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There has been a scenario that has caused me much thought and confusion. Now it is important that I stress that I am not an expert on the subject of pressure points having limited training so with any claims, explanations or suggestions please include proper reasoning and language for the layman.
A friend once told me that he knew a high ranking martial artist (probably Karate) who lost his temper at work. A collegue was being extremely irritant and making him excruciatingly angry and in the end he responded by rendering the man unconscious. Here's the strange bit; he did this without a naked choke hold or knife hand strike rather, he used a grab or push of some sort. The subject 'woke up' shortly afterwoods with no visiable blood stagnation or cuts.
The friend that told me this is very trustworthy and assures me it is a true story.
How did the martial artist do this? Are most karate professionals this adept or is he of a rare breed of the art? Thanks.
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/102130
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Submit your FML story
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Man or woman?
I agree, your life sucks (38710) - you deserved it (3790)
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Looks like your ex got Mike out of his work clothes, and left them ready for you to wear.
#1 - On 02/25/2009 at 10:05am by ifeedhobos
See in context
Uhm, i think what he meant was that she woudve thought he was trying to be mike because his girlfriend left her for a man named Mike, therefore, he thought that she might've thought that he was still grieving over the break up or something and pretended to be "Mike"
you know, well, it's hard to explain in text. >___>;
But it's all clear in my head.. T__T
#7 - On 02/25/2009 at 10:49am by Inkspell
See in context
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/102157
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Information for "Autopsy Forensic Browser"
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/102173
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9 Signs Your Spouse is a Financial Bully
Published March 10, 2014
| CreditCards.com
Experts say financial bullying can have several causes, from desperation to get out of debt, to anxiety stemming from past experiences, to control issues. "If somebody is just using money for control, it's a huge red flag," says Brad Klontz, financial psychologist and author of "Mind Over Money."
In a 2013 online poll by CreditKarma.com, one in 10 American adults in committed relationships said they were being financially bullied by their spouse or live-in partner.
• Chides you for going over budget. This is a common form of financial bullying, Klontz says. "Very often, someone freaks out about spending." So, if you agreed to stick to a $100 grocery budget this week, then splurged on fine wine and filet, does that give your mate the right to berate you? It's normal to get angry and feel betrayed if your spouse breaks an agreement, he says. "But it's not OK to yell and lecture and point your finger at the other person."
• Divvies up extra cash unfairly. Each spouse should get an equal amount of discretionary money to use for anything from gifts to going out to lunch to getting a new gadget, says Mary Gresham, a financial psychologist who practices in Atlanta. So, when the higher-earning spouse takes more than half of the disposable income, it can be a sign of a control issue, she says. A bullying spouse might say, "I earned it. It's mine. I'm going to feel free to play golf, but you can forget about buying that new sweater," she says.
• Controls the credit cards. Sometimes, a spouse might go overboard and take away the plastic to try to rein in a seriously overspending partner, experts say. In that case, partners should talk to come to an agreement on when it's OK to use credit cards -- such as for convenience purchases on gas or for discretionary spending, says Katie Moore, a financial counselor for GreenPath Debt Solutions. However, controlling the credit cards might be the behavior of a domineering spouse. "When you take away the credit card, you take away their access to money," Gresham says.
• Belittles you for the size of your salary. This type of criticism tends to come from wives who stick to traditional gender roles, Klontz says. A woman who looks at life this way might tell her husband, "It's your job to make money," he says. Traditional roles are fine if both spouses agree, he says, but being rigid about your views usually isn't healthy. When one spouse complains that the other doesn't make enough, "I tell them to focus on themselves and increase their own earnings," Gresham says.
• Tries to curtail your earning power. The flip side: Some spouses, often husbands with more traditional views, try to prevent their wives from making too much money, says Klontz, who has done research on women who make more than their husbands. So, for example, a husband might discourage his wife from starting a business or going to law school. "Very often, it's a man whose entire self worth is wrapped up in his net worth," he says.
• Demands you hand over your paycheck. It's often the spouse with the bigger salary who can wield more power over finances, experts say. But sometimes a spouse just takes control, such as when one commandeers the other's paycheck. This is a scenario Klontz has seen happen with both husbands and wives. "It's terrible," he says.
• Put you on an allowance. In some cases, a spouse who works while the other stays home -- or one who makes more money or came into money through an inheritance -- might give the other spouse an allowance. "Unless both of you are on an allowance, this is a red flag," Klontz says.
• Dictates the details of your monthly budget. Sometimes one spouse manages the finances, and that can be perfectly healthy, Moore says. However, in other cases, it can be "kind of a negative thing that's going on." In some cases, a spouse will blame the other for debts and just take over the finances, she says. Instead, she recommends couples "look over the situation together and look for ways to fix it."
• Controls the big money goals. Maybe he stashes money in a savings account to fund his dream of buying a boat, but pooh-poohs her wish to take a romantic vacation in Paris. The healthy thing to do instead? Compromise. Says Klontz, "Agree to disagree, but find an agreed-upon solution."
• Being bullied over money? 7 tips
• Ask yourself: How bad is it? In extreme cases, financial bullying can be a sign of an abusive marriage, Klontz says. "The person might actually be in physical danger," he says. If this describes your relationship, put safety first and get help from a therapist.
• Have an honest talk. Maybe your spouse is just a bit overbearing. In that case, ask questions to find out what shaped their attitudes and beliefs toward money. "A lot of couples will have a dating history conversation, but they never have a financial history conversation," Klontz says.
• Keep an open mind. "You need to be receptive to what you're hearing and not view it as ammunition for later," Klontz says. Ask questions and try to understand, he says. Maybe your wife grew up poor and is afraid of not having enough money. Or, perhaps your husband's workaholic dad died young and never got to enjoy life, and that's why your spouse wants to spend now.
• Talk about your feelings. Focus on how you feel rather than what your spouse is doing wrong. "You can talk about feeling controlled and how bad that feels as opposed to attacking your partner for being a control freak," Gresham says.
• Get money advice. If you're at an impasse, it might be a good idea to meet with an expert such as a credit counselor, especially if you're in debt, or a fee-only financial planner. It's a good way to get an objective opinion, Klontz says. "They might say, you can afford this, or you can't afford it."
• Seek marriage help. Financial bullying can damage a relationship, especially if it drags on for years, experts say. The average couple fights about an issue for seven years before seeking help, and that can do a lot of damage to the relationship. "I would encourage them to seek help sooner rather than later," Klontz says.
• And finally, if you're the financial bully, beware, because it will come back to hurt the relationship and, ultimately, you, Gresham says. "You might get your way, but it comes at a pretty big cost."
See related: Is it time to consider financial therapy?
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What if Diaspora's pods just cannot challenge Facebook's monolithic structure?
What if Diaspora's pods just cannot challenge Facebook's monolithic structure?
First of all, let me explain briefly what "decentralised" means (yes, British spellings, with an 's'!). It basically means that you can run your own server, and have it connect to other Diaspora servers. This means that you are able to create a relationship with other people on other pods, rather than just your own.
So, what are the problems I am talking about, that make me look like a proprietary software troll? Have a look at the list of diaspora's pods. Remember that to join the "main" one, https://joindiaspora.com, you need to have an invite.
First of all, it's about reliability. How do you know that the pod you are using will be there tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, or in 10 years? Well, you don't. You can try and use one that looks reliable, but these pods are community-based after all, and a lot of things can happen in 10 years. You can chose to run your own pod, but that would imply that you have your own server and are able to maintain it. (And secure it: remember, from then on you will be guarding other people's personal information!).
What about apps?
You might hate them, but one of the greatest strength Facebook has is in the thousands of apps users can (and do) install. Facebook's architecture is really smart about it: external applications are hosted as iFrames, and obtain the users' information through a pretty clever API. OpenSocial was meant to clone that, but I am not sure about its success. (How many successful OpenSocial applications do you know about? Have you even ever heard of it? The list of sites backing it is interesting: Hi5.com, 99factors.com, MySpace, orkut, Netlog, Sonico.com, Friendster, Ning, and Yahoo!.)
Keeping a server safe is pretty easy if it's in the middle of the cyberspace nowhere and you don't host anything interesting. The occasional scanner might pick you up, but if you don't run anything on it, they will find it pretty hard to do get in. Host a Diaspora pod, and it's a very different story: you have a lot of valuable user information, running on beta software. People out there find this kind of information very valuable -- and they will try and get to it.
Software updates
This is a big one for me. I wonder how often Diaspora community administrators actually update their pods. Hopefully, more often than Drupal administrators... I have no idea what the upgrade procedure is, but I do know how beta software goes: an update can be a pretty horrific nightmare. Having older versions of pods will lead to users getting used to less-than-optimal experiences too ("Ah, this is Diaspora, it looks a little... meh" -- whereas the current version looks anything but "meh"...). I am not even going to mention https://diaspora.happeningin.eu, which in the wiki reads "Out of sync with main repository, running own fork" -- although I just did
Social plugins
Free Software Magazine has a couple of Facebook plugins: it allows people to "like" our magazine, as well as post comments. These plugins are invaluable, for the magazine and for Facebook. They are invaluable for us, because they allow people to post comments very quickly straight from their Facebook accounts, and have that post go on their walls. And they are important for Facebook, as they really encourage more and more people to join Facebook. The decentralised structure of Diaspora can make the development of these plugins tricky at best (especially when you then need to implement moderation and so on).
Where is the solution, you troll?
The solution, in my humble opinion, is in two steps:
• Soon: a commitment from the Diaspora development team stating that there will be a number of "officially maintained" pods, which will be guaranteed to be safe, secure, updated, and reliably "here" in 10 years
• Quite soon: offer a way for users to "migrate" to a different pod if they wish to do so
• In the longer term: provide a list of officially maintained pods mentioned in the first point
• Find a neat way of implementing "apps", maybe implementing OpenSocial)
• Soon: Implement social plugins.
Challenging a monolithic structure is hard work. Facebook is about to have their IPO (Initial Public Offering, which means becoming a public company). So, the wind is going to change. This could be an opportunity for Diaspora -- but these issues might end up slowing down user adoption. (Yes, Free Software Magazine is on Diaspora, and yes, we are on the "main" server...)
Ryan Cartwright's picture
Some good questions raised here Tony but surely the answer to most of them lies within the fact that diaspora is free software?
If you are really concerned over availability and security of a pod then perhaps the best answer is to host your own? Perhaps getting together with a group of trusted friends and pool resources to create one. After all one of the points of Diaspora was to address concerns about putting "our" data on somebody else's service. The DIY approach may be too complex, difficult or laborious for some users but isn't that the same situation as with any piece of free software? A distributed model gives you the user the power and freedom to choose where your data is hosted. If a pod is not up to date, if it is poorly implemented or has forked features a user doesn't like: the user can and should move. If the software is locked down so much that each pod is identical we might as well dispense with the distributed model and go back to facebook.
Apps? Yeah I suppose but to be honest the only app I use on facebook is selective tweets which allows me to post facebook status updates from my twitter feed (which is often fed by my identi.ca acount).
Migration between pods is an important point though. As mentioned one big point of the distributed model is to give users freedom to choose, an easy way to migrate from one pod to another is an important part of that.
Terry Hancock's picture
ISTM that the main security requirement is a means of backing up your account data locally -- something like the "Google Takeout" idea that was promoted with Google+. (And then being able to upload it to a new pod, of course).
I don't think focusing on making a few "official" pods is the right strategy -- that's just a return to centralization.
Centralization is ideological -- it's not just about about solving technical problems. Even if there is a technical cost, it's worth having it. Similarly for using a free-software-based service.
Author information
Tony Mobily's picture
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/102219
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Published on July 21, 2013. Played 193 times.
Drifters, where it's not just about your ability to race but how well you can drift the corners and keep control of the car. Do you have the patience and skill to become the ultimate drifting champion, through 5 action packed 3D levels. Take on other racers competing for the same cup and the same glory, but remember only one of you can take it. So leave them in the dust and prove you really are the best out there.
Use the arrow keys to drive.
Category: ActionSports
Similar Games
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hide menu
User avatar #2 - happypancake (08/24/2013) [-]
Why would you stick around for 99 more button-presses?
#5 to #2 - anonymous (08/24/2013) [-]
For the god damned cookie, and if my old old old account wasnt deleted for being to old I would put in a picture of the cookie monster saying such. Fuck it. and fuck this website.
User avatar #9 to #5 - happypancake (08/24/2013) [-]
Hey, maybe if you stick around for the 100 shits this website gives you, it'll give you a glorious cookie of funny.
Friends (0)
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/102224
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Welcome to Gaia! ::
Dear Ufo #5
i was wondering if you would like to help me take over all of gaia, so we could rule together, just as long as i dont get eaten, ill let you get who ever you want to eat. as long as there not a member of the raven clan < thats my clan you know!
and as long as you leave enogh to reproduce, i will alow gaia to become like, hurding ground for gaians, just for you to choose and cook, eat, however you like.
What do You think????
OH and if you try to back satp be in the process, ill turn you into a block of ice that will never melt, this ice block will be protected by a ring of fire, and it will be zapped my lightning every 5 minutes.
And the raven clan army will Take down Your measilly invasion forces, and uild an army to find your home world, and ( although we of the raven clan are agianst war and slavery, and im sorta doin this outta personal gain < you selfish @!#$%^@ ice_raven is a selfish @!#$%^@ > )
we will enslave your race, so every gaian, can keep your kind as a pet.
other wise, leave annd dont come back.
If you were actually saying that to him, he would've stuffed you in his mouth in the middle of that speech. talk2hand
And besides, even if you did team up with him, he'd just eat you in your sleep. And every one of your "Raven Clan".
Why would he want to help you take over Gaia when he could just do it himself?
Yes but what i said about the ice block will happen if he eats me , for i am ice_raven ....... DUh
Sure it will, honey.
why do you ppl doubt me of my powers gonk
And besides, if they ever tried to take over gaia, i tell you.....
It will be the chaos i speak of in my sig
, but it wont be me drawing the sword.
leave that to Baja
i like it, ive never been a member of this clan, but i like this plan, ive never heard of this clan, but like the plan.
Hy, in the worst case senario > the zurg get turned into our pets smile
OR ambey we get all eaten and killed......
but who knows ?
Shut Up Donvu
YOu know nothing, of my plans or power, nothing other than whats typed here !!!!
> long live the domoko domokun
I am Donvu The Dark One
i take no orders from you ice raven.
i control the path between this world and the world of the dead.
And YOU Are Going to fell Pain When You enter the aftelife. MUCh Pain.
you Underestimate me, and i shall be the one to defeat you, 05 Leave ice Raven to me, i shall leave you his body, for a snack
drink Zurg to bring him to your side ~.~
it would help
but who would like this is 11, not 05
05 just want to eat you
I Dont see wher you want to go with this donvu,
The Thunder Element god Lanceor and the
Darkness Elemental god Wryneck
Water/ice Elemental god Merrows
Fire Elemental god Vulcan
and Sky, wind, and the creator of us all : Skyah
All protect me, besides you only gaurd the path, Wryneck owns the land of the dead!!!!, So you are out of luck Donvu.
Yanes what do you mean by that, who is to drink zurg, what side are you on?
Im not in the raven clan ICe Raven your gods cant affect me.
And even your dead fellow clanes pass through my gat, and guess what, when yu come trough imgona make sure you get to stay in the passage, never to reach your " Wryneck "
# 11 would like this eh?
Mabey we should some how move this onto his ufo ?
Learn to type Donvu!!!
And i dont care if the felow claners went through your gate, im sure that wasnt a council member, besides. i bet it was during the time of king_ravens riegn of terror.
things are diffrent now.
as for # 11, how would we go about moving all this there ... question
Can some one really get a mirror, so we can make ice raven look at him self?
he is just so over exagerating his powers.
i for one know my limits.
Who cares if he's a council member for some raven clan, you dont see none of them here on gaia eh?
So come on whos with me!!! ???
im not just some council member!!!!
i am the council member for the ice/water element of the raven clan of the magical ballance.
i am also the founder and webadmin for the clan.
And You Donvu....
You are he one who needs the mirror
besides there are raven clan members here on gaia.
more than you think
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/102226
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September 2, 2005
This strip was particularly difficult. It took me a total of 4 hours, which is over twice as long as it usually takes.
The writing took a while. I needed to think up a situation where Andy would be talking to Jenn. This sounds easy, but with full-body shots, it's a little tricky. Normally, I can just put both characters in the frame, showing from their chest up, and the reader never wonders where they are. But with full body shots you HAVE to have a "set" for them to be in (or they'll look like they're floating in space). Fortunately, I remembered that they're neighbors, so talking over the fence works.
The art took a while. Full body-shots are hard for me to draw. And I needed to use a finer tipped pen than I was accustomed to, because there was too much detail for the size I usually use.
Postproduction took a while. After a fair bit of work, it became clear there was no way for me to composition all the talk bubbles to have them be read in the right order. So I had to take the rather drastic step of horizontally flipping each frame, putting Jenn on the right (she's on the left on the original). In addition to all that, the various pictures of Jenn were horribly out of scale to each other, and one of them had such terrible body porportions that I had to distort transform it with photoshop. That's an adventure in itself.
Proofreading took a while. I belatedly realized that the shovel disappeared after panel 2, so I had to draw a shovel in photoshop and place it in the scene for subsiquent panels.
Text-Bubbling took a while. It took me a really long time to find a way to indicate that the "Thanks for saving our kingdom" was coming from the other side of the portal. Using a normal talk bubble arrow just made it look like Jenn was saying it. Or possibly the portal itself was talking. Then I tried the "curvey" pointer and it seems to work. But that took me a while to come up with.
Though I do like drawing my characters in non-standard outfits. :)
Updates on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/102227
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Terrence McDonnell GALACTICA.TV interview
Written by Mike Egnor
Thursday, 17 September 2009
At the 30th anniversary of the Battlestar Galactica series, held in September 2008 in the form of a cruise (aka GALACTICRUISE), we had writer and story editor Terrence McDonnell as one of our special guests. He amazed everyone, that after 30 years, he still remembered so well the Battlestar Galactica series and the episodes he wrote. This is the transcript of the interview panel Mike Egnor did with him plus a follow up phone interview that went into even greater detail about the series (135 minutes of audio in total).
Battlestar Galactica's writer and story editor Terrence McDonnell
Battlestar Galactica's writer and story editor Terrence McDonnell
This is the fourth con I've done for Battlestar Galactica, but this is the first one I've had with more than two people in the room (crowd laughing). Seriously, two or three people so this is really great!
We even have two or three questions for you (crowd laughing).
I'm ready for them.
You've said that ever since you were a little kid, that you've wanted to write something like Battlestar Galactica. What types of things did you write about when you were little?
Well, when I was a kid, and even up through college, writing never even crossed my mind as a career. I wanted to be a veterinarian from the time I was in high school up to my first year in college, because I love animals. My grades went right in the toilet, first year in college, because I wanted to play. All during high school I was always voted as the class clown, and I was that close from being suspended because I was fooling around. Even the Jesuits couldn't control the free spirit that was here. When I got into college, between my freshman and sophomore year, I was dating a girl who had a cabin out on the Vermilion River, which is off of lake Erie in Ohio. And I still remember the moment, because there are certain moments that transcend everything else in your life. We were sitting on the dock, she had this little canoe, and some guy came along when I was talking to her. He stopped and said: "Boy, you have a nice voice. Are you on the radio?" and I said: "No.", but I kept thinking about it and thinking about it, and I realized that the school that I was going to had one of the best radio and TV departments in the country. So when I got back to school I switched into radio and television, where I wrote, produced, and directed all these comedy shows, and I was also a disc jockey.
When I came out to Los Angeles I just wanted to get my foot in the door and I wanted to be a director where most directors are camera formed because there is not enough time to really rehearse. You just got to be able to block the shot and do it, rather than: "Here's the emotion I want to come out of you. No, there's not enough time for that." So writing was something that I could always just do. So when I came out to Los Angeles I got a job almost immediately writing, because I submitted like 35 pages of material on the day I was told I had an interview, because I said: "Give me some ideas that you want me to do tomorrow morning at 9 o'clock." I was up all night typing and cranking, cranking, cranking and I got hired, and I've been writing ever since. As a kid I watched so much TV and saw so many movies, it kind of absorbed, subconsciously you know what to do or where to take a story or something like that. It's so much fun doing that, because I was always making shit up all the time: "What is this? What about this?" Pretty soon things would kind of ultimately come together and that's how a script takes its shape. I had been preparing for that job my whole life without even knowing it, but you don't know that until you look back on it.
What science fiction influences did you have growing up?
Not a lot. The only science fiction movies were the bad ones in the 1950's, with the exception of The Day the Earth Stood Still. But I read Ray Bradbury and Richard Matheson, who I liked a lot, and have met many times since then, and Fritz Leiber, who's another scifi writer. So, there was a little bit of that, but we were always playing. When we would go out to play, we were either going to be playing pirates, or we were going to be in outer space, or we were going to be this or that. I'm sure everybody goes through those stages. We had better storylines though... (crowd laughing)
You ended up working with Jim Carlson, writing an episode of The Six Million Dollar Man, and then again on The Bionic Woman. How is it that two people write together?
Jim and I met... I had been doing game shows when I first got my foot in the door in the business in Los Angeles. I met Jim at a run-through of a game show that never went on the air. What a game show run-through is, it's the actual game that you stand up in an office and you have a host, and people that don't know the answers to the questions, and you play it and see if there are flaws in it. I met Jim at this run-through and I don't remember who spoke to who first, but we both started laughing. He had originally worked for Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In. He was a comedy writer. He had worked for Bob Hope, and some of these other ones. Jim is much older than I am. While I was doing this game show, and talk about serendipity, something we didn't expect to happen and it happens.
One of the guys that I was working with on this particular game show -- his name is Ken Johnson who you may know -- he's created The Bionic Woman, V, Alien Nation... Ken was working with me on this show and at the time he was writing The Six Million Dollar Man. One day he came in and he said: "Ï think they're going to offer me the producership of the show" and I didn't even blink or miss a heartbeat and said: "Well if you get the job, can I pitch stories to you?" and he says "Sure." So he gets the job, and I don't know what to do now. I don't know how to do this! But I knew Jim. I had met him like eight months before, so I called him and said: "Do you remember me?" and he said: "Yeah, of course. " I told him about the situation and would he be interested to possibly team up to see if we could do something and he said "Sure." So we got together. We hammered out a bunch of stories and we went in. We sold the first one and before we were done with the first one they handed us another one. Then The Bionic Woman was starting up and they handed us another one. Pretty soon, all of a sudden we were a team. So it just kind of stumbled into that.
When Jim and I would work -- after we would work out the whole outline, because we outlined everything; you can't do this stuff without working from an outline -- Act 1, Act 2, Act 3, Act 4, and also if there is a teaser or a tag. A teaser is that opening part that gets you hooked, a tag is that little thing at the end. He would go off and write the first two acts and I would write the second two acts. Then we would get together and we would edit it, because we both had a little bit different style of writing, so we edited it so it sounded the same from act to act act, and then we would turn it in. We'd do that in a week, or we'd do that in five days. That's generally how we did it consistently, because it seemed to work for us.
Did you and Jim ever have arguments over the way a story was written?
No, we were a team for 20 years. I can think of maybe three times, we ever had fight over a particular plot point, or where something should go, and that lasted like five minutes. Then we threw out his idea, and we threw out my idea, and whatever idea we did come up with was better than either of those other two. Arguing was a waste of energy.
Can you talk about the differences in styles the two of you had?
It's just... For instance sometimes I'd have a particular idea on who this particular character should sound like. For instance, we had written a weekend special that was nominated for a number of Emmy Awards called "The Ransom of Red Chief" and it's a classic short story by O. Henry. Basically it's about these two con men who kidnap the banker's son in a small town and they think -- since his dad is the banker -- we'll ransom him and get a lot of money. It turns out that the kid is such a little bastard that they wind up paying the father to take the kid back. (laughing) When we were working on this we thought about these two great western character actors. One of them is Jack Elam, who you might remember from the opening in the Sergio Leone western Once Upon a Time in the West. He's one of the three gunslingers who are waiting at the train station. He's the guy with the bad eye. He always sort of looked like the big bad wolf to me, all grizzled and one eye was always skewed in the other direction. The other one was Strother Martin, who was in a lot of John Ford westerns. In the movie Cool Hand Luke he delivered the line: "What we've got here is a failure to communicate." When we started writing it we thought: "Hey, let's use these two guys.", because we have these two kidnappers. So we did. When we were finished we turned it into the producer and said: "This is who we had in mind." And he sent it to them and they did it. I think they were both nominated for Emmy's for that. That was really, really cool for us. But sometimes just the speech patterns would be off. It was little nuance stuff like that, that nobody would probably notice, but we did.
When writing, did you have certain strengths in one area, or Jim [Carlson] have certain strengths in another area? Whether it was writing dialogue or...
I was really, really strong on story and structure -- hammering the story together. I could knock an outline out, very, very fast. Jim could do it but it would take him longer. In terms of dialogue, he was much faster than I was. He could knock out dialogue faster than I could, but I would get there. It was a perfect match.
You wrote three episodes for Grizzly Adams?
We wrote three episodes, yes, but there was a fourth one, that we took our names off of. We had submitted a story that they liked and they decided to write it themselves and we hated the script so much that we took our names off of it.
Okay. I was going to ask you: How do come up with ideas for a mountain man and a bear?
Well, the first one we did they wanted to know how Grizzly Adams and Mad Jack met each other -- how that happened. So they gave us that thread and we just developed a story around it. And then we took one where Ben the bear gets kidnapped by a man who turns him mean. So this is all character driven stuff and then Grizzly Adams gets in the situation where Ben is threatening him and of course what's going to happen [after that]. The third one we actually took from an actual historical event that happened out in the southwest -- I don't remember if it happened during the Civil War or after the Civil War -- but they had imported a bunch of camels into Arizona to work with the army and apparently afterwards they just cut them loose. So for a long time there were these wild camels running around. The most famous of them was called Hi Jolly. So we did story about some weird creature that the people are seeing and Grizzly Adams doesn't believe what they're saying and then you find out it's this camel. We had slim pickings on that one. That was a real coup to have him in something that we wrote.
You also wrote for The Six Million Dollar Man?
Yes. I didn't write for the first season but I wrote four of those. I wrote one called "Divided Loyalty" which is about a kid who's trying to defect from Russia with his father. I did an episode called "Nightmare in the Sky" with Farrah Fawcett about a plane that is shot down by a Japanese Zero in the desert. I did a two hour TV movie called "The Thunderbird Connection" and I did one with Eric Braeden called "Walk a Deadly Wing". It was about a wing walker. And I did a couple of The Bionic Woman.
Unfortunately Jim Carlson died in 2007 of heart problems. How did you find out?
Jim was one of my best friends my whole life. Jim had been retired since 1994. He had moved to Colorado. I was friends with his kids, they grew up with me. I was working on a show for a game show network, and I got a phone call from one of his sons who said that he had had a heart attack and was in the hospital. I had just seen him 9 months before, because he would come out. I would see him every year almost. So, I talked to him in the hospital after he got his strength back, and I even talked to him when he was at home. A couple of days later I got another phone call that everything they had tried to do at the hospital, even though he was home now, didn't work and he was gone. I miss him every day. I think about him a lot. He was a hell of a writer and a hell of a good guy. Anybody who knows him from previous cons, knows that.
Let's move on to Battlestar Galactica. You said after two episodes of Battlestar Galactica had aired Don Bellisario asked you to do a first act of a "Patton In Space" plot. He liked it so much that he wanted you to write another act and ended up throwing it away?
Because of our success on The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman, an ex-girlfriend who worked at ABC had recommended us for the job. We got the call from Don [Bellisario] and he said: "We're looking for a story and we're thinking about doing an episode of ‘Patton In Space'. Could you go home and write Act 1?" and we said: "What's the story?" and he said: "I don't know. Patton in space. That's what we want." So, this is given to me in the morning and we went home and we pounded it out. We turned it in the next morning and he said: "What's that?" and he kind of looked through it and says: "Okay. Go home and give me Act 2 and give it to me in the morning." So, I thought: "This isn't bad, since we normally knock out a script in a week, so this is a little bit faster. By Friday we would have the whole thing done and we would be paid, so we turned in Act 2. The next thing we hear is: "We've been hired" and I went out to Jim's house because I figured we were going to work on Act 3. I got to his house and he was standing there with glass of wine and I said: "Welcome Story Editor" and he said: "No way." and I said: "Yeah, we've been hired!"
So what happened in the meantime was that they liked the first two acts so much that they sent it to Anne Lockhart, who had not been hired for the show yet. She liked the script so much, that she signed on to the series. I didn't find that out until a few years ago. We come in and we hear that: "Glen [Larson] read the first two acts, but he wants to do a two parter. So we're going to throw your script out and we're going to let him do that script, but you'll have other scripts to write." I still have those two acts at home. I don't know what the final two acts would have been, because that was long ago, but Commander Cain was called Jedidiah. I remember that, because Glen [Larson] was doing all these biblical references. I think we called Sheba, "Sheba". That's the story about that. Glen turned it into "The Living Legend". It was kind of the same and yet it was different. I should have read it again [before attending this convention].
You were a story editor at that point. They didn't have one prior to that. Do you know how they worked without a story editor on the earlier episodes?
Originally, from what I've been told, they thought this would either be a Miniseries or just a few episodes, or a mid season replacement, or something like that, and all of a sudden they decided: "No, this is going to be a series. " So Glen Larson was writing, Don Bellisario was writing, but they couldn't crank them out fast enough. They needed somebody else. So we were brought in as that third wheel, to write another episode while they were... That three week lack time helped everybody. We would just jump over each other. That's how that worked.
As story editor, can you tell us what your job consisted of, what kind of work you did?
Now, a story editor back then is the equivalent of a supervising producer today. What we would do was -- unfortunately we only did this a couple of times -- that the writers would come to us and pitch their story or their idea. We would find one that we liked and go: "Not that one, not that one, not that one." and on this show I would have to then take it to Don Bellisario for approval. On other shows I could just say: "No, that's a good story. Do that one." Then when the script was turned in, I would have to rewrite it. I would rewrite stuff that didn't work here or if I didn't like the dialog or whatever. It was a job to rewrite it and make it work. Which is why I went into Glen's office one day and said: "I have notes on your script." and all hell broke loose. That was my job.
You said as a story editor you could throw out 30% of the scripts?
As a story editor, you generally -- on any show in those days -- you rewrote every script unless it was written in-house. Sometimes even then, if they asked you to. No matter what somebody would deliver, if it wasn't exactly what we wanted, then generally you would end up rewriting it.
Do you know what types of things you specifically would look for in a script?
You know sometimes... On Battlestar Galactica it was different because we wrote everything internally. There really weren't any outside ideas, except... I think there might have been one we took from the associate producers and I don't remember if we turned that into a script or not. I don't remember, but we wound up writing that. Whenever I was a story editor on any show, I don't care if somebody has the whole story worked out. Obviously when they come in, they should have it all worked out. What happens is that if I hear the slightest inkling of something that interests me in a story, I may say: "Let's do this. Let's pull this out of what you have and do it this way." We'd sit there together and I would help them work out the story. That's how I work.
One story editor once said that: "Certain show runners encourage the lower lever writers to pitch some ideas and others don't. Some like to see things well thought-out before they present it, while others like to hear the kernel of an idea that can be expanded." So you say that you want to hear the kernel of an idea?
No, I want to hear the story. Always when I would go in to pitch to anybody, I would have 5 or 6 storylines. Not all worked out, but generally worked out. Kind of like: "This happens in Act 1. This happens in Act 2. This happens in Act 3. This happens in Act 4." How the character develops. That's how I prefer somebody to come in. Obviously they're prepared and it gives me confidence that they know what they're doing. Now within that, if somebody pitches me something, that's why I say... If I don't like what they have, but I like part of what they have, then I'll pull out that part of what they have and then generally I would hammer out the story with them right there in the office and let them go off and write it up. Because then I'd know exactly what I'm getting. That's how I work.
You talked before about some of the time constraints you were under; you would have to write a script in only a few number of hours.
"Murder on the Rising Star". Was that it? We had turned in a bunch of storylines to Glen [Larson] and we were waiting and waiting to get his approval. He was on a beach in Hawaii and was writing this film script. All of a sudden we got a phone call at 4:30pm on Wednesday afternoon and we were to write "Murder on the Rising Star". We didn't even have a story. We had a plot line and it had to be finished on Friday morning at 7:00am. So we didn't go home. That was written in 36 hours and it was basically what came out of the typewriter. We didn't have time for any rewrites. I know people love that episode a lot and all I can think of is: "Oh my God!", because all I can remember was panicking when doing that. We had no idea what would happen. We were both hallucinating practically from writing through it.
Did you have a Battlestar Galactica Bible? How did you keep up with all of the terminology?
That's [what] the whole Glen Larson story [is all about]. (To the audience) Was everybody here for that the other day? I would go through all the scripts that were on my desk and would say: "Secton, Senton..." and he was using them interchangeably. So I just put together a little dictionary thing and when I went into Glen's office and say: "I have notes on your script." simply for consistency, so from one show to the next things would make sense when it was called this. Well, he didn't want to listen to that. All he heard was: "I have notes on your script." That was the last time I ever did that, and that's why things are still inconsistent on the show. At least on the three that we did, it's consistent.
Because the writing was going at the speed it was, do you think you could have done a better job if you were given more time?
On that particular script, yeah. If we had an awful lot of time we could have knocked out a better script. But [on the others] no, we were used to writing things in a week. So it was no big deal. Most writers get two weeks to do it. We always felt, the quicker we can turn it around, the quicker they would give us another one.
Aside from what you said above. How was it to work with Glen Larson?
I didn't have much contact with him.
He didn't give you much input on scripts and stories?
No, none. Generally, my contact person was Don Bellisario. Because quite often Glen wasn't even there. He was in Hawaii writing scripts. But working with Don was great. We'd meet with him once a day or so and he came to us if he wanted to toss around some ideas, or if he was stuck at a particular place in a script, or if he just needed something for the script. Like on how he needed some weaponry for the Nomen. That was dropped in our lap and that was fun.
As the writer on the show, did you have to rewrite on the spot through either errors or directorial changes?
No, never. We were lucky in that in our whole career. We very rarely got notes. Very, very rarely. The only thing we had to write on the spot -- and it wasn't really on the spot -- but after we had shot "Fire in Space", there were so many sequences that were shot without sound -- where firefighters are fighting the fire inside the ship. So we had to write a whole bunch of wild lines and they just got a bunch of people in a studio, read the lines out loud and they just dubbed them in over the action that was going on.
There was another time. It was for the Triad game and I can't remember if it was for the "Murder on the Rising Star" or the one with Fred Astaire ("The Man with Nine Lives"). But everybody is waiting, like by an elevator to go down and over the PA you can hear some guy doing the play-by-play on the Triad. I had to write that. It's just in the background and you can kind of semi-hear it. That kind of thing we would have to do.
How was your writing on Battlestar Galactica affected or constrained, considering it was on the family hour?
There was a bit of network interference on it. There was this episode called "Take the Celestra" that we wrote. Starbuck and Apollo are going over to the Celestra in their ship, but when they get over there, there's this big firefight in the landing bay, because there's a mutiny taking place. So they get into the fire fight and we cut back to the Galactica. I don't know what was going on back there, but we had another story there. Now we cut back to the Celestra and the fire fight is still going on. Then we cut back again. Every time we cut back you would see this fire fight. Well, ABC had this rule that we could only do four or six -- I forget what the number was - incidents of violence per hour. They were claiming that every time we cut back to the same fire fight, that it was a new act of violence. And we'd say: "No! It's the same fire fight. It's the same act of violence." and they'd say: "No, no, no." So finally we were so pissed off that we would call Burt -- we had this one woman on our show and we'd call her up to tell her: "Here's the situation and here's what's happening." -- and she sounded like she was understanding and said: "Fine. No worries.", so we got a little bit more interested into putting more violence into that than we did before. We couldn't kill, so we already didn't have that. There's no way we could have done that, so we did have some constraints.
I told this story up to a few people here. I brought a script that nobody has ever seen. The original "Fire In Space" episode. The ending, if you're familiar with it, has Starbuck and Apollo going out onto the hull to blow a big hole in it so the vacuum of space will come into it and smolders the fire. In the beginning we have a Cylon suicide attack that crashes on the Galactica which is then on fire. Well, the ending that you see, is Starbuck and Apollo going out on the hull and they clamp these charges to blow a hole in it, and coincidentally when they head back holding onto this ring his hold comes loose. The one then goes off into space floating right over the explosion and the other one then launches himself into space and gets him out of the way. How Sheba ever picked them up in her viper is beyond me! (crowd laughing).
The original ending was not that. The original ending of the show was that they go out on the hull to plant the charges and the Cylons come back in a suicide attack. Just exactly like before. One of them is getting through. So on the hull not only are they trying to plant the charges, they're dodging laser fire, they're watching everything go on and one Cylon comes through and is coming right at them. They have to time the explosion and get out of the way, so when this explosion goes off, it completely incinerates the Cylon. Really a cool ending! And the way it should have been done.
I'll tell you about the tag in a second. ABC, in their infinite wisdom -- these are non writers telling creative people what to do - said: "We don't like that ending." I went nuts! I said: "Are you crazy?! That's a great ending." They said: "No, it's repetitive." And I said: "What do you mean: ‘It's repetitive'?" They said: "Well, you had a Cylon attack at the beginning. Now you're having another Cylon attack now. " I said: "Don't you get it? The fact that we know what they can do. We know what they're coming to do?" and they said: "No, we don't like it and you'll have to rewrite it. We're fought it for three weeks but never got through...." And then the tag -- if you remember the stupid tag -- they've got Adama in bed and they've got the singed daggit laying next to him (crowd laughing). I burst out laughing in the screening room when I saw that on screen. What happened in our episode was at the very, very end of the episode, before that tag, Apollo doesn't know if Boxey is dead or not. He thinks he's dead, so that tag is this warm reunion for everybody and it brings the whole thing together. That whole part of it was completely deleted. That's a typical example of what we had to deal with the network.
You said you were on set during filming sometimes?
Did you really enjoy watching the filming?
That was where the daggit left his shoes out on the floor, he jumped up to the rafters (crowd laughing) The other daggit story I was telling was... Evie, the chimp, had her own pet. They had this little dog which was called a Schipperke. I don't know if you know what they are. It's this Australian dog, they're cute, they don't have a tail, their nose is this little button and are short haired. The chimp would walk it around on a leash. They had a birthday party for Noah Hathaway (Boxey) this one day and they gave Evie a piece of birthday cake. The owner of Evie said: "Evie, you share that birthday cake with Skipper." Evie looked up at him, and looked down at the dog, and took the entire cake and stuffed it into his mouth. (crowd laughing loud)
While you were there during filming did any of the directors need rewrites during shooting?
No. Generally, when we write a script, and it's always been that way in my career, I've hardly had any notes. Very rarely do I have to make major adjustments. But I do have a [story]... we're talking about the directors? One of my first jobs in the business in Los Angeles was that I worked in the mailroom at ABC. Another guy who worked in the mailroom at ABC was (Battlestar Galactica director) Rod Holcomb. He and I were really good friends and we would hang out together. I'd hop on his motorcycle and we would go out to Westwood and see foreign films, like by Ingmar Bergman, and we would see Woody Allen films, and we'd talk about it. We loved film. He wanted to be a director and I wanted to write. We often said: "Wouldn't it be cool if some day you would get to direct something that I wrote." It happened with "The Murder on the Rising Star". He directed the episode. That was very cool, very cool.
Were there any directors that shot your scripts in such a way that made you think: "I didn't expect this to come out like that at all."
As a writer we see the movies first, in our head when we write it. So no matter what they do: it's wrong! (crowd laughing) It's not just wrong, but it's not what you saw, because you wrote it. There are moments when I thought: "That looks great. That really works a lot better than I thought." I didn't have any real problems with it, I thought... Well two tiny complaints. One was on "Fire in Space", but it had nothing to do with the director. It was when they fired the boraton towards the camera from the vipers I thought the effect was really lame. It looked like a bad... It wasn't even smooth like a cartoon it was like somebody had put two or three slides together relatively quickly. I just thought it was sloppy.
At the end of "Take the Celestra" -- and I've talked about this before -- when Commander Kronus is killed, there was supposed to be a shot of his casket rolling out of the shot and then there would be a shot outside of the Galactica as it floated from the ship. Which as far as I know, would have been the first funeral in space on film, but I guess they didn't have the money to do the effect, so you never saw that.
Did any of the actors come up to you and say: "My character would never act or talk like this"?
Not so much. This where you get the real pros. That day when we were on the set watching the stunts on "Fire in Space", we got introduced to Lorne [Greene]. Lorne is very intimidating at first, because he has that really deep, fantastic voice. I don't know if you know this but he was the voice of Canada during World War II, as Edward R. Murrow was the voice of America, that's the guy David Strathairn plays in Good Night, and Good Luck. Well, he was the equivalent of him during World War II. He has this big deep voice and he was tall. He was over six feet and when we wore those boots he was even taller. So he came up to us and he said [imitating Lorne]: "Boys..." (crowd laughing) "You don't have to give me a lot of dialogue. But whatever I say has to be important." (crowd laughing) So whenever we would see Lorne in the future and he'd catch our eye, we would go the other way. (crowd laughing) Because we knew it would be something about we should give him or not give him.
But Richard [Hatch] and Dirk [Benedict], both, asked to go to lunch with us various times to talk about their character. Just so we were on the same wave length as them. It helped us and I'm sure it helped both of them. So those two definitely got right into it with us. They weren't critiquing or anything. It was just them saying: "This is how I see the character and this is what I like, this is how I'd like to deliver it."
I'd like to ask a question about "Greetings from Earth"
Which one was "Greetings from Earth"?
The one with Larson's kids and Lorne Greene's daughter.
I don't remember it just from that. Was that the one with Ray Bolger?
Yes, that's it. I was wondering if you knew if it was intentional from the start that they wanted to write an episode so they could use Glen Larson's kids and Lorne Greene's daughter?
No, but the whole point of that episode was, I think -- though it never came down to me specifically -- it was more an attempt to do Little House [on the Prairie] in space. Maybe there was some concern from Glen, because he wrote that, that the show might get cancelled and he might have to write something that could be spun off on Sunday nights, for the family hour. I don't know if that's true. I don't know if that's true at all, I'm only surmising, because it was such a departure -- at least to me -- compared to the other things that had been done. There was no real adventure in it. I didn't care for that episode personally.
When you write a script for a show that involves a guest actor, you've said that you have people in mind when writing the character, like you did with that western. Did you contact people in casting during Battlestar Galactica and request that they get certain guest actors?
Just once, and only because we were asked. On "Murder on the Rising Star" they wanted to get -- what did we call the attorneys?
Chief Opposer Solon?
Yeah, Solon! We'd done a Bionic Woman episode that had Brock Peters as the lead and he was really good and brought a lot to it. If you don't know who he is, he was the black guy being defended by Gregory Peck in To Kill a Mockingbird. We just thought he was a fantastic actor and when they said that they needed somebody that had dignity and obviously has a sense of who he is, we suggested Brock Peters and they got him.
Have you ever seen any episodes and seen the guest actors they chose and thought it was a bad move, or is there any that you have really liked?
That's kind of a hard question. Generally the people they had for most of the guest parts were established actors to begin with. The casting of Ray Bolger at the time I thought was fantastic, but unfortunately -- as I recall from watching the dailies -- Ray at the time was having a difficult time remembering his dialogue and they'd have to do a lot of retakes. I don't remember if that was for the entire episode or just for some of the days that I was in for dailies.
Was there ever a case where they'd have a certain guest actor and you'd have to rewrite the dialogue?
Never. There just wasn't time. It's not like the movies. If I wrote a script and was trying to peddle it so Tom Cruise was interested than I'd have to write it specifically towards him and towards his speech patrons. Then if he would decide not to do it and Nicolas Cage wanted to do it, I would have to rewrite it for him. But that's not done in TV. There's no time.
For the episode "Fire in Space" you had talked about how you had a different ending, about the charges blowing and blowing up the Cylon ship, but were there any other differences that you can remember from the final version vs. what you had in mind for it?
I don't think so. You'd be a better gauge for that, because you could take a look at the script. That's the second draft, which was done in just a few days after the first one, and I don't know if there were that many changes in it. We might have just cleaned up a little bit here and there, but I don't think that there were [any other changes]. You know, there might have been that I don't remember. Or we might have had to change something because they couldn't get this location, but I just can't remember.
The things that stuck out in my mind from reading your script was the entertainment room that they had where you wrote out that they have a pool table with flashing lights and sounds, and to be able to see what they came up with from that.
That's pretty cool. Did we do that?
You wrote that it needed to be a game -- and I forgot the name of the game - where it had a certain type of table and it had flashing lights.
I have to go look at that.
You even specified what colors the balls were.
One of them was zebra striped. But I don't think that the color of the balls you wrote about corresponded with the colors of the balls on the table that they used.
That's interesting. I forgot that.
How much did you draw from the Irwin Allen film Towering Inferno when you wrote that script?
Zero. Are there any similarities?
I haven't seen the movie, but people have said that they thought that that script came from the movie Towering Inferno.
Well look, when we were first hired... there is a shorthand in television. "The Living Legend" is basically -- we were told when we were first hired that they wanted to do Patton in space. That's shorthand, since you know the kind of character Patton was, so you work that character into a story. For "Fire in Space", they didn't even have to say Towering Inferno, because you just get what that is. But if you want to make a parallel with Towering Inferno, that's fine, but it was never really specifically said that way.
For the episode "Murder on the Rising Star" do you remember if there were any changes from what you envisioned in the beginning vs. what came out in the end?
I don't remember. I guess I could go back and look at the first draft and the final draft, and see if there any significant changes, but I don't remember. It seems to me that because we had 36 hours to write it that there weren't any changes because they had to go and shoot it. I don't remember doing an extensive rewrite of any kind on that script.
I think this is probably the only episode that showed a flashback to the attack on the colonies. Ortega is shown taking a bribe from a person who wanted on a ship that wasn't supposed to. Which I think was a nice touch, to go back and show some flashbacks of the colony.
Thank you.
This episode is where you created Triad.
