationalistic — or moralistic — than this fascinating study of free enterprise in free fall. While it may disappoint thrill-seekers, "Girlfriend" should still delight Soderbergh fans and niche auds. Sundance-sneaked (in rough cut) and officially preeming at Tribeca before a May 22 opening, this arthouse gem finds the helmer in top, and truly topical, form.
Pic follows upscale call girl Chelsea (Grey, in an interestingly opaque perf) and her trainer boyfriend Chris (Chris Santos) over five chronologically scrambled days in the weeks before the 2008 election. Set in the trendy, low-lit haunts of New York's high rollers (the venues looking far sleeker and more anonymous than in the bright pastels of "Sex and the City" and other glossy Gotham fantasies), the pic presents a society in which every interaction reps a form of commodity exchange.
Everything is a brand: Chelsea advertises herself on her website, while her apparel designers figure more prominently than her johns in her journal (read in voiceover). Everybody has a get-rich scheme: Chris tries to shop himself around at various gyms and hawks a line of sports clothes on the side, while Chelsea yearns to own a boutique and quizzes her clients about recession-proof investments.
Soderbergh's complex, never-gimmicky shuffling of time subtly fragments the narrative to reveal the characters' untoward depths of self-delusion. Sometimes the irony proves less subtle, as in Chelsea's back-room encounter with the Erotic Connoisseur, a super-sleazy porn reviewer (portrayed convincingly by former Premiere critic Glenn Kenny) who mercilessly disses her charms in cyberspace, the narration of his review counterpointed by street muscians' rousing rendition of "Everyone's a Critic."
Like Godard, Soderbergh views prostitution as the ultimate paradigm for capitalism. But where Godard saw the hooker as a tragic or exploited victim ("My Life to Live," "Two or Three Things I Know About Her"), Soderbergh suggests there are no victims, only failed traders, in the post-Reagan era of DIY capitalism. Subverting the helmer's own megabuck "Ocean's" franchise, "Girlfriend" exposes the downside to those films' shiny, expensive stars and money-snatching thrills ("Ocean's Thirteen" was penned by "Girlfriend" scripters Brian Koppelman and David Levien).
Furthermore, in contrast to "Bubble," Soderbergh's earlier HD experiment with an other-end-of-the-telescope dissection of lower-class specimens, the helmer here wields total control of the pic's uniquely detached, seriocomic tone. The nervous hype of a group of hedge-fund managers, who insist on treating Chris to a private-jet weekend in Vegas, seems organically connected to the handheld camera swinging wildly from one partygoer to the next.
Chelsea, meanwhile, is a creature of cool surfaces and static interiors, ensconced in tony galleries, pricey restaurants and luxurious hotel rooms as she delivers the full "girlfriend experience" — complete with thoughtful inquiries about clients' wives and kiddies, informed appreciation of "Man on Wire" and commiseration over the nose-diving economy.
Tech credits mesh faultlessly, as Soderbergh lensed and edited under his usual pseudonyms. Score by Morcheeba's Ross Godfrey hits all the rightly stressful notes.


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Photo Credit: Alan Turing's picture is courtesy of The Pink Triangle Trust. Photographic illustrations of Alan Turing are copyright © by their respective holders. The images are published with permission or as allowed by the copyright law's fair use or quotation provisions. If any copyright holder objects to an image being included, please notify us and it will be removed immediately.
Disclaimer: This information about Alan Turing is derived from astrological interpretation of Alan Turing's date, time, and place of birth.


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Extra Punctuation: The Big E3
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Yahtzee wee's on the Big Three: Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo.
Might I point out a slight problem with this dual screen idea (I hadn't heard about it 'til now so this just popped into my head). It's a great idea with just one problem. There doesn't seem to be many games with local multiplayer these days or perhaps there is and I just haven't noticed, been a while since I played on a console.... Mabye this idea will remedy this and we'll get lots of games with splitscreen again. Some people, like me, prefer not to play online.
Looking forward to next week's article. Sad that there's no E3 vid this year... :/
And that's why I love the ZP E3 review. So I know I'm not the only one looking at the shamelessly insulting marketing in disgust. It's a nice contrast to the G4 coverage where "everything looks so amazing" and they have to uncomfortably praise even the things you know they're not at all interested in playing: it's kind of funny to watch Sessler squirm while fawning over FF13-2.
I was also hoping to see a cartoon of Mr Caffine getting impaled on a streetlamp while he's trying to imitate the least funny portion of an SNL movie from 20 years ago. Maybe next year they can have Carrie Fisher come on stage with a flamethrower and immolate him. Or maybe Al Frankin can shame him off the coke. Personally, I'm hoping that MacGruber just blows him up.
I sure hope that this week is a Duke Nukem Forever review since we Australians were first to get it.
I don't mind the bashing on Nintendo. It's a simple difference of opinion. But when comedy is the main selling point, and you know a good portion of the jokes that are going to happen, it's just not as funny. It's not that I hate that he bashes on Nintendo. It's that it just seems his jokes get lazy when he does. And every time, he spends 2 minutes of a 5 minute video going "And here's the joke calling motion controls a gimmick. And here's the joke about Nintendo always rehashing their games. And here's the joke about why it'd be better on other systems. And here's the joke about the Wii's graphics."
Anyway, as for the topic itself, considering he didn't talk about the games themselves, I don't have much else to say. I guess I'll be more on topic next week. But I'm hoping for him to say something bad about Skyrim so that I can have fun watching the Escapist get angry with him like they did in his Witcher 2 review. Also, please do a mailbag showdown with that review... please. Some of the material just writes itself.
Using voice commands is in theory more convenient than pressing buttons because it doesn't require moving your otherwise-occupied fingers to different places, which is something I think a buttonphile could get behind. It's not likely they'll get voice control right, though. There are not nearly enough attempts at implementing it to know which mistakes to look out for.
Less videos? That would be great considering their all the same.
it's not only meant for local multiplayer but also gaming while another person watches tv
and thanks yahtzee for pointing out this senselessness with voice control
I'm not disappointed that you're not making a video for this, but I'm disappointed by how you didn't mention the PSVita. I guess there wasn't much to criticize for it.
I don't like motion controls either. They're annoying, stupid, unnecessary, and just all around not very fun.
In the meantime I wonder if he's going to review the Halo Anniversary? He did say that he's never played the first two. I don't know if that's still accurate or not, but I don't really see him passing up another chance to piss off Halo fanboys.
Then again, he might have gotten tired of people misunderstanding his Reach review. Where did all the reach-around jokes for that game go, by the way? I didn't hear many...
Well at least you're not an opinion Nazi.
Okay, there's been a bit of a miscommunication here. The technology works fine with existing 3D Tv's and Glasses. They were using the new $500 TV as an example because they were aware the majority of people don't own 3D TV's
I actually don't mind the WiiU, its not really aimed at me as an audience, but I think its pretty cool that I can play a game on the toilet via my tablet, and it have all the power and functionality and power of a sit down system.
This. I'm ok with no E3 video, just really really hoping to see you tear DNF apart.
Wow. What a flimsy, elitist, self-righteous argument that is. Putting the fanrage aside, let me offer a different take on this topic: It doesn't matter how much more ammo Nintendo gives you in your critiques Ben, it's getting old, it's not funny anymore and it's just done to deliberately piss people off while beating a dead horse. Running gags must die and that's a problem you haven't gotten into your beer-fueled brain.
This is another reason I don't like Yahtzee anymore. Not only does he not man-up to his own critism, he's starting to sound like a broken record.
Oh but when a handheld does it, it's actually a good idea, right? Seriously, I don't care how close to each other the DS/DSI/3DS's dual screens are, I'm still pretty much looking from one screen to another when I play games on it. The Wii U, isn't really doing anything to convince me that same scenario won't happen with it's controller.
If you're refering to Fallout: New Vegas, it was made by Obsidion not Bethesda.