Yeah, again I don't remember if we created it or if we were told about it and put it in. I just don't remember. But I do remember that I had a sheet of paper with rules on it that we had come up with. I don't know whatever happened to that. That would be pretty interesting to see, but as I told you, it was originally supposed to be done without gravity in a big cube, or a big rectangle.
That's what I wanted to ask you. The original idea was for it to be something like weightlessness basketball?
Yeah, you could ricochet off the ceiling and stuff. We pitched that to Don [Bellisario], but you know it was almost a half-ass attempt to pitch it because we figured they'd never go for this because it would be to expensive to do. Because it is a critical part of the piece. If it was something that we could go back to and use several times well that might be something else. They just said: "No, this is going to be too expensive." So we never put that version in.
Let me go back to "Fire in Space". One of the things that was in the script was that Starbuck wanted to blow the charges prematurely before they finished them all and the response was: "No, we have to lay them all out, because they have to blast them in sequence so the explosion wouldn't tumble the gyros." My question is this. They're in deep space, what difference does it make if they tumble the gyros? They're not likely to run into anything?
No, but if they tumble the gyros our thoughts... Well first of all we had to do two things. One of them was that we had to toss up the question the audience might have: "Why don't they just blow up what they have?" We needed to take a little bit more time so we gave that answer. The other thing is -- in our heads anyway -- if the gyros start tumbling, who knows what that would cause on the ship? If it just goes spinning out of control, do people go flying around? How do they get them to -- "calm down" is the wrong word but you know -- settle down. We just didn't even want to go into that.
That's an excellent point. The G-forces could have hurt the crew on board.
Yeah, exactly.
In the episode "Take the Celestra" we see a new ship and Commander Kronus. It was nice to see some backstory with Adama and Kronus. Kronus dies at the end and he gets shot by the laser pistol. When we see Cylons shot by laser pistols, they blow up. We see Kronus get shot and he doesn't look hurt at all, and then the funeral. Is that because of the standards and practices?
Probably. But they must have had some sort of funeral director, who did a lot of makeup on him. I don't know. I don't know how to answer that. Sorry.
On "Two for Twilly" there was a story with Jamie Lee Curtis?
Yes. I have the actual sheet for a read through for the script. We were in casting on that episode. There were two people that came in that I knew, because of their work. One of the women -- and I can't remember her name -- but she was... There was a Robert Altman movie called A Wedding. Carol Burnett is in it, and this young lady (Amy Stryker) played the bride in that movie, and I thought she was really good and I thought she might have been good as one of the characters. The other one was Jamie Lee Curtis, who only had done Halloween at the time. She came in and started reading and she got the giggles. She just started laughing. Finally the casting director thanked her for coming in and she left. Jim Carlson turned to me and he said: "Poor kid. She's never going to go anywhere in this business." (laughing)
You said you were there at the read throughs. As a writer were you supposed to be there and help choose people?
No, it was not necessarily to chose people but just to watch the process, because... and we only did it on our own scripts. Generally if there was the situation where there was a guest star. "Fire in Space" didn't have a guest star. "Murder on the Rising Star" I think we were so whipped form doing that, we didn't have an opportunity to go to that one. "Take the Celestra" had Paul Fix, who played Kronus, who was a regular on the hit western series The Rifleman. He played the sheriff in town. I always liked him. He'd been around forever. Ana Alicia, I think might have been a contract player at Universal. I'm not sure. So the only one we actually got to be in on was the "Two for Twilly" one, but I've been on many other ones. Generally what happens is, when you write a script, you have a picture in your head of how this person might look, or how they talk, or just even move. Because when you're writing it, you see it first. The casting director might look to us to say: "Who did you like and why?" Ultimately it wouldn't be our decision, but we might have a little input on it, that's all.
The other episode "I Have Seen Earth". Could you tell us about that script?
"I Have Seen Earth" was already there when we got there. Jim and I got a hold of the script and we did a bit of a rewrite on it. We thought that Jasper, the lead character, could have been played by Jack Elam, again. Somebody that we knew and it was easy to write, but basically what that script is, it's The African Queen. So again, here's the shorthand. It's an old rattletrap spacecraft, that's basically held together by chewing gum and wire, that they run into, and he claims that he's seen Earth. Boxey believes him and nobody else really seems to believe him, because he's loaded with tall tales. So ultimately what happens is that Boxey stows away on his spaceship and then they crash land and run into the Cylons on this planet where he's been prospecting. I know, obviously, Starbuck and Apollo come to the rescue. That's basically the story. I know that script is around, if you don't have it, somebody must have it.
I've seen it on eBay. Were there any other scripts, that you know of, that didn't make it?
There was a story that David Caren had written, that I remember: "Hold the Crickcatcher". I do not remember what the story was at all, but it had to do with a bunch of insect-like creatures on the ship. There was a script called "Mutiny" by Guy Megar, who at one point was Glen [Larson]'s driver. That never got shot and I never cared much for that script, but Guy went on to become a very successful television director. Those are the ones that I remember.
Did you have any ideas for scripts that you never got around to writing?
Yeah, I have a list of them somewhere, but I'll have to check around, because I haven't been able to locate them.
Unfortunately the series didn't make it to the second season. What things did you have in your mind when planning the second season?
At the last Galactica convention I couldn't find...I have it, I have it at home, but I couldn't find it then. I have the presentation that Glen [Larson] made to ABC with six storylines for Season two. In my personal opinion -- no offense to Glen -- it's no wonder that they cancelled the show. Five of the six storylines I thought were... I had seen them before, there was nothing new, there were no twists, it was just... they were very flat in my opinion. Now, on the other hand, on the very first episode of Season 2, they were going to kill Sheba. Anne Lockhart was going to be written out of the script. I thought that that would not necessarily have been a good thing. Anne has never seen that. I want to get a copy of that to her, so she knows what was going to happen to her character.
But I think what Glen was trying to do for that opening episode was to create some kind of a buzz. There certainly would have been publicity. The other storylines were kind of... I'd seen them before. I wanted to do different stuff. I was telling the [people at the] table last night; somebody was asking me about where the ideas came from. Glen would write these big epic scripts like "The Gun on Ice Planet Zero", which was The Guns of Navarone. He did the story of "The Living Legend", which was Patton, and then he would... What was the one with the spaceship with lights and the white suits? (crowd saying: "War of the Gods") Yes, "War of the Gods". They were these big epic kinds of things. Because they would cost so much to do, because you had to do relatively new special effects, we didn't have that much in our budget.
So what we were kind of forced to do -- not by choice, but by situation -- we started exploring more personal stories; stories about who else was in the fleet. If you were in this situation, who would do what? What if there was dissension on another ship and what would be the results of that? Who was the wizard of technology if things broke down? Those were the kind of things we sort of looked at. I think we would have explored more of that. Since that sounded really interesting to me.
Towards the end of the first season it really looked like we were not going to be picked up, because it cost so much. Each episode was like $1 million, which at the time was unheard of. So projecting into Season 2, we had a bunch of storylines and I personally would like to have seen more about the internalization of the fleet. One thing I also wanted to do was that I wanted to make the Cylons real villains, and they're crappy villains because they couldn't kill anybody. It was like an old trap, since you knew nobody was going to get killed. It's not like in the new episodes that was all going to change. That's why toward the end of the first season they brought in the Nazi storm trooper types, because they were looking for a villain. That didn't work either. So I would much more prefer the Cylons, because they were pretty cool... just make them dangerous.
Some of the secondary characters like Tigh, Boomer and Cassiopeia, we never really learned where they were from, who they were. Did you have any ideas in your head like: "This is who Tigh is, and this is where he came from"?
Not with Tigh, especially not in the first season, since they were not going there. They were looking for more action. With Cassiopeia, who started as a hooker on the first episode (crowd laughing), it was a totally different story. Sure they called it socializer, but basically it was still a hooker. (crowd laughing) Obviously when the series started, they softened that a bit. What we tried to show in "Take the Celestra" was that Starbuck had an old flame there and that relationship with Cassiopeia and how she felt about that. Again, we were going for a more emotional kind of drama. We showed what would be happening to these characters in the future. So we were setting things up in a way. Keep in mind that this show wasn't serialized like it is now. It was episodic. You couldn't continue that thought in another episode.
How about any other secondary characters?
Not just secondary characters, but also like we did on "Murder on the Rising Star" with some flashbacks and the relationship between Adama and these people. Or "Take the Celestra", where we found this other ship and this other commander. Even in "Two for Twilly" here's a guy who's the great mechanic for the fleet, which I thought was kind of an interesting angle. I think we would have found more people like that. Especially if Glen [Larson] would have continued to write his big epic two-parters, we would been forced to do more of these internal shows to accommodate that, because there wouldn't been that much special effects situations there.
Do you know if there was any thought of bringing the Pegasus back?
Well yeah, the first episode of Season Two, the Pegasus comes back and Sheba is killed.
Would the Pegasus have stayed with the Galactica or would it have gotten lost again?
I don't remember. I think he only had a couple of pages on it. I know that's around, that thing for Season Two. In fact I was talking to somebody who was going to get me a copy of it, because I can't lay my hands on the copy that I have. I know I have it here somewhere, but I just don't know where it is.
The Cylons were changed from being lizards to just being robots. Was that done for the fact you needed to blow them up?
Probably. Although that all happened before we got there. I was never crazy about the lizard angle anyway. Even when I watched the pilot, the first two-three hour episode. I really liked the show until I saw the lizard and then I thought :"Ah, that's lame." But it was okay. It seemed to work and it didn't hurt the show one way or the other, so...
When and where did you found out that the show had been cancelled?
There were rumors towards the very, very end. We had written the second to last script, "Take the Celestra" and Don Bellisario had written the last one, "The Hand of God", which was another network interference, since it was in fact originally called "The Finger of God", because of the protrusion in the hull where they went up and they could look out into the universe. The network thought that the title was too dirty.(crowd laughing) Don wrote the last episode about we finished them at about the same time. We knew that there were...We weren't sure if it was coming back or not. So I can't remember if we were there or if we were just gone when it probably wasn't coming back. I don't know.
Were you ever asked to write for Galactica 1980?
First of all you have to pronounce that show properly. It's called Galactica [Terry spitting] (crowd laughing and applauding)... Except for the last episode "The Return of Starbuck". That was fine. No, that series was just hideous! So no, I was not.
Speaking of... Why couldn't you use "crap"? Is it "felgercarb" or "feldercarb"?
"Don't step in the felgercarb". It depends on which episode you're watching. Sometimes Dirk [Benedict] would say "felgercarb" and sometimes he'd say "feldercarb". It's obvious what that word meant. It was thought up by Glen [Larson]. It wasn't us, but we certainly liked it.
At the time you were writing it, the first season, was there ever talk of doing a theatrical movie?
You know what they did. They obviously released the first one. They mixed the "Fire in Space" and "The Living Legend". The combined it into Mission Galactica: The Cylon Attack. They released that all over the world. I think they did a third one too and then, when they did Galactica [Terry spits] (crowd laughing), they combined some of those together. They even combined them with some of the Battlestar Galactica episodes together to create two hour movies. It was just two episodes in two hours.
How about towards the end of Battlestar Galactica? Did you hear them talking about making other movies?
You heard Richard [Hatch]? They had no clue on what they had. They absolutely didn't have a clue. The network executives were used to doing their cop shows. They looked at it as this weird science fiction show they had going on somewhere on the lot. They just didn't get it, despite the fact that they wanted it on the air. They saw what Star Wars did, obviously. I wished they would have! Maybe then we could have had a continuation of the show, at least theatrically.
Did you ever hear any talk of bringing the original series back with the original actors?
Richard [Hatch] has been trying to do that for a long time -- to get Universal interested. Again: "Why do that show?". They didn't understand the fanbase. They didn't understand the show. They didn't understand the interest of people like Bryan Singer and Tom DeSanto -- having interest in the project. Obviously, I wonder if they ever are going to. Has anybody heard if they're going to do anything with this new version of Battlestar Galactica, when it goes off? Are they going to do a spin-off or anything?
They're talking about doing Caprica and they're filming another movie.
Well, that makes sense, but they didn't have the vision back then.
Question by Robert Feero, Bora the Borellian Nomen, who's sitting in the audience: Did you write the script of "The Man with Nine Lives"?
I did not write the script of "The Man with Nine Lives". That's the major debut of you Nomen, right? Don [Bellisario] came to Jim and myself and he said two things. Apparently he was sitting in the hallway and was thinking of a name to call you guys and was looking for something in the line of "nomad" or whatever and my partner (Jim Carlson) said: "What about ‘Nomen'?" Don Bellisario liked that, so Jim contributed to that. Don Bellisario came to our office one day and said: "We've got to give these guys some kind of cool weapon. I don't know what they are, so see if you can figure something out." So we were thinking. It seems like they come from a desert planet. They're wearing these long robes. They're more primitive, so let's think of primitive weapon and jazz it up a little bit. I personally came up with the laser bolo idea. So when you threw them that laser would cut everything. I still feel it was a cool idea.
Question by Robert Feero: I want to ask you about Fred Astaire and his grandchildren. They wanted him to be on the show and the word I have was that Fred called Lou up and said: "Help me out."
I'm not sure, but that's the same story that I have heard. And who could turn down Fred Astaire? Fred is a complete gentleman. I remember that he was there on stage. He had everything memorized, just like he was doing a feature film. I don't think anybody knows this, but Anne Jeffreys (Siress Blassie), who was the other guest star on this episode, was a big, big star of the 50's on TV on a show called Topper. There was a sequence where they're on a dance floor of the Rising Star and they're dancing together. Well Fred didn't want to do it. He put up a big stink with Bellisario about how: "I don't want to dance. I don't want to do anything like that." And he said: "No, no, it's just a little movement. You don't have to do any steps."
But I think it's the very, very last time Astaire danced on screen. I think that's it. I wish I knew more about that, but it is pretty close idea of what happened. And I want to thank you for playing a great part! (crowd applauding). Here's some trivia for you. One of the other Nomen was an actor named Lance LeGault and nobody here would know what Lance was in. If you see Elvis Presley's comeback special when he's wearing the black leather jumpsuit in the late sixties. Lance LeGault was the drummer!
Back when television first started, from 1949 until 1975, it seemed like every network had a space show. So why is it that the entertainment industry is now so bias against any kind of science fiction?
If you could do a cop show or a doctor show or you build one set and that's all you need. Basically... You might have a swing set where you're going into a lawyer's office or something like that. You've got the doctor's office in the hospital. You've got the attorney office, that's one thing. You've got the police precinct, that's one thing. When you do a space show or a scifi show there's a lot of costs involved. It's not only the interior of the ship. Whatever you're going to do there should be a lot of special effects, because this should be the future.
So I think cost maybe be prohibited when they say: "Look, we can do this show with all of these great characters. There's fifteen characters with a really big actor that's the lead guest star for an X amount of money. Or we could do a show with a bunch of unknowns because the special effects cost so much." Which is the audience going to come to? Are they coming to see Glen Close or are they going to see a bunch of unknowns? I don't know if that's the answer, but I certainly know that's something that should be taken into consideration if I was a network executive. So the scripts would have to be tip-top or the guy who's lines were given should have to be tip-top.
If they would do a continuation of the original Battlestar Galactica series, would you be interested to write a script?
In a heartbeat. (crowd applauding) Of course. I haven't forgotten how to do it.
Were you ever consulted on the new series, by the production company or the writers?
No, they didn't contact any of us. If they contacted anybody it might have been Glen [Larson]. But even there I don't know how much influence or input he had... or if he cared about it. He had sold the rights off, so he really had no say. I don't know if they've consulted him. I never heard that.
Have you seen the new Battlestar Galactica series?
Bits and pieces. I don't watch a lot of television because I'm generally not home to watch a lot of shows, because I'm working. I'm home anywhere between eight and midnight. I just can't watch everything. I know it's a totally different show from what we did and it would have to be. I know that the people who watch it, love it. I haven't really seen it. Twenty minutes here, ten minutes here, so I can't say.
Here at the 30th anniversary of the Battlestar Galactica series we screened the "Saga of a Star World" pilot. I also saw you in the audience, watching it. What did you think of it?
I stayed for about the first hour and ten minutes or so. I left before the lizards came on, and I liked it. I liked it a lot.
Was there anything specific that you saw that stood out?
No, it was like: this still holds up, after all this time. Not that I was necessarily surprised by that, but it was nice to see. Because a lot of shows you have fond memories of and then you see them years later and you go: "Oh, geez..."
For that, or for any of the episodes before you came on board and watched them, as a writer have you ever thought: "Oh, I would have done that differently"?
No, it's a fairly decent science fiction series. There were a couple of episodes that I really liked and there were others that I wasn't that fond of. I was never crazy about the western angle that were in like three of the scripts, but there were other things that were pretty interesting. They were doing things that hadn't been shown before for science fiction. I thought effects-wise the first season of Star Trek is just unwatchable. Guys in crocodile masks. I was like: "Oh, come on!" Obviously that was ten years before. Things like that wouldn't hold up. A lot of this series really looked like it could have been shot yesterday.
As a writer when you watch anything on television or when you go to the movies, are you not able to enjoy it, because as a writer you say: "Oh, I would have done this differently."?
Sometimes. Sometimes I already know what's going to happen before it happens. I'm way ahead of the audience because I'm looking at the tricks the writers use. For instance if they're using subjective camera so you're seeing everything through the killer's eyes, but you never see who the killer is. Well there's a reason for that. It because the killer is someone you'd never suspect.
Another example is that I loved the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park, but I can't tell you how much I hated that movie. Because they set up the Tyrannosaurus Rex as... the minute he starts to move, everything shakes, and you can hear and feel that, so there's this great threat. At the very end they're in the kitchen and they're being chased by the raptors. They run out and coincidentally there's the T Rex in the middle of the hall. Nobody heard him coming. Not just that was bad, but I just think it's horrible writing when an "Act of God" gets somebody out of a situation -- where the heroes are not being heroic. Wouldn't it been cooler, when they ran out, or at least one of them runs out, like Sam Neill, and he hears the T Rex. He runs out and diverts the T Rex to chase him back into the building. That would have worked for me. But just the way it was? If I had a box of popcorn I would have thrown it at the screen. This stuff is horrible.
How has the writing and story editing business changed over the years when you started until now?
When I was starting out as a young writer the story editors on the shows that I was working on were people who had written major movies. There was a film in the 60s called The Pawnbroker and it's with Rod Steiger. He was nominated for an Oscar for it. He's plays a pawnbroker in New York who was in a concentration camp. It was made with an extremely low budget and it was just an incredible performance. Another guy that I worked for wrote a movie called The Train, which is a Burt Lancaster movie. John Frankheimer directed it. It's the best train crash in any movie I've ever seen. These guys, writing these kind of movies were editing television shows. These knew how to write and they were older, 50 or 60.
In 1988 there was a writer's strike and out of the smoke of the writer's strike came this guy named Brendon Tartikoff, who was 25 years old and the head of NBC. He couldn't relate to these older writers because they knew more than he did. They knew about life, they knew stories, they knew structures and so on. He surrounded himself with college graduates and people of his own age. Nothing wrong with that but all of these great writers locked their houses, left the business and there was no work for them. He had a big hit with Miami Vice, so it was all young, all young people. Now, when you're 35 and you're writing prime time, you better start looking for work because you're not going to be hired much longer.
You wonder why sitcoms are not on television anymore? Because the young writers have grown up on bad cartoons. They think that this is funny. If you watch their sitcoms, there's no joke. It's just horrible, horrible, horrible and nobody watches them. This is my opinion. There is certainly room for young writers. My God, I was one of the youngest writers in the business when I got in. I think we obviously need the combination of both. But where is the story? Even when I go to the movies, I walk out of there and go: "Oh my gosh, there's a hole in there so big that you can drive a truck through. Come on!" So when you think of something that is working, well okay, but I think that was a big, big problem. Sitcoms died. Obviously there always the great episodes like Cheers, Barney Miller and things like that. There's always going to be something like that. But at the same time, most of them are dying and they're putting on these stupid reality shows.
What's the best thing you've ever seen or ever done yourself?
Oh gosh. When it comes to movies I can't pick one movie, but I can pick a bunch of movies as long as they had good stories, good actors and things like that. Of my work, without question, the seven years I spend on Win Ben Stein's Money. A lot of people don't know Win Ben Stein's Money, never heard of it. That's because it was on Comedy Central and at the time not everybody got Comedy Central. You know, Ben Stein was a right wing republican. God love him. Jimmy Kimmel, the co-host was as left wing as you could possibly get. This show ran for seven years, we were nominated for 22 Emmy's and 21 of them I had over the course of seven years. I had 22 writers and 21 won Emmy's. This is the only cable game show that ever won an Emmy for "Best Gameshow". It's the only game show in history where every single year the writers were nominated for best writing. And every single category was a joke. It was really, really edgy, because Comedy Central let me get away with it. There was one day -- this is an example of what we would do -- we had a category about presidential pets and it was called "White House Dogs Other Than Chelsey" (crowd laughing and cheering). So the network called me up and said: "You can't do this!" and I said: "What's wrong with that?" He said: "you can't take a pot shot at a 16 year old." So I said: "Okay" and we retitled it "On All Fours In The Lincoln Bedroom" (crowd going nuts!)
Did they accept that?
Absolutely. It was on! And that's how we looked at every single category. So we had "Popping Horses Not Married To James Taylor" (crowd laughing). No prisoners! We went after everybody. No matter what they were. I laughed for seven years straight. All we'd hear was laugh, laugh, laugh, because every time the question was never revealed, the question came back to be retitled. We would have these writer's meetings that were like The Dick Van Dyke Show. You'd be sitting there and seven geniuses would be trying to outthink each other. And when somebody would come up with the right category, everybody would applaud and laugh.
We were just pounding the floor most of the time, we'd even literally go rolling on it. The way this game worked was that Ben was the host for the first half of the show and he'd put up his own money. This was not bullshit. This was actually what happened. He got paid to do the show, but if he won the game, he got another $5,000. So when you beat him, he was furious. (crowd laughing). Because on the first half he was the host and then at the end of the first round we got rid of the person who was in the last place. Ben then became a contestant and Jimmy Kimmel became the host. So Ben never knew what the categories were that were coming up. And we'd just kill him, left and right, since he didn't know what was coming.
You and Jim wrote the third episode of the initial X-Men cartoon. How did that come about?
We were called in. We'd done a lot of work, over at Universal with Six Million Dollar Man, Bionic Woman, Battlestar Galactica and we'd also done The Gemini Man. We'd also done a lot of animation. I think somebody just saw our credits and said: "We want you to do this." I can't remember if somebody that had worked for us and was working on that show or not. They just called us in and said: "This is the episode we want you to do." We just did it.
I'm just wondering if you're writing for a cartoon if you do things differently?
The scrip format is different a little bit in that. When you write one hour drama it's about one minute per page. So a 60 minutes show would be about 60 pages. For animation, a 30 minute show would be anywhere from 35 to 42 pages, because there's an awful lot of exposition. You have to put your stage directions down, you have to explain what the shot is, so the artist knows how to draw it. You don't want a bunch of talking heads, so you always have to have characters doing things. That's what I always do. That's the difference between cartoon and television.
Had you read the comic book before?
Oh, yeah. I was a huge fan.
I was wondering if you needed to do any background research so you know what the characters...
No! No way! But I had to explain it to Jim! (laughing)
I thought the first few seasons of that cartoon were excellent. The episode was called "Enter Magneto". Was he fun to write for, because in his mind he's not a villain?
Yeah! Those Marvel characters are great because they always have flaws and they're very human. Everybody is in conflict with each other. Everybody has got issues, so there's a lot of stuff to play with. I remember in the late 60's or early 70's they killed them all. All the X Men got wiped out. They just started over again, which is interesting.
What are you doing these days? Still working?
I've sold a project to Michael Davies who is the executive producer of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?. We just signed the paperwork on Friday. We may be doing a pilot and this will be for the internet. That's all I can tell you about it right now. We have sponsorship and looks like it will be a "Go".
Any hobbies to keep you busy?
Reading. I'm interested in just about everything with the exception of the sex life of an insurance salesman. I can get interested in just about anything.
Have you thought about writing an autobiography?
I have little pieces done. I'm about 85% done with the chapter on Battlestar Galactica. And there are other interesting stories too. I wouldn't have done it, except everybody that I talked to and was telling stories about some of the things that had happened in my life, said I should write this down. In my spare time, if I'm still motivated, hopefully I'll get it all together.
That's all the questions I got.
Well Mike, any time you get a wild hair and want to know something just email or call me and we'll set it up.
You're such a wealth of knowledge on the show. We've all heard the stories from the point of view of Richard Hatch and Dirk Benedict, but you were behind the scenes, you were there. So I'm sure I'll have some more questions later.
Anytime! I'll gladly brush up on the old scripts, the original versions, and look at them again. Keep me posted on the website.
Thanks so much for doing this!
My pleasure.
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ITT: Create your own personal SSB roster
#1WickedSickJoshPosted 5/18/2013 8:56:18 PM
People like making rosters for this game and here's another one. It's a bit different though. Here are the rules:
1. You can use ANY character from ANY video game series, EXCEPT those who do not have a video game origin (example: Spider-Man, Terminator, Hulk Hogan)
2. You can use as many characters from a series as you want but you must list what game series they are from.
3. No characters that split into multiples ones (like Pokemon Trainer having 3 characters). Characters with transformations are fine though (like Zelda/Sheik or Samus/Zero-Suit)
4. Max roster limit is 20. :P
For myself, I'm using characters from video games I played growing up and games I still play today:
1. Mario (Super Mario Bros)
2. Link (Legend of Zelda)
3. Ryu Hayabusa (Ninja Gaiden)
4. Samus (Metroid)
5. Charizard (Pokemon)
6. Mewtwo (Pokemon)
7. Earthworm Jim (Earthworm Jim)
8. Cloud (Final Fantasy)
9. Sephiroth (Final Fantasy)
10. Tifa Lockhart (Final Fantasy)
11. Sonic (Sonic the Hedgehog)
12. Ganondorf (Legend of Zelda)
13. Kirby (Kirby's Dreamland)
14. Cole MacGrath (InFamous)
15. Scorpion (Mortal Kombat)
16. Mai Shiranui (King of Fighters/Fatal Fury)
17. Donkey Kong (Donkey Kong)
18. Rick (Splatterhouse)
19. Chaz Ashley (Phantasy Star)
20. Solid Snake (Metal Gear)
"You can't sedate all the things you hate"
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• Achievements
*There are 2 secret achievements. show
Arnold BraunschweigerDestroy 300 destructible objects in Mission 7,820
I promise to kill you lastKill Dalton in less than 40 seconds30
I wanna be a cleanerFinal blow to Dalton is a headshot with a pimped .44 MODEL 29 handgun25
Mission 7 Complete (secret)Completed Mission 7 as Professional.30
Mission 8 Complete (secret)Completed Mission 8 as Professional.30
That's right. Who's laughing nowBuy the 'pack 8' gun pack in a multiplayer ranked match15
Contributed By: Guard Master.
Know Something We Don't?
Have We Been Fooled?
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/102248
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Genre Simulation -> Simulation
Today's Rank 2847
Date 2004-11-11
Publisher Aspyr
Date 2002-09-13
North America Retail Box ArtUnited Kingdom Retail Box ArtFeatures:
- All the new features included in the official Steam Service Pack 1 plus Passenger Service Pack 2 so you can now transport people to and from stations and set up train "portals" to generate new trains onto your route
- The powerful but easy to use Trainz Paintshed which lets you create new paint schemes for your locos and rolling stock in minutes
- The official TRS 2004 fan pack including logos and extra content so you can add Auran approved content and graphics to your personal Trainz fan site
- A huge bonus CD containing additional Australian content including locos, rolling stock and more
Sponsored Links
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/102257
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Gamer's Guide to Surviving an Online Gaming Outage
Posted by: David Sanchez
A huge part of modern gaming culture is taking games online and playing them with or against other players. Thanks to technological advances, high-speed internet, and impressive console specs, gamers can now quickly get together and enjoy games more than they would if they were facing mindless bots. Sports games, military shooters, action-adventure games, and even RPGs all support online play, creating a community of gamers that is closer than ever. But what happens when a network experiences technical problems? What if the manufacturers are performing lengthy maintenance on their servers? What if some blasted Neanderthals decide to hack an online system, rendering it unsafe for gamers? What are you supposed to do when you can't game online? Below is a step-by-guide to surviving an online outage.
Step 1: Coming to Terms with Reality
Upon seeing that dreaded message on your screen that says your online network of choice is down, the first thing you need to do is accept that you probably won't be playing games online for a while. This is the hardest step, but it's also the most pivotal for dealing with the development. You're not going to be able to play games online for some time, so get used to it. When the PlayStation Network debacle hit Sony's current home platform, gamers eagerly anticipated the return of the service. Day in and day out, they checked to see if their PlayStation 3 consoles could get connected, sync trophies, or provide a digital shopping experience. It took a while for the situation to improve, and whining didn't solve anything. Acceptance is key, and it leads to the next step in coping with online failure.
Step 2: Don't Freak Out When Achievements and Trophies Don't Sync
When the PSN went down, many gamers had just purchased brand new copies of Mortal Kombat and Portal 2. I quickly put a number of hours into Mortal Kombat and began earning trophies. As expected, my PSN level did not increase with each one. Though I wouldn't consider myself a trophy whore by any means, it stung a little that I couldn't level up, especially after committing so much time and effort. I can only imagine the deep frustration that dedicated completionists felt when they realized their PSN profile wasn't changing. As the first step in this guide tells you, acceptance is a major part of getting over not being able to obtain rewards like achievements and trophies. There's nothing you can do about it, so let it go. Wait for the outage to pass and look forward to seeing your Gamerscore or level improve when the service does return.
After successfully accomplishing the first two steps of acceptance, you have one step left as you wait out your console's online outage. But because life is never easy, you'll have three steps to choose from.
Step 3A: Sell Your Console and Buy the Competitor's Machine
When the PSN went down for weeks, gamers started selling their PlayStation 3 systems and ran to their nearest video game retailer, purchasing an Xbox 360 instead. This act spoke volumes of the importance of online gaming in the modern era. There is no doubt in my mind that something similar would have happened if the situation were reversed and Microsoft was the victim of hacker attacks. Today's gamers expect an online component, and if they're not getting it, they're not going to play. For some, parting ways with their console in favor of the competition was tough. For others, it's all about the online play--the manufacturer, the exclusives, and the system itself aren't important. If you're serious about playing games online and can't wait out the network failure, your best bet is to shell out the cash for the other system.
Step 3B: Wait It Out
Patience is most definitely a virtue, and if you have the tenacity and the fortitude to wait for your favorite console's online component to return, you should. It won't be easy, but when you finally get that notification that your console's online network services are returning, you'll be glad you waited. And if Sony's "Welcome Back" program is any indication, you might even score some free goodies for your patience and brand loyalty.
Step 3C: Shun Modern Gaming and Revert to Old School Consoles
Of course, there is an alternative to all of this online gaming nonsense. You could become a hermit gamer, shunning all of the modern elements of the industry and going back to the basics: blowing on cartridges, using memory cards to save games, and forgetting all about online multiplayer and achievements. You'll likely lead a simpler life and enjoy polygonal graphics more. And glitches--they probably won't be as prevalent since developers had to really test games and make sure they were working flawlessly back in the retro days of gaming.
Online gaming has a myriad of pros and nary a con. But when something goes wrong internally, you can say goodbye to your online gaming component for the foreseeable future. It's a shame that game consoles run this risk, but that's the catch when you want the definitive gaming experience. If you ever fall victim to an online gaming outage (and you probably will), keep this guide handy. It'll save your life. Of course, I can't do anything to help you out in terms of the withdrawal symptoms you'll experience. You'll have to figure that out somewhere in between acceptance and going retro.
Anonymous User
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The Garden Landscape Guide
Book: History of Garden Design and Gardening
Chapter: Chapter 3: European Gardens (500AD-1850)
Ice Houses in Italy
Previous - Next
134.Ice-houses are common in Italy, and in that country, as in Britain, are generally under the care of the gardener. They are usually sunk deep in dry ground or rock, and their entrance protected from the exterior air by a quantity of loose straw. Besides the ordinary domestic purposes to which ice is applied in Britain, it is used in Italy to preserve fish, meat, and vegetables, fresh. These are carried to the ice-house in appropriate vessels, and set down upon the ice.
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Lesson Plans
Re: duty question
From: Batmom44
Date: Wed Aug 23 2000 - 02:46:24 PDT
• Next message: Rusmur2: "Re: discipline models"
congratulations to vinnie's ear!!!
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Aug 23 2000 - 02:47:17 PDT
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Find Lesson Plans on! GettyGames
if film is stuck or not rewound
Date: Mon Nov 10 2003 - 18:52:14 PST
Just FYI if you ever get film stuck in a camera don't open it if you're not sure its rewound. You can take it in a completely dark room (give your eyes a few minutes to adjust to make sure its dark) and open the camera and wind the film back in by hand. Also, if you ever open a camera and see film that's not wound, shut it as fast as you can. Many of the pictures may be salvagable. Also, you can take the camera to a photo processing place and they can take the film out for you safely.
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The Game Boy wiki last edited by shaneriley on 04/20/13 04:44PM View full history
The Game Boy
The Nintendo Game Boy was one of the first commercially viable handheld game systems on the market being released in 1989. The Game Boy was released in North America in August, 1989, in Japan on April 21, 1989, and in Europe in 1990. The Game Boy was the first in the Game Boy line, a line that lasted over fifteen years until the release of the Nintendo DS. It was created by the brilliant Gunpei Yokoi, as well as the same team that had developed Nintendo's Game & Watch series. The Game Boy pack-in game was Tetris, a little known puzzle game from Russia that would help lead the Game Boy to its massive success. Minoru Arakawa and several employees from Nintendo of America went to Russia to sign a deal to get the game on their system, they saw it as the equivalent to packing in Super Mario Bros with the NES. Despite the Game Boy's handicap of being able to only display two colors, something that was technically inferior to what other handhelds was offering at the time it was massively more successful. Part of this was due to the fact that the batteries for Game Boy lasted a significantly longer times than those used for other full color handhelds, due to the fact that it used four AA batteries. 1998 saw Nintendo introduce the Game Boy's successor the Game Boy Color; the two systems games were actually compatible with each other, with the entire Game Boy line up playable on the Game Boy Color and a select few Game Boy Color titles playable on the original Game Boy (although not in color). Backwards compatibility became a stable of Nintendo handhelds, Game Boy classic games were playable up until the release of the Nintendo DS.
In 1994 Nintendo released an adapter for the Super Nintendo entitled the Super Game Boy, which allowed Super Nintendo players to play Game Boy games on their TV with a limited amount of colors. The adapter did not require the owner to own the original Game Boy system, just the adapter; despite this Game Boy remained as popular as ever. The first variation of the Game Boy, the Game Boy Pocket arrived in 1996. It was slimmer, more compact and the first in what would become a Nintendo tradition of releasing multiple variations of their handhelds. The Game Boy managed to sell its shipment of a million units within weeks in the United States and its initial shipment of 300,000 units in Japan in two weeks. The Game Boy and the color has sold 118.69 million combined worldwide and the Game Boy had sold 66.42 million alone before the release of the color. Twenty years after its introduction, in 2009 the Game Boy was inducted into the Nintendo toy hall of fame.
An ad for the Atari Lynx that portrays the Gameboy as underpowered.
When it launched in 1989, the Game Boy entered a handheld battle against the Atari Lynx and Sega Game Gear. Both the Lynx and Game Gear were technologically impressive for the time. They featured full color backlit screens and, in the case of the Lynx, significantly more processing power. Atari and Sega attempted to capitalize on their products' capabilites in advertisements that portrayed the Game Boy as weak and childish. A memorable Sega ad from the time proclaimed that "The Sega Game Gear separates the men from the boys". Despite their marketing efforts, the Lynx and Game Gear could not stop the Game Boy's dominance. Their weak battery life (a Game Gear or Lynx could deplete six AA batteries in 4-6 hours), combined with lackluster software libraries, proved fatal. Since
Hardware Revisions
There was three different versions of the Game Boy that was released during its life. The Game Boy Light however was only released in Japan.
Game Boy
Game Boy Classic
The Game Boy was released on April 21, 1989 in Japan and then later in August for North America. The classic Game Boy ran on 4 AA batteries which powered the system for around 35 hours. Despite its size and less than perfect monochromatic screen the Game Boy lasted seven years until it received its first update. The Game Boy was only available in grey, in 1995 a "Play it Loud" line of the handheld was available in red, green, black, yellow, blue, white and transparent though this line had the exact same specifications. This set a trend of Nintendo handheld's being released in multiple colours. The link cable port is larger than the rest of the Game Boy line which makes it unable to link with all future models of the Game Boy.
RAM: 8 kB internal S-RAM
• Video RAM: 8 kB internal
• ROM: 8 Mb cartridges
• Sound: 2 Square Waves, 1 programmable 32-sample 4-bit PCM Wave, 1 White noise, and one audio input from the cartridge.
• Display: Reflective LCD 160 x 144 pixels
• Screen Size: 66 mm (2.6 in) diagonal
• Power: 4 AA Batteries
• Dimensions: 148 x 89 x 32 mm
• Weight: 394g (with batteries)
Game Boy Pocket
Game Boy Pocket
The Game Boy Pocket was originally released July 21, 1996 in Japan and then later released in North America in September 3, 1996. The Game Boy Pocket was smaller, lighter version of the original Game Boy designed to be able to easily fit in your pocket. An additional plus point of the system was that it only needed 2 AAA batteries, though this only powered the system for 10 hours. The Pocket featured a re-designed smaller link port, this version of the port was later used for all later models in the Game Boy line. Another improvement was an improved monochrome screen which did not blur up like on the original. The Game Boy Pocket like the original had no blacklight for darkened area and the first run did not feature a LED to indicate power levels, though due to public outcry a LED was added. The Pocket has been released in silver/chrome, red, yellow, green, black, transparent, pink and the original grey. Some limited editions of the handheld were also released.
• CPU: Custom 8-bit Sharp LR35902 core at 4.19 MHz
• RAM: 8 kB internal S-RAM
• Video RAM: 8 kB internal
• ROM: 8 Mb cartridges
• Display: Reflective LCD 160 x 144 pixels
• Screen Size: 66 mm (2.6 in) diagonal
• Power Supply: 2 AAA Batteries
• Dimensions: 124 x 76 x 23 mm
• Weight: 148g (with batteries)
Game Boy Light
Game Boy Light
The Game Boy Light was a Japan exclusive variation of the handheld that was released on April 14, 1998, due to its Japan only release it is one of the rarest Game Boy models. The main selling point was it's indigo coloured backlight that allowed for play in dark environments. The Light ran on two AA batteries and lasted for 20 hours with the light off and 12 with it on. Amazingly none of the consoles that followed the Game Boy Light featured a back lit screen until the 2003 release of the Game Boy Advance SP. The Game Boy Light was only available in Gold and Silver though numerous special editions were released. The Game Boy Light was never released outside of Japan due to the imminent release of the Game Boy Color and Japanese thinking that western gamers wanted color not light.
• RAM: 8 kB internal S-RAM
• Video RAM: 8 kB internal
• ROM: 8 Mb cartridges
• Sound: Mono
• Display: LCD (Passive, monochrome, backlit) 160 x 144 pixels
• Screen Size: 2.56 inches
• Power Supply: 2 AA Batteries
Launch Titles
AlleywayBaseballSuper Mario LandYakuman
North America
A Game Boy cartridge
The Game Boy's control was very similar to that of the original Nintendo Entertainment System. It had a D-pad, A and B buttons, and a Select and Start button. On the side of the Game Boy was a volume control, a contrast control, a link cable port, and a jack for rechargeable batteries (instead of just the regular batteries). There was a sliding on-off switch on the top of the handheld a slot for the cartridges, the classic Game Boy cartridges are usable in the entire Game Boy line. The link cable port could also be used for the Game Boy Printer. The link cable was originally designed to allow for head to head multiplayer though Satoshi Tajiri's wildly successful pokemon series revolutionised multiplayer handheld gaming with its focus on trading rather than competitive multiplayer.
Top Ten Best Selling Games
1. Tetris (35 Million) *Bundled with the system.
2. Pokemon Red/Blue/Green (20.68 Million Approx)
3. Super Mario Land (18.06 Million)
4. Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins (11.09 Million)
5. Pokemon Yellow (8.86 Million Approx)
6. The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (6.05 Million Approx)
7. Dr Mario (2.08 Million)
8. Super Mario Land 3: Wario Land (1.59 Million Approx)
9. Kirby's Dream Land 2 (1.49 Million Approx)
10. Kirby's Dream Land (1.45 Approx)
Game Link Cable
The game link cable allows for interaction between multiple Game Boy's in certain games. Originally designed for the multiplayer battle mode in Tetris, its most popular use was the transferring of data in pokemon. The game link cable for the original Game Boy was not compatible with any future variations of the Game Boy without the use of the adapter.
Game Boy Printer
The Game Boy printer was released in 1998, it was compatible with the Game Boy, Pocket, Color and Advance. It is designed to work in conjunction with the Game Boy Camera, though some Game Boy and GBC games were also usable. It needs 6 AA batteries to run and uses special 3.8 cm Game Boy printer paper.
Game Boy Camera
Game Boy Camera
In 1998 Nintendo released the Game Boy camera, it was compatible with the Game Boy, Color, Pocket and Advance. The camera could only take black and white pictures and when used in conjunction with the game boy printer you could print your pictures out. The Game Boy camera was aimed at children who could not afford their own camera, the Camera also had some special features and mini-games to play. The Game Boy Camera was launched in five different colors blue, green, red, yellow and clear purple. There was also some limited editions released such as The Legend of Zelda and Pokemon editions.
Super Game Boy
Nintendo released the Super Game Boy accessory in 1994 for $60. The Super Game Boy allows Game Boy games to be played on your TV screen by using it with your Super Nintendo. It was also compatible with Game Boy Color cartridges, any original Game Boy cartridges you played with your Super Game Boy would still be in black and white, though some later games were programmed to show up in color and display a border around the game.
This edit will also create new pages on Giant Bomb for:
Comment and Save
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Guys how do you want to be treated by your girlfriend?
Guys how do you want to be treated by your girlfriend? HELP! I want him to be the happiest men on earth
What's Your Opinion?
Most Helpful Opinion
• For me it would just be to not take anything I say too seriously, I like having light-hearted banter and making jokes (even if they're rude/offensive).
Also, just respect the way a man's mind works in regards to emotions. We won't feel as strongly about some things in a relationship as girls do, and most girl mistake this for them not being interested in them, or 'not caring'. This doesn't mean don't show love and affection to him and expect the same back, just be aware that guys are generally bad at communicating their feelings, and it doesn't come as naturally as it does for girls.
• Thank you Kommer :)
What Guys Said 1
• respect and consideration..
also little things count a lot, like eg you go to the cinema, he buys the drinks etc, you get the straws, then don't just give him, but open it and put it in the drink for him...or stocking a drink he likes in your fridge, etc... I don't know, but those little things are what made me fall in love with my
• Thnx 4 your answer
• Thanks 4 your answer
What Girls Said 1
• I would think they would want their girlfriends to treat them with respect but can sometimes joke around with them, who can have a serious conversation but can make them smile anytime and anywhere, who isn't clingy, desperate or overly-obsessed but shows she cares for him a lot and shows how much he means to her, who talks to him and tells him everything but doesn't get into details or make it all about her.. A guy needs a girlfriend, a bestfriend and a bud- try to be the first too and leave the other one for his guyfriends :)
I know you wanted a guys opinion, but I thought I might try and see if guys agree or not, so I hope this helps you answer your question, but guys leave a comment or rate :)
Again, Hope this helps! :)
Just remember, not all guys are the same, and they could agree with all, some or none of the things I just said :)
• Thank you so much..
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Meeting guys as a girl doctor?
I'm a doctor working in a clinic, not in a hospital with heaps of other people. So, all I see day to day are patients...
How do I meet guys?
My friends from med school are all married and don't go out at all, let alone have any single friends...
Anyone else in a similar boat?
I feel envious whenever I hear of other people meeting people through work...
What's Your Opinion?
Most Helpful Opinion
• Doctor, I would recommend not going to the bars since those men aren't of your maturity and caliber. I would recommend that you identify your interests, besides work, and go to those places that have your interests. For example, if you like art, go to an art museum. If you like to cook, take a cooking class. You will definitely meet people at those places. If that's not fast enough for you, try internet dating, although it is more of a gamble.
• I agree. Take up a class, go to the gym, there is a website called meetup that has interest groups where you can join and meet others with similar interests... personally--the internet dating thing I see it as more of a hassle than its worth.. But hope you see some increase in luck soon with whatever you do... !
What Guys Said 2
• As I medschool applicant, I imagine (or hope) Ill be in this boat soon. Keep in mind that guys are everywhere, where ever a pretty girl is at - we have a guy on the scene. Its probably your busy schedule that is obtrusive, because you have less time for hobbies or social events than other people. Don't be afraid to go after someone you randomly meet (like that cute guy you bump into at the bookstore, etc). Good luck.
• I'll be your patient!
Just kidding. Have you tried online dating?
Medical school really is a gift and a curse. I've been on the other side of this coin having been scorned by a med school girl myself. We're still friends, but then again she hardly has time for friendship either.
What Girls Said 0
Be the first girl to share opinion!
Earn 1 extra Xper Point for being the first!!
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The closeup:
1) Her liner on her bottom lids is just below her eyelashes (as opposed to on the inner rim), which makes the whites of eyes look like they dip down lower. I'd actually make the gap a little smaller myself--I think Roxy is moving past doe and bordering on deer-in-headlights here. But it's really easy to see the technique on her at least. And she might have a little peach liner going on there as well, but it's hard to say.
2) Her eyebrows have been brushed up and out slightly (like they were at the Yigal Azrouel runway show). This makes your eyes look more awake. Don't believe me? Whip out a mirror and try it now.
3) She's got a light shadow dotted in her inner corners (you can see it better on her right eye than you can on the left). As we've mentioned before, this is a must for making your eyes look bright and wide-open.
Do you use any of these tricks yourself? Got another one to add to the list? If so, you better leave it below. Doe-eye-seekers want to know.