It's good to know that no matter what, I can always come here and find someone who thought the exact thing I did, but worded it in a way that was clear, concise, and interesting.
They all seemed to be pulling things out of their ass this year, even though I worship ME3 just because. Sony's TV looked cool and would be a great thing to implement. I just wonder how it would work with 4 player battles. Does everyone have to sit stock still in their seats in order to see their screen? Does it come with the glasses? So many questions....
And I really don't like Nintendo's controller. It's not something I would be comfortable with, I can tell already. I'll still try it at the Best Buy kiosks though. No promises. I'm ignoring the name for now, because I feel like I lost years of adult maturity just saying it.
Microsoft...well, they really look like they want to make Kinect work. Good luck with that, because the games they showed for it didn't look all that interesting. They're trying though...if that counts. It worked for the DNF review right? It got pity stars.
See. I knew it the instant I heard the name that someone would call it "Pii U", and while it wasn't spelled that way in the article, there it was. Won't be too long now before fanboys start throwing it around as much as they throw around stupid crap like "Xbot".
There's really just one big thing it failed at, and that's that Sony is making a proprietary memory stick format for us to save or PSN purchases or other things that aren't gave saves and game DLC on (the game cards themselves have space reserved for that game's saves and DLC on them already). And that alone is enough for them not to see a dime of my money until they learn what an SD card is and put a slot for one in a future revision of the Vita. I am not paying an arm and a leg for storage space like I did on the PSP.
You only got it last Friday. That's not enough time for him to play the game, write the script, read the script, and make the animations. Hope for next week. ;)
I quite enjoyed most of the games you bash.
For a video game enthusiast it's hard to imagine your entire library is basically comprised of Portal, Painkiller, Limbo and Shadow Of The Colossus.
I find it hard to believe that you really feel the way you about most games that you review, otherwise you'd be left with absolutely nothing to play. Yeah I know a lot of it is a joke, but it's hard to tell when you jump between humorously offensive to thought provoking.
Well, you know how it is, looking at your games objectively and enjoying them are two different things sometimes.
ooh, let me guess what he'll say before I even read this.
I'm surprised. Nowhere near as pointlessly negative as I thought. I almost feel bad now.
Maybe I'm kinda weird, but I liked the wiimote + nun-chuck.
I realize some stuff on the WiiU looks like it'll use wiimotes anyway, but regardless I kinda liked the setup.
The WiiU controller.....just doesn't seem comfortable.
I certainly agree that the dual shock and modern incarnations thereof are pretty well set up.
Holding a rectangle just doesn't seem like it'ld work as well, especially when you are needing to hold it out in front of you so that you can see both screens.
Functionally, it might still be cool, maybe make for a faster inventory management system, just ergonomically it seems off.
I love how when anyone DARES to say something negative about Nintendo the fanboys come out of the woodworks. Tears. Delicious. B'awwwww!
Anyway. Yeah the TV was the most exciting thing for me too. But like mentioned it was meant as an entry level tv to get people started. The technology should spread to other (bigger) tvs too. I had hoped to hold off for glasses free 3D to land, but this is giving glasses an extra perk.
The ME3 voice commands looked retarded. Let's think about this. I can press a few buttons, like i have been for 25 years. -OR- I can break my immersion by yelling out at the TV and then feel completely ridiculous.
I want to give MS the benefit of the doubt. But it honestly does feel like they're giving up on their user base to chase the casual market. I can't blame them given the money involved, but ow.
Sony: "$2--motherfucking-49!" They actually had some decent games in there too, like Dust and Ruin.
Nintendo's controller lacks dual analogs. Good grief.
I'm surprised Nintendo didn't collaborate with apple and call it the iWii. Then the controller would be an iphone or ipad. I wouldn't have put it past them.
DNF didn't come out until last Friday. He will only have started writing the script yesterday, and that's assuming he was done with the game by then - we'll see it next week at the earliest, I'd say.
Except Nintendo has said previously that Apple is currently their main rival, and that they don't consider Microsoft and Sony a threat.