More Ways to Get Glamour
Visit Shopglamour.com for cute stuff starting at just $10!
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Photos: Getty Images
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Get Started with the GlobalGiving API
GlobalGiving REST API Overview
The GlobalGiving API allows you to integrate grassroots project information, organization data, and donation options in your app or website by giving you direct access to the information in our database. Using our API, you can do things such as:
Example Applications
Our partners have used our API to build lots of great projects. See below for a few of our favorites.
Other Data Sources
In addition to our REST API, GlobalGiving has several additional data feeds that are updated on a daily basis.
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Drop me a line using this easy form and feel free to ask anything you like. If you want to cut to the chase and request a quote right away, use the “Optional Additional Info” to give me an idea what you’re after! I look forward to helping you!
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Answering Questions About Weight
By Philip Friedman/Studio D
Special Offers
My sister asked me if I thought she needed to lose a few pounds, and I said yes, but then she got upset. This is such a land mine. What's the best response to such a question?
Even in the most delicate situations, you should always be honest. But remember, it's not what you say, it's how you say it. Soften the blow by replying, "Yes, but you're certainly not alone -- there's a reason why dieting is a multimillion-dollar industry." You might also want to suggest a plan of action, such as a gym class.
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Hey Wordy! Characters - Wordy
Wordy here! I'm a language dictionary, and some day I'll fill up my pages with words from other languages and take my place in the Great Hall of Books! Oh, and Cloudy is my pet cloud. We fly to Slangman's house every day so Slangman, Gizma and Crash can help me learn a new word. Gizma can be a real pain, but it's good to have friends!
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everyone konw it
everyone know it
See example:
So, everyone knows it.
asked Feb 16 '12 at 07:54 Bubble New member
2 answers
What is the question?
link comment answered Feb 16 '12 at 08:16 Tuula Salonen New member
Everyone knows it.
When the Subject is singular, singular verb should be used.
link comment answered Feb 18 '12 at 12:48 Z. A. Jazley Contributor
Your answer
Write at least 20 characters
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Titus 1:7 December 06, 1992 56-7
We're studying the book of Titus and this morning we continue in our series in verses 5 through 9 on the required character for a pastor. And I perhaps ought to say by way of brief introduction at least to you as a congregation, if not on the tape, that if I review a little bit and if I belabor a few points with which you are familiar, I want you to understand that I'm very concerned about this material in Titus chapter 1 because I want the Lord to use it in other churches and in the lives of other men in ministry across our country. I think there's a tremendous need to direct the church's attention back to the issue of who is qualified to minister. There are so many unqualified people in ministry today and because of that the church does not have the proper models that it should have for godliness and sanctification and righteousness and thus the church has descended to a low level of spiritual living.
I'm concerned that not only you understand these truths, but I am concerned that what I say, get on tape and get into the hands of people that are going to need to hear these things because they're at the point in their own life where they're evaluating whether they're suited for ministry and also these people who lead church pulpit committees and who select leadership for churches need to understand the nature of these standards and requirements. So I'm trying to be somewhat careful and thoughtful as I go through here and not assuming too much for the listener who may hear the tape or should it become something that's in print eventually, the person who might read it. And if I say things with which you're familiar, you'll understand that's the reason why.
I am concerned about this whole issue of church leadership. I'm concerned about the kind of person that is being allowed to preach in the pulpit, that is being allowed to minister the Word of God, that is being elevated to the point of pastorate or eldership in the church. I think we have to call the church back to evaluating these people on the basis of the standards that are explicitly given in Scripture. They're not oblique, they're not hard to understand, they're clear and they're very obvious both in Titus chapter 1 and 1 Timothy chapter 3 and a number of other places in the pastoral epistles to which we refer and allude as we go through even this text. So I want this series to speak to the church at large, as well as to our own church.
I also want you to know that the things that I'm covering here, the things that I'm talking about have been part and parcel of the life of Grace Church since I first came here. When I first came to Grace Church I obviously wanted to teach and preach the Word of God but I also wanted to pour my life into men to build men who would be men who could effectively minister as pastors and elders in the church. And from the very outset we set these standards and these principles down as the required character for pastors and elders and have endeavored through the years to abide by these standards. And God, I believe, has blessed and God has honored His Word in that effort. I also want to say to you that the men who fit these standards and are therefore qualified for ministry do so not by their own talent but by the goodness and the grace of God who works in them to make them suitable for ministry.
Now having said that, let's look to Titus chapter 1 verses 5 to 9, and again part three in our study of the required character for a pastor. Some contemporary church leaders fancy themselves as business men, or media figures or entertainers or psychologists or philosophers or presidents, CEOs, lawyers. Yet those notions contrast sharply with the symbolism that Scripture employs to depict pastors and spiritual leaders in the church. For example, in 2 Timothy chapter 2 Paul uses seven different metaphors to describe a spiritual leader. He calls the minister a teacher, a soldier, an athlete, a farmer, a workman, a vessel and a slave. Each of those images evokes ideas of sacrifice and labor and service and hardship. They speak eloquently about the complex and varied responsibilities of spiritual leadership. And not one of those word pictures makes the ministry glamorous. That's because it's not supposed to be glamorous. Leadership in the church is not a mantle of status to be conferred on the church's aristocracy. It doesn't come by seniority. It isn't purchased with money. It isn't inherited through family ties. It doesn't necessarily fall to people who are successful in business or finance. It isn't doled out on the basis of intelligence or education or human talent. Its requirements are faultless character, spiritual maturity, a willingness to serve humbly and a skill in teaching. It may go to the rich, it may go the poor, it may go to the bond, it may go to the free, it may go to those who are unknown in the world, it may go to those who are well‑known, it may go to those who have failed to be successful in an enterprise in life, at least as the world measures success, it may sometimes go to those that are very successful, but that has nothing to do with it.
Our Lord's favorite metaphor for the spiritual leader in the church was the one He used most often to describe Himself and that was who tends God's flock. Every church leader is a shepherd. That really does sum up what we do...feeding, leading, nurturing, caring, comforting, protecting, a shepherd does his sheep.
Interestingly enough we should remind ourselves that shepherds are without status. In any given culture where shepherds exist they occupy the lowest...the lower rungs on the social ladder, don't they? Shepherds are lowly people. It is a semi‑skilled at best profession. In fact, you can replace a shepherd with a dog. I've seen dogs do a tremendous job of shepherding in New Zealand. So it's a semi‑skilled task, has no status, belongs to the low rungs of social ladders and that's fitting because the Lord Himself said, "Let him who is greatest among you become as the youngest and the leader as the servant," Luke 22:26.
God has ordained then that this be a role of humble service, loving service. The leaders are not called to be governing monarchs but humble slaves. They're not called to be slick celebrities but laboring servants, not called to be charismatic personalities, but faithful shepherds. The man who leads God's people must above all things exemplify sacrifice, devotion, lowliness and a love for and ability to communicate God's truth.
I think Jesus Himself gave us the pattern when He washed His disciples feet, doing something that only the lowest slave did, the dirtiest, filthiest most undesirable job there was, washing dirty feet. And Jesus did it and said that's how I want you to minister.
Now one great difference between spiritual shepherding and just plain ole shepherding is that plain shepherding is, as I said, semi‑skilled, a dog can do it to some degree. In biblical times you remember young boys did it. David was a young boy and typically young boys did the shepherding because it didn't take a lot of skill while the older men did the more difficult and complex tasks. But that's not true in the spiritual dimension of shepherding. Shepherding is not a semi‑skilled function spiritually, it's not for young boys, it's for mature men. It is not semi‑skilled, it takes a tremendous amount of skill. It is very very complex, it requires hard work, much wisdom. Not everyone can meet the qualifications and of those who do meet the qualifications, few seem to excel at it. Spiritual shepherding demands a godly and a gifted and a multi‑skilled man of integrity, one who can be a teacher and a soldier and an athlete and a farmer and a slave, a vessel and at the same time maintain the humility of a boy shepherd.
I suppose we would be safe in saying that many of the best known and most visible religious leaders utterly fail to measure up to the biblical standard and that is certainly a grief to the heart of the Lord of the church because as a result of inept shepherding you have a weak church. In fact, churches can survive almost every kind of problem except the failure of the shepherds. The shepherds can destroy their sheep and without the proper shepherds they go astray and are vulnerable.
Paul was passionately convinced that churches had to have the right kind of shepherds, the right kind of leaders. And all through his ministry he set about to see that this occurred. For example, back in the fourteenth chapter of the book of Acts he says we went in and evangelized and then we nurtured and then we appointed shepherds, elders, overseers, pastors. That was the pattern. Acts 14:21 to 23 sort of gives you in one little passage what Paul did everywhere...lead them to Christ, nurture them along the path of sanctification and give them leadership. That was Paul's passion. He knew that they had to have spiritual leadership. The sheep without a shepherd are scattered and devastated.
Now when you look at the New Testament you find three terms are used, as we've noted, for the shepherd or the pastor, terms elder, overseer and pastor. They're all interchangeable. For example, look at Titus for a moment right here in chapter 1 verse 5 and you will see the word "elders" there, Paul tells Titus to appoint elders. Then down in verse 7 he calls them overseers. He says the overseer must be above reproach. He's using elder and overseer interchangeably. Elder speaks of the age and maturity of the man, overseer speaks of his function of leadership. You could add the word "pastor" which speaks of his function of feeding the sheep. In Acts 20 you also have the same use of those terms interchangeably. Paul is talking in verse 17 about the elders from Ephesus meeting him at Miletus. And down in verse 28 he tells them the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to shepherd. Elders are overseers who shepherd. Elder, overseer, pastor, all the same person. In 1 Peter chapter 5 you find it again interchangeably used, the word elders in verse 1 and then in verse 2 are to shepherd and exercise oversight. Elders are mature men who feed and lead the flock.
That's the simple plan of God for leadership in the church. Not a hierarchical thing, not a very complex structure. There isn't any kind of hierarchy that has developed, for example through years in the church particularly in Europe and more liturgical churches here, where you have pastors and then you have presbyters and then you have bishops and all of that kind of thing...that's all a fabrication of men that has no relationship to biblical terminology or design. Under the plan of God leadership is by men who are spiritually mature, who take the over the sight and shepherd and feed the flock. These men must exemplify spiritual virtue. Why? Because they are the models the people are following to spiritual virtue. We're not to be godly for our own sake alone, but for the sake that we might establish a pattern for others to follow.
The ministry then belongs to those who can meet by God's grace the qualifications. Not everyone can be an elder. Not everyone can be a pastor and an overseer. This office is reserved for qualified men who meet the character standards outlined in the text before us and also in 1 Timothy chapter 3 and a number of other places where you have glimpses of it in the pastoral epistles. The leadership of the church calls for teaching, it calls for preaching, obviously of sound doctrine. It calls for decision making. It calls for determining church policy. It calls for careful stewardship of all funds. It calls for protecting and defending the flock, for disciplining sin, for praying, ruling, organizing, ordaining other leaders, exhorting, rebuking. In general, all that responsibility belongs to some very skilled and gifted and called and prepared men. And again I want to say, it is by God's grace that such men exist. We cannot achieve this level. Our giftedness comes from God's Spirit and whatever we are before God in terms of righteousness and virtue is by God's grace and God's grace alone.
Now in Crete the churches had been around for a long enough time to have started having problems. It doesn't take very long and they were beginning to have some problems. In fact, there was some confusion over doctrine in these churches in Crete. We know that in chapter 1 verse 9 the elder is to hold fast the faithful Word and he is to exhort with sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict. So obviously in the island of Crete, that island of 160 miles in length where there were a hundred cities at least, according to the ancient writers, there were churches all over the place. They were young, they still needed a lot of work, verse 5 says there were things that still had to be set in order and straightened out. But mostly they needed leadership. Why? Because there was unsound doctrine being taught and somebody had to come in to that situation, contradict the wrong things and teach sound doctrine. Chapter 2 verse 1, Paul says to Titus, "Speak the things which are fitting for sound doctrine." Over in chapter 3 verse 9, "Shun foolish controversies, genealogies, strifes and disputes about the law. They're unprofitable and worthless."
Obviously all of this was going on in the church, false teaching, false doctrine. Verse 10 even talks about a factious man could be even a heretical man who is teaching perverted things. So these churches were feeling the effect of error being taught and they needed men who could step to the leadership and teach sound doctrine with authority. There were also false teachers who were the ones purveying the error and verse 10 talks about rebellious men, empty talkers, and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision coming from Judaism and wanting to hold to its legalistic principles. There were people who were, verse 14, teaching Jewish myths, commandments of men, turning people away from the truth. Over in chapter 3 as I noted, a factious or heretical man is to be warned twice and then he is to be rejected completely because he's perverted and is sinning and is self‑ condemned because of it. They were having to deal with some personalities here, not just the issues of doctrine but some people that were teaching error.
To add to that, the pagan culture had invaded the church. Look at chapter 1 verse 12, it says that one of their prophets said Cretans are liars and evil beasts and lazy gluttons. But these people, this characterized all of Cretans, some of these people who lived like that had infiltrated the church. Down in verse 16, these are people who profess to know God but by their deeds they deny Him, they are detestable, disobedient, worthless for any good deed. Over in chapter 2 verse 12 Paul says we have been instructed by the grace of God to deny ungodliness and deny worldly desires and live sensibly, righteously, godly in the present age because in verse 14 God has sought to redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself a people of His own, zealous for good works.
So the pagan culture had invaded the place and there were people involved in lusts and sins and evil things. That needed to be dealt with. So on the one hand it required teachers who could teach sound doctrine. Leaders who could refute false teachers. People who could confront sin, discipline sin, deal with sin. And that all to counter the invasion of pagan culture.
And then there was some general leadership. Look at chapter 2 for a moment and you'll see in the beginning of chapter 2 verse 2 older men, verse 3 older women, verse 4 young women, verse 6 young men, bondslaves, masters. Now what you have here is order of all the various groups in the church being dealt with. The older women, the younger women, the older men, the slaves, the masters, the whole structure of the church...everybody needed to be taught what they were to do. That's oversight. That's leadership. That's what an episkopos, or an overseer does. So there was the need to teach sound doctrine, the need to confront false teachers, the need to deal with an invading pagan culture and to bring everybody into a proper understanding of what their role in the church was. And then the overarching process of just moving all these people towards sanctification was absolutely critical. In verse 14 of chapter 3 he kind of wraps up by saying, "Let our people learn to engage in good deeds, to meet pressing needs that they may not be unfruitful." In other words, if you're going to be evangelistic you've got to live a godly, virtuous, holy life. So the point was for the sake of evangelism as well, all of this needed to be dealt with.
Now that's the reason Paul says to Titus in verse 5, "Appoint elders in every city." You can't accomplish these things without leadership. And you know as well as I do that if Titus had just shown up and hadn't had a letter from Paul and said, "All right, you guys, we're going to pick some elders in this church," somebody would have said, "I'd like to nominate Bill because he's got a lot of money and he's very successful and he's over a lot of people and he can organize like crazy." And somebody might stand up and say, "Well I'd like to nominate my husband, he's really a wonderful guy and I think he ought to be on this group of elders, too, and besides, we'd like to know what's really going on on the inside of this deal." And somebody else might stand up and say, "Well I know this guy over here, he's very erudite, he's well read, he's highly educated, we'd like to choose him." And just to make sure that kind of free for all didn't happen, the Apostle Paul gets this letter to Titus that he can hold in his hand and say, "Here is the God‑inspired criteria and it has nothing to do with popularity and has nothing to do with money and it has nothing to do with success, education or whatever."
Titus then is armed, as it were, with the data in verses 5 to 9 for the selection process that he must accomplish in these various churches. He's got to do it fast because in chapter 3 verse 12 Paul says he wants him to come to Nicopolis as soon as Artemas or Tychicus arrived to take his place.
Now the qualifications are explicit and non‑negotiable. Let me begin in verse 6 and remind you of them. Namely, "If any man be above reproach, the husband of one wife, or better, a one‑ woman man, having children who believe, not accused of dissipation or rebellion, for the overseer must be above reproach as God's steward, not self‑willed, not quick tempered, not addicted to wine, not pugnacious, not fond of sorted gain, but hospitable, loving, what is good, sensible, just, devout, self‑ controlled, holding fast the faithful word which is in accordance with the teaching that he may be able both to exhort in sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict." There shouldn't be any vaguery about that, it is absolutely crystal clear the kind of man that is suited for this ministry. And the over‑arching concept that really defines everything is the statement in verse 6 and verse 7 that this man must be above reproach, it is repeated twice, as it is repeated also in 1 Timothy chapter 3. It means there's no cause for criticism of his life, no cause for criticism of his character, no mark, no blight, no issue of sin, no defect that in any way makes his credibility as the example and the teacher of divine truth suspect. He is to be the model of spiritual life to which the others desire to attain. His unreproachable character, his blameless character makes him suitable and unique and specifically set for this kind of work.
Now I told you that over all above reproach falls into four categories. We already looked at the first one, sexual morality, which appears in the statement, a one‑woman man. The pastor must be one whose life exemplifies God's ideal of one man, one woman for life...not only maritally but morally. Faithful to his wife if indeed he is married, devoted, loyal, loving, faithful.
And then we looked secondly and last week at the second issue of family leadership. It says also in verse 6 he is to be a man who has children who believe, not accused of dissipation or rebellion. That's a very important message from last week because some people have wanted to say this phrase "having children who believe" should be translated "having faithful children," and all it means is they're obedient, they don't have to be Christians, they don't have to be believers, they just have to be obedient. And I tried to show you last time that that's not what the text is saying. And the New American Standard translators have translated it accurately, "Having children who believe." The word pistos which is from the word pisteuo, to believe, is used over 60 times in the New Testament. Sometimes it is translated "faithful," sometimes it is translated "believing," but it always when referring to persons other than God or Christ refers to a Christian. No one who is a non‑ believer is ever said to be faithful. It refers to those who believe in the gospel and are thus called faithful.
Those who believe in God and are thus called is used to refer to God, the faithful Creator, to refer to Christ the faithful High Priest, several times of God, several times of Christ. It is used to refer to the faithful Scripture, that is that it is loyal and trustworthy, to the truth. But the most frequent usage of it is to people and in searching through the whole New Testament, every single use of the word, I can't find any use that doesn't refer to a believer. You could sum up the meaning of the word "faithful" in Acts 16:15 with the phrase, "faithful to the Lord." To be faithful means to be faithful to the Lord.
Let me give you an illustration. What does it mean to have a faithful child? Having a child who is faithful? Having a faithful child? That same phrase is used in 1 Corinthians 4:17 to refer to Timothy and there it says Timothy is a faithful child. What is a faithful child? Not an obedient child only, but a loyal child, loyal to the faith, a believer such as Timothy. First Corinthians 4:17 says, "Timothy is a faithful child," that is he is my son who is a believer and faithful to what he believes. Revelation 17:14 sums up by saying believers are the called and chosen and faithful.
Furthermore, just looking at it from a logical standpoint, apart from the Word itself, if it said the children only have to be faithful but not Christians, would anyone consider the child of a pastor faithful if they were obedient but rejected the gospel? No matter what they did in terms of their obedience, they would be considered by all as unfaithful at the most crucial point, the point of the faith. No matter what the children might have been faithful to, if they were not faithful to the Christian gospel and believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, they would be considered unfaithful children, disobedient to God who commands us to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and disobedient to their father who called them to Christ as well.
Furthermore, they're not just to be believing but they are to be faithful because they are not accused of dissipation or rebellion. By the way, as I noted last time, those are things adult children do, not little children, so he's likely speaking about adult children here who have reached the point of saving faith. First Timothy 3 seems to emphasize the smaller younger children who have a simple faith, accepting what their father teaches, who are obedient, who are under control. And their simple faith ultimately emerges into a saving faith. So this is a very unusual individual who by God's grace and God's sovereign purpose and plan has believing children.
There's a fourth category that we will look at in the future and that's in verse 9, and that has to do with his teaching skill...sexual morality, family leadership and number four is teaching skill, we'll look at that in the future, the fact that he must hold fast the faithful Word and be able to teach and all of that. But for this morning I want us to look at the third in these four categories, and we'll just call it general character‑‑ general character, verses 7 and 8. The overseer must be above reproach as God's steward and here comes the general characterization...first there are five negatives and then there are six positives...not self‑willed, not quick tempered, not addicted to wine, not pugnacious, not fond of sorted gain, but hospitable, loving what is good, sensible, just, devout, self‑ controlled. The man who is marked by these qualifies is a man who has the general character to go along with the family leadership, to go along with the sexual morality, to go along with the teaching skill that equips him for this task. The man who is marked by these qualities, by the way, will have power, he will have power...not only the power of God because of the holiness of his life, but credibility, honor, respect, admiration, love and all that will endow him with authority and power to lead. He will be the man who can effectively lead the church.
Now let's look at the beginning of verse 7 and see how he opens up the section on general character, "For the overseer," there's that word again, it's used five times in the New Testament, four times of pastors, once of Christ, and when it's used of Christ in 1 Peter it's translated guardian. That's a great word. We are guardians, pastors are the teachers and the feeders but also the guardians. It comes from the word episkopos, the middle of that word, skop is the word from which we get skeptic in English, where you look and search and you examine everything very closely...we say someone is skeptical and we mean by that that they're very analytical and they want to look everything over very carefully, and you add the epi at the beginning, the preposition, and you get this kind of man who is over and looking into everything. That's an overseer, that's a guardian, paying close attention. It was used to describe the gods who kept watch over the people and over their nations. And then it was used to describe those religious leaders who represented those gods and watched over religious communities. And then it moved into the Christian church and it was used of those who ruled the church.
In 1 Thessalonians the verb proistemi is also added to it to have charge over. So here are these people who are watching over and looking over and guarding the church and they're in authority over it as the delegated authorities of Christ. They are to rule, 1 Timothy 5:17 says, they are to rule well. Hebrews 13 says they're in charge, 1 Thessalonians 5 says they're in charge. And these men who have this responsibility, says verse 7, must be above reproach. Verse 6 says if any man be above reproach, verse 7 adds the word must, it is a necessity. It is not an option, it is a necessity. Why? Because he is responsible to lead the flock of God as God's steward and to lead that flock to the kind of life that God wants which must be the kind of life that he exemplifies.
It's a frightening standard for me, for anyone who stands in this particular responsibility. He is not able to be accused. He is not able to be laid hold of because of some scandal or sin that mars him. On the contrary, he is a man without reproach who can establish a pattern that others can follow. That little phrase "as God's steward" is very important...very important. A steward was oikonomos in the Greek, he managed the house...oikos is the word house. He set the law for the house, nomos law, oikos house. He was the law of the house. He didn't own it, he was a steward of it. He managed it. He managed the people, he managed the resources. He made sure the work got done, he made sure the crops were in, he made sure the food was stored. He made sure the people were fed. He made sure the servants did all the right tasks, that the right allotment of work was sorted out among the people who could serve. He took care of those who needed to be corrected. He took care of those who needed to be changed. He took care of those who were wounded or ill. He managed the house. That was what a steward did.
And if you look back to 1 Timothy it's very important to note this. In 1 Timothy chapter 3 and verse 15, Paul says to Timothy, "I'm writing so that you may know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God." Timothy, I'm writing so you'll know how someone is supposed to exercise his stewardship, his managing role, his oversight in the household of God. And Paul is saying the church is a household, it's God's household, He owns it. The children are His children. They belong to Him, but your responsibility is to manage it for Him, all the resources, all the people blending their giftedness, feeding them proper diet of spiritual truth, correcting them, disciplining them, caring for them, loving the, restoring them. You need to manage the household of God. That is also why back in verse 5 of chapter 3 Paul says to Timothy, "If a man doesn't know how to manage his own household, how will he take care of the church of God." Because it is a household, it is God's household. That's why I said last time that the family is the proving ground for the ability to manage God's household. We are stewards, we don't own it, it doesn't belong to us. We are directly answerable to God and it is required of stewards, 1 Corinthians 4:2 says, that a man be found...what?...faithful, trustworthy. In 1 Peter 4:10 it says that we are stewards, good stewards of the manifold grace of God. We are dispensing God's grace to the household of God. We manage for God His household, just like a steward managed a household for a land owner. It's a very very sacred task because the Lord paid a high price for this household, didn't He? He purchased it with His own blood, Acts 20 says, verse 28. The church is not mine, the church is not yours, the church is His. We are not our own, we are bought with a price, 1 Corinthians 6:19 says, Hebrews 13:17 says I have to give an account to God for how I watch over your souls. This is a stewardship from God...a serious responsibility for which I will be accountable when I face the Lord. And that accounting will happen.
Now, God then is looking for people sexually pure, who have demonstrated the ability to lead a household to salvation, to sanctification and to service and have demonstrated they can handle all of the resources and they can feed and nurture and care for that household. I think that's why the Lord said if you can't handle money, why would I give you souls? If you can't prove that you can handle the mammon, then why would I give you the true riches? That's why I think Jesus said if you're faithful over little, I'll give you much. Spiritual leadership belongs to those who have proven that they can manage their own household and thus are given the task of managing the household of God. They must then be men who take the oversight and who exercise it with impeccable character.
Now let's go back to Titus and see the specifics of that character. And we're just going to get barely started because we're already out of time...isn't that terrible? There are two things here just to mention, and I've already alluded to them. Verse 7 gives a list of negatives, verse 8 gives a list of positives. There are five negatives, there are six positives. Now the simple way to understand this is to take two points. Point one, what a pastor must not be. Point two, what a pastor must be. It's that simple...what a pastor must not be, verse 7, what a pastor must be, verse 8.
In verse 7 you have a listing of the kind of things that must be absent in this man's life. And at least let's get started. Number one, this man is not self‑willed...not self‑ willed. An interesting word, very strong word in the Greek. It means to have a self‑loving arrogance. It means to be literally consumed with yourself, seeking your own way, your own satisfaction, your own gratification to the point, of course, that you disregard others. We might say this is a head‑strong person, this is a self‑seeking person. We might even say this is a stubborn person.
False teachers, by the way, are described in the same terms in 2 Peter 2:10 as being daring and self‑willed and they don't even tremble when they revile angelic majesties. They're so arrogant and so daring and bold in their arrogance and so self‑ willed that they will tread where angels fear to tread. They don't have the sense to even realize the powers they're dealing with in the power of darkness. There's a certain egotism that makes them so arrogant that nothing stands in their way, they have no regard for the authority or the power of any other.
You see, it's important to say this because in the world's system the first thing people look for in looking for a leader is somebody who is a strong aggressive natural leader. And very often the SNL, as he is called, the strong natural leader, is just the opposite of the kind of person that should lead effectively in the church. It doesn't mean he's not strong, it doesn't mean that this man should be without convictions, we'll get to that. But very often the man who leads in the church is selected because of his strong natural leadership ability and what drives it is not concern for God and truth but what drives it is a sense of ego fulfillment...a need to be in charge. And when things don't go the way the guy wants them to go, it's very frustrating for him and everybody else. No one who is dominated by self is fit for this kind of task. You have to examine your heart all the time on this one. I'm always kind of laughing when some young man in the ministry asks me how did I finally reach true spirituality...or as one young man put it one time...when did you finally become humble? And as soon as I answered him, I'm not humble anymore, you know, so it's a Catch 22 question, as soon as you just announced your humility, you lost it. We all fight this. We all fight the battle of the flesh and self‑will and self‑desire...but a man who is to be a leader in the church is a man who is not self‑willed, he has to continually suppress his own desires, the desires of his flesh, desires for his own self‑glory and self‑gratification. He must not despise others because they get in his way, the way of fulfilling his own desires.
No one dominated by self is fit for this task. This is the kind of person the world chooses. And I think Jesus said it as well as it could be said in Matthew chapter 20 in verse 25 he said, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them." In the pagan world they always pick people who dominate them. They're always looking for a leader and leadership to them means power and authority and dominance. And He says their great men exercise authority over them but it is not so among you. Whoever wishes among you to be a leader, let him be your servant, Matthew 20:25. So the man who is chosen for this role of leadership must not be a self‑willed man. He has to give space for other people and other people's leadership and direction. Most of all he seeks out to know the mind and the heart of God and to do only what he would desire done in his church.
Secondly, and this goes along with it, he says in verse 7 he's not to be quick tempered. Recently I was talking to some people from a church and they were telling me the problems of this church and didn't know how to resolve them. And I said, "Well look, obviously you're very upset with your pastor. What is it about your pastor that causes you such concern?" And they said he gets angry all the time. I said, "He gets angry? Well what do you mean?" Well in a meeting he'll just blow up and then he'll stomp out of the meeting. What should we do?
And the right answer, of course, was you should get another pastor because he's not qualified...not quick tempered. That word quick tempered is used only here, orgilon, though its cognates are frequent, the word orge from which the word wrath, anger comes, a smoldering kind of anger that resides under the surface. Everybody is going to lose it now and then a little bit and get upset about something. I mean, that can happen in your life time. We all have to face the reality of that. But this is talking about a person with what we would call a temper, that's always under the surface and at given points it just erupts. It's's this sort of constant lasting nurtured hostility maintained in the heart and periodically it bursts out. It's probably behind what Paul said to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:24 when he said the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome, but kind and patient when wronged and putting up with evil graciously. And when things don't go the way he wants them to go, that's all right, that's fine, that's okay.
And James really sums it up. Anger produces nothing of value, absolutely nothing of value in spiritual leadership. James 1:20, "The anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God...the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God." Man of God will not be angry, he will not be hostile, he will not be quarrelsome, he will not be fuming on the inside because he's not getting his way, that is not an appropriate man for spiritual leadership. He is a man who can take a no, he is a man who can be set aside and another man's decision can preempt his. He is a man who can turn things over to other people who do in ways that he might not think are best and he is a man who can deal with that with joy in his heart and gratitude and kindness and patience. He is a man who can allow people around him to fail until they learn to succeed because he doesn't tie his ego up in everything they do.
Well let me just mention a third one and we won't discuss it because it opens up a whole different issue. He says this man is to be not addicted to wine...not addicted to wine. That's a tremendous word. That word is paroinos and it literally is the word oinos, wine, and para, alongside. Not someone who is alongside wine. Now we're getting a little more specific about this man's life style. He's a man who is humble and unselfish and a man who is patient, kind and not easily angered. And if he does get angry, he gets angry about the things that make God angry, that's righteous indignation. And he's a man who is literally not alongside wine. To find out exactly what that means, we're going to have to wait cause our time is gone. We're also going to learn a few more things about what he's not to be and then we'll go in to verse 8 and cover what he is to be. I'm not sure we'll be able to do that next Sunday morning, we'll see with our communion service. If not we'll have to put it off until the next time we can get back to this text.
Father, we do thank You this morning for Your Word and for this time and this lesson. Although we didn't finish this first section and hoped we would have been able to do that, You know and perhaps what was said was needful and will be helpful to our dear folks here and many others elsewhere in the future. Father, we are not fit for such a task except by Your grace. It is Your grace and Your power and Your mercy that has preserved me and any who fit these qualifications from besetting sins and scandalous sins that could cause our life to bear a reproach. It is Your grace that has gifted us. It is Your grace that has called us. Your grace that has done it all. We thank You for that preserving grace, that sustaining grace, that grace that has kept us from the great transgression, as the psalmist called it, which put such a mark on life that ultimately this spiritual leadership is not possible. Thank You for that preservation. Thank You for all those men in our church and in churches elsewhere who fit the qualifications, who are the kind of men You want in Your church, giving it leadership. Thank You for those men.
And we pray, O God, that You might keep them pure, and keep them holy and keep them faithful and keep their families faithful. And that You might raise up more generations of such men who can step into the leadership of the church not because they're humanly talented, but because they're spiritually qualified, that Your church might be led by those kinds of leaders who can lead us to Christ's likeness. I thank You for men like that in my life who set the pattern for me to follow and I pray that there may be many more in generations to come. We thank You for the young men even now who are training at the Master's Seminary who to this point are qualified and they meet those standards. And, Lord, I pray that You'll keep them there and that You'll preserve them and protect them in the days ahead that they might know and experience the fullness of a life of effective ministry, that they might become patterns for others to follow, that they being like Christ might be His true representatives. We thank You for the instruction You've given us and what yet awaits us as we study this rich book in Christ's name. Amen.
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A Portrait of False Teachers, Part 2
2 Peter 2:1-3 November 18, 1990 61-17
I have great anticipation in my heart as I come to this text of Scripture that God has set before us tonight. Open your Bible, if you will, to 2 Peter chapter 2 and we're going to return to our study of verses 1 through 3 and the subject, "The portrait of false teachers."
One of the curiosities in my own life has been to follow some of the intricate events in the history of the nation Israel. Any of you who are familiar with recent history in Israel will recognize the name Elie Cohen(??). Elie Cohen was born in 1924 in the Jewish quarter of Alexandria, Egypt, the son of a Jewish silk tie maker. Born in Egypt he worked hard to obtain an education. He excelled as a student becoming fluent in many languages.
War came to Egypt in the 1940's, and soon Cohen found himself drawn to political causes and became involved in the Egyptian branch of the Mesad Elia Beth(???), an organization that smuggled immigrating Jews past British officials. In the ensuing years, Cohen supported many Israeli causes and developed an expertise in espionage. To the Mesad, which is the Israel Intelligence Agency, Cohen became a valuable man, for during the course of his covert activities in support of Israel, he maintained his outstanding credentials as an Egyptian. He was a perfect spy.
In those days Israel was dependent on pipelines in Galilee for its water supply. The pipe lines passed through the Golen Heights region which was under Syrian control. Cohen discovered that the Syrians were preparing to implement a plan to cut off the water supply to Israel. During a visit to the Syrian frontier, Cohen convinced President Al Havez(??) to plant eucalyptus trees at major military installations all across the Golen Heights. He said the trees would provide good cover and shield the installations from Israeli Air Surveillance while Syria proceeded to carry out its plan. Elie Cohen's life of espionage was uncovered in 1965, the Arabs found out he was a Jewish spy and he was hanged as a spy in the town square of Damascus...a place I myself visited.
A few months later during the famous Six-Day War, Israeli fighter pilots had very little trouble knocking out all the Syrian targets on the Golen Heights. They were all marked by eucalyptus trees.
The Golen Heights today are in control of Israel because of an imposter who infiltrated the Syrian society to work for their defeat and their destruction. His approach--pose as one of them and then lead them to tragedy.
When I was in New Zealand where 40 million sheep are sent to market each year, I learned about special sheep, I told you about him many months ago, called by a special name. He is especially selected castrated male sheep who leads the unwitting sheep to the killing floor. Unaware of what is to happen the sheep blindly follow one they believe is leading them to food and leading them to rest, and they follow him to their death. As they approach the killing floor a trap door opens and the lead sheep slides down a ramp to go back down to the pen and lead another group of sheep to slaughter. The New Zealanders call that sheep "the Judas sheep."
As Peter pens this second chapter, he unmasks the traitors. This, as I noted for you, this chapter is parallel to the little epistle of Jude. They have much in common and you should study that single chapter of Jude because of its close association to this chapter. But as Peter pens the words of this chapter, he carefully paints the portrait of the false teacher so you can recognize him. He doesn't want any Elie Cohens, any Judas sheep, any false teachers to be able to carry their work with the church not recognizing them.
He was aware already that the future was now and that false teachers were active. Paul said it in Galatians chapter 1 very clearly, he said, "I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ for a different gospel. There are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. Even though we were an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we have preached you, let him be accursed." Already these false teachers were busily infiltrating the church at the beckon call of Satan, they were the agents of seducing spirits teaching demonic doctrine. Paul in Philippians calls them dogs, evil workers, false circumcision. When you read the pastoral epistles, 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus, you see constantly in the background the pictures of these false teachers. As I said, in the epistle of Jude the same thing.
Secondly, the subtlety of their operation. It says in verse 1 that they secretly introduce destructive heresies. Their operation is deceitful, it is subtle, it is under cover, they smuggle in their demon doctrine, they smuggle in their spiritual ideas that are not from God. What they teach is obviously opposite the truth of God. And Paul, as I noted, says, "And though they be claiming to be a messenger from God, they are evidenced by the characterization of their teaching when it says their heresies are of destruction." They bring destructive heresies. This teaching invented by demons, propagated by these hypocritical liars who are parroting the doctrines of demons is intended to lead people astray ad damn them into Satan's eternal dwelling place. Satan is trying to collect people for hell and he wants to work inside the church, not that he can steal the salvation of true believers, but because he can confuse and deceive those who are coming into the church pursuing the truth. And because, also, he can derail and confuse true believers and render them useless.
Now he says their heresies are of destruction. I need to comment on that word. Destruction is used five times in this letter, five times in just these three chapters. It always means final always means final damnation, that is its intent. It is used a second time, you'll notice, right there in verse 1. It is used again in verse 3. It is used again over in chapter 3. Its uses refer to final damnation. They bring in teaching the damns souls. Now remember, it cannot damn the regenerate...the regenerated soul but it can damn those who come to the church in pursuit of the truth. By the way, it assumes unsaved people in the church. And if you have problems with that assumption you need to go back to Matthew 13 and remember that there are some temporary converts, soil that is rocky, soil that is full of weeds. There are some tares sown among the wheat. There are some who identify with the Kingdom when the net is pulled in and only at the end can they be sorted out like the good fish and the bad. The church grows like a mustard seed into great dimensions, so big it says that birds nest in it. In other words, it collects all kinds of things. And yes, we assume that there are many people who come to the church, some seeking truth who are then confused and deceived by the false teachers.
So the sphere and the subtlety of their operation. Thirdly, and for tonight we move into this point, the sacrilege of their operation. This is the heart of the issue, the sacrilege of their operation. It is unthinkable, and I suppose that's why Peter throws in the word "even" in the middle of verse 2. Their heresies are destructive even denying the Master who bought them. That is the sacrilege of their operation. The word "even," as if unthinkable, denying. Very interesting, now follow carefully because you need to know these words, denying, arneomanoi(?), means to say no to. It means to be unwilling. It means to refuse. It's a strong word, to say no to. By faith Moses when he had grown up, Hebrews 11:24, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter. He refused to submit to that. He said no to that. That's what the word means. Present tense indicates a habitual pattern of saying no. These false teachers, watch this, can be recognized because they characteristically say no to whom? To the Master who bought them.
What does that mean? This will expose the depth of their crime and their guilt. The word "Master" here is the word in the Greek despotesfrom which we get the word despot. That means sovereign, lord, it means ruler, it means master. That is the meaning of despotes, master. The word despot, or despotes, appears ten times in the New Testament and it always refers to one who has supreme authority. In five instances the reference is to the master of the house, or the master of the estate who has full authority over everybody who is in it. That's how it's used in 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus and 1 Peter. In the remaining five uses it refers to God the Father or God the Son. Ten uses, all referring to sovereign rulership...five times the rulership of the head of a house over everything under him, five times the rulership of God and Christ, the sovereign rulership.
What does that mean? That means they will not submit their lives to His rule. The issue here, beloved, is primarily not theologically, it is ethical. It is not their theology that unmasks them, it is their morality that unmasks them. You understand that? It is not their theology that...that is covert. It is their morality that unmasks them. And he says they even deny the Master who bought them. And that completes the analogy of the despotes. Some people have wondered why he added "who bought them," it's because a master, a despotes, of a house bought the slaves and the slaves owed him allegiance as their sovereign. They bore his name, they were associated with his estate, but they refused to submit to his authority. That's the analogy. This describes those who claim to believe in Christ. They affirm the atonement, they affirm that He bought them with His death. They affirm that they belong to Him. The word "bought" is agorazo, simply means to buy, to purchase.
There are two ways to understand this, apart from the analogy. The analogy simply says "unthinkably, unimaginably, having been bought by a master they refuse to submit to his authority." In the spiritual dimension you would ask the question: in what sense did Christ buy these false teachers? Two ways to view it. First of all, you can view it as universal provision for the redemption of sinners, even though they refuse it and are damned. As 1 John 2:2 says He is not only the propitiation for our sins, but the sins of the whole world and the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross was a sufficient purchase price to redeem all men...the price has been paid. In that sense they have been bought.
True Christians gladly affirm they are bought. We gladly affirm that we have been redeemed not with corruptible things such as silver and gold but with the precious blood of Jesus Christ. We gladly affirm that we are bought with a price. We are gladly affirming that we have been purchased by His blood. We also gladly affirm that having been purchased we are under His sovereign lordship, we are His slaves, we are His servants, we obey His Word. You heard that, didn't you, in the baptism again tonight? The true believer gladly affirms that. The true believer gladly affirms...I have been purchased by Christ for servanthood. He is my despotes, my sovereign Lord and Master, absolute lord over all that I am and all that I have.
They're not interested in following Jesus Christ. They're not interested in submitting their life to Him. They're not interested in virtue and holiness and righteousness and obedience and godliness. Their sacrilege--they name Him with their lips, they refuse His lordship in their lives.
Fourth point, the success of their operation. We've seen the sphere of it, the subtlety of it, the sacrilege of it, now the success of it. Would you please notice verse 2? "And many will follow," stop right there.
Listen, they attract people, they attract people with their talk about Christ and their talk about belonging to Christ, but they don't want to submit to sovereign lordship. They want freedom to live the way they want to live. They want liberty to live the way they want to live. They don't want anybody impinging on their conduct. And so many people are led astray into a kind of Christianity that knows nothing about submission to the sovereign Lord. That's exactly what you have in Matthew chapter 7, exactly. "Not everyone who says to me `Lord, Lord,' will enter the Kingdom of heaven, but he who...what?...does the will of My Father." Many will say, but that doesn't make the point...many will say, it's the one who does. It isn't the one who claims Christ, it's the one who does the will of My Father, who submits to sovereign lordship.
Why will they be so popular? Why will so many follow them? Because they can have Christ and they can have sin. They can have Christ, they can have sin. It takes me to the fifth point, it's the state of their operation...the state of their operation. Sphere, subtlety, sacrilege, success, now the state of their operation...please, back to verse 2, "Many will it is...their sensuality." That is a very strong term, aselgeia, it means sexually, immoral, depraved, debauched conduct without restraint...sexual immorality. They preach a Savior, they don't want a lord...why? Because they want to feed their lust.
They claim to represent God. They claim to be a part of the church. They claim to teach the truth. They sound okay. Go behind their theology, look at their morality. Peter describes them. Verse 7 of 2 Peter 2, right in the chapter we're in, he talks about the sensual conduct of these unprincipled men. Now remember, he's talking about teachers in the church...teachers in the church, not outside, in it. And they are sensual, unprincipled people. Verse 10, it says that they indulge the flesh in its corrupt desires and despise...what?...authority. They want grace and salvation without obedience. Verse 13, 2 Peter 2:13, "They are stains and blemishes reveling in their deceptions, carousing...verse 14...their eyes are filled with adultery, they never cease from sin, they entice unstable souls." Verse 18, "They are using the enticing of fleshly desires by sensuality to draw people to themselves." People who are barely escaping, people who are trying to get out of the error and perhaps moving toward the truth are enticed away into sensuality and told you can have Christ and still live anyway you like. Verse 19, they promise freedom, they promise freedom. Just take Jesus and don't worry about how you live. And they're slaves of corruption. Verse 22 says they're dogs that go back to their vomit and sows that return to the mire. Pretty graphic.
The sphere of their operation, the subtlety of their operation, the sacrilege of it, the success of it, the state of it leads to the stigma of their operation...the stigma, or the reproach, or the stain, or the blot of it. Tragic, verse 2, "Because of them...listen to this again...because of them the way of truth will be maligned." Do you know why the world mocks Christianity today? Because it has been maligned by these people who claim to represent Christ but who have habitually said no to His lordship in their lives and they have been unmasked as lecherous, lewd, lascivious, licentious, immoral people. Because of them there is a stigma, a blot, a reproach, a stain on the way of truth. The way of truth is simply an expression of the true teaching, the true gospel, the true doctrine, the Christian message. It is maligned. Maligned means to ruin the reputation of, to defame.
Now I want you to know that's what Satan's trying to do. What he really wants to do is just defame Christianity in the world out there. Inside the church, suck people in to this cheap kind of message propagated by hypocritical false teachers, suck people into that and they'll be damned in the deception. On the outside, so malign Christianity by the periodic unmasking of these phonies that people discredit the way of truth. Mission accomplished. They got in the church and they've deceived. They have been unmasked for the world and now they mock Christianity. I would say it has been in your life time as in the life time of all Christians through the ages that we have seen this happen. People scoff at the integrity of the church, it is maligned because of the terrible immorality of these false teachers. And it's not just the ones we know on a national scandal level, it's all over the place in smaller episodes.
See, we have to live a certain kind of life to make our gospel believable, don't we? "Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works and...what?...glorify your Father who is in heaven," Matthew 5:16. And if you don't live life that way, they're going to mock God...they're going to mock Him. And it's because of these false teachers that the way of truth has been maligned.
I remember reading an article in New West Magazine years ago and it was written by a critic of Christianity. He said, "Having read about Jesus Christ, I believe that He has more class than most of His agents." It's tragic, that was at the time of the scandalous things happening in our country with the Bakkers and so forth. There is a terrible stigma that comes from these people when Satan even for his own purposes participates in the unveiling of what they're really like.
But these people abuse grace. They refuse to acknowledge the lordship of Jesus Christ in a practical way in their lives because they want to live a sensual, immoral life. Consequently they bring disgrace to the cause of Christ whom they claim to represent. And they lead...can I say...millions of people into deception.
The driving force of their enterprise to be teachers is not the love of the truth, it's not submission to the Lord, it's not even sexual immorality, they can do that in the pew. The driving force is money. The word pleonexiameans uncontrolled greed. They're expert at it. They're in it to accumulate money. And watch them, they do. Verse 14 of the same chapter, "Their eyes are full of adultery...obviously...they never cease from sin, they never submit to lordship, they entice unstable souls...why do they do that?...because their hearts...boy, this is really graphic..are trained in...what?...greed." They're experts at it. They can con money out of anybody. They want money. They want money. They want your money. They want anybody's money.
What do they do? They move into the church and because of greed they exploit you...the word from which we get emporium which means to carry on business, to make gain from. Here's the best get rich from. They want to get rich off you. That's it. They're driven by money, greed.
And so, what do they do? Verse 3, "They exploit you, they get rich off you with false words." Forgeries, phony arguments, twisted Scriptures, they pervert the Scripture, they twist it to get your money. Interesting, the word "false," plastosfrom which we get plastic. We don't think about it anymore but plastic got that name because it was a fake. Plastic is fake, it's not real, it's not a's not real wood, it's plastic we say, it's not real China, it's plastic. It's not real gold, it's plastic. Look at your car, it's not real metal, it's plastic, it's fake. Nobody ever makes plastic look like plastic. It has to look like what it isn't. That's what plastosis, it's a fake. It's fabricated, it's molded to deceive. It's molded to deceive.
I said, "That's it, you got it, it's supposed to, that's the point, it's a fake, it's a forgery." I was in to this text, by the way, so...(laughter). It isn't real.
Peter's got one more point, the sentence on their operation. Verse 3, "Their judgment from long ago is not idle." The verdict, the krima, the judgment, the sentence on can translate it sentence...their sentence set long Jude 4...their sentence established long ago.
You say, "What do you mean established long ago?" Look, the principle that God is going to damn false teachers was set in place long ago...long ago. That is a permanent principle by which God has always dealt with false teachers. It's always been so...Old Testament, New Testament, today and in the future. And he says that sentence set long ago against false prophets is not idle. What does he mean by that? It hasn't run out of gas. It isn't so old it's now worn out. It hasn't been weakened by time. It isn't ineffective, it isn't inert. It is still valid. It is still operative. It is still potent. And their destruction, he says, their eternal damnation is not asleep. And he personifies destruction as if destruction were an executioner and he says their executioner hasn't fallen asleep, He is fully awake...fully awake.
Satan's goal, deceive as many as possible. God's goal, destroy them all...destroy them all. They're all around us. They've always been all around us. We need to be discerning. And I believe before we're done, as I said, in this chapter, you'll have the tools of discernment.
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Love With Loss by jane pinkerton
Chapter 2 : A Fresh Summer
Rating: 15+Chapter Reviews: 2
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Love With Loss
A Fresh Summer
The Hogwarts Express pulled away from the Hogsmead station with a very torn Lily. James held her hand tightly from the moment she came down from the girls dormitory and refused to let go. When she saw Severus waking alone down the hallway looking for a compartment to sit in she attempted to break away to go with him, but James shook his head and pulled her closer to himself.
"James," Lily whined.
"What?" He let go of her hand and wrapped his arm around her. "He gets you for three months. Can't I have three hours?" When Lily still looked conflicted he reached over and began nibbling on her ear. "I'm going to miss you," he whispered.
Lily smiled and turned her head towards him. "I'm going to miss you too."
They looked into each other's eyes smiling. Lily's eyes sparkled like an emerald while James's winked with happiness.
"Oh come on! You've gone the past six years without her! Three months isn't going to kill you," Sirius piped up.
He and the other Marauders sat in the compartment watching the sickening scene before them. Never in their lives did they expect to see James with Lily! Let alone see the both of them so love struck by each other!
"Lily I am very disappointed," Remus said, "I expected you to break James of this romantic, gushy stuff, but you're promoting it!"
"I'm sorry?" Lily tried.
Everyone except Peter laughed at her obvious lie. Peter was always so sure that he would never get Lily. It was the only thing that proved to him that his life wasn't perfect! But here they were, cuddling away and as happy two love birds.
"Can we play a game now?" he complained. "I didn't buy a new set of Wizard's Chest for nothing."
"Alright then, Petey," Sirius laughed, "Lets see what you've got!"
And so the games began letting James and Lily talk about what they expected they would do during the holiday. Lily was careful not to use Severus's name more than she had to. Not only did Sirius insist on throwing in a comment every time it was said, but it always made James's jaw tighten.
An announcement rang through the train saying they were only a half hour away from King's Cross. At this James tugged Lily outside into the hallway saying he wanted just a moment alone.
"Will you promise me something?"
"James, you're overreacting to this," Lily whispered.
"Just listen," James stopped her, "If any of those guys come, Malfoy, Lestrange, even Sirius's little brother, get away. Just stop hanging out with Snape."
"He wouldn't let them do anything to me," Lily snapped, "And even if they did come around I'm smart enough to know not to hang out with them." Lily crossed her arms and glared up at James. "Do you think I'm that daft?"
"No! Of course not!" James said quickly. He let out a sigh and dropped his head letting it rest against Lily's. "I'm sorry. I'm just worried." Lily still didn't let down her guard. "I don't want to leave with us fighting."
"Well then maybe you should think more before you say something so demeaning to my intelligence," Lily snapped.
"Lily," James said softly. He lifted his head and moved in front of her wrapping his arms around her waist. "Lils," he started to whine.
Lily's arms dropped and she looked up to James.
"I'm sorry," James said. He reached down and kissed her right cheek. "Very sorry." He kissed her left cheek. "Forgive me!" he said loudly. Lily laughed putting a finger to her lips. He buried his face into her neck making his stubble tickle.
"James!" Lily laughed.
"Please, please! Give me another chance!" he yelled.
Other students began poking their heads out of their compartments to see what was going on. Lily was trying her hardest to push James away, but his body was like a rock. A rock that liked to tickle that is.
"Stop it!" Lily's voice rang with laughter.
Severus poked his head out of his own compartment to see what the commotion was all about. Girls giggled enviously while boys nodded in approval. He walked further down the hall to get a view and stopped in his tracks when he caught sight of red hair mixing in with raven black.
James had her up against the wall as he tickled her mercilessly. In an attempt to get him to stop Lily enticed him into a kiss. His hands that had been working to hard to keep tickling her turned soft and carefully stroked up and down her sides now.
Cat whistles filled the air making the pair split apart. Lily blushed not realizing they had a crowd, but James took it all in stride. He flashed a smile to the students before being pulled back into the compartment with the Marauders.
Severus scowled at the sight not believing Lily would really subject herself to such a public display. It was ridiculous that she was even with him. In fact, the sooner he got her away from him, the better.
The rest of the students slowly went back into their own compartments, but Severus stormed down the hallway. He could hear Lily screaming with laughter again and James's voice joking around with her. He stopped outside of the compartment and forced himself to take a calming breath before opening the door.
Sirius, Remus and Peter who had still been playing games of chess looked up with surprise. The three of them scowled with obvious dislike. Sirius and Remus had their hands on their wands ready for any signal of threat.
However, James and Lily were oblivious to the newcomer since they had resumed the tickling war.
"Lily," Severus said loud enough to hear over her screams.
The couple froze and finally looked to the door to see Severus standing there uncomfortably.
"Sev!" She pushed James off of her and straightened herself into a sitting position. "What're you doing here?" she asked.
"Good question," James muttered. He glared up at Severus not liking that he was interrupting his last few minutes with Lily.
"I thought I should find you now instead of on the platform so we can find your mum right away."
"Oh yes. That's a good point," Lily nodded, "James, can you grab my suit case down?"
"We still have ten more minutes though," James complained, "Can't you just agree on a place to meet when we get off?"
"Their timing is alway seven minutes early. We really only have three minutes left before we pull in," Severus said.
James looked at Lily in disbelief, but she nodded in agreement. "We tested it. The conductor is always seven minutes ahead of time."
"Interesting," Remus mumbled.
"Yeah it really is! We weren't sure at first, but we timed all of our trips from first year Christmas holiday to fourth year summer vacation," Lily said.
James sighed, but stood up nonetheless to grab Lily's suitcase from the racks.
"You are so much more nerdy than I had primarily thought, Evans," Sirius commented.
Lily laughed and gave a playful wink. "I can't help it!"
James put the bag on the ground and pulled her into a hug. Over her head he glared at Severus, but tried to be positive and kissed Lily on the top of her head. Lily pulled out of the hug and lightly kissed him on the lips.
"It'll be over before you know it," she promised.
She waved to the rest of the Marauders and picked up her suitcase by the handle. The train started to slow making her grab Severus's wrist to look at his watch.
"Right on time," she smiled. And with that she shut the compartment door following Severus to the nearest exit. "How was the train ride for you?" She had to yell because of the other students now rushing into the hallway.
He shrugged and then turned back to say, "Looked like you had fun on yours."
Lily's shoulders slumped at the comment. She knew how much he hated the two of them together. It especially made her guilt ridden since she practically rejected him for his worst enemy.
They stepped off the train and walked through the crowds of magical parents and through the barrier to where Lily's mum, Margaret, would be waiting for the two of them. At first they didn't spot her, but when Lily stood on her tip toes she spotted her small mum waiting patiently by a bench. SHe rushed forward in front of Severus and jumped at her mum for a hug.
"So how was your year you two!" Margaret asked.
Severus gave her a hug before trying to answer, "It was..." he faltered.
"Interesting to say the very least." Lily finished for him.
They walked through the station and into the parking lot, Severus and Lily slightly behind her. Neither of them said anything to start a conversation, but they still stayed together. Even getting into the car, Lily opted to sit in the back with her friend.
Lily could see the suspicion in her mum's eyes wondering why they were being so uncharacteristically quiet, so she brought up a conversation she knew Severus wouldn't be able to resist.
"Did you see the look on Eileen Lee's face when all of the owls began chasing her two weeks ago?" Severus stayed still in his seat, but nodded his head starting to laugh. "Well, let me just say how good it was that her knowledge of all of the broomstick cupboards in the castle finally came in use." Lily said with a wink.
"Lily!" Margaret gasped.
"Sorry, mum, but it is true. You should just see the girl!"
"It's true, Mrs. Evans...maybe that's why she's in Hufflepuff." he said in an undertone that made Lily snicker.
"And what would her place in Hufflepuff have to do with that?"
"Well...they're just so... friendly."
Lily burst out laughing throwing her beautiful head of red hair back.
Mrs. Evans simply gasped again and shook her head.
Severus could only watch Lily while he could before she stopped laughing that beautiful sound. Her eyes were glistening with a smile and her hair looked like it flowed to its own accord. It curved around her soft face and landed on her round shoulders like-
Severus jumped out of his thoughts to see Lily staring right back at him. He felt so out of control of his mind.
'SAY SOMETHING!' he yelled at himself.
"Did you see that?" he asked calmly, contrary to his thoughts.
"What?" Lily asked turning to look out the window.
"I thought those mountains looked like the ones from out History of Magic book where the giants live."
"Really now Sev, you should know better than that. Those mountains are in Netherlands!" Severus silently thanked Lily's constant will to know answers.
"Oh." he quietly said. Lily took another look at Severus and was about to ask him something else when Mrs. Evans seemed to have realized what shocking information they had just revealed.
"Giants? In Netherlands!?"
Lily laughed, "Yes, mum. And no you cannot go to see them."
Margaret smiled with a shrug, "It was worth a thought."
They pulled onto their street and Margaret dropped off the sad looking Severus at his home. He looked up at it and sighed. Merlin only knew how much he hated this place...
"Hey Sev!" Lily popped herself out of the car window, "When you're all done with unpacking come over for some dinner, yeah?"
"Eh..." he hesitated.
"Petunia's not home." she whispered so her mum wouldn't hear.
"Alright then," he laughed.
"Brilliant! See you then!"
He watched them drive away and relunctantly went up to the door of his house. Even with just his hand on door knob he could hear his dad yelling.
The Potter Mansion
"Mum! Dad! We're home!" James exclaimed at the entrance of his home.
Sirius looked around and smiled happily. His eyes lit up when he saw the big red squishy couch in front of the fireplace. Without a second thought, he tackled James onto it screaming "GERONAMOOOO!"
The boys laughed wrestling each other onto the floor. The power struggle went back and forth, but eventually Sirius had James in a head lock.
"You damn dog! Get off!" James laughed.
"Admit it!"
"Admit what?!"
"Beaters are better than Chasers."
"What?! No way!"
James struggled more trying to get out of the position when his savior entered the room.
"Why 'ello boys! Already creating chaos in my house?" Her chocolate brown eyes were filled with amusement as she watched them still playing like they were 8 years old.
"Mrs. P!" Sirius yelled automatically jumping off of James. He engulfed her in a hug, lifting her off the ground easily with his 6'3'' stance.
She laughed and patted him on the back before turning to her son. "Great to see you, mum." James said with a smile.
"You too, Jamie." He gave her a hug just a big as Sirius', however minus the bone crushing experience.
"You boys ready for your last summer of childhood?"
Sirius' face fell.
"Come on now, mum! You can't put it like that! Just look at the state it puts Sirius in!"
"You'll both need to accept the truth before it gets too late!"
"Yeah, but Mrs. P, we're the Marauders. The way we live doesn't have room for things like 'growing up,'" Sirius explained.
She just shook her light brown hair, and walked away. Half way down the hall she turned and yelled, "Dinner is at 6!"
"Ok-aaggh!" Sirius yelled being pounced on by James. Within seconds he was now the one in head lock. "If you want me to say what I think you want me to say, I'm not going to say it."
"Say it!" James threatened tightening his hold.
"Agh! Fine! James Potter is...is...." he gulped, "sexier than me! Now get off!" James fell to the side laughing hysterically. "Don't get too excited, mate. I'm so sexy that women don't ditch me for blokes like Snivellus."
James stopped laughing and glared murderously at Sirius. Sirius was snickering at the look, but immediately ran for the door. "it doesn't matter where you hide, Black! I'll find you!"
Author's Note: Edited 02/10...and much better and longer than the first time! haha!
Diclaimer: Nope. Don't own none, zilch, zero of it.
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/102476
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building, rebuilding, problems, ALUT,..
Ian Lynagh igloo at
Wed Apr 18 09:13:18 EDT 2007
On Tue, Apr 17, 2007 at 12:10:48PM +0100, Claus Reinke wrote:
> after a long while, i'm trying to update and rebuild my local ghc HEAD
> (windows).
> as usual, there are problems:
> 2. filepath has been added sometime after my last attempt
Good point - boot now checks that all the corelibs are here.
> 3. windows configure has acquired yet another extra option, it seems. why
> can't
> i just run ./configure and have it find the right things in the PATH, as
> on other
> platforms? the only supported build is mingw, so it should look for
> mingw versions,
> and issue a warning if cygwin versions are found instead (a warning
> because some
> people do want cygwin builds).
A patch to simplify the Windows story would be great, but it's fairly
low priority for me as (a) it does actually work at the moment
(b) removing one or two configure flags doesn't really make much
difference; copy and pasting 3 or 4 is just as easy as 1 or 2, so you
really do have to solve all the issues to get a payoff.
> 4. make falls over in ALUT (i don't have OpenAL installed, so neither that
> nor ALUT
> should be built). last part of log appended below.
Right, I've been fixing up the various exciting new failure modes that
have popped up now that we use Cabal to build the libraries. However, I
think that trying to detect that this latest one is going to happen
before configure runs is one step too far.
There are 9 packages that depend on other extralibs:
ALUT (OpenGL, OpenAL)
HGL (X11) (should sometimes depend on Win32 instead?)
OpenAL (OpenGL)
cgi (network, parsec, mtl, xhtml)
fgl (mtl)
network (parsec)
regex-compat (regex-base, regex-posix)
regex-posix (regex-base)
but I think only the GL/AL family, HGL and X11 can decide that they are
unbuildable, so I think that only these can fail in this way:
ALUT (OpenGL, OpenAL)
OpenAL (OpenGL)
I see 3 possible solutions:
1) If Cabal find the dependencies aren't satisfied then it puts
"buildable: False" somewhere and exits successfully. I quite like
this from a consistency point of view (it's what happens when
./configure decides that the package is unbuildable).
2) We remove ALUT, GLUT, HGL, OpenAL (and OpenGL too for consistency?)
from extralibs. I think these are probably among the least use
extralibs anyway.
3) We declare that if you put unbuildable extralibs in your GHC tree
then the build might break.
My order of preference is:
1) (done by someone else)
2) (also removing OpenGL)
2) (leaving OpenGL as an extralib)
1) (done by me)
Anyone else got an opinion (or a Cabal patch? :-) )
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/102477
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[Haskell-cafe] Converting String
Ketil Malde ketil+haskell at ii.uib.no
Mon Jan 26 09:01:29 EST 2004
Alex Gontcharov <alexg005 at hotmail.com> writes:
> I'm fairly new to Haskell, I'd like to know how to convert
> a list of Strings of type IO [String] to Int.
Ah... an IO [String] is *not* a list of strings, it is an IO action
that can produce a list of strings. You can only get at the strings
inside the IO monad.
> I used map read p, where p is a list of IO Strings ["1", "2"]
p >>= (return . map read)
Or using do notation
x <- p
let z = map read x
gives you IO [Int] from your IO [String], but there's no¹ escape from
PS: You probably need a few type annotations to make the above work.
¹ Well, there is, really, but we don't like to talk about it much :-)
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/102487
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Head-Fi.org › Head Gear › Headphones › Ultrasone HFI-580 › Reviews › HeretixAevum's Review
A Review On: Ultrasone HFI-580
Ultrasone HFI-580
Rated # 111 in Headphones
See all 11 reviews
Recent Pricing:
Review Details:
Audio Quality
Purchased on:
Price paid: $160.00
Posted · Updated · 9729 Views · 2 Comments
I bought these phones to compliment my Grado SR-225i as a sealed headphone for more bass-intensive music like electronic and hip hop. These phones are pretty hyped around here, many people quoting them to be a basshead's headphones. This might be true for you depending on what you consider basshead to mean. If a basshead, to you, is 'I WANT MOAR!', these have potential because you can EQ them to be very bassy, but they will disappoint you out of the box. If a basshead, to you, is someone who likes some bass emphasis but more importantly great bass quality, then these should be quite satisfying for such a budget.
The headphones are quite sturdy, the plastic and metals used feel and look quite tough. It's also quite a good looker, it's much nicer in person than in pictures (but that's almost always the case for me). I like that it uses a screw-on quarter inch adapter, I think they're unendingly superior to the regular clip-on variety. The headphones isolate well, too, so they fulfil that purpose if that's important to you.
The bass is definitely the stand-out in the sound department of the HFI-580. It's tight and well defined, with good punch. It does have a mid bass hump, and rolls off moderately into the low sub regions, but I find that deep bass is represented quite satisfyingly, just not as in your face as the upper bass. I find the bass to bleed very, very little (if at all). It knows it's place. The mids are as reported, recessed, at least compared to something as mid centric as the Grados. They lack flair and the rich tonality of the Grados but they're hardly of poor quality at this price range. They just take a slight back seat in comparison to the bass and aren't as rich as I'm used to. There's a metallic tone to them that takes away from the enjoyment of them, somewhat. Female vocals sound further back and a slightly buried in comparison, but the mids are definitely satisfying overall. The treble is my real gripe with the sound of the HFI-580. At times they manage to make the Grados sound almost conservative in comparison. The Ultrasone's can be hamfisted with the treble, which isn't an issue (if not beneficial) for dark recordings. However for bright recordings it makes the music far too piercing and shrill. Sure, the 225i's are trebly, but the airy sound of the headphone makes it sound considerably more natural (and therefore less fatiguing) than the HFI-580. It's simply too bright a headphone, despite being quite clean and quick.
I have a few design and material issues with this headphone. The pleather they used is not good quality. It's hardly the worst stuff I've ever encountered, but it went hard very quickly for me. It's nice and soft to begin with and it feels relatively thick which was a good initial sign but noticeable hardness started setting in after a fortnight. My significantly cheaper Sennheiser HD448 (which I used for 18 months before selling it off) stayed as soft as the day I got it. Now, sure, you could argue that the earpads are replaceable so it's not an issue. I'd agree if it took a year or two for it to go hard, but for the affect to start setting in so quickly is disappointing. Don't get me wrong, it doesn't make the earpads unbearable but it's simply not nice to feel on the skin, and once they harden they're prone to cracking. The same phenomenon occurs with the padding for the headband, which uses the same pleather as the earpads, however there's no headband padding replacements available. Whilst I haven't tried this, I would suggest attempting this headband modification (for both comfort and durability): http://www.head-fi.org/t/579875/comfort-mod-hd650-headband-padding-on-the-pro-900
Speaking of the stock headband, I dislike it. It's a generic design (I've seen the identical design used on some Beyerdynamic headphones such as the DT660). It's uncomfortable, putting all of the pressure on a small area of the head with a small, stiff rectangle of padding (I was unpleasantly surprised at how hard that headband padding was out of the box). I'd also say the headband is the weak point of the headphone aesthetically. My ears also get quite sweaty in the earcups. If you live in a very cold area then you should be able to avoid it, but once it gets anywhere near the mid 20s (Celsius) or above it gets uncomfortably warm for me (unless I'm sitting directly under an air conditioner or something). The headphones do clamp quite hard, too. They do feel very secure on your head but I prefer a more loose feeling. It's just too much pressure for my liking, I really don't move around much when using headphones so the clamp is of little use to me (other than assisting isolation which is quite good). Overall, I find these cans less comfortable than the 225i, which certainly isn't a comfort king, itself. Another problem with the headband is that the adhesive used to hold the padding on started to come off on one side within a month . Whilst being an easy to fix issue, these are supposed to have a reputation for great quality. It feels cheaply fixed in place, and it's quick deterioration shows.
So, would I recommend these? Unfortunately not. I ended up giving them to my Dad for Christmas to plug into his guitar amp (He's much less fussy than me, and considers the $160 I paid for them to be "extremely expensive" L3000.gif) after failing to sell them on eBay multiple times. They definitely deliver great bass, and respectable mids, but the treble is just too much. Maybe if you pair them with the right amp to darken them you could fix that issue. However that still leaves the build, design and comfort issues. It's a shame, because it's a pretty darn good sounding headphone for $160. It's very full sounding and pretty detailed, not to mention a pretty good all rounder if you ask me. If they fixed the comfort and brightness it would be a damn good headphone, but the flaws of the HFI-580 are too distracting for me to recommend or enjoy it fully.
Did you try Pro 9200? I'd love to hear your thoughts about it.
I've never had the chance to try them, unfortunately. The DJ1 is the only Ultrasone I've heard.
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Tuesday, May 09, 2006
The World Is A Mirror, Part 2
The lesson: break your patterns. Every day.
But this isn't just about creativity. It's about doing cool stuff. It's about not becoming a slave to routine. It's about spicing up your day, even in the slightest way. It's about enriching your life.
Because boredom is the enemy. Boredom is an insult to yourself. It poisons your soul and pisses off your brain.
When I slap this nametag on my shirt every day, I never know what to expect. Will a stranger ask me where to find the work shirts in Target? Will a man I've only met via email recognize me while walking down the street, roll down his window and yell "Hey Scott!"?
I use those two examples because both of them happened last Saturday.
Which made me realize: breaking your patterns (daily) is good for you. Here's why:
1) It's fun
2) It forces you to think on your feet
3) It stimulates your creativity
4) It gives you new choices
5) It forces you to be more mindful of your surroundings
6) It makes life more interesting
7) It creates cool experiences
8) It shows your vulnerability, and in turn, authenticity
I'm glad (no wait, thankful!) that wearing a nametag 24-7 forces me to break my daily patterns. In fact, I can't remember the last time I was bored.
Driving along on this highway
All these cars and upon the sidewalk
People in every direction
No words exchanged, no time to exchange and when
All the little ants are marching
Red and black antennae waving
They all do it the same
They all do it the same way
Thanks Dave.
How does breaking patterns change you daily life?
* * * *
Scott Ginsberg
Author/Speaker/That guy with the nametag
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/102512
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New Members Challenge 2004-2005
Song of Azaghal
Story Summary
An attempt at a Dwarf song in a similar style of those seen in The Hobbit and Fellowship. The subject is the dwarf Azaghal, lord of Belegost (in Dwarvish Gabilgathol) who fell in the Battle of Unnumbered Tears while fighting Glaurung the dragon.
Chapter List
Ch# Title Words Updated
1 Song of Azaghal 441 23 Feb 05
Appx. Word Count 441
Challenge Entries by Deaghaidh
Does not include placeholders or non-viewable stories.
Challenge Type Title Entered
New Members Challenge 2004-2005 Closed Song of Azaghal February 23, 2005
In Challenges
Story Information
Author: Deaghaidh
Status: General
Completion: Complete
Rating: General
Last Updated: 02/23/05
Original Post: 02/23/05
Back to challenge: New Members Challenge 2004-2005
Go to story: Song of Azaghal
Keyword Search
Results are ordered alphabetically by title.
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/102513
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Object-Orientation FAQ
These are anonymous ftp sites of interest to the OO community. Thanks go to
Mike DeVaney ([email protected] gen ftp site list) and to Bill Kinnersley
([email protected], anon ftp programming languages list), whose initial
lists helped to get things going. Additional short entries are encouraged;
please send additions to the author of the FAQ (and/or to Mike and Bill).
Entries will be standardized and summarized in future FAQs and are not
limited to one category.
Starred entries have a summary below and can be found as ">#" followed by the
description. These entries will eventually be cleaned up.
This document was translated by ms2html v1.8 on 04.06.96.
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/102560
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Affirmative Action
The affirmative action data are designed specifically for use by employers for their Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO)/Affirmative Action (AA) plans. Grant proposal writers, program planners and economic development groups may also find some of the tables useful. In most cases, these data should be used in conjunction with other labor market information to gain a more complete picture of the area of interest.
Source: Population and labor force data are provided by Census 2000. Data for occupational employment by sex and minority are provided by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s Census 2000 Special EEO File.
Frequently Asked Questions
• How can I get monthly unemployment rates by age, race, and gender for my county?
Unemployment rates, which are part of the labor force data, are not available by demographic cohorts (age, race, gender, and Hispanic origin). These rates are only available annually for the states. The Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, publishes estimates for each state. More data are available for the larger states because the estimates are based on a national sample.
• Where was the information on the sex and minority breakouts obtained for labor force, population, and occupations?
The population breakouts by sex and minority were calculated from the Census 2000 Summary File 1 (SF1) 100-percent data. Labor Force breakouts were calculated from the Census 2000 Summary File 3 (SF3) sample data. These files were downloaded from the American FactFinder website.
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/102600
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The How-To Geek Forums Have Migrated to Discourse
How-To Geek Forums / Windows 7
(2 posts)
• Started 1 year ago by worldtourist56
• Latest reply from raphoenix
• Topic Viewed 259 times
Posts: 1
I have just bought a new computer running windows 7 home edition 64 bit. I installed a dvd burner called DVD-Cloner 2013 as this is my favourite burner due to how simple it is to use. My problem is this when I start my computer reads the disc easy but when i place a blank disc the auto play does not have my burner on its list.
How can i get my burner onto that list as i am now at a complete loss. The ones there are useless but cannot find any help on Microsoft forums or their site.
Please help me i just want to add my burner to the blank disc list in the autoplay so it uses that burner.
Regards to all from new Zealand
Posted 1 year ago
Posts: 14920
DVD -5 Blanks ???
What is the make and Model Number of the Actual DVD Hardware Burner ??
Posted 1 year ago
Topic Closed
This topic has been closed to new replies.
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/102611
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iOS app Android app More
Nathan Manske
Black LGBTQ Stories: Are Black Gay Men Just Special Guests in a White Gay World? (VIDEO)
Posted: 02/ 6/2012 3:57 pm
I'm From Driftwood is a 501(c)(3) non-profit forum for true lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) stories. The first full week in February, to commemorate Black History Month, every story will be from a member of the black LGBTQ community. These stories will reinforce the fact that there are black people in the LGBTQ people, and that there are also LGBTQ people in the black community.
Stephen Winter is from Chicago, Ill. When I asked Stephen to share a story about being a black gay man, he needed to spend a good amount of time mulling over his answer:
It was a journey within myself that I went through this week, when I was trying to figure out, as someone who is perceived as gay and perceived as black... without pissing myself off, because I don't want to be the black guy. On a regular week, I'm Stephen Winter, art guy, film person. This week, I was Stephen-Winter-does-not-want-to-be-a-black-gay-guy first. Still, one that has relations with men and dudes, still wants to proudly operate under a society where cops think I'm black, but [I] did not want to respond in a way that would help perpetuate what I think is a status quo that we really need to move beyond.
Stephen's father was from Hungary, a Jew-turned-Catholic who fled the country to escape the Nazis. His mother was from Jamaica. Both of them went to Chicago in the '40s, where they met.
What they did say to me, very clearly, was, "Your mother is considered black, and your father is considered white. But we're not. I'm Jamaican, I'm Czechoslovakian. You're our child. You're American, and you are wonderful. And so you shall be."
Out in the world, however, Stephen experienced a different reality:
It soon became clear that race is a construct, but what you are is what cops think you are. The blacker you are, the blacker you shall be treated, and the whiter you look, the whiter you shall be treated. My parents made it clear that out in the world, I would be treated like what I was considered, but inside, I shall be me. First, an American, first generation. The pride and joy of two worlds of families both escaping things, and bringing something else to bear.
He grew up in Chicago, for the most part, and pretty early on identified as queer. When he left his teenage world and became an adult, it became clear to him that he was gay. He emphatically critiqued what the state of this world seemed to be to him:
In that context, "gay" meant "white," and everybody else was kind of visiting. If it was a sitcom, the opening would be like, "Welcome to the Gay World! Here are your main characters, and the special guests! The black guy! The Asian person! The drag queen!
In his view, the "G" part of LGBT was insistent on continuing this tradition into the century, which caused problems for Stephen. When trying to enter a gay bar for the first time in Chicago, with three other men of equal underage status (all of European descent), he faced blatant racism:
They were let into the club, and I was asked for three forms of picture ID.
Even if Stephen hadn't been underage, asking black people for more forms of ID was commonplace in Chicago at the time:
They just didn't want black people in that club. And even if you had three forms of ID, there was always something else going on. Folks protested against this. But that was my first experience at the gay bar, at age 17.
Submit your own story at
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/102612
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iOS app Android app More
Rabbi Joshua Hess
GET UPDATES FROM Rabbi Joshua Hess
Cameron Van Der Burgh's Immoral Gold Medal
Posted: 08/07/2012 1:33 pm
Last week, South Africa's Cameron Van Der Burgh won the gold medal in the 100M breaststroke in world record time. But his victory came under scrutiny after the Australian team accused him of making illegal "dolphin kicks." According to Jason Devaney of NBC Olympics:
"In breaststroke, competitors are allowed to take one dolphin kick at the start and one after each turn before starting their breaststroke kick. But with no underwater video judging, swimmers are sometimes able to sneak in an extra dolphin kick -- a whip-like motion generated from the hips. Video replays appear to show van der Burgh taking three of them."
Van Der Burgh finally came clean a few days ago and admitted to cheating. From all indications, it doesn't appear as though the IOC will strip him of the medal or world record, but I think they should.
What I find most fascinating about this story, however, is what he told a reporter when asked why he cheated: "If you're not doing it, you're falling behind. It's not obviously -- shall we say -- the moral thing to do, but I'm not willing to sacrifice my personal performance and four years of hard work for someone that is willing to do it and get away with it."
Van Der Burgh wants to argue that what he did was unethical but not grounds for disqualification, since everyone else was doing it. But let's be honest: if everyone is cheating, they all deserve to be disqualified. Let me pose the question differently: If a group of swimmers agree not to play by the rules, is there a winner?
This scenario is quite different than the "Derek Jeter pretending to be hit by a pitch" story that I wrote about a couple years back. In most professional sports, including baseball, umpires are positioned to make the right call. Sometimes they make mistakes. There isn't a rule that prohibits a player from trying to "sell it" and dupe the umpire. If an umpire makes a wrong call, no ethical or illegal conduct was committed by the player. As it pertains to the breaststroke, however, it's impossible for an umpire to determine whether a swimmer is making an illegal kick in real time. The only way to ensure a clean race is to have underwater video cameras following their every move. If an umpire cannot be placed in a position to make the right call, anyone who abuses the rules is cheating. In my opinion, making undetectable dolphin kicks in the pool is akin to taking performance enhancing drugs.
What Van Der Burgh and the rest of the cheaters need to remember is that although it's possible to cheat humanity, it's impossible to cheat God. I wish the swimmers cared more about morality and decency than about winning, but that doesn't appear to be the case. . If our star athletes recognized that there is an omniscient God who knows our every deed, perhaps they would behave in way that would make them worthy role models for their many fans.
I applaud Van Der Burgh for admitting to the truth, and I'm sure that the he and his sport will be better off for it. At minimum, I pray that he keeps the final verse of Ecclesiastes over his mirror to look at every morning when he gets out of bed: "The sum of the matter, when all has been considered: Fear God and keep His commandments, for that is man's whole duty. For God will judge every deed -- even everything hidden -- whether good or evil."
Follow Rabbi Joshua Hess on Twitter:
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/102630
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HylaFAX The world's most advanced open source fax server
On Jan 17, 2008 7:54 AM, maciej <mac610@xxxxx> wrote:
> Hello,
> I am using hylaFAX in company (don't remember version number right now,
> i could check it later if it's needed) with JHylaFax client on
> Mandriva2007 linux. It's just on one computer connected to internet,
> without any faxmodem hardware (I'm using virtual fax). It works ok but
> the process from scanning to sending is quite long and involves changing
> format to pdf, so i have to each time copy and paste image to open
> office writer and make pdf, then I can send it throug jhylafax. I was
> wandering about two things:
> scans image and fax it
xsane can scan to pdf...
and as Giuseppe said, there are add-ons for CUPS that will send the
postscript to hylafax
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/102641
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Secret To Owl's Head-Turning Success Revealed: Why They Don't Break Their Necks
on February 01 2013 11:47 AM
Owls are able to rotate their heads a full 270 degrees -- a feat that has puzzled many researchers for years. This adaptation is key to the owl’s vision, since its eyes are fixed in their sockets. Without that flexibility, an owl would be stuck with quasi-tunnel vision.
When seen in real life, it looks like something alien or from a horror movie:
But if a human tried to attempt such a move, he’d cut off the blood supply to his brain.
“Brain imaging specialists like me who deal with human injuries caused by trauma to arteries in the head and neck have always been puzzled as to why rapid, twisting head movements did not leave thousands of owls lying dead on the forest floor from stroke," senior investigator and Johns Hopkins University neuroradiologist Philippe Gailloud said in a statement Thursday.
greatgrayowlbig Thanks to his specially adapted neck, this owl is not dead. Flickr via Creative Commons/Kiskadee3
Gailloud and his colleagues think they’ve unraveled the secret to owls’ head-turning success, and it turns out that an owl has special adaptations to both its neck vertebrae and the blood vessels leading to its brain. A poster detailing the team’s findings featured in the latest issue of the journal Science won first prize in the National Science Foundation's 2012 International Science & Engineering Visualization Challenge.
The researchers injected dye into owl arteries to illuminate the blood vessels in X-ray scans and mimic blood flow. When the birds’ heads were manually turned, the researchers noticed that the blood vessels near the jaw bone, at the base of the head, ballooned as the dye entered, creating a blood reservoir. These reservoirs allow the owl to keep a pool of blood handy to supply its brains and eyes while its head is turned, the researchers say.
bloodreservoir An X-ray scan showing the expanded blood vessels at the base of an owl's head that create a 'blood reservoir'. de Kok-Mercado et al.
Gailloud says the results “show precisely what morphological adaptations are needed to handle such head gyrations and why humans are so vulnerable to osteopathic injury from chiropractic therapy. Extreme manipulations of the human head are really dangerous, because we lack so many of the vessel-protecting features seen in owls."
Like many other birds, the carotid arteries in an owl are also located near the center of the bird’s neck, rather than on the side like in humans, thus minimizing the amount of torque the vessel experiences during a head turn.
Another feature the researchers found in the owl’s neck are extra-wide cavities in the vertebrae, where major arteries are threaded up to the brain. That extra space allows the artery to move around much more easily when the owl twists its neck.
owlhumannecks A side-by-side comparison of owl and human neck vertebrae and arteries, showing the owl's adaptations for neck-twisting. de Kok-Mercado et al.
"In humans, the vertebral artery really hugs the hollow cavities in the neck. But this is not the case in owls, whose structures are specially adapted to allow for greater arterial flexibility and movement," Fabian de Kok-Mercado, a former Johns Hopkins grad student and medical illustrator, now with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, said in a statement Thursday.
Owls also turn out to have little connections, dubbed “anastomoses,” between their carotid and vertebral arteries that allow the two vessels to exchange blood. That way, if one major route to the brain is blocked when the bird twists its head, blood can travel up the alternative artery.
“You would have thought we knew everything there was to know about the owl. A lot of this is down to technology, which allows us to break new ground,” de Kok-Mercado told the BBC on Friday.