There's already some good ideas coming in. Ubisoft has announced a game with an interesting element to the multiplayer. 1-2 players will use wii-remotes to fight off enemies sent in by the player with the touch screen. Basically, it sounds like it will be an FPS with one controller and an RTS with the other.
Just running with that idea, why not make Battlefront 3 (c'mon LucasArts, you know we want it) an FPSRTS--command troops with the touch screen while continuing to play the much more skilled solider yourself. Shooters are going to be a bit more interesting in the upcoming generation.
Here's a couple more ideas--fighters with a quick-reference move list on your controller, instant weapon swap in any action game, multiple perspectives during gameplay, touch screen puzzles, camera games (a new Fatal Frame-like game where you can only see anything supernatural when you look through the camera would be interesting), super guides that don't interrupt gameplay, maps, inventories, and other menus that can be accessed instantly without pausing the game. And I'm sure professionals are better at thinking up this stuff than I.
Dude, you're trying to hard to bash on stuff.
Please continue.
On a serious note, lately I'm getting the feeling that you (Yahtzee) have forgotten why you (probable) started to like games. To have fun. Go back to the old times and try having fun.
You dismiss every new innovation without a second though.
Same goes for the 3D. Yeah we get it, it's not real 3D, no one is retarded enough to think so. But still, it is fun, jet again. I'm not a big fan of 3D my self, but I truly enjoy watching a movie when the effects are done good. Same goes for games.
Wii U... wow, great. You degraded your self to a kindergarten level. Pee You, We pee You.... any more stupid jokes? Well... go on.
Oh well, you got Voice control right and praised Sony for the nice idea of Dual TV. I really like the concept.
Yahtzee, if you keep playing games for the shake of finding things that annoy you, then stop playing. If you play for the shake of entertainment, then stop being such a depressive guy and instead of searching for all the bad stuff, try thinking about all the good stuff that can be done with those new things.
I understand that you have to point out the bad sides, but then at least don't ignore all the good sides.
I go back playing Mincraft. Gonna fight some Creepers.
I'm surprised that as a game designer, Yahtzee doesn't see the value in something like the Wii U controller. It does everything every other standard controller does (two analogs, four face buttons, triggers, shoulders, etc) but adds functionality that doesn't impede on anything already in place, something he states is a plus mere paragraphs later.
Also, one of Yahtzee's most recurring criticims is the sequelization and stagnation that is so ever present in games, and yet when the companies do things to encourage creativity (Kinect, Move, 3D, Wii, Wii U) it's routinely slammed as not being the standard gaming experience.
I'm not much of a Nintendo fanboy (I skipped the N64 and Wii entirely and only got a Gamecube about a year ago due to them giving them away for practically nothing) but I'm actually a bit excited by the Wii U. For one thing, it doesn't look like they've really sacrificed anything for their gimmick this time around; while the Wiimote was, in many cases, an inferior controller to the standard gamepads it was replacing, the Wii U's controller has the same controls you'd expect from any current console, just with a screen added in. The graphical/processing capabilities also look like they'll be at least on par with the PS3 and 360, so we'll almost certainly see most of the major third-party cross-platform games ported to it.
Plus, I can see a lot of uses for that extra screen. Aside from the obvious uses of having menus always available I think it solves one of the major issues that games tend to have when dealing with object that are both near and far from the character. Traditionally, the game's main camera would give a fairly wide view of the action, with its focus being on distant objects. This is great when you're dealing with combat, movement and platforming, but is less than ideal when you need to closely examine your immediate surroundings or interact with a held object. For those situations, the player is usually given a control that allows them to switch to another camera view which certainly does the job (after all, it's been the standard approach for years) but isn't without its drawbacks. Switching from one view to another always breaks immersion since it highlights the artificiality of what you're seeing, and if you suddenly need to go back to the wide view (say, if you're being attacked) it can be awkward to switch back and forth.
With the Wii U's setup, developers can simply display the wide view on the TV screen and the close-up view on the controller (and with the controller's motion controls you can have it work as a movable window into the game-world, which would seem to me to be a much more natural way of adjusting your POV than by wiggling a thumbstick) and allow the player to just look up or down depending on what they want to focus on, as they would in the real world. Plus, with the touch screen the player can interact with objects directly in a way that isn't possible with more traditional controls.
Finally, as I mentioned above its very likely that the Wii U will receive ports of the mainstream, "hardcore" games that used to be exclusive to the PS3 and 360 (at least until Microsoft and Sony release their next iteration of their hardware and pull ahead again.) For me this is a big deal because, while both the HD consoles and the Wii had a few games I was interested in, neither of them really offered me enough to justify spending hundreds of dollars on a new console when I still had a sizable backlog of PS2 games that I was eager to try. With the Wii U being backward-compatible with the Wii (and possibly with the Gamecube; not sure what the final word is on that) I finally have a good enough reason to upgrade, conveniently just as I'm starting to run out of PS2 games that I'm interested in.
Yeah sure the name is weird but Golden Gaytimes are delicious!!! I could go for a gaytime right now...mmmmmm, gaytime.
OT: I agree, it seems like Nintendo are purposely trying to make their consoles sound stupid.
I always feel awkward when I have to do something like give voice commands for a game. It was OK for Hey You Pikachu cause I was little and didn't know the difference between T.V. people and not-T.V. people.
Now that I have firmly established that there is a difference, voice commands don't hold any merit for me.
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* Government says Malakal divided between army, rebels
* Oil output around 170,000 bpd earlier this week
* Peace talks stalled (Adds rebel denial of receiving outside help)
By Carl Odera
JUBA, Feb 20 (Reuters) - The capital of South Sudan's main oil-producing region was divided between the army and rebels on Thursday after the worst fighting since a January ceasefire stoked jitters in global oil markets.
The Juba government said it remained committed to peace talks but that it had to react after rebels allied to former vice president Riek Machar on Tuesday attacked Malakal, which lies on the edge of Upper Nile state's oil fields.
A petroleum ministry official told Reuters oil production had fallen to about 170,000 barrels per day even before the rebel strike on Malakal, a fall of around a third.
"The reduction has nothing to do with the fighting but more (to do with) technical issues," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
"We have had to rely on river transport for technical equipment for the last two months and you cannot guarantee safety on that channel," he said.
Even so, the attack on Malakal raises concerns over the security of South Sudan's northern oil wells - an economic lifeline for Juba and also neighbouring Sudan, which earns vital hard currency from fees received for use of its oil pipeline.
International pressure is mounting on the warring factions to return to negotiations, although Western diplomats say in private that mutual recriminations over ceasefire violations raise questions about each side's commitment to talks.
"Malakal is not yet fully calm ... There are pockets of resistance within the town. It is split between the two sides," South Sudan's Information Minister Michael Makuei told Reuters in Ethiopia, where East African states are trying to broker a second round of peace talks.
Upper Nile is the only state pumping oil after production in neighbouring Unity state was halted earlier in the conflict, a suspension which had already forced the government to cut output by about a fifth to around 200,000 bpd.
The petroleum official told Reuters 167,367 barrels were pumped on Monday and 168,403 on Tuesday, the day rebels struck Malakal. Those levels could fall further if fighting extends into Upper Nile's oil fields, oil industry observers say.
Malakal, a dusty market town on the banks of the White Nile, lies about 140 km (90 miles) from an oil complex where a key crude processing facility is situated.
Global oil prices have been supported in the past two days in part because of the conflict in South Sudan.
Thousands of people have been killed and more than 800,000 have fled their homes since fighting began two months ago, triggered by a power struggle between President Salva Kiir and Machar, his former deputy whom he sacked in July.
Minister Makuei told Reuters the government still sought a peaceful resolution to the crisis and would "continue talking despite the aggressive and intolerable (ceasefire) violations".