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/102649
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(Kersten, The Heidelberg Catechism in 52 Sermons, Vol.2, Part 15) The Sanctity of Marriage Lord's Day 41 Psalter No. 236 st. 1, 2 Read Ephesians 5:15-33 Psalter No. 322 st. 1-4 Psalter No. 384 st. 5 Psalter No. 389 st. 1, 5 Beloved, When John baptized Jesus, his disciples came to him and said, "Rabbi, He that was with Thee beyond Jordan, to whom Thou barest witness, behold, the same baptizeth, and all men come to Him." Apparently John's disciples were not pleased that Jesus made more disciples than their master. But John, instead of nourishing the thought they advanced, showed them that Christ must have the preeminence, saying, "I am not the Christ, but I am sent before Him. He that has the bride is the bridegroom, and I am the friend of the bridegroom. This my joy therefore is fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease." In these words, John refers to his ministry, and the ministry of all God's servants, who are as friends of the Bridegroom. Their work is to bring the bride to the Bridegroom, the church to Christ. They must not seek their own interests. They must stand aside. He must increase, but they must decrease. Christ is preeminent; so that God's chosen church may be placed in true communion with Christ by faith and by that faith find all things in Him. There is a tender relationship between Christ and His church which is often spoken of in God's Word as a marriage relationship. In John 3 Christ is called the Bridegroom Who has His bride; Who accepts His bride, Who delivers His church from under the law and gives Himself in the greatness and fulness of His mediatorial ministration, thus fulfilling all the service of the shadows and all that the prophets had spoken of Him. He is the heavenly Bridegroom to Whom God, the Father, gave and entrusted His church before the foundation of the world. That Bridegroom had to pay the dowry, and He did so in His bitter suffering and death. Thereby He paid the debt of His church, took away her iniquity and brought her back into communion with His Father. He takes His church as His bride in order to exercise communion with her, and the church exercises communion with the Bridegroom of her soul by faith. Thus Christ is all and in all. The apostle Paul tells us that the fellowship between Christ and His chosen church serves as an example for us, even in this life, particularly in married life, in order that, as Christ loved His church, we, too, shall be bound together by the bonds of matrimony, and the husband shall be the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the church. How much value is put upon marriage when we see it in this light! How firmly does the Lord demand sanctity in marriage, according to the law of the ten commandments of which we shall now consider the seventh, according to the explanation given us in the forty-first Lord's Day. Lord's Day 41 Q. 108. What does the seventh commandment teach us? A. That all uncleanness is accursed of God; and that therefore we must with all our hearts detest the same, and live chastely and temperately, whether in holy wedlock, or in single life. Q. 109. Does God forbid in this commandment, only adultery and such like gross sins? A. Since both our body and soul are temples of the Holy Ghost, He commands us to preserve them pure and holy; therefore He forbids all unchaste actions, gestures, words, thoughts, desires, and whatever can entice men thereto. The law of matrimony must be kept holy I. In honour of God's ordinance, II. By reason of a holy aversion to sin, III. Because of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. I In the first place marriage is an institution of God. It is not an invention of man which, if it fails to satisfy, may be broken. A marriage may not be broken, because it is a divine institution, and not a human agreement. In the beginning God gave the woman to the man as a help says God's Word, according to the description of Moses. The Lord caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam and God took one of his ribs and made a woman out of it. The woman was created as a creature of God in the state of rectitude in God's image, after His likeness. The Word of God describes the woman in these terms so that she shall not be despised nor disregarded. It is an exposure of wicked Lamech where we read that he terrified both his wives by saying he had slain a man for his wounding and a young man for his hurt. The Word of the Lord teaches us that the woman was made of Adam's rib, formed as it were from under his heart, so that the man shall not despise or disregard her. The woman is a creature of God. In the second place the Word teaches us that the Lord Himself brought the woman to Adam. The first marriage was performed in Paradise. God Himself performed it. He not only created the woman, but with His own hand He brought her to Adam. Marriage therefore is an institution of creation, an institution from Paradise, when there was no sin as yet. Now because of sin, we are subject to the judgment of God in every aspect of our lives. Nevertheless, in spite of the judgment which we have brought upon ourselves, God wants us to honour His own institutions. The Form for the Confirmation of Marriage states plainly that God, as with His hand, brings unto every man his wife, sometimes by very wonderful and remarkable ways. It is true for everyone that the Lord still does what He did in Paradise, and brings to every man his own wife. Therefore we must notice very particularly the leadings of God in marriages. While we are young, we must seek earnestly that the Lord may lead and guide us in declaring His goodness and mercy, so that we may not enter the marriage state carelessly, and unrestrained, yield ourselves to the lusts of the flesh. We may indeed seek matrimony, but we should be concerned whether we can discern God's hand in it. How much concern did Abraham have to find a wife for Isaac, not among the daughters of the land, however high their station in life might be; but he sought a woman who feared God, so that with Isaac she might walk in the ways of the Lord. He made Eliezer swear that he would not take one of the daughters of the Canaanites for a wife for his son, as he would not have his son return there. The Lord Himself showed Eliezer the way, and caused him to understand how that certain woman was destined to be Isaac's wife, and that she would dwell in the house of Isaac. It is still true, therefore, that the Lord brings the man his wife as it were with His own hand. For this reason we must respect and honour marriage so that we do not yield to the notions of our wicked hearts, but preserve those bonds all the days of our lives. Moreover, the Lord Jesus honored it highly with His divine presence in Cana of Galilee when He performed His first miracle, changing water into wine. He did so in order that the bridegroom might honour His Father's institution of marriage. Is this not a clear token, in spite of sin, in spite of the fact that we have subjected ourselves throughout our lives to the judgment of God, the Lord still maintains the sanctity of His own institution of marriage and crowns it with His favour and high approbation? He does so for the purpose of building a generation of men, wherein He shall glorify His sovereign good pleasure by justice and grace. The angels were created by the Lord in large numbers in a moment, but in the beginning God made but two people on earth. He brought the woman to the man and instituted marriage, to bring forth a generation in which His divine attributes would shine forever, a generation of people created for eternity. God has given marriage a value which holds for the whole life of man on earth, for family, civil and political life. He especially gave to marriage a value for eternity. Scripture tells us that man has both soul and body, a soul which can not be killed, even though the body can. But the body shall arise from the dead, to be reunited with the soul eternally. God's institution, which He had given in Paradise and which He maintained after the fall is valid for every man, whether He reckons with it or not, whether he considers it or not; but in that institution God executes His providence, His direction and His government, to fulfill His eternal counsel. How ought we then to oppose all those who are against matrimony! In olden times there were such, and there are still people who despise marriage. But marriage is honorable in all, and the bed undefiled. We may not neglect it, even if we fear adversity and cares and worry how we shall get through the world. As the Lord leads, we ought to enter matrimony when the Lord awakens a desire for it in the heart, so that man and wife may live together as one, bound by that bond of love which the Lord Himself still gives in natural kite as a fruit of His common grace. God the Father maintains all things in the way of His divine providence, and therein are His acts of preservation, cooperation and government. We conclude then that God the Father, in His common grace and by His work of providence, has laid natural love in the hearts of men. He awakens natural love in the hearts of persons whom He makes one in the closest bond of matrimony. For shall not they two be one flesh? The divine blessing rests upon the wife who knows how to do her work. Just read what is written about the virtuous woman in Proverbs 31. Contrary to all who despise marriage as an institution of God; contrary to those who seek to withdraw themselves from the bonds of matrimony; contrary to those who wish to live in iniquity without restraint and claim that free marriage consists of companionship; God in His Word shows us that marriage is His institution. If Christ has shown that He was willing to sanctify marriage; if marriage was sought by the saints in the Bible, such as Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Peter (hence both in the old and the new dispensation); if the godly have sought and honored it; moreover if the Lord has given His approval of it, then we are told that the Lord will bless marriage if we walk in His ways. Despising of marriage leads to the undermining of a nation; the entire nation weakens and sinks away. Why must we keep the law of matrimony? In the first place because marriage as an institution of God must be sanctified and honored, and because we must submit ourselves to that which God has given for the maintenance of the human race. In the second place the law of matrimony must be kept holy II By reason of a holy aversion to sin. This is our second main thought. Read what the Catechism says about this. The seventh commandment teaches us that all uncleanness is accursed of God, therefore we must with all our hearts detest the same, and live chastely and temperately. When we undertake to speak about sins in relation to this commandment, only a few of which can be mentioned, we speak in the first place of uncleanness. I have already stated that matrimony is an institution of God for our entire life. It may not be terminated except by death, or adultery, in which case the marriage is broken by sin. Adultery, as God's Word teaches us, is the only cause for which marriage may be dissolved and a new marriage made. Although the civil authorities think differently, God's Word says there is only one sin for which a marriage may be dissolved: the sin of adultery or fornication, by which contact is had with others. Thereby the close tie of marriage is broken. The Lord's displeasure rests upon such persons and He will show them His holy indignation. But then there is no obligation to obtain divorce. If the marriage is dissolved because of adultery, it does not mean that person may not marry again. It is indeed written, "Whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery", but this word does not apply here. In the days in which the Lord spoke these words, conditions were such that a man often sent away a wife because he hated her. The law of Moses says, "Then let him write her a bill of divorcement", and do not merely put her out. Moses permitted them to give a bill of divorcement, but from the beginning it was not so." Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fortification, and shall marry another, committeth adultery; and whose marrieth her which is put away does commit adultery." The Lord means: If you take a woman to wife, you can not at will give her a divorce, but you are bound to her for life. Breaking the bond of marriage so easily is an evil, and ignoring it to enter into another marriage may not be done. Let us give this our attention. Remember that we may never seek divorce except for the reason God has given us, and then I must repeat what was said before, that there is no obligation to obtain divorce, but in this case it is permitted. This means that if a man and wife can forgive and again accept each other, it is not forbidden to prolong the marriage; in fact, the Lord may even grant a return of marital bliss. But if one or the other cannot overlook the injury, then God's Word permits divorce and a right given to sue for it. When anyone, contrary to God's institution, obtains divorce for any other reason, he may not enter into another marriage. In this connection God's Word speaks of "her that is put away", who must leave though there is no ground for divorce. Let us take this matter seriously. May the Lord prevent us from ever coming to such a separation. Yet if there is a falling into adultery and continuing in it, this is the only reason for dissolving the marriage bond. At this point we must also consider incest. In Leviticus 18 and 20, we are given the rules governing forbidden marriages. As we read these chapters to which our fathers adhered strictly, we must remember one thing, namely, that what is written there belongs to the ceremonial laws, and all that is commanded there contains a standard of conduct which still holds true and renders a given sinner guilty, but the rules are not applicable in every case. For instance, the church formerly ordained on the basis of Leviticus 20 that the marriage of a man to his deceased wife's sister is forbidden because that they shall be childless. However, this judgment does not hold true. We have many examples to the contrary, as they do have well-born children. If the Lord Himself does not literally bring to pass what is written in Leviticus 20, it is a proof among other things that this rule does not apply to the time of the New Testament. Therefore the church has made other regulations in this matter, regulations which state the relationships which are too close for marriage. We must always use caution, even though certain close relationships are permitted. For example, think of marriage between cousins. We should not easily consent to it, lest we contribute to the weakening of the generation. Let us remember that the Lord keeps a watchful eye upon the marriage covenant. I ask your attention for one more matter, that of mixed marriages. We find in Scripture the example of Esau, who took a wife of the daughters of the land. This was a source of much grief to Isaac and Rebekah. Jacob went out to find a wife from among a family that feared the Lord. Sometimes our young people act so inconsiderately that you know nothing of their plans until they have been carried out. They seek no advice and say not a word, but proceed without the marriage being confirmed in church. They marry without notifying the Consistory of their intentions. Can they expect the Lord's blessing upon such a course? They keep company with persons who do not live under the truth and show no concern for God's Word. What is to be expected from such marriages? Some marry Roman Catholics, which causes much grief, and ends in separation. Let us avoid mixed marriages. Read your church manual and see how our fathers sought to prevent it. I will go a step further. Let us avoid marriages with people of other denominations, because such marriages cause so much quarreling and trouble in families. Be sure to lay a good foundation at the outset and say firmly: "I want to remain under the truth where it is heard, and I will never forsake it." I am saying these things from experience. It happens occasionally in the congregations that one marries a person of a different faith. It causes untold grief and one thing leads to another. There is much quarreling in such families, because one will not give in to the other. "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers", but considering the cases I mention here, be not yoked together with anyone of another denomination. We have also the sin of adultery which is committed when married persons have intercourse with others. Thus David committed adultery with Bathsheba. What sorrows it bore for David! First he tried to shield himself by placing Uriah in the front line of battle so that he fell and died. God saw it and charged David with it, then visited him with much grief. Think of the adultery committed by Herod the Great. John the Baptist admonished him because he had his brother's wife. God's own institution was involved. If marriage were an institution of man, the violation would not be so serious, but a divine institution was attacked. Therefore we must enter into marriage in order to lead a married life. The Apostle Paul says in I. Corinthians 7:5: "Defraud ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer." Some have given a pious tint to this defrauding, but it is a false colour for if you bring in arguments that are contrary to the ordinance of God, they are false, and you can expect no blessing in this way. Others defraud one another because they want no cares, troubles or burdens. It is an evil that is creeping into our congregations. I have my fears when I see how many children are baptized in a year. When we see the ratio between the number baptized and the size of the congregation, then we must take these things to heart. Our women ought to be concerned about it. Withdrawal has often been the beginning of deep misery, when the close life of marriage was marred and the responsibilities of marriage were neglected. Is it not written, "And they shall be one flesh?" The eyes of the Lord are upon us and He knows our most secret thoughts, also when we are alone and in our inner chamber. Let us not heap sin upon sin. There is much more that the Lord brings to our attention in this Catechism, based on the seventh commandment which we shall touch upon briefly. All uncleanness is accursed of God. God forbids not only adultery, but also all unchaste actions. Read Deuteronomy 25 and note what judgment God brought upon touching another. Further, unchaste gestures are forbidden, wanton eyes, tripping feet, of which Scripture speaks. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but let your words be few and seasoned with salt, lest they stir up lusts in our heart. Finally the instructor says that the seventh commandment forbids whatever can entice man to uncleanness. In this commandment God forbids all that which we meditate upon in our hearts and in which we secretly find delight. In this connection think also of the books that are read. There is a popular kind of books that are called love stories. Do our boys also read them? Let us also watch our clothing. Notice how the styles of our day prescribe clothing that arouses evil lusts in our hearts. Compare what is written about Jezebel. Let us wear simple clothing and remember that God gave us clothing to cover ourselves. Let us take heed lest we follow the world in hair styles. Let us not be the first to follow a fashion. Let our heart be set upon being adorned with the garments of righteousness and holiness and humility. Oh, that this garment were the ornament of our women. Let us not walk in the way of vain amusements as in theaters and dance halls. Why are they so dangerous? Because our hearts are evil and so little is needed to bring us upon the wrong way. There is an aversion against sinning which the Lord lays in the heart. We would say, there is still a natural aversion to sin, sometimes even a natural fear of impurity, and we must seek to nurture it. There is also a holy abhorrence of sin, which flows from the fact that The Holy Spirit dwells in our hearts. This is the third point for which I ask your attention. III In question 109 of our Catechism it says that our body and soul are temples of the Holy Ghost, so He commands us to preserve both of them pure and holy. We read in Exodus 29 where the Lord says, "I will dwell among the children of Israel." The Lord still dwells in the congregation when His Word has dominion and His testimony is bound upon the conscience so that we hate and flee from sin. When God had His dwelling among the people of Israel, were the people then not greatly obliged to walk according to God's commandments? Has He not said that it would be a double judgment upon Israel if they forsook His ways? Let us not think it a small matter that the Lord still dwells among us. In a very special sense it is true of God's children that they are temples of the Holy Ghost. The Lord dwells in their hearts to their salvation. In regeneration, God the Holy Spirit enters into their hearts and renews them, drawing them out of sin and iniquity. I am here speaking of sanctification, based upon Exodus 29, for certainly it is God Who sanctifies His people and works in their hearts a loathing of all that displeases Him. From this flows the upright desire of heart to live perfectly before God and to destroy sin, root and branch. It is the work of God to sanctify men, and by way of sanctification to wash and cleanse them from iniquity. If God's work is lacking in our soul and the Lord has not taken up His abode in us, then there cannot be a true zeal to keep God's commandments; we transgress against them in words, in thoughts and in deeds. There is a passive and an active sanctification. The passive sanctification is that in which we are acted upon and in which God glorified His work in the heart of sinners. What flows out of passive sanctification? The active sanctification in the exercises of faith by the people of the Lord. The will being renewed becomes itself active. The Lord has no passive people who say, "The Lord has to do it", but they have exercises and are zealous to keep God's commandments. The will thus renewed longs to live and walk according to God's commandments. God is the renewer of the will, but in dependence on the ministrations of the Holy Spirit, God's people receive exercises in active sanctification and in the keeping of God's commandments. What do they experience then in their own heart? That all evil dwells in it and frequently to their sorrow, that the old man still has very much power. The old man is the corruption which has spread itself over the whole man. That corruption is not taken away from them, for sanctification in this life is only in part and the old man rules whenever the Lord withholds a little of His protecting grace. How many examples do we have in Scripture, which show that God's children sometimes plunge into the worst evil and sin. In that way they must learn to be exercised continually to seek shelter under the Lord's wings, and to be preserved by Him, so they may not be given over to the fitness of their evil hearts and that the flesh may not have dominion over them. When in our Catechism it is written that we must preserve our body and soul as temples of the Holy Ghost, the reference is to the exercises of God's people, so that they may withdraw themselves from all that which might stir up sinful lusts, and walk conscientiously according to the commandments of the Lord, continually employing Christ as Prophet, Priest and King. Thus they learn to need Him for instruction, for guidance and as a continual propitiation for their sins, so that He may increase in stature more and more in their hearts. They continually sigh to be made temples of the Holy Spirit in which God Himself has His abode; for when they forsake His commandments, God hides His face from His people, and visits them with chastisements. "But if my children e'er forsake My law appointed, then truly will I chastise them with rods for all their provocation." Therefore the constant prayer of God's upright people is what we shall now sing from Psalm 139: "Search me, 0 God, and know my heart, Try me, my thoughts to know; 0 lead me, if in sin I stray, In paths of life to go." Psalter No. 384 st. 5 Do you not perceive how profitable it is that we examine the law of the Lord together year after year, and examine ourselves thereby? It is profitable for old and young, for the families and for so ciety, for parents and their children. The whole world is concerned about the rising generation, and especially in our days the church is giving all its attention to the youth. Also in our congregations we hear the cry, "0, our young people, our young people!" There is one thing I could wish, namely, that the labor bestowed upon the youth would be directed into the right channels and that the direction would be tested by the Word of God. I should like to impress this upon your hearts, young people, that you try these directions by the old writers. I commend them to you with so much liberty because they agree with God's Word. If it were not so, I would say so, but I want to preserve our young people. I should like to advise, "Boys, come together." I have no objection to young people's societies, if they are under the direction of the consistory. There should be much more interest shown in the old truth, but many would rather roam the streets. Let the young people's societies grow, but only in searching the truth, and in approving the old doctrine, so that it may not be taken away from us. Be grounded in the fundamental doctrines of the truth, and never forget that man by nature is dead in sins and trespasses, and that he must be born again. It may be that God will use it as a means to dwell in your hearts so that you may walk in the ordinances of the Lord. This means for all our boys and girls in general, that they must walk cautiously. Do not visit the places of vanity. Snares are laid there. Do not say, "What is wrong with this or that performance at the theater? It was very instructive." Rather notice the company you are in. One thing leads to another. Do not expose yourselves to the slippery places of vanity. Consider what happens there. You can see what the fruits are each time you hear young people confessing their sin before the congregation. The crown is taken from their heads, for the rest of their lives. Let us beware of sin, for it causes so much pain, grief and sorrow. What is more, our secret sins are recorded before God. When you are seeking the way of marriage, first bow your knees and say, "Lord, although I am unconverted, grant that I may walk in Thy ways, so that I shall not regret it later." Sometimes you can tell your troubles to someone whom you trust, but it is better to bring all your problems to God's throne of grace. Many married persons have a secret sorrow. When the marriage is planned and your heart is engaged, do not give it to another in the false hope that it will end well, for it will not end well. Let us be honest before God and man. Confess honestly to yourself how matters stand when you are going to be married. Test yourself whether there is true love in your heart, for only the tie of true love can help carry the burdens of an entire life together. Do not think the path of married life is strewn with roses. The form for marriage states so truthfully that married persons, by reason of sin, are subject to many troubles and afflictions. Adversities are sure to come, through sickness and cares, troubles and sorrows. But if husband and wife are one, they can bear the circumstance together. When children are born, they will not say, "It is too much, the burden is too heavy." Remember that children are a heritage of the Lord, and they who practice birth control bring God's judgment upon themselves. Let our women walk carefully. Let them learn what God's Word teaches them, namely, that a meek and quiet spirit is of great price in the sight of God. Oh, may arguments and trouble depart from married life. If we are willing to submit to the truth and yield to the Word of God, peace will come into our homes. Do you know of a sweeter peace than that which God gives in our families between father, mother and children? I am not now speaking about the people of the world, but about our congregations. We sometimes learn from outside sources that children cannot get along with each other. When that point is reached, the parents suffer much pain and grief and no remedy can be found. What is the reason? It is because we do not want to esteem others better than ourselves and especially that we do not want to submit to the Word of God. Be persuaded of this, parents. Lead your children in such paths that they learn to live in harmony with each other. Keep your children from mixed marriages. Let not the desire to become great in the world be the motive for your so-called good marriage. Let it be our concern that our children walk in the ways of the Lord. God cares for our marriage, because it is His institution, and therefore He will hear our petitions. "In all thy ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct thy paths." But the most important thing is, as the Catechism says, that both our body and soul are temples of he Holy Ghost. Indeed, in a broader sense, it is true that God dwells in the midst of the congregation and of the visible church, where His Word and sacraments are administered according to the institution of Christ, and where discipline is exercised. With some liberty I may say, although there are many shortcomings, God still dwells among us. Therefore, children, while you are in your youth, take counsel with your parents, with your minister, with your consistory, that they instruct you. Let the Word of God make an impression upon your consciences, that you may turn away from sin. May the Lord protect you on all sides. If you are married, do not lightly seek a divorce. It is better to tell your troubles to the Lord. May He grant you the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in your heart. Then God will sanctify you from all sin and enable you to walk carefully before Him. If we can look the whole world in the face, there are in our hearts the thoughts of evil, and especially of this sin against the seventh commandment. In this we are guilty, every one of us. What is it we need? To be washed and cleansed in the blood of Christ. It is this that God works in the hearts of His people. He Himself says in His Word, "I am the Lord that; does sanctify you." The Lord Himself draws His people out of the servitude of sin, and delivers them from unrighteousness. Thus a sincere desire is wrought in them to keep all God's commandments. They are placed as it were, in the presence of Him Who knows the heart. This causes them to confess their transgressions with sincere sorrow, and truly to strive for the mortification of sin in the active exercise of sanctification, so they may keep themselves holy in both soul and body. In their heart is that holy race after perfection, if that they may apprehend, says the apostle Paul, that for which also they are apprehended of Christ. But even the holiest men while in this life, have only a small beginning of this perfect obedience. Therefore God's people bow in deep humility before God because of all the unholy affections and workings in their hearts, with the sincere desire that body and soul be made the temples of the Holy Ghost. This abasement keeps God's people from self-exaltation, but enables them to find a foundation upon which God's law is perfectly glorified, namely in Christ. Perhaps you have thought at times, "How can such a one as Manasseh, or the thief on the cross, or even David go to heaven? This shows that you do not know your own heart. By grace God's children learn to know themselves by the indwelling of the Holy Ghost, Whose work it is to convince of sin, of righteousness and of judgment. In His strength the flesh is crucified and slain, so that they may walk uprightly in God's commandments and rejoice in God. May we in all the grief and trouble that comes upon us and in all cares that beset us, lose ourselves more in the Lord, and entrust ourselves more into His fatherly hand. May He by the work of His Spirit, write His law in our hearts as with a pen of iron, "Thou shalt not commit adultery." This is to say, you must live holy and mortify your members which are upon the earth, putting away your fleshly desires, and seeking that spiritual marriage which Christ performs with His church. He is the Bridegroom and His church is the bride. In this marriage, this holy union of faith with Him, God's children receive the remission of sin, the purification of their hearts and deliverance out of troubles; but also the preparation for perfect glory in that place where they neither marry nor are given in marriage, and where they only shall come who are bought by the blood of Christ. There they shall be as the angels of God to glorify and praise the only Triune God and the Lamb eternally. Amen. Kersten, Heidelberg Catechism in 52 Sermons, Vol.2 (continued in part 16...) ---------------------------------------------------- file: /pub/resources/text/ipb-e/epl-02: krhc2-15.txt .
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Data Analysis
Reports of polls in the media describe behavior or opinion, reporting things like the proportion of people who favor some proposal or who feel a certain way about an issue. These reports deal with "what" questions of social science research - what does the American public think about abortion? The survey research described here is more concerned with "why" questions--why did some people vote for George Bush in 2004 while others voted for John Kerry? To answer "why" questions we need to examine relationships between variables.
1. Variables
2. Relationships between variables
3. Contingency Tables
4. Statistics
5. Measures of association
6. Recoding Variables
1. Variables
A variable is something that varies, meaning that it can take on a number of values. Individual characteristics, such as age, income, or education, are variables because different people have different values or scores on these characteristics. We can first distinguish between categoric and interval-level data. Interval-level variables are continuous, meaning that each value of the variable is one increment larger than the previous and one smaller than the next value. Age, if measured in years, is a good example; each increment is one year. Typically with interval or continuous variables, there are a relatively large number of values. Categorical variables have a limited number of values. Gender is an example of a categoric variable. All of the variables included in this instructional package dataset are categorical. Variables that could have been measured as interval-level variables, such as age or income, have instead been made into categoric variables by creating categories that define specific ranges for the variables (e.g., for age, the categories are 18-24 years, 25-34 years, and so on).
Variables can be measured on a number of different types of scales. Categorical variables can be measured either on nominal or ordinal scales. Nominal scales are the simplest--the categories are unordered. A good example is religion (V145 in the dataset). This variable is coded in the following manner:
1. Mainline Protestant
2. Evangelical Protestant
3. Catholic
4. Jewish
5. Other
6. None
7. N/A
This coding of religion could be changed. For example, Catholics could be coded "1," Mainline Protestants "2," etc., without disturbing the underlying meaning of the variable.
Ordinal-level scales have an underlying order-a scale that ranges from 'strongly agree' to 'strongly disagree' is a good example. Consider the dataset question on school vouchers (V137). This is an ordinal-level variable coded in the following manner:
1. Strongly Favor
2. Favor
3. Oppose
4. Strongly Oppose
5. N/A
You can see that there is an order to the values here--they range from strong support to strong opposition. Changing the ordering of the values for this variable would therefore certainly change the underlying meaning of the variable.
2. Relationships between variables
3. Contingency tables
A common procedure to examine the relationship between two variables in a survey is to use a contingency table. A contingency table presents the cross-tabulation between two variable. An example of a contingency table is the cross-tabulation between party identification and presidential vote.
In interpreting contingency tables:
• percentage by the independent variable, since party identification is the independent variable when it is cross-tabulated with presidential vote, the columns under each category of party identification add to 100%;
• compare the distribution of the dependent variable across the categories of the independent variable;
• look for trends in the percentages-in the cross-tabulation of party identification and presidential vote, the percentage of respondents voting for Bush goes up dramatically as we move from the category of "Strong Democrat" to the category of "Strong Republican;"
• don't treat percentages as exact reflections of the population-they are approximations;
• look for sizeable differences in percentages-small differences can the result of random error;
• Look for significant differences!
4. Statistics
Statisticians make a distinction between measures of significance and measures of association. A measure of significance tells whether the relationship between two variables might be the result of chance alone. A measure of association tells how strong the relationship is between two variables. Chi Square is a common measure of significance; it tests the hypothesis that there is no relationship between the columns and rows in a contingency table. Chi Square is reported as both a number and a probability; if the probability is higher than about .05, it generally means that we cannot reject the hypothesis that the two variables are unrelated.
5. Measures of association
Commonly used statistics for ordinal variables are gamma and Kendall's tau. Both gamma and tau can have positive or negative signs. A negative sign means the variables are inversely related, meaning that as one goes up the other goes down; a positive sign means the opposite. Thus, for gamma and tau, a value of -1.0 is just as perfect of a relationship as a value of 1.0. Another statistic appropriate for ordinal data is Somer's d.
For tables with nominal variables, either Cramer's V or the contingency coefficient are appropriate measures of association, but SDA/DAS does not report these statistics for contingency tables. This, however, is not a major problem since only a few variables in this instructional package dataset are nominal; the vast majority are ordinal.
Remember that measures of association don't really tell you any more than do the percentages in a tables, they just do it more conveniently. Also you can calculate any statistic you want on any contingency table you construct. Whether the statistics has any meaning is the result of some thought going into the table before you construct it.
6. Recoding Variables
• there are so many categories of one of the variables in a table that there are too few cases per cell for meaningful interpretation;
• you think that there is some meaningful reason to combine categories in a variable-for example, you think the real distinction in education is whether somebody has a college degree or not instead of the six categories the variable has in the dataset.
Some important variables in this dataset have a larger number of categories-party identification (7), all the feeling thermometer scores (5), all the ideology scales (7), religion (6), age (6), and others.
Some rules-of-thumb for recoding are:
• What do you think the important distinctions are in the data? Recode variables to emphasize these distinctions;
• Create new variables and recode those rather than recoding existing variables. If you wrongly recode an existing variable, you will need to start the analysis anew; if you wrongly recode a newly created variable, you can delete it and create another;
• Rename and re-label new variables immediately after creating them; it is easy to forget what you wanted to do with a new variable and any tables you generate with unlabeled variables will not be labeled either;
• Check the marginals for your newly created variable; you might also want to run a crosstabulation of the new variable against the unrecoded variable to see which respondents have gone into which categories.
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Tag Archives
iHub: Motivation
Skunkworks was conceived with the idea of bring together Nairobi (and Kenyan) techies together and really kicked off in early 2007. From the onset we had the idea of having a central location where guys could come in and utilize fast internet, access local servers to test out their applications while bouncing off ideas with […]
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A conservative journalist infiltrates an anti-Keystone pipeline protest and exposes their hypocrisy and ignorance.
1. MuslimLuvChrist says:
Liberalism is a mental disorder
2. Edwardkoziol says:
Who did these global warming people blame for the Ice Age. Was it the prehistoric creatures that roamed the world because there sure as hell wasn't cars to be blamed or oil,coal companies.Global warming is just a way to make money for people like Al Gore and that idiot Kennedy who fly around on their big ass Gulfstreams.Can you imagine people actually pay to hear these 2 nincompoops.
Speak Your Mind
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Midyear Planning Made Easy
If your company takes midyear planning rather casually, this could be your year to make it a more formal event. At Springfield ReManufacturing Corp., based in Springfield, Mo., midyear forecasts are similar to their year-end counterparts except they usually contain less ratio analysis and don't get into a full-blown five-year look into the future. Planning is a year-round event at SRC, but it kicks into high gear in April, when sales and marketing people receive guidelines for presenting their midyear plans to company leaders and board members in late June. Here's a checklist of some key areas and questions SRC's teams cover in their midyear presentations:
• Market analysis. What are the current business conditions we face as a company? Are there new government regulations, economic conditions, or technological breakthroughs that will affect us and our relationship with customers over the next 12 months?
• Year-to-date performance. Summarize our business activity from January through April. Present your totals in units and dollars (or some other numerical form) and explain any deviations from our original plan.
• May-December projections. Present the projected sales plan for the rest of the year in both units and dollars. Remember, your goal is at least X% growth. Then compare your expected year-end numbers to our plan's original year-end numbers and discuss any deviations, favorable and not so favorable.
• Price increases or decreases. Describe the progress you've made toward any planned price increases or decreases and come prepared to explain any changes.
• Promotions/advertising. What promotional and advertising programs have we already executed? Are there any in the pipeline? If so, bring us up to speed. Then summarize your budgeted expenditures and give a status report.
• Budget review. Compare our actual sales expense for the current year (January through April) to our planned budget. Be sure to includes salaries, travel and entertainment, sales concessions, and anything else that applies. Then project what our status will be by the end of the year.
• Competitive data. Identify and describe any major competitors for your product line or service and explain their marketing programs. Support your findings with comparative data such as size of customer base, number of employees and locations, pricing structure, net sales, G&A expense, net income, square footage, distribution methods, reputation, and image in the marketplace. Be sure to include product or service comparisons revealing our strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats.
• Contingency planning. Summarize contingencies for the current year, explain which ones have been executed, and provide due dates for those in the works.
Copyright 1999 Open-Book Management Inc.
Last updated: May 1, 1999
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Titan, in Greek religion and mythology, one of 12 primeval deities. The female Titan is also called Titaness. The Titans—six sons and six daughters—were the children of Uranus and Gaea. They were Kronos, Iapetus, Hyperion, Oceanus, Coeus, Creus, Theia, Rhea, Mnemosyne, Phoebe, Tethys, and Themis. The name Titan was sometimes applied also to their descendants, such as Prometheus, Atlas, Hecate, Selene, and Helios. The Titans, led by Kronos, deposed their father and ruled the universe. They were in turn overthrown by the Olympians, led by Zeus, in the battle called the Titanomachy. Zeus freed from Tartarus the Cyclopes and the hundred-handed giants, the Hecatoncheires, to aid him in the war. The Cyclopes forged Hades' helmet of darkness, Poseidon's trident, and Zeus' thunderbolts. With these weapons Zeus and his brothers were able to defeat the Titans. After the struggle Zeus sent Kronos to rule the Isle of the Blessed and condemned Atlas to bear the sky on his shoulders. Prometheus (and, in some myths, Oceanus and Themis), because he sided with Zeus, was allowed to remain on Olympus, but all the other Titans were condemned to Tartarus.
More on in Greek religion and mythology Titan from Infoplease:
See more Encyclopedia articles on: Ancient Religion
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How To Make Paper Out Of Lint
1lint box.jpg
Have you ever wondered what you can do with all that dryer lint that accumulates after you do your laundry?
In this Instructable I am going to show you how you can use lint to make paper.
Materials you will need:
Warm water
Wood frames (you can use two wood picture frames) or cardboard
Window screening
Scissors to cut the screening
Staple gun or hammer and nails
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Step 1: First Soak the Lint
The first step is to soak the lint in warm water for at least 30 minutes. This helps the lint to break down so that it's easier to blend during the next step. You should soak the lint in warm water until it becomes saturated and soft, the longer the better. If you have the time then soak the lint over night. You can also add other ingredients to be soaked in the water like shredded paper or leaves. Both paper and leaves will give the lint paper more body in the end.
Step 2: Make the Deckle and the Mold
While the lint is soaking you can make the deckle and the mold, integral parts of paper making. The mold is a frame with screening (like window screening) in the center that is used to catch the lint. The deckle is a frame without any screening. It is placed on top of the mold and gives the paper smooth edges.
Both should be the same size.
The deckle and the mold are used together: the mold on the bottom (screen facing up) and the deckle on top.
You can choose to make the frames with old wood pictures frames, or even cardboard covered in duct tape (so that it is water proof.)
Make sure the screening is pulled tightly across the frame.
To add the screening to the mold, use a staple gun or nails.
mmortensen1 year ago
First time I've tried this, but I knew a guy who used to make REALLY cool paper. I didn't have any bleach to lighten it, so I used a bit of RIT fabric dye to the soak. Hopefully come out with some pretty purple paper! I'll let everyone know how it goes :)
foobear1 year ago
Ah, I knew there was a reason to save dryer lint!
gbunting2 years ago
If you lay a sheet of netting or other textured surface under the paper and then iron the top surface of the paper, you will get an embossed paper with a glossy side. That's basically how they do it in the paper mills when they make envelope paper.
avoss22 years ago
Instead of squishing the water out with books, I just rolled it out with a rolling pin between a few towels. That worked well and fairly quickly and then I set the sheets of paper in the sun on a paper bag to dry. They stayed pretty flat that way. How were you able to get yours such a light colour? I bleached the crap out of my lint and still it is that nasty red/grey. If you have any tips on that please let me know!!
rcovin3 years ago
Thank you!
I'd bet you could make the paper stronger and crisper by adding a bit of gelatinized cornstarch to it. Take 1 cup of water, mix in 2 teaspoons of cornstarch, and microwave it until it turns clear; add to slurry as necessary (as determined by experimentation) and you've got yourself some nicely starched paper.
ninjapants6 years ago
This is pretty cool. How sturdy is the finished product? Could you write on it with a pen? Or would you have to add quite a bit of shredded paper to manage that?
AshleyAmber (author) ninjapants6 years ago
Hey, thanks for the comment. My paper actually ended up being a lot sturdier than I expected it would be. I can definitely write on it. I did add some shredded paper, but only about two sheets- I used mostly lint. One thing that might have helped to make it sturdier was the fact that I have pets, so my lint had a lot of dog hair in it. :) Another thing I meant to mention in my Instructable that you might find valuable is that if you would like the end product to be cleaner or prettier, you can add some bleach in the blender so that your paper is white.
I know that hemp paper can be bleached with ozone (as opposed to conventional dead-tree paper that they dye with chlorine, the source of the nasty rotten egg smell near papermills), maybe that could work here as well.
Isn't ozone poisonous?
Ozone is pure oxygen, which, like all things, is poisonous in amounts more than the body can handle, which in this case isn't very much :)
And...adding smog to your paper will turn it white? How odd. You could try pumping O3 in from a standard spa ozonator if you really want, but I think the "art paper" look might be a little cheaper...
fragmaster44 years ago
I think Felt would be best for this :)
fragmaster44 years ago
They did this in the old days except they used cotton pulp. The resulting "stuff" was called Slurry ;)
ellie1824 years ago
hooray for lint.
cutejuice4 years ago
I made some paper mache stuff out of dryer lint recently and I found it quite disgusting. Maybe my dryer lint is hairier than ordinary folks'. I wasn't banking on the hairiness. It was a little too avant garde for me.
chinchri5 years ago
hi...ahm, when i saw this project..i decided to make it because it is really FANTASTIC but then,we didn't come up with a "paper".i knew there was something wrong with our ingredients..i just need some advices..where can i exactly get the lint?
AshleyAmber (author) chinchri5 years ago
Hello! I have a dryer at my house so I have always have dryer lint. Dryer lint worked really well for me. One thing that is kind of fun is if you are interested in having your lint be a specific color- like red, you can wash a red towel or something to give you red lint. If you don't have a dryer I bet laundry mats would have a good amount of dryer lint. Hope that helps!
I remember doing this experiment in middle school, it's really cool for homemade cards and the such, I added some glitter to the tub for an extra punch.
caramello6 years ago
Great stuff! Just a quick question, how much lint do you need to make that piece of paper? A rough description (a fistful, etc) would do. Thanks!!
liza.lu6 years ago
That is so cool! I'm going to make that! I have a recipe for making dryer lint clay that I've been hanging on to for like 10 years and have still never done it, but I'll be sure to do this one.
How necessary is the blender step? Could I just knead it with my hands instead? 'Cause I don't really have a blender... Thank you!
AshleyAmber (author) threecheersfornick6 years ago
I'm sure that would be fine, just soak the lint for as long as possible so it gets really soft and broken down so it is easier to knead.
Okay, thank you!
rachel6 years ago
Fantastic! When I was in 5th grade or so, a friend and I made some paper as a science project. It came out about like egg carton. I don't remember at all what we made it from, though!
crestind6 years ago
Cool idea!
canida6 years ago
Neat! What a fantastic reuse project.
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Resolved questions
What's the difference between возвратить & вернуть?
In my book of verbs both возвратить & вернуть are listed as meaning "to return" in the perfective aspect. There is no indication, as far as I can tell, as to what the difference is between these two verbs. Can anyone enlighten me?
For learning: Russian
Base language: English
Category: Language
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There is no difference. "Вернуть" is said probably more often.
Ввозвратить is old and maybe more poetic verb , вернуть is more often used. Both verbs mean the same .
Absolutely the same thing - the full synonyms.
вернуть происходит от вертеть, возвращать - от вращать, что практически одно и тоже.
Смысл один и тодже только возвратить реже используют
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Undecided questions
anyone can explain the meaning of the last line?
Sirf keh jaaun ya
Aaasmaan pe likh doo
Teri taarifon mein
Chashme Baddoor...
baddoor matlab?
Read more:
and also.. rehbar matlab , living kya?
For learning: Hindi
Base language: Hindi
Category: Language
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Chashme Baddoro- To avoid the effects of an evil eye or far be the evil eye (chashm=sight, bad=evil, door=far).This is a phrase, taken from Persian not a pure Hindi phrase.
Rehbar- leader, guide, coach.
Actually Chashm-e-Baddoor (Persian, Urdu, Hindi: चश्म-ए-बददूर ) is a slogan extensively used in Iran, North India and Pakistan to ward-off the evil eye (which is called nazar in the region). It is a Persian language derivation which literally means "far be the evil eye.
In this song hero is saying that girl is so beautiful and she should be avoid from an evil eye.
Thank you
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/102796
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A counter-intuitive list of opportunities for newspapers
Decentralized processes are counter-intuitive. Having a single institution promise to cover "all the news that's fit to print" seems more reliable than having a bunch of random bloggers cover the news in an uncoordinated fashion. The problem is that, in reality, newspapers are neither as comprehensive nor as reliable as they like to pretend. Just as a few dozen professionals at Britannica couldn't produce an encyclopedia that was anywhere near as comprehensive as the amateur-driven Wikipedia, so a few thousand newspaper reporters can't possibly to cover the news as thoroughly as millions of Internet-empowered individuals can. This isn't to disparage the reporters and editors, who tend to be smart and dedicated. It's just that they're vastly outnumbered.
That's Timothy Lee on TechDirt reacting to Jesse Walker's list at The Nation on who would cover local news in the vacuum of shuttered newspapers.
Walker, however, does say newspapers have an opportunity "to tap the information already flowing from citizen to citizen without any journalist's intervention. Then you can help it flow farther."
Now that's a thought. Maybe his is a list of opportunities for newspapers? There I go being counter-intuitive again.
The short version of his list:
• The gadflies
• The activists.
• The insiders.
• The neighbors.
The history of newspapers' efforts in developing user generated content or citizen journalism is not a particularly uplifting tome. Maybe it doesn't need developing; it's already there?
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As Dec 31 passed, the clock struck 13
Keeble McFarlane
Saturday, January 05, 2013
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WELL, here we go again, starting another new year. As the days ticked by towards the end of 2012, we celebrated, wassailed, worshipped, overate, over-drank, exchanged gifts, and shared good times — all the usual things people do for the season. But there's something different about this year we've just embarked upon, isn't it? Or haven't you noticed — it's 1213! Be afraid! Be very afraid!!
Hold on a minute, what's there to be afraid of? Well, for many people, 13 is unlucky — a very unlucky number. For the rest us ordinary folk, not at all. No one is quite sure why, but the association of bad luck and 13 goes a long way back into the dim mists of history. In old Norse mythology, for instance, when Odin, chief of the gods in Valhalla, invited 11 close friends to dinner, Loki, the god of evil and turmoil, crashed the party, bringing the number to 13. One of the best-loved of the gods, Baldur, tried to throw him out, and in the ensuing scuffle was killed by an arrow tipped with mistletoe. For ancient Romans, the number 13 was a symbol of destruction, misfortune and death. Then there is the Last Supper, when Jesus sat down with his 12 disciples, only to be betrayed by Judas Iscariot considered by many number 13 on the list.
Nowadays, in our supposedly civilised and rational world, people are still spooked by the number. You will have to search very diligently to find a tall building with a 13th floor or the number 13 on a door. The owners and managers of those buildings will readily tell you that they are not superstitious, but business being business, they want to avoid having empty 13th floors or 13th suites on their hands because they can't find anybody who will rent them. Hotels all over the place have floors 12A or 14 and no suites numbered 13, and airlines avoid having a row 13. Again, the people who run these things will take great pains to assure you that they themselves aren't superstitious, but, you know, it's the customers.
Some building operators use a sneaky dodge to get around this. Toronto's financial district is anchored by a complex known as the Toronto-Dominion Centre, designed in the 1960s by the world-famous architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. The 13th floors of the five distinctive black-framed steel-and-glass towers are occupied by machinery such as transformers and ventilation systems. The guest elevators breeze past the 13th floor without a second thought while the workers use the service elevators to tend to the machinery. In the United States, the Smithsonian magazine claims that fear of the 13th costs the country around a billion dollars a year because people cancel flights, train or bus trips, stay home from work or avoid doing business.
We have even invented a name for this fear of the number 13 — the cumbersome triskaidekaphobia, which — in Greek from which it is derived -- means, literally, fear of three plus 10. Additionally, we have linked the number 13 to the sixth day of the week, which is also reputed to be unlucky, and have coined an even more cumbersome name for fear of Friday the 13th — paraskevidekatriaphobia.
This goes back to the ancient days when many of the old gods met violent ends and was reinforced in the 14th century when Geoffrey Chaucer wrote his Canterbury Tales. Some people point to the year 1307, when King Philip of France arrested the Templar Grand Master Jacques de Molay and several Knights Templar on Friday, October 13. Most of them were tortured until they died. The fact that Jesus was crucified on a Friday also adds to the mythology. The average year contains about three Fridays the 13th, as did 2012. This year, though, we get by with only one — and we'll have to wait until September.
By comparison, the number 12 is considered by people in most religions and cultures around the world as lucky or auguring good fortune. There were 12 gods of Olympus, the zodiac has 12 signs, there are 12 months in the year, 12 hours on the clock, 12 tribes of Israel, 12 apostles of Jesus, 12 successors of Muhammad in the Shia sect of Islam, and most consumer goods are sold by the dozen. Here, 13 is not unlucky, as in the baker's dozen, when the seller offers an extra bun or loaf as brawta.
But 13 is also neutral or actually lucky.
Remember Apollo 13? That was one of a series of missions the US space agency, NASA, sent to continue its exploration of the moon. The craft developed serious technical problems along the way and the crew had to abort the mission and jerry-rig a fix to allow it to return and land safely. So, while the mission failed, it turned out all right in the end.
In Jewish culture, a young person becomes an adult at 13, celebrating that transition with the Bar or Bat Mitzvah. The moon is governed by 13s -- it moves 13 degrees around the earth every day and it takes 13 days to change from full moon to new moon. It also takes 13 days to change back, with one day of full moon and one day of new to equal 28 days of the lunar cycle. In a century, there will be about 37 years with 13 full moons and 63 years with 12 full moons. So every three or fours years we will see a year with 13 full moons. In the entertainment world, performers generally work on 13-week contracts, because that's the actual length of a quarter.
For me, 13 is a neutral number. I spent most of my formative years at a house numbered 13 in the east end of Kingston. Those of us who lived there experienced the normal vicissitudes of life, and for the most part weren't even conscious of any influence either way because of the number on our front gate.
Superstition is a peculiar thing — even otherwise quite intelligent people believe in all sorts of mumbo-jumbo, including that 13 is unlucky. The legendary US President Franklin Roosevelt is reputed to have been very wary of the number 13. He went to great lengths to avoid having a meal at which that number of people were present. If he arranged a luncheon and someone cancelled, he would invite his secretary to join in to avoid seating 13. True to form, the French have a description of the fix for this. A host who has only 13 people for dinner can hire a "quatorzième" or 14th, to sit in and make up a safe number.
I witnessed a similar instance many years ago when I worked at RJR. The British High Commissioner, a finicky and prickly little man, invited a group of reporters to lunch at the residence on Trafalgar Road to bid farewell to a popular information attaché who was being re-assigned. Someone didn't show up and the diplomat was put out because there were 13 people at the table. As we finished the meal, he asked the steward who had been serving us to sit and bring the assembly to 14. Then we all rose and went about our business!
So, as 2013 moves on, ignore the nonsense and have the best time you can.
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Within days of successfully imposing a fine in the amount of $10.3 million against Griffiths Energy pursuant to the Canadian Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act (CFPOA), the Canadian government announced on February 5,...more
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Results tagged “Globe and Mail” from Joe Lavin's Humor Column
The Globe and Mail: Love You, Hate Your President
"Do you know what your president just did?" There is nothing that can dampen a romantic mood quite like those words. Unfortunately, this is what happens when you are an American dating a Canadian, and your president is George W. Bush. It doesn't matter that I never voted for the man and rarely agree with him myself. Whenever he does or says something Jody deems stupid, she tells me. There are some who worry about Bush's effect on my country's standing in the world. I worry more about his effect on my love life.
• ©1995-2009 Joe Lavin
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Johnny Wander | Updates Tuesday and Thursday - sukiyaki en Okay, so ... <p> ... this joke takes a little bit of explanation unless you have a rudimentary understanding of Japanese. Basically, <a href="">sukiyaki</a> is a dish and daisuki means "to like a lot". So, if you really like sukiyaki and (terrible) puns, you can say "daisuki-yaki" and ... </p><p>...</p><p>*stares in Yuko's direction* Well, I know someone who feel compelled to say it every time we have sukiyaki at her parents' house. </p><p>One of the anecdotes on Wikipedia explains the origins of the word sukiyaki: the kanji in sukiyaki basically mean "plow" and "cook". This is because medieval farmers would heat up their plows and cook the meat right on top of them! I thought that was a neat explanation, whether or not it's true. You can read a whole lot more about it at the wikipedia article up top, or <a href="">right here</a>. </p> ananth daisuki-yaki pun sukiyaki yuko Thu, 12 Mar 2009 18:49:38 +0000 Ananth 154 at inscrutable language joke <div class="field field-type-image field-field-comic-image"> <div class="field-items"> <div class="field-item"><img src="" alt="048 - inscrutable language joke" title="again, pardon my poor calligraphy" width="500" height="750" class="imagefield imagefield-field_comic_image" /></div> </div> </div> <div class='field'> <div class='field-items'> <div class='field-item'>again, pardon my poor calligraphy</div> </div> </div> ananth japanese japanese food sukiyaki yuko yuko's mom Thu, 12 Mar 2009 18:25:42 +0000 Ananth 153 at
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Joystiq Joystiq Joystiq en-us Copyright 2014 AOL, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. Blogsmith<![CDATA[Nintendo patents inflatable cushion -- you know, for horseback riding]]> discovered a European patent filed by Nintendo for ... that thing. It's an "inflatable air cushion or other type seat" with a pocket for the Wii Remote. It's for simulating horseback riding, or, as the patent description notes, to simulate the riding of other animals, real or imagined, or even vehicles.
A Nunchuk (or another Wii Remote) is used as the reins of the beast, and the Wii Remote in the pocket detects the player's movement on the seat, which can be used either for balance or, in one example, to indicate the gait of the horse: "gentle forward/backward motion = walking, fast forward/backward rocking motion = gallop."
While we don't feel any particular pull to play a game by bouncing on a cushion, we really want this controller idea to come to fruition -- because we know that every time we get to write about the Nintendo Bouncy Seat is going to be like Christmas morning. Seriously, Nintendo, thank you.
JoystiqNintendo patents inflatable cushion -- you know, for horseback riding originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 11 Aug 2009 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>
accessoriescontrollercushionhorsebackNintendopatentwhatWiiTue, 11 Aug 2009 10:00:00 EST
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copy title clip to modify the text
Hi I am new here. At the time I create my first slideshow.
One question:
How I can copy my first title-clip to modify the text for an other position?
You can make a title, save it, and then use it as a template. If you put the text "%s" in the title template, the %s will be replaced with the text in the title description.
I don't know a way to copy a title and to be able to modify the copy. I have only managed to copy the title in the timeline, but it will be a copy of the same title text.
This also depends on which version of Kdenlive you're using. I'm not sure when this first appeared, but in Kdenlive 0.9.3, in the top left hand corner, to the right of the first icons are two chevrons which when clicked say:- "open document" and "Save as".
Not yet used it, but there will come a time :-)
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Wondering Why?
Why Humans should be concerned with the Extinction Rate?
Why Humans should be concerned with the Extinction Rate?
There are several species these days that becomes obsolete or at a very risky extinction rates. Hence, extinction of certain specie can also cause the extinction of one or can cause a wave effect. Human should also be concerned with extinction rates because of few important reasons.
One among these reasons is that they are the one who are doing things that further triggered the extinction rates. This will not affect only one species, as what was mentioned earlier extinction is more like a chain, extinction rate of certain specie can probably trigger the extinction rates of the others. Therefore, as human or as specie that are more capable of controlling such circumstances, you would have to be fully aware of it.
Another reason is to make human realize the effect of the things that they are into as well as the things that they can continue doing. These things can include deforestation, resource mining, and urbanization. Being concerned with the extinction rates definitely open the eyes of most individuals of the effects that their activities can cause to nature.
Lastly, this can also open the eyes of people to the things that may cause them by their wrong activities. Once the natural calamity arises especially today that extinction rates are quickly increasing, they will realize the importance of being aware what is happening around especially in nature. The worst part is that, they will first experience trials and disasters because of the natural calamity for them to realize that it is vital for them to realize their wrong.
There are several species that are gone and are only known by history. This species include the dinosaurs , mammoths, and various animals from ice age. As a person, it is understandable for you to imagine what it looks like physically, well if people are aware of the extinction rates way back then, these species probably exist till now.
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/102984
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Pregnancy and drinking: Is it OK?
Sina WeiboPrintShare
For most pregnant ladies, enjoying a drink at the local bar isn’t an option, or is it?
A study just released in the british medical journal found that when moms consumed a moderate amount of alcohol, it had no adverse effect on her child’s balance years later…a marker for brain development.
What’s a moderate amount? Three to seven glasses of alcohol a week.
But don’t expect that same recommendation in the United States.
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists says studies have consistently shown even a little bit of alcohol is risky.
Their advice? Don’t chance it.
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/102998
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On the appropriate use of Social Media
Image attribution to nicholaslaughlin on Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholaslaughlin/
For the first time in six years, that I know, I have been publicly affronted on twitter.
Who did this thing and what did I do to deserve such overt vituperation?
Well – it was the MP Douglas Carswell to be precise.
He posted this tweet on Saturday 5th January 2012:
Without giving a Tweet by Tweet analysis (which I leave to you, dear reader) I merely reproduce the exchange that followed, below:
As you can see Mr Carswell appears, here, somewhat tetchy in the exchange.
I was most surprised and not a little unamused to receive a response more resonant of that someone might utter under the age of seven rather than a more considered reply; in effect, a schoolboy taunt.
Now normally I would just pass this off with a shrug but I thought it might be of interest to other users to highlight this kind of behaviour that goes on on Twitter especially from an elected representative.
Now I have made countless mistakes on Twitter over the years and many Social Media Faux Pas but I have always stuck with the axiom – “Say nothing to anyone on Social Media you wouldn’t say to someone face to face.”
Don’t get me wrong I expect robust and incisive responses to my views. However, lowering the argument to that of an infantile playground retort, especially when it comes from an elected MP in the public eye, does nothing for their reputation other than to reinforce the stereotype of how easy politicians can be dismissive of and blind to others’ views. It also exhibits a distinct lack of civil behaviour, and a refusal to engage in reasoned debate.
There are social protocols that are beginning to emerge on Twitter and I would suggest that public servants adhere to these rather that indulge in knee-jerk dismissals that may be more at home in the House of Commons.
In other words – leave that behaviour where you came from, we don’t want it here thank you very much.
Posted on by leoncych in Continual Professional Development, distributed networking, Early Years, Educational Change, Good mannners, Peer to Peer, twitter
4 Responses to On the appropriate use of Social Media
1. Ian
Get over it? Really worth a blog post and this attention?
Oooh you were insulted by something mildly insulting while involved in a text based conversation.
Appropriate – your capable of passing judgement, fire away.
• admin
Thank you for your contribution QED. Oh, and your email is?