Diplomats say the latest violence has cast doubts over the peace talks which have already been delayed by rebel demands for the release of four remaining political detainees and the withdrawal of Ugandan troops from the country.
The Juba government says it is frustrated that the international community has not been harder in its criticism of the rebels following the assault on Malakal.
"How long will these rebels continue to act as the spoilt child of the international community?" presidential spokesman Ateny Wek Ateny said.
The United States said on Wednesday it was deeply concerned by the fighting in and around Malakal, which it called a blatant violation of the cessation of hostilities agreement.
The government has accused the rebels of receiving support from outside, but has not publicly identified the source it believes has assisted the rebel forces.
Lul Ruai Koang, spokesman on military affairs for Machar's delegation at the talks in Ethiopia, denied the government claims that the rebels were receiving support from outside.
"It is a lie. We are not being supported by anyone from outside. We are on our own," he said in Addis Ababa. "They are making these wild allegations because they are not winning." (Additional reporting by Lesley Wroughton in Washington and Aaron Maasho in Addis Ababa; Writing by Richard Lough; Editing by Jon Boyle and Gareth Jones)


text: CLIQ® Waterproof Padlock Function Designed for extreme environmental conditions, the CLIQ® Waterproof Padlock is ideal for applications that require durability and protection against the elements. It is embedded with micro-technology that collects information about who, when and where the padlock has been accessed to provide you with complete audit trail activity. Features key-retaining design. Attached weather-seal cap protects against water. Applications CLIQ® Waterproof Padlock cylinder is based on Interactive®+, Mul-T-Lock's High-Security mechanical platform. Features Audit trail standard memory: 100 events Audit trail extended memory: 1000 events Specifications IP67; IPx9K Temperature range: -25°C - 85°C Encrypted (3DES) communication between cylinder and key/c-key Available with Interactive®+ CLIQ® only Mechanical combination limitations: impossible to use D5 Available with 8 mm (5/16") or 11 mm (7/16") shackle Industrial design: casting processes for stainless steel can cause variations to finish Power supplied via the CLIQ® key's embedded battery Options Stainless steal shackle for maximum corrosion resistance Hardened steel shackle for protection against severe physical attacks Can be supplied with a mechanical cylinder Downloads CLIQ® Waterproof Padlock_drw (.jpg, 73 kB) Close Click here to view the full product catalogue You might also be interested in CLIQ® Local Programming Device CLIQ® Control Key (C-Key) CLIQ® Quartz+ Key


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Gauging Your Options
Too often when it comes to customizing a classic truck, builders make changes just for the sake of making changes. In many cases, the best modifications are the ones that you need to look for, not the ones that slap you in the face. When it came time to design a dash for my '68 Chevy pickup, I wanted something that was custom but still retained much of the stock flavor that would be incorporated into the rest of the buildup.
There are several aftermarket bezels available to suit most people's taste, but I decided I wanted to keep the stock chrome and black plastic bezel. Also, I wanted something different than the stock gauges. I have always liked the look of the Auto Meter gauges, and with the two large 4 3/4-inch holes in the stock bezel, I figured they would fill the need well. When I saw the Carbon Fiber Series in their catalog, I knew I had just what I was looking for.
I had a couple of ideas on how to mount the new gauges, but they required two different size gauges. The 2 1/8-inch openings for the four gauges that run along the bottom of the bezel would work with a set of 2-inch gauges mounted from the front. But, I also wanted to see if I could show more of the stock chrome bezel by mounting some 2 5/8-inch gauges from the rear. Luckily, Auto Meter indulged me and supplied me with both sizes so I could try both methods. Once everything arrived, I headed over to the Primedia Tech Center with a box full of gauges and a new dash bezel from Classic Industries and started putting my ideas to work. We tried three different methods, all of which look good. As you'll see, we had to make a separate panel to mount the gauges. It turned out to be a little easier than I had thought it would be. The hardest part was making sure that the gauges lined up perfectly once the stock bezel was put in place.
Take a look at our three options, and hopefully one of them will inspire you in some way.