2. Alex
Leon, we’ve chatted about this earlier today on twitter. I too engaged with Douglas about his tweet and his logic. As you’ve been blocked you were unable to see his actual meaning in his tweet: free meant freedom to buy what you like, rather than free at the point of sale. Hence the reason he thought you were nit picking. However, I fully agree with you. He is representing 1000s of people with his views and his retort. His twitter account represents him as an MP, as the handle attests.
If I received a retort from that from an MP I’d be just as affronted. However, no, that’s the wrong response; I’d be, and am, disappointed with them.
We must remember 140 characters is not an easy way to communicate however he has a responsibility to behave better than that; just like a teacher or anyone else who you would expect professional behaviour from.
He claims that he only blocks people who are rude to him. I don’t think he had cause to in this case, but you did put the thought in his head :)
C’est la vie.
• admin
Hi Alex, yes to a robust dialectic to reach the truth but no to the impious nature of the response. I have no objection, really, to being blocked or being told I’ve got hold of the wrong meaning. The curt nature and apparent dismissal wasn’t helpful. Thank you, once again, for clarification.
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46 U.S. Code § 50305 - Appointment of trustee or receiver and operation of vessels
(a) Appointment of Trustees and Receivers.—
(1) Appointment of secretary.— In a proceeding in a court of the United States in which a trustee or receiver may be appointed for a corporation operating a vessel of United States registry between the United States and a foreign country, on which the United States Government holds a mortgage, the court may appoint the Secretary of Transportation as the sole trustee or receiver (subject to the direction of the court) if—
(A) the court finds that the appointment will—
(i) inure to the advantage of the estate and the parties in interest; and
(ii) tend to carry out the purposes of this subtitle; and
(B) the Secretary expressly consents to the appointment.
(2) Appointment of other person.— The appointment of another person as trustee or receiver without a hearing becomes effective when ratified by the Secretary, but the Secretary may demand a hearing.
(b) Operation of Vessels.—
(1) In general.— If the court is unwilling to allow the trustee or receiver to operate the vessel in foreign commerce without financial aid from the Government pending termination of the proceeding, and the Secretary certifies to the court that the continued operation of the vessel is essential to the foreign commerce of the United States and is reasonably calculated to carry out the purposes of this subtitle, the court may allow the Secretary to operate the vessel, either directly or through a managing agent or operator employed by the Secretary. The Secretary must agree to comply with terms imposed by the court sufficient to protect the parties in interest. The Secretary also must agree to pay all operating losses resulting from the operation. The operation shall be for the account of the trustee or receiver.
(2) Payment of operating losses and other amounts.— The Secretary has no claim against the corporation, its estate, or its assets for operating losses paid by the Secretary, but the Secretary may pay amounts for depreciation the Secretary considers reasonable and other amounts the court considers just. The payment of operating losses and the other amounts and compliance with terms imposed by the court shall be in satisfaction of any claim against the Secretary resulting from the operation of the vessel.
(3) Deemed operation by government.— A vessel operated by the Secretary under this subsection is deemed to be a vessel operated by the United States under chapter 309 of this title.
(Pub. L. 109–304, § 8(b),Oct. 6, 2006, 120 Stat. 1565.)
Historical and Revision Notes
46 App.:1247.
June 29, 1936, ch. 858, title IX, § 908, as added Pub. L. 95–598, title III, § 334, Nov. 6, 1978, 92 Stat. 2680; Pub. L. 97–31, § 12(134), Aug. 6, 1981, 95 Stat. 165.
In subsection (a)(1), before subparagraph (A), the words “Notwithstanding any other provision of law” and “bankruptcy, equity, or admiralty” are omitted as unnecessary.
In subsection (a)(2), the words “but the Secretary may demand a hearing” are substituted for “unless the Secretary shall deem a hearing necessary” for clarity.
In subsection (b)(1), the words “subject to the orders of the court” and “comply with the terms imposed by the court” are omitted as unnecessary.
In subsection (b)(2), the words “operating losses paid by the Secretary” are substituted for “the amount of such payments” for clarity.
In subsection (b)(3), the words “vessel operated by the United States” are substituted for “vessel of the United States” for clarity and consistency with chapter 309.
46 USCDescription of ChangeSession YearPublic LawStatutes at Large
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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English homepage
Language: Old English
Origin: curs
2 noun
Related topics: Magic
curse2 [countable]
1 a swear word or words that you say because you are very angry:
He muttered a curse under his breath.
2ROM a word or sentence used to ask God or a magical power to do something bad to someone or something:
He believed that someone had put a curse on the house.
3 something that causes trouble, harm etc
curse of
Noise is one of the curses of modern-day life.
the curse
old-fashioned a menstrual period
Dictionary pictures of the day
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/103046
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Why I am a Christian
Professor Bernard J. F. Lonergan
The fundamental thing is God's gift of His love. And the heart has reasons that reason doesn't know. That's the basic thing about faith. And to go further than that whom do we depend upon? The prophets, Jesus Christ, the Apostles and so on. It's a historical problem. And you have to do the history not as though you're studying a life of Christ in the same way as you write a life of Julius Caesar but in the light of faith, in the light of loving God above all. God has flooded our inmost heart with His Love through the Holy Spirit He has given us. Romans 5:5. And you carry out your studies in the light of that Love.
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View History
Your Position: Home > Led lights info > How to Get 12 Volts From My 24 Volt Bus
How to Get 12 Volts From My 24 Volt Bus
LED lights from China / 2013-01-14
The conversion of direct current, or DC, voltages presents a greater design challenge than the conversion of alternating current, or AC, voltages. AC voltages can be increased or decreased with a simple transformer circuit, but DC voltage conversion generally relies on linear or switching regulators. A 24 VDC bus is common in industrial, aeronautical, military and many other systems. The components in these systems, though, often require lower supply voltages, such as 12V or 5V. Other People Are Reading How to Change a 24 Volt to a 12 Volt How to Use a 12 Volt Bulb on a 24 Volt Battery Instructions Converter Modules 1
Purchase a DC-DC converter module that meets your requirements for input voltage range, output voltage accuracy and output current. An extensive selection of converter modules is available from numerous manufacturers and catalog distributors. These modules provide excellent functionality with minimal effort on your part; however, they are expensive, and they are usually larger than custom-designed solutions.
Connect the input terminals on the converter module to your 24V bus, and connect the output terminals to the equipment that needs 12V. Most modules come with screw terminals or large solder lugs that allow for simple wire connections, so there is no need for a circuit board.
Insert any passive components that are recommended by the module's data sheet. DC-DC converters often require external capacitors, inductors or resistors to function properly.
Linear Regulators and Switching Regulators 4
Use a linear regulator to convert your voltage if your required output current is low. If a linear regulator reduces the input current by more than a few volts, the power dissipation can quickly become dangerously large: dissipated power = (input voltage - output voltage) x (output current squared).
Choose a linear regulator that meets your requirements for input voltage, output voltage, output current and overall power dissipation. Linear regulators only have three basic terminals because the input and output share a common ground. Connect 24V to the input terminal, 12V to the output terminal and both grounds to the ground terminal. The data sheet will indicate additional capacitors, and sometimes resistors, that are required for optimal functionality.
Use a switching regulator if your output current is substantial, or if you need electrical isolation between the input ground and output ground. Switching regulators are complex devices that require careful (and sometimes extensive) circuit design and precise circuit board layout. However, they are much more efficient than linear regulators, and a custom-designed switching regulator circuit can be much smaller and cheaper than a purchased module.
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Long vs. Short Putts
February 2, 2010 - Steve Anderson
When putting, the length of your putt will determine different strategies. For short putts under 10-feet, your #1 goal should be accuracy or hitting your ball on the proper line. Speed is not often an issue on a 3-foot putt, hitting it straight is. Realizing that if your ball is even an inch off line you won't make it.
On longer putts, especially the 30 or 30 footers your speed control is most important. There's no reason to spend a long time figuring out your line if you're going to leave the putt 8 feet short. Most 3-putts occur not from hitting the ball off-line badly but from leaving your first putt too long or short of the hole. A great thought on a long putt is to roll you ball to within 3-feet of the hole, almost like there's a hula-hoop laying around the hole. If you can get the ball into this 3 foot circle then you won't have much problem with your second putt.
So, on your short putts key on your aim more and on your long putts key on your speed. You'll be knocking shots off your score in no time.
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/103063
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Banner - Exposing the con |
A Volney
of Images
Hubbard the Stage Hypnotist Series
Hubbard, the Master Stage Hypnotist! Index
The Anderson Report
on Hypnotism
in Scientology
Use of the "Confusion Technique" in scientology
Hypnosis in scientology - The Gradation Chart Revealed - LINK
Hypnosis Is
What Works in scientology by
Don Carlo
Hypnosis Demonstration and Collective on Hubbard's Use of Covert Hypnosis - Exposed
Dianetics in the 1952 Journal of Hypnosis and Instantaneous Hypnosis" by Harry Arons
scientology's Source of the "E-Meter Stress Test" and More From 1943 - George Estabrooks
A Comparison of Hypnosis and Auditing from Ex-Member who Became a Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist
Hubbard's own statements about Hypnosis from his books and Scientology official publications.
The Rape of the Mind by Joost Meerloo 1957 - LINK
books scared them - canada library association poster thumbnail
charles manson thumbnail link to
Charles Manson had a scientology e-meter at Spahn ranch"
Visual Fraud Tour
Help for Scientologists
Scientology's Scandals!
Resources & Related Links
How to Get Involved
Links to information related to this article
Pattern of Lying to Smear ex-members and critics
Terminology FAQ Definitions for Scientology Lingo by ex-member Martin Hunt
About L Ron Hubbard's Death
Warrior's Archive
The Very Strange Death of L Ron Hubbard the King of CONs
Through the Door:
Ex-member Interviews
Movies that are helpful for understanding Scientology:
The Truman Show 1998
The Sleuth 1972
Understanding OSA and the Guardians Office:
Cape Fear 1962
The Spanish Prisoner
More for Scientologists
image of Volney Matheson demonstrating Electropsychometric instruction
Click on image above for high resolution image at 300 dpi
Readers will find the real reason that Hubbard went to war with Volney Mathison. Mr. Mathison denounced Hubbard as a fraud and a Hypnotist!! and this was in 1954!!
Chapter 6
One peculiar situation sometimes is encountered in cases where creative image therapy is introduced to a patient who, unfortunately, has read books on the subject of psychoanalysis or psychiatry. Often such a patient will wanly inform you that he's sorry, but he can't visualize or create mental images to save his life. Not a one. It may be suspected that this type of patient is trying, in his aberrated way, to impress upon you the awful state of his case. He's bad off, so far gone he can't even visualize. He's putting you on notice--unless you are a super-therapist, you'll never be able to aid him. If you happen to get angry at the fellow, you might as well quit at once. But if you are just amused, you can agree with him. Inform him it's common, you have had such cases. Then with assurance and positiveness, try this: "In this situation there is a useful substitute. Merely imagine that you can see mental images. There's no question about it--you can't see them. But anybody unless dead or unconscious, can imagine or have an idea of what it would be like if he could create mental images." This sometimes works!
But herewith a more practical and effective procedure. Develop good understanding and rapport between yourself and your patient. Then execute the psychological maneuver illustrated in the following example.
The patient in this case was the wife of a foreign ambassador, an attractive but self-conscious woman who suffered from acute feelings of inferiority in the brilliant gatherings that she had to attend. She came to me by way of an official of our New York exporting firm, who previously had given her for reading one of my earlier manuals that dealt to some extent with mental-imaging, exercises. Then she had attended some "Scientology" group, where she found there was quite a to-do about 'mocking up", i.e., creating, various arbitrary systems of mental images. Listening meekly to the fictitiously self-assured gabble of this group about the extensiveness of their "mock-ups", she became convinced that in this circle, too, she was hopelessly inferior. Try as she would, she declared, she couldn't create mock-ups" or mental images. She hadn't even the slightest idea, she said, what such an experience would be like.
After taking special care to establish a very good relationship with her, I queried:
"Whom do you most love?"
"My oldest son," she replied, after a pause. "I love him dearly."
"Please describe your son to me," I requested her.
"What color is his hair?"
"What color are his eyes?"
"How tall is he?"
"Six feet exactly."
"How much does he weigh?"
"One hundred and seventy pounds, I think."
"Describe to me a time, if you can, when he appeared before your friends, or at a gathering, and you felt very glad and proud that he was your son."
"Oh.. yes ..." and she described a gala event in detail. Then I finally queried: "But how do you KNOW that his eyes and hair are black, that he is tall and slender, that he looked so fine in that gathering, and so on?"
"Why, she replied, unhesitatingly, "I CAN SEE HIM!" " "And that," I replied, "is what is meant--and ALL that is meant--by saying that one is creating a mental image."
As I then painstakingly assured my patient, the difficulty seems to be, mainly, that persons who in general feel inferior, are apt, as has been stated previously in this book, to assume that a mental or psychic image should have much of the color, brilliance, intensity, and stability of a picture on a cinemascopic screen.
This is simply not the case.
Mental images are a rapidly duplicated series of exceedingly transient flickers. Each one is fleeting, evanescent.
"But those" she exclaimed. "They are so filmy, such gossamer things. Thinner. than spider webs. hey no more than come and they are gone. How can such weak things have great power?"
The power of psychic images may not inhere in the transient images themselves. The power is perhaps that which creates the images. Each image is without weight, length, breadth, or depth, has no physical appurtenances apparently, and persists but a microsecond or so. Yet the creating and duplicating of such images initiates and accomplishes, in time, the physical act of CREATION.
The longer one considers the phenomena of creative imagery, on the level of awareness, the more clearly can one see that this activity is basic to almost every other. This, too, discloses the true nature of that which is generally called "faith". "Faith", in any religion, comprises the never-faltering duplication of psychic image systems wherein one is positively ALREADY ACCOMPLISHING SOME ACT, ACHIEVING SOME DESIRED EVENT. The mental images themselves are only of FULFILLMENT. These, the actual images, are as of NOW, only and forever as of now. They cannot be of the "future". One "sees" them NOW. In "faith cures" of actual disease, the psychic image pattern of the re-created structure is as of NOW. Not going to be, not will be, but NOW. Psychic images seem uncreatable 3.n the future sense. The image is created and duplicated NOW. The new structure is already completed--on the psychic image level.
If it is not first created on this level it will not be completed on the physical level. This is, must surely be, the mode of all Creation. The whole material universe is a manifestation of this prior creation by something that may be termed Divine Mind. It seems obvious that our physical bodies and all the structures that surround us--vegetable, animal, and mineral--are manifestations of some Creative Power. The body and everything physically pertaining to it is the instrument of the psyche. What other purpose can it have?
Unexpected diversionary situations also occur. The writer, determined as usual to "find out the facts", once made an appointment with a local female "graduate" of this touch-this-touch-that-as-I-comrnand-you school, and presented himself as a patient. The lady operator was incredibly attired--or rather unattired, for she had very little on-- and before long it became exceedingly obvious that she was not so much interested in having the "patient" touch a dirty spot on a chair or fondle a door knob as she was in having him touch things on her. This game, which has "playing postoffice" beat four ways from Sunday, could speedily lead into interesting but compromising goings-an. Further checking disclosed that at the "training center" of this concern, the mixed company of students, outside of formal school hours, might be suspected of engaging extensively in this and other equally bizarre "techniques".
Sex is nice--but the sexual embrace ought to be frank and whole-hearted, and not a corollary of some psychic-drugging procedure. Really, the sex phases of such a system are of no particular significance. What IS important is that the basic motive is to take the victim to the cleaners for every dollar he has or can beg, steal, or borrow. And it's incredible how much money the hypnotized disciples of a clever and ruthless operator will plead and beg of him to accept from them.
Creative Image Therapy
by Volney G Mathison
(c) 1954 by Matheson Electropsychometers International
Scanned and OCR'd by Exposing the CON
My Exit page for Scientologists and ex-members
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Foolin' Around
32 Count 4 Walls Beginner
Choreographed by: Rafel Corbi (ES) (1st August 2013)
Choreographed to: Foolin' Around on Bakersfield by Vince Gill and Paul Franklin
Intro: 20 Style: Country
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Mad Cat
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/103091
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Mono Discussion: Stallman Warns, Ubuntu Dismissive
Jun 29, 2009
The catalyst for Stallman's position was the inclusion of Tomboy note-taking software into an unstable branch of Debian. Many developers feared that Microsoft may lay licensing claims against Mono. These developers have now got some prominent protection in the form of Richard Stallman in an article on the Free Software Foundation (FSF) website. Stallman considers Debian's decision to include Mono to be moving in a "risky direction," with Microsoft possibly using patent claims to "force all free C# implementations underground some day." Thus he warns not only against implementing Mono, but also C#-based software. Should the case arise of "losing the use of C#," all applications based on it (such as Tomboy) will also be lost. "That doesn't make them unethical, but it means that writing them and using them is taking a gratuitous risk."
Ubuntu users have long been discussing this issue, but with a different response from Ubuntu. Colin Watson summarizes the position of its technical board on the issue as, "there appears to be no significant cause for concern." "In the case of Mono," he goes on, "Canonical (who would bear most of the liability for any violation) does not currently believe this to be a major risk, as should be evident from the fact that it has been shipped in Ubuntu main since 5.10 and in the default desktop since 6.10." The selection of Mono applications were introduced, allegedly, based on their merits, but "were there to be an issue, Mono would be easy to extricate... In short, Mono is currently well-maintained in Ubuntu...."
Stallman has a much different view and his appeal is quite clear: "In other words, we should discourage people from writing programs in C#. Therefore, we should not include C# implementations in the default installation of GNU/Linux distributions, and we should distribute and recommend non-C# applications rather than comparable C# applications whenever possible."
Related content
• great post
• Mono - The Future
The goal is to get MONO so deep into Linux that it would be hard to extricate. Second, Microsoft kill all distributions but the one that went to bed with. Finally they buy Novell and start selling SUSE Microsoft, that's why De Icaza is working so hard to achieve. He doesn't care about the community but his company which is a propietary one and their Redmond Masters.
• mono
I don't like seeing mono or applications built on it included. I moved to linux to get away from microsoft so it is frustrating to see mono creeping in. I know there are many people who think it is great and I respect their viewpoint but I would prefer to see not installed by default. An opt-in-by-installing-it-yourself approach seems better to me.
• Mono dependance
Apps based on mono don't really bother me too much, as long as they are not the defaults apps in a distro. Mono based apps should be easy to install and remove. The problem arises when many apps are built with C# and included in the distro as defaults. I feel mono based apps should be treated the same way as proprietary drivers. We should be free to use them, but they should not be the defaults in any distro.
• Freedom to Control
Freedom to control others is not freedom. Its power. Noone should have power over another
• For Certain
"The danger is that Microsoft is probably planning to force all free C# implementations underground some day using software patents." Really? Has he a crystal ball and knows this for certain?
No, he doesn't know that for certain, which can be easily discerned from the use of the word "probably" and not, say, "definitely", for example. Given Microsoft's track record of subterfuge and treachery, I'd say the use of "probably" is justified.
• @alan
"Really? Has he a crystal ball and knows this for certain?" Of course he doesn't, that's why he is suggesting we move away from it. If there is a risk, whether it's small or great, let's get rid of that risk from hurting us.
Microsoft thinks the same thing. Why do you think they all of a sudden stopped using the 'netbook' moniker and moved to the very marketing unfriendly 'low cost small notebook PCs'? Because Psion took to Intel court over the use of that name. Microsoft don't have a "crystal ball" either, but they aren't going to sit and wait around with that risk over their heads, so they got rid of the netbook from their marketing material. It totally makes sense and is a great way of protecting themselves.
But because free software advocates want to do the same we are called "absurd" and are branded with the very emotive tag of "anti-mono"??
Wake up.
• Stallman's statement... meh
As someone who has tried to make sense out of the mono debate with a somewhat open mind, I was disappointed by Stallman's statement. RMS usually has something insightful to say on these issues, but in this case his statement was weak and borderline absurd to anyone who has seriously followed this issue. I mean: "The danger is that Microsoft is probably planning to force all free C# implementations underground some day using software patents." Really? Has he a crystal ball and knows this for certain?
I guess basically all this statement really does is establish that RMS is on the anti-mono side. It has, unfortunately, added no substance to the debate.
• Freedom
Freedom is never "free" it requires hard work to obtain and diligence to maintain.
• How free is Freedom?
> So Stallman is really saying what so many say that freedom should not be really free.
Yes, that's the whole point.
I cannot have total freedom: e.g., I must not be free to do to others whatever I want. I must be prohibited from having the freedom to hurt others. Even if what I do is not wrong from my point of view, it can be from others'... also, It is necessary to consider consequences of what we do. Allowing all freedom to someone who wants to hinder others' freedom is not really wise, is it?
> How quaint the man who wants freedom only wants his version of freedom.
Is it better to allow Mono to taint the well? Do you think one should have the freedom to drop poison in our Free/Libre well?
Well, sorry, but that begs the question: what do YOU really want in the future to happen?
• Don't trust them.
That's not true. He hasn't said you can't do it, but is saying be careful and think twice.
And I agree with him.
Microsoft may be making these 'license available' claims about Mono, but where is it? Microsoft should put up the license or we should kick them out. Everyone has a real bad gut feeling about this.
Look at how they took Tom Tom to court, for the use of FAT. That was just a process so that they could get use of Tom Tom's technologies which they were already infringing on. They are more lawyers than an software company now, and the lawyers are waiting for Mono to get so far into the Linux system so that when they do go for us, it'll be so far in it will temporarily stall us, or so they can steal some cool, differentiating technology that we will have come up with.
If you pass a house everyday and see the same dog barking and madly pulling at it's chain to get at you, would you walk into it's playground??
• Mono
Of course they don't see a problem with it. Not until its such a huge part of linux that we can't get rid of it. Then microsoft will strike. Lets start with this. And then start adding other microsoft code and features into Ubuntu. Then after they ream us for everything linux is worth, they can call ubuntu "windows 8" and start charging everybody for it. I say keep the garbage out. Don't let it start. If people want to develop for linux, use true linux languages and development tools, the way its meant to be done. Just like the ubuntu clan to ignore all the traditional basics our software was built on. Thats why I quit running ubuntu, just a fan boy os with no real respect for its linux roots. Might as well be called MS Ubuntu as far as I'm concerned.
• Mono
So Stallman is really saying what so many say that freedom should not be really free. How quaint the man who wants freedom only wants his version of freedom
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Posted by: Meg (
Date: Fri Aug 23 05:43:57 2002
There is a part in Mulan that reminds me of TLK. When those three guys were chasing Mulan,(on of them is Ling. I can't remember the other two, but I think one's Chow or something) Ling and Chow almost crashed into the line for rice. Then the fat guy bumps into Ling and makes the whole line fall. Sorta like when Banzi and Shenzi almost fall of the cliff but stop, until Ed crashes into them and sends Banzi flying!
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Du är här
Publiceringsår: 2010
Språk: Engelska
Sidor: 801-806
Publikation/Tidskrift/Serie: Journal of comparative physiology. A, Neuroethology, sensory, neural, and behavioral physiology
Volym: 196
Dokumenttyp: Artikel
Förlag: Springer
Ball rolling in dung beetles is thought to have evolved as a means to escape intense inter- and intra-specific competition at the dung pile. Accordingly, dung beetles typically roll along a straight-line path away from the pile, this being the most effective escape strategy for transporting dung to a suitable burial site. In this study, we investigate how individual diurnal dung beetles, Scarabaeus (Kheper) nigroaeneus, select the compass bearing of their straight-line rolls. In particular, we examine whether roll bearings are constant with respect to geographic cues, celestial cues, or other environmental cues (such as wind direction). Our results reveal that the roll bearings taken by individual beetles are not constant with respect to geographic or celestial references. Environmental cues appear to have some influence over bearing selection, although the relationship is not strong. Furthermore, the variance in roll bearing that we observe is not affected by the presence or absence of other beetles. Thus, rather than being constant for individual beetles, bearing selection varies each time a beetle makes a ball and rolls it away from the dung pile. This strategy allows beetles to make an efficient escape from the dung pile while minimizing the chance of encountering competition.
• Biology and Life Sciences
• ISSN: 1432-1351
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View Single Post
Old 08-13-2011, 06:38 PM #8
Kurgan's Avatar
Join Date: Nov 1997
Location: The Dawn of Time
Posts: 18,319
LFN Staff Member 10 year veteran!
Sorry to get off topic. Game companies decide what they're going to do. Sometimes a weaker console just gets a "downgrade" other times it's more like a different game. You could ask why the Wii version has features that none of the other ports has and so forth.
It's easiest to just make one game and downgrade the graphics or remove features to port it to weaker consoles. Some of the structures are different or there's some other reason to just make a different game with some similarities if you can't re-create it exactly.
Honestly I'm disappointed that the PC version (which could have been the ultimate edition) didn't have any new features and didn't have the multiplayer that only the wii version got. And why didn't the Wii version of FU2 (the only one to have multiplayer options) have a totally different type of MP gameplay than either TFU or even the single player campaign? Variety? Who knows.
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We watch movies of murder and we censor the breast
Give thanks for the murders of Chris Columbus
We kill our own and we vote for the men
The lesser of evils and us starring the role of victim
I wonder how we change if we can in this land
I wonder how many mountains we'd move if we bent together
Us priveleged Americans
We pass our revisions onto the next generation
We kneel to the Gods of corporation
We eat when we're full and we hoard all the rest
With our hands on remotes we say "Yes, We're the best"
I wonder what we change in this land, cause we can
Even with western centricity this rampant
Us ugly Americans
Tired are not my hands
But see strangers and enemies as part of me, is real.
For me this awakening Canadian
We teach our offspring for themselves, every man
We shrug shoulders and create yet another -ism
We dissuade our young from using their imagination
We avert our eyes from this our very own manifestation
I wonder what will change in this land, cause we can
I wonder how many mouths we'd fill if we band together
Us awakening Americans
Correct | Mail | Print | Vote
Awakening Americans Lyrics
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/103144
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New! Read & write lyrics explanations
• Highlight lyrics and explain them to earn Karma points.
Pedal to the metal, led on my feet, enginge roaring, turn up the heat
A roadrace to hell, on crashcourse with sin, a package of spells, bet and you'll win
A date with the devil, close to the heat, people are dancing and Jesus the meat
A date with the devil, close to the heat, people are laughing and drums play the beat
L am the bastard son - evil inborn, Satan in tip-top, from head to toe
Just look at me, sense my blitz, down riding route 666
Semi-automatic, a delicate show, gotta keep running, a few miles to go
Hook up a motel, I need some sleep, before joining in as his black fucking sheep
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/103145
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Diggy Simmons — Burn lyrics
Stay fresh, you can smell it on me
Van Assche's up on my feet
Some monster beats and they made by me
I'm all about it
Can't talk about it
Tell C. Lotti go and get that feat
They all struck when they see me
Got em going crazy like Stevie not Joselline
But got lotes of them
And I stay with a couple of Rih Rihs
And I ain't talking retarted
But yeah that body retarted
Said she knows I'm 17
And she can't wait till I get started
And that ain't even what I'm tripping off
4th tour that I'm kicking off
Need rest after this jet lag and
These fresh tags that I'm ripping off
I rip em off!
I rip em off!
Cats out here with alotta fear
They looking hard, but they spitting soft
Shout out to the homies showing us love in the D.
Had the line around the corner in the hood at Shantinique
Had him come out out my show before he signed to MMG
See, I'll tell you what you wanna know
I just seen the homie, Cole
He say he ain't doing nothing to her
Hey, I let it go
You know that I'm smart enough not to get all swallowed up
By the crazy gossipers tryna make it popular
No amateur
Ain't feeling none of these young boys
I'm no Sandusky
Slow flow for my stamina: BREATHE
Haha... y'all keep talking 'bout my first week
Iunno why y'all bothered
Sold out every show this year, cheapest seat 10 dollars
Now, times that by 3 thou
Times that by like 18
I'm made to be majorly and creatively able
Because the greatest enabled me when he came out in '83
And so basically, haters be mostly made up of fakery
Not as mad as they say to be
When they see me, they're neighborly
Like STOP!
We ain't caring when you pop
We ain't caring when you drop!
We ain't grinning, we just grinding
Steady winning.
Better let that just... BURN!
Let that just... BURN!
Let that just... BURN!
Let that just... BURN!
Yeah, I'm out here getting money, homie,
Better let that just... BURN!
Yeah, let that shit burn!
Don't know what the fuck y'all thought!
That's right, we back
2012, 2013
Say Cheese!
P Water!
And I'm out!
Jetsetters up!
[ Lyrics from: http://www.lyricsty.com/diggy-simmons-burn-lyrics.html ]
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You are here
Random Intervals
by Joyce Justicz, Edward R. Scheinerman, and Peter Winkler
Year of Award: 1991
Publication Information: The American Mathematical Monthly, vol. 97, 1990, pp. 881-889
Summary: If \(n\) random intervals are created using the numbers \(\{{1,\ldots, 2n\}}\) as endpoints, what is the probability that among these intervals is one which meets all the others? How large a collection of pairwise disjoint intervals can one expect to find? This article answers these questions in general setting.
Read the Article:
About the Authors: (from The American Mathematical Monthly, vol. 97 (1990))
Joyce Justicz is a graduate student in mathematics at Emory University, where she received her bachelor’s degree (as valedictorian) in 1985.
Edward R. Scheinerman is an associate professor in the Department of Mathematical Sciences of the Johns Hopkins University. He received his Sc.B. from Brown University in 1980 and his Ph.D. from Princeton in 1984.
Peter Winkler is Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science at Emory University, and manager of the Research Group in Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science at Bellcore. His primary mathematical interests are combinatorics, logic and probabilistic methods.
Publication Date:
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
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Harmony 900 http://www.maclife.com/taxonomy/term/4599/all en Logitech Harmony 900 http://www.maclife.com/article/reviews/logitech_harmony_900 <!--paging_filter--><p>Our entertainment-center remotes are like tribbles; they look warm and welcoming at first, but we swear they keep multiplying to the point of overrunning the living room. We spend more time swapping between clickers than actually pressing buttons… so we’ve replaced them all with a single, universal device: Logitech’s Harmony 900. And it does more than just duplicate the original remotes’ controls--it adds new features. We had one significant setup problem, but after we corrected the issue, the Harmony 900 excelled.<br /><br />Programming the Harmony via your Mac is simple, amounting to answering a series of plain-English questions. When we first plugged it in via USB, however, our Mac identified it as an Ethernet device and asked if we wanted to open the Network Preferences. Huh?<br /><br />Since the remote had no documentation identifying the procedure--and it just seemed so crazy--we thought it was defective. But after consulting Logitech tech support, we discovered that this is what’s supposed to happen. The remote needs to be set up as an additional Ethernet profile in the Network Preferences. This change can muddle your Network Preferences and certainly was confusing. At press time, Logitech said it’s working on updating the documentation to explain the process more thoroughly.</p><p><a href="/files/u129772/Logitech_Harmony_full.jpg" class="thickbox"><img height="313" src="/files/u129772/Logitech_Harmony_380.jpg" width="380" /></a><br /><strong>It might look like every other remote, but it feels like the future.</strong><br /><br />After that initial problem, we breezed through the rest of the setup. The software prompts you to enter specific model numbers for your TV, cable box, audio receiver, game systems, and anything else you want to control, then the Harmony 900 adds all of the original remotes’ commands to its profile. We have yet to stump Logitech’s massive database of 225,000 devices, but if you do, you can manually program those commands. Fair enough.<br /><br />More than just replacing those remotes, though, the Harmony elegantly ties everything together. You’ll set up simple macros to watch TV, play videogames, watch a DVD, or do any other activity by telling it how everything is connected. For example, after we tap the Watch TV button, the remote turns on the TV and A/V receiver, and sets both for their proper input. Most of the remote buttons then command our connected TiVo, but volume commands still go to the receiver. These macros beautifully streamline even the most complicated media setups.<br /><br />The remote also feels great in your hand. Pick it up, and the motion sensor activates the backlighting. We appreciated how easy it was to figure out how to control important commands by touch since different buttons have unique textures. And we liked how the clear touchscreen augments all of the hard buttons with specialized commands, such as the TiVo’s Thumbs Up or the Xbox 360’s A, B, X, and Y.<br /><br />Best of all, the Harmony 900 translates between radio frequency (RF) and infrared (IR) commands, and that means you can control hardware that’s in another room or a closed cabinet. To do this, the Harmony 900 sends an RF command to a small box that you place near your devices. The box then translates this back into the standard IR commands that your original remotes would send. That can feel magic-like, but unfortunately, the remote can’t normally control Bluetooth gear, such as the Wii. At least a $60 adapter makes it work with PlayStation 3, which also uses Bluetooth… but $60? Ouch!<br /><br />Unfortunately, the RF mode didn’t work at anywhere near Logitech’s estimated 100-foot range, but we had no problem controlling everything in an adjacent room, which was good enough for us. But if you need to adjust music volume from across the house, the Harmony 900 might not work. Its whopper of a price tag ($399!) might also stop you in your tracks. Still, it’s worth it if your household is tech-challenged and needs the help--or if you’re willing to pay through the nose for the coolness of what this remote can pull off.</p> http://www.maclife.com/article/reviews/logitech_harmony_900#comments Reviews Hardware Harmony 900 Logitech remote reviews Fri, 26 Feb 2010 21:00:38 +0000 Zack Stern 6112 at http://www.maclife.com
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Posted March 21, 2008 in Lent and Easter:
Wrapped in Christ’s Shroud
by Catherine Doherty.
Last night it came to me that if I wrap myself up in Christ’s shroud and meditate on his death, I become more alive. So I wanted to nestle into that shroud. I wanted it to cover me. I wanted to feel its warmth, its life, because I think the shroud of God was full of life. For he rose and the shroud was left behind.
I enter into that shroud or cover myself with it, and the Lord gives me the grace to meditate on his death. To meditate on the death of God is to meditate on the words, Greater love has no man than he lays down his life for his brethren (Jn 15:13). As you meditate on it, you really begin to understand Christ’s love.
Can you direct your heart to this love, and allow the shroud to cover you? The infinite, incomprehensible, incredible God became man and shrouded himself with death.
It entered my heart just how precious we are. Stop and think: the vilest sinner, the greatest saint, and everybody in between is infinitely precious. What else could they be, for Christ wrapped himself in a shroud, became mortal by becoming man out of love for you and me!
Not just love of "humanity," but of each of us individually. When you look at the shroud, what else can you have but hope?
This hope becomes a reality, because he did resurrect. His resurrection is not a fairy tale, nor a fable. It is the greatest reality in the whole world!
We move in that resurrection. In moments like this, when you come close to a shroud, a cross, a tomb, you see it all vanish before your eyes, because the light of the resurrection is dazzling bright.
It holds you tight and lifts you up, and the Holy Spirit comes. You are lifted up by his Wind and his Fire, and they cleanse you. Now our blind eyes can see and our deaf ears can hear. It seems so beautiful; yesterday I felt like dancing.
Yes, my meditation last night was on a shroud, and I am still filled with the joy of it. Because the shroud enveloped the world and became the flag of the resurrection!
—From Season of Mercy, p.105-106, (1996), available from Madonna House Publications.
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Treatment at Mayo Clinic
By Mayo Clinic Staff
Request an Appointment
No cure exists for Niemann-Pick disease. At this time, there is no effective treatment for type A. For type B, bone marrow transplantation is being studied as a possible treatment, along with enzyme replacement therapy and gene therapy. Miglustat (Zavesca) is approved for treatment of Niemann-Pick type C in Europe and in several countries but not in the U.S.
At Mayo Clinic, specialists work together to offer quality care to manage signs and symptoms, such as:
• Sudden loss of muscle tone (cataplexy)
• Seizures
• Excessive muscle contractions (dystonia)
• Sleep disturbances
• Difficulty swallowing and eating
• Recurrent pneumonia
Physical therapy is an important part of treatment to help maintain mobility as long as possible. Progressive symptoms of the disease require frequent medical follow-up.
Apr. 02, 2014
You Are ... The Campaign for Mayo Clinic
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Drug information provided by: Micromedex
This medicine may cause a serious allergic reaction that requires immediate medical attention. Tell your doctor right away if you or your child have a rash, itching, swelling of the face, tongue, or throat, trouble with breathing, or chest pain after you get the injection.
Pancreatitis (an inflamed pancreas) may occur while you are using this medicine. Check with your doctor right away if you or your child are having more than one of these symptoms: bloating, chills, constipation, darkened urine, fast heartbeat, fever, indigestion, loss of appetite, nausea, pains in stomach, side, or abdomen possibly radiating to the back, vomiting, or yellow eyes or skin.
This medicine may cause fluid retention (extra water in the body). Tell your doctor if you or your child have burning, numbness, pain, or tingling in all fingers except smallest finger; swelling of the hands and feet; or pain, swelling, or stiffness of the muscles. Your doctor may adjust your dose to reduce these side effects.
This medicine is usually mixed with Bacteriostatic Water for Injection. You should not use Bacteriostatic Water for Injection if you have had an allergic reaction to benzyl alcohol. If this is a concern, ask your doctor about other ways to mix this medicine.
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Drink Alcohol – But Only In Moderation
Credit: Getty Images
Research has shown that drinking alcohol can be good for your cardiovascular system, but only if you drink in moderation – the same thing is true when it comes to bone health. Men and women who drink alcohol appear to have higher bone mineral densities than people who abstain. But chronic drinking and binge drinking has the opposite effect. A recent study also showed that excessive drinking hampers your body's ability to heal bone fractures. "If you're a wine drinker, one or two glasses a day can have a protective effect on bone health," says Dr. Rizzoli. "Any more, then [alcohol] becomes deleterious."
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MetaFilter posts tagged with ancientart Posts tagged with 'ancientart' at MetaFilter. Mon, 11 Mar 2013 12:46:15 -0800 Mon, 11 Mar 2013 12:46:15 -0800 en-us 60 Priceless Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art has many "educator resources" on Korean art, Islamic geometric design, African art, and more (i.e. books filled with beautifully reproduced images of art and artifacts, along with extensive background history). They are <a href="">available</a> for download as PDF files. For example: <a href=""> The Art of the Ancient Near East</a> is 50+ pages on the history, purposes, and techniques of art in the Near East, followed by 30 works of art, each shown and discussed in detail. Note: You may have to navigate a few pages to find the download links. (<small><a href="">via</a> Cave To Canvas blog.</small>),2013:site.125863 Mon, 11 Mar 2013 12:46:15 -0800 benito.strauss Fayum mummy portraits "They are the earliest painted portraits that have survived; they were painted whilst the Gospels of the New Testament were being written. Why then do they strike us today as being so immediate? Why does their individuality feel like our own? Why is their look more contemporary than any look to be found in the rest of the two millennia of traditional European art which followed them? The <a href="">Fayum portraits</a> touch us as if they had been painted last month." The Fayum mummy portraits were painted between the first and third centuries AD, in Roman Egypt, and preserved by the dry Egyptian climate. <a href="">Wikimedia Commons</a>. According to <a href="">Wikipedia</a>, 900 portraits are known to have survived. <a href="">John Bavaro</a> has been creating <a href="">modern versions</a> using the Brushes app on the iPhone. <small>Via the <a href="">Brushes Gallery</a> on Flickr.</small>,2010:site.93864 Sun, 18 Jul 2010 11:58:32 -0800 russilwvong Stories of The Dreaming As Told Through Sight, Sound and Art. <a _top href="">The Dreaming</a> (arguably better known as 'The Dreamtime') is more than just the story of how the world was created as told by Aboriginal Australians. It is also the basis for their way of life and death, their source of power in life and it tells of the life and influence of their ancestors on their culture. It was so important to Aboriginal Australians in the time before the white invasion of Australia that it was the one commonly held belief amongst a culture that consisted of over 500 different tribes (<a _top href="">discussion of Dreamtime beliefs here</a>). Thought to be the oldest continuously maintained cultural history on Earth, it is often presented as a series of inter-related stories explaining Aboriginal Australian origins and culture, such as how the Australian landscape was created or how the <a _top href="">Mimi spirits taught them how to paint these stories on the walls of caves</a> <a _top href="">more than 40,000 years ago</a>. <br><br> And what better way to learn of several of the many different Dreamtime stories than to <a _top href="">listen and watch them being told by Aboriginal Australians elders themselves</a>? And if that isn't enough Dreamtime mythology for you, <a _top href="">here's</a> <a _top href="">some</a> <a _top href="">links</a> <a href="">to</a> <a _top href="">various</a> <a _top href="">sites</a> which allow you to view Aboriginal rock art to see how these stories were translated into a form of artistic expression which is now five times older than the Egyptian Pyramids themselves.,2006:site.57239 Sat, 23 Dec 2006 17:25:38 -0800 Effigy2000 The Prehistoric art of Znedek Burian amidst a motherlode of large scans of Czech art and photography <a href="" title="Vintage Ceratopsian Art">Chasmosaurus</a>, <a href="" title="So. we'll go no more a-roving, so far into the night">Giant Stag and Dire Wolf</a>, <a href="" title="Let's see the Maori drive this sucker into extinction.">Diatryma</a>, <a href="" title="Tyrannosaurus's good looking cheesehead cousin">Albertosaurus</a> and an early <a href="" title="Actually, it's your repreentative Cro-Magnon Man--yeah, right, like there's any difference! Oh, wait, or was that the French?">Portuguese blogger</a>--allow me to get a little Mesozoic, Creataceous and Pleistocene upon your ass with this cool archive of vintage Czechoslovakian prehistoric art: I found <a href="" title="Page 1 of 11">11 pages</a> of thumbnails for 258 large scan jpegs of Znedek Burian's work on the websites of the Petrs Hejna of Prague, the Czech Republic. <a href="" title="Zdenek Burian was born in 1905 in Moravia, Czechoslovakia. He was to become one of the most influential depicters of prehistoric life of the century, rivaled only by Charles R. Knight.">Znedek Burian</a>, as you will remember from my previous <a href="">Vintage Dinosaur Art Archives </a>thread, was state of the art in the 1950s. 258 scans of Znedek Burian is find enough to merit a post--<i>But Wait! There's More! <big><b>→ → →<b></b></b></big></i>,2003:site.23435 Sun, 09 Feb 2003 01:39:34 -0800 y2karl
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MetaFilter posts tagged with sexuality Posts tagged with 'sexuality' at MetaFilter. Fri, 25 Jul 2014 12:24:41 -0800 Fri, 25 Jul 2014 12:24:41 -0800 en-us 60 Leia ambivalence Reelgirl: <a href="">Slut-shaming Princess Leia or protecting childhood from adult sexuality?</a></br> HitFix: <a href="">The Terrible Unspoken Implications Of Star Wars' Slave Leia</a> Bitchflicks - <a href="">Princess Leia: Feminist Icon or Sexist Trope?</a> Tor - <a href="">Carrie Fisher’s Sound Thoughts on Princess Leia in 1983</a> <small>(discusses & links to <a href="">this 1983 Rolling Stone interview</a>)</small> <small>previously on MeFi: - <a href="">Genderbending, Nerdery, and Armorsmithing, Oh My</a> - <a href="">...and then you strangle a giant slug with a chain</a></small>,2014:site.141304 Fri, 25 Jul 2014 12:24:41 -0800 flex Eventually Pam Fires A Rocket Launcher At Them So They'll Shut Up "<a href="">When True Blood premiered on HBO almost six years ago, in 2008, the final Twilight book had just been published, breaking records left and right. The gleam's come off since then, off vampires in general and but especially this show, but I believe it still has some things to tell us. Things about philosophy, America, the existence of faith in a secular world. People fucking all kinds of different ways. Sometimes all of these topics at the same time</a>." Jacob Clifton recaps and reviews the Six and a half seasons of True Blood so far, trying to suss out what we can learn from Sookie Stackhouse's many boyfriends.,2014:site.140725 Wed, 09 Jul 2014 12:50:49 -0800 The Whelk Look what I can do with my two hands. Roxane Gay, author of <a href="">An Untamed State</a> and the upcoming <a href="">Bad Feminist</a>, <a href="">has a lot to say</a> about relationships and sexuality and self esteem. Also about how to bake a pie and a killer summer pasta recipe.,2014:site.140706 Wed, 09 Jul 2014 05:02:24 -0800 Stacey Can the evangelical church embrace gay couples? <blockquote><a href="">A small but significant number of theologians, psychologists, and other conservative Christians are beginning to develop moral arguments that it’s possible to affirm same-sex relationships not in spite of orthodox theology, but within it. In books, academic journals, magazines, blog posts, speeches, conferences, and campus clubs, they are steadily building a case that there is a place in the traditional evangelical church for sexually active gay people in committed, monogamous relationships.</a> They argue that the Bible, read properly, doesn't condemn such relationships at all—and neither should committed Christians.</blockquote>Can the evangelical church embrace gay couples? <a href="">Here Matthew Vines speaks to each of the 'clobber' passages used to attack homosexuality in engaging detail and describes his vision for the role of gay Christians in the church. (1:07:18)</a> <a href="">Turned Away, He Turned to the Bible</a> One year after Matthew Vines was forced to leave the Wichita, Kan., church he had attended since birth — not because he is gay, but because he tried to convince people there was nothing wrong with that — he was sitting facing a crowd of 235 Christians, most of them gay or lesbian, at the Marble Collegiate Church on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. <a href="">The Bible backs same-sex couples: Point by point, why conservatives are wrong</a> <a href="">The Reformation Project: Training Christians to Eradicate Homophobia From the Church</a> <a href="">Various Evangelical Theologians have been quick to respond</a>,2014:site.139053 Tue, 13 May 2014 06:43:00 -0800 Blasdelb bell hooks sounds off on Beyonce <a href="">bell hooks calls Beyonce a "terrorist" and a "slave"</a> At a panel discussion at the New School yesterday, bell hooks raised eyebrows in a conversation about the controversial <em>Time</em> magazine cover seen <a href="">here, </a> saying that Beyonce "colluded in the construction of herself as a slave," going on to say “I see a part of Beyoncé that is in fact anti-feminist — that is, a terrorist, especially in terms of the impact on young girls.” This is not the first time intellectual giant hooks has <a href="">criticized</a> Queen Bey, although she later tempered those remarks by saying that <a href=""> "in the spirit of sisterhood, I embrace her use of the term ‘feminist’- it’s a starting point; it gives us something to work with." </a> The feminist blogosphere has already offered several <a href="">cogent</a> <a href="">critiques.</a>,2014:site.138949 Thu, 08 May 2014 14:36:17 -0800 zeusianfog All Heart, No Libido Anne Helen Petersen of " Scandals Of Classic Hollywood" fame talks <a href="">about Zac Efron, the impossible demands of movie masculinity, and the history of the Teen Idol Industry on BuzzReads</a>,2014:site.138831 Sun, 04 May 2014 10:17:12 -0800 The Whelk 17 Lies We Need to Stop Teaching Girls About Sex Whether it's the constant fretting over <a href="">Miley Cyrus</a>' influence on school girls or the growing (and troubling) tradition of <a href="">Purity Balls</a>, it's clear that society has a fascination with young women's sexuality — especially when it comes to controlling it. But what are we actually teaching today's girls about sex? Fueled by outdated ideals of gender roles and the sense that female sexuality is somehow shameful, there seem to be certain pernicious myths about girls and sex that just won't die. That sex education in America has gaping holes in its curriculum hasn't helped much, either; in<a href=""> a recent Centers for Disease Control (CDC) report</a> just 6 out of 10 girls said that their schools' sex ed program included information on how to say no to sex. This lack of personal agency<a href=""> was reflected in a forthcoming study by sociologist Heather Hlavka at Marquette University</a> as well, which found that many young girls think of sex simply as something that is "done to them." Knowledge is power, and we can promote a healthier relationship with sex by encouraging a more open dialogue, teaching girls to feel comfortable with their sexuality and, most importantly, emphasizing that their bodies are theirs and theirs alone. <blockquote><a href="">But first, we're going to need to stop perpetuating the following 17 myths about female sexuality.</a></blockquote> <a href="">Normalizing Sexual Violence: Young Women Account for Harassment and Abuse</a> Despite high rates of gendered violence among youth, very few young women report these incidents to authority figures. This study moves the discussion from the question of why young women do not report them toward how violence is produced, maintained, and normalized among youth. The girls in this study often did not name what law, researchers, and educators commonly identify as sexual harassment and abuse. How then, do girls name and make sense of victimization? Exploring violence via the lens of compulsory heterosexuality highlights the relational dynamics at play in this naming process. Forensic interviews with youth revealed patterns of heteronormative scripts appropriated to make sense of everyday harassment, violence, coercion, and consent. Findings inform discussions about the links between dominant discourses and sexual subjectivities as we try to better understand why many regard violence a normal part of life.,2014:site.138678 Mon, 28 Apr 2014 09:06:52 -0800 Blasdelb "Let’s stop telling Adam and Steve jokes." "We’ve run off at the mouth, said things we shouldn’t have said. We’ve run around like a peacock all over the platform. We have said things because we were playing to the home team, and they all liked our act. On this issue, nobody likes our act, except the redneck factor." That was <a href="">Pastor Greg Belser</a> speaking at the Southern Baptist Convention's <a href="">first ever conference on human sexuality</a> currently being held in Nashville. As promising as those remarks are, however, Slate notes that the SBC still has <a href="">a long way to go</a>.,2014:site.138554 Wed, 23 Apr 2014 16:23:12 -0800 AlonzoMosleyFBI Rose Rose I Love You In 1952 Malaya, cabaret dancer <a href="">Rose</a> <a href="">Chan</a>'s bra snapped on stage. Noticing the enthusiastic response from the audience, she decided to capitalise on this, and transformed herself into <a href="">Malaysia's first (and so far only) Queen of Striptease</a>. <small>(Many of these links have NSFW pictures)</small> Not only did she sing, dance, and strip, she also <a href="">performed her own stunts</a> and <a href="">wrestled with pythons</a>. She's <a href="">still regarded fondly by many Malaysians</a>, especially those that note how <a href="">she probably couldn't get away with anything she did in today's Malaysia</a>, and also became an <a href="">international favourite</a>, even <small>(allegedly)</small> inspiring <a href="">a Frankie Laine classic</a> based on <a href=",_Rose,_I_Love_You">an older Mandarin Chinese song</a> (<a href="">here's a version in English, Malay, Mandarin, and Tamil in the one song!</a>). There's been <a href="">a stage musical</a>, almost <a href="">a movie</a> (which would have starred <a href="">Singaporean actress Joanna Peh as Chan</a>), and now a <a href="">new book about her life</a> has been released. The writer, Malaysian poet Cecil Rajendra (<a href="">who admitted to sneaking in to watch one of Chan's shows as a teenager</a>) <a href="">contrasts Chan's reception during her time to more current incidences of censorship in Malaysia</a>, and <a href="">aims to showcase Chan's philanthropy and "feisty attitude"</a>.,2014:site.138440 Fri, 18 Apr 2014 20:54:57 -0800 divabat Pansy Club <a href="">Deviates, Inc is a tumblr devoted to exploring the visual culture of LGBT history ranging from Gilded Age drag queens, classic Hollywood lesbians, to militant gay activism.</a>,2014:site.138264 Sun, 13 Apr 2014 08:09:26 -0800 The Whelk Bi <a href="">The Scientific Quest to Prove Bisexuality Exists <small>[New York Times]</small></a> <blockquote>How a new breed of activists is using science to show — once and for all — that someone can be truly attracted to both a man and a woman.</blockquote>,2014:site.137651 Fri, 21 Mar 2014 07:17:18 -0800 Fizz Just when you think you have everything figured out... <a href="">"The world has a sick sense of humor and throws you for a loop."</a> (via <a href="">Permatemp Corporation</a>.) One woman discovers that "having it all figured out" isn't really something that lasts. A compelling Season Three episode from the "<a href="!happening/c240r">This Is Actually Happening</a>" podcast. Podcast episodes on <a href="">SoundCloud</a>.,2014:site.137221 Wed, 05 Mar 2014 15:51:35 -0800 simulacra Competing Constructions of Masculinity in Ancient Greece Scholars often speak of ancient Greek masculinity and manhood as if there was a single, monolithic, simple conception. I will show that the ancient Greeks, like us today, had competing models or constructions of gender and that what it meant to be a man was different in different contexts. I will focus on three constructions of the masculine gender in ancient (classical and post-classical) Greece: the Athenian civic model, the Spartan martial model, and the Stoic philosophical model. <a href="">I will focus on how these share certain commonalities, how they differ in significant ways, how each makes sense in terms of larger ideological contexts and needs, and, finally how constructions of masculinities today draw from all three. (10 page PDF)</a> What did it mean to be manly or masculine in ancient Greece? There is, of course, a difference between being male and being manly or masculine. The former indicates biological sex; the latter refers to performative gender roles.1 The contrast between sex and gender is visible when we say that some men act more manly and others more effeminately. The same applies to women. But what constitutes manliness or masculinity seems to vary, at least in some degree, from culture to culture. The aim of this paper is to understand how the Greeks understood masculinity given the variation of cultural and ideological identity evident in the ancient Greek world of the classical and Hellenistic eras. Scholars often speak of Greek masculinity as if there was a universal ideal of masculinity shared by all Greeks. However, I will show that individual cities, cultures, and philosophies often define masculinity differently and emphasize different aspects of masculine behavior. I argue that masculinity was not a fixed, uniform, monolithic, or homogenous normative concept; manliness was a more fluid concept, full of tensions and inconsistencies. In short, there were different ways for a man to express his maleness in late Classical and early Hellenistic Greece and hence it is better to speak of ‘masculinities’ and not ‘masculinity’ when discussing gender in ancient Greece.,2014:site.136215 Fri, 31 Jan 2014 09:10:51 -0800 Blasdelb Data Love. Porn Data <a href="">Sexualitics</a> tries to contribute to human sexuality understanding through a Big Data approach. Studies (<a href="">PDF</a>), <a href="">Datasets</a> and <a href="">Porngrams</a> (maps the evolution of words frequencies in the titles of porn videos).,2014:site.136162 Thu, 30 Jan 2014 03:20:19 -0800 motdiem2 For 1% of us, apparently cake IS better than sex <a href="">Netflix documentary explores asexuality... a topic that baffles even Dan Savage</a> Released in 2011, the documentary <a href="">(A)sexual</a> is now on Netflix. Delving into the 1% of the population who feel no sexual desire but nevertheless appreciate emotional intimacy, this documentary serves to explore this previously unmined corner of human experience. Asexuality differs from celibacy in that celibacy is a choice (for religious or other reasons, <a href="">involuntary celibacy</a> aside) whereas asexuality is considered by most to be "just the way they are." But not everyone gets it. <a href="">Mr. Savage Love</a> himself, who is featured in the documentary, is surprisingly baffled by this (lack of) sexual expression and openly <a href="">ponders whether these people are just plain old repressed and/or messing with their partners</a>. His line for asexuality is by his own admission very high - if you still masturbate, you're not asexual. The organization <a href="">AVEN</a> (whose founder David Jay is featured heavily in the documentary) exists to help educate and demystify asexuality and boasts approximately 60,000 members. David is currently in an asexual relationship with his asexual girlfriend. As for asexuality having a biological component, research is split. Some <a href="">researchers have found that the genitals respond normally in an asexual, and that asexuality is equally split among males & females.</a> Other researchers say asexuality is <a href="">skewed towards women.</a> And a <a href="">disproportionate amount of people with Aspergers report being asexual</a>. And yes even <a href="">The Atlantic</a> got in on the (asexual) action. Finally if you find yourself asexual but still want someone to love, this <a href="">UK dating site is for you</a>. <a href="">(Previously.)</a>,2014:site.136073 Mon, 27 Jan 2014 17:11:24 -0800 St. Peepsburg "James Tiptree, Jr.: two decades of new wave science fiction (1968-88) "We can go to science fiction for its sense of wonder, its power to take us to far-off places and future times. We can go to political fiction to understand injustice in our own time, to see what should change. We may go to poetry — epic or lyric, old or new — for what cannot change, for a sense of human limits, as well as for the music in its words. And if we want all those things at once — a sense of escape, a sense of injustice, a sense of mortality and an ear for language — <a href="">we can read the stories of James Tiptree, Jr.</a>," the reclusive, award-winning author whose <a href="">vague biography started out in the Congo, routed through a period as a painter, then service as a photo intelligence officer in WWII, and finally a researcher and teacher of "soft" sciences before getting to writing science fiction</a>. There was another facet that was only guessed at by some, dismissed by others: the fact that "Uncle Tip," and his reclusive friend, the former school teacher Racoona Sheldon, were the same person. And <a href="">they were Alice Bradley Sheldon</a>. Alice wrote that "<a href=""><em>Everything I've told you or anyone else is true</em></a>" (Google books preview), and it was. James Tiptree, Jr. was not merely a pen-name for Alice, but a public persona for a private woman, and a way to voice her thoughts about her world, past, present and future. Alice Sheldon was the only daughter of Herbert and <a href="">Mary Hastings Bradley</a>, Chicago socialites and <a href="">explorers who took their blonde-haired daughter with them to Africa</a>. Mary wrote of the adventures of her daughter in <a href=";view=1up;seq=4"><em>Alice in Jungleland</em></a> and <em>Alice in Elephantland</em>, and their family was seen and documented in the Chicago society columns. As their only child, the Bradleys were protective of Alice, and generally soft-spoken, though Mary was also a socialite, and the center of attention in many occasions. <a href="">Alice Bradley got married at 19</a>, eloping with William Davey a mere 5 days after meeting him. He was a young man with a similar, fiery temperament as Alice. Their marriage was rocky from the start, but Alice found freedom from the life she had lived with her parents. She dabbled in art and writing, working for a period as an art critic for the <em>Chicago Sun</em>, but didn't find the work fulfilling. She and William were divorced in 1941, and in 1942, she joined the <a href="">Women's Army Auxiliary Corps</a>, as a way to join with women in active work, "for a part in things." At first, she found the comradeship of the women to be exciting for its potential, but was soon disillusioned at the reality of the organization, especially as it was fit in with, or under, the traditional male military structure. The WAAC was disbanded, and reformed as <a href="'s_Army_Corps">Women's Army Corps</a>, and WAACs were offered an honorable discharge, or to continue with WAC. Alice stayed with the WACs, and after reading about <a href="">British photo intelligence operations</a>, she sought out and was selected for a small intelligence department in 1943. She worked as an interpreter of aerial reconnaissance photographs, first in Washington, D.C., then oversees in the <a href="">efforts to collect German intelligence data</a> in the Spring of 1945. It was there she met <a href="">Col. Huntington Denton "Ting" Sheldon</a>, who was leading the scientific "exploitation division" where she was employed. They were compatible minds, but mis-matched in the bedroom. Alice, still struggling with her sexuality, being <a href="">attracted to beautiful "doomed" girls</a> (Google books preview). They got married in September of 1945, and left the army in 1946, the same year Alice published '<a href="">The Lucky Ones</a>' in The New Yorker (summary only, full content available to subscribers only). But this would be her only piece of fiction published under her own name, and she wouldn't get published again for over a decade. After the war, they retreated from the busy life of intelligence officers, and ran a chicken farm in rural New Jersey. They sold their farm in 1952, and went to work for the CIA, resuming similar roles that they held in World War II. But the work wasn't her own, and she was uncertain about her marriage. Alice left the CIA in 1955, and used her intelligence training to disappear for a period, and remained separated from her husband for a year. Allie entered academia in January 1957 at the age of 41, and she earned her bachelor's degree from American University in Washington, D.C. in 1959, then began graduate studies in experimental psychology at George Washington University, focusing on aesthetics, perception, and human vision, a topic she had been researching on and off for years. Alice was finishing her dissertation in 1967, when she returned to writing, but opted for the escapism of science fiction that she had read as a girl, given to her by <a href="">Harry Augustus Bigelow</a> (Gbp), her "Uncle" Harry. To protect her academic reputation, she wrote the pieces as James Tiptree, Jr., taking the name from the <a href="">Tiptree jams</a> she saw on grocery store shelves one day. The stories were written something as a lark, a generally lighthearted escape from the seriousness of her dissertation. But she did send them to publishers, and she had seven short stories published in 1968. She opened up a bank account for James Tiptree, Jr., and started responding to letters from editors in the character of "Tip," as (s)he preferred to be called. (S)he also corresponded with authors, first gushing adoration and admiration for other authors, peaking with a letter to Philip K. Dick in 1969 when he was <a href="">at the height of his career</a> and Alli as Tiptree was just starting out. Dick asked Tiptree to collaborate on something, but Alli declined, under saying (s)he the offer was "Some kind of an honor that descended on me ni a dream and is not to be taken seriously." Alli/Tiptree also wrote as equals with a young Harlan Ellison that same year, and later became "<a href="">Uncle Tip</a>" (Gbp) to <a href="">Craig Strete</a> in 1974, providing insight of a seasoned publisher to the young Cherokee writer. Tip also had a lively letter-writing relationship with <a href="">Ursula K. Le Guin</a> and <a href="">Joanna Russ</a>. The relationship with Le Guin was as a couple of like-minded older writers, slightly flirtatious, but quite serious. The latter was complex, as Russ was a young writer, and passionate about feminism in ways that Allie found hard to relate to, given the age gap of two decades. As recognition for Tiptree grew, so did the requests for personal information, which was minimal up to the early 1970s. <a href="">In the introduction to <em>Houston, Houston Do You Read</em></a>, a compilation of stories published in 1973, Harry Harrison, the editor, shared the vague but swaggering biography for Tiptree, and in the one interview James Tiptree, Jr. gave was to <a href="">Jeffrey Smith, via written correspondence</a> (Google books preview), he mentioned traveling in "places like colonial India and Africa" and time in the army and with the broad and vague government. Some connected those hazy dots to support the notion of Tiptree as a male author, while other fans pointed to what what they thought to be feminine sensitivities and an astounding understanding of women's point of views, and thought the true Tiptree was a woman. But Alice Bradley Sheldon hid from view, living her own relatively quiet life of gardening, house chores, and annual trips to quiet, untamed cabins in the woods and vaguely remote tropical beaches with Ting, later spending more time to take care of her aging father and mother. Alice was shaken in 1961, when her father died of pneumonia, but she publicly divulged more details of the person behind the pen (er, blue-inked typewriter) when Tip shared that his mother passed away in 1976. People connected the hints to the obituary for a Mary Bradley, who was survived by her daughter, Alice Bradley Sheldon. <em>Locus</em> magazine officially broke the news in 1977. Some fans felt betrayed, but Alice received many letters of support from fans and authors alike. Still, Alice's persona of Tiptree was shaken, and the tone of her Tiptree stories lacked something in the period following the revelation that James was in fact Alice, but (s)he did continue to write. Alice suffered with bouts of depression, and quite possibly suffered from manic-depression, as she had periods of peaks, though in later years the depressions got worse. She also struggled with over-use of various pharmaceuticals, in part used to battle the bleak periods, and to regain some of those peaks. Ting was twelve and a half years older than Allie, and starting in the mid-1970s, she talked more about suicide, including discussing a suicide pact with her husband. Though he didn't suffer from the same sort of dark periods as his wife, he discussed the topic with her, as they were aging. In his last years, he lost his vision and was mostly deaf, and Allie cared for him as best she could. On May 19, 1987, Allie shot Ting while he was asleep and killed herself. He was eighty-four, she was seventy-one. She left behind fans and friends, and seventy-five pieces of science fiction, mostly written as James Tiptree, Jr., with five stories written as Raccoona Sheldon. Alice's impact on science fiction is a lasting one. She "<a href="">expanded the edges of possibility for the field</a>" of science fiction in general, and <a href="">"the field of feminist and queer speculative fiction today," which "would not exist the way that we know it"</a> without Alice Bradley Sheldon. Without further ado, a mere sampling of pieces from James Tiptree, Jr., available to read online: 1969 - <a href="">Beam Us Home</a> (on finding your place in the world, and beyond) - <a href="">The Last Flight of Dr. Ain</a> (what would you do for the one you loved?) 1972 - <a href="">The Man Who Walked Home</a> (closer, closer, every step) - <a href="">And I Awoke and Found Me Here on the Cold Hill's Side</a> ("I’d trade—correction, I have traded—everything Earth offered me for just that chance. To see them. To speak to them. Once in a while to touch one.") - <a href="">Painwise</a> ("Will they ever call me home, boditech?" No reply.) 1973 - <a href="">Love Is the Plan the Plan Is Death</a> (The Old One said it. Red is the color of love.) - <a href="">The Women Men Don't See</a> ("We live by ones and twos in the chinks of your world-machine.") - <a href="">The Girl Who Was Plugged In</a> ("In the crowd over there, that one gaping at her gods. One rotten girl in the city of the future. (That's what I said.) Watch.") And written as Raccoona Sheldon: 1977 - <a href="">The Screwfly Solution</a> (I didn't feel frightened, I felt something important had happened. I tried to get him to sit down. But he motioned me to follow him back down the hall, to where Dr. Fay was. "You must see," he said.) If it seems like the stories are excerpts of something larger, provided without a proper introduction to set the stage, that's Tiptree's trick. As (s)he said: "start from the end and preferably 5,000 feet underground on a dark day and then <em>don't tell them</em>." In 1991, Karen Joy Fowler and Pat Murphy created James Tiptree Jr. Memorial Award, which is presented annually to a short story or novel that explores or expands our understanding of gender, <a href="">both to honor Alice Sheldon and to remind the field of its own importance in the continual struggle to re-imagine more liveable sexual roles for ourselves</a>. "Just ask yourself, if we weren't taught to be women, what would we be? (Ask yourself this question even if you're a man, and don't cheat by changing the words.)" As a political statement, as a means of involving people, as an excuse to eat cookies and as an attempt to strike the proper ironic note, the Tiptree Award has been financed primarily through bake sales, mostly held at science fiction conventions. <a href=",_Jr._Award">One to two pieces are awarded each year, with an additional five stories have been given retrospective awards.</a> <a href="">The James Tiptree, Jr. Award website</a> includes more details, including additional information on past award winners, short honor lists, and longer lists of other recommended reading (some of which are online), plus a book reading club. One final tangent: <a href=",_Jr.#Adaptations">A number of Allie's stories have been adapted</a> over the years, with two Tiptree stories covered in NPR's <a href="">Sci-Fi Radio</a> (<a href="">previously</a>), <em>The Girl who was Plugged In</em> was an episode of the TV series <a href="">Welcome to Paradox</a>, and <em>The Screwfly Solution</em> was adapted as <a href="">an episode</a> of <a href="">Masters of Horror</a>. Additionally, some of Tiptree's works were paired with music by Connie Converse for a performance called <a href="">Xenophilia</a> (<a href="">still shots of a performance</a> and more <a href="">on Constellation Moving Company's website</a>) , and <em>The Girl who was Plugged In</em> was adapted as the <a href="">first half</a> of a two-act off-Broadway musical called <a href=""><em>Weird Romance</em></a>, originally staged in 1992 then <a href="">slightly expanded in 2003 with new songs</a> by the original composer, <a href="">Alan Menken</a>, who has scored a number of films for Disney and other companies.,2013:site.134995 Fri, 20 Dec 2013 19:32:28 -0800 filthy light thief “If you were a homosexual, you’d be having sex with men. All the time. ' <a href="">“I don’t think you’re gay,” he said. He then went through the same litany as Dr. F.—he didn’t believe I was a pervert, he just felt I was lost and confused and needed to be set on the right path. Dr. K. believed in behavioral modification. He told me to place a rubber band around my wrist. Every time I had “gay thoughts,” I was to snap the rubber band, causing pain. ­Eventually I would associate the thoughts with the pain</a>. - Gene Stone on growing up gay, struggling with sex, anti-gay conversion therapy, and the doctor-mandated sex surrogate that finally helped him.,2013:site.132422 Sun, 29 Sep 2013 18:49:54 -0800 The Whelk The Privilege of Choice "I wanted to address the issue of people who associate, either online or in real life, or both with BDSM and their surrounding issues. It is the happy couple who find their sexual tastes intersect. People who lived steeped in the language and the subculture of BDSM often forget that they are, in fact, a subculture. It is a non-normative form of sexuality.<a href=""> And I feel that, in attempting to validate our own desires, we forget that.</a>" <a href="">Remittance Girl</a> writes succinctly about privilege, power dynamics and how sometimes those in to BDSM forget that perhaps it is not for everyone: "Just that while we are all busy congratulating ourselves on our openmindedness and adventurism, our liberating demands to have our ‘needs met,’ it is worth recalling that our current circumstances are born of having immense scope in our choices. And that is not everyone’s reality." NSFW,2013:site.132324 Thu, 26 Sep 2013 06:04:11 -0800 Megami getting old doesn't mean sex has to <a href="">The Hebrew Home in Riverdale, NY has a comprehensive policy regarding sexual expression.</a> The policy, which appears to be the only one of its kind among U.S. residential facilities for the elderly, says that residents "have the right to seek out and engage in sexual expression,” including “words, gestures, movements or activities which appear motivated by the desire for sexual gratification." As <a href="">Baby Boomers</a> age and begin to enter <a href="">nursing homes</a> in greater numbers, they're taking their freer sexual attitudes -- and their <a href="">Viagra</a>-- with them. An 80-something resident of the Hebrew Home says "she’d love to have someone special in her life. 'You want to have someone to pat you, someone to hold hands with,' she said. 'Age should not be a barrier to anything.'",2013:site.130265 Tue, 23 Jul 2013 06:58:45 -0800 Annie Savoy Hypersexuality does not appear to explain brain differences in sex <a href="">A new brain study questions the existence of sexual addiction.</a> The study, posted in the <a href="">Socioaffective Neuroscience & Psychology</a>, concludes that so-called "<a href="">hypersexuality</a>" does not appear to explain <a href="">brain differences in sexual response</a>.,2013:site.130168 Fri, 19 Jul 2013 12:55:49 -0800 mrgrimm Rupert Everett, Really Into Dead Victorian Dreamboats In 2008 the actor Rupert Everett hosted (seemingly from his apartment) a rather strange documentary: <a href="">The Victorian Sex Explorer</a> ( <a href="">2</a> <a href="">3</a> <a href="">4</a> <a href="">5</a> ), an attempt to follow in the footsteps of famed Explorer, translator, and author <a href="">Sir Richard Burton</a> and convince us of Sir Burton's passion for sexual experimentation while laying in lots of bathhouses and visiting brothels. (related, <a href="">The Scandalous Life Of Lord Byron</a>),2013:site.129696 Thu, 04 Jul 2013 14:02:55 -0800 The Whelk "We're the anal safety snails!""Reminding you to start slowly!" <a href="">Oh Joy, Sex Toy!</a> (NSFW), is a comic concerned with "<a href="">reviews of everything</a> that relates to sex, sexuality and the sex industry. From toys to workshops to birth control and much more, no stone will be left unturned, no vibrator left unused, no nipple left unpinched," by <a href="">Erika Moen</a> (<a href="">Tumblr</a>) Moen also wrote <a href="">DAR!</a>, which has since finished. via <a href="">Bitch Magazine</a>,2013:site.129521 Fri, 28 Jun 2013 16:44:35 -0800 the man of twists and turns "How about you just decide how not to *repel* the women?" David Gaider, senior writer at Bioware, delivers <a href="">a talk on sex, sexuality, and sexism in video games and the gaming industry</a> at the 2013 Game Developers Conference. (single-link 49-minute video),2013:site.129284 Thu, 20 Jun 2013 16:11:53 -0800 escape from the potato planet 177. erotically denying them use of a line in a google doc Tired of the standard <a href="">baseball metaphors for sex</a>? Here’s <a href="">300 queer as fuck bases</a>. Sports-related sexual metaphors <a href="">previously</a>.,2013:site.128947 Mon, 10 Jun 2013 19:30:22 -0800 NoraReed "There is no single way to sum up what it means to be a trans man." <a href="">The Test Shot</a> is an online visual project that aims to document and celebrate the variety and strength of transmasculine style. <a href="">Ballet dancing "princess boys"</a>, <a href="">dapper transmen fresh out of a golden age musical</a>, <a href="">hipstery trans* boys</a>, <a href="">preppy boy dykes,</a> and video journalists in <a href="">traditional Pakistani menswear</a> showcase the diversity in how people interpret and express their gender through their favorite clothing. <a href="">Original Plumbing</a> [warning: non-explicit ad for porn site] is the premier print magazine dedicated to the sexuality and culture of FTM trans guys. OP documents diversity within trans male lifestyles through photographic portraits and essays, personal narratives and interviews. Read <a href="">an interview with the creators</a>, <a href="">Dr. T's medical advice column,</a> or check out blog entries on <a href="">living in an all-male dorm,</a>, <a href="">how to get into queer porn as a trans guy,</a>, and <a href="">deciding to carry a baby after transition.</a>. <small>All labels/identifiers (such as "trans* boy" or "boy dyke") taken from interviews with the person in question as a way they self-identify. If you need to brush up on Trans 101 before participating in this thread, <a href="">this covers the basics.</a> <a href="">This is a good resource for vocabulary.</a></small>,2013:site.128930 Mon, 10 Jun 2013 11:23:27 -0800 Juliet Banana
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Web Tools
As I've developed many many sites, I've written a few tools to make things easier, or simple little hacks to test out functions or ideas. Many of these won't make sense to you because you don't have the context, but I place them here anyway.
Short instructions are provided on each page.
Some other toys I've built:
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You are here:
Glamour is an engine for scripting browsers.
It was originally built by Philipp Bunge as a validation for his Masters thesis, and Tudor Girba who actively maintains the current version. Andrei Vasile Chis worked on the Seaside renderer. Lukas Renggli created to the first version of the Seaside renderer, Jorge Ressia contributed to the core, and David Röthlisberger worked on the Morphic renderer.
Glamour received the 3rd prize at the ESUG Innovation Technology Awards 2009.
ESUG sponsors a project to create a Seaside interface for Glamour in 2010.
The Moose Book dedicates a chapter to Glamour.
Tudor Girba gave a podcast interview on Glamour.
Glamour comes with a built-in set of examples that can be browsed using a Glamour-based browser. You can get these examples by:
GLMBasicExamples open
A series of presentations are available here.
Glamour is shipped with the Moose Suite.
You can get the latest development version from the!/~Moose/Glamour repository.
1. Philipp Bunge. Scripting Browsers with Glamour. Master's Thesis, University of Bern, April 2009. PDF
License: MIT
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/103379
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Eight More Tips for Fishing
In this collection of tips for fishing the author discusses weather conditions, where to find fish, and equipment care.
May/June 1981
"Clean your reel" is one of the author's eight tips for fishing.
Equipping yourself with the proper gear and bait for the type of fish dinner you favor most is, of course, only the first step in putting that tasty food on your plate. So, in the final section of this two-part article, I'm going to concentrate on telling you how to entice your quarry into biting and what to do once that happens.
V. Know the Fish's Water Preference
Every area has its "fishin' holes," and if you find yourself a fishing-fanatic friend, he or she will likely show you most—though probably not all—of his or her pet "hot spots." But there are other folk (owners of tackle shops and sporting goods stores, for example) who, in order to get your continued business, will point you toward (if not that particular person's own favorite spots) good angling areas.
Since most fish spawn in shallow water and seek the cooler depths during hot weather, check out maps (they're usually available for large lakes and reservoirs) that show the topography beneath the body of water that you're fishing. Other sources of information may include chambers of commerce (for maps), as well as a state's fish and game commission or its parks and recreation department. (The telephone numbers for local branches of such agencies can often be found at town libraries.)
But, even without advice or maps, you can still take an educated guess at where the fish will be. In a lake or pond, for instance, many species (such as bass) tend to gather at points where a stream enters the larger body of water, to eat the food carried in by the current. Furthermore, any underwater obstacle (such as the fallen trees and "fields" of stumps found beneath the surface of many man-made reservoirs) will attract fish, since it offers them a year-round hiding place. Remember, too, that a lake bottom's contour will generally mirror the shoreline near it. A sheer cliff next to the water's edge will usually drop off rapidly into deep water, while a beach that extends away from the lake in a flat plain will frequently produce gradually deepening shallows.
A river or stream is—in most cases-even easier to "read" than is a lake, pond, or reservoir. In moving water, most fish (especially trout) like to hang out just above and below riffles. Either side of the downstream "V" that's formed by the current is also likely to be a very productive place to plop your bait. The deep holes found below many fast moving sections of water can contain fish as well (such critters are most easily caught at the upstream edge of the pool, where food is often deposited). Also look for hungry swimmers at the edge of eddies formed by any projecting limbs, and underneath overhanging banks and roots. And when you catch a good fish from a stream or river, remember the spot. Odds are another trophy will shortly move in to take over the "prime" location!
VI. Don't Miss a Fish-Catching Season
There's only one fishing season: year round. Spring, for example, can result in rapid-fire post-spawning action. Then, as the water warms up, the best fishing will often be around protective "lairs" such as submerged logs, stumps, and roots; underwater brush piles and weedy beds; rocky drop-offs (where a river once ran, for example); and the areas beneath piers, bridges, and boat docks.
Keep in mind that the sun's heat causes lake and pond water to stratify into an upper layer of warm water (containing less oxygen) and a lower layer of cooler, denser water. Neither of these strata offers a "fish-comfortable" environment, but between the two there's a temperature- and oxygen-perfect region called the thermocline. The secret of successful summer fishing is often to find this layer.
The thermocline can be located with expensive gadgets that'll give you both temperature and oxygen-level readouts, but for much less money you can simply troll the lake at different depths (varying the weights used and the speed of your boat), or try setting your bobber at different places on your line until you catch a fish. Then, when you do get some action, keep angling at that level.
Some fish are warm-water lovers, and they will feast best when the temperature's climbing. Largemouth and smallmouth bass, for instance, while preferring shady areas, will feed throughout the summer (although really hot weather will sometimes cause them to move into deep water during the day and come into the shallows to eat at night), and channel catfish seem to search out food most actively when the water reaches approximately 80° F.
Come autumn, the underwater temperature stratification begins to break up. Many species go into a real feeding frenzy with this change. That's the time to fish the shoreline, near submerged weeds or structures or along rocky drop-offs.
During the winter, most of the coldblooded creatures will be bunched together in protective schools, usually around the underwater brush piles and the like. (Of course, you may have to chop your way through some ice before you can drop a line, but the effort will help to keep you warm.) Coldweather feeders tend to nibble on food rather than gulp it, so the ice-fisherperson must be ready—at the slightest nudge—to "set the hook" (that is, to raise the rod sharply, so that the steel barb gets a good hold in the fish's mouth).
VII. Feel the Fish
And just how does one detect the presence of soft-mouth nudgers and spit-it-out tasters? It's a matter of becoming familiar with the subtle pull or "buzz" that is transmitted to the angler when a gentle-mouthed bait-grabber taste-tests an offering. With a bit of practice you'll learn to let the very end of the rod—or a sensitive fingertip held against the line itself—communicate the message.
If you're using a bobber, watch it closely. A fish that nudges the bait from underneath or from the side will tip it only slightly in one direction or another. Anytime a small movement of the float tells you that there's a nibbler below, try to set the hook (That is, unless you discover that the feeding habit of the fish you're after is to investigate the bait gingerly, perhaps without actually taking it into its mouth, before it strikes. Sometimes, by trying to set a hook before a fish has really taken the bait, you'll find yourself unable to connect with your quarry at all).
VIII. Care for Your Catch Carefully
The best-tasting fish are fresh ones. Whenever you can, fry them as you bring them in over a lakeside or streamside fire. If you take your catch home, though (as is usually the case), keep the fish alive as long as possible by tying your stringer in moving water. And remember that your supper-to-be will survive longer if the device's cord or metal clasp is strung through the skin behind the lower jaw, rather than through the gills.
If the trip home from your fishing hole is a long one, put your catch on ice, or let the critters swim in a bucket-type live well, oxygenated by a battery-driven aerator made for aquariums or fish tanks.
Some folks think that leaving the skin on fish adds to the taste, and like to scale their catch before cleaning or filleting them. In my family, though, we just fillet and then skin—by running the knife between the hide and the flesh—nearly all our fish. It's quick and easy to do so, and when the job is done correctly with a very sharp, thin-bladed knife, there's almost no loss of meat or taste. (The leftover skeletons and innards can be buried, Indian-style, under the site of future corn or tomato plants.)
We also fillet catfish, but remove the tough skin from such critters first. This is relatively easy to do if you simply cut an encircling slice behind the pectoral—or side—fins, and then peel the hide downward toward the tail, using a pair of pliers. (When skinning larger "cats," you may also have to slice around the dorsal-top-fin. )
And don't listen to folks who try to tell you that trout (or any other personal favorite) is the only fish worth eating. Carp, for example, which is considered by many people (in this country, at any rate) to be a "trash" fish, is actually delicious! We've had smoked carp, salmon-style boiled carp, and fried carp fillets, and—when caught in cold, moving waters—they've all been as tasty as any of the "super species".
Some lakes, of course, should be selectively harvested—by keeping only large fish, for example—and local fishing regulations will describe the size and number limits that apply to certain species and/or certain bodies of water. And, in the case of your private pond (if you're lucky enough to have one), a state fisheries biologist can help you evaluate which fish you should keep and which ones to return to the water to insure an optimum haul in the future. Otherwise, make a feast of every fish you catch ... and use the leftovers to fertilize your garden.
IX. Spare the Rod and Spoil the Reel
The commonest cause of fishing equipment failure is human negligence, but a rig that's well looked after should last a lifetime. Actually, more rods are broken by errant feet and slammed car doors than are lost to fighting fish. To protect your pole against such accidents, fashion a good (and free) rod case from a sturdy, hollow cardboard tube of the type that new carpet's rolled around. (Ask at a local interior decorating firm.) Also, unless you want a permanently bowed rod, stow it so that it stands up straight or lies completely flat.
Get in the habit of checking the pole's guide wrappings before each trip, too. If their ends are coming loose, you can give the threads a light coat of clear nail polish to prevent further fraying ... or have someone at a bait and tackle shop show you how to rewrap your own guides. (It's easier than it looks!)
It's a good idea to occasionally run your fingertips over all the guides, as well. If you feel any rough spots, smooth them with a piece of burlap or replace the worn part. And, as a routine step in every inspection, make sure all the visible screws are tight.
Your final check before setting out should be of the line itself. Theoretically, a good monofilament will last for years, but if you notice any roughness; if there's a chalky residue left behind when you run the line through your fingers; if it forms tight kinks after several feet are stripped off the reel; or if you can see crystals when it's held up to the light, replace the line with a new one.
And later, when you're actually on the shore, take a small sharpening stone to the tip of each hook. A finely honed point will work fish-catching miracles, while a dull barb will make setting the hook very difficult.
After each trip, loosen the drag mechanism on your reel, because continuing pressure on its alternating soft and hard metal washers will cause wear. And, at least once a year, take the reel apart and wash it thoroughly, then oil and grease it (lightly, please) according to the manufacturer's instructions.
X. Only the Comfortable Catch Fish
In order not to waste valuable fishing time swatting at mosquitoes—or scare off a potential catch with chattering teeth—prepare a "comfort pack" and carry it with you on every trip. The kit should contain insect repellent, sunscreen, lip balm, several band-aids for the inevitable finger jabs, aspirin, and a seasickness medication (if your belly is wave-sensitive). The whole package can be stowed easily inside a sturdy plastic bag and carried in a small backpack or at the bottom of your tackle box.
Always figure, too, that the waterfront weather will be at least one wool sweater colder than it is at home, so roll a pullover inside a rain parka (an inexpensive plastic one will work fine) and you'll have rain protection and an extra shell against the chill.
XI. Keep a Journal
Unless you maintain some records, it'll be easy to forget—over a year's time—just when and where your best catches were made. You'll be better equipped to duplicate past success if you keep a notebook listing your fishing trip dates, where you went, how many fish you caught, the bait used, the day's weather conditions, and if possible the water's temperature.
XII. There's More to Fishing Than Catching Fish
Finally, temper your developing skill with the belief that fishing shouldn't be merely a catch-all-you-can sport. Place a rod in your hand and you'll have a good reason to relax your shoulders, smooth the furrow between your brows, soak up some sunshine, watch the squirrels and the birds, listen to the gentle lap of the shoreline waves, and inhale the green freshness of the waterside foliage. If you do nothing more than that, you'll have many a successful fishing trip!
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/103380
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Make an Inexpensive Spinning Wheel
It doesn't take a lot of money to build your own spinning wheel. You can easily be on your way to spinning your own wool.
May/June 1976
Barbara uses one hand to spin, the other to turn the wheel.
One day Barbara—that's my best friend—and I got this crazy idea: Why not try to make a spinning wheel?
Up until then, Barbara had been spinning our "homegrown" wool (which comes from a little black sheep and a white woolly that we keep here on our ten acres) on a drop spindle. In case you didn't know, a drop spindle is nothing more than a tapered dowel—weighted at the bottom—which you hold vertically and let rotate while pulling wool from the top. It's a slow-but-simple way to spin wool.
Now, it takes a long time to make even a two- or three ounce skein by the drop spindle method. Not that it isn't fun . . . Barbara loves it. (The way I see it, you've got to love spinning to do it in the first place!) But an honest-to-goodness spinning wheel . . . now that would certainly make the whole process a lot easier, and a lot quicker.
We thought awhile, and—after seeing diagrams and pictures of homemade wheels in Foxfire 2 —decided we couldn't wait any longer. We started to track down materials.
"Look!" we exclaimed when we spotted some half-inch and one-inch dowels-perfect to use as the spindle and holder—in the garage. "Hey!" we blurted when we happened across a rough piece of split oak, about four feet long, to use for the platform. I won't even mention what we said when we discovered some pieces of green oak suitable for legs in our firewood pile.
Our biggest piece of luck-considering we're both just unskilled novices when it comes to things mechanical—was finding a ready-made wheel. It came off a lonely old abandoned bicycle in the junkyard. At 24 inches in diameter, it wasn't quite as large as the wheels in Foxfire 2, but it looked as if it would do the trick . . . and it did!
We made one simple modification to the old bike wheel: namely, what we did was [1] strip the tire and inner tube from our much appreciated find, [2] cut a long strip from the tube, and [3] glue this strip of rubber back onto the rim. We figured this'd make a nice smooth runway to guide the loop of twine that runs between spindle and wheel and keeps everything in motion.
From that point, the actual construction of our spinning wheel was a cinch. All we did was mount the components in their proper positions (see photos), copying what we'd seen in pictures of other folks' wheels, and violà! We had a device that really, honestly worked (much to my amazement). This was the first time I'd ever put anything with moving parts together.
Someday, I suppose I'll try to attach a foot pedal to our masterpiece . . . but for now, we're just happy to have something that works, and which is quicker and easier to use than a drop spindle.
You might be able to buy a spinning wheel, new, for around $50. The one Barbara and I put together cost $2.50—mostly for the epoxy and Weldwood that holds it together—and it couldn't do a better job at any price!
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/103382
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Open Bikini Shootout
The Bikini Babe: Another Gratuitous Motorcycle Online Flesh-O-Rama
When the Open Bikini Shootout was proposed a few months ago, we instantly had a picture in our dirty little minds how the homepage should look for such a comparo. After all, how can you have an Open Bikini Shootout without an, umm, open bikini?
Proposals are one thing, finding just the right chest to sport the open bikini was quite another. Being the computer geeks we are, we don't know many women (except the kind that kicks our asses at the dragstrip). So the search was on. We located our bikini babe a scant two weeks before the story was posted (and almost a week after the Triumph blew up) at (what else?) a bikini contest in Hollywood. So give thanks to our babe, otherwise you'd be reading another "Roadster Shootout," "Hooligan Duel," "Neo-Standard Hell-Raising Slaughterhouse," or some other similarly cliched drivel...
"So boys, what do you want me to do?"
"Umm... er...."
"How about if I lean over the bike like this?"
"Marry me."
"That's it!"
"There's our Homepage!"
"Look, I'm going to need some help if you want to get any good pictures. Is it okay if I untie my top?"
"That should be alright, what to you think Mark?"
"Yes, that would be acceptable."
Manufacturer: Mom/Dad/Dow Corning
Model: Blonde Babe
Year: She wouldn't say
Engine: Big Twin
Bore and Stroke: "It says 'stroke'"
Displacement: Curvy
Carburetion: Naturally aspirated
Transmission: No
Seat Height: 32 in (36 in pumps)
Fuel Capacity: We don't kiss and tell
Claimed Dry Weight: 105 lbs
Measured Wet Weight,
Tank Full: 121 lbs
Measured Horsepower,
At The Rear: Yes
Measured Torque,
At The Rear: Ditto
Get in your Inbox
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/103392
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Skip to main content
R| 1 hr. 41 min.
Plot Summary
Cast: Sarah Polley , Robert John Burke , Helen Mirren , Julie Christie , Baltasar Kormakur , Paul Lazar , Annika Peterson ,
Director: Hal Hartley
Genres: Fantasy, Comedy
Distributor: MGM/UA Home Entertainment Inc., United Artists
No Such Thing (2001)
Release Date: October 12th, 2001|1 hr. 41 min.
watch now
fan reviews ( 1 )
• August 15, 2011 Trouble
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I found the movie quite haunting. I loved \"the monster\". The girl was perfect. It was an eerie movie of fear, love, betrayal. Helen Mirren as outstanding.
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/103399
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Watch It
On DVD: Now | On Blu-ray: Now
Our Man in Marrakesh
Films like [[Feature~V159508~Bang, Bang, You're Dead~niljuger]] helped kill the movie career of [[Performer~P58720~Tony Randall~tonyrandall]] in the mid-1960s. Randall plays an innocent oil company representative who gets tied up with a gang of crooks in Morocco. The head criminals, played by [[Performer~P43011~Herbert Lom~herbertlom]] and [[Performer~P38429~Klaus Kinski~klauskinski]], plunge Randall into the middle of a complex espionage scheme involving the Red Chinese. There is one good scene in a...more
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/103453
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What is Haldol and why is it prescribed?
Haldol is used to reduce the symptoms of mental disorders such as schizophrenia. It is also prescribed to control tics and the unintended utterances that mark Gilles de la Tourette's syndrome. In addition, it is used in short-term treatment of children with severe behavior problems, including hyperactivity and combativeness. Some doctors also prescribe Haldol to relieve severe nausea and vomiting caused by cancer drugs, to treat drug problems such as LSD flashback and PCP intoxication, and to control symptoms of hemiballismus, a condition that causes involuntary writhing of one side of the body. Haldol may cause tardive dyskinesia. This condition can be permanent, and appears to be most common among the elderly, especially women.
How should you take Haldol?
Follow your doctors directions for taking Haldol. Haldol may be taken with food or after eating. If taking Haldol in a liquid concentrate form, you will need to dilute it with milk or water. You should not take Haldol with coffee, tea, or other caffeinated beverages, or with alcohol. Haldol causes dry mouth. Sucking on a hard candy or ice chips may help alleviate the problem. If you miss a dose take it as soon as you remember. Take the rest of the doses for that day at equally spaced intervals. Do not take two doses at once. Store Haldol away from heat, light, and moisture in a tightly closed container. Do not freeze the liquid.
Are there any Haldol side effects?
What are the possible food and drug interactions when taking Haldol?
If Haldol is taken with certain other drugs, the effects of either could be increased, decreased, or altered. Be sure to inform your doctor of all the prescription and over the counter medications you are taking. Extreme drowsiness and other potentially serious effects can result if Haldol is combined with alcohol, narcotics, painkillers, sleeping medications, or other drugs that slow down the central nervous system. It is especially important to check with your doctor before combining Haldol with Antiseizure drugs (such as Dilantin or Tegretol), Antispasmodic drugs (such as Bentyl and Cogentin), Blood-thinning medications (such as Coumadin), Certain antidepressants (including Elavil, Tofranil, and Prozac), Epinephrine (EpiPen), Lithium (Eskalith, Lithobid), Methyldopa (Aldomet), Propranolol (Inderal), or Rifampin (Rifadin).
Are there any special warnings about Haldol?
You should use Haldol cautiously if you have ever had breast cancer, a severe heart or circulatory disorder, chest pain, the eye condition known as glaucoma, seizures, or any drug allergies. Temporary muscle spasms and twitches may occur if you suddenly stop taking Haldol. Follow your doctor's instructions closely when discontinuing the drug. Haldol may impair your ability to drive a car or operate potentially dangerous machinery. Do not participate in any activities that require full alertness if you are unsure of your reaction to Haldol. Haldol may make your skin more sensitive to sunlight. When spending time in the sun, use a sunscreen or wear protective clothing. Avoid exposure to extreme heat or cold. Haldol interferes with the body's temperature-regulating mechanism, so you could become overheated or suffer severe chills.
Copyright 2009 MyMedications.net. All rights reserved.
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/103460
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Tue, Jan 31, 2012 at 12:04 AM
Follow Me On Gifyo!
1. Polakababy avatar
Hello Dear,
My Name is Mary, I saw your profile today in and i stopped to take a very good look at it because you sounded very sweet and nice.
Please I want you to know that i will be interested to know you better because you sounded very sweet in your profile and i will like us to become friends and know each other the more. Here is my email address ( ) send me an email today and i will send you my pictures and tell you more about me please!
I am waiting for your reply now
Yours forever,
2. Baby_Harajuku_Barbie avatar
What the fudge is gifyo?
3. Onikamaraj4lyfe avatar
Post a comment
Maiku Arutohausu’s Blogs
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/103470
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July 29, 2014
Join performance of MyISAM and Innodb
I tested very simple table, having with about 20.000 rows in it on 32bit Linux. The columns “id” “i” and “c” were populated with same integers so we can allow the same job to be done using different kinds of columns – primary key, integer indexed column and indexed char column. The query is also trivial – the point was to make sure it is not index covered query so it reads the rows and it does not return many rows. I varied the join clause to be id, i and C columns appropriately.
The result I’ve got are as follows
Storage Engine ID I C
MyISAM 0.24s 0.27s 1.19s
Innodb 0.07s 0.30s0.38s
As you see in such circumstances Innodb is actually faster than MyISAM in 2 cases out of 3. I guess the reasons are the following:
• Innodb primary key joins are very fast as data is clustered together with index and generally highly optimized
• Innodb builds hash indexes which helps to speed up lookup by indexes by passing BTREE index and using hash, which is faster
• MyISAM does compression for character keys which makes it perform slower for random lookups
• MyISAM generally has lower processing overhead due to its simplicity
• MyISAM still a bit better by primary key join than for secondary key join. I guess because it knows for sure there is no more than one row which matches the index, so there is no need for MySQL to request next row matching index
Note: This applies to CPU bound workload with all content fitting in memory. In other cases situation is very different and MyISAM compression for char keys could frequently positevely impact performance.
About Peter Zaitsev
1. how different becomes the situation, when a join both myisam and innodb tables together.
- table a is myisam, table b is innodd
- select … from a inner join b on a.x=b.x
additional question: lets assume both tables will be big, so will the table b (innodb) be locked by row, or as whole?
2. peter says:
Feel fee to test it Stefan :)
Generally for join the table which gets random lookup is more important – table which is having full table scan or range scan contributes less to total prformance.
So in our case performance will be similar to join of two Innob tables.
…Also no locks will be happening. Innodb does not lock rows for normal selects, consistent reads are used instead.
3. QUERY:
SELECT SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS p.*, FLOOR(p.prodratingtotal/p.prodnumratings) AS prodavgrating, 0 AS prodgroupdiscount, pi.* , (IF(p.prodname=’gold’, 10000, 0) + IF(p.prodcode=’gold’, 10000, 0) + ((MATCH (ps.prodname) AGAINST (‘gold’)) * 10) + MATCH (ps.prodname,ps.prodcode,ps.proddesc,ps.prodsearchkeywords) AGAINST (‘gold’)) AS score FROM products p LEFT JOIN product_images pi ON (p.productid = pi.imageprodid AND pi.imageisthumb = 1) INNER JOIN product_search ps ON p.productid = ps.productid WHERE p.prodvisible = 1 AND (ps.prodcode = ‘gold’ OR TRUE) AND (MATCH (ps.prodname,ps.prodcode,ps.proddesc,ps.prodsearchkeywords) AGAINST (‘gold’)) ORDER BY score DESC LIMIT 20
EXECUTION TIME: 2.5000+ seconds
products: 31,000 records
product_images: 92,000 records
product_search: 57,000 records
1 SIMPLE p eq_ref PRIMARY,i_products_rating_vis,i_products_added_vis,i_products_sortorder_vis PRIMARY 4 shoppingcart_5521.ps.productid 1 Using where
4. Rick James says:
What is your point? Please provide SHOW CREATE TABLE for each table if you wish further discussion. A couple of comments, anyway:
Note that it starts with FULLTEXT, which is what it likes to do.
It seems very wrong to have
AND (ps.prodcode = ‘gold’
AND (MATCH (…ps.prodcode,…) AGAINST (‘gold’))
If prodcode = ‘gold’, then yes, it will “MATCH” ‘gold’.
Speak Your Mind
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/103486
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Sunday, March 20, 2011
Alison Gopnik: "Why Preschool Shouldn't Be Like School"
An excellent column over at Slate:
Sidebar Link
Let Kids Rule The School by Susan Engel.
1. karthik said...
As much as I am grateful to the system in India for the education I have received- I always wonder how many ideas/thoughts- I miss out on, due to a somewhat rigid/conservative approach inherent in our system. I hope such studies are made mandatory for all teachers and all students learn to develop a more creative outlook to life/academics...
2. Skeptic said...
Hmm...I wonder which was the blog that ridiculed Mashelkar when he said that rote learning, lack of irreverence etc. are not good for creativity!!
3. Abi said...
@Skeptic: Your snark is misplaced. I hope it doesn't stem from an inability to see the difference between (a) an academic (such as Gopnik) describing methods that help kids to learn better and develop their creativity, and (b) an ex-top dog at the helm of an Himalayan bureaucracy claiming -- with no evidence -- that Indian scientists have low status because they lack creativity.
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/103505
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Thread: tips for preventing split ends...? Send Page to a Friend
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/103539
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Dresses Made of Anything and Everything
Would you ever wear a dress made from condoms, chocolate or newspapers? A big NO from me, but then, there might be some truly fashion conscious people who whould praise them as artworks. How about a dress made of salad?
Can there be a better way to support the causes of the environment other than wearing leaves and flowers as fashion? Well, there are dresses made from everything natural like the lily pads, dandelion, corn husk, pinecones and lettuce. I won’t say that they are extremely wearable but can occasionally be worn on the environment days!
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by angel12.
Newest 5
Newest 5 Comments
(some) Vegetarians eat soy right? where is soy grown? Tropical climates such as Brazil, Where, the rainforest. how? its destroyed and then soy grown in replacement. ah... conservation teaches you helpful stuff!!
Abusive comment hidden. (Show it anyway.)
Wouldn't be better for the earth to wear something reused or reusable instead of something that will be thrown away? I'm thinking re-styled thrift store threads would make an even better statement than a dress made out of vegetables.
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Commenting is closed.
Check out Twaggies' very funny clip:
Give a Man a Fish - Twaggies by Twaggies
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/103540
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The 15 Stupidest Comic Book Superpowers
The creative conferences and the pressure to come up with ever more new superheroes in the comic book publishing industry must be intense, or maybe writers get just plain desperate. For some comic book characters, booth superheroes and super villains, you’d think their creators must have just pulled something out of a hat and decided there’s a upper power there somewhere. The fellow shown here is “Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man”! But that’s just the beginning. There’s a hero who is designed around disco music, a crime fighter who throws sparkles from her fingers, and a character who can control squirrels, among others, in a list at Flavorwire.
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Date: Thu, 9 Feb 2012 10:45:37 -0800 (PST) From: Kenneth Rodman Subject: Nurse Dick It had taken three years from graduation to secure the ideal job, and he had enjoyed his ten months as a preoperative nurse immensely. At least once a month he hit the jackpot and today looked like he was going to win the lottery. His patient was Don Locke, a big guy, age 28, a bachelor.. The chart said 6'4" and 210# and he was scheduled for a left herniorrhaphy. Dick introduced himself, explained what was to be done, and brought the sheet down to expose the area in question. He placed his hand on the left grain, asked Don to grunt, felt the bulge of the hernia and used an indelible marker to paint a purple line above the operative site. "Got to make sure someone in a hurry doesn't fix the wrong side. It will wash off in a week or so, not to worry. The first job is to give you a shave. You'll be happy to learn we use warm water, new sharp razors, and I'm a very careful dude." When he pulled the sheet down to Don's knees he was looking at a remarkably large cock with balls to match. By the time he had lathered up the groin Don had half a hardon, and he was indeed a big one. Dick perhaps had his hand on Don's member more than necessary to shave the area but Don obviously didn't mind and by the time he was shaved clean his cock was sticking straight out, all ten inches of it. "Don't worry about the erection," Dick said, "it happens all the time." That was not so, but on the occasion it did, good things might be in the offing. "The next job is to place a catheter in your bladder. Dr Stone gets a little upset when his anesthetized patient pees all over the wound." Don: "I'm not looking forward to that. I understant it hurts a lot." "Rarely.", said Dick. Usually only with small older men with enlarged prostates. You don't fit that profile. Dick put on a fresh pair of sterile gloves, applied antibacterial solution to Don's cock, peeled a Foley catheter out of its package and noticed precum oozing from Don's piss slit. "Good for you. You're supplying all the lubricant we'll need. Just let me know if I hit a sore spot." Dick inserted the tip of the catheter an inch into Don's penis, thinking 'this cock's so big the cath should almost slide in by itself''. He withdrew half an inch and inserted an inch again. He met no resistance until he had about fifteen inches up Don's stony hard member. Then the expected resistance appeared and he applied just a mild amount of pressure on the catheter. "Woof!", said Don. "Sorry, did I hurt you?" "No, as a matter of fact whatever you did was a real rush." Dick: "We just passed through your prostate." Grinning,he withdrew the catheter about two inches and inserted it into the bladder again. Don: "You do that about twice more and I'll cum! I've never felt anything like that before!" "We don't want you cumming around the catheter. Sometimes the semen sort of glues the catheter in place and it hurts like hell when we go to remove it. Dick covered him up again and said; "Hope that wasn't too bad." Don, looking down at the large tent in Dick's scrub pants said: "I didn't mind a bit, and apparently you didn't either..." "I really ought to wear jockeys, but boxers are a lot more comfortable. Thank God for long white coats!" He placed the intravenous line in Don's arm, put on the coat in question and said: "Things should go fine, but if you have any questions after the operation or any problems, give me a call. I live in your neighborhood and it would be no problem to make a housecall." He wrote his cell phone number on a peice of paper and put it in Don's pants pocket. A week later Don called: "I'm going to take you up on the housecall offer. My left nut is tender and I've got a lot of bruising on my scrotum there too." They made a date for Dick to drop by after work that day. When Don answered the doorbell, he had on a bathrobe and a smile. "Gee, I really appreciate this, I've been worried." "OK. let me sit here and you come over, stand in front of me and show me the hurty thing.", Dick said. Don opened his robe. His cock was half hard and there was a fair amount of bruising as he had said. Dick gently felt the healing wound and that was coming aling nicely. He then gently, very gently examined the testicles. They were both exceptionally large, but Don was a big guy and both balls were of equal size. By now, the cock in front of his face was fully erect and showed a clear drop of precum on the piss slit. "The bruising is normal and your testicles aren't swollen. Let's check your prostate." Dick got a tube of lube from his little black bag, greased up his finger and slit it up Don's rectum. "Hmm, prostate is a bit full....when was your last ejaculation?" "Um, about ten days ago I guess.", said Don. "I'm guessing your discomfort is due to 'deadly sperm buildup' and you would feel better if you could unload it.", Dick said, never taking his eyes off the huge organ seeping in front of him. "I'm game.", said Don. Dick bent forward and eagerly took Don's turgid organ as far as he could down his throat and swallowed, then swallowed again. "Oh, wow! I've never had that done before! My pain's gone already!" Dick stayed away from Don's ballsac, continued to gently tickle his prostate and moved up Don's cock to concentrate on his dickhead, sucking and swirling his tongue around and around it. "Ah, I'm getting close...", panted Don. Dick moved his tongue to Don's frenulum and softly titillated that with the tip of his tongue. In seconds, Dick feltt his prostate swell and harden and he caught the first shot in his mouth. He knew it would be mostly precum and it tasted like honey.Then he lifted his head off the big cockhead because he knew there wasn't room in his mouth for more cum "Arrrghhh!!, OH, OH, O, O, OH, OHHHHH, o, o. ooooo, Jesus!", Don yelled as the streams of his hot semen gushed out of his massive cock. Again and again; he must have cum nine times.Then his tensed up body relaxed like he'd been shot and his cock began to seep dishwatery thin jizz. Dick licked the organ clean, enjoying the taste of cum he never got tired of. "Oh, Man. You have a touch! But you've got that big bulge in your jeans and I owe you big time. Could I please pay you back for all your help? Believe it or not, my pain's gone and I'm a happy patient." Without waiting for an answer, he took Dick's hand and led him into the bedroom. Don dropped to his knees, undid Dick's belt, pulled down his jeans and slowly slid his boxers past a very, very hard cock pointing 45 degrees toward the ceiling. It was a nice dick, not huge, maybe seven inches long, but with an oversized blood red helmet significantly larger in circumference than the shaft and leaking precum. "I'm your slave," said Don, "you can fuck me if you want, and I'd like it, but I'd really rather suck that lovely weenie! Stretch out on the bed and let me nurse the nurse that treated me so kindly." Don spent a minute or two, fascinated by Dick's organ bouncing up and down with each heartbeat and leaking more precum with every jerk. He tried to suck one of his balls into his mouth, but Dick's erection was so major, his nuts were drawn tight up against the root of his cock and he couldn't get one in. So he licked them, one after another, savoring the sweaty taste and smell of mancrotch. Then he licked his way slowly and lovingly up toward that beautiful leaking helmet. Dick: "I want to warn you, I usually shoot a couple of feet so you're likely to have wet sheets when we're done." "I'm cool with that," said Don, "and as a matter of fact I love to wake up to the smell of cum. Starts off my day with a smile of warm remembrace." He gently sucked Dick's glans to get every drop of precious precum and then examined the coronal groove with his tongue. An quite a groove it was: Dick's shaft narrowed just before his helmet which protruded a good 3/16" from the veiny support system. He made half a dozen circles and then went to work on the bulging dickhead with his mouth and the shaft with his hand. From time to time, he stripped Don's member from root to cockhead to savor the precum he loved to taste. It wasn't long before Dick's belly muscles started to twitch. The his back arched, his glans swelled, and Don continued his stroking, albeit slower, and lifted his head off Dick's meat to watch the fun. Dick: "Oh, come on, stoke me harder! I gottal cum!". But Don lightened his touch and slowed his hand. "Oh, you rat, lemme CUM! Ungh! Ungghhhh! AH! Ahhh, ah, ahhhh, o, o, ooooo! God, don't stop, I'm still cumming! Unlike Don's gushes, Dick shot stream after stream of jizz into the air; at first a foot or two, and then finally began to seep watery, thin manjuice and his face which had been controted into a grimace, relaxed and was replaced with an ear to ear smile. "I gotta tell you," said Dick, "that was the worst blowjob I ever had." Don finally released the softening cock and moved up to lie on the cummy chest and belly and gave Dick a sweet kiss. Dick: "Just kidding, that was awesome! Thank you. But I really would like to make love to your butt. Could I make another housecall friday after work?" "I'd love it, but could you give me the enema? I've never had a real life nurse do the job.", said Don. "That was a long wait, but I know it'll be worth it.", said Dick. "This is my fave way to do an enema and we only need a small one, so I need you on your knees with your face on the deck. I've got a pint of warm soapsuds in the enema bag and I'm going to just trickle it in, but if you have to poop and can't take the whole load, let me know." By the time the bag was empty, Don was squirming and he made a lunge for the toilet. He unloaded a pile of soapy poop and the relief was immediate. They made their way to the bed, Dick rolled on a condom, and asked Don what position he's like. He chose to be on top, so Dick stretched out on his back, his cock sticking straight up, and Don applied a generous amount of lube. Don climbed on, reached behind and put Dick's member against his rosebud and gently settled down to take the full length of that lovely rockhard cock and began to rise and fall. "I love it.", said Dick. "And this way I can watch your hardon bounce up and down. I don't want to cum quick, but on the other hand I can hardly, no pun intended, wait to suck that monster of yours." Don moved slowly, savoring the feel of Dick in his belly, but it was only a few minutes until Dick's back arched and drove his penis full length into Don's rectum. "Oh, Man, I'm gonna cum. I'm gonna, I, IAAARRRGH! Don felt the throb in his butt that told him Dick was not play acting. Don's cock was streaming precum as Dick continued to writhe under him and his cock kept spasming for at least half a dozen times. "Don't get off yet, I want to stay in you until I calm down. Wow, that was worth the wait!" Finally his organ slid out and Dick quickly plucked off the rubber and drained the jizz into his mouth. Dick, staring at Don's oversized penis, hard as concrete and dripping precum, said: "I've had a little experience being a bottom, and never with a cock your size, but if you'd be gentle and careful, I'd like to feel you up my ass. I took a Fleets Enema before I came over and I'm ready for some loving if you're game." "Pick your position and get ready for some deep enjoyment.", said Don. Dick rolled over on his side, pulled his knees up, and watched Don roll on a Magnum condom and coat it with Astroglide. Don pressed his cockhead on Dick's manpussy and it slid in with no effort. He slowly advanced it until the entire 10 1/2 inches was in to the hilt. "Are you OK?", said Don. Dick: "Better than OK, it feels great. I was scared of that big thing, but it fills me up and I can't tell you how good it feels." Don began to slowly come out until his cockhead popped thru Dick's sphincter and then slowly entered all the way in again. In and out, in and out with Dick moaning the whole time. All too soon Don drove his cock in to the max and stayed motionless for a few seconds. Then Dick felt a throbbing in his rectum and knew that Don had squirted his jizz deep in his colon. "Stay there a minute for me will ya? I don't want the feeling to stop." Too soon the delicious cock in his rectum softened and popped out of its own accord. "Oh man, I want a repeat performance soon. That was too good." Don: "The good news is that I will be back in town from time to time, but they've moved me to the central territory and I'll be stationed in Chicago. But I will be back in town off and on and I promise to call when I'm back." TO BE CONTINUED
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Date: Sun, 9 Oct 2011 20:37:38 -0700 (PDT) From: Cory Noone Subject: Through the Mirror chapter 8 All characters, places, and events are fictional and belong to the author. Disclaimer: The following may contain explicit events between consenting adult males. If you are not of age or it is illegal for you to read this, please do not read any further. Chapter Eight: "So where have you two been for the last few days?" Cercae asked. Aeleon sipped his fizz chizz before replying, "Holed up in my rooms." A suggestive, lopsided smile crawled its way across Cercae's face before Trey could specify, "He's been teaching me how to read and write." "Well, that's boring," Cercae quipped, "The both of you disappear for days and all you did was learn? What a waste." "Do you ever think of anything else?" Aeleon scoffed. Trey chuckled and stirred the thick stew that had been haphazardly plopped in front of him by an extremely harried looking middle-aged woman attempting to serve half the pub. He, Aeleon, and Cercae had headed over to the pub, along with several council members, once the meeting had adjourned. The three of them were sitting at their usual table, occasionally waving at people they knew and conversing briefly if someone should come and sit down in the spare seat at their four person table. Trey had been here several times by now and his enjoyment of the place grew with each visit. It was always clean. The food was always plentiful and delicious. A smiling server brought it to him when it was still hot. To him it was the complete antithesis of his life as a slave. He had begun to cherish the times he and Aeleon came there. Trey spooned a piece of meat into his mouth. It occurred to him that he probably had no idea what animal it was from, or what the animal even looked like. That was one thing he had learned since waking up on Oelae. While things might appear to be familiar, the chances were high that he was dealing with unfamiliar territory. If Trey had to guess, he would have said it was beef. It was tender and juicy and reminded him distinctly of a good pot roast; however, he had also seen a few livestock animals of Oelae and they were not the same as the animals on Zelzior. Oh well. It tasted good and he supposed that was the important part. "Trey, why are you staring at your stew like that?" Aeleon asked, perplexed by the odd look on Trey's face. Trey looked up, snapped from his musings at Aeleon's question, and offered a smile with a quick, "No particular reason." "Ael, what's it to you if Trey looks at his food like he wants to eat it for lunch?" Cercae teased. "Ha-ha," Aeleon replied, rolling his eyes. It was this sort of banter that Trey loved. He had not experienced anything of this nature since Zeke and Calen had died. This feeling of friendship, togetherness, and acceptance. Despite his initial misgivings about Cercae, the flirty Oelean had proven to be a good friend to Aeleon and, by extension, to Trey. He was fun and down to earth and never made Trey feel inferior in spite of his immense lack of knowledge of Oelean culture. "So what are you guys planning to do for the rest of the day?" Cercae questioned, "The meeting got done relatively quickly. We have most of the day to spare." "We were probably going to go and study more," Aeleon replied. "Oh, come on Ael! Taking a one day break wouldn't kill you. Besides, Trey has been here for about a week now and all he has seen is the castle and part of the city. Don't you want to show him what else Oelae has to offer?" "It's up to Trey," Aeleon said, "If he's fine with taking a break, I am." "Me?" Trey faltered, distinctly uncomfortable with being asked to dictate. Twenty years of always being told what to do meant that he was often taken off guard when asked to make a decision. "Come on, Trey! We could go to Mossae Maere," pleaded Cercae. "What's Mossae Maere?" "In your language it translates to Green Sea," Aeleon said fondly, "It's not actually a sea. Just a really big lake. It's fantastic though. There's this cove with a little waterfall that makes the water all bubbly and a couple of hot springs filter warm water up through the rocks. It's the best swimming hole in the world." Truth be told, Trey had no idea how to swim, but it was obvious to him that Aeleon loved the place and clearly wanted to go. In the time since he had come to Oelae, Trey had found that he really enjoyed making Aeleon happy. What other response could he have than, "I don't see why we shouldn't go today. We've been working hard." "Yes! I'll go and find everybody else. Meet me at the garage in half an hour," Cercae exclaimed, jumping from his seat and tossing money in the general direction of the table before running out the door. "The garage?" Trey asked. A mischievous glint appeared in Aeleon's eye to match his smile as he asked, "Have you ever driven a zoom-bike?" +++++ Twenty five minutes later, Trey and Aeleon were standing outside the huge bay doors of a large structure on the southern side of the castle. People came and went in a steady stream, both on foot and riding zoom-bikes. Every now and then a whistle could be heard from the not so distant race track where the fastest zoom-bikes in Oelae were pitted against each other, shortly followed by a loud cheer from what sounded like a very sizable crowd. The low whirring of the many ion thrusters powering the bikes resonated from every direction. All of it was enough to get the blood pumping. "We'll wait for Cercae and the others to get here and then we'll go inside and pick bikes," Aeleon said, scanning the crowd in much the same manner as Trey. "We need bikes to get there?" Trey asked. "Yes. Mossae Maere is at the foot of the mountains outside of town. That's at least thirty miles from here," Aeleon replied, trying to pick the faces of his friends out from those of the strangers around him. Trey did not respond to that. He merely went back to watching as another zoom-bike raced out of the bay doors and sped into the distance. He had seen zoom-bikes before, several times in fact. Usually they were driven by an uncaring Cubrecht though, who nearly ran him over rather than bother themselves to swerve out of the way. These mechanical means of conveyance were not for slaves to use. In fact, Trey had never seen a slave astride a zoom-bike in his entire life. Why provide a slave with a potential means of escape? The machines had always fascinated him though. They hovered about two feet off the ground and the ion thrusters glowed the most alluring shade of blue. He knew many Cubrecht spent a lot of money to make their bike faster, more powerful, or able to operate at a longer range. That didn't change the fact that he had never ridden on one though, let alone driven one. Trey would be lying to himself if he said he wasn't looking forward to the experience. As Trey watched a couple ride back into the garage to return their zoom-bike, Cercae approached them. Close on his heels were Shoori, Josh, Braeyon, and a man Trey had yet to meet. Stunning was the only appropriate word to use to describe him. Dark navy blue hair cascaded down his back in shining waves to match the elegantly arched eyebrows and long eye lashes. The pale skin so typical of the Oelean people positively glowed in the midday light. His jaw tapered to an appealing pointed chin and high cheek bones underlined his speckled forest green eyes. Trey wondered who this man was, but when he turned to Aeleon to ask he noticed that his diminutive friend was not smiling. "Sorry," Trey heard Cercae whisper, "He was in the solarium when I found Shoori and heard me inviting her to come with us. Once he found out you were going, nothing I could say would dissuade him." Aeleon made a very rude sound in his throat, but managed to force a smile to his face when the rest of the group caught up. Aeleon's attitude greatly confused Trey, who had not seen him be anything other than pleasant and friendly towards everyone they had come in contact with since he had come through the mirror. In Trey's opinion, it didn't say much about the man's character if Aeleon didn't like him. Shoori greeted them both with a kiss to the cheek and said, "Hello boys. Ready for some swimming?" "Definitely," Aeleon replied, smiling genuinely now. "Then let's get to it," Cercae said, clapping his hands together and leading the troupe into the building that housed the zoom-bikes. Trey had never seen so many bikes in one place before, nor had he seen so many different models. Some were new and shining, while others were rusted and dirty, obviously neglected. There were bikes with covered cabins capable of seating four or five people, which Trey assumed were primarily family vehicles. Alternately, there were many sleek bikes made for single riders and racing. He also noticed bulkier models that were probably the most useful on rocky, uneven terrain. If a particular trait was needed in a bike, it seemed an appropriate bike could be found here. "Who do all of these belong to?" he asked, awestruck. "A lot of different people," Aeleon informed him as the strolled down another row of bikes, "This garage houses most of the bikes of all the people who live in the castle, hired help and nobles alike. My fathers own a dozen or so by themselves. Granted, most were inherited or given as gifts, but it is not uncommon for one of the nobles to own several bikes." "So how're we doing this?" Braeyon asked, "Are we all going in one of the big bikes, or are we taking our own?" Everyone knew that Braeyon just wanted to drive. At sixteen years old, he had recently acquired his license to operate a zoom-bike by himself. Compared to the others who were a couple years older and had been driving for a few years at that point, the novelty of it had not yet worn off for Braeyon. A bubble of fondness welling in his chest for his cousin, Aeleon suggested, "Well, there are seven of us. Why don't you take your new bike and the rest of us will go on two seaters?" Grinning from ear to ear, Braeyon sprinted off to his own bike and jammed a helmet on top of his mop of curly hair. The familiar rush of adrenaline tingled through his body as he threw his leg over the seat and pressed the start button. His heart raced as the thruster hummed to life, lifted the bike off the ground, and cast a strong blue glow across the floor and onto the surrounding bikes. "What are you guys waiting for?" he impatiently questioned, "Pair off and let's go!" Shoori and Cercae linked hands and headed towards Shoori's two person bike. Aeleon was about to grab Trey and pull the Zelzian towards his own bike when the stunning man wrapped his fingers around Aeleon's elbow and said, "Io coigitae waes apotii vaexi una." Aeleon narrowed his eyes and stepped away from the man's grip before saying, "I'm sure you've heard about Trey, Cynom. You should know that he doesn't speak Oelean. Courtesy would dictate that you speak in a language he can understand when in his presence." "Oh," the man said as if he had just noticed Trey towering over Aeleon's shoulder, "So you're Trey. I'm Cynom." Trey ducked his head in acknowledgement, but neglected to say anything. He couldn't help but feel that Cynom had been intentionally rude to him in speaking Oelean as if Trey was not there. And his supposed surprise at Trey's presence? In a land in which Trey had observed that he was generally a good ten inches taller than most of the men there, it seemed very unlikely to him that Cynom had truly only just realized he had been standing there. While part of him wanted to be annoyed at this treatment, the other part of him still thought in the manner of a slave and felt that he had no right to be irritated that one of his betters would treat him so. "So, what do you say," Cynom asked, "Trey can go with Josh and you and I can ride together." "No thanks," Aeleon quipped, grabbing Trey's wrist and pulling him in the direction of a shiny, chrome bike. He grabbed a helmet off a wall hook and tossed it to Trey, turning to grab a second helmet and push it over his head. "Do you know how to drive one of these?" he asked Trey. "I've never even ridden on one before," Trey informed him, fumbling with the strap on his helmet. "We'll have fun then. Just hold onto me and enjoy the ride," Aeleon told the Zelzian, flashing him a bright smile. That smile helped to diffuse some of the tension that had creeped into Trey's shoulders at the apparent dislike Aeleon felt for Cynom. Aeleon threw his leg over his bike and settled into the seat. Trey followed Aeleon's example and plonked himself down behind the other man and dangled his arms awkwardly by his side. Aeleon depressed the ignition button, flicked his eye visor down, and twisted around to face Trey. Trey gave the Oelean a questioning look when Aeleon reached up to flick his own visor down and grab Trey's hands to place them on his slight waist. "We'll be going pretty fast," Aeleon said, "We don't want you losing an eye if we should kick up some debris. Don't be afraid to hold onto me. I've seen people fall off the back of one of these things before and it isn't pretty. Ready to go?" Before Trey could protest, Aeleon turned back around and urged the bike forward into the aisle. Aeleon threw a wave towards the rest of their group to signal that they were ready to go and slowly weaved his bike between the other patrons and out the bay door. As they emerged into the fresh air and sunlight of the open castle grounds, Aeleon angled towards the road where other zoom-bikes were traversing the streets. Trey was amazed. He had never gotten anywhere as fast as they were traveling on the zoom-bike. His head was in constant motion, whipping around in every direction as they wound through the city's main thoroughfare. This was Trey's first real tour of the city and it fascinated him. The air of oppression that seemed to hang over Crion was absent here. For the most part, people seemed to be happy and well-fed. Crion couldn't be termed anything other than grimy and even the non-slaves couldn't really be termed happy. In the twenty years since the Cubrecht had come, many of the buildings had started to fall into disrepair. It was a stark contrast to the well maintained stores and houses and shining streets of Adaemantys, the capital city of Oelae. Trey hoped that maybe he could explore a bit more of the city in the coming days. It was beginning to sink in that he was actually free and could do as he wished and even though he didn't have any money to speak of, Trey felt it would be still be fun to wander around the marketplace and enjoy the novelty of the experience. Maybe Aeleon would take him in the next couple of days. He was sure the prince knew the best places to go. Too soon for Trey's liking, they reached the walls of the city and stopped for a brief check at the gatehouse. While foot traffic was free to come and go from the city as they pleased, zoom-bikes and other motorized transport were typically checked. Trey figured they would have to dismount their bike along with everyone else waiting in line to leave the city, but Aeleon flashed the guard a nod and a smile and the stern looking, armored Oelean waved them and the rest of their group on through the gate. Apparently the crown prince got a free pass. Aeleon pulled to the side and waited for the other three vehicles in their party to pass through the gate. Once all of them were on the other side of the wall, he turned to Trey and said, "Hold on tight now. Now that we're out of the city, we can go as fast as we want." Trey was still surprised, however, when Aeleon gunned the thruster and shot forward at an alarming rate. He would have tumbled end over end off of the back of the bike, but for that he managed to clench his arms around Aeleon's waist before he ended up in the dirt. The Zelzian made the mistake of looking down at the ground rushing below his feet. If he had thought he had been moving fast in town, it was nothing compared to the way they were moving now. The sight of the landscape moving by him so quickly was enough to make him a little bit ill. He couldn't help but bury his eyes into the soft fabric of Aeleon's shirt and hold a little more tightly to his waist. "Look up!" he heard Aeleon shout an undeterminable time later. He felt Trey shaking his head where it was buried in the middle of his back. "Really, Trey. Look up!" he yelled again, struggling to be heard over the wind rushing passed them. Trey peeked over Aeleon's shoulder and his breath caught at what he saw. They were flying through the middle of a gargantuan field, tall grass parting before snapping back together in their wake. The grass formed a sea of shining silver for miles, waving back and forth in the gentle wind, until it gave way to massive craggy mountains in the distance. The sharp, snow covered points were a stark contrast to the light purple hued sky and billowing puffy clouds. Dog sized furred creatures with giant leathery wings soared through the sky, plunging to the ground every now and then only to pull up with something wriggling in its grasp. Lanky grazing animals sprung through the grass in leaps and bounds, their gray striped hides providing camouflage amidst the swaying vegetation. To Trey, it was stunning. For a man who had never been more than ten feet outside of the city walls of Crion, being surrounded by so much space and so far from any manmade structure was a new experience for him. His eyes greedily drank in the terrain they passed, even more so than when they rode through the market in town. His wonder and interest in the world around him alleviated any fear he had of how fast they were moving. Trey noticed Braeyon pulling along beside them, his long green hair whipping out behind him, most of it having escaped the braid he usually kept it in. The sound partially obscured by the wind, Trey heard the young Oelean shout, "Want to race?" Aeleon's only response was to deliver more power to the thrusters and pull in front of him. Now that Trey had gotten somewhat used to riding on the zoom-bike, the burst of speed exhilarated him rather than frightened him. The sight of the open space and the feeling of the rate at which they were zooming across the plain joined with the sight of his new friends zooming along behind and beside him infused him with a feeling of abject joy. Trey had never in his life felt so free and liberated. The emotion released itself as he threw his head back and expelled a stentorian shriek of rapture. All too soon he could feel the bike begin to slow as they approached the foothills of the mountains. "We have to slow down here," Aeleon turned to tell him, "Once you get passed the plains, the terrain is too unpredictable to safely go at those kinds of speeds." "Alright. How much farther is it?" Trey asked. "Not far. Maybe ten minutes. Once we crest this hill you can actually see the lake. The cove we want is on the far side, near the base of the mountain." Trey didn't see any of the others. He assumed it was because they had pulled so far ahead in their impromptu race. It filled him with a sense of satisfaction to know that they had won, and not by a small amount either. "Where did you learn to drive like that?" Aeleon chuckled before replying, "I've been driving these things since I was about twelve. The legal age is sixteen, but I won't say I've never abused my status of the crown prince before. I used to sneak down to the garage all the time and, let's face it, none of the guards were going to arrest me for driving under age. Used to give my dad's heart attacks though." "I would love to learn to drive one of these one day," Trey said wistfully. "I'll teach you soon. It's not a bad idea for you to be able to get around by yourself. I want for you to be able to depend on yourself and not be reliant on me to do things and go places." This statement, more than anything else Aeleon had done, proved to Trey that Aeleon truly wanted him to be free and to become his own man. Granted, he had no money of his own to buy a bike, but one step at a time he would build a life. Maybe once they had cleared up the mystery of his power, he could use it in a job to earn a wage. Trey had no intention of surviving off of the crown's kindness for the rest of his life, even if he was sure Aeleon and his fathers would have been perfectly willing to allow it. No, he had no problem with working, but he was definitely looking forwards to being paid for it and to working the job of his choosing. Aeleon was just happy they had taken this break today. When he had heard Trey's excited shout in the middle of the field, he knew it had been the right decision. Despite the fact that Trey was obviously happy to not be a slave anymore, Aeleon knew that the past few days had been difficult for him. There had always been a shadow of unease in the Zelzian's eyes as he tried to find his place in a completely new world, plus the added stress of being unable to identify his power and the fact that he'd had to leave behind everyone he knew and be thrown into a class of people he felt unequal to. Aeleon felt that a day like today was exactly what Trey needed. Gradually they crested the hill and Trey could see the entirety of the lake. It spread out for miles, the wavering green surface sloppily reflecting the backdrop of the mountains. The surrounding land looked lush and full of life. Trey supposed the waters would be filled with fish and mused that he would like to try his hand at trying to catch some of those fish at some point, now that he had the option. He looked behind them to see Braeyon a bit farther down the hill, and Shoori and Josh at the base. He noticed that the previously uniform covering of grass was beginning to give way to brush and small trees. After a few minutes, he and Aeleon made it to the tree line and crossed into the forest. The trees were behemoths, hundreds of years old at least. Their trunks were covered in nearly black bark that twisted and curled its way up and around the tree. Limbs reached out like gnarled hands, covered with blue and green leaves. The way the sun dappled through the leaves left a very surreal and otherworldly atmosphere in the woods. A path had been made here, but whether by human design or animals picking their way through the trees Trey couldn't tell. At this point the zoom bike was moving slowly, barely faster than a person could walk, as it Aeleon picked his way along the path. The machines couldn't handle the rougher terrain found in forests very well and the path was the only reason the bike had not yet become useless in this environment. Trey figured they couldn't be that far from their destination. If they continued much farther, they would have to get off the bike and walk. Just as Trey thought this, they rounded a curve in the path and Aeleon turned to say, "Welcome to Mossae Maere." To be continued... Author's Note: After a pretty big gap, I've finally updated again. Hopefully I still have some readers left. I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter. I tried to use it to introduce Oelae a bit more. If you have any thoughts on the story, I'd love to hear them. Shoot me an e-mail at Io coigitae waes apotii vaexi una.= I thought we could ride together.
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Date: Tue, 26 May 2009 21:26:40 -0700 (PDT) From: Adon Libere Subject: Slave Girls of Alpha Beta Delta Chapter 17 Chapter 17 Slave Girls of Alpha Beta Delta By Adon Libere Comments, questions, and compliments are welcome at Chapter 17 Later in the week the level of sexual activity at Alpha Beta Delta decreased, as the girls became preoccupied with preparing for the open house that Saturday. The entire first floor, which was where the party would take place, was thoroughly cleaned; decorations were put up and a menu planned. Jenny grew increasingly anxious as the day grew nearer. Life at ABD had brought her out of her shell to a large degree, but the prospect of a house full of strangers still made her nervous. It didn't help that Kristin was largely unavailable--as sorority president, she had numerous responsibilities related to the big event that kept her busy. The day of the party dawned gray and drizzly, and Jenny woke up alone in the barracks. All the other freshmen were with their seniors, and Jenny lay in bed feeling sorry for herself. She had barely seen Kristin for the last three days and felt neglected and alienated. She finally roused herself from bed around 10:00 to find a whirlwind of activity going on downstairs. The kitchen especially was bustling, and Jenny was immediately roped into helping prepare dips and hors d'oeuvres. The day passed quickly after that, and before Jenny knew it the first guests were arriving. They were mostly frat boys who had arrived early to cherry-pick the best food. Jenny was finally discharged from kitchen duty just before 7:00, the open house's official starting time. Just as she was starting up the stairs she looked up and saw Kristin on her way down, seemingly floating there in a long, flowing white dress. She had never looked more beautiful--her blue eyes sparkled and her lustrous blond hair tumbled down around her shoulders. As they approached each other, Jenny wanted desperately to throw her arms around Kristin, but knew that she was covered in flour and grease and didn't want to do anything to tarnish Kristin's loveliness. "You look amazing," Jenny said quietly, feeling dirty and humbled in the presence of such glamour. "Thanks," said Kristin, beaming. "Are you getting changed?" Jenny nodded. "Good. I'll see you down there." Back in the barracks, Jenny showered and dressed simply in a pink top and black skirt. The room was full of girls chattering and primping, and there was an excited buzz in the air. Jenny was still a little apprehensive but when the group made its way downstairs, she allowed herself to be swept along with it. The house was crowded and noisy now, with music blaring and a hundred conversations going on at once. After taking a minute to enjoy some of the food she had helped prepare, Jenny wandered around trying to get her bearings. A couple of boys tried to engage her in conversation; she listened politely for a minute or two, then excused herself at the first opportunity. As a school-sponsored activity, the open house was officially alcohol-free, but flasks were being openly passed around and a keg of beer had somehow appeared in a neglected corner of one room. Jenny happened upon one of the juniors pouring vodka into a bowl of punch, and decided to help herself to a cup. It went down smooth and she followed it with a second. Jenny was not used to drinking hard liquor and before long her head started to swim. She drifted closer to where the music was coming from, and spotted Kristin at the other end of the room. But she was surrounded by people and there was no hope of getting to her. Disappointed, Jenny walked out into the garden to get some fresh air. Almost immediately someone handed her a joint and she took a long pull on it, coughing and trying to say thanks at the same time. It was strong stuff, and immediately everything around her seemed brighter and more colorful. She heard a familiar voice to her left; squinting, she saw that it was April and was beside herself with joy at seeing her friend. She wrapped April in a clumsy bear hug, nearly tumbling the two of them over into a hedge. April laughed; her ex-roommate was obviously a little buzzed, but it was good to see her enjoying herself. A would-be comedian was holding forth nearby, and he was actually pretty funny, or so it seemed at the time. Putting an arm around April's shoulder, Jenny listened and laughed, then laughed even harder after the joint came around a second time. Soon her throat felt scratchy and dry, so she took April by the hand and led her to the punch bowl, where both girls filled extra large cups. Jenny was now officially more loaded than she'd ever been in her life. April led her to the dance floor where they shook their butts to a throbbing, bass- heavy track as red and blue lights flashed in time to the beat. Music had never sounded to Jenny the way it did at that moment; it seemed to rumble up through her feet, resound throughout her body, and shoot out the top of her head. When the song was over, she leaned up against the wall to catch her breath. She saw Kristin in the doorway talking to two extremely tall, athletic- looking guys; they must be members of the basketball team, she thought. Suddenly an image flashed through Jenny's head: Kristin was on her hands and knees, her pretty white dress hiked up around her waist. One of the guys was fucking her from behind as the other plunged his cock into her mouth. Shaken by this vision, Jenny felt lightheaded and decided to look for a place to sit down. After what seemed like an hour she found a dimly lit room far away from the center of the action. The music was barely audible here and the only light was from a couple of flickering candles. Jenny stretched out on one of the several couches in the room and tried to collect herself. After a few minutes her eyes began to adjust to the light and she realized that she was not alone. Two of her fellow ABD freshmen, Isabel and Rachel, were curled up together on a couch to her right. Isabel looked up at Jenny with heavy-lidded eyes. "Hi, Jenny," said Isabel, a dark-haired, dark-eyed beauty with the most piercings of any freshman. "Hi," answered Jenny. "What are you guys doing?" "Oh, just chilling. Why don't you come sit with us?" With some difficulty Jenny squeezed herself onto the couch. Red-haired Rachel rested her head on Jenny's leg and smiled up at her groggily. "You feel nice," she said. "Hey Jenny," Isabel said, holding out one hand. "Take some of these." Focusing intently, Jenny saw that she was holding a bunch of little blue pills. "What are they?" Jenny asked. "Ecstasy!" giggled Rachel. Normally, Jenny would have been appalled at this idea; her small-town high school had filled her head with all sorts of horror stories about the evils of drugs. But in her current frame of mind she was very receptive to trying something new. Before her better judgment could kick in, she popped two of the pills into her mouth and swallowed them down.
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Winter Olympics
Biathlon consists of ten events in the Olympic program. Men and Women compete in a sprint, pursuit, individual and relay.In the individual events, the courses are 15 km for women and 20 km for men.
bobsleigh Sledding
Bobsleigh consists of three events in the Olympic program. Men and women compete in two-man/two-woman. Men also compete in four-man. The 4-man sled is required to be a maximum length of 3.8 m and maximum width of 0.67 m.
Skeleton is considered the world's first sliding sport. Olympic skeleton events consists of four runs timed electronically to 0.01 seconds. A skeleton sled has a maximum weight of 35 kg for women and 43 kg for men.
Curling is a competition between two teams with four players each. The game is played on ice, and the two teams take turns pushing a 19.1 kg stone towards a series of concentric circles. The object is to get the stone as close to the center of the circles as possible. The curling rink is 42.07 m long and 4.28 m wide.
icehockeyIce Hockey
Ice Hockey has a men and women's teams in the Olympics. Women compete in an eight-team tournament whereas men compete in a 12-team tournament. The puck is made of vulcanized rubber or other material approved by the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) and is primarily black in color. The puck is 2.54 cm thick and 7.62 cm in diameter and must weigh between 156 g and 170 g. It can move at speeds of more than 150 km/h. Sticks are made of wood or other material, such as plastic or aluminum and are prohibited from being curved more than 1.5 cm.
Luge has four parts in which athletes take four runs down the track. Each run counts. The four times are added, and the fastest total time determines the winner. Luge competitors down the icy track at speeds in the range of 140 km/h, without brakes.
Figure Skating historically grew from necessity as a mode of transportation. There are four Olympic Figure Skating events: women's singles, men's singles, pairs, and ice dancing.
Short Track Speed Skating consists of eight events. Men and women compete in 500 m, 1000 m and 1500 m. There is a 5000 m relay for men, and a 3000 m relay for women. A modern figure skating blade has a very slight curve, equal to the radius of 180 cm - 220 cm.
Speed Skating at the Olympic Games consists of ten events: 500 m, 1000 m, 1500 m, 5000 m, for both women and men, 3000 m for women, 10,000 m for men, and Team pursuit for women and men. Men's speed skating blades are typically 42 cm - 46 cm long.
Alpine Skiing consists of ten events: five for women and five for men. The rules are the same for men and women, but the courses differ. In all cases, the time is measured to 0.01 seconds and ties are permitted.
Cross Country Skiing comprises twelve different skiing events. Women compete in the sprint, team sprint, 10 km individual start, 15 km pursuit, 30 km mass start and the 4x5 km relay. Men compete in the sprint, team sprint, 15 km individual start, 30 km pursuit, 50 km mass start and the 4x10 km relay.
Freestyle Skiing used to originally be a mix of alpine skiing and acrobatics. The moguls competition consists of a run down a heavily moguled course with two jumps. The Olympic aerial format consists of a two-jump qualification followed by a two-jump final.
Nordic Combined has its 5,000 year-old roots in Norway. It involves ski jumping, which requires physical strength and technical control, and cross-country skiing which demands endurance and strength. All three Nordic combined events consist of a ski jumping competition and a cross-country skiing race.
Ski Jumping has been part of the Olympic Winter Games since the first Games in Chamnix Mont-Blanc in 1924. There are three ski jumping events: Individual normal hill, Individual large hill, and Team Event.
Snowboarding was developed in United States in the 1960s. There are six snowboard events on the program of the Olympic Winter Games: men's halfpipe, ladies' halfpipe, men's parallel giant slalom and ladies' parallel giant slalom, men's snowboard cross and ladies' snowboard cross. The parallel giant slalom course is about 550 m long and held between 120 m - 220 m elevation.
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